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MUSIC MAKING A DIFFERENCE
Five years ago, music professor Lia JensenAbbott had this wild idea: she could “recommission” one of the masterpieces of piano literature as both a work of art and a social commentary on diversity and inclusion. Beyond that goal — and on top of her full-time job — Jensen-Abbott would also prepare and record the entire project herself.
By Jake Weber
For many music scholars, creating something on the scale of the Albion College Diabelli Project (ACDP) could be a career pinnacle — but for Lia Jensen-Abbott, at the end of 2022, that original project is pretty much in the rear view mirror.
Not only is she well into an unexpected second volume of the project, Jensen-Abbott has also been dealing with renewed interest in a different branch of her scholarship, and she’s taken leadership of Albion’s Prentiss M. Brown Honors Program to boot.
If all of that weren’t enough (let alone too much), “I’m teaching an overload course this semester, too,” Jensen-Abbott adds. “One of our instructors resigned during the first week of classes, and it would have been a disaster if her seminar students had to redo their course schedules,” Jensen-Abbott said. “I had the time open and I didn’t have time to find another instructor.”
She smiles. “It was pretty stressful for the first couple weeks, but it’s going well. One of my students told someone it is their favorite course this semester.” The Artist: Expanding a Classical Music Tradition
To understand Jensen-Abbott’s ACDP, here’s a quick explanation of the “original.” Right around the time that Jane Austen was hitting her stride, Viennese music publisher Anton Diabelli invited the country’s musical elite to write variations on a tune he provided. Contributors included Franz Schubert and the 11-year-old Franz Liszt, but Beethoven — the most popular composer of the era — declined to participate. Following the success of Diabelli’s collection, Beethoven wrote 33 of his own variations. Almost 200 years later, Beethoven’s “Volume II” remains popular with pianists and music lovers, while Diabelli’s original collection is largely ignored.
Unlike Diabelli, Jensen-Abbott didn’t envision her project as a fundraiser for widows and orphans of the Napoleonic Wars — but she did see it as a way for music to address a social issue. “Diabelli’s variations were about nationalism and the superiority of one musical tradition,” she explains. “I thought, ‘What would his variations look like if diverse voices were the focus?’”
Still working from Diabelli’s original tune, Jensen-Abbott’s ACDP Volume I commissioned works from a 2019 Albion alumnus, a 70-something jazz pianist, an international composer and music professor at the University of Colorado, and musicians in South Africa, Australia, Costa Rica and Germany. That first volume was so successful that Albion’s faculty awarded Jensen-Abbott a grant for a second volume, featuring only female composers.
“Historically, women have not been recognized or respected as composers and performers,” Jensen-Abbott said. “When I have the opportunity to support female composers, that’s something I want to do.” The Scholar: Contributing to American Music and African American History
Beethoven’s Diabelli variations were the focus of Jensen-Abbott’s doctoral studies — but this expertise still makes her just one among countless musicians and scholars who might be considered “experts” on Beethoven.
That’s definitely not the case when it comes to Jensen-Abbott’s knowledge of American composer Florence Price. In 1932, Price became the first African American woman to have an orchestral work performed by a major orchestra (the Chicago Symphony). Nonetheless, her remarkable music and life were largely overlooked for decades.
Jensen-Abbott’s unlikely path to becoming an expert on Price’s piano music and pedagogy began in 2013, when she first heard some of Price’s vocal works. “The program notes mentioned that Florence had written a piano sonata, and I’m always looking for new music,” Jensen-Abbott recalls.
That search led Jensen-Abbott to the University of Arkansas, where she was invited to perform and visit their Florence Price collection of materials. Jensen-Abbott found a
trove of music for beginning and intermediate piano students, much of it water-damaged and in manuscript form. Jensen-Abbott subsequently edited the first two published volumes of Price’s piano pedagogy.
Despite the honor of having the Chicago Symphony play her music, Price struggled as an African American single parent during the Great Depression. Jensen-Abbott speculates that these circumstances led Price to create so much “teaching” music.
“I think she wrote a lot of this music because her students couldn’t buy it — because they didn’t have money or weren’t allowed in the stores,” Jensen-Abbot reflects. “She wrote this music so her students would have something to play.”
Price still doesn’t have the recognition she deserves for her contributions to American music and African American history. Her contributions to music education, however, are gaining national attention, thanks in large part to Jensen-Abbott. This year alone, Jensen-Abbott has done an international webinar on Price (for the Frances Clark Center) and presented at state-level music educator conferences in Michigan, Oklahoma and Oregon. She even appeared as a guest artist, playing Price’s music, at Howard University.
“Florence Price was trained at the New England Conservatory, and, unlike many women composers, she worked in ‘big’ formats – piano sonatas and symphonic music,” Jensen-Abbott says. “But a lot of composers don’t take the time or can’t write good teaching pieces.” She continues, “Florence is really forwardlooking in how she breaks down concepts and how she’s aware of the physicality of the piano and the physiology of the hand. These aren’t considerations you see in the pedagogies developed by many prominent teachers and performers historically.”
The Educator: More Than Music
Given her ongoing work with ACDP and Florence Price (not to mention her theory classes and own need to practice), it would be reasonable to think that Jensen-Abbott never pokes her head out of Goodrich Chapel.
But Jensen-Abbott is not the product of a conservatory, and, despite going to a state school, she’s liberal arts all the way – meaning that she now directs Albion College’s Prentiss M. Brown Honors Program
“It’s a dream come true, this job,” she said.
Jensen-Abbott joined Albion’s Honors Program faculty more than a decade ago, thanks in part to a similar program in a very different place. “It was an incredible experience,” she says of her four years spent in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Honors Program. “I loved engaging with the faculty and the community
of students. I even loved writing the thesis. That’s why I started teaching Honors courses here as soon as I possibly could.”
As an Honors professor, Jensen-Abbott has developed two Honors seminars focused on the arts, culture and society (teaching each multiple times).
Her first course, with an added focus on education, inspired students to create the Albion Film Festival, which operated (until COVID) as an annual fundraiser for Harrington Elementary School. Her other course, “Culture, Society, and Downton Abbey,” had students writing variations on the ‘Downton Abbey’ theme. The students also used the 1912-35 time period as a focal point for historic social, political and arts-based research projects.
As Honors director, Jensen-Abbott is excited about recruitment, and its potential to — what else? — change the diversity among program participants. She’s aware that many Albion students didn’t have the opportunity to take advanced and honors courses at their high schools and may feel they don’t belong in a program with students who did.
“It’s valuable for students to do the thesis project, to know they can go the extra mile when they get a job. It harnesses your creativity and effort,” she says. “Nothing else allows you to explore what you’ve learned in quite the same way.”
But while she’s undoubtedly a fan, Jensen-Abbott is also clear on where Honors needs to improve.
“We’re working to have the program reflect the diversity of the College,” she said. “We want to encourage Honors faculty to be as diverse in their course offerings. These goals will help our
students have those experiences to go out into the world and think creatively about problems they may be facing in their careers, to be good citizens, to every day find ways to make their work, their lives, better places.”
“Most days are so busy trying to get everything done, but, in the end, I hope my students look back and see their experiences played a significant role in that development,” she concludes. “I know it will happen for me.”
