About

EnLiven - verb
en·li·ven | enlivened; enlivening; enlivens

definition
: to give life, action, or spirit to.

In Fall 2020, Michael van der Sloot, a professor of Violin in the School of Music at the University of Ottawa had as an idea to build a database of musical works by composers who are lesser known within the Western classical tradition. With the goal of introducing his students to voices silenced by the white Western tradition, Michael wanted to create the opportunity for his students to build a rich repertoire that is more diverse and inclusive of musical voices.

Through collaboration with Jada Watson, the idea of Music EnLivened was born. With Jada’s creativity and knowledge in both the areas of music and data management EnLivened has transformed into an open database on this Omeka platform.

Music EnLivened was born of a mission to spotlight composers of the Western classical tradition whose music is not often performed whether because their music was believed lost and newly discovered, their lives and careers were impacted by political or cultural systems, or their time with us was cut short. Oftentimes, the absence of these voices was the result of systemic oppression – racism, sexism, heterosexism, ableism – rendering the musical voices and stories of Black, Indigenous, people of colour, women, 2SLGBTQIA+, and disabled or neurodivergent composers silenced to the public.

Through Music EnLivened, we aim to give (re)new(ed) life not just to these works, but also to our students as they continue their musical journey through their studies. This work is only just beginning. We aim to build a database that can be used by our students, by your students, and by professional musicians who are looking to build their performance repertoire.

This is ongoing work and we will add new repertoire to the database as they as submitted to the database.

Contribute to the database: submit a musical work!