Supporters
The Presser Foundation
University of Michigan: Rackham Graduate School
Music Teacher's National Association
Maggie Golightly Haslam (b. Washington DC) received a Bachelors of Fine Arts in painting at Brigham Young University and a Masters of Fine Arts at Pratt Institute in New York City. She is primarily a painter and paper maker. She uses water based paints on paper to explore the essential characteristics of art mediums and their components by engineering situations where she relinquishes total control over the creative process. This practice focuses on the process behind the art making. Developing as a papermaker has allowed her to think more about conscious consumption and seek meaningful sources for materials. Maggie found inspiration in visual aesthetics related to Alissa Freeman’s ||:HerClassical:|| project. Using the visual forms in the shape of the piano, the silhouettes of the female pianists, and the sophisticated marks found within the sheet music, Maggie created paintings torn from time and linking these two artistic mediums. In 2017 Maggie collaborated with a fellow artist in a residency program located in Beginning with Children Charter School in Brooklyn, New York. They worked together with the help of the middle school students on a project relating to immigration and displacement. In the summer of 2018 and again in 2019, Maggie worked as an artist in residence on Governor’s Island, New York with Underwater New York/Works On Water where she used only collected and recycled water to make art. Most recently in 2021, Maggie orchestrated a solo exhibition at the District of Columbia Arts Center where she built a monument to grief made out of handmade paper and the community’s remembrances of those lost.
alissa Freeman
Editor & Creator
creators
With a unique profile in education, performance, and entrepreneurship, Alissa Freeman is a passionate musician who is always working on a new project. Her accomplishments in performance, pedagogy, and research have been vast and varied as the recipient of both the undergraduate and graduate Presser awards, numerous full-tuition academic and music scholarships, winner of two university concerto competitions, and performances and presentations both nationally and internationally. Both in her personal and professional life, one of Alissa’s greatest goals is to build more inclusive environments by understanding barriers to inclusivity and finding creative ways to remove them. This led to her development of the ||:HerClassical:|| project. Alissa works as a Program Assistant for the University of Michigan School of Music’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) department. During the past year, she also co-founded and has served as the Executive Director of The 5pm Series, a charitable nonprofit organization that has aimed to provide financial support to musicians during the COVID-19 pandemic. Alissa is currently a DMA candidate studying Piano Performance and Pedagogy at the University of Michigan with Logan Skelton and John Ellis as her primary instructors.
Patricia Garcia-Gil
Editor & Creator
Patricia’s brilliant career has already given rise to a considerable amount of concert tours throughout the world, having performed recitals and concerts as a soloist with different orchestras in Spain, Portugal, France, Holland, England, Scotland, Italy, Mexico, Algeria, South Africa, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, China and the United States of America.
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She is a regular guest at the fortepiano series of “Accademia Bartolomeo Cristofori” and “Villa Bossi” in Italy, the “Abbaye aux dames” and “Royaumont” in France, the “Geelvink Music Museum” in Holland, the “Chinese Baptist University of Hong Kong” in China, the “Historical Keyboard Society of North America”, the “American Musical Instrument Society”, the “Catskill Mountain Foundation”, the “Sigal Music Museum” and the “Westfield Center for Historical Keyboard Studies” in the USA.
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From Fall 2021, she is a Teaching Assistant and DMA student at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro under the tutelage of Dr. Andrew Willis. Patricia has been named a Minerva Scholar, the highest recognition a doctoral student can receive at UNC Greensboro.
Maggie Haslam
Artist for Covers & Website
Maggie Golightly Haslam (b. Washington DC) received a Bachelors of Fine Arts in painting at Brigham Young University and a Masters of Fine Arts at Pratt Institute in New York City. She is primarily a painter and paper maker. Maggie found inspiration in visual aesthetics related to Alissa Freeman’s ||:HerClassical:|| project. Using the visual forms in the shape of the piano, the silhouettes of the female pianists, and the sophisticated marks found within the sheet music, Maggie created paintings torn from time and linking these two artistic mediums.
Other Acknowledgements
Many thanks to the following for their contributions to this project:​
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Nancy Reich (d. 2019), for being an inspiration and paving new paths for women in music through her scholarship.
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Just a Theory Press, for their beautiful engraving and publication of ||:HerClassical:|| editions.
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Deborah Hayes, for creating an incredibly helpful website on this topic, and for offering resources and assistance in writing on this topic.
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JaNeal Freeman, for the ongoing help reading, editing, and inspiring my work--and for being an amazing mother.
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Anthony DeMartinis, for offering me constant support, help editing, and being my life partner.
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Logan Skelton, for the hours of assistance in editing and composing variations.
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Matthew Bengtson, for his ongoing enthusiasm and support of this project, and for helping me learn about historical performance practice.