Peabody's Class of 2018 Graduates
The Peabody Conservatory celebrates its graduating students with an address by Deborah Rutter, president of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, at this year's Commencement ceremony, which begins at 10:00 am on Wednesday, May 23, in Miriam A. Friedberg Concert Hall. Rutter is considered one of the most influential arts administrators in the nation and is respected internationally for her leadership of the world's busiest performing arts center. The highest honor bestowed by the Peabody Institute, this year's George Peabody Medal for Outstanding Contributions to Music in America will be awarded to Leon Fleisher, Peabody's Andrew W. Mellon Chair in Piano, in celebration of his 90th birthday and nearly 60 years on the Conservatory's faculty. As a teacher, he has carried on a tradition that descends directly from Beethoven himself, handed down generationally through Carl Czerny, Theodor Leschititsky, Artur Schnabel, and Leon Fleisher. At the ceremony, which will be
livestreamed, 67 Bachelor of Music degrees, 126 Master of Music degrees, seven Master of Arts degrees, 40 Graduate Performance Diplomas, two Artist Diplomas, and seven Doctor of Musical Arts degrees are scheduled to be conferred.
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FROM THE DEAN
On May 23 the Peabody Conservatory holds its 136th graduation - a chance to celebrate the many accomplishments of our graduating classes. It is always a wonderfully festive time! The end of the year is also a chance for us to celebrate a number of important firsts that have marked the 2017-18 academic year here at Peabody. These include the launch of Peabody's new Breakthrough Curriculum which is being phased in over a two- to three-year period and will provide students with critical skills increasingly necessary for professional success in music in the decades ahead. This has been our first year operating under new faculty governance, approved nearly unanimously by our faculty in April 2017. The year also marks a major step forward in Peabody and Johns Hopkins Medicine's Center for Music and Medicine with the opening of The Johns Hopkins Rehabilitation Network Clinic for Performing Artists at the Peabody Institute, envisioned to help musicians in our community and beyond stay healthy and injury free. In addition, this is the year Diversity became a fifth critical Pillar in our strategic focus, we added exciting and renowned new faculty in violin and jazz, and we are recruiting inaugural classes for new programs in New Media and Dance. As noted, a year of many firsts that pave the way for exciting new directions going forward at Peabody.
Fred Bronstein, Dean |
ON STAGE / OFF CAMPUS
The world premiere of
Banding Together, a new opera by Faye Chiao (
MM '07, DMA '16, Composition) and Anton Dudley based on the Grimm fairy tale "The Musicians of Bremen," will be made by the
Boston Chamber Symphony, led by Music Director Avlana Eisenberg (
GPD '08, Conducting). Chiao and Dudley are artists-in-residence with the symphony. The family-friendly concert will also feature Prokofiev's
Peter and the Wolf and Karen LeFrak's
Ivan's Song.
Thursday, May 17, Friday, May 18, 7:00 pm
Sandbox Percussion - Jonathan Allen, Victor Caccese (
BM '11, Percussion), Ian Rosenbaum (
BM '08, Percussion), and Terry Sweeney (
BM '13, Percussion) - will present a program titled "
Supperclub," an evening of music, food, and visuals on Thursday, May 17, at 7:00 pm, at (Le) Poisson Rouge in New York, N.Y. The concert features Steve Reich's
Drumming, as well as compositions by Viet Cuong (
BM '11, MM '12, Composition) and Caccese. The following day,
Sandbox Percussion will hold a benefit concert in Brooklyn announcing their 2018-19 season.
The B'More Bach Ensemble has been chosen to participate in Early Music America's eighth annual
Young Performers Festival at the Bloomington (Ind.) Early Music Festival. Peabody graduate students Katelyn Aungst, soprano; Matthew Gabriel (
MM '17, Cello), Baroque cello; Sarah Lynn (
BM '17, Baroque Flute); William Marshall, baritone; Paula Maust (
MM '16, Harpsichord); Stephanie Zimmerman, Baroque violin; and JT Mitchell, Baroque flute, will perform. All of the student performers will participate in career development and entrepreneurship seminars.
Felix Hell (
AD '07, MM '08, DMA '16, Organ) will perform the Goldberg Variations at
Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco. He first performed this program at Peabody in October 2016 and since then has presented it throughout the U.S., including at Disney Hall in Los Angeles, New York, Aspen, and Florida.
Thursday, May 31 to Monday, June 4
Mezzo-soprano Jenni Bank (
BM '06, Voice, '07, Opera) will make her
New York City Opera debut in the American premiere of
Brokeback Mountain by Charles Wuorinen. The show will be performed at Jazz at Lincoln Center's Rose Theater, led by Kazem Abdullah (
'05, Conducting). On June 17, she will make her Carnegie Hall debut, singing the mezzo solos in Haydn's "Lord Nelson Mass" and Schubert's Mass No. 4 in C major with the
New England Symphonic Ensemble.
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.
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ARTISTIC ACHIEVEMENTS
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Natalie Draper (DMA '17, Composition) has been awarded a tenure-track faculty position at Syracuse University in N.Y. She will be teaching theory and composition. As a composer, she has collaborated with a variety of ensembles and performers, including soprano Danielle Buonaiuto (MM '12, Voice), Baltimore's Occasional Symphony, and the Empyrean Ensemble.
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Senior Sam Hughes, trumpet, has won the position of principal trumpet of the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra, a Canadian professional orchestra located between Toronto and Winnipeg. Senior Brandon Sklute, trumpet, has accepted a two-year position as second trumpet/assistant principal in the Wichita Symphony in Kansas. Both are students of Joe Burgstaller.
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Senior TJ Martin, studying composition with Kevin Puts, and his team at Boba Studios have won $20,000 at MICA's Up/Start Venture Competition. They plan to create games that combine what they love about indie and major title games with this prize money. Their debut video game, Squirrely Roo Rabbit, involves using color theory to solve environmental challenges.
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Preparatory student Alan Mao, piano, won second place in the junior division of the Maryland State Music Teachers Association's Elizabeth R. Davis Piano Competition. He also won first place with his trio with Connor Chaikowsky, violin, and Caleb Park, cello, in the Misbin Chamber Music Competition, which was sponsored by Levine School of Music and Washington Performing Arts Society.
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Doctoral candidate Tomasz Robak (
MM '15, Piano) has received a Fulbright grant to study the music of Polish composers from Katowice, including Henryk Górecki and Wojciech Kilar. He will study in Poland at the Szymanowski Academy of Music in Katowice and take piano with Andrzej Jasiński, the teacher of Krystian Zimerman, and Anna Górecka, the daughter of Henryk Górecki, as well as do research on primary sources and put together programs of Polish solo and chamber music.
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RECENT RELEASES
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Faculty artist Ah Young Hong (
BM '98, MM '01, Voice), soprano, released
A Breath Upwards, an album featuring music by Milton Babbitt and Peabody faculty artist Michael Hersch (
BM '95, MM '97, Composition). Also featured on the CD are Miranda Cuckson, Gleb Kanasevich (
BM '11, Clarinet), and Jamie Hersch.
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Preparatory alumna Amy Nathan has published a new book,
Making Time for Making Music, which shows adults with busy lives how they can incorporate music. In it, Nathan interviews and features Peabody alumni, students, and faculty.
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The Santa Fe Desert Chorale released
The Road Home, featuring the world premiere of
Reflections by Jake Runestad (
MM '11, Composition; MM '12, Music Theory Pedagogy), a piece they commissioned in 2016.
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