Michael Hersch Receives JHU President's Frontier Award

Composition Department Chair Michael Hersch (BM '95, MM '97, Composition) was presented with the $250,000 President's Frontier Award. The award was presented by Johns Hopkins University President Ronald J. Daniels and Provost Sunil Kumar and is awarded to "exceptional scholars among the Johns Hopkins faculty who are on the cusp of transforming their fields." Mr. Hersch said that focusing such a substantial award on the arts "is such a powerful message to other great institutions to take the creative and cultural power this country has and be proud of it, and support it, and allow it to flourish." Read more and watch a video of the presentation.

FROM THE DEAN

In his 2007 book, The Rest is Noise - Listening to the Twentieth Century, Alex Ross, MacArthur Award-winning writer and chief music critic for The New Yorker, as well as a very recent guest at our Dean's Symposiums here at Peabody, writes eloquently about the influence of composer refugees who flocked to the United States in the wake of World War II's carnage of fascism. He notes that "Many leading composers of the early twentieth century - Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Bartok, Rachmaninov, Weill, Milhaud, Hindemith, Krenek, and Eisler, among others - settled in the United States." These are just a few of the names. Numerous world renowned performers of the likes of Vladimir Horowitz, Arthur Rubinstein, and Artur Schnabel did the same. When you consider the collective impact and legacy of these figures, and then consider what might have happened had they not come here, what we might have lost, it is staggering. Of course this can just as easily be said of writers, scientists, physicians, and more.

The arts cross international lines and boundaries by definition. We depend on and benefit from cross-pollination and ensuring a fertile and rich landscape of creativity. As we debate the merits of immigration, we do well to remember that music and art, to say nothing of many other disciplines, require and benefit from, indeed soar higher by integrating the views and talents of others from around the world.

Through music we have the advantage and privilege of speaking an international language. Now more than ever, we must celebrate and rededicate ourselves to the importance of diversity and inclusion through our roles as artists and scholars.




Fred Bronstein, Dean
ON STAGE / OFF CAMPUS

Saturday, February 11, 8:00 pm

Bryan Young (BM '96, Bassoon) will join the Aspen String Trio - faculty artist Victoria Chiang, viola; Michael Mermagen (BM '84, Cello), cello; and David Perry, violin - for a concert at the Livermore Valley Performing Arts Center in California. As a member of the Poulenc Trio, Mr. Young has recorded a new CD to be released this summer featuring the world premiere recording of Trains of Thought by Viet Cuong (BM '11, MM '12, Composition).
 

Saturday, February 18; Saturday, February 25, 11:00 am

Paolo Bortolameolli ( GPD '15, Conducting) will conduct Toyota Symphonies for Youth: The Art of the Piano at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, as part of his a Dudamel Conducting Fellowship. The series is an in-depth exploration of the piano, and each concert is preceded by a choice of hands-on workshops for children.


Sunday, February 19, 3:00 pm

Alumni Dion Cunningham ( MM '13, Piano) and Roderick Demmings Jr. ( BM '16, Organand students Rahze' Cheatham, baritone; Ismael Ariel Guerrero, violoncello; Simone Brown and Symone Harcum, sopranos; Troy Long, jazz saxophone; Randi Roberts, jazz voice; Kayin Scanterbury, jazz percussion; will be featured on the 28th annual Peabody concert sponsored by the Columbia Chapter of The Links, Incorporated, at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory's Kossiakoff Center in Laurel, Md. The concert will feature classical, jazz and gospel music and is free and open to the public.
   

Friday, February 24, 8:00 pm      

Faculty artist David Smooke (MM '95, Composition) will promote his recently released CD, Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death, on tour at the San Francisco Center for New Music, as part of its sfSoundSalonSeries. Dr. Smooke will perform compositions for toy piano and electronics as well as improvisations with Ken Ueno, voice, and Matt Ingalls, clarinets and contrabass garden hose.


Wednesday, March 1 at 7:30 pm 

The benefit concert series If Music Be the Food will feature musicians from the Peabody Conservatory and Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. The program will feature the improvisational stylings of faculty artist David Smooke (MM '95, Composition) and The Witches - master's student Ledah Finck (BM '16, Violin) and senior Louna Dekker-Vargas, flute; the world premiere of works by Michael Alec Rose and Ms. Finck, performed by faculty artist Maria Lambros, viola; songs by Frances Pollock (MM '15, Voice); and Schumann's Piano Quartet performed by members of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and artistic director of If Music Be the Food, Lior Willinger (MM '16, Piano). All proceeds from the series benefit the Maryland Food Bank. Audience members are also invited to bring non-perishable items for donation.

Peabody Events highlights select off-campus or live-streamed performances featuring Peabody performers. For other events, please visit our Peabody Institute Concerts Facebook page. For the complete weekly list of concerts at Peabody, subscribe to Events at Peabody at peabody.jhu.edu/news.    
   
ARTISTIC ACHIEVEMENTS


Judah Adashi      
Composition faculty member Judah Adashi (MM '02, DMA '11, Composition) (pictured) and musicology faculty member Andrew Talle both presented at JHU's Exploration of Practical Ethics symposium. Dr. Adashi debuted a segment of his new composition - Unseen: Kalief Browder, Mass Incarceration, and Solitary Confinement. Dr. Talle presented the findings of a research project he conducted with Erik Helzer, assistant professor of management at the Carey Business School, titled "Understanding the Ethics and Value of Higher Education: When Is Specialized Training 'Worth It'?" Read the full symposium article on JHU's HUB.

James Burton      
James Burton ( MM '98, Conducting) has been named conductor of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus and the orchestra's choral director. Mr. Burton's responsibilities will include auditioning and preparing the choral members for performances in Boston, at Tanglewood, and on tour. He will also serve as a cover for Andris Nelsons and other conductors who cannot appear as scheduled to lead the chorus and play a role in programming and collaborating with Boston Pops and conductor Keith Lockhart. Mr. Burton began his tenure with February performances of Bach's Mass in B minor.

Katie Ferrie      
Katie Ferrie ( MM '10, Viola) was featured by Pennsylvania's Post-Journal for her career as a luthier. The article discusses Ms. Ferrie's advantage as a "a repairman who plays," and how her intimate knowledge of string instruments gives her a competitive edge in the instrument repair community. It highlighted Ms. Ferrie's apprenticeships in bow repair at Day Violins, Baroque Violin Shop, and Potter Violin Company in Baltimore, and how her experiences culminated in the opening of her own business named Black Cat Bow Repair.

Timothy Jones      
Timothy Jones, a sophomore piano student of Marian Hahn, was named the winner in the Eastern Division Music Teachers National Association's Competition for Young Artist Performance. He will compete in the national competition to be held in Baltimore this year, March 18-22.

Scott Metcalfe      
Director of Recording Arts and Sciences Scott Metcalfe released Creating Sounds from Scratch: A Practical Guide to Music Synthesis for Producers and Composers. While the book is grounded in theory, it relies on practical examples and contemporary production techniques show the reader how to utilize electronic sound design to maximize and improve his or her work. Homewood Professor of the Arts Thomas Dolby said, "This book allows anybody to quickly understand and practically create original sounds for a variety of contemporary music styles and genres."


RECENT RECORDINGS


Diana Cantrelle (MM '12, Voice, Pedagogy) released a CD featuring operatic arias and her original compositions that highlight music as a uniting force. Additional featured artists include: Recording Arts and Sciences faculty member Ed Tetreault, John Wilson (BM '10, MM '12, GPD '14), James Harp (BM '81, MM '82, Voice), Wade Davis, and Maggie Shamer. 

Kim Kashkashian ( BM '73, Viola) released a CD with Russian composer-pianist Lera Auerbach of Dmitri Shostakovich's 24 Preludes Op. 34, for violin and piano, and the title work by Ms. Auerbach. Ms. Kashkashian was recently inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and featured in an article in Strings.

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