THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS SCHOOL OF MUSIC FEbruary and March 2017
Faculty NEWS As a guest performer at Northwestern University Opera Theater, Joyce Castle, University Distinguished Professor of Voice, made four performances in Dialogues of the Carmelites in the role of “Madame de Croissy.” Abbey Dvor ak, assistant professor of music education and music therapy, and Bryan “Kip” Ha ahaim, professor of music composition, received a $35,000 National Endowment for the Arts Grant and a $10,000 starter grant from The Commons at KU for their project Improvising Inclusive Communities with the Adaptive Use Musical Instrument. The project includes a weeklong workshop for people with disabilities, community
performances with award-winning guest artist Jesse Stewart and a meeting of an international multidisciplinary research consortium dedicated to improvising communities across abilities using the AUMI. Other KU faculty members involved in the project are Sherrie Tucker, professor of American studies, Michelle Heffner Hayes, professor and chair of the dance department, and Nicole Hodges Persley, associate professor and acting department chair of theatre. Paul Laird, professor of musicology, presented three lectures in Madrid, Spain in January. The first on Jan. 11, concerning the musical theater of Stephen Schwartz, was at the Real Escuela Superior de Arte Dramático and was sponsored by the Asociación Cultural de Teatro Musical de Madrid. Laird also had a short residency on Jan. 16 and 17 at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, where he presented lectures on West Side Story and on editing orchestral scores for the Broadway theater, the latter based on his project of editing an orchestral score for Gypsy. All three lectures were in Spanish. Laird has published widely on both composers.
Margaret Marco, associate professor of oboe, and Eric Stomberg, associate professor of bassoon, visited the Universidad de Costa Rica where they were guest artists and guest teachers for the Encuentro de Oboes y Fagotes at the Escuela de Artes Musicales in San Jose from Feb. 6-9. The festival included four days of master classes and rehearsals and culminated in a joint recital with faculty from the Universidad de Costa Rica on the final night. In February, Bill Matney, assistant professor of music education and music therapy, had his article “The Effect of Specific Music Instrumentation on Anxiety Reduction in University Music Students: A Feasibility Study,” published online in the journal The Arts in Psychotherapy.
Cover Photo: On March 15, KU Wind Ensemble, directed by Paul Popiel, director of bands, performed at the College Band Directors National Association biennial conference in Kansas City, Missouri. The band was one of nine from across the country chosen to perform.
QuickNotes - February and March 2017 - music.ku.edu
The KU Alumni Magazine highlighted assistant professor of music theory Br ad Osborn’s new book Everything in its Right Place: Analyzing Radiohead (Oxford, 2016) in an interview published in the January 2017 issue.
Paul W. Popiel, director of bands, conducted the West-Central Missouri Music Education Association Honor Band in January at the University of Central Missouri. In early February, Popiel conducted the Prairie Winds Honor Band at the University of Kansas, and led a concert of the KU Wind Ensemble at the Lied Center featuring guest artists Chris Vadala, saxophone, and the Boston Brass. Popiel also led the KU Wind Ensemble at a concert at Lawrence High School, shared with all three concert bands from Lawrence High School. Popiel also gave rehearsal clinics to Olathe North, Blue Valley, and Blue Valley North high school bands.
The American Philosophical Society awarded Colin Roust, assistant professor of musicology, a $6,000 Franklin Research Grant, which will assist his research for the upcoming book about 20th-century French composer Georges Auric. In this 2015 photo, Roust (middle) is standing in the Salons Georges Auric at the headquarters of the Société des Auteurs, Compositeurs, et Editeurs de la Musique (SACEM) with François Bernaud (left), head of musical services, and Louis Diringer (right), director of membership. Auric was vice president, president and honorary president of SACEM from 1945 until his death in 1983. Matthew Smith, associate director of bands, served as guest conductor for the North Central Kansas League Honor Band on Feb. 1, and later that week worked with the Prairie Winds Festival Band and guest conducted the KU Wind Ensemble with soloist Chris Vadala on Chuck Mangione’s The Feel of a Vision. This winter he also served on a panel for the CBDNA Athletic Band committee to select collegiate marching band halftime shows for presentation at the 2017 CBDNA National Conference in Kansas City. On Feb. 11, Smith led the Lawrence Community
Orchestra in a silent film accompaniment to the Douglas Fairbanks’ classic The Mark of Zorro at historic Liberty Hall in downtown Lawrence. Ketty Wong, associate professor of ethnomusicology, published an article on the history and development of music education in Ecuador in Music Education in the Caribbean and Latin America: A Comprehensive Guide. Rowman & Littlefield in partnership with the National Association for Music Education released the book in February.
Student NEWS Benjamin Dominguez, a sophomore piano performance major, won the grand prize at the Naftzger Music Competition in Wichita in March. The Naftzger Competition attracts musicians from around the country. At 19, Dominquez is the youngest winner in the competition’s history. He performed Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in E flat minor, Beethoven’s Waldstein sonata, Schumann’s Symphonic Etudes and Debussy’s Reflections in the Water. Bethany Amundson, a DMA student in wind conducting, attended the Women’s Conducting Master Class with Marin Alsop and the BBC Orchestra. The event was held at the Southbank Centre, London, on January 27. The master class included podium time with the orchestra, a question and answer session with Marin Alsop and culminated with a 1 p.m. concert during which participants conducted Barber’s Adagio for Strings and Beethoven’s 5th Symphony. Maddie Bert, a junior flute performance major, and Debor ah Hass, a sophomore flute performance major, won the first and second prize at the St. Louis Flute Society Collegiate Young Artist Competition. Fr ank Nawrot, a first year DMA student in composition, had two compositions selected for the 2017 Society of Composers Region IV Student Conference at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro in January. His composition 100 Kilos was also selected for the 2017 Society of Composers Region VI Conference in February at the University of Texas – Arlington. Additionally, he has had two pieces premiere at North American Saxophone Alliance regional conferences.
QuickNotes - February and March 2017 - music.ku.edu
Sonata for Alto Saxophone premiered at Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick, Canada and Duet for Flute and Alto Saxophone premiered at a regional conference at Indiana University and Purdue University in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Nawrot studies with Ingrid Stölzel, assistant professor of music composition. Dorothy Glick Maglione, a PhD student in musicology, won a 2017 Summer Scholarship from the KU Graduate School. The $5,000 award will allow her to pursue dissertation research in libraries archives in New York City and Washington, DC. Her dissertation is on Ellis Island, immigration and American music in the early 20th century. The KU Office of Graduate Studies also recognized Maglione with the Chancellor’s GTA Award for the 2016-2017 academic. Maglione is a Chancellor’s Fellow and her doctoral advisor is Paul Laird. Nick May, a MM student in saxophone performance, won Arapahoe Philharmonic’s T. Gordon Parks Collegiate Concert Competition in January. On March 31, Nick received the award and performed Pierre-Max Dubois’ Concerto for Alto Saxophone with the orchestra. In 2016, Lisa Mullinger, a PhD student in musicology, published reviews of the book A Different Voice, A Different Song by Caroline Bithell in the Choral Journal and the book Singing the Right Way: Orthodox Christians and Secular Enchantment in Estonia by Jeffers Engelhardt in the Slavic and Eastern European Journal. Also, she presented three papers: “State Financing of Choral Composers in Saint Petersburg: The Case of RimskyKorsakov” at the College Music Society Rocky Mountain Chapter Regional Conference in Greeley, Colorado in March 2016 and at the College Music Society Great Plains Chapter Regional Conference in Kansas City, Missouri in March 2016, and “The Plurality of Russian Identity Evidenced by Choral Repertoire and Performance” at the Central Slavic Conference in St. Louis, Missouri in October 2016. Mullinger is writing her dissertation with Paul Laird. K ai Ono, a senior piano and composition major, received an Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composer Award from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. The award, named in honor of the great trumpeter Herb Alpert, who helps fund the program, aims to encourage gifted jazz composers under the age of 30. Ono was one of 19 musicians in the country to receive the award.
Earlier this year, Ono won first place in the international Great Composers Competition. His award was for Best Schubert Performance, an annual tribute to composer Franz Schubert.
jazz composition.
Also, Ono, along with Brock Chart, a music composition graduate student, received honorable mention in the New York Youth Symphony’s First Music program. The program selects seven of America’s emerging orchestra, chamber music and jazz composers under 30 to write commissions for the symphony’s 2017/2018 season. Ono and Chart received honorable mention for
Michael R aehpour, a senior music education major, was selected for the KU School of Education’s Teacher of Promise award. Only two pre-service teachers are selected from KU each year. Nor a Asteria R amli, a MM student in piano performance studying under Scott McBride Smith, won first place in the American Fine Arts Festival Concert competition, College Division. She performed the complete Saint-Saëns’ Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 22. Other winners were from Canada, South Korea, Hong Kong, Costa Rica, Germany, El Salvador, Poland and several US states. She will play in Carnegie Hall in New York on June 24. Madeleine Wilmsen, a junior BA major, was selected to perform in a master class for Demarre McGill, former principal flute of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra.
Alumni NEWS
Miriam Br ack Webber, a PhD candidate in music theory, received a President’s mini-grant from Bemidji State University to commission a composition from KU alum Nathan Jones, DMA’16 in composition. Jones wrote Three Ojibwe Stories, for bassoon, bass clarinet and two voices. The work premiered at a faculty recital on March 21 with Jeremy Wohletz, DMA ’12 in clarinet performance, on bass clarinet. Brack Webber is an assistant professor of music theory at Bemidji State University.
QuickNotes - February and March 2017 - music.ku.edu
Master Gunnery Sergeant Max Cripe, BM ’84, was part of “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band that took part in the presidential inauguration. The band performed during the swearing-in ceremony at the U.S. Capitol, the parade down Pennsylvania Avenue and the Salute to the Armed Forces Inaugural Ball. Cripe was appointed principal French horn player in 2014, section leader in 2014 and French horn/ euphonium section commander in 2015. Nathanael May, DMA ‘09, was featured in the magazine I Care If You Listen, a leading publication for new music. May discussed his role as founder and artistic director of the soundSCAPE Festival, which brings faculty and guests artists from around the world to a small village in the Italian Alps to create new music. May developed the concept as a DMA student at KU and the festival has grown into one of the premiere international programs for the development of professional artists. Brian Scarborough, BM ‘13 in trombone performance, was named one of three finalists for the International Trombone Association’s J.J. Johnson Jazz Trombone Competition. He will travel to Redlands, California this summer for the live finals round at the 2017 International Trombone Festival.
Upcoming Events APRIL APR. 4
COMPOSITION, BASSOON & OBOE COLLABORATION CONCERT
7:30 p.m. | Swarthout Recital Hall
APR. 5
FACULTY RECITAL: HANNAH COLLINS, CELLO
7:30 p.m. | Swarthout Recital Hall
APR. 6
WORLD PERCUSSION ENSEMBLES
APR. 7
APR. 11
APR. 12
EDWARDS CAMPUS RECITAL SERIES: STEPHANIE ZELNICK, CLARIENT 7:30 p.m. |Regnier Hall Auditorium
KU PERCUSSION GROUP WITH GUEST ARTIST ANDY BLISS
APR. 13
KU FACULTY JAZZ COMBO
7:30 p.m. | Swarthout Recital Hall
7:30 p.m. | Lawrence Arts Center
APR. 15
HELIANTHUS CONTEMPORARY ENSEMBLE
7:30 p.m. | Swarthout Recital Hall
APR. 18*
KU WIND ENSEMBLE
APR. 20
KU JAZZ COMBOS
7:30 p.m. | Lied Center
7:30 p.m. | Swarthout Recital Hall
APR. 20
KU HORN AND TROMBONE ENSEMBLES
7:30 p.m. | 130 Murphy Hall
APR. 21, 27, 29 APR. 23
KU OPERA: DON GIOVANNI
7:30 p.m. | Crafton-Preyer Theatre 2:30 p.m. | Crafton-Preyer Theatre Tickets at the door or (785) 864-3982
APR. 24
FACULTY RECITAL: PHILIP KRAMP, VIOLA
7:30 p.m. | Swarthout Recital Hall
APR. 25*
UNIVERSITY BAND & JAZZ ENSEMBLES II
APR. 25
KU CHOIRS: BALES CHORALE
7:30 p.m. | Lied Center
7:30 p.m. | Bales Recital Hall
APR. 28 KU CHOIRS 7:30 p.m. | Corpus Christi Catholic Church APR. 30 COLLEGIUM MUSICUM 7:30 p.m. | Swarthout Recital Hall
MAY MAY 1
VISITING ARTIST: ALINA NIKITINA, ORGAN 7:30 p.m. | Bales Organ Recital Hall
7:30 p.m. | Lawrence Arts Center
MAY 2*
KU SYMPHONIC BAND
LANGSTON HUGHES PROJECT WITH RON MCCURDY
MAY 3
TUBA-EUPHONIUM CONSORT
MAY 3*
PALOS NUEVOS: FLAMENCO/JAZZ PROJECT WITH KU JAZZ ENSEMBLE I & KU DANCE DEPARTMENT
7:30 p.m. | Swarthout Recital Hall
APR. 9
7:30 p.m. | Lied Center
7:30 p.m. | Swarthout Recital Hall
VISITING ARTIST: BORROMEO STRING QUARTET 7:30 p.m. | Swarthout Recital Hall
7:30 p.m. | Lied Center free admission,
APR. 10 BRASS AND PERCUSSION 7:30 p.m. | Swarthout Recital Hall
MAY 4
KU YOUTH CHORUS
APR. 11
KU SAXOPHONE QUARTETS 7:30 p.m. | Swarthout Recital Hall
5:15 p.m. | 328 Murphy Hall
*Concert will be live streamed. Live stream updates available here.
QuickNotes - February and March 2017 - music.ku.edu