Day 1 - Vivian Taylor • December 6th, 2021

🌟Description of this Offering: For my peace offering, I wanted to combine the "Smoky Quartz" movement from the solo bassoon piece "Colored Stones" by Jenni Brandon and footage of eastern Oklahoma during the fall. I grew up gathering with my extended family in Robbers Cave State Park every Thanksgiving break, so I filmed all of the video near the state park on my family's property. It is an area and season in which I often felt peaceful and content during my childhood. I hope you enjoy a brief glimpse into my peaceful place.

🌟About this Artist: Vivian Taylor is in her second year at Oklahoma State University. She is pursuing majors in Statistics and Economics, and she is working towards a minor in music. She spends her time studying for classes, playing bassoon in ensembles, going on day trips to Oklahoma City and Tulsa, and attending Oklahoma State University athletic events.

🌟Call to Action: Through this project, I want to encourage our community to seek peace. Be intentional about spending time in places that make your soul feel at rest and with people that know you and encourage you to experience the beautiful aspects of life to the fullest.

Day 2 - Anthony Coito • December 7th, 2021

🌟Description of this Offering: For my peace offering, I wanted to combine the cadenza from the first movement of “Five Sacred Trees” by John Williams and a time lapse of digital art that my friend drew. Being from Massachusetts, I always thought that fall was a much more peaceful time than the summer. I hope you enjoy.

🌟About this Artist: Anthony Coito is a senior bassoon performance major from Rutland, Massachusetts.

🌟Call to Action: Find what makes you happy, whether it be a sunny day at the beach, or relaxing in a cabin in the woods.

Day 3 - Ashton Self • December 8th, 2021

🌟Description of this Offering: For my peace offering, I wanted to combine the cadenza from the first movement of “Five Sacred Trees” by John Williams and a time lapse of digital art that my friend drew. Being from Massachusetts, I always thought that fall was a much more peaceful time than the summer. I hope you enjoy.

🌟About this Artist: This video shows in just a tiny minute where I find my peace in life. Life can be extremely hard, especially when you are harder on yourself than life is on you. Sometimes you might feel like you have failed in life or that there is no future but, in these moments, I think about where I have come from. From being that little five-year-old dressed as a ballerina for Halloween and twirling through my parent's living room, to now dancing at Oklahoma State University. Sometimes when I feel overwhelmed, I think about how cool "five-year-old Ashton" would think I am, and that I'm living the life she dreamed of. She would have never thought about how stressful being a science major in research would be, she would just think how amazing it would to be a scientist. Perhaps, we should all think of our life through the eyes of a five-year-old, through curiosity and amazement at the world and our accomplishments. This is where I find my peace, knowing I have grown into what little me daydreamed about and I urge you to think about your life through a five-year old's eyes next time you need to find peace.

Day 4 - Midori Samson • December 9th, 2021

🌟Description of this Offering: I am most at peace when I am teaching, and in my classrooms, I aim to nurture community. One of the ways we did that in History of Music 1800–Present was by creating our own version of “In C” by Terry Riley. “In C” in its original form is made up of 53 single measures of music that are to be played many times in a row by any number of players. During our unit focused on aleatory and minimalism, members of our class composed their own single measures to be combined into a new “MUSI 3873” version of In C. Unbeknownst to them, I have recorded their compositions and mixed them into a bassoon trio version of the piece.

Recording this gave me life and fed my soul during finals week. So I hope the class takes pride in this composition—one that celebrates community and shared music-making—as much as I enjoyed leading them through the activity.

🌟About this Artist: Dr. Midori Samson (she/her) teaches bassoon and music history at OSU. Broadly, her work exists at the intersection of music and social work, and she is happiest doing creative activities that prioritize commitments to social justice, anti-racism, anti-oppression, decolonization, and peacebuilding.

🌟Call to Action: My call to action is specifically for GSM music students. A music degree can be intensely isolating, but it doesn’t have to be. As you work individually to hone your craft, also seek ways to use your music to build community both within the GSM and outside. Whether it is by preparing a piece with musicians you love or co-creating a work from scratch, find people and places that help you cultivate community within all the music you play.

Day 5 - Kenna McCormick • December 10th, 2021

🌟Description of this Offering: For my peace offering, I wanted to combine “Lapis Lazuli” from “Colored Stones” by Jenni Brandon and a collage of videos of being outside with my dog, Levi. I find that spending time outside with Levi allows me to relax and be in the moment. I filmed most of these videos at the Botanic Gardens where I normally take Levi after a stressful day.

🌟About this Artist: Kenna McCormick is a Junior Music Education major from Haslet, Texas.

🌟Call to Action: I want to encourage everyone to find a place where they can take a moment to relax and recenter themselves.

Day 6 - Joey Goller • December 11th, 2021

🌟Description of this Offering: This video contains just a fraction of what peace truly means to me. The music in the background is a Bassoon Duet for “What a Wonderful World” by Louis Armstrong that I arranged as a birthday present for my grandmother. The images you see are places, concepts, and mementos of my idea of peace: living life with joy and content and having fun through it all. The world has had many ups and downs, especially recently, and I believe it’s a God-given right for us living in the present to come to terms with our own ideas of peace, rather than stick to a by-the-book definition to attempt to fulfill. With that in mind, enjoy what life has in store for you. Don’t let the negatives overwhelm what good there is in the world, and let that good flood your life with the peace you create and define for yourself.

🌟About this Artist: I am a student currently attending Oklahoma State University. I have a passion for a few things in life: God, family, music, and science; each of these containing wisdom for what’s in store for my future.

Day 1 - Emma Burchall • December 14th, 2020

🌟Description of this Offering: I clear my head by going on lengthy drives in my car, alone and with friends, while listening to music and thinking my thoughts. It has given me clarity in times of immense trouble. This offering of peace involves me and my closest friend talking about the concept of inner peace with solo bassoon playing "Lasciatemi Morire" by Claudio Monteverdi.

🌟About this Artist: Emma Burchall is currently a music education student at the University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point. She hopes to inspire her students to love and cherish music as much as, or more than, she does. 

🌟Call to Action: Find people who you can drive around aimlessly for twelve hours with and never get tired of. Also, maybe bike or walk instead. It's better for the planet. 

Day 2 - Zach Dunbar • December 15th, 2020

🌟Description of this Offering: My main goal with this Peace Offering is to give peace in this time of turmoil.  To me, one of the most peaceful places is the woods. The woods is a place of relaxation where you can let all your stress and burdens in life float away. 

🌟About this Artist: My name is Zach Dunbar and I am a freshman at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point.  I am majoring in Instrumental Music Education.

🌟Call to Action: My challenge of everyone watching this is to create small acts of peace in everyday life. Anything as simple as volunteering at a shelter, recycling, or sending a friend an inspirational text is a step in the right direction. 

Day 3 - Abena Motaboli and Midori Samson • December 16th, 2020

🌟Description of this Offering: While the COVID-19 pandemic has been physically isolating, it has also been a time for us to reconnect with friends and collaborators across distances. We have been friends for years but have not created together until now! Recognizing the beautiful interplay between music and visual art, we created a 30-minute video of Abena painting to the sounds of Midori playing bassoon and worked with another collaborator, pianist Satoko Hayami. We’d like to offer this excerpt of that video, which features Abena painting “Movement; a collaboration piece” (mixed medium on canvas; tea, coffee, ink, watercolor, and acrylic paint) to Midori performing “Concert Etude No. 3” by Ludwig Milde.

🌟About these Artists: Abena Motaboli (she/her) is a Chicago-based educator, facilitator, writer, and visual artist; her art practice is performative, contemplative, and transformative. Known for her intricate plastic installations and meditative line-work found in her paintings, she is influenced by her home country of Lesotho and Southern African culture.

Midori Samson (she/her) is the Lecturer of Bassoon at UWSP, a member of the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, and a doctoral candidate in bassoon and social welfare at UW-Madison. Although she has had the privilege of performing as a concert bassoonist around the world, she is happiest marrying her two fields of study by facilitating musical projects that exemplify social justice, anti-racism, anti-oppression, and peace.

🌟Call to Action: Explore Abena’s installation—and the installations of several immigrant artists—available at Immigrant Artist Biennial. It’s only available until December 18th, so use the next two days to experience these stories and artworks about identity, culture, and assimilation.

Day 4 - Alexis Conkey • December 17th, 2020

🌟Description of this Offering: Marco Bordogni’s “Etude No. 1” is rooted in lyricism and operatic influences. To me, it has always felt somewhat like a lullaby - gentle and comforting, while still being operatic. My hope is that in these hard times, this small offering provides comfort and hope. Every day has the opportunity to be better than the last.  

 🌟About this Artist: Alexis Conkey is a graduating senior bassoonist of UW-Stevens Point. She hopes that her work in and out of music will inspire and help others find what makes them feel whole.  

Day 5 - Sam Powell • December 18th, 2020

🌟Description of this Offering: My offering is an improvisation over an E cello drone. Since quarantine, the two things keeping me going is music and my friends, whether we’re hanging out virtually or in person for a short time. In these moments, laughs are shared, stories are told, and new memories form. Recently I visited my friends to try the hottest hot sauce I could buy, The Last Dab Apollo. 

 🌟About this Artist: Sam Powell is a Junior at UWSP studying bassoon performance. Sam likes to listen to and collect vinyl records in his free time owning over 50 records in his collection so far.