Vanderbilt University Blair School of Music Crescendo Magazine 2019

V A N D E R B I LT U N I V E R S I T Y

Blair School of Music

2019

Blair students take music “out of the box”

a

FA L L 2 0 1 8

BLAIR PROFILE COLLEGIATE PROGRAM BACHELOR OF MUSIC AND BACHELOR OF MUSICAL ARTS

MAJORS

139 15 23 21

performance

composition

musical arts

five-year M.Ed. Integrated Studies/ Teacher Education

19

FACULTY

145

faculty members are actively teaching in 2018–2019

INSTRUMENTS

GEOGRAPHY

8 bassoon, 11 cello, 8 clarinet, 15 composition, 5 double bass, 1 euphonium, 10 flute, 5 harp, 11 horn, 9 oboe, 14 percussion, 12 piano, 6 saxophone, 8 trombone, 11 trumpet, 4 tuba, 14 viola, 30 violin, 35 voice

35 states represented and the countries of Japan, South Korea, and the Republic of China (Taiwan)

The class of 2022 is our most diverse yet,

45.5%

with

integrated studies

OVER 40%

of the students identifying as non-white.

73

teach in both precollege and undergraduate programs

61 84

Full-time Adjunct and part-time

PRECOLLEGE AND ADULT PROGRAM Precollege students in classes, lessons and ensembles

100

Enrollments in classes and lessons

Adults in classes and lessons

PRECOLLEGE CERTIFICATE PROGRAM

1 Certificates of Distinction awarded spring 2018; 3 Certificates of Merit awarded spring 2018; and 14 precollege students currently enrolled in the program

of Blair music majors receive honor scholarships

58.1%

of Blair music majors receive need-based financial aid

12 active faculty members are members of the Nashville Symphony, including 9 principal and assistant principal players.

1 active faculty member is director of the Nashville Symphony Chorus.

683 1,064

217 students

15.8%

of Blair music majors receive both honors- and need-based awards

87.8%

of Blair music majors receive some type of financial aid

783 students THEY REPRESENT

59 cities, 29 counties, 9 states, 89 zip codes, 1 foreign country (Canada) PRECOLLEGE SCHOLARSHIPS

230

30% of students received merit- or need-based aid in 2018

On the cover: Helen Cho plays flute on the John Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge in April as members of Molly Barth’s flute studio journeyed to downtown Nashville to explore how music and society interact. See more photos on p. 14. Photo by Donn Jones.

Dean and Professor, Martha Rivers Ingram Dean’s Chair: Mark Wait Senior Associate Dean, Precollege and Adult Program: Pam Schneller Senior Associate Dean, Collegiate Program: Melissa Rose Associate Dean, Development and Alumni Relations: Virginia Payne Director of External Relations: Kristin Whittlesey Contributors: Joan Brasher, Bonnie Arant Ertelt, Molly Jewell, Ann Marie Deer Owens, John Pitcher, Amy Wolf Visit us on the Web at blair.vanderbilt.edu For more information on the Blair School of Music, please call (615) 322-7651 @blairschool vu.edu/blair-facebook Crescendo is published annually by Vanderbilt University Blair School of Music in cooperation with Vanderbilt University News and Communications, 2100 West End Avenue, Suite 1100, Nashville, TN 37203. It is produced by Vanderbilt University Marketing Solutions and Vanderbilt Printing Services. University Web Communications provides online support. Vanderbilt University is committed to principles of equal opportunity and affirmative action. Vanderbilt® and the Vanderbilt logos are registered trademarks of The Vanderbilt University. © 2019 Vanderbilt University. All rights reserved.

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This publication is recyclable. Please recycle it.

T

his issue of Crescendo features several recent highlights of life at the Blair School. Taken together, they all signal the increasing prominence of Blair students and faculty on the international stage. Better yet, they give evidence of the youth, vitality and energy of Blair faculty and the promise of the future.

As I write this, we have just admitted the freshman class of 2019, who will graduate in May 2023. More than ever before, Blair has successfully competed with the leading schools of music throughout the nation in attracting outstanding and talented students. These schools include the universities of Michigan and Indiana, Rice University, Northwestern University, and even Juilliard. Blair’s collegiate program began only in 1986, and we are by far the youngest school of music among these great institutions.

Thus it is all the more noteworthy that we have reached this level of excellence and competitiveness so quickly.

In addition, during the past decade the Blair School has hired some of the world’s finest young musicians on our faculty. The most recent addition is Assistant Professor of Flute Molly Barth, a founding member of the innovative contemporary ensemble Eighth Blackbird. Her students, featured on the cover, are learning not only the artistry of music, but the excitement of taking music into the community in imaginative ways. Their entrepreneurship is increasingly a hallmark of Blair programs and students generally.

Blair singers, pianists and instrumentalists are performing and teaching throughout our community, using music in service of society.

Molly Barth’s youth and energy are not unique among our faculty.

Here is a fact that makes Blair virtually unique among schools of music: Of our nine department chairs, five are under the age of 45. In other words, the leadership of the Blair School consists of young, energetic, dedicated musicians who will take Blair and the music profession into the mid-21st century. This fact, combined with the marvelous achievements of our students described in this issue, gives us all great pride—and, more importantly, the assurance of a bright, promising future for the Blair School.

I hope you will enjoy reading of these achievements and of this promising future. Please know of my gratitude for your friendship and support of Blair.

Cordially,

Mark Wait, Dean Martha Rivers Ingram Dean’s Chair

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KAREN ALISA PHOTOGRAPHY

Professional Composure

Above: From left, chatterbird ensemble members Timbre Cierpke (voice/percussion), Celine Thackston (flute/ percussion) and Jesse Strauss (marimba) perform Christoper Bell’s Disagreements, which includes a brake drum among its instruments, for the April premiere of the work at the W.O. Smith Music School.

Below: Guitarist Mark Volker of the chatterbird ensemble performs Orbit, a piece by senior Annalyse Clark, at the W.O. Smith Music School.

by John Pitcher

New commissioning project at the Blair School of Music helps groom the next generation of composers

D

uring rehearsals of new music, Nashville-based composer Mark Volker is usually found in the

musicians play. But during a recent Sunday afternoon rehearsal at the old Belmont Heights Baptist Church in

Nashville, Volker’s usual role was suddenly reversed.

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KAREN ALISA PHOTOGRAPHY

audience, scrutinizing his own score while other

Mark Volker

winter months. Finally, chatterbird gave the works their world-premiere performances at the W.O. Smith Music School in April.

For the students, the project has been the experience of a lifetime. For Mark Wait, dean of the Blair School of Music, the project has provided another avenue for the school to accomplish part of its core mission.

“One of the most important experiences a music student can have is to work with seasoned professional artists,” says Wait.

“These artists become colleagues, mentors and role models—all at the same time. By working with the marvelous musicians of chatterbird, our composition majors hone their craft, exploring new possibilities of expression and technique with professional partners. Creativity and performance combine to produce something that hasn’t existed before.”

The commissioning project might not have existed were it not for a fortuitous performance at Blair last year. Chatterbird was making its debut at the school’s Turner Hall. On the program was a piece for flute, violin and clarinet titled The Birth of the World written by Slayton, an associate professor of composition and theory and chair of Blair’s composition department. With Slayton’s support, chatterbird soon became an ensemble-inresidence at Blair, and the group’s artistic director, Celine Thackston, offered to hold a series of workshops for the school’s composition students.

The commissioning projected flowed Clockwise from left: Senior Annalyse Clark, senior Christopher Bell, junior Nick Heilborn and junior Matthew Shorten introduce their compositions at the premiere in April.

KAREN ALISA PHOTOGRAPHY

Chatterbird, an adventurous alt-classical group that is one of several ensemblesin-residence at Vanderbilt Blair School of Music, was preparing a new piece titled 3and2and5and7, and Volker was one of the performers. The score to this beautifully atmospheric, rhythmically complex composition called on him to perform two different instruments, electric bass and electric guitar. Switching instruments midstream seemed to be giving him some trouble, so the conductor, Joseph Lee, stopped the group and turned to the work’s young composer, seated in the room.

“Did you really mean for him to switch instruments that quickly?” Lee asked with a concerned look. Nick Heilborn, a composition major now in his junior year at Blair, answered without hesitation. “That’s exactly what I intended,” he said. “It’s tight, but it’s doable.”

Getting the chance to interact with top professional musicians is a rare opportunity for most undergraduate composition majors. But Heilborn and three other Blair students—junior Matthew Shorten and seniors Christopher Bell and Annalyse Clark—got that chance this year thanks to a new commissioning project.

All four students received commissions from chatterbird to create new chamber works. The students worked on their pieces in the fall with Blair composition professors Michael Slayton (Heilborn and Shorten), Michael Rose (Bell) and Stanley Link (Clark). Rehearsals took place during the

Listen to chatterbird ensemble play selections from Matthew Shorten’s Three Etchings at vu.edu/chatterbird naturally from those early workshops.

Thackston says the goal was to provide Blair’s composing students with valuable lessons in musical entrepreneurship, a topic not always encountered in music conservatories.

“Undergraduate composers typically learn how to compose, arrange and orchestrate, but they don’t always learn how to get work,” Thackston says. “The new project helps them with practical things, like how to collaborate with performers, how to prepare their parts, and how to introduce their new works to audiences.”

The process started with the four students selecting the combination of instruments for which they’d write. In the world of professional music, that decision often has as much to do with practical logistics as with imagination and fancy. “We needed to make sure that the students were writing for combinations of instruments that were actually available,” says Slayton.

Of course, the students had their preferences. Shorten was determined to tackle one of music history’s most tried-and-true forms, the string quartet.

His piece, Three Etchings, begins with a movement titled “Unravel,” which is filled with fleeting sixteenth notes that create appealing, glistening textures. Bell, who has a keen interest in opera, created a work for vocal soprano, flute and marimba called Disagreements. The title notwithstanding, the work is a most agreeable and exotic arrangement that calls on the musicians to also play such percussion instruments as brake drum and kick drum.

Chatterbird is one of the few classical ensembles that has embraced the electric guitar, which made it the perfect group for Clark and her delightfully experimental piece, Orbit. The piece is arranged for wildly distorted electric guitar and vibraphone, and during the first rehearsal the music often sounded like so much white noise. Volker, the guitarist, suggested decreasing the distortion and bringing out the arpeggiated guitar notes. The effect was gorgeous, as if the notes were emerging from a fine mist.

Clark was thrilled. “I’ve always wanted to combine my passions for rock and classical music,” she says. “The commissioning project has allowed me to do it.”

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4

Songwriter Salon

by John Pitcher

STEVE GREEN

Deanna Walker’s new podcast will bring her “Blair Hit Songwriter Series” to the masses

STEVE GREEN

D

eanna Walker was initiated into the world of hit Nashville songwriting in the usual way: She suffered a broken heart.

In the 1990s, Walker’s best friend went through a contentious divorce. An ugly custody battle ensued, which had a traumatizing effect on Walker’s 2-year-old goddaughter.

“I just went home and started crying,” Walker recalls. “I spontaneously started writing a song about the experience. Later, when I played it for other people, they started crying. I knew at that point I wanted to be a songwriter.”

Fast-forward a couple of decades, and Walker, adjunct artist teacher of piano at the Vanderbilt Blair School Music since 1998, is a fixture in Nashville’s songwriting community. Since 1999 she has taught a wildly popular course called the Blair Hit Songwriter Series. It started as a single class for adults, but quickly grew into multiple courses for beginning and advanced writers.

Walker estimates that more than 500 aspiring songwriters have gone through the courses since their inception.

Now, Walker has added a new component to her series, a podcast that will make the course available to songsmiths everywhere. The podcast closely mirrors the format of her classes, which bring major industry insiders to Blair each week to expound on the mysteries of Music City’s signature craft.

“

Above: Walker’s class, the Blair Hit Songwriter Series, has been wildly popular since its inception in 1999, attracting a wide variety of future songwriters.

Over the years, legendary songwriters like Steve Earle, Brandy Clark and Craig Wiseman have visited the class and imparted their wisdom. Heavyweights from the Music Row publishing world such as Ciara Shortridge (Disney), Cliff Audretch III, Chelsea Kent (S-DManagement) and Bobby Rymer have likewise been regulars. Natalie Hemby, Claude Kelly and Chuck Harmony (of the duo Louis York), Mary Gauthier and Jon Nite will be some of the first guests to launch the podcast.

What do great songwriters all have in common? Not surprisingly, all of them are persistent and keep writing no matter how many times they’re rejected. They’re also intellectually curious, always searching for the true essence and meaning of a song. And they’re emotionally connected to the people around them.

Walker says her podcast, which launched May 7, will be a low-fi affair, basically a single microphone capturing the conversations with her guests. Nevertheless, the new feature will be infinitely revealing.

“Listeners will feel like they are in the class,” Walker says.

Listen to the Blair Hit Songwriting Podcast at vu.edu/hit-songs

There’s simply no better way to learn than to have Nashville’s top songwriters, publishers and producers talk to the students about their experiences.

”

Left: Blair’s Deanna Walker, left, welcomes Claude Kelly, middle, and Chuck Harmony, right, of the duo Louis York to her songwriting class.

—DEANNA WALKER

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Senior

PROFILE

R

ama Kumaran initially intended to study both science and flute

when he came to Vanderbilt. He says he didn’t come expecting to know everything. “But I expected to do everything. I thought I knew what I wanted,” he says.

Rama Kumaran 6

JOHN RUSSELL

by Bonnie Arant Ertelt

Musical Talent and Mentor

BMus’19

producer Herman Beeftink to gain studio recording experience, practiced piano and violin, and taught himself guitar and banjo, all instruments he could sing with. (“Something you can’t really do as a flute player,” he adds, laughing.) And he took care of horses on a local ranch.

“When I could go into a corral with a horse who was skittish and, just by learning to exercise the right presence, get the horse to approach me and make him comfortable—it’s that feeling that I took with me back to school.”

Upon returning to Vanderbilt, he traveled with the Vanderbilt Wind Symphony to Colombia, South America; released a CD called Seeing It Through; and, last summer, through a stipend from his Harold Stirling Vanderbilt Scholarship, he attended the Medomak Conductors Retreat in Maine; the Galway Flute Academy in Switzerland; and “(R) evolution: Resonant Bodies” at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in Canada.

At Blair, Kumaran found many of his most influential mentors. For his senior year, new hire Molly Barth now led the Blair flute studio. “She was exactly the

Listen to Kumaran talk about his musical journey at vu.edu/rama-kumaran teacher I needed at the right time,” says Kumaran, “because of her perspective on the field of contemporary music.”

And from Tucker Biddlecombe, associate professor of choral studies, he learned to communicate clearly. “He uses a perfect economy of language. And if I’ve developed toward anything in the last five years, it’s whittling away from excess to economy.”

Kumaran will pursue a master’s in music at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam starting in September. Until then he mentors a few students of his own. “One is an intensely bright 10-year-old,” he says.

“I’m able to meet with him weekly and let conversations freewheel enough that we connect his math to his science to his music to his acting.

“My best mentors here are the ones who foster those kinds of connections in me,” he says. “It’s a way of paying it forward.”

During his gap year, Kumaran worked with horses on a ranch near his hometown in California.

COURTESY RAMA KUMARAN

Under the tutelage of Philip Dikeman, an associate professor of flute who was a revered teacher at Blair before his death in 2017 from cancer, Kumaran realized music “was not just a thing I was interested in; it was a thing I could spend my life doing.” In 2015, after his first year at Blair, Kumaran became the youngest person to win first place at the National Flute Association’s annual Young Artist Competition and appeared on the NPR radio program From the Top. Despite his achievements, however, Kumaran felt something was amiss.

“It wasn’t just that I’d stretched myself too thin,” he says. “I wasn’t treating my teachers with honor. I knew I needed to make some big decisions, and I wasn’t in a position to do that. So, I went home.”

Taking a gap year in the middle of his studies to return to Hemet, California, turned out to be “one of the best decisions I’ve made,” he says. During that year he directed a troupe of high school students in Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew through the Leadership Education Mentoring Institute. He tutored students through his own Bel Canto Studio. He worked with

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Czech Mark

International dream comes true for Blair composition major

Jacob Beranek is also composer-in-residence at the Midsummer’s Music Festival in Door County, Wisconsin, a three-year position that runs through 2020.

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KELLY AVENSON

by Amy Wolf

V

anderbilt sophomore Jacob Beranek has loved both music and his Czech heritage since he was very young. His passions converged this year in an incredible opportunity for the Blair School of Music composition major,

he was inspired to compose a piece of music in honor of the 100th anniversary of

Czechoslovakia’s independence.

Left: Jacob Beranek, ’21, shaking hands with Col. Dr. Václav Blahunek, after the performance of Beranek’s piece in Prague Castle in Czechia – November 18, 2018.

JACOB BERANEK

Beranek holding the sheet music for his composition Památník in Spanish Hall, Prague Castle.

“I love all things Czech, and I’m interested in their culture and music,” says Wisconsin native Beranek, who is an Anne Potter Wilson Honor Scholarship recipient. “I included folk songs and dance rhythms and old Czech chorales from the 14th century.” Though he was inspired to create something in the Czech tradition, he put his own spin on it, titling the work Památník.

Having previously met the director of the national Band of the Castle Guards and Police of the Czech Republic (now referred to as Czechia), Beranek decided to take a leap of faith and send the composition to him.

“I mailed him the score and waited and twiddled my thumbs,” Beranek says.

“Suddenly I got an email that said they were going to program it for the national concert in the capital. And I thought, there’s no way! Not in my wildest dreams could something like this happen.”

The centennial celebration coincided with Vanderbilt’s fall break, so Beranek and his family traveled to Prague for the event, which was held in Prague Castle’s grand Spanish Hall. Dignitaries including the U.S. ambassador to Czechia

and the great-great-grandson of famous Czech composer Antonín Dvořák were in attendance. Beranek was the only American represented on the program.

“Hearing my music played in that amazing hall was unreal. I still can’t believe it,” Beranek says. “Over there I was called ‘Mr. Composer Beranek.’ … It was a dream come true.”

Beranek composed the piece with support from his professors at Blair, especially Associate Professor of Composition Michael Alec Rose, who calls Beranek “one of the most promising student composers I’ve ever had the pleasure to teach.”

“Jacob knows the humane ground upon which every piece of music stands, and he devotes all his attention and intelligence to investigating that radiant cosmos of interconnections as fully as possible,” Rose says. “Though he has a long and arduous path ahead, he already has his artistic and spiritual priorities completely straight.”

After the Czech performance, Beranek received a commission from the Wisconsin Philharmonic to perform the piece. “It’s kind of fun to reimagine the piece with

different instruments, because now I’m really getting to know my music,” he says.

Beranek started piano lessons at age 7, and started composing music at 8, when his piano instructor required him to study theory and write music as part of his lessons.

He started composing seriously in high school, earning multiple accolades, including being named the first-ever composer-in-residence of the Midsummer’s Music Festival in Door County, Wisconsin, a three-year position that runs through 2020.

Beranek says he was drawn to Blair because it’s one of the rare exclusively undergraduate music schools within a top-15 university in the country. He wanted to enjoy a full undergraduate experience, something he couldn’t get at a conservatory.

“I would not be the person I am and the musician I am today without the professors here at Vanderbilt,” Beranek says. “It has totally changed how I see the world and especially how I see music.”

Listen to Jacob talk about Památnik at vu.edu/jacob-beranek 9

Student

ACCOLADES Rodriguez selected to 2018 SEC Student Music Ensemble

STEVE GREEN

Blair School of Music junior Hiram Rodriguez was one of seven student musicians from Southeastern Conference schools selected to perform as the thirdever SEC Student Music Ensemble.

Under the direction of Michael Pendowski, assistant professor of saxophone and director of the jazz program at Auburn University, the group performed during the SEC Legends Dinner and the SEC Pregame Hospitality Party in early December.

The event, which was connected to the 2018 SEC Football Championship Game, showcased the performers’ jazz and improvisational music skills before thousands of SEC administrators, staff and fans.

Rodriguez is a student of Jeremy Wilson, associate professor of trombone.

Precollege students participate in Tilson Thomas master class Three 12th-grade students performed in an Internet 2 master class with New World Symphony conductor Michael Tilson Thomas in April. The live master class linked Tilson Thomas in Miami with precollege students at Blair and in Miami and Atlanta.

The trio of Sarah McGuire, violin, Jocelyn Hartley, cello, and Python Chen, piano, performed a movement of Brahms’ Piano Trio No. 1 in B Major for Maestro Thomas. They were coached by Amy Dorfman, professor of piano.

The class is an annual long-distance open forum master class, using Internet2 and LOLA technology. For the third year, it was presented as a partnership of the New World Symphony, the Nashville Symphony Accelerando program, the Blair School of Music, and the Atlanta Symphony Talent Development Program.

Eliza Wong, a senior performance major studying with Carolyn Huebl, professor of violin, was the national winner of first prize for stringed instruments in the Young Artist Competition at the 2019 Music Teachers National Association National Conference, held March 16–20 in Spokane, Wash.

This is the third year in a row Blair has had a national winner at the MTNA Young Artist Competition: Mary Grace Johnson won for strings in 2017, and Lauren Urquhart won for voice performance in 2018.

Iris Shepherd, an eighth-grade precollege student at Blair who studies with Cornelia Heard, Valere Blair Potter Professor of Violin, was also a finalist at the MTNA national competition in the junior strings division. To compete at nationals, musicians must already have won their state and regional divisions.

Music Teachers National Association is the leading nonprofit professional organization for the support, growth and development of music-teaching professionals, with 22,000 members in 50 states, and more than 500 local affiliates.

10

SUSAN URMY

Wong wins at MTNA national competition

Precollege pianist Turner to participate at Cliburn competition

JOHN RUSSELL

Luke Turner, a ninth-grade student studying piano at Blair with Heather Conner, Chancellor’s Professor of Piano, was selected to be one of 14 participants at the Van Cliburn Junior International Piano Competition in Dallas held May 31 through June 8.

There were 230 applicants for the competition. Twenty-four were selected as competitors and 14 as participants. As a participant, Turner will have lessons and perform in master classes and outreach concerts.

Turner won the Nashville Symphony Curb Concerto competition on piano in February, and also won the Alabama Youth Orchestra Competition on cello. He played piano for Rachmaninoff ’s Concerto No. 2 in C Minor, Op. 18, Movement No. 1, with the Nashville Symphony on their May 7 side-by-side concert. He performed the last movement of Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E Minor, Op. 85, on May 18 with the Alabama Youth Orchestra.

Dean Mark Wait (left) and Chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos (right) award the Blair Founder’s Medal to Brigit Fitzgerald at Commencement May 10

Fitzgerald is 2019 Blair Founder’s Medalist Brigit Maynard Fitzgerald, from Phoenix, Ariz., is this year’s Founder’s Medalist for the Blair School. She earned a degree in bassoon performance, a second major in mathematics and a minor in scientific computing. A Cornelius Vanderbilt Scholar with support from the Lanier Leadership Scholarship, Brigit won the Elliott and Ailsa Newman Award for Excellence in woodwind performance, has been a winner of the Vanderbilt Orchestra Concerto Competition and previously performed as a soloist with the Phoenix Symphony. She spent summer 2018 at the prestigious Aspen Music Festival and School and summer 2017 at the Vanderbilt Musique Academie in Aix-en-Provence, France. Brigit will pursue a master of music in bassoon performance at the University of Texas at Austin.

KATHLEEN MUNKEL/NASHVILLE SYMPHONY

twin sister of Founder’s Medalist Brigit Fitzgerald, celebrates with other Blair graduates at Vanderbilt Commencement.

JOHN RUSSELL

Abbey Fitzgerald,

11

NOTES

STEVE GREEN

Blair

Hayeon Ryou and Sarah McGuire, both Myra Jackson Blair Merit Scholars in Blair’s precollege program, introduce a youngster to the violin at last September’s precollege Festival of Music.

Back to our roots Beginning fall 2019, the precollege and adult program will once again be known by its original 1964 name, with a twist: Blair Academy at Vanderbilt.

12

“The precollege and adult program has been a valued program at Vanderbilt University for almost 40 years,” says Pam Schneller, senior associate dean of the Precollege and Adult Program. “Built on the foundation of Blair Academy, which was established in 1964 and joined Vanderbilt in 1980, it has trained generations of Tennessee musicians, many of whom are now in symphony orchestras, recording studios, and on music faculties around the world. With the vibrant, accelerated growth both of the city and the university, we feel it important to emphasize that legacy and tradition as part of our identity. ‘Blair Academy at Vanderbilt’ embraces our past, and looks toward an exciting future.”

Blair Academy will celebrate its new identity at the annual precollege Festival of Music on Sept. 22, with concerts by the Suzuki violin and cello program, Philharmonia Orchestra, Blair Children’s Chorus, solos, stories and more.

The complex history of Nashville’s Public Square Park—including stories of Native and African Americans—inspired Sonic Re-Activation: Unearthing Public Square’s Forgotten Pasts by Guillermo Galindo, visiting artist-in-residence at Vanderbilt’s Center for Latin American Studies and the Department of Art on Oct. 25. The Blair School of Music was a partner in bringing Galindo to campus.

SUSAN URMY

Visiting artist Galindo performs in Public Square Park

STEVE GREEN

Galindo gave a solo performance, Sonic Borders III, on Oct. 26 in the Steve and Judy Turner Recital Hall at Blair. This process-oriented sound performance, is a sonic ritual featuring instruments built with materials found around the MexicanU.S. border fence. It has been performed in museums and concerts halls across the United States and Europe.

The Blair Big Band was the undergraduate collegiate winner in the category Large Jazz Ensemble in DownBeat Magazine’s 42nd annual Student Music Awards, announced April 23.

This is the Blair School of Music’s first award from DownBeat magazine, which is widely considered the “bible” of the jazz world. The recordings Blair submitted to the competition were selections from the Blair Big Band’s second studio album, Songbook, which is available on digital platforms. The album is a re-imagination of pop and rock standards including music from Steeley Dan, Stevie Wonder, The Beatles, Nirvana, Radiohead, Paul Simon and others.

“The DownBeat award for Best Undergraduate Jazz Ensemble is hugely prestigious, a fitting recognition of the great progress Vanderbilt’s jazz program has made under the direction of Ryan Middagh,” said Dean Mark Wait. “It is also a significant milestone in the evolution of the Blair School, with its amazing progress, great potential and wonderful future.”

Vanderbilt Opera Theatre, directed by Gayle Shay, and the Vanderbilt University Orchestra, conducted by Jennifer McGuire, presented Leonard Bernstein’s Candide, based on the work

by Voltaire, in November. This brilliant musical send-up of 18thcentury vices and morality in this “best of all possible worlds” was sponsored by the Mary Cortner Ragland Master Series Fund, the Sartain Lanier Family Foundation, and an anonymous Blair graduate.

NATHAN MORGAN

STEVE GREEN

Blair Big Band wins DownBeat award

13

Blair

NOTES

DONN JONES

On April 6, the Blair flute studio, led by Molly Barth, assistant professor of flute (bottom left), performed for passersby on Nashville’s John Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge, which spans the Cumberland River downtown. Taking their music completely off campus, the April outing had its genesis in an essay assignment that asked questions about why art is important in society, and how art interacts with, or has the potential to interact with, society.

“Performing on the pedestrian bridge literally got us ‘out of our box,’ says Barth. “We performed in a location that was not familiar to us, to an audience that largely did not expect to be an audience.”

The Vanderbilt Cinema and Media Arts department also joined in the effort, creating a video inspired by the music presented. Watch the video at vu.edu/cma-flute-studio.

STEVE GREEN

DONN JONES

DONN JONES

Flute studio performs “out of the box”

April’s Blair Celebration Dinner, honoring Patron Society members and scholarship donors, featured performances by Thomas Faulkner, class of 2019 percussion major, and the Roma Trio—Python Chen, piano, Jocelyn Hartley, cello, and Sarah McGuire, violin. (See photo on page 10.)

14

Alejandro Gutierrez Mena, right, director of the University of Costa Rica Orchestra, works with conductors from four Latin American countries at the ¡Blair! Conductors Symposium.

Arts and Humanities micro-grants fund two Blair faculty projects

DANIEL DUBOIS

Kolkay, associate professor of bassoon, won funding to travel to New York City’s Weill Recital Hall inside Carnegie Hall to perform a chamber music recital in February. The performance added Kolkay to the distinguished list of musicians who have performed at Carnegie Hall.

The trip also allowed Kolkay to interact with colleagues from across the musical spectrum and provided him the opportunity to continue a long-term research project focused on the commissioning, performing and recording of new works for bassoon and string quartet.

Verrier, associate professor and director of wind studies, was awarded funding to host the Blair Latin American Initiatives and Resources (¡BLAIR!) Conductors Symposium in April.

The event was the first bilingual EnglishSpanish concert band/wind ensemble conducting symposium in the United States.

Verrier and Jose Sibaja, associate professor of trumpet, partnered with University of Costa Rica Orchestra Director Alejandro Gutierrez Mena to plan the threeday symposium.

Seven conductors from four countries attended: Arturo Mercado Vasquez, Peru; Abdias Jose Chang Lima, Panama; Omar Morales, Panama; Manuel Adolfo Galva, Dominican Republic; Jesus David Caro Serna, Colombia; Carolina Montanez Cespedes, Colombia; and Diego Fernando Lopez, Colombia.

STEVE GREEN

Two Blair faculty members—Peter Kolkay and Thomas Verrier—received funding through the Arts and Humanities Rapid Response Micro-Grant program to enhance the arts and humanities.

Launched in 2018 by the Office of the Provost, this funding program aims to provide faculty the ability to seize opportunities and carry out new collaborations, ventures and projects related to the arts and humanities.

DANIEL DUBOIS

COURTESY THOMAS VERRIER

Vanderbilt choral director makes Carnegie Hall debut

Tucker Biddlecombe, associate professor of choral studies at Blair, made his conducting debut at Carnegie Hall Feb. 17. He was at the helm for Morten Lauridsen’s modern-day classic Lux Aeterna.

The production included singers from Blair’s Children’s Chorus Program, specifically the Young Men’s Chorus, who joined with choristers from five other states. They were accompanied by the New England Symphonic Ensemble. The production was part of MidAmerica Productions’ 36th annual concert season.

“For me, debuting at Carnegie Hall is an indescribable honor,” Biddlecombe says. “When I began graduate school, my stepfather placed a photo of Carnegie Hall in a wood frame he crafted—and it has sat on my office shelf ever since. It’s always served as a motivation for me, and this will be a dream come true for our whole family.”

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Alumni

NOTES

Music from Within Dana Kelley, BMus’12 If being a student at the Blair School of Music kept Dana Kelley busy, being a professional musician in New York City adds a whole

RYAN HODGSON-RIGBEE

new meaning to the word.

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Kelley is violist with the Argus Quartet, the Juilliard School of Music’s graduate student quartet-in-residence, which played on the Blair Concert Series last September. She also recently joined the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and frequently subs with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra.

“As a member of Argus, I rehearse about six days a week, five or six hours each day, and we are coached and mentored by the Juilliard Quartet,” Kelley says. “I also freelance in New York on the side, so I might be in a rehearsal for Orpheus or another ensemble during the day, performing at night, or on tour with one of the groups.”

For someone who came to Blair thinking of music as a hobby, Kelley has found her identity as a professional. A student of Cornelia Heard, Valere Blair Potter Professor of Violin, and Kathryn Plummer, professor of viola, Kelley earned her master’s in music at the New England Conservatory as a student of renowned violist Kim Kashkashian. In addition

A Family Legacy Inspires Students Natalie Vlach, BMus’18

BEN GIBBS

As a young girl, Natalie Vlach, BMus’18, fell in love with her electronic keyboard. Unlike some childhood infatuations, however, Vlach’s passion for piano endured and deepened, leading eventually to her winning the Linde B. Wilson Scholarship at the Blair School.

“Blair is an incredible place,” Vlach says. “I’m so grateful to the Wilson family for all they have done for Blair and for making my dream school affordable. I’m inspired by their generosity, and with a concentration in pedagogy and a minor in medicine, health and society, I hope I can have an impact like theirs.”

Without the generosity of the Wilson family, Vlach—who now works for GLG Inc., one of the world’s largest platforms for professional learning—would not have found a path from Vanderbilt to Austin, Texas, where she now lives and works.

to the chamber music groups with which she plays, Kelley has been a top prizewinner in the Sphinx Music Competition and the Irving M. Klein International String Competition.

“I definitely came to Blair not knowing what I wanted to do,” Kelley says. “But Professors Heard and Plummer inspired me to take music more seriously and find my own voice within the profession. They were and still are great influences who affected how I viewed music as part of my life.”

While at Blair, Kelley participated in a master class with Kashkashian, with whom she later studied at NEC. “I used to think of music as something I had to execute,” she says, “but Kashkashian opened up this new world of letting music be a part of who I am, and to really showcase that during performances.”

In the professional music world where practicing, rehearsing and performing take up so many hours of the day, Kelley says she has learned to trust herself.

“Music is the hardest thing I have ever done, but also the most rewarding. Especially in New York, where there is a lot of competition, it’s easy to forget why you’re pursuing this craft,” she says. “But if you’re passionate about it and emanate that passion to those around you, you’re more likely to find success and happiness.”

—Molly Jewel

JOE HOWELL

Kelley, second from left, with the other three members of the Argus Quartet, Juilliard’s graduate student quartet-in-residence. Argus gave a concert at Blair last fall on the Blair Concert Series.

The Linde B. Wilson Scholarship was created in 2009

by Blair J. Wilson, BA’74, in honor of his wife, Linde, BA’74, MLS’76. The scholarship fund has provided support for eight students since its inception, and the Wilsons recently added to it, bringing its value to more than $2 million.

“I am so honored to have my name on this scholarship for fine young musicians. The Wilson family has deep ties to the Blair School, and it is a pleasure to make opportunities possible for the most talented musicians to benefit from the Vanderbilt experience,” says Linde Wilson.

“The Wilson family had a vision of what a strong music school would mean to the Nashville community through the creation of Blair. The Linde B. Wilson Scholarship helps build that legacy by supporting students who further our school and our society in so many ways.”

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Alumni

NOTES

Daniel Bernard Roumain, BMus’93, of New York was featured in The New York Times article “Carnegie: A Musical Marathon” in the March 11 print edition. The article includes The Just and the Blind, a work composed as part of Carnegie’s 125 Commissions Project begun in honor of the hall’s 125th birthday in 2016. The 60-minute piece combines Roumain’s music with spoken-word poetry by Marc Bamuthi Joseph.

at the John Duffy Composers Institute and has been a resident artist at Yaddo.

George Speed, BMus’97, currently an associate professor of double bass at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, has

Scott Seaton, BMus’04, of Chico, Calif., was named a Project Maestro finalist and recently served as guest conductor for the Spartanburg (S.C.) Philharmonic. He

accepted a tenure-track position as assistant professor of double bass at Florida State University, starting fall semester 2019.

Evan Mack, BMus’03, of Albany, N.Y., was named a 2018 Professional of the Year by Musical America Worldwide. Musical America provides digital and print resources for performing arts professionals to further their art and businesses. Mack is on the faculty of Skidmore College. He was a composing fellow

Kacey Cardin, BMus’04, of Brooklyn, N.Y., earned the designation of Professional Certified Coach from the International Coach Federation in August 2018. The PCC accreditation establishes her as a professional coach in the top tier of the industry, demonstrating skill, knowledge, ethics and integrity.

was named a finalist for the Evansville Philharmonic Orchestra director position.

Ashley Walters, BMus’05, was featured in an interview in VoyageLA about her career as a professional musician. She is a cello soloist specializing in contemporary classical music who also performs as a member of Wadada Leo Smith’s Golden Quintet; the Formalist Quartet; Nief Norf, a contemporary music

organization based in Knoxville, Tenn.; and wild Up, a modern music collective in Los Angeles. She also teaches and mentors students at Chapman University and Moorpark College in California and at the Nief Norf Summer Music Festival.

John Concklin, BMus’06, of Greenville, S.C., filled in for Professor of Conducting Robin Fountain during the 2018–19 academic year at Blair as associate professor of conducting.

Rose Rutledge, BMus’06, of Middletown, N.Y., joined the faculty at Purchase College (State University of New York) last fall as part of the Department of Entrepreneurship and the Arts, working with students to launch emerging performing arts entities. In addition to teaching, she was promoted to director of audience development for Sofar Sounds, a music startup that stages secret concerts in unique spaces in 400 cities around the world. As a musician, she has recorded and performed with various bands in New York City, most recently recording on flute with Johnny Butler’s Epic Fail for the band’s recent album HyperViolet, out on Hi4Head Records.

MATT MURPHY

Mackenzie Shivers, BMus’07, of Sunnyside, N.Y., held a four-part collaborative residency called Get the Shivers at Rockwood Music Hall in Manhattan summer and fall of 2018. The residency spanned from July through October and welcomed Broadway singer and songwriter Pearl Rhein, July 31; Canadian bassist and composer Marika Galea, Aug. 28; indie-rocker Lance Breakfast, Sept. 25; and steelpan player and vocalist Nikkiesha McLeod, Oct. 30.

The Band’s Visit, a musical about an Egyptian orchestra stuck for a night in a remote Israeli town, swept the Tony Awards on June 10, winning 10 awards, including Best Musical.

Katrina Lenk and Tony Shalhoub (center, seated) both won Tony Awards for their performances in the lead roles. The show’s small cast also features Blair alumnus Jonathan Raviv (BMus’03 in vocal performance) in the role of Sammy, the former lover of Lenk’s Dina, who owns the local cafe.

Raviv (center, standing) was in the original cast of the critically acclaimed world premiere at the off-Broadway Atlantic Theater Co., which ran Dec. 8, 2016, through Jan. 8, 2017. The Broadway production opened in November 2017.

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Kathryn Pothier, BMus’09, is head of investor relations at Dallas-based private equity firm Trive Capital, a position she began in July.

Previously, she was vice president of business development at Chicago-based private equity fund Silver Oak Services Partners.

Shauna Robinson, BMus’10, of Tacoma, Wash., became the production manager last fall for Tacoma Opera, one of the oldest opera companies in the Puget Sound area. She writes, “It has been an exciting opportunity.

I get to meet world-class artists from all over the globe and manage the ins and outs of each show we do, which is equally as challenging as it is rewarding!”

Scott Lee, BMus’11, of Durham, N.C., was selected to participate in the American Composers Orchestra’s 27th Annual Underwood New Music Readings for emerging composers in June 2018. He also attended the Tanglewood Music Festival last summer as a composition fellow, where at least four of his works were performed.

Peter Askim and the Raleigh Civic Symphony recently premiered Lee’s orchestral work Deep Sleep at North Carolina State University as part of a concert featuring the music of North Carolina composers. He defended his doctoral dissertation at Duke University in March with his composition Through the Mangrove Tunnels for string quartet, piano and drum set. He has accepted a position as assistant professor in composition at the University of Florida in Gainesville.

Liz Rogers, BMus’11, was recognized in February as one of Nashville’s Top 30 Under 30. She is founder and creative director of Anacrusis, a boutique publishing and licensing company, where she oversees new signings, writer development, and pitching creatively for sync. Rogers also is an independent music supervisor who has worked on several films

TOMAS LOEWY

Dean Whiteside, BMus’10, shown conducting Miami’s New World Symphony PULSE concert, is the 2017–18 winner of the American Prize in Conducting in the Professional Orchestra division. After earning his undergraduate degree at Blair, the New York native trained in Vienna at the University of Music and Performing Arts, where he graduated with distinction. He just finished a threeyear conducting fellowship at the New World Symphony, where he served as assistant to Michael Tilson Thomas, and he was recently named resident conductor of the Atlantic Music Festival in Waterville, Maine. Whiteside also is founder and director of the Nashville Sinfonietta. The American Prize recognizes and rewards the best performing artists, ensembles and composers in the United States based on submitted recordings.

and documentaries and is a member of the Guild of Music Supervisors. She is an adviser at the Entrepreneur Center and serves on the board of SOLID (the Society of Leaders in Development) and the Music Committee of the Nashville Film Festival. She is an adjunct artist teacher of music at Blair.

Peter Dayton, BMus’12, of Baltimore had the Tennessee premiere of his opera MAY SHE | SHE MAY: A Chamber Opera in One Act, a piece he composed in 2015 about poet Gertrude Stein’s first love affair as a medical student at Johns Hopkins University. The opera was performed in June by the Nashville chapter of Opera on Tap. Tori Samples, BMus’12, MBA’18, of Nashville is chief technical officer of financial services firm Leaf Global Fintech, which was chosen as the Best Bootstrapped Startup at the 2018 South by Southwest conference. She also was named by Launch Tennessee as a Tennessee Trailblazer.

Nora Pertz, BMus’15, served as guest rehearsal pianist and vocal coach at the Komische Oper Berlin in Germany for five productions in the 2018–19 season.

Liam Underwood, BMus’16, of Panama City Beach, Fla., was a member of the 2018–19 cohort of the Global Leaders Program, a 42-person group representing 23 different countries. He spent the year researching music as a tool for social change through modules led by top institutions, and doing field work in music outreach programs around the world.

Sarah Robinson, BMus’18, of Newnan, Ga., received a full fellowship to enter the doctoral program in ethnomusicology at the University of California, Los Angeles. She will work with Anna Morcom, holder of the Mohindar Brar Sambhi Endowed Chair in Indian Music.

Submit news online at vu.edu/blair-class-note. Performing alumni can submit upcoming concert dates for the Alumni Performance Calendar at vu.edu/alum-performance.

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Faculty

NOTES

Molly Barth, assistant professor of flute, performed and recorded in Toulouse, France, and Seoul, South Korea, in 2018–19. She was a featured soloist with the Oregon Mozart Players, and conducted masterclasses, career workshops and composition reading seminars for students at the University of Chicago, University of Notre Dame, University of Oregon and Manhattan School of Music Preparatory division. Barth collaborated on the release of two albums this year, performing with Duo Damiana and the Zohn Collective.

Tucker Biddlecombe, associate professor of choral studies, in March completed an invited residency at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, China. In April, he was elected president of the Tennessee chapter of the American Choral Directors Association. In June he conducted Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana in Prague, Czech Republic, with the Nashville Symphony Chorus, Wichita Symphony Chorus, and the Prague Wind Symphony.

Odie Blackmon, lecturer in music, had a new song, “Two More Wishes,” cowritten with Jim Lauderdale, on George Strait’s album Honky Tonk Time Machine (MCA Nashville) released March 29. He was selected recently for the Music Licensing Collective’s Dispute Resolution Committee to be approved by the U.S. Copyright Office and mandated by the new Music Modernization Act. Jeff Coffin, adjunct instructor of jazz saxophone, released two new records in 2018 on his label Ear Up Records. The Moment of Now was released in October with Roy “Futureman” Wooten. In November, Coffin released In Orbit, the eponymous debut of an ensemble made up of Felix Pastorius, Michael Occhipinti, Tom Reynolds, Davide Direnzo and Coffin. Ear Up also released a live album March 1 called On the Corner LIVE, featuring the music of Miles Davis. In January, he attended the Jazz Education Network Conference in Reno, Nev., and was a guest artist/clinician at the Berklee High School Jazz Fest at the University of Kansas and the South Carolina Music Educators Association.

On March 2, he began a five-week tour followed by a North American summer tour with the Dave Matthews Band in support of their seventh consecutive No. 1 record.

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Caleb Harris, adjunct associate professor of piano, guest conducted at the University of Alabama in the fall of 2017 for the production of Jeremy Gill’s opera, Letters from Quebec to Providence in the Rain, which won second place in Division Five of the 2018 National Opera Association Production Competition.

He also was a guest conductor for the spring 2018 production of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd at the University of Colorado at Boulder. In the summer of 2019, he will join the conducting staff of Opera in the Ozarks at Inspiration Point to be music director and conductor for seven performances of Mark

Joshua McGuire, senior lecturer in aural skills, had his book The Secret of Music: A Look at the Listening Life produced in a new edition by Shanti Arts Press in February. He is currently fulfilling a multicompany commission for a new comic opera titled Yeltsin in Texas! with composer Evan Mack, BMus’03.

Adamo’s opera Little Women.

from Vanderbilt’s Office of Cross-College Initiatives. The grant funding was used to record and produce his third studio album, Live From Nashville, which will be released on EarUp Records in fall 2019. The record features Middagh’s compositions and arrangements for jazz orchestra and includes special guests Keb’ Mo’, Wycliffe Gordon, Jeff Coffin and Don Aliquo.

Bil Jackson, associate professor of clarinet, has been selected to perform on the opening night concert of the International Clarinet Convention, July 24–28, in Knoxville, Tenn.

Mitchell Korn, senior lecturer of music and educational outreach, was reappointed for 2019 by Fulbright Scholars and the U.S. State Department as cultural consultant. He completed a second peer review on behalf of the University of California Press for a new graduate-level music business publication, and on behalf of Chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos and Vanderbilt University, he represented the university at the December 2018 investiture of Thomas Bailey, the new president of Columbia University Teachers College, in New York.

Michael Kurek, associate professor of composition, had the second reading of Dear Miss Barrett, his show about the love story of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, at the National Arts Club in New York on Jan. 17. The New York Browning Society is raising funds for a full New York production.

Jennifer McGuire, senior lecturer in collaborative piano, was the assistant conductor for Tosca at Opera Birmingham in March. This summer, she is conducting opera scenes at the Berklee Opera Intensive in Valencia, Spain, as well as conducting Seagle Music Colony’s production of Le Nozze di Figaro.

Ryan Middagh, senior lecturer in jazz studies, this year received a research scholar grant

Cheri Montgomery, adjunct senior artist teacher of voice diction, was invited by the National Association of Teachers of Singing to present on voice and diction at their 2019 NATS Summer Workshop at St. Olaf’s College. In 2018 she published two volumes of The Singer’s Daily Practice Journal (S.T.M. Publishers). Her article “Diction [still] Belongs in the Music Department” will be published in the Journal of Singing.

Tyler Nelson, associate professor of voice, returned to Dublin with the Irish National Opera to sing the role of Tamino in Magic Flute in May. In April he debuted the role of Alfredo in La Traviata in Virginia’s Opera on the James, and he returns to France to the Festival International de Belle-Ile Lyrique en Mer this summer to perform in Lucia di Lammermour and as the tenor soloist in various concerts and recitals with six Blair School of Music students.

Michael Alec Rose, associate professor of composition, premiered his musical Lolly Willowes, adapted from the 1926 novel by Sylvia Townsend Warner, on April 18 and 20 at the Midtown Arts and Theater Center, Houston.

Douglas Shadle, assistant professor of musicology, was presented with the American Musicological Society’s inaugural H. Robert Cohen/RIPM Award at this year’s annual meeting in San Antonio, Texas, for his book Orchestrating the Nation: The NineteenthCentury American Symphonic Enterprise (2015, Oxford University Press). The award honors a work of scholarship of exceptional merit based upon 18th-, 19th-, and 20th-century periodical

still standing where Mozart actually worked— in July as part of the Prague Summer Nights Music Festival.

literature related to music.

contest, XLV Concurso Nacional de Bandas Musicales, in Paipa, Boyacá, Colombia. This is one of the most important events for bands in Colombia, with more than 40 ensembles and 1,800 musicians participating each year.

featuring several Blair faculty and alumni in performance, production and composition roles.

Molly Barth was just following the advice of her orthodontist when she chose the flute as her instrument in fourth grade.

“According to him, I had to either play percussion or the flute, because with my braces, nothing else would work,” she says.

“So I chose the flute. I was very attached to the instrument from day one. It’s a really fun adventure for me to get to know all the possibilities of the instrument.”

Barth’s attachments to the flute and to figuring out what it can contribute to contemporary chamber music are mirrored in her professional achievements. She was awarded first prize at the 1998 Concert Artists Guild International Competition and received the 2000 Naumburg Chamber Music Award. As a founding member of new music sextet Eighth Blackbird, Barth won the 2007 Best Chamber Music Performance Grammy.

A former member of the Beta Collide New Music Project, Barth has been a member of the Zohn Collective since 2017. Both groups produce contemporary chamber music projects with artists across a variety of disciplines. And she is one half of Duo Damiana along with University of Kentucky guitarist Dieter Hennings, also a

member of the Zohn Collective.

Barth says she was drawn to Vanderbilt and Blair School of Music because of the engagement of faculty within their fields and with their students. “To see what everyone is doing, how they’re involved in their fields, how they involve their students in their own development as professionals— this is an approach that reflects my own.

“I love the teaching I do, and my teaching is so related to my performance,” she says. “I learn as much from my students as they do from me.”

As with her own undergraduate experience at Oberlin College Conservatory of Music—she also holds degrees from the University of Cincinnati CollegeConservatory of Music and Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music—Barth finds that Blair students have interests in other areas as well.

“Nurturing their full development is very important,” she says. “I need to be able to direct the student toward a path that’s going to be productive for that student. Of course, I’m an advocate for them to go into the field of music. I’m also an advocate for them to integrate music into their lives in whatever capacity they see fit as professionals.”

—Bonnie Arant Ertelt

JOHN RUSSELL

Gayle Shay, associate professor of voice, will direct Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro at the Estates Theater in Prague—the only theatre

Meet Molly Barth Assistant professor of music

Thomas Verrier, associate professor of wind studies, was invited to serve as the international clinician for the Conferencia Colombiana de Bandas—ASODIBANDAS (Asociación Nacional de Directores de Bandas Musicales), May 28–June 3, for a nationwide event held in Cajicá, Cundinamaca, Colombia. In September, he will serve as the international member on the panel of judges for the national concert band

Verrier will travel to Calí, Valle del Cauca, Colombia, Oct. 22–27, to guest conduct the Banda de la Fuerza Aérea Colombia. Activities include conducting the band in rehearsal and in concert and leading a conducting workshop sponsored by the Escuela Militar de Aviación Marco Fidel Suárez.

Jeremy Wilson, associate professor of trombone, released an album titled Perspectives, in October 2018,

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The students in the oboe studio of Associate Professor Jared Hauser (left) not only play together, they make reeds together. A complicated process involving equipment with names like gougers, splitters, planers, shapers and guillotines, they spend almost as much time woodworking as practicing. In search of the warmest, smoothest tone, they will create reeds from tube cane, splitting and sanding until the tips are as thin as three hundredths of a millimeter or less.