Jamie Blake, a UNC-Chapel Hill doctoral student in musicology, will serve as the Harold J. Glass USAF Graduate Fellow for academic year 2018-19 – providing her with, among other benefits, mentoring from the professor who selected her specifically for the award.
The Harold J. Glass USAF Faculty Mentor/Graduate Fellow Distinguished Term Professorship, established within The Graduate School, includes a corresponding fellowship for a graduate student the professor selects to mentor. Annegret Fauser, who holds the three-year professorship, is selecting a different student each year. Jennifer Walker, a doctoral student in musicology, was the 2017-18 fellow.
Fauser, an award-winning musicologist and faculty member in UNC-Chapel Hill’s music department, said Blake “is an extraordinarily gifted young scholar who brings both sustained enthusiasm and hard work to her research. Her dissertation offers an innovative and interdisciplinary take on music in the United States through the lens of Russia abroad, bringing together theoretical sophistication and deep archival research.”
The importance of supporting graduate student research
“My research focuses on Russian music and musicians in the United States after about 1917. Following the Russian Revolution, a lot of artists and musicians made their way out of Russia, through Paris, into the United States and what I’m uncovering is this incredible network of music and musicians in all facets of American cultural life.
I’m finding that the impact of these émigrés on this exciting, developing American culture of the 1920s and 30s is just incredible. Artists like Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein – all of them – they all studied and learned under these Russian musicians.
I think our cultural relationship with Russia is always important. You can’t separate the music from the politics and you can’t pull these people away from their transnational experience. It’s what invigorates their work and it’s what makes it so important for us to study.”
—Jamie Blake, doctoral student in musicology and Harold J. Glass USAF Graduate Fellow
Blake received her bachelor’s degree in music, specializing in music education, from Boston University. She received her master’s degree in music, specializing in instrumental conducting, from Brigham Young University. Blake’s dissertation focuses on the experiences of Russian musicians in the United States from the time of the Russian Revolution of 1917 through the early Cold War. Within her investigation, she examines the impact these musicians had on American musicians such as Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein.
“I am very honored to be chosen as a Harold J. Glass USAF Graduate Fellow,” Blake said. “I consider myself extremely fortunate to have the opportunity to work with Dr. Annegret Fauser, who is both an exceptional scholar at the forefront of our field and an unparalleled mentor.
“This fellowship allows me to focus my full attention on my dissertation work, including the ability to travel as needed to complete critical research away from campus.”
Blake was co-chair for “A Century of Movement: Russian Culture and Global Community Since 1917,” a conference organized by graduate students and held on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus in 2017. Among her other awards and distinctions, she received a Summer Research Fellowship from The Graduate School in 2017 and an Ora Frishberg Saloman Research Grant from the American Musicological Society in 2018.
Blake has worked as a high school band director and choral director, and she plays the trumpet.
Harold E. and Holly Glass provided the gift to establish the professorship and fellowship, which they named in memory of Harold E. Glass’s father and of his service in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II. A UNC-Chapel Hill doctoral graduate in political science, Harold E. Glass is a member of The Graduate School’s Graduate Education Advancement Board.
The faculty member selected for the professorship receives a stipend and research fund. The graduate student selected for the fellowship receives a competitive stipend, full tuition, fees and health insurance.