Music Without Limits
The Artist Vision Project (AVP)
The Artist Vision Project is a cross-curricular initiative for rising juniors, seniors, and graduate students preparing recital requirements. It encourages students to design non-traditional performances that reflect their broader artistic identity, blending music with storytelling, multimedia, and cross-disciplinary ideas.
Cali Artist-in-Residence 2025-26
Leyla McCalla Residency and AVP
During her residency, Leyla McCalla will mentor AVP students by:
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Leading workshops on weaving history, culture, and identity into performance.
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Offering feedback on recital concepts and helping refine artistic vision.
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Sharing her experience as a multilingual musician and activist to inspire new approaches.
Through these interactions, students will learn to craft recital projects that are deeply personal, innovative, and socially connected.
To work with Leyla McCalla, please complete this form.
This opportunity is open to:
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Students registering for a degree-required recital in Academic Year 2025–2026.
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Students who want to get a one-year head start on their degree-required recital for Spring 2027.
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Students planning a non-degree required recital off campus.
To schedule a meeting with Leyla McCalla about the Artist Vision Program click here.
As part of the Immersive Residency 23-24, Lara Downes, pianist and host of NPR’s Amplify, led a small group of students during the inaugural year of the Artist Vision Project at the Cali School of Music. Here are two success stories from spring of 2024.
Rising Junior
Cellist and junior Cecilia Grossman’s interest was piqued when she learned of the Artist Vision Project, an alternate route to performing a regular solo recital to the possibility of expanding her voice beyond the canon of the cello repertoire. Cecilia chose to record her very first podcast.
“I found the idea for this project when I noticed that some of the repertoire I was learning had a common thread of being a transcription and centered around themes of grief and mourning. From there I went on a deep dive for the historical context around how various composers went about adapting the music through different settings and instrumentations. In my podcast I was able to explore music I love in greater detail than I have previously and understand it in a new way. I was able to interview artists or composers with a direct tie to each piece to gain further insight on the music.”
Podcast: Songs of Mourning and Remembrance
A podcast series exploring grief in music and the power of transcription as a medium through which artists can express music in their individual voice. This is achieved through listening, conversations and interdisciplinary collaborations.
Episode 1: Élégie, Jules Massenet
Episode 2: Incomprensión, Jorge López Marín
Episode 3: Erlkönig, Franz Schubert
Episode 4: “The Wandering Father”, Noah Stevens
Graduate Masters Student
Singer and Dancer Runyu Feng embraced the concept of the Artist Vision Project, and with the mentorship of Lara Downes, created a remarkable final Masters of Music recital. As an interdisciplinary collaboration, Runyu’s project explored issues of history and the inherited interpretation of gender and cultural norms. By combining Chinese Classical Music and Dance with Western Classical Music and Contemporary Dance practice, collaborators from disparate perspectives created diverse storytelling to reflect different expressions of nature. The performance project aimed (and succeeded) to create a space for the audiences to experience the possibility of empowerment and self-awareness, through examining and challenging boundaries and balances.
Rose and Nightingale Adorning
Her Hair with Flowers 簪花引