WELCOME

Welcome to CADENZA Showcasing UTSA Music

FRIENDS,

Welcome to our first 2021 issue of Cadenza on behalf of the Department of Music, and Happy New Year to all of you! We have commenced our Spring 2021 semester and are busy rehearsing for our first set of concerts, for which we are all very grateful. As always, more information about livestreams will be available on our website (www.music.utsa.edu) and social media sites, so be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and/or Instagram.

This February marks the 45th year that the United States has officially celebrated Black History Month. When President Ford established this month-long recognition in 1976, he pressed us to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.” Our department has committed to increasing diversity in the music we study, listen to, and perform, and in the guest artists with whom we interact. In this issue of Cadenza, we feature an article by our new Assistant Professor of Violin, Nicole Cherry, on the impact of Black composers and musicians. On February 2nd, we are delighted to host the venerated Mr. George Shirley, the Joseph Edgar Maddy Distinguished University Emeritus Professor of Voice at the University of Michigan, and the first Black tenor to sing a principal role at the Metropolitan Opera, as a guest speaker for our Music Convocation. (If you would like to join us for this event, please email music@utsa.edu.)

As we are still gearing up for the semester’s first performances, this issue contains more feature articles than concert announcements. We hope you enjoy reading about the resilience of our Indoor Winterguard and our creative alumni music educators as they cope with the ongoing effects of the pandemic on their work, as well as our latest COVID Pulse Poll. Our very special alumni spotlight this month is on our own professor, Sherry Rubins, who leads our outstanding percussion studio. And Dr. Thomas Yee contributes an article on the documentary about his opera Eva and the Angel of Death.

As always, one of our primary purposes of Cadenza is to connect with you! To our alumni, in particular, we invite you to submit your news and reconnect with your UTSA Music friends. We would love to hear from any of you with any feedback about Cadenza and Department of Music events; please reach out to us at music@ utsa.edu with questions and comments. We are grateful for all of you who support the work we do to learn and share music with those around us, and we look forward to sharing our music with you soon!