This past week I approached my professor, Stephanie Baer, the head of the strings department at NYU about creating a database of public domain viola music to put online as a resource the community inside and out of NYU can use.
To do this I proposed making a trip to the Library of Congress and pilfering their viola sheet music and putting it online. I thought that obtaining a research grant would be the best way to pay for this trip.
For the most part seniors here at NYU aren’t allowed to apply for the research grants as they are designed to be carried out the following school year but I contacted Stephanie Santiago, the woman in charge of processing the grant requests who said it would be alright for me to go ahead and apply.
This would be a great way to provide access to little known viola works written before the 20th century as most of those pieces are still under copyright. It will be a while before those parts would make their way onto this site, as there is some time before I obtain the grant (if at all) and make the trip. Add on the process of cleaning the parts digitally and there is quite a bit of work for one person to do.
Leave a comment if you are interested in helping out or if you have any suggestions on the process.
Update Monday, March 9th 2009: Seems that NYU won’t give out research grants to graduating seniors. My only thoughts on the matter other than mild disappointment is that the school only seems to be interested in giving paltry sums to those who are going to continue paying an insitution who is in the top twenty of total tuition.