Prof. Jesse Stewart plays a bibliophone鈥攁 xylophone made out of hardcover books鈥攊n the MacOdrum Library.

By Emily Cook, TLS Staff Writer

Beyond instruments and traditional orchestras, Jesse Stewart believes music has the power to bring people together and change the world. And he鈥檚 playing a role in that, starting in the classroom.

Stewart, a faculty member with 杏吧原创 University鈥檚 music program, was recognized with a 2017 D2L Innovation Award in Teaching and Learning. His philosophy for music-making, teaching and learning is simple.

鈥淚 would like to make music with as many people as possible, from as many different kinds of backgrounds as possible,鈥� he says.

Music is now being listened to and experienced in whole new ways because of technology, says Stewart, and it’s changing the roles of composer, performer and audience member. He encourages students in his composition class to reconsider these roles through a web-based learning project.

鈥淩ather than relying on received ideas of what each of those things entails, I try to encourage students to think critically about them,鈥� he says.

One group of students took that concept and built the . They recorded sounds across campus and input them into an online map. The viewer interacts with the map, creating a unique kind of instrument.

Stewart says he believes students are active agents in their learning. So when he wanted to expand his instrumentation and orchestration course textbook to include non-Western symphony instruments, he turned to his students.

Stewart had his students complete assignments on different instruments and then put them together in an online textbook for future classes.

鈥淭he reality is that composers today are using all kinds of different instruments and are writing for all kinds of different instruments in their work,鈥� he says.

The orchestras in Stewart鈥檚 ensemble course are perfect examples of this. Stewart acts as a facilitator, while as a group, students create an ensemble that is unique and innovative in its approach to instrumentation. One ensemble called The Balloon Orchestra used latex balloons as musical instruments. Another, Paperphonics, explored the use of paper and cardboard. The H2Orchestra experimented with the sonic potential of water.

鈥淚 see that as one of my responsibilities as an educator, to hopefully expose students in my classes to things they might not come across otherwise,鈥� he says.

But Stewart鈥檚 impact as an educator extends well beyond the classroom and into the community.

His Music and Social Justice course explores music as an agent for positive social change. One of his classes visited an Ottawa-area school and made musical instruments with the children, many of who come from disadvantaged backgrounds.

鈥淚 hope that maybe those kids will think, 鈥楳usic can be part of my life,鈥欌�� he says.

Stewart says he recognizes many people experience barriers to music, which he believes is a fundamental right.

鈥淚 believe music has a very important role to play, not just in modeling social justice, but in actually bringing about social justice,鈥� he says. 鈥淚 think as a society, we have a responsibility to ensure everyone has access to the arts and to music.鈥�

Jesse Stewart rehearses in Blue Whale skeleton at Canadian Museum of Nature for Nocturne performance. Photo by Brett Delmage

By: Emily Cook, TLS staff writer

For Professor Jesse Stewart, music-making is not an exclusive club; it鈥檚 a fundamental human right.

Stewart says he teaches students creative problem solving and interpersonal skills through the use of 鈥渇ound objects.鈥� In one of his classes, you might find an ensemble of paper and cardboard instruments, a latex balloon orchestra, or instruments made of water.

鈥淚 try to create a space in my classes in which we can learn from one another and we can learn from and celebrate our differences,鈥� says Stewart.

A Juno award winner, Stewart has taught in the music program at 杏吧原创 University since 2008. He has earned a number of honours along the way, including the 2013聽. In 2014, he was聽,聽and this year, he added a to his long list of accomplishments.

Stewart says he sees his teaching as learner-centred, and focused on dialoguing and co-learning with students.

鈥淚鈥檓 engaged in the process of learning in any classroom setting that I鈥檓 fortunate enough to be a part of,鈥� he says.

Stewart also volunteers in the community and involves his students in those projects to help facilitate inclusive music learning outside school. He once hired students to work on an installation of recycled percussion instruments that formed an eight-foot cube. It was a project he was hired for by the National Capital Commission for Canada Day.

鈥淭hat was part of their job, basically to facilitate the process of inclusive music-making among passersby,鈥� he says.

Community engagement will also influence how Stewart uses the $15,000 grant from the Teaching Achievement Award. He plans to buy iPads to incorporate into his classes and other professional work.

He says he hopes to further develop iPad applications like the Adaptive Use Musical Instrument (AUMI), which translates movement into sound. Stewart says programs like this can help everyone create music.

鈥淚t鈥檚 the possibility of allowing people who may have experienced barriers to making music because of limited motor control or because of disability, providing opportunities for them to actually engage in music-making with other musicians,鈥� he says.

Stewart says he sees the iPads as a way to bridge his work with students in the classroom to bigger issues in the wider community.

鈥淚 feel as a society we have a responsibility to ensure that everyone, including people with disabilities, including the poor, including people with no prior musical training, has an opportunity to make music.鈥�