DEPARTMENT NEWS Peabody student, faculty, and alumni news all in one place, sorted by department to make it easier for you to find your colleagues and classmates. BRASS See Peter Folliard in Conducting In the spring and summer, Sahffi Lynne (BM ’93, French Horn) presented online medicine music concerts called “Hearts Connected from Home” with short Medicine Music Meditations followed by a song circle share. Justin Nurin (GPD ’10, Trumpet) has been the custodian of the Instrument of Hope, a handcrafted trumpet made of bullet casings, which is aimed at “keeping the gun violence conversation on the main stage.” He has performed on it for several concerts, including one at Carnegie Hall. Preparatory faculty artist Daniel Trahey (BM ’00, Tuba, Music Education) has received a two-year fellowship from the Jubilation Foundation. Trahey created the Collective Conservatory during the COVID-19 global pandemic to facilitate access to music and music education. Faculty artist Larry Williams (BM ’88, GPD ’90, French Horn) performed as a member of the Yamaha All-Star Big Band with Boston Brass at the Midwest Clinic in Chicago in December.
C O MPO SITION Nicholas Bentz (BM ’17, Composition, Violin; MM ’18, Violin) was selected as the first prize winner of Tribeca New Music’s Young Composer Competition in Division I (ages 22–35) for his piece Glimpse, for clarinet, violin, cello, and piano. He was also awarded the American Prize in Composition for orchestral music, student division, for his piece A Cosmos in Stone, Respawning, commissioned by the Charleston Symphony. On February 20, the New York premiere of Pale Icons of Night, by Chair of the Composition Department Oscar Bettison, was performed by Alarm Will Sound, with faculty artist Courtney Orlando, violin. Bettison’s Livre des Sauvages was also performed. Sunset at Noon, a composition by Sergio Cervetti (BM ’67, Composition), was performed by the Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra on May 13. Two songs from Cervetti’s Elegy For A Prince were performed February 16 by The Distinguished Concerts Orchestra and Singers at Carnegie Hall. California Symphony announced Viet Cuong (BM ’11, MM ’12, Composition) as its new Young American Composer-inResidence from 2020 to 2023.
Doctoral composition student Richard Drehoff Jr. (MM ’18, Composition, Music Theory Pedagogy) was commissioned by the Dina Koston and Roger Shapiro Fund for New Music in the Library of Congress as part of The Boccaccio Project: A Series of Musical Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic. His piece for oboe alone, shadow of a difference / falling, was written for Andrew Nogal of the Grossman Ensemble. Composition professor Du Yun’s Sweet Land, a multiperspectival opera that explores the myths of American identity, was presented by The Industry in the Los Angeles State Historic Park in March and then was available to be viewed online. Ellen Fishman (DMA ’95, Composition) had her composition Ruptures premiered by pianist Marilyn Nonken at New York University on February 23 as part of the Composers Now festival. See Alexandra Gardner in Percussion Zach Gulaboff Davis (MM ’19, Music Theory Pedagogy; DMA ’19, Composition), who was a student of Kevin Puts and Michael Hersch, has been awarded the Beyer Composition Award in Chamber Music from the National Federation of Music Clubs for his first string quartet, On the Trajectory of Light. A film of the 2015 production at Peabody of On the Threshold of Winter by Composition Professor Michael Hersch (BM ’95, MM ’97, Composition) featuring Associate Professor of Voice Ah Young Hong (BM ’98, MM ’01, Voice) is available in its entirety online. Hersch also premiered the script of storms, featuring Hong, with the BBC Symphony Orchestra on February 14 in London.
C O N DUC TIN G Director of Graduate Conducting Marin Alsop was hired as the first chief conductor and curator of the Ravinia Festival, the summer home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, for a two-year appointment. She and André Watts (AD ’72, Piano) were elected as new members of American Philosophical Society, the oldest learned society in the United States. Peter Folliard (MM ’09, Conducting, Euphonium) has been appointed the inaugural dean for the Augustana University School of Music in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. American conductor Norman Huynh (MM ’13, Conducting) has been appointed the new music director of the Bozeman Symphony in Bozeman, Montana. He’s been serving as the associate music director of the Oregon Symphony. Conducting master’s student Leonard Weiss was asked to write a guest column for Australia’s Limelight Magazine, its foremost arts media company. The piece is titled “A Year with Marin Alsop.”
EN SEM B L E S NEW FACULTY
See also Michael Hersch in Vocal Studies Chesley Kahmann (’58, Composition) released her 17th album Love of Life, which features 11 of her original songs sung by The Interludes. Jason Mulligan (MM ’16, Composition) was recently awarded the 2020 Charles Ives Scholarship by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Matthew J. Pellegrino, a DMA composition student of Oscar Bettison, won third place in the Asia-America New Music Institute competition for his composition Anywhere Arirang. Sun-Young “Sunny” Park (DMA ’19, Composition) is the director of the South Korean section of the AsiaAmerica New Music Institute.
BETH WILLER, director of choral studies, is founder and artistic director of Boston’s Lorelei Ensemble, which seeks to elevate and expand the repertoire for women’s voices. Willer served as director of choral activities at Bucknell University, where she led the University Choir and Camerata and taught courses in conducting, chamber music, arts entrepreneurship, and choral music education.
In April, Jake Runestad (MM ’11, Composition; MM ’12, Music Theory Pedagogy) released a new piece called Elegy — music about loss. Runestad released a video of its performance with conductor John Byun and the Riverside City College Chamber Singers from early March. PEABODY
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