Research Grants

Click here for research grant information and application.

One of the newest projects of the NBA is the awarding of $500 grants to NBA
members who are conducting research on any topic that pertains to “bands.”
Upon completion of the project, the money is awarded, and an overview of
the research will appear in the NBA Journal. The first three winners
(awarded in December 2005) are below:

1) Native Voices--––A five-day $45,000 program has been designed by
University of Mary Washington faculty member Dr. Craig Naylor to teach
multiculturalism to K-12 teachers in November 2006. This project will teach
teachers how Native American culture relates to all other American cultures
through presenting original Native America music. The project director,
Craig Naylor, has commissioned two new pieces of music by noted living
Native American composers.

Few works by Native American Composers exist in the wind literature. Native
Voices will bring four Native American/First National composers to the
University of Mary Washington for a nine-day residency leading to the
performance of their works by the UMW Wind and Percussion Ensemble. Three
works have been commissioned for the occasion: two by First Nation
composers Barbara Croall and Raven Chacon, and the third by UMW
composer-in-residence David Long. These works have been stipulated to be
5-7 minutes long, grade 4 or easy 5. The NBA grant will be used for
development and reproduction costs to prepare multicultural workshop
materials for teacher in-service for new band compositions by Native
American composers in a fine arts program.

2) School Bands in Illinois: 1884-1930––Large-scale development of
school bands took place shortly after World War I in reaction to a number
of social factors including the advent of military training in schools,
musical preferences of a changing school population, the rise of
progressive education, and promotion of bands by instrument manufacturers
attempting to open new markets following the decline of military and
community bands. Although the existence of a few school bands in the latter
part of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries has been confirmed,
information regarding other school bands organized during this time as yet
to be uncovered, creating the need for additional research in this area.
Based on research completed at this time, it appears likely that school
bands were much more prevalent during the late eighteenth century and early
nineteenth centuries than has previously been acknowledged.

The purpose of this study is to examine the growth of school bands in
Illinois from the late eighteenth century to the early 1930s. Information
regarding early histories of individual school bands organized before World
War I, the origins and influence of the Illinois School Band Association on
the band movement, and conclusions relating practices and traditions of
early bands to those in contemporary education will be included. The
researcher is Phillip M. Hash.

3) Data Collection for “The Wind Band in Japan”--––In recent
decades Japan has become increasingly recognized as a vitally important
nation in the field of wind bands. However, there remains a notable absence
of published books in the English language that document the current state
and recent history of Japanese winds bands.

The principal researcher, Dr. David Hebert, is author of the only research
on Japanese bands published in leading peer-reviewed scholarly journals for
wind bands (Journal of Band Research and Journal of Research in Music
Education). His dissertation examined music teaching and learning in a
Japanese school band. This grant will be used to support supplementary data
collection for a proposed book on this topic that is tentatively entitled
The Wind Band in Japan.

Application Deadline: November 1st