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.

COMPOSITION

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.

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.

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.

CONDUCTING

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.”

ENSEMBLES

NEW FACULTY 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.

GUITAR

Andrea González Caballero (GPD ’20, Guitar) collaborated remotely to create a new work with composer Dustin Carlson, Picture Wandering Ground, as part of a project by the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music. The project raised money for performers who have lost employment because of COVID-19.

See Nathan Cornelius in Music Theory

Director of Peabody’s LAUNCHPad Zane Forshee (MM ’01, GPD ’03, DMA ’11, Guitar) released a new recording that focuses on the works of Vicente Asencio and several other Valencian composers titled Valenciano.

See also Zane Forshee in Percussion

Assistant Professor Serap Bastepe-Gray (BM ’96, MM ’99, Guitar) and Chair of the Guitar Department Julian Gray (BM ’79, MM ’82, Guitar) were published in the Journal of Chemical Neuroanatomy. Their study aimed to investigate brain activation differences during the different ways musicians mentally practice previously learned repertoire.

LeeLee Hunter (BM ’11, MM ’13, Guitar) had a paper titled “Spirituals and Identity in the Harlem Renaissance and the Civil Rights Movement” accepted at the 18th Annual Society for Musicology in Ireland Plenary Conference. Hunter is slated to present this paper as a lecture recital in collaboration with soprano Chelsea Buyalos (BM ’11, MM ’12, Voice) at the University College Dublin, School of Music, in October.

Finbarr Malafronte (BM ’08, MM ’09, Guitar), who studied with Manuel Barrueco, released a new album with the label Quartz. Maestros of the Baroque is entirely composed of Malafronte’s arrangements of music by Jean-Philippe Rameau and Domenico Scarlatti.

See Zoe Johnstone Stewart in Preparatory

See Meng Su in Percussion

HARP

Anastasia Pike (MM ’07, Harp), a former student of Jeanne Chalifoux, gave a solo recital sponsored by Columbia University, performed a concert with violinist Itzhak Perlman, and gave the U.S. premieres of Johan de Meij’s transcriptions of his Sinfonietta and Symphony No. 1.

NEW FACULTY JUNE HAN, assistant professor of harp, is a proponent of chamber and contemporary music, and has performed with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Alarm Will Sound, and many other groups. As an orchestral musician, she’s performed with the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, and the Metropolitan Opera. The daughter of renowned composer Young Ja Lee, Han is an advocate of music by living composers and has given numerous world premieres.

HISTORICAL PERFORMANCE

Moran, and Margaret Owens, and several alumni were featured in a collaborative performance of Bach’s Messe in H-moll, BWV 232, by the Washington Bach Consort in May. Cellist Wade Davis (MM ’11, GPD ’13, Baroque Violoncello) performed Camille Saint-Saëns’s Le Cygne (The Swan) in a video featuring 32 premier ballerinas from 22 dance companies in 14 countries in support of Swans for Relief. Niccolo Seligmann (BM ’15, Viola da Gamba) released his debut album of solo viola da gamba improvisations, Kinship, on February 26 at his Strathmore Artist-in-Residence concert.

JAZZ

Sean Jones, the Richard and Elizabeth Case Chair in Jazz Studies, faculty artist Wendel Patrick, and Brinae Ali performed in Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Jazz from Home on April 26. Jones also taught in the JTole Summer Jazz Workshop in July. Jazz faculty Sean Jones, Kris Funn, Quincy Phillips, and alumnus Mark G. Meadows (BM ’11, GPD ’13, Jazz Piano; KSAS BA ’11, Psychology) were featured on the NPR show Jazz Night in America in a segment about the resurgence of jazz in the area, “Baltimore Rebirth: A New Bloom of Jazz in Charm City.” See Russell Kirk in Percussion See Randi Withani Robertsin Vocal Studies

LIBERAL ARTS

Faculty member Jelena Runić, liberal arts, published “Strong Pronouns in Slavic and Japanese” in the book Current Developments in Slavic Linguistics: 20 Years After. On June 22, she gave a video guest lecture at the University of Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina, titled “Surviving the Research World: Strategies for Journal Article Abstract Writing.”

MUSIC EDUCATION

Michael Blackman (MM ’05, Music Education), band director for River Hill High School in Clarksville, Maryland, was selected to represent the state in School Band and Orchestra magazine’s “50 Directors Who Make a Difference in the United States.”

See Sean Meyers in Woodwinds

See Tyrone Page Jr. in Vocal Studies

See Daniel Trahey in Brass

MUSIC TECHNOLOGY

NEW FACULTY CHRIS KENNEDY, assistant professor of music for new media, is the senior composer at Noise Distillery/Clean Cuts Music in Baltimore. An Emmy-nominated composer for film and TV, he has scored music for NBC, PBS, Smithsonian, Discovery, and National Geographic. Additionally, he helped launch a game audio department at Clean Cuts where his music has been featured on games such as the Drawn trilogy.

Matthew Burtner (MM ’97, Electronic/ Computer Music) has been elected to the 2020 class of the Johns Hopkins Society of Scholars, which honors former Hopkins affiliates who have achieved marked distinction in their fields. He is the Eleanor Shea Chaired Professor of Music in Composition and Computer Technologies at the University of Virginia where he co-directs the Coastal Futures Conservatory.

Professor Thomas Dolby, Music for New Media, was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award in the 2020 Baltimore Alternative Music Awards from WTMD, a public radio station at Towson University in Towson, Maryland.

Ashna Pathan, a junior in the Music for New Media program, organized, engineered, and edited a video featuring 73 musicians (including 11 Johns Hopkins students) from all over the world performing Verdi’s Overture to La Forza del Destino. She was also a finalist in the Television Academy (Emmy Awards) internship program.

MUSIC THEORY

NEW FACULTY JESSICA HUNT (she/her/hers), assistant professor, has been commissioned by the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra, and the Gaudete Brass Quintet among others. Hunt’s music has been performed in concert by esteemed ensembles and performers such as the Chiara Quartet, CCM Chorale, Axiom Brass, and the Calidore Quartet. She champions the works of underrepresented composers through creative analysis and curricular development.

Assistant Professor Jenine Brown and Nathan Cornelius (DMA ’18, Guitar) published an article on “Hearing Tetrachords in an Atonal Context” in the Journal of New Music Research. Brown also had an article titled “Improving Sight-Singing Skills using the New SmartMusic Website” published by the College Music Symposium.

See Richard Drehoff Jr. in Composition

See Zach Gulaboff Davis in Composition

On July 21, Director of Academic Technology and Instructional Design Joseph Montcalmo, Instructional Technologist Martine Richards, and Music Theory Professor and Online Course Coordinator Stephen Stone presented “Graduate-Level Prerequisite Testing and Remedial Education in the Age of COVID19” at Blackboard World 2020.

The Fix, an opera by Chair and Associate Professor of Music Theory Joel Puckett, was included in the Minnesota Opera’s digital summer series, which streamed online.

See Jake Runestad in Composition

Music Theory Professor Kip Wile has been elected president and Assistant Professor Jenine Brown has been elected secretary of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic.

NEW FACULTY Pianist AGUSTIN MURIAGO, assistant professor of keyboard skills, has performed throughout the United States, Spain, China, Brazil, and in his native Argentina. His repertoire ranges from standard piano works to contemporary music premieres, with an emphasis on Spanish and Argentine music. He has played at Steinway Hall in New York City, the Teatro Ópera in Buenos Aires, and the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing.

NEW FACULTY COURTNEY ORLANDO, who has been artistic director of Peabody’s contemporary music ensemble Now Hear This since 2015, has been appointed assistant professor for ear training in music theory. Orlando specializes in the performance of contemporary and crossover music. She is a founding member of Alarm Will Sound, which has premiered works by and collaborated with some of the foremost composers of our time.

ORGAN

Doctoral candidate Jordan Prescott (MM ’19, Organ) presented a workshop as part of AGO’s PipeTalks, which was a virtual national convention. Prescott’s talk was called “Foresight Is 20/20: Preparing for Graduate School Applications.”

PERCUSSION

Preparatory faculty artist Adam Rosenblatt (BM ’10, Percussion; KSAS BS ’10, Molecular/Cellular Biology) and Meng Su (PC ’09, GPD ’11, MM ’16, AD ’18, Guitar; GPD ’15, Chamber Ensemble) were two of the top recipients of the Maryland State Arts Council’s $10,000 Independence Artist Award. Director of LAUNCHPad and guitar faculty artist Zane Forshee (MM ’01, GPD ’03, DMA ’11, Guitar), Alexandra Gardner (MM ’97, Composition), and Russell Kirk (BM ’05, Jazz Saxophone) are among the recipients of the $2,000 award.

Sandbox Percussion — Victor Caccese (BM ’11, Percussion), Terry Sweeney (BM ’13, Percussion), Ian Rosenbaum (BM ’08, Percussion), and Jonathan Allen — produced a weekly series of livestreams from their respective homes. They also released their debut album And That One Too.

Visiting Lecturer Ji Su Jung (BM ’16, GPD ’17, Percussion) performed Composition Professor Kevin Puts’ Marimba Concerto on February 28 with the Yale Philharmonica.

PIANO

NEW FACULTY An acclaimed pianist, recording artist, professor, and collaborator, STEVEN SPOONER is passionately devoted to the solo recital as a platform for innovation. He is a top prize winner at both the Hilton Head and the Artlivre International Piano competitions. As an enthusiast for new music, he has an ongoing collaboration with composer Mohammed Fairouz. Spooner is co-founder and artistic director of the Chicago International Music Competition and Festival.

Brian Ganz (AD ’93, Piano) performed on May 26 as part of the 17th Alba Music Festival in Italy.

Washington Garcia’s (MM ’98, DMA ’03, Piano) solo performance from November 2001 with the Peabody Symphony Orchestra led by Hajime Teri Murai, was aired in July on KVNO 90.7, the classical radio station in Omaha, Nebraska. The Omaha Performing Arts also streamed an all-Chopin recital by Garcia on July 1.

Yuliya Gorenman (DMA ’95, Piano) performed the complete Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, Books 1 and 2, at the Dani Bacha u Splitu festival dedicated to Bach’s music in Split, Croatia, in March 2019.

Professor Seth Knopp serves as artistic director at Yellow Barn, a Vermont summer festival, where Associate Professor of Voice Tony Arnold, soprano, performed György Kurtág’s Kafka Fragments, and Arnold and Knopp performed together in the season finale.

HOCKET, a cutting-edge piano duo based in Los Angeles with Sarah Gibson and Thomas Kotcheff (BM ’10, Piano), has commissioned 50 composers to join them in their new project, #What2020SoundsLike.

Mark Markham (BM ’84, MM ’86, DMA ’91, Piano) paid tribute to his longtime recital partner Jessye Norman by performing during her four-hour-long funeral service on October 12 playing his arrangement of “Deep River.” In November he performed it on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera.

William Phemister (MM ’70, DMA ’73, Piano) gave concerts and workshops in Senegal in February. Alfred Music published his collection of 10 piano hymn arrangements in an album called Holy, Holy, Holy, and Rowman & Littlefield published his American Piano Concerto Compendium.

Melody Quah (DMA ’17, Piano) joined the Penn State School of Music as assistant professor of music. She teaches graduate and undergraduate piano students, including piano literature courses.

Roberta Rust (BM ’76, Piano) performed recitals and gave master classes at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University and Stephen F. Austin State University in January. In 2019, she performed recitals and gave master classes in Singapore, Manila, Iowa, Arizona, and Oregon.

Directed by Daniel Schlosberg (BM ’00, MM ’01, Piano; KSAS BA ’00, History), Baltimore Lieder Weekend XI will be held October 16 to 18 and titled “‘The Price Is Right:’ Leontyne & Florence & Art Song.” Schlosberg also performs on a new recording, Rebellious: Music of Julius Eastman.

Rosemary Tuck (MM ’86, Piano) wrote about Beethoven’s favorite pupil, Carl Czerny, for International Piano and Limelight magazines. She discovered Czerny’s manuscripts from the Gesellschaft Der Musikfreunde in Wien and is recording a series of albums featuring his music.

Concert pianist Daniel Vnukowski (BM ’03, Piano), who studied with Leon Fleisher, livestreamed performances in April and May, reaching over a million views on social media and over 500,000 video views.

See André Watts in Conducting

Doctoral candidate Xiaohui Yang, piano, made her Carnegie Hall debut on January 21. She premiered a work by Shulamit Ran titled Ballade and performed works by Beethoven, Fauré, Chopin, and Saint-Saëns.

PREPARATORY

Several Preparatory students placed at the Maryland/DC Chapter of the National Association of Teachers of Singing Competition held in February. Elisabeth Stevens won third place in the Youth category. In the Lower High School Men Classical and Musical Theatre categories, Ari Paley won first place and Oliver Drachmann won second place. Laura Stannell won first in the Upper High School Women category. Timothy McCoy placed second in the Second Year College/ Independent Studio Men category.

Ankush Bahl, who serves as the conductor of the Peabody Youth Orchestra, has been named music director of the Omaha Symphony, to start in August 2021.

Preparatory student Miyabi Henriksen received first place at the Friday Morning Music Club High School Competition for Strings in Washington, D.C.; the Londontowne Symphony Orchestra Young Artist Competition; and the Columbia Orchestra Young Artist Competition in the Senior Division.

Preparatory alumna Leia Sofía Méndez, who was a composition student of Judah Adashi, composed a musical tribute to the Hubble Space Telescope, which was played at a National Science Teaching Association seminar on April 29.

The CD, Speak, Be Silent, by Riot Ensemble with Preparatory alumna Sarah Saviet, was listed by The New Yorker’s Alex Ross as one of the best classical CDs of 2019.

Zoe Johnstone Stewart (MM ’05, Guitar) has been appointed the new chair of the Guitar Department at the Peabody Preparatory.

The Peabody Community Chorus, directed by Kristen Toedtman (MM ’98, Voice), organized a virtual choir of We Shall Be Known by MaMuse.

STRINGS

Claire Allen (MM ’13, Violin) received the 2019 Outstanding String Teacher Award from the Virginia Chapter of the American String Teachers Association.

See Nicholas Bentz in Composition

In May, Carter Brey (BM ’76, Cello), principal cellist with the New York Philharmonic, performed and was featured in a candid online conversation with the group’s President and CEO Deborah Borda about the orchestra during this pandemic.

David Chentian (Gu) (MM ’15, Cello/ Pedagogy; GPD ’16, Cello), recently released several new albums on major music platforms, Cello Spirit, Charming Cello, Magnificent Cello, and Melodious Cellotune.

On March 19, Slawomir Grenda (BM ’92, MM ’93, Double Bass) performed as guest principal bass at the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, where Lorna Rough (GPD ’92, Violin) has been first violin since 2001.

Judith Ingolfsson, professor of violin, released a new CD, The Happiest Years: Sonatas for Violin Solo by Artur Schnabel and Eduard Erdmann. She also released the CD La Belle Époque: Works by Eugène Ysaÿe, Théodore Dubois and César Franck with pianist Vladimir Stoupel. Duo Ingolfsson-Stoupel were presenting the Homeland Concerts, online concerts twice a week.

Charlene Kluegel (MM ’11, GPD ’12, Violin) has joined the editorial board of the American String Teacher Journal for a two-year tenure.

Faculty artist Qing Li (PC ’91, BM ’92, Violin) performed a livestreamed-from-home concert for BSO OffStage on June 28.

Cello Professor Amit Peled released a new recording of Franz Schubert’s String Trio in B-flat major and String Quintet in C major with the Aviv Quartet on the Naxos label. His pedagogical philosophy and cello emoji approach were featured in the scientific research journal The Senses and Society.

Alaina Rea (GPD ’20, Viola) has won the assistant principal viola position of the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra for the upcoming season.

Ryo Usami (BM ’17, Violin), who studied with Violaine Melançon, won a position with “The President’s Own” U.S. Marine Chamber Orchestra in Washington, D.C.

VOCAL ACCOMPANYING

Nathan Cicero (MM ’18, Vocal Accompanying) was a pianist for a Schubert Karaoke Brunch in January, as a member of The Lied Society in Minneapolis. He was also musical director for Skylark Opera’s production of Così fan tutte in March 2019.

Celeste Johnson (MM ’14, Vocal Accompanying) performed in January as one of 10 collaborative pianists selected for Carnegie Hall’s International 2020 SongStudio workshop, led by the world-renowned soprano Renée Fleming. Johnson will be a resident artist with Minnesota Opera for its 2020–21 season.

Johanna Kvam (MM ’16, Vocal Accompanying) has been promoted to be mainstage répétiteur for all major productions in her second season as Sanford Studio Artist Pianist with Kentucky Opera.

Hyejin Kwon (MM ’11, Vocal Accompanying) gave a master class for piano majors at the Claude Watson School for the Arts in Ontario, where they have been studying the skills required to be a répétiteur.

Peyson Moss (MM ’16, Vocal Accompanying) has joined the music faculty at Brevard College in North Carolina as a vocal departmental pianist and coach and continues to serve as the director of music and organist at the Brevard-Davidson River Presbyterian Church.

Mary Trotter (MM ’13, Vocal Accompanying) performed Schumann’s Dichterliebe with the Minneapolis-based vocal group Cantus in July 2019.

VOCAL STUDIES

Jason Berger (GPD ’18, Voice) was featured on the Today Show for a viral video of him singing while working at Starbucks. Berger joined OperaDelware as a Young Artist for its spring festival.

See Chelsea Buyalos in Guitar

Mind on Fire presented 11 short art performances in a Virtual Variety Show online on July 11 in collaboration with the Enoch Pratt Free Library. Taylor Hillary Boykins (MM ’14, Voice), Jennifer Hughson (MM ’12, Clarinet), Tyrone Page Jr. (BM ’16, MM ’18, Saxophone; BM ’16, Music Education), Stephanie Ray (MM ’12 Flute), and Randi Withani Roberts (’16, Jazz Voice) were featured.

In February, Allison Clendaniel (BM ’12, Voice) appeared in the world premiere of a new opera, The First Thing That Happens, which opened a new performance space, The Voxel, in Baltimore.

In March, tenor Peter Scott Drackley (’12, Voice) played the role of Justice Scalia in the opera Scalia/Ginsburg by Professional Studies faculty member and composer Derrick Wang with Opera Carolina at Queens University in Charlotte.

Heartbeat Opera posted a video of its virtual choir, orchestra, dancers, and gardeners bringing to digital life Bernstein’s “Make Our Garden Grow” from Candide, featuring Taylor-Alexis Dupont (MM ’16, Voice) and Gleb Kanasevich (BM ’11, Clarinet) as audio engineer.

Assistant Professor Carl DuPont, Brittani McNeill (GPD ’15, Voice), and Melissa Wimbish (GPD ’11, Voice; GPD ’14, Chamber Ensemble) performed a medley of spirituals, art songs, and traditional readings in an IN Series virtual concert commemorating Juneteenth.

Claudia Friedlander (MM ’95, Clarinet, Voice) released her second book, The Singer’s Audition and Career Handbook, which was created as a comprehensive guide for launching and sustaining a rewarding career in classical singing.

In January, Associate Professor Ah Young Hong (BM ’98, MM ’01, Voice), soprano, performed in György Kurtág’s Kafka Fragments at Seattle Symphony and at Philadelphia’s Network for New Music. She also gave the world premiere of Agatha by Composition Professor Michael Hersch (BM ’95, MM ’97, Composition) on February 21 at Camerata Bern in Switzerland.

See also Ah Young Hong in Composition

Mofan Lai (BM ’20, Voice) has been named one of two recipients of the 2020 Johns Hopkins University President’s Commendation for Achievement in the Arts, a service award to honor a graduating senior who has contributed extensively to the arts by service to the Homewood and/or Baltimore communities.

Benjamin Matis (BM ’94, Voice) edited the academic anthology Studies in Polish Jewry, Volume 32: Jews and Music-Making in the Polish Lands. The volume’s essays provide an original exploration of the activities and creativity of musicians of the Jewish faith.

Outcalls — Britt Olsen-Ecker (BM ’09, Voice) and Melissa Wimbish (GPD ’11, Voice; GPD ’14, Chamber Ensemble) — had their single, “Mother,” featured on Canadian astrologist Chani Nicholas’ “Cosmic Playlist” series for Gemini. The band was also a finalist for the 2020 Baker Artist Awards.

In March, Bel Cantanti premiered Frances Pollock’s (MM ’15, Voice) full-length opera Briscula the Magician. The production featured Jennifer Blades (MM ’97, GPD ’98, Voice) as stage director, John T. K. Scherch (MM ’17, Voice, Pedagogy), and Daniel Sampson (MM ’19, Voice) at the Randolph Road Theater in Silver Spring, Maryland. Pollock was also the composer-in-residence for last summer’s Chautauqua Opera.

Elizabeth Sarian (BM ’17, GPD ’18, Voice) worked with the Atlanta Opera, recording singing telegrams for health care workers, hospital patients, and seniors. She was featured in a video and article on CNN for her work.

On January 30, Associate Professor Randall Scarlata, baritone, performed a recital with pianist Gilbert Kalish at Capistrano Concert Hall as part of Sacramento State’s New Millennium Series. Scarlata and Kalish were nominated for a Grammy in 2019 for their Schubert recording.

Caitlin Vincent (MM ’09, Voice) writes in The Conversation, a global network of newsrooms, that by moving artistic offerings online, companies have undervalued their own product, similar to the newspaper industry’s shift to online platforms.

WOODWINDS

On July 19, faculty artist Brad Balliett, bassoon, and French horn player Laura Weiner performed solos and duets in an online concert that was part of ChamberFest Canandaigua’s summer music festival in Canandaigua, New York.

See Claudia Friedlander in Vocal Studies

See Jennifer Hughson in Vocal Studies

See Gleb Kanasevich in Vocal Studies

Dutch conductor Robert Kahn (BM ’15, Clarinet; KSAS BS ’15, Physics) directed student musicians at the Curtis Institute of Music in a performance of America the Beautiful for a video dedicated to health care workers. Kahn was recently chosen as the 2019 Conducting Fellow at Curtis.

Sean Meyers (BM ’16, Saxophone, Music Education) is a founding member of the award-winning Vanguard Reed Quintet, which released its debut album, Red Leaf Collection. The full-length album features six world-premiere recordings of compositions for reed quintet.

See Tyrone Page Jr. in Vocal Studies

On July 29, Flute Professor Marina Piccinini performed the world premiere of Siren Song for Solo Flute by Aaron Jay Kernis in the Seattle Chamber Music Society’s Virtual Summer Festival. More than 70 alumni and all current students from Piccinini’s flute studio collaborated to record a special arrangement of Elgar’s “Nimrod” from Enigma Variations, by junior flute student Hannah Tassler.

See Stephanie Ray in Vocal Studies

Juniors Siyuan Yin, In Soo Oh, and Gemma Baek won the first, second, and third prizes, respectively, in the Sidney Forrest Clarinet Competition (college division) hosted virtually by the University of Maryland School of Music. All three are students of Alexander Fiterstein.

IN MEMORIAM

Eva F. Anderson (TC ’51, Piano; TC ’52, Theory; TC ’53, Cello; BM ’54, Piano; MM ’58, Cello)

Ruth Fisher (TC ’53, Piano), former Peabody alumni association president

Leon Fleisher, Andrew W. Mellon Chair in Piano

Douglas Heist (MM ’76, DMA ’94, Piano), Preparatory faculty

Manuel Maramba (MM ’56, AD ’58, Piano; BM ’58, Composition)

Christopher “Kris” McCormick (MM ’17, Composition)

Shirley F. Silver (TC ’40, Piano)

Bradley Lee Smith (BM ’64, Music Education)