Can you believe this?

I am the very lucky recipient of a 2009 Lilly Teacher Creativity Fellowship and will be using those funds to explore yodeling and other forms of music in the Alps during June and July 2009. "T minus 30 days" until we leave.

I have always been interested in how people express their humanity through music (especially singing) and I've researched different styles of choral singing and music making throughout my teaching career in the Crown Point Schools. I've learned about mariachi music and hosted a mariachi band at my school. I was curious about music from the Far East so I attend a seminar at Indiana University then invited a Chinese erhu player to perform with my choir. I even thought that bag pipe players would make a great concert addition, and although our ears are still ringing three years later, I was absolutely right. Kids are so receptive to music of all kinds and I've worked hard to bring musicians and a variety folk singing to the classroom. Still, I've never gone to the source and visited the country to see it for myself. Why yodeling? Why now? That's a good question with not a very good (or easy) answer.

I starting thinking about the Lilly Fellowship when my husband, John, returned from his Lilly Fellowship experience to Venezuela last summer. That was a wonderful, and even life-changing opportunity for him.  Although I've always thought he was a fabulous musician and teacher, his experiences with the Youth Orchestra in Venezuela helped renew his thinking and his approaches to providing the most music to the most kids.  Good for him (and good for his school!

Personally, I've always been curious about yodeling, but it's not a thing "serious" musicians go around talking about. People ALWAYS laugh when you talk about yodeling.  I first heard Roy Rogers and Dale Evans yodel on TV when I was a little girl. Since then (many years later!), I've seen other people yodel (who knew that Luther College would be a hot bed of Norwegian yodeling?!) and I've heard and sung in yodeling styles from other countries (like Africa). Now, with this wonderful opportunity from Lilly, I'm hoping to hear, see, and experience the pastoral, authentic, related-to-sheep- and -cows kind of calls across the mountain gorges and valleys in the land where it all began, Switzerland!

I'll post the full itinerary, but my journey will take me from the Jodelfest Dagmersellen (outside of Lucerne, Switzerland) through Italy (Cremona and Venice) to my ancestral homeland, Slovenia (the "sunny side" of the Alps) Details to follow. I'll also post some resource materials and basic recordings.

I am extremely grateful to the Lilly Foundation and their support of teacher creativity and on-going renewal. This trip would not be possible without their funding. I'm not sure where, how, or who thought of the Lilly Teacher Creativity Fellowships, but I'm certainly glad they exist.