The Ariel Bybee Endowment at the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts announces a call for the 2024 Prize
NEW YORK CITY, New York – November 1, 2023
Call for Submissions - 2024 Ariel Bybee Endowment Prize: Music Education
Mission: The Ariel Bybee Endowment at the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts was established in 2021 to honor the legacy of Ariel Bybee and to foster the creation of new works by Latter-day Saint artists in disciplines that correspond to her varied career and interests in music and related arts. Each year, the Endowment announces a call for submissions open to artists and scholars in one of nine, rotating categories: opera, dance, scholarship, art songs, music education, hymns, visual arts, collaborative arts, and choral music. We encourage LDS people from a variety of aesthetics, geographic locations, and diverse backgrounds of identity to apply.
Invitation: In our third year, The Ariel Bybee Endowment at the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts is turning its sights to music education for the classroom, grades K-12. Submissions for the 2024 prize will describe your new project that, in some way, addresses the needs of youth music education.
Given the broad range of possibilities in this field, some sample ideas appear below. The goal of this year’s prize is to create something new in the field of music education. Your proposal will include three separate components:
Define a need in music education;
Create a plan for a new program and outline how you will address the problem in K-12 music education;
Describe the program in detail and how it would be used in school.
The target audience can be of your choosing, between kindergarten and 12th grade. Your proposal is to be one of the following five categories or a combination of them. Here are sample ideas of each:
A. The creation of live program content - Using existing music or a hybrid of new and existing scores, a program of music that could tour schools for live performance, such as Music in the Schools’ Around the World in 30 Minutes (United States Marine Band), Leonard Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts, or Jazz at Lincoln Center's Jazz for Young People and Let Freedom Swing.
B. The building of a lesson curriculum unit connected to a live performance - Materials for the classroom in preparation for a local live performance such as Opera Philadelphia’s Sounds of Learning, LA Opera’s Elementary In-School Opera, or Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s School Programs.
C. The development of an original curriculum unit for class use - Series of lessons to teach an aspect of music, such as Mesa Public Schools’ Native American Education Program, National Endowment for the Humanities’ The Music of African American History, Music Will, or Give a Note’s Music Education Innovator’s Award.
D. The creation of tangible content - Publication, game, or subscription offering that is a physical object to be used in music education, such as Music Adventure Box, The Music Clubhouse, Fun Music Company, or Incredibox.
E. The design and implementation of technology for in-class music education - Series of lessons that incorporate technology and online course platforms that can be accessed in a classroom, such as a YouTube or TikTok series, Udemy, and Masterclass.
2024 Prize: Music Education
The winning entry will receive a $5,000 award–$1,000 upon the announcement of the prize and the remainder upon completion of the product based on mutually agreed-upon deliverables within one year of the announcement of the prize.
Development:
There is more. To date, each year of the prize, in addition to the cash award, The Ariel Bybee Endowment at the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts has worked to present the winner’s work to the public–a premiere concert and gallery exhibition, are previous examples. For the 2024 Prize, the Center will work alongside the winner to develop and deliver the selected program to the classroom. Depending upon the nature of it, these pledged efforts could take different forms. Here are some examples of Center assistance in development:
For live event content and materials connected to a live performance and for classroom curriculum, the Center will assist in finding the first educational venue of the program’s rollout;
For tangible content, the Center will assist with introductions to publishers and producers to launch it; and
For a technology-based program, the Center will assist pairing the winners with incubators, broadcasters, or platforms to share it.
In acknowledgment that some programs might resemble a small start-up business model, the 2024 Prize comes with additional opportunities. The Center will pledge to spend an additional amount, up to $5,000, for the development of a project that requires further resources such as software development and video production.
Deliverables:
The prize-winning program will be considered complete, for the purposes of triggering final payment of the prize amount, when:
Live event content or materials connected to a live performance are written and finalized; or
Physical and written products are completed to a stage of being ready for publication or production; or
Technology-based programs are developed to a proof-of-concept stage–such as MVP (minimum viable product), Kickstarter, or product plan.
At the announcement of the prize, the Endowment will meet with the winner to establish mutually agreed-upon plans for execution of deliverables and, if applicable, additional development funding.
Application Summary:
The application, therefore, consists of: 1. A narrative description of a need that exists in music education; 2. An explanation of your plan for a product and an outline of it will address the problem in K-12 music education; and 3. A detailed description of the product and narrative how it would be used in school.
There are no restrictions nor preferences regarding the applicant’s nationality, age, race, or gender. A blind jury process will be used to choose the winner. The selected project is expected to meet the highest music education standards. The artist will retain ownership of the work and will grant permission to the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts to use its digital image on its website and communication platforms.
Applications:
People may submit proposals beginning November 1, 2023 through January 15, 2024. Please read the following guidelines thoroughly.
Guidelines for Application
Eligibility:
We reiterate that we encourage applicants from a variety of aesthetics and diverse backgrounds of identity to apply. There are no restrictions nor preferences regarding the person’s nationality, age, race, or gender. Regarding religious affiliation, the sole limitation is that the artist be a member of, or willing to engage productively with, the community of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The prize is not eligible to members of the jury nor to the Endowment’s and the Center’s boards and committees.
Procedures of Application:
Application forms are to be found here. A person (or persons working as a team and who will share the prize) may submit only one (1) application.
The applicant will provide:
A narrative description of a need that exists in music education of 400 words or less;
An explanation of your plan for a product and an outline of how it will address the problem in K-12 music education in a narrative of 400 words or less, including its intended completion date; and
A detailed description of the product and narrative how it would be used in school.
Additionally, applicants will provide a statement of the applicant’s qualifications to complete the product (400 words or less).
Applicants may include additional digital files to support and describe your product. Note: The application requires only a proposal of the product, not a finished product.
For purposes of the submission platform, names of the applicant and contact information are required. Before adjudication, the moderator will replace the artists’ names with a numerical system to retain anonymity.
Please finalize all materials before submitting the application and note that all submissions are final and may not be altered once the application is complete and submitted. Failure to comply with the instructions above will result in disqualification of the application.
Deadlines:
Applications may be submitted beginning November 7, 2023. Deadline for submissions is January 15, 2024.
Jury:
The Ariel Bybee Endowment at the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts - 2024 Prize will be adjudicated between January 15 and March 1, 2024.
Process of Adjudication:
Round one: Jurors will review batches of submissions provided to them by the moderator. In all cases, names of the artists and identifying information will have been removed from proposals in order to enable a blind jurying process. Jurors will select leading candidates for further evaluation.
Round two: Successful applications from the first round will pass to teams on the jury for additional evaluation, winnowing, and creation of a list of finalists.
Round three: The full jury will meet to select a winner from the application finalists. Without exception, none of the jurors will be apprised of the identity of the artists under consideration until a final, unanimous decision is reached. The winner of the 2024 Prize will be announced on March 1, 2024, and all applicants will be informed of the jury results.
Application forms are to be found here.
For questions about the call for submission or requests for assistance, email us: bybee@centerforlatterdaysaintarts.org
About Ariel Bybee:
Ariel Bybee (American, 1943-2018) was a mezzo-soprano who had a distinguished career as a soloist, voice teacher and university opera director. Most notably, Ariel sang 461 performances as a soloist at the Metropolitan Opera over the course of 18 consecutive seasons.
Bybee received a bachelor's degree from Brigham Young University in 1965. She later took advanced musical studies in New York where one of her voice teachers was Cornelius L. Reid. Bybee was an alumna of the Music Academy of the West where she attended in 1969.
Bybee sang at the Met in every season from 1977-95. She first earned accolades at the Met for her performance as Jenny the whore in Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny when she replaced Teresa Stratas on very short notice. Further acclaim came from her performances as Annio in the Met's premiere of Mozart's La clemenza di Tito.
Bybee sang numerous leading roles at the Met including Hansel in Hänsel und Gretel, Niclausse in Les contes d'Hoffmann and Suzuki in Madama Butterfly. She made her highly successful debut at the Washington, D.C. Opera in a new production of Menotti's The Consul and her European opera debut as Melisande at the Sofia Music Weeks in Bulgaria. She made her debut with the Vienna Philharmonic (Lorin Maazel, conducting) in a concert performance of Elektra at Carnegie Hall.
Bybee's professional talents were discovered by Maestro Maurice Abravanel of the Utah Symphony and later by Kurt Herbert Adler of the San Francisco Opera. Adler invited Bybee to sing in San Francisco for several seasons, during which she appeared in many roles, including the title roles in Carmen, Musetta in La bohème and Inez in La favorita.
She first performed on the East Coast when she sang the title role of Monteverdi's Coronation of Poppea at the Tanglewood Music Festival. In the spring of 1985, Bybee appeared on stage with the New York City Ballet in its production of Songs of the Auvergne, and she debuted at the Ravinia Festival in Elektra conducted by James Levine. She made her debut in Kuhmo, Finland in Pergolesi's Stabat Mater and Vivaldi's Gloria.
Before making her debut with the San Francisco Opera Company, Bybee taught junior high school music for five years, first in Utah and then in California. Starting in 1993, Bybee began teaching private students in her New York studio, as well as teaching both at the Lee Strasberg Institute and the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York City. For ten years, she was Artist-in-Residence and Associate Professor of Voice at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, teaching voice and directing operatic productions. In 2007, she and James E. Ford co-directed UNL's production of Frank Loesser's The Most Happy Fella, which won the International Trophy (Grand Prize) in competition at the Waterford International Festival of Light Opera. When she became an emerita professor at UNL, the university endowed the Ariel Bybee Chair of Opera Performance in her honor. In 2008, Bybee moved to the Salt Lake City area where she taught voice at the University of Utah.