Hoosier College Music Programs to Explore Use of Internet2 Highway

INDIANAPOLIS – Music faculty and administrators from colleges and universities across Indiana and other participants will gather literally and virtually at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) to explore how to use the Internet2 (I2) highway for music performance, research and teaching.

While some attending Symposium 2006 will by physically present, others will participate from locations in other states and around the world, including Finland, Canada, and Hong Kong.

The two-day symposium begins Friday, March 3, 2006 at 9:30 a.m. in Room 152 of the Informatics and Communications Complex, 535 W. Michigan Street, Indianapolis.

During the symposium, Brett Hoag, an IUPUI instructor, will give a live guitar performance with his students. It will be critiqued online by composer Rafael Hernandez from California State University Hayward, who wrote a short piece for this event.. At another point, a double bassist from the New World Symphony in Miami Beach, Florida, will perform live for the symposium, demonstrating the capabilities of I2 to transmit high quality sound and video and the possibilities that come with those capabilities, said Fred J. Rees, director of the symposium and Associate Professor and head of Graduate Studies at the School of Music at IUPUI.

“In the past few years, there have been hundreds of musical events transmitted among I2 sites in the US and across similar networks in other countries,” Rees said. “However, many have been one-time events rather than ongoing activities.”

According to Rees, the prospect of teaching, in which high quality video and stereo or even surround sound can quickly transmit faculty expertise between educational institutions and reach widespread student populations remains undeveloped.

Symposium 2006 wants to change that.

“With the I2 highway in Indiana, which includes the Indiana Higher Education Telecommunications System (IHETS) and educational connection networks such as the Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration, Indiana has the infrastructure to revolutionize how we conduct our professional business in collegiate music education,” he said.

The purpose of Symposium 2006, the first statewide meeting of colleagues from colleges and universities offering music degrees in Indiana, is to identify a series of mutual priorities and projects that would exploit the Internet2 (I2) highway for music performance, research, and teaching among invitees and participants, Rees said.

The first day of the symposium will focus on I2 demonstrations, with audience and commentator responses and questions. The second day will be a working session for symposium participants to identify priorities and establish collaborative activities in music performance, research, and teaching within and beyond individual school boundaries.

I2 is a national consortium of more than 200 collegiate institutions that fosters opportunities for members to engage in high level, data-intensive initiatives in research and education.

For more information about the Symposium go to the website http://www.music.iupui.edu/i2Music.htm.