More Information
About the Fund
The Hugo and Christine Davise Fund for Contemporary Music is administered by the Music Library to support contemporary music in a wide variety of ways including, but not limited to:
- the purchase of material for the Music Library: scores, books, recordings, media and online resources.
- the preservation, conservation and digitization of this material.
- sponsoring scholarly conferences, exhibits, concerts and residencies at UCLA.
- commissioning new musical works for UCLA musicians and ensembles, the manuscripts to become part of the Music Library's collections.
- parts rentals for Herb Alpert School of Music students and ensembles.
- rental of special instruments for student performances.
- composition competitions for student composers.
- publication of the Contemporary Score Edition(opens in a new tab).
- support for contemporary music performance in the Herb Alpert School of Music(opens in a new tab) and in Los Angeles.
- a $350 prize for the best music paper or project submitted for the Library Prize for Undergraduate Research.
Call for Proposals
The Music Library welcomes project proposals within the fund's guidelines, as detailed above, as well as requests for purchases of contemporary music for the Music Library. Proposals for projects are considered on a rolling basis, with first consideration occurring in Fall Quarter. The available funds vary yearly; requests made later in the fiscal year may be asked to wait until the following year, if all funds have been allocated. Most projects do not receive funding exceeding $3,000. To submit a proposal, please send an email to the Music Library with the subject "Davise Fund proposal" and include a project title, short description, total budget and requested funding from the Music Library, Hugo and Christine Davise Fund.
We seek projects that:
- involve music since 1900.
- integrate music scholarship and practices across HASoM and UCLA.
- engage with diverse communities at UCLA or in Los Angeles.
- include underrepresented composers or musicians.
- develop open access publications.
Contemporary Score Edition
The Contemporary Score Edition is published by the Music Library, Hugo and Christine Davise Fund. The publication includes the first printing of physical scores and parts and a digital score in eScholarship(opens in a new tab), the institutional repository of the University of California. Scores considered for the Edition are student scores that win Davise Prizes, UCLA faculty scores created for Davise musician and ensemble residencies, and scores created for Davise-sponsored commissions or projects. For more information, please contact the Music Library(opens in a new tab).
Publications
- Awake 3.0 by Tomàs Peire Serrate. Print Score(opens in a new tab), eScholarship(opens in a new tab)
- 6 compositions for piano by Elaine Radoff Barkin. Print Score(opens in a new tab), eScholarship(opens in a new tab)
- Glimpse by Tomàs Peire Serrate. Print Score(opens in a new tab), eScholarship(opens in a new tab)
Score preparation guidelines:
- The editing process will take several months and may require multiple revisions to the score and parts.
- Refer to Elaine Gould's Behind Bars (Music Library Reference MT35 .G737 2011(opens in a new tab)) for notation guidelines.
- Prepare a short biography (150 words maximum).
- The standard covers and title pages will be used for the physical and online publications.
- Parts will not typically have covers or title pages; the title, composer, copyright statement, etc., should be included on each part. A standard title page will be used if a cover is needed to facilitate page turns.
- Scores and parts should be on 9" x 12" (Concert) paper. Keep in mind that digital downloads from eScholarship should be legible when printed on 8.5" x 11" paper.
- Staff size for the score should be between 5 and 6 mm, but under no conditions smaller than 4 mm.
- Staff size for the parts should be between 6 and 7.5 mm.
- Use fonts consistently. Arial and Times New Roman are good choices for the title, page numbers, etc.
- Page numbers should be at the upper outer edge for both the score and parts.
- System edges should have at least 5/8 inch margins, with all extraneous marks (ex., page numbers, dynamics, etc.) also having a 5/8 inch margin.
- Include the standard plate number at the center of the bottom of each page of the score and parts. Ex. UCLAML · DF 0001 (the exact number will be provided).
About Hugo and Christine Davise
Hugo Davise was born Hugh Edward Davies in 1907. A lifelong Angeleno, Davise graduated from UCLA with undergraduate degrees in music education ('31) and philosophy ('33) and with a masters in philosophy ('34). He worked for the Department of Agriculture during World War II. After the war, he spent much of his career teaching at Santa Monica College and Los Angeles City College. His devotion to music was unwavering but private; he did not seek out acclaim or public performances. Yet he studied and composed in the most significant styles of the twentieth century, producing atonal, polytonal and modal works, and developing his own compositional system in response to that of Arnold Schoenberg.
Christine Davise, née Albin, was born in 1899 in Iowa and graduated with a degree in music from UCLA in 1927.
Hugo Davise taught privately into his late eighties. His students learned strict counterpoint, composition, and music history. His former student, composer Ginger Mayerson, writes, "Hugo was a great teacher; I learned a lot about composition, music history, and a few things about myself…I think Hugo and Christine between them knew almost everything about western music and it was wonderful to listen to them talk about it." Although he wrote in multiple genres, the bulk of his music is for solo piano, his own instrument. Thanks to his bequest to the Music Library, many of the Davise scores are available in the Performing Arts Special Collections as photocopies. Originals are held in the private collection of composer Marco Marinangeli, Davise's student and protégé for over fifteen years, who considers Davise one of the exceptional musical minds of the twentieth century. Christine passed in 1991 and Hugo in 2000.
Biography by Andrea Moore.
