Sonorities 2022

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sonorities

The News Magazine of the University of Illinois School of Music

Dear Friends of the School of Music, Published for the alumni and friends of the School of Music at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The School of Music is a unit of the College of Fine + Applied Arts and has been an accredited institutional member of the National Association of Schools of Music since 1933.

Kevin Hamilton, Dean of the College of Fine + Applied Arts Jeffrey Sposato, Director of the School of Music Nolan Vallier, Editor Design and layout by Studio 2D On the front cover: Images from the School of Music photo archive within the 125th anniversary logo. Cover concept by Stephen Burian, designed by Gretchen Wieshuber.

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Submit online at music.illinois.edu/sonorities

Co n ten t s CAMPUS NEWS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 CELEBRATING GIVING. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 “WHERE WE HOPE TO BE”: THE SCHOOL OF MUSIC SINCE 1995 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 A NEW VISION FOR THE SCHOOL OF MUSIC IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY . . . . . 22 PROFILE OF A VISITING CONDUCTOR: MEET PROFESSOR EDDINS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 FACULTY NEWS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 ALUMNI NEWS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 STUDENT NEWS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 IN MEMORIAM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 G IVING. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

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hat a difference a year makes! Last year, when I wrote my annual letter for sonorities, the School of Music was in the midst of numerous challenges related to COVID-19. These included the move to online classes and the cessation of public performances. This year, while COVID precautions continue, the School of Music has roared back to life through the return of students to campus, the lively presence of the Marching Illini at football games, and the resumption of concerts.

The School of Music, which was founded in 1895, continues to celebrate its 125th anniversary this year. The last full history of the School was written by musicology PhD Ann Silverberg (1992) for our centennial in 1995. In this issue of sonorities, you will find an updated history by musicology professors Gayle Magee and Jeff Magee, which supplements Dr. Silverberg’s book and brings the story up to the present.

You will also read more about the School’s vision—the map for where we want to go in the next decade. This vision has been developed through the hard work of various faculty, staff, and student committees over multiple years. It includes several pillars related to diversity and the School of Music curriculum. We are committed to diversifying the student body so that it better represents the state of Illinois and to expanding the curriculum and concert repertoire so that students are trained in the types of teaching, performance, and scholarship they will be expected to do after graduation.

Even during the COVID shutdowns, faculty, staff, and students were hard at work on moving us towards these goals. In one article in sonorities, you will read about our visiting orchestra director for this academic year, William Eddins, one of the most accomplished ensemble directors in the United States. He will be joining a faculty seminar, led by French Horn Professor Bernhard Scully, on programming ensemble repertoire for the twenty-first century. In this seminar, topics will include the incorporation of new music into the concert repertory, as well as the inclusion of music by composers who have historically been left out of the concert canon. Although Professor Eddins will be with us for only one year, I am confident that this seminar will represent a lasting legacy for the School and will leave our students and faculty with numerous ideas that they can incorporate into their performances.

The School’s vision also entails preparing students for multiple career options after graduation and making sure that music students take advantage of the fact that, on top of receiving excellent music training, they are benefiting from a liberal-arts education in the context of a world-class research university. Articles in this issue discuss developments in these areas as well.

Despite the pandemic, last year was one of accolades for faculty, students, and alumni alike. Beloved professor emeritus John Wustman celebrated his 90th birthday on December 25 and was feted by his former students with the creation of a scholarship in voice. Grammy season led to a winner—James Blachly (MM Orchestral Conducting ’13)—and two finalists—Lyric theatre senior and 2021 graduate Sophia Byrd and Donald Nally (DMA Choral Conducting ’95)—among our students and alumni. These milestones and accolades were bright spots during a difficult winter and remind us why this School has thrived for more than 125 years. Congratulations to everyone!

Sincerely, Jeffrey Sposato Professor and Director

campus news New Majors Drive Interest Among School of Music Applicants It will come as no surprise that the 2021– 2022 admissions and recruitment cycle was significantly altered due to the pandemic.

At the School of Music and other music programs across the nation, recruitment activities and auditions were conducted virtually. As difficult as it was for faculty and staff to adjust to the new norm, the silver lining of virtual recruitment and auditions was that it expanded the School’s reach and made the audition process more accessible. Students, who in the past may not have been able to consider auditioning at Illinois due to travel costs and other factors, were on an equal playing field with those for whom finances were not a factor. Although the School is planning to host in-person auditions for the current admissions cycle, a virtual option for auditions and informa-

tion sessions will be retained for future admissions cycles.

Despite the challenges that the 21–22 admissions cycle brought, the School saw a positive uptick in the yield numbers for two of our newest majors—Lyric Theatre and CS + Music. We hope to continue that trend in future years, as well as capitalize on the new opportunities for students, such as the Entrepreneurship Certificate.

—Angela Tammen (MM ’08, DMA ’14), Admissions Director

School of Music Alums at the Grammy Awards School of Music alumnus James Blachly (MM ’13) won a Grammy Award in the Best Classical Solo Vocal Album category this past year for his conducting of Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Prison, released on Chandos Records. The release coincided with the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment and recognized Smyth’s role in the British Women’s Suffrage Movement. In addition to Blachly’s win, two other SoM alums received Grammy nominations this year. Sophia Byrd, a senior in lyric theatre, was nominated for her performance on the 2020 album Place. Place is an 80-minute staged oratorio by Ted Hearn on the topic of gentrification. Donald Nally (DMA ’95) received his sixth Grammy Award nomination in five consecutive years

James Blachly

Sophia Byrd

Donald Nally

for the album Carthage. The recording draws upon Meister Eckhart’s 13th-century writings, Marilynne Robinson’s novel Housekeeping, and E.E. Cummings’s poetry.

Three SoM Musicians Honored with FAA Legacy Awards

Juri Seo

This spring, three affiliates of the SoM received Legacy Awards from the College of Fine + Applied Arts. Juri Seo (DMA ’13) received an Emerging Legacy Award for her work as a composer. Dr. Seo has previously received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Dr. Seo is currently Associate Professor of Music at Princeton

University (NJ). Both the late Dan Perrino (BME ’48, MS ’49, and Professor Emeritus) and John Wustman (Vocal Coaching and Accompanying, Emeritus) received Illinois Arts Legacy Awards for their contributions to the SoM. Perrino, who joined the faculty in 1960, founded a Dixieland band and served as Dean of Student Programs from 1968 to 1976. Wustman founded the vocal coaching program at UIUC in 1973, and was known for performing all 598 of Schubert’s songs in a series of recitals that took place from 1991 to 1997.

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Grants Won for Digital Preservation Efforts This past year, researchers connected to the SoM received two prestigious grants for their efforts to digitally preserve music archives and concerts.

Maureen Reagan (BM ’91, MM ’02, DMA ’19), Associate Director of Marketing at KCPA, and Kathleen McGowan, a PhD student in musicology, are members of a research team that received a grant from the United Kingdom’s Arts and Humanities Research Council for their project “The Internet of Musical Events: Digital Scholarship, Community and the Archiving of Performances.” Known as InterMusE, the project aims to digitally preserve the

Maureen Reagan

Gabriel Solis

concert ephemera, such as programs and posters, from historic live performances.

Through digital preservation, they will consider the role of live-music in the construction of communal life, documenting patterns of performance over time.

Gabriel Solis (Musicology) and Adriana Cuervo (MS ’05 in LIS), Head Archivist at the Rutgers-Newark Institute of Jazz Studies and former Assistant Archivist of the Sousa Archives and Center for American Music, received a National Endowment for the Humanities New Directions for Digital Scholarship in Cultural Institutions grant for their project “New Directions in Digital Jazz Studies: Music Information Retrieval and AI Support for Jazz Scholarship in Digital Archives.” The pair will lead a team of musicologists, computer scientists, and archivists to make jazz archives more accessible.

William Moersch Awarded Lifetime Achievement in Education Award Professor and Chair of Percussion, William Moersch, received the prestigious Percussive Arts Society Lifetime Achievement in Education Award this past year. The award, established in 2002, recognizes the achievements of the most highly regarded leaders in percussion education. Professor Moersch was one of three individuals selected for the award; the other two included F. Michael Combs, an alumnus of the University of Illinois and Professor Emeritus of Percussion from the University of Tennessee, and Russell Hartenberger,

Professor Emeritus and former Dean of Music Faculty at the University of Toronto.

Moersch’s active career as a performer is marked by his eagerness to commission new solo pieces for marimba. Among the composers he has commissioned include Eric Ewazen, David Lang, Libby Larsen, Steven Mackey, Gunther Schuller, and Charles Wuorinen. Professor Moersch was the first marimbist to receive a National Endowment for the Arts Solo Recitalist Fellowship.

William Moersch teaching lesson

Sousa Archives Documents Musical Activities During COVID-19 Pandemic

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Photo by Scott Schwartz

During the immediate aftermath of the COVID-19 lockdown, the grounds of UIUC were silent. As ensembles found safer ways of performing together, Scott Schwartz, Director of the Sousa Archives and Archivist for Fine + Applied Arts, began documenting the impact of the coronavirus on student musicians within the SoM. The project includes testimonials written by both students and ensemble directors as well as several thousand photographs of ensembles within the SoM. The project, which is ongoing, will eventually become a permanent part of the records of the SoM. Graduate student Tim Lohman conducting the University Concert Band outside the Harding Band Building

The University of Illinois Black Chorus performing Gary Hines’ composition “Harambe” in the KCPA parking garage in November 2020

University Black Chorus Featured on WILL-TV The University of Illinois Black Chorus and Dr. Ollie Watts Davis were featured on a WILL-TV broadcast of the American Portrait on December 21, 2020. The special, which was entitled Lift Every Voice, documented the effect of the global pandemic on three Central Illinois choral ensembles. The Black Chorus was featured alongside the Windy City Gay Chorus and the Danville

High School Madrigals. In the episode, the University of Illinois Black Chorus performed an original composition by Dr. Davis, “For My Good,” which addressed the challenges students have faced since the outbreak of the pandemic. The documentary was followed by a panel discussion by the three choir directors as well as three performances recorded by each of the ensembles.

Altgeld Chimes Presents Centennial Concert

Photo by Scott Schwartz

Photo by Scott Schwartz

This past October, the University of Illinois celebrated the 100 year anniversary of the Altgeld Chimes in a weeklong series of concerts that were livestreamed around the world. Installed in Altgeld Tower in 1920, the University of Illinois’ first set of chimes were the dream of the 1914 Senior class, but this dream was put on hold when the United States entered into World War I. In 1920, the Senior Memorial Committee had raised enough funds for 15 bells, a configuration that could play “Illinois Loyalty.” The first concert on the chimes was performed by M. Harry Mette Christina Horton performing the and took place on October 30, 1920, during chimes in Altgeld Tower Homecoming.

The centennial concert series was led by chimemaster and graduate student in musicology Christina Horton, who performed many of the songs heard during the first performance 100 years ago. Horton was joined by members of the Marching Illini, directed by Barry Houser.

The Marching Illini performing in front of Altgeld Hall

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cel ebrating giving Exceptional Gifts During an Exceptional Year In the aftermath of the events of the Summer of 2020, The School of Music benefited from a wave of support for projects involving diversity. Donors stepped up to help. Here are some examples of this support.

With a six-figure planned gift, Robin Sahner has established the Choral Music Engagement Fund, which will ensure that a more diverse group of students has access to educational choral music opportunities. In addition to the planned gift, Robin has generously given two five-figure gifts so this work may begin immediately. The fund Robin Sahner in her home will support initiatives of both the singing with friends SoM and the Choral Area and is aimed at diversifying the field of choral music. This fund will include programs designed to support singers and conductors of diverse backgrounds in their pursuit of singing within choral music ensembles, completing choral music degree programs, and engaging within choral programs offered by Illinois Summer Youth Music. Robin shared, “Few things have brought me as much joy as being part of a group singing together in harmony. If I can help bring that experience to people that would otherwise not have it, that will make me happy.”

The Peter and Rittchell Yau Family Musicology Scholarship Fund will be used in the Musicology Area to support graduate and undergraduate musicology majors whose research focuses on the study of Black music. Peter is a professor of Molecular & Cellular Biology at the University of Illinois. Peter and Rittchell feel strongly about Peter and Rittchell Yau the need for support in this area.

Musicology Area Chair Professor Gayle Magee shared, “This is an exciting opportunity for students in the musicology area who are interested in studying Black music. The fund will support undergraduate and graduate students with travel to conferences

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by David Allen (BM ’92, MM’94, BME ’96), director of advancement

and to conduct original research, as well as offer financial aid for new and continuing students.” Peter and Rittchell are pleased to provide this support and remind us of the statement by Plato, “Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything.”

At the outset of the pandemic, the SoM had a unique need for distance learning equipment. When Shirley Soo and her husband, Matthew Gorman, learned of this need, they connected us with Adorama, who supplied SoM students with more than 50 USB microphones as well as portable electronic keyboards.

Soon after, Shirley Soo became the new chair of our School of Shirley Soo (BM ’74, MA ’78, MBA ’82) and Matthew Music Illinois Music Advancement Gorman Council (IMAC), and she and Matt gave multiple gifts to establish our new Music Opportunity and Innovation Fund (see p. 51). SoM Director Jeffrey Sposato notes that “a fund like the one Shirley and Matt helped to establish can change the experience our students have at the School in a fundamental way by supporting student travel, recording projects, recruitment events, and so much more.”

Shirley, Matt, and other members of IMAC have also pledged a generous matching gift opportunity for donors who would like to join them in supporting opportunities and innovation in the School of Music.

Craig and Martha Schiele provided generous funding to allow for the installation of a new and upgraded webcasting system within the large lecture room (Room 25) in Smith Memorial Hall. The Schiele family is pleased to know that their gift will allow better access to classroom instruction and performances Craig and Martha Schiele,

by SoM students and faculty. SoM and their daughter Jillian Director Jeffrey Sposato shared, (BME ’20) “One of the greatest challenges during the shutdown was delivering instruction to our students and sharing music with our friends and alumni. The Schieles’ gift helps tremendously on both fronts, and, more importantly, opens the door for us to expand our reach in an equitable way,

so that anyone who loves music can be part of the audience.” As long-distance followers of band concerts and recitals, the Schieles knew we could use the boost!

Craig and Martha noted, “This project supports our commitment to broadening and expanding opportunities for participation in the arts, especially for students, their teachers, and their audiences near and far.”

Eve Harwood recently made a donation supporting the University of Illinois Black Chorus. In collaboration with Professor Ollie Watts Davis, the new endowed fund will be called the Dr. Ollie Watts Davis Black Chorus Excellence Fund. Dr. Harwood and Dr. Davis became friends when they both enrolled in a doctoral-level course taught by Bruno Nettl: they later became colleagues on the faculty. Regarding this wonderful gift, Dr. Davis noted, “I am most grateful to my friend and colleague, Dr. Eve Harwood, for her generous gift that celebrates the legacy and helps to secure the future of Black Chorus at Illinois.” Eve shared that she is always moved to the point of tears at the beauty of a musical performance by the Black Chorus. Eve and Ollie are encouraging others to donate to this new endowment.

Ollie Watts Davis (MM ’82, DMA ’88), Eve Harwood (EdD ’87), and Jeffrey Sposato

Honoring John Wustman— Scholarship in Voice Established This past December, several students, colleagues, and friends of Professor Emeritus John Wustman gave donations to create a new scholarship that honors him. Professor Wustman was pleasantly surprised to find that they also coordinated the installation of a new plaque within Smith Memorial Recital Hall. The plaque shares Professor Wustman’s reminder that art lasts and life is short. If you would like to join in honoring John, please consider a gift to the John Wustman Scholarship for Voice Students.

John Wustman standing in front of backstage plaque at Smith Memorial Recital Hall

Plaque Reads: ARS LONGA VITA BREVIS GIVEN IN HONOR OF JOHN WUSTMAN PROFESSOR OF ACCOMPANYING AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 1968–2002 ON THE OCCASION OF HIS 90TH BIRTHDAY DECEMBER 25TH, 2020

BY GRATEFUL ALUMNI, COLLEAGUES, AND FRIENDS

Collaboration in the Making—School of Music & WILL/Illinois Public Media Barbara and Terry England along with Herbert and Jane Lasky pooled their generosity to establish an endowment honoring John Frayne and his outstanding work in Music for WILL programming at Illinois Public Media. The endowment will provide funds to support a School of Music graduate student who will assist John Frayne and WILL with future programs. Of the endowment, Barbara and Terry noted that they “were inspired to support the John Frayne Experience by John’s passion for classical music and for public broadcasting, WILL’s commitment to classical music (including Kevin Kelly’s Live and Local John Frayne programming), the University of Illinois School of Music, and by G. Wallace “Woody” Woodworth, former conductor and host of ‘Tomorrow’s Symphony’ on Boston’s public radio.”

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publ ic engagement

by Stephen Burian

Public Re-Engagement in 2021 The summer of 2021 granted us several much-needed opportunities to reengage the public. With some accommodation, several events brought musicians back to campus.

After its cancelation in 2020, ISYM returned, providing young people musical opportunities. Professors Adam Kruse and Lamont Holden hosted ISYM Hip-Hop as a day-camp, and Professor Ollie Watts Davis did the same with Black Chorus at ISYM. ISYM Musical Theatre, Trumpet, and Jazz all hosted well-attended one-day workshops. Professor Scott Tegge hosted two virtual workshops from the Fine Arts Building on Michigan Avenue in Chicago. The Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra graciously shared their space with us.

The Paul Rolland String Pedagogy Workshop was a smashing success, drawing 88 participants and 71 auditors from 23 countries and 37 states. Professor Stephen Fairbanks co-directed the five-day virtual conference with Lynne Denig, Aaron Jacobs, and Gail Rolland. Twenty-seven string pedagogy experts led live presentations, recorded virtual sessions, held virtual “office hours,” and led virtual discussion rooms. Working with our partners in the Paul Rolland String Pedagogy Society, full participants were granted Level One Certification in Paul Rolland String Pedagogy. Professor Fairbanks is already working with the PRSPS on plans for the 2022 workshop.

In June, Professor Andrew Megill was once again able to welcome guests from across the nation to campus during the two-week Illinois Bach Academy. The IBA gave rousing performances of three cantatas and a motet by J. S. Bach. After a year’s absence, the Illinois Choral Conducting Symposium returned with guests Pearl Shangkuan (Calvin College, MI) and Maurice Boyer (Concordia University Chicago). The IBA is planning to mount a full performance of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion in June 2022.

With limited in-person instruction in 2020, our lesson programs retreated to a virtual format. We are happy to report that the SoM resumed in-person instruction in fall 2021 and is once again offering private lessons in guitar and voice, thanks to the assistance of Professors Guido Sánchez-Portuguez and Yvonne Redman. After several years of leading the Illinois String Academy and Chamber Music Academy, Aaron Jacobs has accepted a position at Illinois State University. We bid a fond farewell to him!

Tuba-Euphonium Day at ISYM with Professor Scott Tegge

Black Chorus at ISYM

Jazz students at ISYM performing alongside faculty members

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Students enacting a scene at the ISYM Musical Theater Camp

Illinois Bach Academy in rehearsal

Goodwin Avenue Trio recording for the Carle Concerts. From left to right: Andrew Buckley, Chanmi Lee, and Ethan Schlenker.

This past spring, Graduate student Becca Kasdan established a concert series at Carle Hospital. Each concert is recorded at the SoM and shared with interested Carle patients, who are unable to attend live events.

Another new initiative in 2021 was the Sonorities Podcast, which features alumni, student, and faculty interviews. Episodes this past spring featured Grammy Award-Finalist Sophia Byrd and the iconoclastic composer Harry Partch.

The three UI Symphony Orchestra Competition winners representing the 2020 season were unable to perform last year, leaving six winners earning the privilege of performing this year.

Fortunately, Ian Hobson and Sinfonia da Camera have graciously offered to accompany the 2020 concerto winners on two of their upcoming concerts. Billed as “Sinfonia+,” the concerts will take place in Smith Recital Hall.

Gaeun Kim performed the Sibelius Violin Concerto this September. On April 2, 2022, Wan Lin will perform Franz Lizst’s Second Piano Concerto and Krannert Debut Artist Wilson Poffenberger will perform Florent Schmitt’s Légende for Alto Saxophone and Orchestra.

And if you are wondering Long time ISYM Registrar and where my usual co-author Office Manager in the Public Engagement Office Nancy Boaz is, Rebekka Price, Director of at her retirement party Public Engagement, is at home with her new daughter as I write this. Both are doing well. We would also like to thank Nancy Boaz, who served as the ISYM Registrar and Office Manager in the Public Engagement Office, for her years of service within the School of Music. We are going to miss you, Nancy!

Aaron Jacobs leading a violin class

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The “Where We HopeSchool to Be”: The Music 1995 School of MusicofSince Since 1995

e p o H e W here

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” e B to

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n fall 1994, the School of Music launched a year-long celebration of its centennial in performance and print media. The celebration began with the publication of the first issue of this magazine, with its musically resonant, lower-case title: sonorities. Introducing the first

BY JEFFREY MAGEE issue, Director Don V Moses (with his notably unpunctuated middle AND GAYLE MAGEE initial) saw the year as an opportunity “to take account of where we are today and where we hope to be in the future.” For a longer view, Moses also commissioned alumna Ann L. Silverberg (PhD ’92) to write a history of the school under the auspices of a centennial history committee chaired by Professor Emeritus Bruno Nettl. The book was published in 1995 under the title A Sympathy with Sounds, a phrase from a verse by the eighteenth-century English poet William Cowper that is engraved on the façade of Smith Memorial Hall. The centennial celebrations culminated in a “Festival Week” with four major concerts and two guest residencies.

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Twenty-five years later, we stand at another opportune moment to reflect on how the school has strived to sustain its excellence by making transformative changes to address twenty-first century imperatives. Far from a sequel to A Sympathy with Sounds, this overview will simply touch on a few of the most significant changes that have occurred within the School of Music since 1995 including the impact of technology, revised curricula and new degree programs, building renovations, and transformative gifts.

Members of the Walden String Quartet, one of the many SoM ensembles featured in Silverberg's A Sympathy with Sounds

A TECHNOLOGICAL REVOLUTION “We know that technology will play an ever-increasing role in the lives of musicians,” wrote Director Moses in that inaugural issue of sonorities. He could not have imagined how right he was. Moses highlighted the Computer-Assisted Music Instruction Laboratory (CAMIL), the Experimental Music Studios, Computer Music Project, and Yamaha Digital Piano Laboratory, and these continued to flourish. But a technological—and social media—revolution had already begun that would affect the daily work of all faculty, staff, and students in the years ahead.

The early 1990s had seen an explosion in e-mail service providers and the university launched its first e-mail accounts. Meanwhile, the internet had arrived on the UIUC campus as the first web browser, Mosaic, had been developed at the university’s National Center for Supercomputing Applications in 1993. The School responded to this revolutionary moment by developing its own website around the time of the centennial and its URL was published in sonorities for the first time in 1996. The website has been revised and rebuilt many times since, most recently in 2016, about the same time the School expanded its social media presence. The School’s newest website is slated to launch by early 2022.

In the mid-1990s, a typical classroom experience featured transparencies displayed on overhead projectors; recordings played on CDs, LPs, cassettes, and even reel-to-reel

tapes; printed handouts and texts; and exclusively faceto-face meetings. Yet a 1996 sonorities article titled “Technology Throughout the School of Music: It’s the Future” articulated visions that would soon be reality, visions of composers “promoting their music through sound files on the internet,” of “a computer workstation in front of the classroom, an Internet connection, a large screen, and sound and video capabilities,” and of “electronic mail, bulletin boards, departmental news, and academic resources all . . . managed by computer.”

Within a few years, on-demand music file-sharing and streaming became widespread with the advent of MP3s in the mid-1990s. In 2002, sonorities announced that the music library had begun offering “streaming-audio technology” for ten music courses. The magazine noted, students “are now able to complete their listening assignments from any computer attached to the internet” and no longer have to wait “in long lines” at the circulation desk “the night before their exams.” Soon thereafter digital access and streaming proliferated with iTunes (2003), Pandora (2005), SoundCloud (2007), and Spotify (in the U.S. by 2011).

PowerPoint presentations containing images and embedded sound files replaced overhead projectors, and UIUC’s learning management system Compass—slated to be replaced with Canvas in 2022—provided online access to course syllabi, handouts, readings, and internet links,

A S E LEC T I O N O F FA C U LT Y R ECO R D I N G S S I N C E 1 9 9 5 1995

1996

1998

Morgan Powell, foray froMorgan: The Beatly Beatitudes, with Ray Sasaki (Einstein Records)

Michael Cameron, Progression (Zuma Records)

Joan Hickey, Soulmates (Chicago Lakeside Jazz)

Debra Richtmeyer, Light of Sothis (Mark Records)

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Morgan Powell, Morgan Powell (New World Records)

1997 Michael Cameron, Basso Solo (Athena Records)

Ian Hobson, Beethoven: The Complete Piano Sonatas, vols. 5–9 (Zephyr) Sever Tipei, Raw Cuts (Not On Label) Christos Tsitsaros, Piano Works (Centaur Records)

Coverage on the developement of the School of Music website as featured in the 2004 edition of sonorities. Pages from past issues of sonorities appear on p. 14 and 15.

along with digital spaces for discussion and collaboration. Audition excerpts required for ILMEA ensembles, performed by applied studio faculty are now posted on the School’s website to advance recruitment efforts.

In the 1990s, the Computer Music Project kept pace with emerging technologies, and faculty and students worked together to develop groundbreaking software such as the Computer-Assisted Software Program for Aural Skills Reinforcement, or CASPAR. Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs) were not yet commonplace in 1995 but became more sophisticated and less expensive over the next decade—and thus more widely used for music creation to the point where a DAW called GarageBand could be at the fingertips of anyone with an iPhone. Musicians would soon discover the utility of social media such as Facebook (2004), YouTube (2005), Twitter (2006), and other platforms for the instant and widespread sharing of performances and recordings. And of course, remote teaching through Zoom became ubiquitous when the pandemic forced video-conferencing technology, which had been available for decades, into everyday usage for classes, lessons, and

“We know that technology will play an ever-increasing role in the lives of musicians,” wrote Director Don V Moses in the inaugural issue of sonorities.

SoM students learning about audio mixing in 2016

meetings. With Zoom, instructors learned to use remote teaching techniques such as breakout rooms, polling, screen-sharing, and a “chat” function, while welcoming improved audio and video fidelity through the pandemic year. One-on-one applied lessons went online as well, and instructors and students alike adapted to the new virtual landscape in ways that would have seemed impossible only a year earlier, and unimaginable in 1995. Herculean efforts produced videos of ensembles in concert—each member self-recording their instrumental or vocal part from home or office.

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John Dee, Under a Near Sky (Klavier Music Productions)

Zach Browning, Banjaxed (Capstone Records)

Ollie Watts Davis, Have Thine Own Way, Lord (KJAC)

Ian Hobson, Franz Schubert 1828 (Zephyr) Jonathan Keeble and Timothy McGovern with The Prairie Winds, Gale Force (Albany Records)

Timothy Ehlen, A Musical Painting Comes to Life (Crystal Label)

Charles “Chip” McNeill, Radio Improved (Self Published) Debra Richtmeyer, Extravaganza for Saxophone (Albany Records)

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Members of the Jazz Faculty at Allerton in 2017

In recent years, technology has become more deeply embedded in the curriculum. The School’s musicians read scores from iPads as often as they use printed materials.

In 2015, the School’s Music Education program added a technology concentration in addition to the traditional instrumental, choral, and general music tracks. Soon thereafter, Professor Rick Taube developed a self-paced first-year music-theory learning application called Harmonia, with the support of a National Science Foundation grant. Professor Taube also took a leading role in developing CS + Music—a hybrid major created in collaboration with Computer Science—launched in 2018 “for students interested in pursuing a career in music technology” and “wanting to push the boundaries of technology in music composition and explore new avenues of expression.” In 2019, the Hip Hop Express launched with a major grant from the university system to create a mobile classroom and production studio in a renovated school bus that engaged public school students throughout the pandemic. With the appointments of Professors Eli Fieldsteel in 2016 and Lamont Holden in 2020, a series of new and redesigned courses on electroacoustic music, interactive audio, hiphop, audio recording, and popular music production have attracted a broad coalition of music and non-music majors.

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CURRICULUM AND DEGREES The curriculum has always signaled the School’s values, and in that context, any music not considered “classical” has had a tenuous place on the menu of required musicmajor courses. While the Bachelor of Music performance curriculum remains among the most traditional—and requirement-heavy—on campus, filled with studio lessons, large ensemble requirements, group piano, and sequential history, theory, and musicianship courses, new initiatives have introduced more flexible degrees, diverse musical repertoires, and varied career goals. These changes include more topical, globally focused courses in musicology that have replaced a sequence of traditional “period” courses in western music; new, creatively rigorous approaches to musicianship; and MUS 100, a new half-semester course for first-year music majors, that is designed to “lay a foundation . . . [of] healthy habits, practices and attitudes” relating to physical health and mental well-being challenges.

Since the 1990s, the School has introduced more options for musical performance, study, and creativity through degree programs and courses in jazz and Lyric Theatre.

Thanks to maverick Professor John Garvey, who established the University of Illinois Jazz Band in the 1960s, jazz at Illinois remained consistently strong throughout the late

2004

2006

2007

Larry Gray, Gravity (CD Baby)

Ollie Watts Davis, Here’s One: Spiritual Songs, with Casey Robards (KJAC)

James Pugh, X Over Trombone (Albany Records)

Jonathan Keeble, Icarus (Albany Records)

Joan Hickey and Tito Carrillo, Between the Lines (OA2 Records)

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Larry Gray, One Look (CD Baby)

Rudolf Haken, Concerto for FiveString Viola (Centaur Records)

2005 Timothy Ehlen, To the Distant Beloved (Azica)

Nathan Gunn, Just Before Sunrise (Sony Classics)

1980s. While the School began offering a few additional jazz courses in the ’90s, no student could “major” in jazz.

After years of strategizing, a jazz major became a feasible priority in 2002. The degree was made possible through campus support for hiring additional faculty, a new curriculum custom-made for aspiring jazz musicians, and extensive renovations to the basement of Smith Memorial Hall, which resulted in new studio and rehearsal spaces.

A Jazz Area did not exist a quarter century ago; it now boasts a robust cohort of full-time faculty led by its chair, Professor Chip McNeill. At the School of Music, jazz had finally come to be seen as “a valid art form, and we were incomplete without it,” recalled Ed Rath, who served as the School’s Associate Director at that time and played a key role in making it happen.

The Lyric Theatre program’s new major and degree, led by Professors Julie Gunn and Nathan Gunn, were created to provide students with comprehensive training to become singing actors. The program is based on the demands in singing, acting, and movement that Nathan has faced as an internationally renowned singer of opera and musical theater. Because the curriculum could not fit into the traditional Bachelor of Music, Julie discovered the existence of the rarely used Bachelor of Musical Arts

Since the 1990s, the School has introduced more options for musical performance, study, and creativity through degree programs and courses in jazz and Lyric Theatre.

(BMA) designation, a degree approved by the National Association of Schools of Music that requires substantial coursework outside of music. In addition to requiring courses in theater and dance, the program places particular importance on making professional connections, incorporating master classes with the likes of Renée Fleming and Lawrence Brownlee; productions with guest conductors and directors from major national and international venues; and workshops of works-in-progress with major composers and librettists.

2008

2009

2010

Larry Gray, 1, 2, 3 (Chicago Sessions)

Timothy Ehlen, Ludwig van Beethoven: Complete Beethoven Piano Sonatas, vol. 1 (Azica)

Zach Browning, Venus Notorious (Innova)

Charlotte Mattax Moersch, Nouvelles Suites de pieces de clavecin (Centaur Records)

Charlotte Mattax Moersch, Pièces de claveçin, vols. 1 and 2 (Centaur Records)

Debra Richtmeyer, World Without Words (Mark Records)

Jonathan Keeble and Timothy McGovern with Prairie Winds, Turbulent Winds: Music from Eastern Europe (Albany Records)

Stephen Taylor, The Machine Awakes (Albany Records) Ann Yeung and Jonathan Keeble, Voyage: American Works for Flute and Harp (Albany Records)

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A S E LEC T I O N O F FA C U LT Y P U B LI C AT I O N S S I N C E 1 9 9 5 2001

1995 Bruno Nettl, Heartland Excursions: Ethno­ musicological Reflections on Schools of Music (University of Illinois Press) Bruno Nettl, ed., Music, Culture, & Experience: Selected Papers of John Blacking, with John Blacking and Reginald Byron (University of Chicago Press)

Sam Reese, ed., Strategies for Teaching: Technology, with Kimberly McCord and Kimberly Walls (Rowman & Littlefield Education)

2002 Bruno Nettl, Encounters in Ethnomusicology: A Memoir (Harmonie Park Press)

2003

Heidi Von Gunden, The Music of Lou Harrison (Scarecrow Press)

Nicholas Temperley, Bound for America: Three British Composers (University of Illinois Press)

1997 John Walter Hill, Roman Monody, Cantata, and Opera fromthe Circles around Cardinal Montalto, 2 vol.

(Oxford University Press)

2004 Thomas Turino, ed., Identity and the Arts in Diaspora Communities (Harmonie Park Press, 2004)

2005

1998 Nicholas Temperley, ed., The Hymn Tune Index: A Census of English-Language Hymn Tunes in Printed Sources from 1535–1820 (Oxford University Press)

1999 Herbert Kellman, ed., The Treasury of Petrus Alamire: Music and Art in Flemish Court Manuscripts, 1500–1535 (University of Chicago Press)

Lawrence Gushee, Pioneers of Jazz: The Story of the Creole Band (Oxford University Press) John Walter Hill, Baroque Music: Music in Western Europe, 1580–1750 (W.W. Norton) Jeffrey Magee, The Uncrowned King of Swing: Fletcher Henderson and Big Band Jazz (Oxford University Press)

Gayle Magee, Charles Ives: A Research and Information Guide, 2nd Edition (Routledge)

Donna A. Buchanan, ed., Balkan Popular Music and the Ottoman Ecumene: Music, Image, and Regional Political Discourse (Scarecrow Press)

2011 Reid Alexander, Piano Repertoire Guide: Intermediate and Advanced Literature (Stipes)

Gayle Magee, Charles Ives Reconsidered (University of Illinois Press)

2012

Bruno Nettl, Makam: Modal Practice in Turkish Art Music, with Karl Signell (Usul Editions) Gabriel Solis, Monk’s Music: Thelonious Monk and Jazz History in the Making (University of California Press) Thomas Turino, Music as Social Life: The Politics of Participation (University of Chicago Press) Thomas Turino, Music in the Andes (Oxford University Press)

Jeffrey Magee, Irving Berlin’s American Musical Theater (Oxford University Press) Susan Parisi, ed., The Music Library of a Noble Florentine Family: A Catalogue Raisonné of Manuscripts and Prints of the 1720s to the 1850s collected by the Ricasoli Family, with Robert Lamar Weaver (Harmonie Park Press)

2009

2013

Janet Revell Barrett, ed., Music Education at a Crossroads: Realizing the Goal of Music for All (Rowman & Littlefield Education)

Bruno Nettl, Becoming an Ethnomusicologist: A Miscellany of Influences (Scarecrow Press)

2006

Nicholas Temperley, Studies in English Church Music (Ashgate)

Donna A. Buchanan, Performing Democracy: Bulgarian Music and Musicians in Transitions (University of Chicago Press)

Bruno Nettl, Nettl’s Elephant: On the History of Ethnomusicology (University of Illinois Press)

2008

Gabriel Solis and Bruno Nettl, eds., Musical Improvisation: Art, Education, and Society (University of Illinois Press)

2000

2014 Reid Alexander, Keyboard Musicianship, 10th edition, book 1 (Stipes) Janet Revell Barrett, ed., The Musical Experience: Rethinking Music Teaching and Learning, with Peter R. Webster (Oxford University Press) Donna A. Buchanan, ed., Soundscapes from the Americas: Ethnomusicological Essays on the Power, Poetics, and Ontology of Performance (Ashgate)

Nicholas Temperley, ed., Lectures on a Musical Life: William Sterndale Bennett (Boydell Press)

2011

2012

Larry Gray, Three Equals One (CD Baby)

Zach Browning, Secret Pulse (Innova)

Christos Tsitsaros, Chaier Tango (Centaur Label)

Jim Pugh, The Devil’s Hopyard, with Glenn Wilson (Jazzmaniac)

Tito Carrillo, Opening Statement (Origin Records) Charles “Chip” McNeill, The Whirl (Armored Records)

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2010

Christina Bashford, The Pursuit of High Culture: John Ella and Chamber Music in Victorian London (Boydell Press)

Bruno Nettl, The Study of Ethnomusicology: Thirty-One Issues and Concepts, 2nd Edition (University of Illinois Press)

Heidi Von Gunden, The Music of Vivian Fine (Scarecrow Press) Thomas Turino, Nationalists, Cosmopolitans, and Popular Music in Zimbabwe (University of Chicago Press)

2007

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Bernhard Scully, Dialogues en Français (Albany Records) Jonathan Keeble and Ann Yeung, Song of the Black Swan (Albany Records)

John Walter Hill, Joseph Riepel’s Theory of Metric and Tonal Order, Phrase and Form (Pendragon Press) Gayle Magee, Robert Altman’s Soundtracks: Film, Music, and Sound from M*A*S*H to a Prairie Home Companion (Oxford University Press) Gabriel Solis, Thelonious Monk Quartet Featuring John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall (Oxford University Press)

2015 Chester Alwes, A History of Western Choral Music, Vol. I (Oxford University Press) Bruno Nettl, The Study of Ethnomusicology: ThirtyThree Discussions (University of Illinois Press)

2016 Chester Alwes, A History of Western Choral Music, Vol. II (Oxford University Press) Christina Bashford, ed., The Idea of Art Music in a Commercial World, 1800–1930, with Roberta Montemorra Marvin (Boydell & Brewer) Bridget Sweet, Growing Musicians: Teaching Music in Middle School and Beyond (Oxford University Press) Nicholas Temperley, ed., Musicians of Bath and Beyond: Edward Loder (1809–1865) and His Family (Boydell Press)

2018 Nicholas Temperley, ed., The Whole Book of Psalms: Collected into English Metre by Thomas Sternhold, John Hopkins, and Others (Arizona Center for Medieval & Renaissance Studies) Michael B. Silvers, Voices of Drought: The Politics of Music and Environment in Northeastern Brazil (University of Illinois Press) Jeffrey Sposato, Leipzig After Bach: Church and Concert Life in a German City (Oxford University Press)

The interior of Smith Hall after renovations

2019 William Brooks, Christina Bashford, and Gayle Magee, eds, Over Here: Over There Transatlantic Conversations on the Music of World War I (University of Illinois Press)

2020 Thomas Siwe, Artful Noise: Percussion Literature in the Twentieth Century (University of Illinois Press) Bridget Sweet, Thinking Outside the Voice Box: Adolescent Voice Change in Music Education (Oxford University Press)

2021 Janet Revell Barrett, Mark Robin Campbell, and Linda K. Tompson, eds., Constructing a Personal Orientation to Music Teaching: Growth, Inquiry, and Agency, 2nd Edition (Routledge) Debra Richtmeyer, The Richtmeyer Method for Saxophone Mastery, vol. 1 and 2, Connie Friggo, ed. (Theodore Presser)

Faculty continually revise and reinvent curricula to address the current and future needs of students, and the trend has been toward a more option-rich landscape. In the early 2000s, the Open Studies music curriculum was formally approved, and the B.A. in Music, long housed in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, came under the auspices of the School of Music. Both offer students much more flexibility than the Bachelor of Music, and the Open Studies pathway has even served as the pilot for new majors, including jazz and Lyric Theatre.

In 2015, the Music Education faculty revamped its curriculum to provide students with a broader introduction to the field before allowing them to choose a concentration. In the process it became more attuned to culturally responsive pedagogy and more engaged with local public schools. It also introduced the new technology concentration into the mix. Other courses in music production and recording techniques have been added, and string players may now pursue electric options in their lessons.

New programs have been added to the longstanding and highly successful Illinois Summer Youth Music (ISYM), including camps on rock, hip-hop, technology, musical theatre, and Black Chorus.

More recently, roughly one-third of the entire faculty was charged by Director Jeffrey Sposato to think boldly about

2013

2014

2015

Michael Cameron, Canto (Perseus)

Timothy Ehlen, Ludwig van Beethoven: Complete Piano Sonatas, vol. VII (Azica)

John Dee and Tim McGovern, Music from America and Abroad for Oboe, Bassoon, and Piano, with Cara Chowning (Albany Records)

Ian Hobson, Martinū: early Orchestral Works, vol. 1 (Toccata Classics) Chip Stephens, Relevancy (Capri Records) Ollie Watts Davis, Vocal Grace: Six Spirituals in Solo and Choral Settings (OnWarD Music)

Charlotte Mattax Moersch, Pièces de Clavecin (Centaur Records) Rochelle Sennet, Alkelbulan’s Son: The Piano Works of James Lee III (Albany Records)

Larry Gray, Made in Chicago (ECM) Charlotte Mattax Moersch, Jean Henry D’Anglebert: Pièces de Clavecin (Centaur Records)

Jupiter String Quartet, Ravel: Intimate Masterpieces (Oberlin Music)

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Lyric Theatre students, with Nathan Gunn, workshop Take Flight, a musical-in-progress by veteran Broadway writers Richard Maltby, David Shire, and John Weidman

how the School’s core curriculum could be reimagined to be more inclusive and diverse. Dubbed the Task Force on the Undergraduate Music Core, and chaired by Music Education Professor Jeananne Nichols, the members laid all requirements on the table—in music history, theory, group piano, ensembles, and individual lessons—and examined the unspoken assumptions behind audition requirements that privileged some kinds of music making and musical talent over others. The Taskforce delivered a nine-page report with sixteen recommendations, unanimously agreed upon by all 25 members, that are in the process of being implemented.

RENOVATIONS In the inaugural sonorities, Director Moses noted that while the Music Building, opened in 1972, remained a stateof-the-art facility, historic Smith Memorial Hall needed some attention. A quarter century later, both buildings had deteriorated in ways both obvious and obscure. Smith Hall, the needier structure, got attention first in with an initial $5 million campus investment in renovations, inside and out. Smith had been the first campus building to be funded by a private donation, one inspired by a Civil

War-era romance worthy of a Hollywood film (see the 2014 issue of this magazine). It had been constructed between 1917 and 1920 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places soon after the School’s centennial. In 2013, contractors began work on Smith’s façade, replacing deteriorated bricks, masonry, and the roof, and installing new windows and frames.

Inside, they overhauled faculty studios, restrooms, and practice rooms; improved the HVAC system to eliminate the clicks and bangs of the old radiators; added fire-proof glass doors to mitigate noise; and made the building and its spaces more accessible. Smith Memorial Room received a makeover, with new paint on the intricately designed ceiling that restored its elegance and luster. Then campus invested another $5 million to address further renovations, including the building’s crown jewel: the recital hall. Its floor was regraded to create a more consistent rake, new vestibules were added to enhance acoustics and buffer external sound, and seats were refurbished for comfort, acoustics, and durability. The renovations were completed in 2019, nearly a decade after the initial funding had been secured.

Between the phases of Smith’s facelift, the School procured additional funding to renovate the Music Building’s

2016

2017

Timothy Ehlen, Ehlen-Tai Piano Duo, Virtuosic Dance (Azica)

Casey Robards, Come Down Angels! (CD Baby)

Rudolf Haken, Romancing the Viola (MSR Classics)

Bernhard Scully with the Jupiter String Quartet, Windows in Time (Opening Day)

Rudolf Haken, Haken Am Bach, vol.

1 (Pomposa Recordings)

Jupiter String Quartet, Su Lian Tan Revelations (ARSIS Audio)

Ollie Watts Davis, Rootsongs, with the Jupiter String Quartet (Azica)

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Internationally renowned operatic tenor Lawrence Brownlee leads a master class with a Lyric Theatre student.

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The newly renovated Smith Memorial Room

The SoM South Lobby after renovations

interior to accord more with twenty-first century norms and needs. Beyond a few coats of paint, the interior of the School looked almost exactly as it had upon opening four decades earlier. Therefore, “when students began classes in Fall 2015,” sonorities’ then-editor Emily Wuchner wrote, “the sounds of saw, drills, and hammers accompanied performances in studios and practice rooms and teachers lecturing in classrooms.” To the casual observer, the most significant change was the reconstruction of the South Lobby with digital signage, high-top tables and chairs, cushioned lounge seating, and a sleek glass sign sporting the words “School of Music” above the university’s logo.

Veering northward down the hallway, observers would note cushioned seats along the windows, new restrooms, and at the end of the hall, another digital sign next to a new information desk fronting the copy and mail center.

The auditorium saw significant structural and acoustic improvements, all classroom labs received technology upgrades, practice studio hallways received doors for safety and noise mitigation, and other safety features were upgraded to meet current codes. New ceilings and LED lighting brightened and modernized the entire building and upgraded Wi-Fi enhanced internet usage. With the recent addition of new artwork and windows in the doors of offices and studios to bring in more light, the Music

Building provides an appropriate and welcoming space in support of the School’s commitment to twenty-first century learning and innovation.

INVESTING IN THE FUTURE Many of the changes over the past quarter century have been funded through generous gifts from individual and corporate donors that complement support from the campus and the College of Fine and Applied Arts. The significance of such gifts has grown tremendously since the School’s centennial, as the university as a whole has found it vital to reduce its reliance on support from the State of Illinois. As a result, the School hired its first inhouse fundraiser after the centennial and has had one ever since. Alumni and other friends of the School have responded generously: indeed, the 2020 fiscal year marked a new record in total giving to the School, with more than $6 million raised.

Gifts have flowed in many forms. From one dollar to $1 million and more, giving to the School makes an immediate impact and enhances the student experience. Such gifts may support faculty and students directly, such as named professorships, chairs, and scholarships. Others may enhance the physical environment such as gifts

2018

2019

Timothy Ehlen, Late Character Pieces of Brahms (Azica) Erik Lund, Memos (Centaur Records)

Casey Robards, Botanica: Music for Oboe and English Horn (MSR Classics)

Charlotte Mattax Moersch, JS Bach’s Goldberg Variations (Centaur Records)

Casey Robards, Chinese Fantasies (Blue Griffin Recording) Chip Stephens, Sadness & Soul (Capri Records)

Charlotte Mattax Moersch, Bach and Sons: A Father’s Day Tribute (Centaur Records)

Jupiter String Quartet, Alchemy, with Bernadette Harvey (Marquis Classics)

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of instruments, or provide opportunities for enriching experiences, such as concert tours to Chicago’s Symphony Center and New York’s Lincoln Center.

One of the School’s most generous benefactors in the past quarter century has been Sheila Johnson (BS ’70), who created two major endowments to support the areas in which she had excelled: strings and music education.

One is the Daniel J. Perrino Chair in Music, most recently occupied by Professor Donald Schleicher, the retired conductor of the University of Illinois Symphony Orchestra.

Johnson named the chair after her beloved mentor at the university. The other endowment from Johnson makes possible the Susan Starrett Scholarships in violin, in honor of her teacher prior to her matriculation at the university.

Some generous benefactors choose to remain anonymous.

One such donor provided $1.5 million to create the Franz Joseph Haydn Scholarships in Music Performance and Franz Liszt Piano Endowments (the latter given in honor of Edward and Lois Rath), which stand among the largest scholarship endowments that came to the school outright.

In contrast to outright gifts, planned giving has become an increasingly common way for devotees of the School of Music to make a mark long after they pass. The legacy of Robert Zarbock (BM ’53), the late recording engineer in New York who had worked with many opera stars, includes generous support for students in many forms, including three scholarship and research-support funds named after professors who inspired him at Illinois: William G. Hill (musicology), Hubert Kessler (theory), and Walter Roosa (strings). Distinguished choral alumnus Joseph Flummerfelt included the graduate program in choral music in his estate plan, and now the choral program flourishes on an endowment of more than $600,000.

The late music education Professor Marilyn Pflederer Zimmerman and her husband endowed a chair in her name that was filled after her passing in 1995. It was most recently occupied by Professor Janet Revell Barrett, who, following her retirement, continues to edit the prestigious

Many of the changes over the past quarter century have been funded through generous gifts from individual and corporate donors that complement support from the campus and the College of Fine and Applied Arts. The significance of such gifts has grown tremendously. peer-reviewed journal, The Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education. In 1996, Suzanne Allen made an agreement with Director Moses to create professorships in the School of Music upon her death. When she passed in 2018, the School acquired a sizeable gift that allowed for two endowed professorships. The following year, after a rigorous peer review process judging them worthy of extraordinary recognition, Professors Andrew Megill (choral) and Ollie Watts Davis (voice/choral) were named the Suzanne and William Allen Distinguished Professors of Music—twenty-three years after the donor signed the fund agreement. Such appointments benefit more than just the individual faculty members: the endowments that support them also flow to student activity related to the faculty members’ work.

The impact of planned giving may also be seen in the establishment of the Robert E. Brown Center for World Music in 2006. Brown, widely credited with coining the

2020

2021

Jason Finkelman, Kuroshio, with Shu-Cheng Allen Wu and Joy Yang (Asian Improv Records)

Rochelle Sennet, Bach to Black: Suites for Piano (Albany Records)

Timothy McGovern, Novelette: French Recital Music for Bassoon and Piano (Albany Records)

Christos Tsitsaros, Faraway Journey (Centaur Records)

Charlotte Mattax Moersch, The Bach Legacy (Centaur Records)

Jupiter String Quartet, Mendelssohn, Visconti, Golijov, with the Jasper String Quartet (Marquis Classics)

Charlotte Mattax Moersch, J.S. Bach: The Goldberg Variations (Centaur Records) Jupiter String Quartet, Metamorphosis (Marquis Classics)

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Ollie Watts Davis Conducting at ISYM

phrase world music to encompass what used to be known, negatively, as “non-western music,” was a zealous proponent of its performance and a collector of recordings, books, and instruments. His legacy brought to the School string, wind, and percussion instruments from several countries, including three gamelan orchestras from Indonesia; Balinese paintings; a Javanese shadow puppet theater with 2,000 puppets; as well as his library of thousands of books, recordings, and videotapes. Today, the Center, under the direction of Jason Finkelman, collaborates across units to present events that draw large audiences from across the campus and the community.

In recent years, the School acquired three new Steinway pianos as the result of a combination of outright gifts from the Uhlenhop family, who provided a nine-foot Steinway D in memory of Ginny Uhlenhop (BME ’59), and from Carol Berthold (LAS ’64), who donated both a Steinway D and a seven-foot Steinway B. All three pianos grace the largest rooms in Smith Hall: the Memorial Room (which houses the B), Smith 25, and the recital hall. Other significant contributions include a gift from Lynd Corley (BME ’59, MS ’61) and family, whose donation made possible the Sesquicentennial concert tours of the Chamber Singers and University of Illinois Wind Symphony to Chicago’s Symphony Center and New York’s Lincoln Center. Still other contributions have supported high-profile student performances at major conventions, conferences, and events sponsored by the Jazz Education Network, the College Band Directors National Association, and the American Bandmasters Association. This period, too, encompasses the Marching Illini’s performances in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade in New York and the St. Patrick’s Day Parades in Dublin, Ireland, as well as the rise of the long-awaited Marching Illini Instructional Tower,

which was made possible by a generous gift of Ronald and Paula Filler. The names of so many other generous donors to the School of Music, too numerous to be listed here, are acknowledged in the honor roll of donors that appears in every sonorities issue.

WHERE WE HOPE TO BE . . .

So much has changed over the past twenty-five years, even as the core mission of the School of Music continues unchanged. Throughout its history, the School has remained committed to building connections among our excellent faculty, outstanding students, dedicated staff, far-flung alumni, and increasingly diverse communities. Now, that focus is expanding to meet the needs and demands of a future that is already upon us, one that requires us to be more conscious of our responsibilities to create a diverse and equitable world, and to prepare our students for a twenty-first century workplace that prioritizes and rewards musical versatility, creative collaboration, and global citizenship. “Music is a living, breathing artform,” notes School of Music Director Jeffrey Sposato. “We need to teach our students in a way that recognizes this, that encourages them to seek out or create new opportunities in the field, and that allows them to graduate prepared for an array of career options. This is possible when a great music school is paired with a top-tier research university, which is exactly why Illinois is the place to make this happen.”

Professor Jeffrey Magee is a former Director of the School of Music (2012–19) and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the College of Media.

Professor Gayle Magee is Chair of the Musicology Area and Faculty Affairs Coordinator for the School of Music.

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A New Vision for the School of Music in the Twenty-First Century

BY NO LA N VA L L I ER

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offering multiple degree options for students interested in careers outside of performance and education;

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The award-winning Cyan Saxophone Quartet, from left to right: Scott Augustine (soprano saxophone), Jack Thorpe (alto saxophone), Jonathan Dufresne (tenor saxophone), Jamal Brown (baritone saxophone)

Photo by Nolan Vallier

ince fall 2019, faculty and admini s t ra t o r s h ave worked together to articulate a new vision for the School of Music, one that reconceptualizes what a music education should mean in the twenty-first century. Even amid the tumultuous events of the 2020–2021 school year, School-wide committees and individual program areas contin- Kerrith Livengood instructing MUS 101 students to wrap audio cables in October ued this work. Faculty and staff have re-examined the School’s curriculum; modified the methods the School has used to recruit, fund, and retain students, with an eye on ensuring that the student body reflects the diversity of the State of Illinois; and reconsidered the ways that faculty teach performance.

The changes enacted this past year include new courses that prepare students for multiple types of careers after graduation—changes that reflect the shifting needs of performing arts organizations, schools and universities, the recording industry, and even music software companies. And these changes also ensure that students are exposed to the diverse array of musical traditions they will be expected to perform and teach after graduation.

As we continue to celebrate the School of Music’s 125th Anniversary, these changes reflect the School’s commitment to students for the next 125 years. This vision for the School of Music rests on three pillars of activity:

Members of the Solideo Quartet, from left to right: Joshelle Conley (violin), Heather Beckman (violin), Jun Hyuk Lee (cello), and William Alexander (viola)

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combining conservatory-style training models with the resources of a Tier One research institution that provides all students with a liberal arts education; embracing the diversity of the musical world, by making the music degree more accessible to a wider variety of students, including students who may have received alternative types of training before they came to Illinois.

PI LL A R 1 Preparing Students for Multiple Career Options For those students working toward a performance degree, auditioning for a place within a major symphony orchestra, military band, jazz band, or opera or musical theatre company may be the ultimate goal. Although students often treat these types of ensembles as the only viable performance settings post-graduation, competition for a place within these ensembles is fierce. Preparing students for alternative opportunities is therefore a must.

According to Director Jeffrey Sposato, “We need to recognize that even in the best of circumstances, performance careers take a long time to build.” He notes, “The School of Music is trying to make sure all of the current degree programs allow students to graduate with multiple career options in music and performance, whether that be as a soloist, an accompanist, a studio teacher, a music administrator, or someone working in music business.”

The School is currently pursuing this on multiple fronts, including expanding its chamber music options and offering new courses that teach students to market themselves within the diverse world of music.

Chamber music has always been a core element of the School of Music. In the coming years, not only will the School of Music continue to support successful ensembles like the UI Graduate Saxophone Quartet, which formed in 1991 and won awards like the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition and the North American Saxophone Alliance’s National Quartet Competition, the School of Music hopes to provide additional opportunities to performance majors. Some of these changes began during the fall semester of 2020 when the Performance Studies and Activities Committee submitted a series of proposed changes to the School’s performance curriculum. In their report, the committee recommended that the School adopt immediate changes to raise the profile of performance in small ensembles, which are far more numerous in the music world than their large-scale counterparts. Their proposal included blocking-out designated times during the normal working day for small group rehearsals, designating or hiring a small ensemble coordinator, offering student ensembles opportunities to create professional recordings, embracing non-traditional performance spaces and venues, and establishing small ensemble recruitment events.

This committee also outlined long-term goals for building the School’s chamber music offerings. Some of these goals included funding visiting clinicians, hiring graduate assistants to help advise small ensembles, sponsoring Registered Student Organization (RSO) ensembles, and creating more opportunities for ensembles that feature students who identify as Black, Indigenous, or People of Color (BIPOC). The committee noted that “an excellent music school should offer a variety of ensemble opportunities, both large and small.” Their proposal, elements of which are already in place or in the planning stage, begins to address some of the challenges students face when leaving the School and entering the workforce.

Fall 2020 also marked the start of the newly created Entrepreneurship Certificate program. The program includes courses related to business, marketing, copyright law, and networking, skills that every aspiring musician needs to succeed in these uncertain times. One course recently offered within the program, Ensemble Entrepreneurship, was designed to teach students to develop, promote, and sustain small ensembles. The course was co-taught by Professors Jonathan Keeble and Ann Yeung, who note: Our entrepreneurship course was co-created with former faculty member Wayne Lee, of the Formosa Quartet, to prepare students to creatively develop, promote, and sustain performing activities through learning about event management and preparing professional portfolios. We were fortunate to be able to virtually engage with renowned colleagues here and throughout the world.

Their course included projects like crafting professional portfolios, creating marketing presentations, and developing financial literacy. According to Keeble and Yeung, “Student response was quite positive, particularly during a period that was quite challenging.... It was a forum that allowed all of us to share our hopes, fears, and dreams and to connect virtually.”

In addition to offering courses in entrepreneurship, the School of Music has also taken steps to encourage small group performance by establishing its first graduate string quartet-in-residence. While the group, who call themselves the Solideo Quartet, first began interacting with one another two years ago, violinist Heather Beckman points out that the members really did not have the opportunity to perform together until this year. She notes, “We are so excited to finally be in one school, one location, and

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I personally love having the luxury of focusing all of my efforts through the lens of chamber music.

The work we are dedicating to our quartet helps to provide clarity of purpose to everything else we do.

For example, working on our individual technique through etudes, scales, etc. is much more meaningful and motivating because you know it directly impacts the group.

Violinist Joshelle Conley believes that chamber music “[is] the best of both worlds, it’s something like being both a soloist and an orchestral musician in one.”

By embracing small ensembles and teaching students to promote their own work, the School of Music is setting the stage for students to explore new performance modes and opportunities. According to Director Sposato, the goal is not only to establish traditional art-music ensembles, but to create spaces for students to design new and interesting combinations of instruments. He notes, “We’d love to see a Klezmer band or a folk group, for example.

Even though chamber music has a stylistic and historical connotation, we’d like to see that definition expand to embrace all sorts of combinations of performers. We also want to make sure we are giving this small ensemble work and training the same level of commitment as we do our signature large ensembles.” To help achieve these goals, the School of Music is seeking donors to sponsor some of these initiatives, including an entrepreneurship speaker series, a permanently funded graduate quartet, and a chamber music concert series.

Many parents of freshmen music majors ask the question, “What will my child do with this degree? Why should they become a music major now?” As Dr. Sposato suggests, these questions are not new, but COVID-19 has exacerbated the anxiety parents feel about having their child declare music as their major. He notes, “We need to be able to

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Photos courtesy of Rudolf Haken

with one focus together! We are confident this [opportunity] will allow us to focus on the important, slow work of learning how to be in a string quartet and to create a unique group sound.” As a component of their residency, the Solideo Quartet is being coached by members of the Jupiter String Quartet. According to cellist Jun Hyuk Lee, “It’s been a joy and privilege to be able to receive feedback from members of the Jupiter Quartet through their coaching and individual lessons.” Violist William Alexander is enthusiastic about the opportunity to focus on chamber music making. He notes:

Above: Members of the Electric Strings Program Left: Chuck Bontrager and Matt Bell

answer these questions with confidence by saying that we prepare students to have lots of opportunities in the field of music.”

PI LL A R 2 Offering Conservatory-Style Training in the Context of a Liberal Arts Education Since the establishment of the music technology track in the Bachelor of Arts degree in 2015, the School of Music has been creating courses that allow students opportunities to work with music in new capacities. This was followed in 2018 by the creation of the dual degree program in Computer Science and Music (CS + Music), which leads to a Bachelor of Science and caters to students who have an interest in music technology. In addition to taking general courses in computer science, like software design and system programming, students in this degree path also take courses in audio engineering, calculus, and music computation. In the last two years, courses within the CS + Music program have expanded, and this expansion has begun both to benefit and influence other programs.

For instance, this past spring saw the creation of the Electric Violin and Electric Viola degree tracks, which are now available at all levels from bachelor to doctorate. As Professor Rudolf Haken notes, The rationale for creating this program was to explore not only the performance aspects of electric strings, but to also tap into the tremendous resources our university offers for students to understand and

PI LL A R 3 Photo by Chad “Boots” Howard

develop technology and p e d a g o g y— f r o m 3 D printing instruments in the MakerLab at the Gies College of Business, to building transducers in Engineering labs, to creating performance and impulse response software in our Music Guest Artist Yuneer Gainz composing Technology courses, to developing electric strings pedagogy in both our music education and College of Education programs.

In addition to providing students with opportunities to explore technology, pedagogy, and instrument manufacturing, the electric strings program also offers a new ensemble for students, the University of Illinois Electric Strings Ensemble. This ensemble is already making waves in the international music community and will be an ensemble-in-residence at the Bayreuth Young Artists Festival in Germany in August 2022. As Haken notes, “As technology and playing styles continue to develop, our program will continue to develop with them, much as CS and Engineering courses continuously keep up with new developments.” According to Dr. Sposato, the School of Music is currently exploring an Engineering and Music dual degree program, which would allow for further developments in the realm of audio recording engineering, acoustic engineering, computer engineering, and electrical engineering.

In addition to these developments in music technology, the School of Music has been exploring internship programs with employers in areas of the music technology industry. One such internship program is currently being developed by Professor Lamont Holden. Holden is working with TuneCore—an independent digital music distribution, publishing, and licensing service—to collaboratively develop a curriculum in beat construction and hip-hop performance. This past spring Professor Holden co-taught Intro to Popular Music Songwriting with hip-hop artist Yuneer Gainz. During the course, Holden and Gainz taught students how to structure songs, build hooks, and construct musical bridges. This past July, Gainz was named a “TuneCore Certified 2021 Hot 50 Independent Artist to Watch” in Rolling Stone. Hands-on experiences with music technology, such as those happening in Professor Holden’s songwriting course, will be integral to the success of future music students pursuing a degree in music technology.

Embracing Diversity and Addressing Issues of Equity During a faculty retreat that took place in February 2020, the need to address diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as to adopt an anti-racist stance, took center stage. This commitment expanded following the killing of George Floyd on May 25, 2020. Students joined faculty in pressing the issue, and articulated their concerns in a student-led forum that took place that summer.

Dr. Sposato issued a charge to reexamine our undergraduate programs from the perspectives of diversity, equity, and inclusion to the group of the faculty who had already come together at the retreat to begin work on these issues. They quickly expanded into a massive committee called the Task Force on the Undergraduate Music Core that consisted of about a quarter of the entire music faculty and included volunteers from every area of the School.

The group worked intensely for months, reaching out to many other members of the School of Music community, and submitted their findings during a faculty meeting in February 2021. In their effort to address concerns related to inclusion, diversity, equity, and access, they evaluated the courses that all undergraduates are required to take— the “undergraduate music core”—which includes music theory, musicianship, musicology, keyboard instruction, applied lessons, and ensemble participation. Faculty asked whether these courses reflected the diversity of the musical world, and if they presented unnecessary barriers to musically talented students who may not have benefited from expensive private lessons in high school.

The Task Force made sixteen detailed recommendations, on everything from audition practices to curricula to repertoire. In addition, they recommended that the School adopt more inclusive practices that would allow it to create a welcoming environment for students from a broad range of musical backgrounds. They noted: The School of Music undergraduate music core, like most others in the country, has been largely focused on Eurocentric musical traditions and values. A narrow core such as this privileges students whose musical abilities and preparation are rooted in European classical traditions, but this focus may deny entry, decrease interest, or otherwise marginalize students whose interests and backgrounds are primarily rooted in other traditions. Not only does this decrease the

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potential diversity of the School of Music’s student body, but it limits all students’ educational experiences and their abilities to participate and collaborate in the broader musical world.

Photo courtesy of Diamond Arrington

Dr. Sposato notes, “One of the core elements of our vision is to make the student body of the School of Music look much more like the State of Illinois, and to make The 2020– 2021 BSAB sure underrepresented students feel welcome, valued, Board. and have the tools they need to succeed here.”

From left to right: Areas within the School of Music have already begun Diamond to address the concerns voiced by the Task Force on the Arrington, Undergraduate Music Core, and in the coming years this Sophia undergraduate core will differ significantly from what it Byrd, Juliana was in the past. One major change already undertaken by the Composition-Theory area is a completely new MUS Nolan, and Alexis Lane 101 course, which now has supplemental classes to help those students who need additional training in music fundamentals. This will allow all students to enter the next music theory course with a similar skill set. resources I had as a Black student. At the time there were In addition to programming works by diverse compos- only three black students I could connect with inside and ers, members of the conducting area have also played outside my classes. I thought wouldn’t it be great if I could a role in altering the ways the School of Music teaches meet all the Black students at the School of Music?” diversity in large group settings. This past year saw the As Arrington notes, the founding students of the BSAB formation of a course called Encore at Illinois. The course, saw the importance of supporting current students through which was led by Professor Elizabeth Peterson, featured face-to-face community events like movie nights, tutoring a series of panel discussions that were co-organized by nights, and a variety of community engaging activities. members of the band and choral faculty. Course topics One event in particular, the Black Artist Expo on Instaincluded “the composition and commissioning process,” gram Live, connected students with Black artists from “cultural sensitivity in the arts,” “share your musical talent! several universities around the country. In addition, in rewards and challenges of making music with people of August 2021, the BSAB board met to discuss ways it can special needs,” and “creating a brave space for the LGBTQ support future students of color in the School of Music. community in your large ensemble settings.” The last of As a result, the members of the BSAB have founded the these topics featured a panel that included Dr. Nicholas Arrington-Byrd-Lane-Nolan Scholarship and the Founding McBride (The College of New Jersey), Dr. Jennifer Martin Mothers Scholarship. The effort to fund these awards is (Cuesta College), Dr. Sheldon Williams (West Virginia underway and they hope to permanently establish them University), and Dr. Bridget Sweet. in the coming years.

Faculty members have not been alone in addressing The Next 125 Years issues of diversity, equity, and access within the School of Music. This past year a group of students came together Despite the challenges we have faced this past year, the to form the Black Student Advisory Board (BSAB), an RSO School of Music is committed to achieving this vision for that aims to promote a safe and supportive environment the future. Great changes appear on the horizon, and they for those music students of African and African-American are changes that put the needs of students first. As we look descent. The BSAB was founded by Diamond Arrington, forward to the next 125 years, these pillars will reinforce Sophia Byrd, Alexis Lane, and Juliana Nolan in the summer our foundation: The School’s mission of enriching the world of 2020. Arrington noted, “I was disheartened with the through critical thinking, engaged citizenship, and music.

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Profile of a Visiting Conductor Meet Professor Eddins

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n April 1, 2021, Bill Eddins was named the visiting Director of Orchestras and Conductor of the UI Symphony Orchestra for the 2021-2022 academic year. Prior to his arrival at the SoM, Eddins began his career as an orchestral pianist. After graduating in 1986, he became one of the founding members of the New World Symphony in Miami, Florida. This experience eventually led him to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, where he served as Resident Conductor from 1997 to 2003 and assistant to Daniel Barenboim. In 1998, he became the artistic director of the Prospect Park Players in Minnesota. Following this, he moved to Alberta, Canada, to become the Artistic Director of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. During the summer of 2020, Eddins co-founded MetroNOME LLC, a non-profit brewery that financially supports local music educators in the Minneapolis metropolitan area.

Professor Eddins takes over the podium from Professor Donald Schleicher, who, after twenty-six years at Illinois, retired this past spring. Sonorities sat down with Professor Eddins in September to discuss his career and his plans for teaching graduate conducting courses, conducting the UI Symphony Orchestra, and programming innovative ensemble repertoire.

Can you tell me about your time with Daniel Barenboim?

We got along very well. I think the reason is... well, I think it’s interesting because the music we create is very, very different. It really is. You would never mistake a Barenboim Beethoven for an Eddins Beethoven. But the thought processes that we went through in order to make our musical decisions were exactly the same. Daniel is the only person on earth that I would willingly volunteer to turn pages for at the piano. The only person. Sitting next to him, watching him play the piano, it’s like this guy played piano in utero. It’s ridiculous! That level of prodigy . . . it was just astounding to watch him play. Getting to argue

It’s an acronym: ‘Metro,’ for the twin-cities metro, and ‘NOME,’ for Nurture our Outstanding Music Education. That’s what I did during the global pandemic, I decided to found a brewery.” music with him was great, because everything mattered.

I’m not talking just about music, I’m talking about geopolitical situations, languages, this-that-and-the-other, where the earth was in relationship to Alpha-Centauri that day . . . everything mattered. My brain kind of works that way as well, it’s kind of all over the map. It was really tremendous fun.

Can you tell me a little about the Prospect Park Players and your interests in chamber music?

That was a chamber music group that I ran for several years with my wife, who is a clarinetist, and the whole attitude was we were just going to have fun. We were going to create great music but engage with our audience and just have fun doing it. I have a long-standing love for chamber music. I specialize in the music of Brahms; I’ve played it all. I love both the intimacy and the freedom of it. Again, it is one on a part, but there is that intimacy because you are connecting with just a couple of people around you, and you have to form this artistic bond to make everything make sense. I think the best part about classical music is chamber music.

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What types of works did you program while you were the Director of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra? Did you have any favorite pieces?

Photo by Nolan Vallier

The party-charts you mean? Well, it’s kind of hard to narrow it down, because I have a wide interest. On any given week you could see me conducting Messiah from the harpsichord; or premiering new music; or going through the works of Stravinsky, Bartók, Bernstein, Dvořák, Brahms . . . I’m just kind of all over the map. I do music that interests me. I don’t do music that doesn’t. I loathe Mahler with a Bill Eddins conducting the University of Illinois Symphony Orchestra passion. I just can’t stand his music. People are like, ‘Well, aren’t you a conductor?’ Yeah, I’m a conductor! I just don’t like the man’s music. People find that surprising because What types of works are you considering in conductors are supposed to like Mahler. We’re supposed terms of programming for this upcoming to do “our Mahler cycle.” Oh, whatever! I find the egotism academic year? involved in things like that is just not my style.

I have a bunch of ideas, but I’m not nailed down on it yet, because I haven’t really heard everybody yet. It’s hard to Can you tell me a little bit about your project make a decision about what you are going to do in March MetroNOME Brewery?

I live in Minneapolis and the last 14 or 15 months were a when you’ve really only heard the orchestra do Beethoven little interesting. Apart from the fact that we were in the and you’re thinking about doing something like Petrushka. middle of this global pandemic, we had the murder of Beethoven is hard, don’t get me wrong, Beethoven is hard.

George Floyd. Riot hot spot number one was two miles this A lot of people can’t play Beethoven well, but it is a totally way from my house. Riot hot spot number two was two different kind of hard when you are chasing Stravinsky miles that way from my house. We were smack-dab in the around in the summer fair. middle. I was getting madder and madder, because half of my brain was asking “Why aren’t we making advances in the way our society functions?” I was just chewing on that, and as a musician I thought “Why aren’t we investing in music education?” The other half of my brain was going “I’m in the middle of the pandemic and the only thing I can do right now is brew beer, because you can’t really go out and do anything else!” Well, these two sides were arguing with each other and something went . . . Click! I started thinking to myself, “Now wait a minute. I think I have an idea here.” So, I called up my brew buddy and I said I have this idea. I said, “If we want to actually make a change in society, we have to do it ourselves.” After a while one does get tired of shouting from the rooftops.

So, I said, “let’s do this! Let’s form a brewery and we can take the proceeds from the brewery and put it back into the community in the form of underwriting for music education and music instruments.” And MetroNOME was born. It’s even an acronym: “Metro,” for the twin-cities metro, and “NOME,” for Nurture our Outstanding Music Education. That’s what I did during the global pandemic, I decided to found a brewery.

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What are you excited about with your upcoming conducting classes and seminars?

For me it is always fun working with younger conductors who are trying to progress in what they do, because conducting is the art of the simple made difficult. At the same time, when you are conducting, it should be your job to make the difficult be easy. There’s a big difference between simple and easy. You have to know the music, but I’ve found that a lot of musicians don’t understand how their bodies function. I find this very distressing. I took karate for several years and I’ve studied many different forms of body art, including kung fu, qigong, and tai chi. I’m also a massage therapist. I use that training in my conducting every single day. I do not understand why it is that we do not train our young people to understand chi. Everything we do is about being able to move people in a particular direction without getting anywhere near them. You have to be able to project, what I like to call the “Power of Command.” You have to be able to convince people that this is the way it is.

faculty n e w s n e w fa c u lty Denise Djokic (Cello) has joined the faculty as Instructor of Cello. A native of Halifax, Nova Scotia, she is a graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Young Artist Program. She is also a graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music (MA), where she studied with Laurence Lesser and Paul Katz. Prior to arriving at UIUC, Djokic was a visiting professor at the University of Ottawa and served on the faculties of the National Youth Orchestra of Canada, the Killington Music Festival, and the Bowdoin International Music Festival. An active performer, she burst onto the international scene with a performance at the 2002 Grammy Awards.

As a soloist, she has performed with the Peninsula Music Festival Orchestra (WI), the Charlottesville (VA) Symphony Orchestra, the Victoria Symphony (TX), the Thunder Bay Symphony (Ontario), the Regina Symphony Orchestra (Saskatchewan), and Symphony Nova Scotia. She made her Carnegie Hall debut with the Edmonton Symphony in 2012.

Amy Gilreath (Trumpet) received her master’s and doctoral degrees in trumpet performance from the University of Illinois. In 1990, she became the first woman trumpet professor at Illinois State University, a position she held until retiring in 2019. Dr. Gilreath has had an active performance career as a member of the Monarch Brass Ensemble, the Consortium Brass Quintet, the Monarch Brass Quintet, Dallas Brass, Velvet Brass, Battle Creek Brass Band, and Keith Brion’s New Sousa Band. Since 1999, she has served as Principal Trumpet of the Illinois Symphony Orchestra and also holds the Co-Principal Trumpet position with Sinfonia da Camera.

As a founding member of Stiletto Brass Quintet, Amy has given performances at the Festival de Música de Cámera de Aguascalientes Mexico, the International Women’s Brass Conference, the International Trumpet Guild Conference, and the Northeast Regional Tuba Euphonium Conference.

Salley Koo (Violin) is a native of Chicago and a former student of the Music Center of the North Shore.

She holds a bachelor’s degree in English and American Literature from Harvard University, a master’s degree and artist diploma from the Yale School of Music, and a doctorate in violin performance from Stony Brook University (NY), where she studied with Pamela Frank and Philip Setzer. Dr. Koo has performed internationally as a solo, chamber, and orchestral musician. She has performed in numerous collaborative chamber settings with musicians such as Bela Fleck, Dawn Upshaw, Gil Shaham, Peter Frankl, YoYo Ma, and Colin Carr as well as with members of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Peabody Trio, the Emerson Quartet, and the Takacs Quartet. Dr. Koo previously served as Violin Professor and Coordinator of Chamber Music at the University of Connecticut, Storrs Campus.

William Eddins (Director of Orchestras) is the Music Director Emeritus of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra (Alberta). He has conducted several internationally recognized symphony orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, St. Louis Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra; the symphony orchestras of Boston, Minnesota, Cincinnati, Atlanta, Detroit, Baltimore, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Houston; and the Los Angeles and Buffalo Philharmonics. Mr. Eddins joins the SoM for the 2021–2022 calendar year.

Nolan Vallier (Musicology) received an MM and PhD in musicology from Illinois, where he worked as a graduate teaching assistant and graduate archives assistant at the Sousa Archives and Center for American Music. His dissertation, “Sacred Sounds and Natural Grounds: Designing Acoustic Communities in Prairie Style and Organic Architectural Spaces,” examined Midwestern concert communities and the sonic sacralization of architectural space. This past year, Dr. Vallier presented a paper based on this research at the Society for American Music National Conference. This November, he will present at the 87th Annual Meeting of the American Musicological Society.

fac ult y updates Chester Alwes (Choral Music, Music Education, Emeritus) taught surveys of Baroque and Classical choral music via Zoom to members of the BACH chorus this past academic year. Dr. Alwes also served as the musicologist for the Illinois Bach Academy. Unable to sing or conduct, he composed ten “Pandemic Madrigals” (in Italian) as well as eight settings of Shakespeare songs.

Janet Revell Barrett (Music Education, Emerita) celebrated the publication of Constructing a Personal Orientation to Music Teaching: Growth, Inquiry, and Agency, a second and substantially revised edition published by Routledge, with coauthors Mark Robin Campbell and Linda Thompson. She also facilitated the selection process for recipients of the Outstanding Dissertation Award for the Council of

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fac u lt y n ew s Research in Music Education from 2017 to 2019. After eight years as Marilyn Pflederer Zimmerman Chair in Music Education and coordinator of the doctoral program, Professor Barrett is retiring to enjoy time with her four grandchildren, who live in Champaign. She will continue to edit the Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education. She is also planning another book project with Oxford University Press.

Christina Bashford (Musicology) spent the academic year working on her new book, Violin Culture in Britain, 1870–1930, with release time supported by the UI Center for Advanced Study and a National Endowment for the Humanities Research Fellowship. In May 2021, she gave a paper entitled “Is it a Strad? Forgery, Mystery, and Consumer Desire in the Late Victorian Violin World” at the Midwest Victorian Studies Association online conference. She continued serving as President of the North American British Music Studies Association and Chair of the MVSA’s Lifetime Achievement Award Committee. She also accepted a new role as advisor to the Internet of Musical Events (InterMusE), a digital humanities research project led by colleagues at KCPA and the iSchool in collaboration with the University of York (UK). She was commissioned to write an article on the late Nicholas Temperley for the German music encyclopedia Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart.

James W. Beauchamp (Composition-Theory, Emeritus) co-authored the article “Brass Instruments as a Cascade of Two-Port Networks: Transfer functions, chain parameters, and power efficiency in theory and practice,” which was published in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America in April 2021. He coauthored the work with Wilfried Kausel and Alexander Mayer at the Department

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of Musical Acoustics at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, Austria.

William Brooks (Composition-Theory, Emeritus), retired from the University of York (UK) at the end of July 2021. Though hampered a bit by COVID restrictions, in the past year he managed to co-author, with Stefan Östersjö and Jez Wells, a book chapter, “Historically Authentic Truths (the HAT trick): Facts, fancies, and footnotes,” in Music and Heritage: New Perspectives on Place-making and Sonic Identity, edited by Liam Maloney and John Schofield and published by Routledge. The chapter follows on from his more substantial chapter with the same co-authors, “Footnotes,” in Voices, Bodies, Practices: Performing Musical Subjectivities, published by Leuven University Press, and from the recording of his composition Footnotes (with the same collaborators), released on Innova in 2020.

He also edited and introduced a collection of essays: Experience Music Experiment: Pragmatism and Artistic Research, which was published by Leuven University Press in 2021.

Zach Browning (Comp o s i t i o n -T h e o r y, Emeritus) completed two new compositions this past year. The first, Mercury Music a solo for multiple percussion, was commissioned by Micheal Barnes and is based on the Magic Square of Mercury. The second, Jupiter LVB for woodwind quintet, was commissioned by In Vista Winds and celebrates Ludwig Van Beethoven’s 250th birthday. It is based on the application of feng shui to Beethoven’s birth date. Browning’s composition Double Star Destiny for clarinet and viola was performed in Dordrecht, Netherlands and at the American Viola Society Festival. Additional performances of his music included performances of

Profit Beater by the Tarleton State University Percussion Ensemble, Howler Back

by Soma Sax Quartet as part of Missouri Odyssey Chamber Music Series, and Blacktop Infusion for piano and computer sounds at the University of Northern Iowa New Music Showcase. Browning continues to direct the Salvatore Martirano Memorial Composition Award, now in its 25th year.

Donna A. Buchanan (Musicology) published a review of the Brazilian documentary film O som dos sinos (The sound of bells) in The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. She served as a panel chair and speed mentor for the 65th annual meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology, held virtually in October, and was elected to a two-year term as co-chair of the Society’s Special Interest Group for European Music/Music in Europe. She was additionally appointed to a search committee for the Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center and, during spring 2021, acted as interim member of the Illinois Graduate College Fellowship Board (Humanities & the Arts). In December she was granted Humanities Release Time by the Campus Research Board to complete her book manuscript, Audible Cosmology: Bells Gender, and Sociocosmic Power in Postsocialist Bulgaria, during fall 2021.

Elliot Chasanov’s (Trombone) brass edition of Giovanni Gabrieli’s “Hodie Christus Natus Est” was performed at the 2021 Aspen Music Festival by the world-renowned American Brass Quintet, the quintet in residence at Juilliard (NY) and Aspen (CO), along with the Aspen Fellowship Quintet. During this past academic year, Chasanov was invited to give masterclasses at the University of Colorado, the University of Louisiana, the University of Oregon, and Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

fa c ult y publ i cat i ons and r ec or di ng s Ollie Watts Davis (Voice, Black Chorus) shared performances of Black Chorus with campus signature events; directed the 15th Biennial Black Sacred Music Symposium; and was featured, along with the Black Chorus, on the WILL-TV American Experience: Central Illinois Lift Every Voice documentary, which also debuted her composition, “For My Good.” She directed Black Chorus IV at ISYM, served as artistin-residence for Elmhurst University, and delivered a convocation address and master class for Illinois State University.

She served as a Master Teacher for the 2020 National Association of Teachers of Singing Intern Program at Georgia Southern University, where she presented a recital and lecture entitled “Toward Justice and Shared Humanity: Art Song of Black Americans as Lens, Language, Vision, and Hope,” which she also presented at Bay View Music Festival in Michigan. Her performances were also received at Working in Concert/Black Voices in Cabaret, The Peabody Institute of Music, and SongFest.

John Dee (Oboe) adjudicated the Walgreens National Concerto Competition this past spring. He also gave performances of the Poulenc Trio at the Allerton Barn and the Beethoven Piano Quintet in Urbana with Ian Hobson and other colleagues. He was featured at the Serafin Summer Music Festival in Delaware, performing the world premiere of his arrangement of Clara Schumann’s Three Romances for Violin and Piano, as well as Beethoven’s Trio for Two Oboes and English Horn. He gave many zoom clinics to oboe students, teachers, parents, and band directors.

Andrew Lewinter composed a new piece for him, Trio for Oboe, Horn, and Piano, which he recorded with Bernhard Scully and Casey Robards this past summer at KCPA. His new oboe reed-making guide is now being used nation-wide. This fall,

Constructing a Personal Orientation to Music Teaching: Growth, Inquiry, and Agency by Mark Robin Campbell, Linda K. Thompson, and Janet Revell Barrett; Routledge, 2021.

The newly revised 2nd edition of Janet Revell Barrett’s co-authored book, Constructing A Personal Orientation to Music Teaching: Growth, Inquiry, and Agency, forwards a vision of music teachers as curricular change agents who engage in inquiry and reflection to provide vibrant educational experiences for their students and guide their professional growth. The second edition is organized into two parts, one part positioning music educators as change agents within the profession and the other considering the study of music teaching as a practice. Deborah Blair, who reviewed the first edition of the text, noted of the book, “this text provides a window into the journey of teachers with the tool of narrative that serves to inform teacher-learners as they shape and re-shape their professional identity.”

The Richtmeyer Method for Saxophone Mastery, vol. 1 and vol. 2 by Debra Richtmeyer with Connie Frigo; Theodore Presser, 2021 Published in two volumes, Debra Richtmeyer’s comprehensive curriculum for the saxophone offers saxophone teachers and students a variety of lessons from mastering fundamentals to unlocking artistry through practice, performance, and pedagogy. The two-volume work represents five years of work and was edited by Dr. Connie Frigo (MM ’01), Professor of Saxophone at the University of Georgia. As Dr. Frigo noted, this work is “Professor Richtmeyer’s magnum opus. This full-blown curriculum showcases her brilliantly intuitive and transformative teaching method...”

Five Summer Pieces for Solo Piano by Christos Tsitsaros; Hal Leonard, 2021.

Composed during the summer of 2019, Christos Tsitsaros’s Five Summer Pieces for Solo Piano is an evocative set of tone poems. The five pieces (Reverie, Soaring Exultation, Echoes of a Sea Cave, Evocation, and Toccata) are exuberantly lyrical and inspired by impressionist music of fin-de-siècle Paris, modal music of the 20th century, and even New Age music. This 48-page book of solos is sure to inspire pianists of all kinds.

Continued

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fac u lt y n ew s he performed the Mozart Oboe Quartet with the Vega String Quartet at Emory University (GA).

Donna Gallo (Music Education) virtually presented “Video Analysis in Professional Development as a Catalyst for Developing Elementary Music Educators’ Creative Music Making Practices” at the Suncoast Music Education Research Symposium and “Elementary Music Teachers Developing Knowledge through HipHop” in collaboration with Dr. Adam Kruse at the American Educational Research Association. Additionally, she co-presented two sessions with Champaign Unit 4 teacher and alumna, Emily Kuchenbrod (MME ’21), at the Association for Popular Music Education and the Mountain Lake Colloquium for Teachers of General Music.

Dr. Gallo will conduct the Junior High Festival Treble Chorale during the Illinois Music Education Association meeting in November. In collaboration with Professor Kruse, Dr. William Patterson (Engineering), and Dr. Lav Varshney (Engineering), Gallo received a grant from UIUC’s Call to Action to Address Racism & Social Injustice Research Program, which will fund an artificial intelligence program to support anti-racist teaching in K-12 music classrooms.

Rudolf Haken (Viola, Electric Strings) was invited to write a 5,000-word feature article on the subject of UIUC’s Electric Strings Program for the Journal of the American Viola Society’s fall 2021 issue.

The Electric Strings Program at UIUC is the first and only of its kind at any university or conservatory in the world. Curricula are offered at the bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral levels. Through collaboration with the Music Technology, Engineering, Physics, Media, Education, and Business programs across campus, students have the opportunity to explore all aspects of

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electric strings and become leaders in this quickly expanding field. Haken also gave two international, virtual recitals in July 2021 for the Bayreuth Young Artists Festival entitled “Classical Music on Electric Strings.”

Lamont Holden (Music Technology) collaborated with Jarrell Young to compose a track called “Illini Anthem,” which they performed and premiered with the Marching Illini at “Sights and Sounds” and during the football season opener. “Illini Anthem” is a hype song that celebrates diversity, inclusivity, and the rich tradition of Illini Athletics. This past summer, Holden was a coordinator for the ISYM Hip-Hop Camp, which is now in its fifth year. This past spring, Holden taught Intro to Popular Music Songwriting and was joined by guest lecturer, Yuneer Gainz, who was named a “TuneCore Certified 2021 Hot 50 Independent Artist to Watch” in Rolling Stone Magazine. Holden is currently building a partnership between TuneCore and the SoM to develop curriculum that will provide undergraduates with the tools to be successful, earning artists in popular music.

Herbert Kellman (Musicology, Emeritus) was the dedicatee of the final volume of The New Josquin Edition, which has gathered the complete works of Josquin des Prez (1450–1521) in 30 volumes. Dr. Kellman was instrumental to the project, which was launched in 1982 as a joint venture of the Dutch and American Musicological Society. In the capacity of Advisor on Manuscripts and Prints, he was a member of the project’s Editorial Board. The work on the sources of Josquin’s music was carried out in the SoM’s Musicological Archives for Renaissance Manuscript Studies, which was directed by Kellman with the help of his former graduate assistants Roberta

Schwartz (PhD ’01), Associate Professor of Music at the University of Kansas; Stacy Jocoy (PhD ’05), Associate Professor of Music at Texas Tech University; Sarah Long (PhD ’08), Associate Professor of Music at Michigan State University; and Trudie Ranson (PhD ’13).

Adam Kruse (Music Education) received a Campus Distinguished Promotion Award as a part of his promotion to Associate Professor of Music Education, recognizing his case as “extraordinary in terms of quality of work and overall achievement.” In addition to frequent guest lectures and workshops in various music education venues, Kruse co-published articles about Hip-Hop culture and school music, one with Dr. Donna Gallo and the other with Professor Lamont Holden. Gallo and Kruse also teamed up with other faculty members from the College of Fine + Applied Arts and the Grainger College of Engineering, as well as a variety of community partners, to win a grant from the University’s Office of the Vice-Chancellor for Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion. The project is titled, “Social Music Curation, Exploration, and Co-Creativity for Anti-Racist Teaching in K-12 Classrooms and Community Groups via Inclusive Artificial Intelligence.”

Kazimierz Machala’s (Horn, Emeritus) two publications Celtic Scents for Symphony Orchestra and Celtic Scents for Symphonic Band were released by Capo Tasto Music and distributed by Carl Fischer and Theodore Presser respectively.

Jeffrey Magee (Musicology) was invited by College Music Society President Eileen Hayes to organize the CMS Presidential Plenary on curricular change for its national meeting. He presented at the annual Musical Theater Forum with senior

faculty publications and recordings, continued scholars in music, theater, and dance, and began a 5-year term as invited member of the editorial board of the U.K.-based peer-reviewed journal Studies in Musical Theatre. Magee also presented as an invited U.S. member of the Musical Theatre Jazz Research Network, funded by the U.K. Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Throughout the year, he continued to serve as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the College of Media.

Gayle Magee (Musicology) currently serves as Faculty Affairs Coordinator and Chair of the Musicology Area. During the past academic year, she assisted the School of Music in its pivot to online teaching as Distance Learning Coordinator.

In her research activities, Magee continues to be involved with studies of music and conflict, especially within transnational contexts. Magee served as moderator for a virtual panel in January 2021 that marked the publication of Music in World War II: Coping with Wartime, an edited collection published by the University of Illinois Press. Her own recent publications include a chapter on music in film, television, and theatrical adaptations of Jane Austen’s novel Sense and Sensibility, which appeared in the edited collection Women and Music in Georgian Britain; and an essay on William Bolcom within a collection of historic interviews with contemporary composers in the volume Barney Childs: Collected Interviews.

Charlotte Mattax Moersch (Harpsichord) inaugurated the “Vernissage Project,” a series of solo harpsichord video recordings made in the Memorial Room of Smith Hall. To date, she has recorded nearly 100 works, including pieces by the Couperin dynasty (Louis, François, and Armand-Louis), Froberger, Bach, D’Anglebert, and others. Of the project, Emeritus Professor Alexander Murray

Bach to Black: Suites for Piano by Rochelle Sennet; Albany Records, 2021.

In an album created to encourage conversation about inclusion and equity in Classical music, Professor Rochelle Sennet’s 3-disc recording Bach to Black features the complete English Suites by Johann Sebastian Bach alongside six suites by five Black composers: Samuel ColeridgeTaylor, R. Nathaniel Dett, H. Leslie Adams, Jeffrey Mumford, and Frederick Tillis.

Recorded in Foellinger Hall at KCPA on a Yamaha concert grand (CFX), it was released on Albany Records on June 1, 2021. Professor Sennet writes, “Bach to Black represents my strong interest in performing repertoire by Black composers in combination with works of Johann Sebastian Bach.” A glowing review of the album on the website takeeffectreviews.com, Tom Haugen suggests the album “showcases an inimitable talent as the piano work is quite complicated but universally enjoyable... [Sennet’s playing is] capable of atypical, almost jarring moments, as well as sublime, delicate song craft.”

Faraway Journey by Christos Tsitsaros; Centaur Records, 2021.

In July 2021, Professor Christos Tsitsaros produced a doublealbum entitled Faraway Journey, containing part of his compositional output of the last eight years. He describes his work as being “deeply inspired by the Mediterranean landscape and the rich imagery found in Greek and Cypriot mythology.” In addition to the album’s piano solo works, Professor Tsitsaros performs his Fantasy for Oboe, B-flat Clarinet, and Piano alongside SoM Professor John Dee and Professor Emeritus J. David Harris. His Introduction and Dance for Violin and Piano, written for and performed by John and Joseph Irrera, is also included. Of the piece, the Irreras said, “[We are] extremely honored to have Christos Tsitsaros compose a piece for us... It was a great privilege working with him and we are looking forward to many more collaborations down the road.”

The album was released on October 15 and distributed by Naxos, ArkivMusic, and HB Direct.

Mendelssohn, Visconti, Golijov by the Jupiter String Quartet; Marquis Records, 2021.

Following their recent collaboration with the Jasper String Quartet, the Quartet-in-Residence at Temple University (PA), the Jupiter Quartet produced an album featuring works by Felix Mendelssohn, Dan Visconti, and Osvaldo Golijov this past February. Produced by Grammy winner Judith Sherman, the album features the premiere recording of Dan Visonti’s Eternal Breath (2011). The work was commissioned by Bill and Margie Freivogel, who are the parents of Jupiter members, Megan and Liz Freivogel, and Jasper member, J Freivogel. In a review by Sarah Wilfon-Joblin of the Music City Review, she writes, “Listening to [the two quartets] play is like listening to siblings singing together: multiple voices, one sound.” She continues, “The album is a study in stylistic contrasts... It would seem, however, that the Jasper and Jupiter Quartets have focused their energy not on what makes these works different, but rather the joyful thread unifies them.”

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fac u lt y n ew s noted: “[Mattax’s] harpsichord playing maintains... the resonance that truly adds the ‘vernissage’ to the canvas.” She also completed a book chapter, “Énergie des modes: Tuning and Temperament in Seventeenth-Century France,” for the Festschrift Cognate Music Theories: The Past and the Other in Musicology (Essays in Honor of John Walter Hill), edited by Ignacio Prats Arolas, which is to be published by Routledge. To accompany the chapter, she recorded seventeenth-century harpsichord pieces in different temperaments. In May 2021, she was invited to perform in the 113th Bethlehem Bach Festival.

William Moersch (Percussion) has commissioned many prominent individuals to compose repertoire for marimba, including seven recipients of the Pulitzer Prize in Music. Among his ongoing commissions are new works by Peter Klatzow, Akemi Naito, and Zack Browning, who have each written works for marimba and string quartet. In September 2020, Professor Moersch’s 1991 CD recording, The Modern Marimba, was re-released online by VAP Media. It features premiere recordings of commissioned works by Jacob Druckman, Irwin Bazelon, Andrew Thomas, and Sir Richard Rodney Bennett.

This past January, Professor Moersch was an online panelist for “Evolution of the Marimba,” an event organized by Beverley Johnston (University of Toronto), discussing the marimba in the USA, Europe, and Japan. Other panelists included SK Kakraba on the gyil of Ghana, Lester Godinez on the marimba of Guatemala, and Gernando Meza on the marimba of Costa Rica.

Linda R. Moorhouse (Administration, Bands) was selected as one of six faculty members for the 2020–2021 Big Ten Academic Alliance Academic Leadership Program. Moorhouse partici-

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—compiled by Emily Wuchner, associate editor

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pated in several seminars on leadership development and networking in higher education administration led by the Committee on Executive Leadership.

Debra Richtmeyer (Saxophone) served on the jury for the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition and in August released a two-volume pedagogy book, The Richtmeyer Method for Saxophone Mastery – Volume 1: Unlocking Artistry Through Fundamentals & Pedagogy and Volume 2: Unlocking Artistry Through Practice & Performance, which were both published by the Theodore Presser Company.

She was also a featured guest artist and faculty member at the 2021 Frederick L. Hemke Saxophone Institute held in June at the Snow Pond Music Festival in Sidney, Maine.

Casey Robards (Vocal Coaching, Accompanying) spent this past summer conducting Verdi’s La Traviata at the Bay View Music Festival, serving as pianist for the Santa Fe Opera/Kentucky Opera’s premiere of This Little Light of Mine, and performing as pianist for the National Chorale’s Carmina Burana. Robards gave recitals with Ollie Watts Davis in Statesboro, Georgia and Bay View, Michigan. She recorded projects with John Dee and Bernhard Scully at KCPA and with LaToya Lain at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. In 2020, Robards was selected as a Professional Intern by the National Association of Teachers of Singing and was named a CASIO Artist. Robards adjudicated competitions for the National Association of Negro Musicians and NATS. She presented “Diversity and the Collaborative Pianist” at the International Collaborative Keyboard Arts Society 2020 conference and served as a Technical Workshop Assistant for MAESTRA, women in the music theater industry.

I Ketut Gede Asnawa (Musicology, Gamelan) Janet Revell Barrett (Music Education) Michael Cameron (Double Bass) Ronald Romm (Trumpet) Donald Schleicher (Orchestral Conducting, UISO) Sevier Tipei (Composition-Theory)

Bernhard Scully (Horn) performed a summer season in front of a live audience with his colleagues in the North Country Chamber Players. As Artistic Director of Cormont Music, Bernhard, along with his colleague Jesse McCormick of the Cleveland Orchestra, gave free monthly Zoom masterclasses from September through May to thousands of horn students from all over the world. The sessions were titled “Horn Camp Connect,” each began with a guided practice session and ended with a featured guest artist. In February, Bernhard created an expanded Horn Camp Connect session entitled “Winterlude,” which focused on creative improvisation, composition, and physical wellness. In June, Bernhard broadcast a successful Online KBHC Experience via Zoom. The free event reached over 500 horn players from around the world. Bernhard performed a live concert with his colleagues in the Sinfonia da Camera, which included works by Beethoven and Saint-Saens.

Michael Silvers (Musicology) published an article, “Ethnomusicology as Ecomusicology,” in the Spring 2021 Society for Ethnomusicology Newsletter. His “Dry Signals,” (https://sensatejournal. com/dry-signals/) a digital ethnographic sound diorama, was published in the peerreviewed, media-based journal Sensate: A Journal for Experiments in Critical Media Practice. With the students in his fall 2020

al um ni news course, “Music and Animals,” he launched the Central Illinois Sound Survey, an ongoing pedagogical project on sound, listening, and life in Central Illinois, an outgrowth of his Sensing Waters project.

He also gave a number of invited lectures on his ongoing research on instrument making and Brazilian materials for international and national audiences over Zoom.

Bridget Sweet (Music Education) participated in three research presentations at the 2021 National Association for Music Education Research and Teacher Education Conference with colleagues from around the United States.

She was an invited presenter at virtual music education conferences in Minnesota and Kansas, where she discussed adolescent singers and healthy music practices.

She was also an invited participant at Northern Michigan University’s “Strong Female Conductors/Educators Panel.”

Sweet contributed to the series “Encore at the University of Illinois” during the panel “Creating a brave space for the LGBTQ community in the large ensemble setting.”

Although most choral events this year were canceled because of COVID-19, Sweet was able to virtually workshop and conduct the Kansas All-State SATB Middle Level Choir. She was honorarily initiated into Sigma Alpha Iota as a Distinguished Member (Friend of the Arts) for her work within the music education community.

Stephen Andrew Taylor’s (Composition-Theory) composition Chaconne/ Labyrinth was premiered by the Jupiter String Quartet this past April. The piece sonically represents biological structures and is inspired by the pandemic.

Taylor noted, “As I kept messing around with the chords, it started to go off in different directions. I realized it was kind of like a maze. I started thinking about getting lost in a maze and realized it was like being

stuck in this pandemic, wandering around and trying to find a way out.” The music visually represents proteins within the human body. Taylor used specific pitches and timbres to represent various amino acids.

Christos Tsitsaros (Piano, Piano Pedagogy) published his new collection Five Summer Pieces for Piano Solo in May 2021, under the Hal Leonard Corporation Composer Showcase Series. In July, he produced a double-album of original music entitled Faraway Journey.

He also gave a full, virtual presentation for the 2021 National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy at the Frances Clark Center for Piano Pedagogy entitled “Promoting Students’ Creativity: a Linear Approach to Piano Texture.”

Ann Yeung (Harp) adjudicated Singapore’s Rave Harps International Prestige Awards, which was held virtually this year, and the American Harp Society’s biennial National Competition Finals, which was in-person at the Colburn Conservatory in Los Angeles. She gave virtual masterclasses for the Berklee College of Music/Boston Conservatory at Berklee, the University of Minnesota, and the AHS Puerto Rico Chapter. She was featured twice on Harps Etc.’s “Third Thursdays” workshop and concert series and on the Indiana University Entrepreneurship & Career Development “How I Got Here” interview series. She also was part of a Humanities Research Institute research cluster, “Problems in Decolonizing Academia;” served on the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research Board and Campus Task Force on Evaluation of Teaching Effectiveness as Sub-Committee Chair for Professional Evaluation; and directed the first virtual Illinois Summer Harp Class, attracting participants and presenters from around the world.

1950–1959 Joan Oppelt Vogen (BM ’50) taught virtual piano lessons all year and performed in a recital. This September she turned 93.

Lucas Drew (MME ’58) has edited more than 100 transcriptions for double bass and piano since his retirement as Professor Emeritus at the University of Miami (FL).

His transcriptions are listed on his new website musicfordoublebass.org. The website includes works by major composers of the 18th and 19th centuries, as well as a series on women composers. Elkin Music International is the distributor of the music.

Joe D. Rice (MS ’59) is slated to conduct his 36th musical at the Old Town Playhouse in Traverse City, Michigan this year. After graduating from UIUC in 1959, Rice taught high school band and orchestra at a large high school in suburban Chicago for ten years. He took a sabbatical year to return to UIUC to work on a doctorate in school administration, but did not complete the degree. In 1969, he was hired to become an administrator in Traverse City. From 1956 to 1971, Rice worked as a summer staff member at the Interlochen National Music Camp. In 1978, he became a publisher, editing three hobby magazines.

Since 1984, he has been the musical director of the Old Town Playhouse. He is 84 years young!

Mary Ann Rockstad Williams (BS ’59) will be retiring after her 70-year career as a church organist. Williams studied with Russell Miles from 1955 to 1959.

1960–1969 F. Michael Combs (BA ’66), who studied percussion with Jack McKenzie, was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award in Education by the Percussive Arts Society. The Society, which includes

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al u mn i n e w s over 6000 members world-wide, is the world’s largest percussion organization and considered the central course for information and networking for percussionists of all ages. The award was to be presented to Combs at the 2020 International PAS Conference, but, since it was canceled due to the pandemic, the award was presented formally at the 2021 International Conference. Combs credits his undergraduate years at UIUC as catapulting him into his distinguished career in the percussive arts. Recently retired as Professor of Music at the University of Tennessee, Combs remains active as a performer and teacher and is currently focused on a program that provides music instruction for financially disadvantaged children.

John J. Kula (BME ’67) is currently finishing his original composition Allegro Pasticcio No. 2, which will be self-published on Sheet Music Plus. His piece is a modern take on seventeenth-century theme by Pujolas and is scored for woodwind quintet. This past year, Kula also composed Fallen Heroes, a musical tribute to those serving in medical capacities during the pandemic and those who lost their lives in the service of others. With the completion of these two works, Kula has now composed 55 compositions. He is working with Songs

by Heart, a group of Northwestern University (IL) vocalists that performs “vintage” songs for seniors in care facilities throughout the North Shore suburbs. Kula is also developing a course on critical thinking skills, which has been implemented at Walgreens University (IL). He hopes to continue his work as an organist at Divine Work Chapel in Techny, Illinois once the pandemic is over.

Valerie Putsey (MS ’66) was the piano student of Soulima Stravinsky. During her time at the University of Illinois, she designed the formal and informal attire

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of the Illinois Concert Choir. Since graduating, Putsey has composed numerous choral works for her fifth-grade choirs, including: “A Century of Service to the Nation,” performed at the Daughters of the American Revolution 100th Anniversary concert; “125 and We’re Still Alive;” “We’ve Saved the Statue;” and “Arbor Day, Let’s All Plant a Tree.” Inspired by her student and staff performances of Gilbert and Sullivan operettas at Interlochen (MI), Putsey staged a work by the composing duo with her fifth graders, and it was more than successful! This year she is working on publishing her compositions and notes, “If I wasn’t selected to attend the University of Illinois, I never would have been as successful in my life’s chosen career, the world of music!”

1970–1979 Thornton Cline (MS ’77), a Master of Science in Music Education graduate, was recently commissioned to write the song “We Are One Symphony” for the Chengdu International Youth Music Festival. Participants cam from over 80 sister cities and 30 different nations. Cline’s song was produced by Ted Perlman. This past April, Cline was inducted into the Tennessee Songwriter’s Association International Hall of Fame in Nashville. A Grammy and Dove nominated songwriter, Cline is the author of 32 books and over 1000 songs.

Zorana Ercegovac (MM ’73, MLS ’75) was recently featured in the fall 2020 issue of Getty Magazine. An Emerita faculty member from the University of California, Los Angeles, Ercegovac taught literacy courses for 28 years before retiring in 2015. Since then she has spent much of her time at the Getty Research Institute in California. Her most recent research project, slated to be pre-

sented for the UCLA Faculty Women’s Club, considers Käthe Kollwitz and the Second Viennese School and draws upon materials found at the Getty.

Perry Goldstein (BM ’75, MM ’76) completed his third consecutive term as Chair of the Department of Music at Stony Brook University (NY) this past summer. A member of the State University of New York Distinguished Academy at the rank of Distinguished Service Professor, he will serve in summer 2022 as Composer-inResidence at the Great Lakes Music Festival in Michigan, where the piece Birding By Ear, a collaboration with Pulitzer Prizewinning author and Illinois alum Richard Powers, will be performed by baritone Randall Scarlata and members of the Emerson String Quartet. A work for the trio F-Plus will also be premiered at the festival. A recording of Dr. Goldstein’s composition Heaven was recorded by saxophonist Scott Litroff this past year; his music has now appeared on 20 albums.

The sixth edition of his textbook, Rudiments of Music, is being released later this year.

Mark Hamby (BME ’78) marked the 50th anniversary of the band THE SHIP and its self-titled album of the same name, which featured an original folk song cycle recorded by five Illinois students and released on Elektra Records in 1972.

The group, which also included SoM alum Steve Reinwand (BME ’72)—now Billy Panda—performed and recorded together until 1977. In 2008, the members of the band reconnected for the Red Herring’s 40th Reunion Concert and have since issued five more CDs featuring studio demos from THE SHIP’s active years, plus new work produced through recent online collaborations. Their latest album, Boxes, Barrels & Rust (a BPH project), was issued in January. This summer brought a re-

mastered Special 50th Anniversary edition of THE SHIP: a Contemporary Folk Music Journey on the Wounded Bird label. The band’s music is available on major steaming services.

Michael Pettersen (BA ’74) is currently performing as the guitarist of the Chicago Jazz Orchestra alongside University of Illinois alum Eric Schneider (BS ’76), who plays saxophone. Both Pettersen and Schneider joined the University of Illinois Jazz band in 1972. The Chicago Jazz Orchestra is directed by another University of Illinois Jazz Band alum Jeff Lindberg (BS ’76, MS ’78). All three band members studied under Professor John Garvey, whose legacy continues into the 21st Century!

Sam Radwine (BME ’74) was named Dean of the Cantorial School of the Academy for Jewish Religion in Los Angeles, California.

Founded in 2000, the Academy is a transdenominational seminary, which ordains Rabbis and Cantors and offers graduate programs in Jewish Chaplaincy and Judaic Studies. Rabbi Radwine has been on the Rabbinic and Cantorial Faculty since 2008.

1980–1989 Anton Armstrong (MM ’80) was named an Honorary Life Member of the National Collegiate Choral Organization for 2021. The NCCO selects Honorary Life Members among members of the choral profession who have devoted their life to the enhancement and artistic growth of choral music. The award recognizes those leaders who have mentored young conductors, inspired singers, supported music educators, and shared their talents and gifts in the United States and abroad. Armstrong is now in his 32nd year as Tosdal Professor of Music at St. Olaf College (MN), Conductor of the

St. Olaf Choir, and Artistic Director of the St. Olaf Christmas Festival. In 2014, The St. Olaf Choir and Dr. Armstrong received a Regional Emmy for the PBS television program Christmas in Norway with the St. Olaf Choir.

John Becker (MS ’85) released a new album entitled Earth Day Heritage: A Celebration in Music and Words, which was released on Albany records this past April. The album opens with Earth Day Portrait by John Harmon, a symphonic poem that includes historic texts by John Muir, Aldo Leopold, and Earth Day Founder and Senator, Gaylord Nelson. Each text is read by the descendants of the writers above. The album also includes the rerelease of Hymn to the Earth by Edward Joseph Collins, which was coordinated

by Becker and recorded by Marin Alsop and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Chorus in 2003.

Philip V. Bohlman (MM ’80, PhD ’84)—Ludwig Rosenberger Distinguished Service Professor in Jewish History at the University of Chicago (IL) and Honorary Professor at the Hochschule für Musik, Theater, und Medien in Hannover, Germany—published the book Heiner Müller and Heiner Goebbels’s Wolokolamsker Chaussee, which was published by Bloomsbury’s 33 1/3 Global series this past summer.

Wyeth W. Duncan (BME ’85, MME ’86) was named the Assistant Director of Music and Organist for the Fourth Presbyterian Church in Bethesda, Maryland in January. Previously, Duncan had served in the role of Interim Organist. In his expanded role, he will perform for three weekly Sunday services, accompany the adult choir, coordinate the music ministry for Sunday evening service, and direct

the high school choir. Duncan and his wife, Catherine, have been an active part of Fourth Church since 2018. Duncan is also an adjunct music teacher (choral accompanist, choral teaching assistant, and collaborative pianist) in the Visual and Performing Arts program at Northwestern High School in Hyattsville, Maryland.

Mark Gustavson’s (BM ’81) collaborative 20-minute audio-visual work with Canadian artist Chris Myhr, In-Between, was chosen by the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival 2021 and streamed online this past June. The premiere of his 17-minute Wingbeat for Harp and 2-Channel Fixed Audio was finished this last year and will be premiered by harpist Ruth Bennett in Mérida, Yucatán later this year.

Laury Mantel (BM ’82) is in the process of completing her master’s degree in cloud computing architecture at Columbia University (NY).

Charles Norman Mason (DMA ’82) premiered a new composition, The Silent Choir Sings for percussion quartet, this past year. The work was premiered by The Percussion Collective and can be seen on YouTube. Mason’s composition Incantemsimi for Violin and Piano won First Prize in the Yoon Jin Kim Contemporary Music Composers Around the World Competition and was performed in South Korea. His Il Prigioniera was performed in Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. In addition, his work Frida’s Macaw for Saxophone, Percussion and Piano, was premiered in Basel, Switzerland by the Ex-Sentia Ensemble and the Flashover by Switch Ensemble.

This September his Go, Dog, Go! for Violin and Harpsichord was performed by Karen Bentley Pollick and Jonathan Sazedo.

Future performances include Tears in 2020 for Frost Wind Ensemble, Silence by Quince

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al u mn i n e w s Ensemble, and Last Call by Ex-Sentia Ensemble. Mason is Chair of the Composition Department at the University of Miami (FL).

Charles McAdams (MS ’81, DME ’88) recently retired as provost and vice president for Academic Affairs at Delta State University. Dr. McAdams had a 37-year career in higher education, serving as a Music Professor and Chair at the University of Central Missouri and Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences at Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville, Missouri prior to his appointment at DSU. He and his wife now reside in Kansas City, Missouri where he enjoys photography, serves as a higher education consultant, and provides leadership development workshops for academic chairs and deans from around the U.S. John Mula (BME ’86), clarinetist and Master Gunnery Sargent of the President’s Own United States Marine Band, performed in the swearing-in ceremony at the U.S. Capitol this past January. Sgt. Mula has performed on every presidential inauguration since Bill Clinton’s second term. He was also present during the Pope’s visit to the White House in 2015. Sgt. Mula serves as the band’s tour coordinator.

Deborah Nemko (BM ’87) was recently elected to the Board of Directors of the International Association for Women in Music, where she serves as Chair of the Development Committee. Despite the many obstacles presented by the pandemic, she had an active research and performing agenda this year. Dr. Nemko was granted a Presidential Fellowship, resulting in a year-long sabbatical. In November, she gave a virtual concert for the Jewish community of Aberdeen, Scotland. She presented a lecture-recital

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entitled “Music in the Time of Anne Frank: Suppressed and Forgotten Dutch Composers” for the National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy in July 2021. In September, she presented a paper on the music of Fania Chapiro for the International Conference on Women’s Work in Music. Her review of the book William Mengelberg, 1871–1951: Acclaimed and Accused by Fritz Zwart will be published in an upcoming edition of The Canadian Journal of Netherlandic Studies.

Victor Pazik (BME ’85) has been busy managing the choral programs at Tinley Park and Oak Forest High Schools (IL). This past February, his students virtually performed in their annual Vocal Valentines project, a philanthropic benefit concert consisting of various student quartets that Pazik started six years ago. After creating 40 video performances for this year’s event, his students raised over $400 for the Tinley Park Food Pantry. Both high school choirs are planning a live benefit concert this upcoming spring.

Paul Rudolph (B.S. ’89) won a daytime Emmy, along with the entire cast and crew of Sesame Street, for Outstanding Preschool, Children’s, or Family Viewing Program for their “Power of We Special.” The special addressed racial issues, focussing on making the world a better and more tolerant place. Filmed and recorded during the Pandemic, the special was especially challenging for vocals, as the cast members virtually recorded themselves from their homes. Paul has been vocal music director, music editor, and composer for Sesame Street since 2008. He has won three Emmys for music editing and has earned two Emmy nominations for music directing.

Kristen Shiner McGuire (BM ’80) recently became the Director of the Music Business Program at the School of Music at Nazareth College (NY). An Associate Professor in Professional Practice, Shiner McGuire is now in her 37th year as the Coordinator of Percussion Studies at Nazareth College. This year, she was the recipient of a campus-wide Distinction in Teaching Award for comprehensive excellence in teaching, scholarship, leadership, and mentorship.

Jeff Stitely (BM ’84) was featured on a new album called Beautiful Moments, which was recorded by saxophonist Greg Dudzienski and released on the OA2 Records label. The album also featured bassist and University of Illinois alum Kelly Sill (BA ’74) and pianist Chris White.

William Susman (BA ’82) released a new album in January 2021 called A Quiet Madness. Artists featured include violinist Karen Bentley Pollick, pianist Francesco Di Fiore, flutist and alumna Patricia Zuber (BA ’82), and Bayan accordionist Stas Venglevski. The album brings together premiere recordings of solo and duo pieces composed from 2006 to 2013, including Aria for violin and piano, Quiet Rhythms nos. 1, 5, and 7 for piano, Zydeco Madness for Bayan accordion, and Seven Scenes for Four Flutes, which was multitracked by Zuber. A Quiet Madness has been described as “hypnotic, playful, and even, at moments, celestial” (Textura), “... grace and tranquility...” (Sharps and Flatirons), “...joyous and lyrical...” (New Music Buff), and “an astute and contemporary sonic expression of the ‘quiet madness’ playing out on 24-hour news TV Channels or as an infinite scroll on our smartphone screens” (Spellbinding Music).

1990–1999 Rick Biagi (BM ’92) was elected to serve as Alderman for the City of Park Ridge, Illinois in May 2021, having most recently served in elected office as President of the District 64 Board of Education in Park Ridge-Niles, Illinois. Biagi is the managing partner of Neal & McDevitt, an intellectual property law firm where he has practiced trademark law since 1999.

Kazimir Boyle (BM ’98) released his debut album and composition, Côte d’Or: Vignettes of Burgundy, in August 2021. Inspired by his honeymoon in the magnificent French wine region, Boyle’s new work is cinematic, neo-Baroque, and shamelessly melodic. The piece consists of 17 short movements scored for 13 instruments— including tuned wineglasses. Each movement functions as a musical postcard and includes images, tastes, and memories of the region. In December 2020, Boyle also had an original orchestral score premiere within the feature film The Last Champion. He is currently scoring music for a feature-length documentary. Boyle serves as an adjunct instructor within the Chicago Music Composition for the Screen MFA Program at Columbia College (IL).

Scott Casagrande (BME ’88, MS ’93) retired in May 2021 after 33 years of teaching at John Hersey High School in Arlington Heights, Illinois. He recently joined with Lee Walter Associates to promote performances in Carnegie Hall and Chicago’s Symphony Center. Lee Walter Associates has been in business for more than fifty years and has promoted performers such as Isaac Stern, the Juilliard String Quartet, Marian Anderson, and others. In addition, Mr. Casagrande

continues to consult with Music for All and MusicFirst Software. He also continues his work as an administrator for the Dr. William P. Foster Project, which assists bands in historically underserved communities. He enjoys working with local bands with his new-found “free time”!

Steve Chen (PhD ’92) retired as a CIO in 2019, but has since served on the Board of Directors for the Spokane Youth Symphony. During the COVID pandemic, he created a YouTube channel named “Dr. Steve Chen,” on which he has performed accordion and piano. He now plays the piano for Sunday services at a local Chinese-American Church in Spokane. Churchgoers have said that his performances “bring God’s spirit and blessings to all of us.” As a graduate student at UIUC, Dr. Chen was gifted a Chicago-made accordion, and has since enjoyed playing patriotic music—including “Amazing Grace,” “America The Beautiful,” “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” “The Star Spangled Banner,” and “God Bless America”—on this instrument during local Independence Day celebrations. Recordings of these pieces can also be found on his YouTube channel.

Stephanie Duesing (BS ’90) published Eyeless Mind, the true story of how she made a major medical discovery in the field of visual neuroplasticity. It documents Duesing’s interactions with a patient named Sebastian, who was thought to be the only person in the world known to process his vision verbally, seeing words as sound. Sebastian experienced horrific malpractice in an attempt to find a diagnosis. After working with Duesing, the pair uncovered a public health crisis affecting tens of thousands of people in the U.S. alone. Cerebral/cortical visual impairment was identified as the number one cause of visual impairment in the developed

world more than ten years ago but still doesn’t have a diagnostic code. Duesing’s paper on neuroplastic verbal visual processing and how music affects visual neuroplasticity was published by the Association for Education and Rehabilitation of the Blind and Visually Impaired in November 2019.

Jeffrey Hepker (BA ’98) continues to compose and produce instrumental underscore for film, television, and theatrical trailers.

His scoring and licensing credits since August 2020 include: Brooklyn 99 (NBC), The Toys That Made US (Netflix), Transplant (NBC), McMillions (HBO), and Love is Blind (Netflix). In June of this year, Jeffrey completed a Masters of Music Production from Berklee College of Music.

He has recently been appointed Clinical Assistant Professor of Music Recording and Technology for Purdue University, Fort Wayne (IN).

Thomas Holm (DMA ’98) prepared and promoted choral music from Taiwan in a recent publication of 13 titles on JW Pepper this past year. This work led to an interest session at the 2021 national American Choral Directors Association convention, which unpacked 11 of the 13 Taiwanese pieces.

Dr. Holm has been teaching and conducting at Northwestern College (IA) since 2000. Since then, he has given local, regional, and international performances and conducting workshops.

Christine Isley-Farmer (DMA ’91) published a children’s book in the Boomer’s Tales book series called Finding My Yip in March. Her second children’s book, A Hard Nut to Crack, will be published in November. Dr. Isley-Farmer also published an article entitled “Sudden Sensorial Hearing Loss: A Guide to Causes, Treat-

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al u mn i n e w s ment, Problems, and Coping Strategies” in the Journal of Singing this past October.

Kendra Kay (Smith) Friar (BS ’94) recently published a three-part article, “Scott Joplin: A Guide for Music Educators,” in General Music Today. Friar hopes to increase the presence of Joplin’s work in music education curricula by introducing teachers to the biographical, artistic, and cultural contexts that shaped Joplin’s musical thought and practice. The article includes classroom activities written in accordance with NAfME’s 2014 National Music Standards, and includes citations from Dr. Ollie Watts Davis and SoM alumnae Dr. Sheelagh Chadwick (PhD ’08) and Dr. Marva Griffin Carter (PhD ’88). This past year, Friar was also a recipient of the Oregon Music Educators Association’s 2021 Outstanding Elementary Music Educator Award. She serves as the Elementary Chair for OMEA and has taught at Pacific University (OR) and public schools in the Portland area. Friar continues to sing in Choro in Schola in Portland.

Viktor Krauss (BM ’91) played bass and Mellotron on select tracks for the upcoming Robert Plant and sister Alison Krauss’s album Raise the Roof, which will be released this upcoming November. An album tour is slated to begin in early 2022.

In late 2020, Viktor also completed a 1,000 square-foot studio building in Nashville, which he named Split Window. The studio has since hosted many overdub and tracking sessions.

Victoria Lindsay Levine (PhD ’90) received the Ellen Koskoff Edited Collection Prize from the Society for Ethnomusicology and the Ruth A. Solie Award from the American Musicological Society for

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her book Music and Modernity among the First Peoples of North America, which was co-edited by Dylan Robinson and published

by Wesleyan University Press in 2019.

Mary Ellen Poole (PhD ’94) was named Stanley and Marcia Gumberg Dean of the College of Fine Arts at Carnegie Mellon University (PA) in August of this year.

She spent the past seven years as the Director of the Butler School of Music at the University of Texas at Austin. At UT, Dr. Poole also held the Florence Thelma Hall Centennial Chair in Music. Prior to her post at the Butler School of Music, she served as Dean of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music for a decade. While there, she oversaw the construction of an $80 million facility in the city’s arts district.

Louis Scaglione (BS ’91) is the President, CEO, and Music Director of the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra Music Institute and is celebrating his 25th Anniversary with the organization. Since 1997, he has served thousands of young musicians with the joy of instrumental, choral, and vocal music. He has worked diligently to expand access, develop programming in Philadelphia’s most challenged neighborhoods, and build supportive pathways for underrepresented students. Through ensemble-based music education, he has inspired character, commitment, discipline, and community in students who are now leaders in their respective fields. His involvement with the community has included service as a member of several non-profit boards in the greater Philadelphia area. With a focus on philanthropy, he teaches his students the importance of giving back to one’s community through one’s talents.

Timothy Paul Stephan (MME ’93) will begin his third year of teaching music to grades 7–12 at the Madison International School in Mérida, Yucatán.

Before arriving in Mérida in 2019, he directed an original musical production at Colegio Puerto Aventuras. Prior to this, he taught music for 29 years in the United States.

Matt Temple (BME ’94) was elected Second Vice-President of the National Band Association in 2020. He published two articles, “Promoting Social Justice through ‘Of Our New Day Degun’ by Omar Thomas” and “A Conversation with Alfred L. Watkins,” in the NBA Journal. Temple is a member of the recently formed NBA Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Awareness Committee. He was also elected into the American School Band Directors Association.

Steven M. Whiting (MM ’84, PhD ’91) is retiring after 30 years of teaching musicology at the University of Michigan, and two years at UIUC (1989–91). His master’s work at Illinois, supervised by Lawrence Gushee, inspired his book Satie the Bohemian: From Cabaret to Concert Hall, published

by Oxford in 1999; an edition of Satie’s cabaret songs, published by Salabert, in 1996; and a half-dozen articles. His doctoral work under Alexander Ringer inspired everything else—20 some articles and a book in progress on Beethoven—except for that vignette on Persian Classical music, inspired by a seminar with Bruno Nettl.

At Michigan, Whiting taught courses in European art music from the 18th to the 20th centuries, and the history of American musical theatre. From 2003 to 2014, he directed the UM Center for European Studies and served as an associate director of the International Institute.

2000–2009 Kristina Boerger (BME ’89, MM ’92, DMA ’00) is glad to be returning to work thanks to the COVID-19 vaccine. Boerger conducted the premiere recording of Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate’s Found Again for the program entitled “We Out: The Air We Breathe,” which was produced in July 2021

by An Opera Theater of Minneapolis. The four-movement work for chamber voices and piano is based on a setting of texts by U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo. An Opera Theater presented the work in stunning videography. The piece was followed by a roundtable discussion of environmental racism and climate justice, featuring Dr. Kyle Whyte, Christine Taitano DeLisle, and Julie Sze. Joanna Bosse (PhD ’04) was promoted to Professor of Ethnomusicology and Dance Studies at Michigan State University, where she also serves as an Associate Dean of Academic Affairs. Her award winning documentary short film, Becoming Beautiful, has screened internationally. The film is based on her book Becoming Beautiful: Ballroom Dance in the American Heartland, which was published by the University of Illinois Press in 2015.

Andrew Burkemper (BME ’03) accepted a position as band director at Maine South High School in Park Ridge, Illinois. Prior to this, he was the Director of Bands at Glenbard North High School (IL) and a band director at Waubonsie Valley High School (IL). Andrew is currently performing as a trombonist with the Northshore Concert Band in Chicago, where he also serves on the Board of Directors.

Chris Combest (DMA ’09) released a solo tuba recording titled Under Tennessee Skies in November 2020. The album was awarded a Silver Medal by the Global Music Awards and nominated for the Roger Bobo Award for Excellence in Recording by the International Tuba Euphonium Association.

The recording featured new compositions for the tuba by contemporary composers, which are publicly available on the Cimarron Music Publishing website. Dr. Combest is currently working on a new collection of solos for young tubists and a new solo album, both have an anticipated release date of 2022.

Michael Fanelli (BM ’68, EdD ’01) and DMA candid ate Re n ata S oa re s Caceras presented the virtual session “The Process of Establishing the Basic Principles of Double Bass Playing, Founded on Paul Rolland’s Teaching of Action in String Playing” at the International Society of Bassists convention at the University of Nebraska in June. Fanelli and Caceras are co-authoring a double bass instruction text for elementary and secondary students, synthesizing Rolland’s pedagogy and contemporar y physiological approaches to violin instruction. Additionally, Michael was a clinician and presenter at the Paul Rolland String Pedagogy Workshop that was held at UIUC in 2021. At the workshop, he presented a paper entitled “A Biographical Portrait of Paul Rolland’s Life and Teaching Career.”

Elizabeth Giger (MME ’04) independently published a new book this past February entitled Beyond the Front Door: Cultivating Rhythms of Abiding in Christ.

Ingrid Gordon (DMA ’00) performed throughout the pandemic with her group Percussia in a series of livestreamed and outdoor concerts in various locations around New York City, including the Free Synagogue of Flushing Garden, the 6/15 Community Garden, and the Jackson Heights Vax Fest. This past year, Ingrid’s group was awarded grants by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the New York State Council on the Arts, and the Music Performance Trust Fund.

David Grandis (MM ’02) was selected as one of the winners of the 11th International Conductors Workshop and Competition in Atlanta. Faculty members of the workshop included Maestro Adrian Gnam, Dr. Gregory Pritchard, and Philip Greenberg. Each participant had the opportunity to conduct the ICWC orchestra. The workshop concluded with a public performance on June 27, 2021.

Jamie Hillman (MM ’06) was appointed the Elmer Iseler Chair in Conducting, Associate Professor of Music, and Director of Choral Studies at the University of Toronto. Hillman will conduct the UT MacMillan Singers and lead the master’s and doctoral programs in choral conducting. In this role, he succeeds SoM alumnae Doreen Rao (BS ’69) and Hilary Apfelstadt (MS ’75).

Adrianne Honnold (BME ’99, MM ’05) recently accepted a position as Assistant Professor of Saxophone and Popular Music Studies at Lewis University (IL). In June 2021, she successfully defended her PhD dissertation in Ethnomusicology/Popular Music Studies at the University of Birmingham (U.K.). Dr. Honnold was recently awarded a joint grant from the National Association of

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al u mn i n e w s Music Merchants and the College Music Society. This past year, she was also named a NAMM Foundation/CMS GenNext Fellow.

In November, she will present a paper based on her dissertation research at the annual meeting of the American Musicological Society and will also serve as a member of the programming committee for the North American Saxophone Alliance Biennial Conference.

Czech Republic. It can be found on the album Polarities vol. 2, which contains orchestral works by composers from the U.S., U.K., and Australia. Mobley also coordinated the fifth New Music on the Bayou Festival, a contemporary chamber festival that brings internationally-recognized composers to North Louisiana, bringing quality music to local communities through public-rehearsals and performances.

Celeste Johnson (BM ’02) released her second commercial recording, Wider Than the Sky, in October 2021 on the Equilibrium label. The recording features works for oboe written by women composers, including works by Grzyna Bacewicz Marina Dranishnikova, Vivian Fine, Stephanie Berg, and Ingrid Stözel.

The pieces by Berg and Stözel were commissioned expressly for this recording project, and will be premiered in concert this upcoming year. Johnson continues to serve as Associate Professor of Oboe at the University of Missouri, Kansas City Conservatory.

Heath Morber (BA ’02) launched the English Motet Project, providing editions of Renaissance motets fitted with English translations to church musicians. It can be found at englishmotets.com.

Charles W. Lynch III (MM ’02, DMA ’09) served as a faculty member of the annual Midwest Harp Festival in July. This past year, he also joined the Executive Committee of the American Harp Society Board of Directors for a second term. Dr. Lynch currently directs the Mesa Public Schools Harp Program in Arizona, which is the largest public school harp program in the country with over 200 students across 16 secondary schools. In addition, he continues to serve as Faculty Associate in Harp at Arizona State University.

Mel Mobley’s (DMA ’03) most recent orchestral work, Labored Breathing, was released in June 2021 on the Navona Records label. The work was recorded by the Janáč ek Philharmonic Orchestra in December 2020 in Ostrava,

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Alison Robuck (MM ’00, DMA ’04) will teach oboe at Missouri State University during the 2021–2022 academic year. Dr. Robuck is the current President of the Midwest Double Reed Society. The society, which sponsors the Eric Varner Young Artist Competition, held its competition virtually this past year, but still awarded cash prizes for high school and collegiate double reed students in four categories.

Dr. Robuck performs with the Odyssey Chamber Music Series, which held inperson and virtual concerts this past season.

Saxton Rose (MM ’00) was named Dean of the School of Music at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts in June. Rose previously served as the Interim Dean of the School of Music at UNCSA beginning in July 2020. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he oversaw the creation of safe music performances spaces and enacted strict safety protocols governing student rehearsals and courses. In addition, he instituted several live-stream performances and worked closely with the Schools of Filmmaking and Design and Production on a filmed-performance of The Nutcracker. Rose has been a faculty

member since 2008, having chaired the woodwind department since 2009. He will lead and supervise forty-seven faculty in this new role. He will also oversee the A.J. Fletcher Opera and Chrysalis Chamber Music institute.

Rachel Scott (BM ’05) published “From ‘Angelegenheit Großdeutschlands’ to Österreichische Abende’: Programming the 1945 Salzburg Festival” in the Journal of Musicological Research. She was awarded a research grant from the Botstiber Institute for Austrian-American Studies to continue her research into Austrian music festivals held during American occupation after World War II. Aubrey Faith-Slaker (BM ’00) recently became a Suzuki Piano Teacher Trainer, having studied and taught Suzuki Piano in the U.S., Mexico, and South America. She is based in Chicago and gives teacher trainer courses online. Her courses incorporate Black, Latinx, and Women composers.

Having studied music therapy after her time at UIUC, she also researches and presents on music as a means of healing.

Charles Joseph Smith (MM ’95, DMA ’02) published his new autobiography, The 88 Keys That Opened Doors, in July on the Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing platform. During the height of the COIVD19 pandemic, Dr. Smith gave two virtual performances. The first was a lecture sponsored by the Lucky Pierre Free University (IL), which discussed the last movement of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony and occurred on October 11, 2020. Thirteen days later, he performed a virtual concert at Pianoforte Chicago with emcee Lynn West. The concert featured his new piano composition, Pandemic Polonaise, which was inspired by Chopin’s polonaises. In October 2019, Dr. Smith collaborated on a creative musical improvisation at Elastic Arts in Chicago with Hope Arthur, Sara Zalek, and Angel Bat Dawid.

Jenny Wong (BM ’09) was promoted from Assistant Conductor to Associate Artistic Director of the Los Angeles Master Chorale, the resident chorus of Walt Disney Hall. A native of Hong Kong, Dr. Wong has conducted the Master Chorale at several international music festivals, including the Melbourne International Arts Festival in Melbourne, Australia; the Festival Internacionale Cervantino in Guanajuato, Mexico; the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, Mexico; and several U.S. festivals. She has prepared choruses for Gustavo Dudamel and the LA Philharmonic, Susanna Mälkki, Eric Whitacre, María Guinand, and the Music Academy of the West. As a conductor, two of her most notable performances include Orlando di Lasso’s Lagrime di San Pietro in a production staged by Peter Sellars and the U.S. premiere of Tan Dun’s Buddha Passion.

Audra Ziegel (MM ’08) was awarded Second Prize in the prestigious Myrna W. Brown Artist Competition in May 2021, successfully completing three rounds of rigorous competition against flutists from across the nation. She also presented a video performance at the virtual 2020 Mid-Atlantic Flute Convention, performing I Dream’d in a Dream by Glen Cortese.

Audra is adjunct faculty at St. Vincent Pallotti High School Arts Academy and The Music Space in Towson, Maryland.

Audra maintains a large studio of private students in Baltimore, Maryland.

2010–2019 Lucy Abrams-Husso (BA/ BM ’10) recorded her debut album of works for clarinet and electronics, Duel, this past spring. The album includes works by Elizabeth Hinkle-Turner (Composition-Theory, Emerita) and Carolyn Borcherding, who is currently pursuing her DMA in composition at UIUC. In addition, Duel includes a world premierecommission from the New York City-based composer Molly Joyce. The album will be released at the end of this year by Siba Records. Since 2013, Abrams-Husso has been based in Finland, where she lives with her husband, Samuel, and their labradoodle, Moose. She freelances with the orchestras of Helsinki, Lahti, Turku, Pori, and Oulu and is currently a doctoral candidate at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki.

Katie Beisel Hollenbach’s (PhD ’18) article, “Frank Sinatra and Constructions of Female Power and Fantasy in RKO’s Higher and Higher (1943),” was recently accepted for publication in Music and the Moving Image. It explores how American teenage girls used Frank Sinatra’s vulnerable celebrity persona on and off-screen during World War II to cultivate feelings of agency in their personal lives while navigating the complex set of challenges facing wartime American youth in terms of gender, sexuality, and behavioral expectations.

Justin M. Brauer (BME ’14, MM ’16) wrote and recorded the theme music for the Sonorities podcast and released his first short album, “Music for Podcasts, vol. 1” in September 2020. In his role on the Strategic Engagement team at Illinois, he produced an arrangement of the state song for Illinois’ Giving Tuesday fundrais-

ing campaign video to benefit the Illinois Student Food Pantry. The University’s “Recognizing Generations of Illinois Impact” video, which featured his arrangement of “Hail to the Orange,” won silver medals in the CASE Circle of Excellence and District V Awards. In the theatre world, Justin produced and played on a set of full accompaniment tracks for Snoopy the Musical at the Children’s Musical Theater San Jose. The performance also featured alum Alek Mann (BME ’12, MME ’21), David Butler (BA ’88 in LAS), and current DMA candidate Andrey Gonçalves. In his spare time, Brauer also makes puppets.

Robert Brooks (MM ’15, DMA ’19) has recently taken a position as a lecturer in jazz studies at The Ohio State University.

Chee Hyeon Choi (MM ’07, DMA ’12), Assistant Professor in Residence at Bradley University (IL), was awarded the 2020 Teacher of the Year Award from the Illinois Music Teachers Association. She was invited to perform and present at the Music by Women Conference, the College Music Society National Conference, the Music Teachers National Association Conference, and the National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy. Her article “Integrating Technology in Group Piano Curriculum for Music Educators of the Next Generation” was published in The Journal of the Association for Technology in Music Instruction.

Cristin Colvin (MM ’14) released her debut EP with the metal opera band Oryad, performing on the album as Moira Murphy. The album’s six tracks include an arrangement of Rossini’s soprano aria “Inflammatus,” as well as original compositions by Oryad.

As Oryad’s frontwoman and keyboardist, Colvin blends bel canto vocals and clas-

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al u mn i n e w s sical homages with metal band instrumentation. The EP received critical acclaim, garnering positive reviews from publications across the world. Oryad has sold albums in the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Australia. Colvin is currently studying orchestral arranging with Francesco Ferrini and composing new material for a second Oryad album.

This October and November she will also be directing a mini-opera festival in Laramie, Wyoming. She will also be reprising her role in the opera Locust, which will take place in Edinburgh and Glasgow during the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference.

reed making and oboe pedagogy. He served as the sponsor for his freshman oboe students’ Undergraduate Research Experience and Creative Activity Grant for research in oboe reed construction and process management techniques that enhance reed-making efficiency and assessment. As coordinator of the MTSU Music Industry program, he successfully guided the Bachelor of Music in Music Industry Degree through the National Association of Schools of Music review process, creating two new courses as a result. This past year, Dr. Cyzak also premiered his composition Apogee for Oboe and Piano during his faculty recital.

Derick Cordoba (DMA ’17), director of the Johnny Mann Center for Commercial Music and Assistant Professor of Music at Anderson University (SC), virtually presented his research on the first liturgical jazz service at the College Music Society Southern Chapter Regional Conference this past February. Dr. Cordoba virtually presented both a workshop, “Crowdfunding: Its Prizes and Pitfalls,” and a poster, “The Sacred and Liturgical Jazz Works of Dave Brubeck,” at the 63rd CMS National Conference in October 2020. This past year, he also finished tracking a new album titled J&J, which is currently being mixed and is slated for release this upcoming March. Dr. Cordoba will be presenting at the upcoming 64th CMS National Conference and the 13th Annual Jazz Education Network Conference.

Ellen Denham (DMA ’16) recently served as librettist and director for the world premiere of Olivia’s Ocean, an opera on film that was sponsored by the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies. She was also selected as the 2021 Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi Outstanding Faculty Speaker for a talk on composing opera during a pandemic. She will be continuing her role as director of the Opera Workshop Program at TAMU.

David Cyzak (DMA ’16) received the Middle Tennessee State University College of Liberal Arts Faculty Student Success Award for his contributions to student success, an Instructional Enhancement Grant, and an Open Education Resource Grant to create an internationally free and accessible resource on

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Elizabeth Gartman (BM ’17) received the William Schuman Prize for the most outstanding score in the annual BMI Student Composer Awards. In addition, she is currently one of two remaining finalists in Beth Morrison Projects’ “Next Gen” Competition. Gartman will write a 30-minute music theater work for the final round of the competition, which will premiere June 2022. This past year, she was also recognized as a finalist in ASCAP’s Morton Gould Young Composer Competition. After receiving her master’s degree at the Manhattan School of Music (NY), Gartman received the Giampaolo Bracali Composition Award and the Karl Canter Award for Orchestral Composition.

Lars Heemskerk (BA ’10) recently joined Cigna Healthcare as Vice President of Sales, leading the Midwest commercial team.

He is responsible for executing local market strategy and driving growth. Lars’s team delivers customized benefit plans, health and wellness strategies, and personalized customer service.

Rebecca Johnson (DMA ’10), Assistant Professor of Flute at Eastern Illinois University, stayed active this past academic year with virtual performances and presentations at two regional and two international conferences. She is currently serving as the Vice-President/PresidentElect of the National Flute Association.

Additionally, she gave guest masterclasses at ten universities this past spring. Dr. Johnson continues to collaborate with Illinois alumnae Cara Chowning (DMA ’14) and Elizabeth Sullivan (MM ’08, DMA ’13) as a member of Trio Village. Her most recent collaboration with Sullivan took the form of a new recording, A Dramatic Journey: 60 Years of Thea Musgrave’s Music for Oboe, which released in September 2020. Trio Village won third prize in The American Prize for Chamber Music Performance in 2021, and are finalists for the Ernst Bacon Memorial Award for American Music.

Ashley Killam (BME ’17) launched a non-profit called “Diversify the Stand,” which is dedicated to working with diverse musical voices to create accessible, educational music. Diversify the Stand crowdfunded over $10,300 to create the first-ever progressive trumpet solo book by twelve diverse composers.

This book will be available this November.

Carlos García León (BM ’17) was recently selected to participate in OPERA America’s inaugural Mentorship Program for Opera Leaders of Color. This new initiative exists to advance racial equity in the field by pairing professionals who identify as Black, Indigenous, or Person of Color with executive-level leaders who can support them in achieving their career goals.

Tori Lupinek (MM ’17), Houston-based flutist and teacher, launched her pandemic project, The Unclassical Music i a n p o d c a st , i n October 2020. “The podcast empowering young professional musicians to take risks and live a fulfilling life” is a recent graduate’s no-nonsense take on the state of the field of music during the pandemic. Back by popular demand, season two will launch this September. The show is available on all podcast platforms!

Robert McNeily (BA ’11), who previously worked in the performing arts and non-profit industries, made the leap to journalism and broadcast news this past year. While McNeily’s path to journalism may be non-traditional, he is committed to delivering timely, accurate, unbiased journalism in Alaska. With his background and interest in covering government news, Robert has made a great fit as a City Beat Reporter for KTUU and KYES News. Robert is a trained operatic tenor, “Second City” alumnus, and former 2017 candidate for the Wheaton, Illinois City Council.

Yoo Sun Na (DMA ’12) became the Chair of the New Music Committee at the Korean Cultural Society of Boston in June 2021.

Justin Peters (BM ’15) managed the production for Chicago’s Ear Taxi Festival this fall. The Festival featured approximately 600 Chicago artists performing across the city. Justin was in charge of coordinating all production, tech, and venue needs for the multi-day festival.

Rico at San Germán. This past academic year, he taught applied voice, theory and ear training, and music history; conducted the Concert Choir; and administered courses within the newly created DMA program. Prior to this position, Dr. Sepúlveda held positions at Millikin University (IL) and Western Illinois University.

Jacqueline Piccolino (BM ’13) became a Semi-Finalist in the 2021 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions.

Vanessa Sielert (DMA ’05), Director of the Lionel Hampton School of Music at the University of Idaho, released a solo recording entitled Duality with collaborative pianist Catherine Anderson on Albany Records in November. The eclectic album includes original, contemporary classical works commissioned by the pair as well as original arrangements of tunes

by Radiohead and Simple Minds. The album is available on Spotify, Amazon, and at albanyrecords.com.

Ryan M. Prendergast (MM ’15) completed his doctorate in theatre at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign this past spring with his dissertation, “The Theatrical Collaborators of Richard Strauss: Networks, Materials, and Cultural Politics.” This Fall, he will be a lecturer within the Department of Theatre at the Butler School of Music at the University of Texas at Austin.

Michelle Rivera (BM ’10, MM ’12) was recently appointed Music Library Specialist at the University of Notre Dame (IN) where she serves as an embedded library staff member in the Department of Music. Rivera interprets complex information; connects faculty, staff, and students with appropriate library resources; and provides teaching and research support.

Ricardo Sepúlveda (MM ’08, DMA ’19) was appointed to the position of Assistant Professor of Music at the Universidad Interamericana de Puerto

Lara Semetko Brooks (MM ’16, DMA ’17) joined The Ohio State University School of Music as lecturer of voice. This upcoming academic year, she will be teaching applied lessons in classical repertoire, musical theatre, and contemporary commercial music. In addition, Dr. Brooks will be directing stage productions.

Joseph Svendsen (MME ’12) has been named Director of Choral Studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and Artistic Director of the Las Vegas Master Singers. His article, “Healey Willan: Crafting from Plainsong,” was published in CrossAccent, the Journal of the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians.

Justin Vickers (BM ’96, DMA ’11) was recently promoted to the rank of Professor of Music at Illinois State University, Normal. He was in residence in Aldeburgh

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al u mn i n e w s from May through December 2021 as a US Fulbright Scholar through the University of Surrey (U.K.). Dr. Vickers will be hosting the 2022 Biennial Conference of the North American British Music Studies Association on the ISU campus .

Pei-I Wang (DMA ’10) became Assistant Professor of Music and Coordinator of Keyboard Studies at Millikin University (IL) this fall 2021. She currently serves as Secretary-Treasurer at the Illinois State Music Teachers Association and Coordinator of the ISMTA Competitions South. At the 2020 ISMTA Conference, she delivered a recorded presentation entitled “The Interpretation of Contemporary Piano Music: Finding Your Own Voice and Joy.” Dr. Wang maintains a busy performance schedule as Principal Pianist at the MillikinDecatur Symphony Orchestra, Acting Principal Pianist at the Illinois Symphony Orchestra, and Collaborative Pianist with the Springfield Choral Society. In May 2021, her recorded performance with flutist Abigail Walsh was commissioned by the Composers Alliance of San Antonio. Her recent recording of Carl Czerny’s fourhanded piano fantasies with Illinois alum Sam Gingher (MM ’09, DMA ’15) was released in September under the Naxos label.

Alleya Weibel (BM ’17) has continued to work as a session musician in London, recording and performing in music videos and livestreams for artists such as Duran Duran, Big Zuu, Sahar Moghaddass, Sogand Soheili, and Alireza Saremi.

This past year, she recorded with Danny O’Donoghue of The Script, Shawn Stockman of Boyz II Men, Picture This, and an upcoming catalogue for EMI. Weibel also launched a new string group called Solas Strings, which focusses on session recording and electric string performances worldwide.

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J. Michael Weiss-Holmes (MM ’06, DMA ’12) was recently named Professor of Saxophone at the Bower School of Music and the Arts at Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Meyers, Florida. Along with his faculty position at FGCU, Dr. WeissHolmes continues as Head of Woodwinds and Artist-Teacher of Saxophone at the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University (IL).

Megan Woller (PhD ’14) published her first book, From Camelot to Spamalot: Musical Retellings of Arthurian Legend on Stage and Screen, with Oxford University Press in April 2021."

Ka-Wai Yu (DMA ’11) was recently promoted to Associate Professor of Music at Dixie State University (UT), and received the institution’s Presidential Award for Community Engagement. Yu has begun his second year as the Utah chapter president of the American String Teachers Association. He presented his paper “When Elephant Meets the Swan: Duet Music for Cello and Double Bass” at the 2021 ASTA National Conference. With fellow UIUC aluma Sonia Lee (DMA ’12), Yu released an album on Arabesque Records called German Music for Viola da Gamba and Harpsichord. Dr. Yu performed Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with the Orchestra of Southern Utah this past season. He has given virtual performances for the Gotham Early Music Scene, Western Early Keyboard Association, and the Concerto da Camera.

As part of his research project on the 5-string violoncello piccolo, Yu will give the world premiere of Jennifer Bellor’s Damselfly Prelude and Luke Dahn’s Five this fall.

Jeff Zahos (BA ’05, MFA ’12) played drums on the self-titled debut album by San Francisco bay area rock/ Americana band Piedmont.

He currently serves as President of the International Guild of Musicians in Dance, which hosted its 2021 conference online and at UIUC in October.

Bert Zhang (BA ’16) is excited to be back at UIUC as a lecturer at the Siebel Center for Design.

Aaron Ziegel (PhD ’11) has been appointed Scholarin-Residence with Baltimore Concert Opera. He will spearhead the company’s public musicology offerings by presenting a series of introductory lectures in advance of each of the season’s operas and by delivering pre-concert lectures preceding each performance. He continues to serves as Associate Professor of Music, History & Culture at Towson University (MD). During the pandemic shutdown, he performed as a collaborative pianist in numerous live-streamed recitals.

2020–2021 Nicole Gillotti (DMA ’20) was recently appointed Assistant Professor of Trumpet at Texas A&M International University, Laredo.

She will be teaching applied trumpet and directing the brass ensemble.

Previously, Dr. Gillotti served on faculty at TAMIU as an adjunct faculty member from 2019–2021.

s t udent news Kathryn Swanson (BA ’21) recently became a full-time general music teacher at MacArthur Middle School in Berkeley, Illinois. She teaches 6-8th grade music and loves working with adolescents!

Swanson is planning on pursuing her master’s degree in education and is looking forward to traveling and experiencing new types of music in the coming years.

Justin Balcor, a PhD student in musicology, was awarded with a fellowship from the American Councils Combined Research and Language Training Program to study gendered relationships between sports, music, and musical instruments in the Republic of Georgia. In addition to conducting research in Georgia, Balcor will study the Georgian language.

Noël Wan (BM ’14, DMA ’20) was appointed Assistant Professor of Harp at Western University in Ontario, Canada in fall 2020.

She was also a recipient of an Ontario Arts Council Arts Response Initiative grant and won Second Prize at the 2021 Orford Music Award Competition.

Her article on philosophy and Georges Aperghis’ Fidélité was accepted for publication in the Summer 2021 issue of The American Harp Journal.

Peiyao Cheng, a DMA student in flute performance, won the Flute Society of Washington’s Mid-Atlantic Young Artist Competition this past February. The competition, which is open to flutists under the age of 30, is one of the most prestigious competitions for flute in the United States. In her final round, Peiyao performed flute sonatas by Handel, Gaubert, and Piston.

Michaela Wright (MM ’20) became a company artist for Moon River Opera; performed in a concert honoring women composers with Opera on Tap Maine; sang in a Ruth Bader Ginsberg tribute concert with Protestra; premiered a piece by Brooks Clarke, scored for voice and spoons, which appeared on NEC’s virtual composition seminar; and contributed to a Latin American composer tribute concert with Mundo Arts. She has several upcoming projects, including a cross-continental, new-music collaboration through the ARC project; a recording of a new song cycle by Jacksonville-based composer Bob Moore; and a collaboration with All Score Urbana, where she will workshop, develop, and premiere new compositions this Winter.

This upcoming April, she will perform at Opernfest in Prague. Wright currently studies privately with Michelle DeYoung.

Peng Du, a senior in piano performance, was selected as part of the National Young Piano Teacher Support Project, for his recordings of Brahams’s Klavierstucke Op. 76 and Op. 117. Her recordings were released on the People’s Music Publishing House in China website.

Jeffrey Elem, a senior in composition, was selected as the Univers i t y ’s St u d e n t Employee of the Year for his work at Japan House. Elem, who began working there in 2017, created bi-weekly videos and composed music for Japan House in the 2020–2021 academic year. After graduating this past spring, Justin began his master’s degree in composition at the University of Hawaii, Manoa this fall.

Peiqi Huang, a DMA candidate in vocal performance, was invited to perform as a soprano soloist in Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by the world-renowned conductor Andreas Delfs, this past April. This August, she was awarded Third Prize in the emerging professional division of the Roberto DeSimone Memorial Aria Competition. Sponsored

by Opera Viva!, the competition gathers competitive entrants from different countries and is judged by an acclaimed panel.

Dai-An Liu, an artist diploma candidate, won 4th prize ex aequo in the 5th Hong Kong Harp competition in the professional pedal division in October 2020. Due to the COVID pandemic, the competition was held online and attracted international participants from many countries, including the United States. Previously, Dai-An was a winner of the 2019 International Music Talents Award, which was sponsored by the Taiwan National Symphony Orchestra.

Ion-Alexandru Malaimare, a DMA candidate in violin performance, was invited to perform as a soloist in the opening concert of the Daejeon Cosmopolitan Music Festival in South Korea. The concert took place on August 17, 2021. In addition, he recently became an adjunct faculty member at Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois.

Bradley Martinez, a DMA student in trombone performance, joined the US Army Band at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Martinez served as Professor Elliot Chasanov’s teaching assistant from 2018 to 2020. He previously earned his BME at Kansas State

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stud e n t n ew s University and his MM in trombone performance at the University of California State Long Beach.

Kelli McQueen, a PhD candidate in musicology, created a multimedia webpage called “The Traveling Troubadour: Medieval Music for the Modern World” as a component of her 2020–2021 Mellon Public Humanities Fellowship with the Humanities Research Institute. The website is located at traveling-troubadour.com/ Gabriel Piqué, a DMA candidate in saxophone performance who serves as Assistant Professor of Saxophone and Jazz Studies at Baldwin Wallace Conservatory of Music, was selected as a fellow for the 2021 Future of Music Faculty Fellowship Program. The program, which is sponsored by the Cleveland Institute of Music, was designed to create a culture of diversity within the music academy by engaging 35 Black and Latinx music professionals who are pursuing academic careers. Piqué was selected from among more than 160 applicants from 30 states and seven countries. The program, which will take place during the 2021–2022 academic year, will discuss practical skills in higher education and will be taught by a panel of experts that includes University of Illinois alum, Eduardo Herrera (MM ’04, PhD ’13).

Aubrie Powell, a PhD student in musicology, was named one of twelve finalists the Graduate College’s annual Research Live! Competition. The competition is open to graduate students from any discipline and challenges those students to summarize their research topic in a pitch that is three minutes or less. Powell is only the second SoM student ever to reach the finals for this annual event. Her paper was entitled “Why Country Music Matters.”

The Sigma Delta Chapter of Sigma Alpha Iota was awarded with the Collegiate Chapter Achievement Award for the 2019–2020 academic year. The award is presented annually to chapters who have distinguished themselves while completing local obligations and fulfilling national objectives.

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awar d wi nner s T H EO D O R E PR E S S E R A W A R D Undergraduate: Diamond Arrington Graduate: Matthew Storie KR ANNERT DEBUT ARTIST Andrew J. Buckley (clarinet) S A LVAT O R E M A R T I R A N O A W A R D First Prize: Louis Quintana Second Prize: Utku Asuroglu Honorable Mention: Paul Novak PAU L R O LL A N D M E M O R I A L S T R I N G A W A R D Undergraduate: Makiba Kurita Honorable Mention: Connie Kuba Honorable Mention: Haley Schricker C L A R A R O LL A N D PI A N O CO M PE T I T I O N Helen Jiang Honorable Mention: Yuxi Chen T H O M A S J. S M I T H S C H O L A R S H I P Christine Breeden (bassoon) Makiba Kurita (violin) Emma Mize (voice) Grace Morby (viola) U I S O CO N C E R T O CO M PE T I T I O N Lewis McAdow (baritone) Jack Thorpe (alto saxophone) Cacie Wilhoft (piano) Honorable Mention: Peiyao Cheng (flute)

The University of Illinois Collegiate NAfME Chapter was awarded the 2020–2021 collegiate Chapter of Excellence recognition for Professional Development by the National Association for Music Education (NAfME). In addition, Maggie Ward, who is a junior in music education and member of the UIUC chapter, received a collegiate Professional Achievement Award.

in m e mo r ia m “His priorities were always about doing what was best for the students.”

“After what he has seen here, Mr. McClellan will probably never take the job!”

Jack G. Ranney

William Monson McClellan

Jack G. Ranney, conductor of the Illinois Symphony Orchestra and a member of our string faculty from 1980 until 2005, was born on November 22, 1940, in Quincy Illinois and died on November 23, 2020, in Urbana, Illinois.

An enthusiastic violinist, Ranney began his performance career in the Kirksville High School orchestra in Kirksville, Missouri in 1958. Three years later, Ranney graduated with his bachelor’s degree in music education from Northeast Missouri State Teachers College. In 1961, Ranney was offered a teaching position as the director of the orchestra program at his former high school.

During this time, he earned a master’s degree from Northeast Missouri State. Between 1964 and 1980, Ranney directed several high school orchestra programs in Eastern Iowa in addition to conducting the Cedar Rapids Symphony Orchestra, the Cedar Rapids Youth Symphony, the Iowa City Youth Symphony, and the Coe College Orchestra.

In 1980, Ranney was hired by the School of Music at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, accepting a position as the Coordinator of String Programs for the School of Music Office of Continuing Education Office and serving as a facilitator within the Illinois Summer Youth Music Program. He would serve as Director of the Illinois Summer Youth Music program from 1982–1991. In 1995, Ranney began conducting a program of Young People’s concerts with the Champaign-Urbana Symphony Orchestra. During his tenure at Illinois, he served as an advisory member of the Board of Directors for the Illinois Council of Orchestras and as the President of the Iowa and Illinois Chapters of the American String Teachers Association.

Professor Emeritus Donald Schleicher, who was Music Director and Conductor of the University of Illinois Symphony Orchestra from 1995 until his retirement in the spring of 2021, had this to say of Ranney, “Mr. Ranney was the conductor of the Illini Symphony for roughly half of my twenty-six years at Illinois. Jack was an extraordinary teacher. His priorities were always about doing what was best for the students ahead of self. His egoless approach to conducting was a model for all of us to emulate. After he retired, he continued to attend our UISO concerts—always with a kind word or two backstage following the performance.

He was a very good man and I miss him.”

William Monson McClellan, the head music librarian at our university from 1965 until 1997, was born in Groton, Massachusetts on January 7, 1934, and died on July 8, 2020, in Fort Collins, Colorado.

William (Bill) McClellan was born and raised in New England.

After high school, McClellan received both his BA degree and MA degree in music history from Colorado College. While working on his bachelor’s degree, McClellan met his future wife, Jane; the two would be married in 1955. In 1959, he received a MA degree in library science from the University of Michigan. Soon after, he became a lecturer and music librarian at the University of Colorado.

In 1963 while attending the American Library Association national convention in Detroit, McClellan met with Thor Wood, former music librarian at the University of Illinois. Wood, who was considering retirement, encouraged McClellan to apply.

Two years later, McClellan interviewed for the position of Head Librarian. Jean Geil, former Assistant Music Librarian at the Music and Performing Arts Library, described her first meeting with McClellan as follows: When Bill McClellan interviewed for the position of Music Librarian, Dr. Alexander Ringer brought him by the library to introduce him to me. At the moment the two of them appeared at the door, the situation in the library could only be described as semi-organized chaos...I tried to extricate myself from the ongoing confusion. When I could finally turn around, Ringer and McClellan were gone! I said to myself, “Oh, no. After what he has seen here, Mr. McClellan will never take the Job!” Yet, McClellan saw potential at the University of Illinois and took the position in 1965.

Under McClellan’s leadership, the Music Library was relocated from its former location on the second floor of Smith Hall to a 20,000 square foot space within the current music building in 1974. McClellan also spearheaded the library’s transition to the Library of Congress Classification system from the Dewey Decimal System. Even while moving the library from one building

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in m e mo r ia m to another and while processing an enormous backlog of library materials, McClellan participated regularly in several musicological and library organizations. He served as the President of the Music Library Association from 1971–1973 and edited the journal Notes from 1977–1982.

“He was a great colleague and an excellent piano division chair whose calmness, patience, and understanding I greatly appreciated.”

Dean Sanders Dean Sanders, member of the piano faculty from 1957–1991, was born in Seward, Nebraska on May 24, 1929, and died on October 20, 2020, in Urbana, Illinois.

Dean Sanders began his studies at the piano at age 15. After graduating from Solomon High School in Solomon, Kansas in 1947, Sanders began a degree in piano performance at Bethany College in Lindsborg, Kansas. After graduating in 1951, Sanders began his studies with Rudolph Ganz and Dame Myra Hess at the Chicago Musical College. He went on to earn a master of music degree in 1953. The following year, he became an instructor of piano at Iowa State Teachers College in Cedar Falls, Iowa.

In 1957, Sanders joined the Piano Division at the University of Illinois. As a performer, Sanders gave recitals throughout the United States and Spain. During his tenure within the School of Music, he won seven national and international piano competitions. Sanders also gave several important local performances, including premieres of compositions by Burrill Phillips in 1971 and 1972; a 1977 performance of George Crumb’s Makrokosmos III with Ian Hobson and Thomas Siwe; and collaborative performances with Homer Schmidt, Gabriel Magyar, and Paul Martin Zonn in the 1970s and ’80s.

William Heiles, who joined the piano division in 1968, noted of Sanders: “He was a great colleague and an excellent piano division chair whose calmness, patience, and understanding I greatly appreciated, especially in my first years as I made the sometimes-awkward transition from student to faculty member.

I remember fondly the gatherings at his home at the end of the last day of piano juries each semester, where we shared drinks, hors d’oeuvres, and comradeship.”

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Ian Hobson, who joined the piano division and collaborated with Sanders for the first time in 1975, noted, “When I came to Illinois, he picked me up at the airport for my interview and was so very nice and welcoming. As I got to know him better, I was impressed with his genuine, gentle manner and his love of the piano division and all it stood for. He had a great sense of humor and was kind and thoughtful in all matters that I witnessed.”

Jan Morris Bach, an alumnus of the School of Music, was born on December 11, 1937, in Forrest, Illinois and died on October 30, 2020, in Dekalb, Illinois. Bach, a gifted composer, earned his bachelor’s degree in music performance (1959), master’s degree in composition (1961), and doctorate in composition (1971) at the University of Illinois. As a composer, Dr. Bach was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in music on six separate occasions. He was also the recipient of the Koussevitzky Composition Award (1961), 1st prize at the Mannes College Opera Competition (1973), and 1st prize at the New York City Opera Composition Competition (1980).

Robert Scholz, an alumnus of the School of Music, was born on November 19, 1939, in Chicago, Illinois and died in Northfield, Minnesota on February 21, 2021. Before coming to the University of Illinois, Scholz earned a bachelor’s degree in music education from St. Olaf College (MN) in 1961. Soon after, he earned his master’s degree in musicology (1967) and doctoral degree in choral conducting (1969) at the University of Illinois, where he also conducted the University Chamber Choir. After graduating from Illinois, Scholz returned to St. Olaf College, where he served as Choral Conductor and Vocal Instructor from 1968 until 2005.

Bonnie Klee Roberts, an alumna of the School of Music, was born September 19, 1944, in Rockford, Illinois and died November 17, 2019 ,in Naperville, Illinois. Roberts graduated from the University of Illinois with a degree in music education in 1968. In 1988, she founded the Naperville Men’s Glee Club. Under her direction, the Glee Club performed yearly benefit concerts, which helped raise disaster relief funds and donations for cancer patients.

Richard David Hanson, an alumnus of the School of Music, was born on August 28, 1934, in Bertha, Minnesota and died on February 13, 2021, in Germantown Hills, Illinois. Before coming to Illinois, Hanson received his bachelor’s degree in music education (1956) from St. Olaf College (MN) and his master’s degree in music education (1962) from Colorado State College. In 1969, Hanson earned his doctorate in music education at the University of Illinois. Hanson served as an Assistant Professor of Music Education at Bucknell University (PA) from 1969 until 1972, Assistant Professor of Music Education at Oberlin College (OH) from 1972 until 1977, and Professor of Music Education at MacMurray College (IL) from 1977 until 1998.

Michael Leonard, an alumnus of the School of Music, was born in Oak Park, Illinois on December 27, 1956, and died in Champaign, Illinois on November 28, 2020.

Before his arrival at the University of Illinois, Leonard earned a bachelor’s degree from Roosevelt University (IL), an performance certificate in organ performance (1977) at Sherwood Music School (IL), and a master of arts degree (1995) from Governor’s State University (IL). In 2015, Leonard earned his doctorate in music performance at the University of Illinois.

Giving

Music Opportunity and Innovation Fund: Investing in Impact at the School of Music

T

he Music Opportunity and Innovation Fund was established this year with lead gifts from donors Shirley Soo, Lynd Corley, and Paul Herman. Their gifts and the subsequent gifts of others have allowed us to establish a matching gift program. All gifts up to $54,000 made by March 31, 2022, to this new fund will qualify for a matched gift doubling the donation. We hope to raise $100,000 for this important fund.

A Unique Opportunity The School of Music budget does not have the flexibility to fund new opportunities and innovative projects when they arise on relatively short notice, something that happens very frequently in the arts.

Every semester, students and faculty members alike miss out on unique opportunities—the chance to perform at a major competition, the opportunity to bring a youth orchestra to campus, the prospect of purchasing a specialized piece of equipment, the possibility of performing a new piece of music, etc.—due to a lack of funds in that area. Over the years, we have been fortunate to have many dedicated individuals who help support these needs. For example, in 2019 the saxophone studio had an opportunity to make a big splash at the North American Saxophone Alliance National Conference in Tempe, AZ, and they did so with the support of some generous donors. But we can never be certain that we will find enough funding. SoM Director Jeffrey Sposato notes, “We want to know for sure that when a great opportunity arises, such as when Piano Professor Rochelle Sennet needed help finishing her monumental recording project, Bach to Black, we’d be able to answer the call. Or, in the future, when an ensemble is invited to play in the final round of a competition, we can say ‘Get out there and win!’” If you would like to help us build this matching gift pool, please make your donation to the Music Opportunity and Innovation Fund (11336754). You can give an online gift at giving.illinois.edu or use the enclosed remit card.

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Gifts in support of the School of Music (July 1, 2020–June 30, 2021)

The success of the School of Music depends on the generosity of our alumni, friends, foundations, and corporations. We gratefully acknowledge the generous support of the following, who made gifts in support of the School of Music.

The School of Music always welcomes new contributors. For more information about making a gift to the School of Music or about the Illinois Music Advancement Council, please contact David Allen, director of advancement, at 217-333-6453 or allend@illinois.edu.

$25,000+

Illinois Music Advancement Council Our Illinois Music Advancement Council Executive Committee has done great work to help the SoM and its advancement goals. In addition to connecting new donors to the SoM, the committee has co-hosted events on campus, including the SoM Open House, Music Partners Luncheon, and the KCPA Lyric Theatre Student Excellence reception and concert. IMAC EC members are selected from among our donors and serve two to three year terms. Thank you to our current executive committee. If you are interested in learning how you can be involved, please contact Director of Advancement David Allen or Director Jeffrey Sposato.

Shirley Soo (BM ’74, MBA ’82), chair Lynd Corley (BME ’59, MM ’61), vice chair James Frame (LAS ‘73) Eve Harwood (EdD ’87) Paul Herman (LAS ’74)

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Carol Berthold Eve Harwood & Mark Netter Dennis Helmrich & Gerard Hecht Martha & Craig Schiele Shirley Soo & Matthew Gorman Rittchell & Peter Yau

$10,000–$24,999 Jenny Lynd Corley James Dixon & Kathleen Lockhart Susan & Michael Haney Edward Harvey & Cindy Capek Erin & James Lowe Gina Manola Bruce Reznick & Robin Sahner Rebecca & Paul Wigley Sarah Wigley

$5,000–$9,999 Amy & Matthew Ando Jill & Philip Arkin Eleanor Crum David Dungan & Mary Granato Dungan Maureen & Christopher Durack Daniel Feldt Melva Gage & Edgar Madsen Paul Herman Stephen Husarik Ronald Johnson Elizabeth & Peter March Diane & Kenneth Matsuura Suzanne & George Pagels E. B. Philippson & Gail Durham Susanne Philippson Julie & Glendon Schuster Jeffrey Sposato & Peter Cohen Krista & Glen Strauss

$2,500–$5,000 Donald Bagby Don Baker Nicholas Carrera Stephanie & Michael Chu Joy Crane Thornton & John Walter Gladys & Harry Frost Judith & Nicholas Good Daniel Grayson & Carol Livingstone Julie & Nathan Gunn Eric Hammelman Deb & Bill Harrison Kathleen Harvey John Johnson & Patricia Coyne-Johnson Tiffany & Bill Lesiecki Jennifer & Steven Mather Claude McKibben & Lynda Marchiori McKibben Margaret & Craig Milkint Ruth Moore Marjorie Perrino Laura & Mark Pils Mark Steinberg Cynthia Swanson Roberta & Scott Veazey

$1,000–$2,499 Linda Allen Anderson Nadja & Carl Altstetter Valerie & Bryan Bagg Stephen Blum Charles Boast & Marsha Clinard Bruce Bonds Joyce Wolk Branfman Sarah & Carl “Chip” Buerger III Tina & Peter Buhelos Beth & David Chasco Richard Clark & Andrea Durison-Clark Lauren & Philip Coleman Shirley & Roger Cunningham Nancy Dehmlow Lynne & Paul Denig Jo Ellen DeVilbiss Anne Ehrlich Todd Faulstich Linda & Roger Fornell James Frame & Candace Penn Frame Kathy & James Gamble Barbara & Andrew Goldberg Jamie & Mark Heisler Lori & Reiner Hinner Mary Hoffman Lori & Raymond Janevicius Bruce Johnson

David Jones & Renata Moore Ed Karrels Thomas Keegan & Nancy Moskowitz Timothy Killeen & Roberta Johnson Killeen Kelly Koster Linda & David Kranz David Lai Marvin Lamb Cheryl Lentz Sandra Leonard Donald Maylath Carlye & Timothy McGregor Virginia & John Mead Barbara Jane & J. Michael Moore Mary & Brian Moore Jane & Walter Myers Steven Ng & Mark Posner Margaret & Robert Pattison Susan Phillips David Pierce Isabel & Kirk Pierce Gayl Pyatt Roger Ray Donna & Mark Rolih Carol & Edwin Scharlau Susan & Paul Schlesinger Janet & Rich Schroeder Stephen Sligar & Mary Anne Schuler Wynn Smiley Elaine & Case Sprenkle Kathe & John Thompson Jon Toman Cheryl & Russell Weber Phillip Whipple Nancy & John Whitecar Lizabeth Wilson

$500–$999 Teresa & Eduardo Acuna Carolyn & Richard Anderson Linda & Erwin Arends Anton Armstrong Elizabeth Ash Sharon & Theodore Barczak Kathleen & S. Eugene Barton Susan & Richard Biagi Patrick Bitterman Jill & Joseph Bonucci Nancy & Craig Branigan Franklin Brasz Lissa & Adam Broome Elaine & Nicholas Brown

Anna & Joseph Catalano Joseph Ceo Joy & Jack Charney Layna Chianakas & Elie Haddad John Davidson III & Shirley Schaeffer Terri & John Dodson Carolyn & Patrick Donnelly Julie & Jeffrey Dreebin Adele & Fred Drummond Carole & James Eckert James Emme Lauren Emme Katherine & Robert Evans Roxanne Frey Barbara & George Frock Jennifer & James Gettel Linda & Werner Gieseke Aaron Godwin Elizabeth Goldwasser Lisa Guerra Michelle & John Hackett Mary & Richard Haines Joseph Hanley & Kristy Mardis Mary Hart Laura Hartman Tom Hawley & Tom Mantel John Heath Henry Helenek Zachary Hench & Sarah Beauchamp Philip Highfill Harold Hindsley & Elizabeth Armstrong Anne & Colin Holbrook Sara & Andy Isbell Nancy Jackson Kathryn & Alan Janicek Julie & William Jastrow Clifford Johnson Jr. & Cristina Medrano-Johnson Hiromi & Masahito Kagawa Jennifer & David Knickel John Koenig Laura Luckadoo Morgan Lynge & Brenda Callahan Lynge Nancy & Marshall Mabie Eloise & Boyd Mackus Henry Magnuski & Cynthia Jose Charles Matz & Yvonne Simpson-Matz Anna & Kirk McKinzie Kristine & Ian McPheron Rebecca & Eric Messerschmidt Barbara & Mark Miner

pl anned gi vi ng Legacy Commitments We would like to recognize the following alumni & friends who have chosen to include Music at Illinois through a bequest or other planned gift. Donors who remember the School of Music in their estate plans provide critical funding to establish student, faculty, & program support.

Linda Allen Anderson Chester Alwes & Marlys Scarbrough Anonymous Joyce & Alan Baltz Mary Jane Beasley Carol Berthold Stephen Blum David Bowers David Bruns Judith Chastain Richard Clark & Andrea Durison-Clark Dale & Lucinda Cockrell Larry Cohen Lynd Corley Roger & Shirley Cunningham Barbara Curtis Jerry & Cathy Ditto James & Candace Frame Kathleen Harvey John Heath Susan Hoeksema Donald Houpt Jr. & JoAnn Unsell Houpt Larry Houtz Stephen Husarik Dulce Issa Raymond & Lori Janevicius Bruce Johnson

Allen Kleinbeck Michael Konrad Dean Langford Cheryl Lentz Leonard Lewicki Randall Lindstrom & Justin Emery Howard Loveless Henry Magnuski & Cynthia Jose Lezlee Masson Holly (Acker) and Kenneth Mathiesen Sharon Michalove Kathy & Ralph Pounds Beverly & Thomas Rauchfuss Bruce Reznick & Robin Sahner Donna & Mark Rolih Stephen Ross & Elizabeth Hunke Janet & Richard Schroeder Willodean Simon Albert Staub Craig Sutter Deborah & David Trotter Sharon West Rebecca & Paul Wigley Sarah Wigley Vernon K and Marilyn Pflederer Zimmerman Foundation

Mark Mosley & Sarah Good Douglas Nelson & Janet Ellis-Nelson Linda & Clifford Nelson Carole & David Neubauer Diane & Thomas Newkirk Valerie & Thomas Oakley David O’Connor & Caroline West Marion O’Leary & Elizabeth Kean Rebecca & Jeffrey Olson Brenda & Stephen Pacey

Elizabeth & Don Palmer Margene & Peter Pappas Sarah & Larry Parsons Rebecca & Douglas Pinney Richard Powers & Jane Kuntz Elizabeth Raiman Alixandra Ramos Pamela & Joseph Rank Rebecca & Verlin Richardson Mary & James Robbins

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Jeffrey Rohrer & Joyce Kim-Rohrer Lisa & Joseph Sanstrom Christie Schuetz Patricia & Dennis Schwarzentraub Nancy Schwegler Margaret Simmons Gail & Joseph Spytek William Stanley Patricia & James Swan Amy & Eric Tamura Olivia & Michael Tremblay Jeanine Wagner Kimberly & Jeffrey Wahl John Weaver Catherine Webber Paul Weston Amy & Chad Williams Sallie Wolf

$250–$499 Joshua Allen Ellen & Eugene Amberg Keith Anderson & Desiree Helgren Claretha Anthony Martha & David Atwater Shannon & Scott Banjavcic Lois Beck Rath & Edward Rath Sue Bergstrom Joan Biaggio Thomas Bieber & Barbara Petro Christine & Philip Bohlman Hannah & Justin Brauer Robert Bretzlaff David Bruns & Leigh Deusinger Morgan Butts Susan & Gregory Clemons Amy & Timothy Connelly Michelle Corlew Gary Cortright & Marlene Koncel Laura & Douglas Coster Kenneth Davis Richard Delong Therese & Jeffrery DeMouy Niki & John Devereux Cathy & Gerald Ditto Teresa & Paul Dubravec Marilyn Duginger Ann Einhorn Doug Eisenhauser Stephen Eisenstein & Deane Brown Jacqueline Elliott Steven Emme

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Joanne & Bruce Erwin Sandra & Steven Everitt Aldena & Rodney Everhart Marita & Cleve Fenley Marguerite & Myron Fink Mary Fisher Douglas Fitzgerald & Karen Clausius Robert Fleisher Peter Folk & Maria Gonzalez Folk Jennifer Fuller Michael Gamage Nancy Gavlin Dorothy Gemberling Martha Geppert Tina & Brian Gieseke Marjorie & Thomas Goettsche John Haberlen Dale Hallerberg & Brenda Brak Susan & James Hatfield Timothy Hennelly Alice & Jesse Hopkins Cynthia & Robert Hormell Ingrid & Bruce Hutchings Barbara Jackson Alice & Rick Joellenbeck Miche’Le Johnson Carol & William Kem Cynthia & Robert Kennedy Josephine & Douglas Kibbee Paul Kruty & Jane Block Joan & Ronald Larner Rebecca Larsen Diane & James Lauridsen Laura & Blake Linders David Main & Christine Coorman Main Linda & Richard Marsho Julia & Michael Maschek Deborah & Ricky Mason Linda & David Maurer Anna Merritt Constance & Alan Mitchell LeRae Jon Mitchell Ruth & Gregory Mock Barbara & Jeffrey Modlin Elizabeth Morley Lois & Joseph Morrow Jeffrey Murley Patricia Newman Jennifer & Chad O’Connor Susan & K. D. O’Leary Paulette & Robert Pahlke Michael Pettersen & Jan Marie Aramini Theresa & Andrew Piotrowski

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Bonnie & Kenneth Pletcher Thomas Potter Linda Ramsey Julie & Gregory Reckamp Sue & Lou Reinisch Carole & Adam Richardson Joann & Luzern Richter Linda & Ronald Roaks Kathleen & Michael Rodriguez Franz Roehmann Stephen Ross & Elizabeth Hunke Rebecca & David Rubin Robert Ruckrigel Leslie & Paul Rudolph Timothy Ruestman & Sharon Hoobler Diane & Eric Sandberg Gwyn & David Schramm Heather & Jeffrey Schweizer Cheryl & Steven Seibert Amanda & Benjamin Shanbaum Patricia & Charles Simpson Dawn Sinclair P. Z. & David Sinclair Katharine & Terry Slocum Chris Spencer Elizabeth & Christopher Spytek Jill & Kevin Stites Lauren & Lawrence Stoner Kimberly & Mark Tallungan Regina & Mark Taylor Susan & Scott Tilley Karyl & Walter Tyler Karen & Zalman Usiskin Claudia Viera June & Ashton Waller Calvin Weber David Weiller Colleen & Arnold Weinfeld Alan Wesa Robin & James West Sue & Rod Williams Susan Williams Susan & Mark Wisthuff Bonita Woods Joy & Jim Woolley Carrie & Daniel Worra

$100–$249 Marsha & Larry Ackerman Melody Actouka Olga & Daniel Adams Nancy & Martin Akins Donna & William Alberth

H. D. Alde-Cridlebaugh & Richard Cridlebaugh Diana Allen Donetta & Eddie Allen Parker Allen Judy & Stephen Altaner Jennifer & Timothy Anderson Ian Anderson Sharon & David Anderson Joseph Anthony & Laura Reynolds Shirley Ariazi Susan Ashbaker Larry Ashley Karen & Allan Atchison Jane & William Austin Paula Bachman Michal & Mark Baker Elaine & Neale Bartee Jeanne Bauer Raymond Baum Robin Baumgarten Gordon Baym & Cathrine Blom Lynne & Edward Beach Patricia Beagle Mary & Richard Beal James Beckwith & Sandra Kofler Carol & Robert Behnke John Bell Michelle & David Bellia Rebecca & Nolan Bello Elaine Benisek Linda & Allen Berry Andrea Biernacki Marcy & Eric Biletzky Peter Biletzky Maria & Alan Blair Daniel Blake Courtney Blankenship Alesia Bock Roy Bond Kerri & Jeff Boone Tamara Bouseman Robert Bradtke & Lynn Grabher Bradtke Margaret & Samuel Bradshaw Donna & Jerome Brand Barbara & Harold Breece Sandra & Gregory Briolat Kareen Britt Amanda Brown Craig Brown Wayne Brown & Brenda Kee Stebbins Chandor & Mari Brown Chandor Carol & Dan Browne

Who Gives to Music at Illinois?

2016–2021

F Y = J U LY 1– J U N E 3 0 2,500

Non-Alumni Other Foundations Corp/Business

2,000

Matching Organizations Donor Advised Funds Faculty & Staff

Number of Donors

Current Students 1,500

Alumni

1,000

500

0 FY 2016

FY 2017

Marilyn & Dean Bruckman Stephanie & Jeffrey Bryk Donna & Gerald Buckler Margaret & Kenneth Buel Kathryn Bumpass Barbra & Brad Burch Sandra & Stephen Burgener Amy & Jason Burrows Wesley Burghardt & Angela Stramaglia Maureen & Christopher Buti Ralph Butler Helen & William Call Sharon & Thomas Capie III Karen Capria Kenneth Carlborg Laverne & David Carlson Pat & Joseph Carr Janet & Jeffrey Carter Ellen & Harry Carter Jenifer Cartwright Sandra & Joseph Casserly Johny Chacko Susan & Steven Chamberlin Heather & David Chichester Megan Christ

FY 2018

FY 2019

FY 2020

FY2021

Linda & Richard Chuk Liza & Bob Churchill Frank Ciszewski Amy & Thomas Clark S. D. & David Coen Raymond Cook & Marcia Sellos Kathleen & Wayne Corley Willard Cottrell Andrew Cove & Deborah Montgomery Dennis Craig Theresa & Paul Creighton Cathy & Bob Crowley Sherri & Michael Culloton Michael Davis & Barbara Hutchinson Wendy Deetjen Dimitra DeFotis Marlene Delaney Laurie & William DeMont Diane Denault Annette & Scott Detwiler Susan & John DeWolf Elise & Marcio Diaz Irene & Russell Dieterich Tony Diiulio

Angie & John Dimit Andrew DiVito Mable & Charles Dixon Robert Doak Scott Dodd Robert Doepp Jill & Jeffrey Dorries Frances & Scott Drone-Silvers Scott Duff Marilyn & LeRoy Duncan Austin Durflinger Ellen & Harold Eager Cheryl & Kristopher Einsweiler David Eiseman Gail & Stephen Enda Perry Ergang & Anne Pachciarek Breanne Ertmer Dawn Fairchild Susan & Allen Feige Anne & Timothy Fiedler Neil Finbloom Barbara & Robert Fisher Sarah & David Fodor Alexandra Folk Michael Folliard & Christina Klintworth Martha Fordon Christ Forte Jennifer & Eric Foss Sara & Christopher Fraker Lisa & Andrew French Danielle Friedlieb Beverly & Michael Friese Karen & Bradley Frost Laurie & Steven Fumarolo Amy Garant Margaret & Edward Germain Margaret Ghering Pamela & John Gibbons Cheryl & James Gibson Joli Ginsberg Jodi & Matt Glass Joseph Goble Eric Gobst Carolyn & James Goff Diane Levitt Gottheil Rebecca & Joe Grant Margaret & Andrew Gregory Aaron Greven & Kristin Boeke-Greven Susan & Thomas Grey David Gross Susan & Dennis Grube Carol & Walter Gruchala Salvatore Guagliardo Lois Gullakson

Margaret & Hans Gunderson Amy & Mark Gurra Marie & Garry Gutgesell Gregory Haar Barbara Haggh-Huglo Rebecca Hahnfeld Kevin Hamilton & Susan Becker Mary & Matti Harm Pamela & Albert Harrison Karen & Joseph Hartman Melinda & Scott Hawbaker Marilyn Haynie Vera & James Hays Margaret & Robert Hearson Michael Heaton Michael Hebert Joan & W. Robert Hedgcock Diane & Tom Heffernan Christine & Bruce Hegemann Denise Hegemann Kaye & Chris Heinhold Marne Helgesen Richard Helm & Judy Harris Helm Julie & Harold Henhapl Sally & Bill Hermann Edward Hernandez Herbert Hiestand James Hile & Nancy Whitaker Jane & Robert Hindsley Denise Hodges Judith & David Hohn Linda & Michael Hollyman Donovan Hough Abigail & Barry Houser Brian Howard Ming-Huei Huang & Ingyu Chiou Kari & Kevin Hunter Greta & Timothy Huseman Brice Hutchcraft Janice Impey Emily & Michael Isaac Cary Izzi & Sharon Klein Karen Jablecki & Carol Matthies Jodie & Ben Jackels Laurine Jannusch Jonathan Jarrell Rachel Jensen-Schoeps Gordon Johns Delia & Erick Johnson Heather & Eric Johnson Judith & Carlyle Johnson Matthew Johnson & Kathleen Guarna Susan & David Johnson Carol & Clarence Josefson

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Elizabeth & James Jozefowicz Thomas Jozefowicz Melissa & Patrick Jung Patricia Justice Christopher Kade & Jo Ann McNaughton-Kade Lisa & Richard Kadel Monica & Fritz Kaenzig Cheryl & Michael Kahn Kimberly & Glen Kaminski Aaron Kaplan Ziaul Karim Pamela & Howard Kaufman Herbert Kellman & Susan Parisi Delbert Ketteman Kyung Sook & Soo Chil Kim Karen Kimball Karen & Matthew Klickman Melissa & Matthew Knapik Paula & Jack Koberstine Lorinda & Kenneth Koenig Jillene & Edward Kogan Lance Kohan Merrick Kossack & Theresa Jordan Megan & Thomas Kostal Michael Kostal Tracey & Michael Krause Nancy & Bradley Krumpolz Kenneth Krynicki & Victoria Walter-Krynicki Susan & Andrew Kunz Elizabeth & John Kupsco Kinsey & Matthew Kutylo William LaPlante & Joanne Hogan Carol & David Larson Mary Larson Peter LaRue Casandra & Kenneth Larvenz Karrilynn Le Blanc Ann & Doug Lee Linda & Russell Leigh Jean Lemke Glen Lemmerman Nedra &Terry Lepper Audrey & Mark Levin Brian Levine Gabriel Lewis Tammy & Daniel Lezotte Douglas Litteken & Caroline Cvetkovic Coradel & William Little Gary Livesay & Valerie Vlahakis Christina Lohrberg

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William MacAdam & Sara Phillips-MacAdam Gail & Bruce Mack Tiffany & Brian Macke Janet & Stephen Madden III Nancy & Steven Magee Kameron & Edmund March Dereck Marchinski James Martin & Lisa Muirheid Martin Linda Martin Donna & Peter Marzek Lezlee Masson Lurie & Lewis McAdow Deborah & Randal McBride Maria & Timothy McHenry Julie Spaulding McKinzie Linda McKown Nancy & Myron McLain Ann & Daryl McNabb Jo Ann McNaughton-Kade & Christopher Kade Beatrice & Kevin McNulty Cherise & Christopher Mead Cynthia & Earl Meister Rita & Warren Meland George Meyer John Meyer Marian Milling James Miralgio Jeanie & Frank Moccio William Moore Anne & Tom Morel Helen & Robert Morgan Nancy Morse Marian & Steve Mueller Suzanne & Frank Mynard David Myrow & Susan Bundy-Myrow Susan & Andrew Nakagi Andrea & Kyle Neilson Christopher Nelson & Kara Clark Jennifer Nevius William Nicholls Lee Nickelson & Lynda Dautenhahn Michelle & William Nielsen Loretta & Robert Norgon Mary & Gerald Norton Paula Novak Karen & Steven Novy Rachel & James Nowakowski Elizabeth & Mitchell Nuss Carol Oberg Marjorie Olson Janet & Dennis Ottmers

s on or ities

George Paaswell Roberta & Albert Panozzo Karen Parrack Ramon Pasetes & Erin Clancy Ann Pastrovich Ann & Lowell Peck Linda Perry David Perzov & Erin Leuschel-Perzov Craig Peters Marcia & Eric Pierce Regina Pietrzak Michael Pizzuto Sally & Michael Pope Diane & Michael Potts Karyn & Lyle Quandt Erin & Andrew Quinn Jill & James Quisenberry Kathleen & Benjamin Ramp W. D. Rankin Alexis & Richard Rasley Janice & Mohamed Razaq Maureen Reagan & Bruce Zimmerman Yvonne & Paul Redman Frances Reedy Barbara & William Rice Lois & Robert Richter James Roberts & Carolyn Horne Joann & Charles Roe Nancy Rogers Holly Rouintree James Rouintree Kathryn Rouker Kenneth Rubin Shelley & Phillip Ruch Holly Rush Donna & Gerard Sabo Steven Sabourin Emily & Jon Salvani George Sanders Debra Sarvela Jeanne & Ray Sasaki Kimberly & Raul Saucedo Diane & Chris Sawall Dennis Schafer Scott Schafer & Janice Papineau-Schafer Tatiana Schaffer Terra & Robert Schaller Kathleen & Gregory Schissler Ralph Schlesinger Herbert Schneiderman Steven Schopick Ramonde & Steven Schopp Patricia & Wallace Schroth

Kimberly & Daniel Schwartz Therese Schwerzler Lelon & Frankie Seaberry Louis Sguros & Kim Nickelson John Sheridan Teresa Shine Camille & Dean Shoucair Janice & Jeffrey Sibley Ned Siegel Arthur Sievers Vaidotas & Birute Simaitis Ellen & Marc Singer Janet & John Skadden Bruce Skof Jerrold Slutzky Kevin Small & Susan Mulvey Small Sharon & William Smiley Donna Smith Maria Snarski Kathleen & Paul Sons Alexander Sosa Laura & Michael Sosa Penelope & Anthony Soskin Theodora Sotiropoulos Charles Specht Wendy & Brian Stabler Carol & Gregory Stanek Kim Stanfield Jennifer & Franklin Stanhope Laurie Steenberg Karen & David Stein Barbara Steinhaus Jeffrey Stephens Virginia Stitt M. S. & James Straub George Strombeck Patti & David Sulser Marlene & Laurence Svab Charles Swaringen Jennifer & Joseph Swayne Marie Swenson Carole & Allen Sypherd Walter Szuck Nancy Jo Tassos Tracy & William Templin Stephanie & John Tharp William Theisen & Amy McArthur Dennis Thiel Sean Thomas Thomas Thomas Susan & Frederick Thorne Christopher Tichenor & Marianne Hartman Tichenor Jacqueline Tilles Monica Tolva

Remembering Nick Rudd—Funding for the Nick Rudd Music Experience Gina Manola established the Nick Rudd Music Fund at the School of Music to advance programming for the Robert E. Brown Center for World Music and affiliate programs. One of these programs includes an annual Nick Rudd Music Experience, which represents Nick Rudd’s love of improvisation, the jazz avant-garde, progressive rock, and music traditions of the world.

Learn more about how to support this fund at www.nickruddmusic.com.

Nick Rudd and Jason Finkelman

Bruce Tomkins Mary & Robert Towner Amy Townes Maureen & John Tschosik Timothy Tunnell Nancy & Steven Turner Jie & James Tyrrell Gary Unruh Janine & Daniel Valkema Pamela Van Arsdale Pamela & Michael VanBlaricum Kimberly Vander Woude Stacy Veldhuizen Jennifer Vente Nancy & Douglas Wachob Jean Waechter Michael Waldbusser Diane Walkup Polina & Richard Waller Eric Walters & Rebecca Campbell Larry Ward Mary Weichbrodt Lisa Weinstein Duane Werner & Bonnie Johansen-Werner Michael White Ronda Wilkes Hiroko & Robert Williams Kathryn & Steven Williams Daniel Windham & Mary McElroy Heather & Nicholas Winter Matthew Winters & Carmen Ugarte Janice & Ronald Wood

Heath Wright & Michelle Kelly Kimberly & Daniel Wurl Marian & Scott Wyatt Marilyn & James Yerkey Kristen & James Young Krystyne & Joseph Zakosek Carina & Raul Zamora Milos Zefran & Barbara Di Eugenio Joan & Roger Zmrhal Wilma Zonn

$1–$99 Dana & David Adcock Cassandra Afseth Mary Ahlers Marc Alexander Betty & David Allen Jan Altadonna Liz & Samuel Altaner David Althaus & Angie Anderson-Althaus Betsye Altschul Maureen Alvarado Patricia & Mark Anderson Alyssa Arkin Rachel Ashton Connie & Minor Avery Linda & David Bailey Raymond Baker Thomas Ball & Helen Gunn Sherry & Kirk Banner Rosalie & Bill Baranyk Lisa-Ann & Robert Barnes

Martha & Dave Bartlett David Beasley Sheryl Bell Carol Benzing Elizabeth Bergeron Paulette Berman Renee Berrigan Carol & Spencer Berry Sandra & Thomas Bertucci Sara Bidner Wayne Bjerregaard & Julia Holland Ernest Blackwelder & Cynthia Voelkl Meredith Blanford Jacqueline & Geoffrey Block Emily Bloom Bryan Boccelli Deborah & Paul Boehm Mary Ann Boggs Jennifer & James Bombach Jane Bonaldi Cindy & Terry Brennan Bonnie & Jerome Brillhart Rebecca & Ian Brooks Frank Brown Pamela Bruce Deborah & Robert Bruns Kenneth Bruzek & Patricia Floch Bruzek Pamela & Tim Bryers Melissa & Robert Buckley Mary & David Burke Clarissa Bush Julie & John Butler

Barbara Buzecky Nancy & Fernando Campos Daryl Caneva & Ann Lopez-Caneva Lisa & Tony Caramia Elizabeth Carter Kathleen & Frank Carter Michael Casey Judith & Steve Chapleau Kathy & Carl Chapman Thomas Cherry Matthew Chesner Katrina & Deon Chester Eileen Chiou Diane & Charles Christoe Molly & Anthony Cinnamon Jennifer & Steven Ciszewski Jean & William Clarke Garrett Cofield Stephen Cohn Joanne & Donald Colby Maria & Stephen Conlon Rhonda Conrad James Conybear Janelle & Paul Corn Carrie Beth & Frank Correll Jennifer Cowan Angella & Douglas Crane Ann Crickman James Crowley & Eun-Joo Kwak Julie Crumley Brandon Dang Timothy Daughters & Barbara Duffield A. Carolyn & Daniel Dauner Shelley & Alan Davis David Deitemyer Jeremy Dembowski Richard Detzner & Natasha Rubel Alexander Di Giovanni Marie-Elise Diamond Sandra Diaz Lynn Divizio Bruce Doctor & Gail Schewitz-Doctor David Dodgson Pamela & David Dodson Anne & David Dorn Kay & C. W. Douglass Maija & Robert Downing Donald Downs & Mary Dahlquist-Downs Carl Dumoulin Raymond Duncan Pamela & Matthew Dunn Russell Duszak

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Darlene & Ronald Dymerski Cynthia & James Eder Allen Edwards Kenneth Edwards Laurie & Thomas Egan Celeste Eichelberger Terri Ellis Leslie & John Emrich Jan Erdman Carol & Jack Ergo Jeffrey Erickson Manuel Erviti Maria Espinoza Jeffrey Evans Bryan Farina & Judith Hanson Andrea & Andrew Farnham Arturo Fernandez Galena Fessler Paul Fessler & Carol Stream Diane Fey Linda & Melvin Fink Ann Fordon Loretta Foresman Chris Forthmann & Sara Ward Joan Frank Sharon & David Frank Kathleen & Kenneth Freer Suzanne & George Freese Sandra & Michael Frost Ember & Andy Fry Judith Fulton Rakesh Gadde Wilma Geil Darlene George-Craig Julia Ghering Donald Gibson & Juan Corles Salas Michelle & Aidan Gilbert Sandra & Gregory Gilboe Deborah & Jon Gilliland Karen & Charles Given Susan Goetz Karen & Robert Gordon Rachael Graham Nanette & Steven Grant Rita Grasser Kristin Green Susan Green Julia Greene Kimberly Guse Marlene & Charles Gustafson Olivia Hall Marion & Daryl Halverson

58

Barbara & Richard Hanson Teresa Hargrove Lawrence Hart Jennifer & Michael Hartley Janet & Thomas Hawkins Amy & Jason Healey Sarah Hearn Amy & Jason Heggemeyer Marian Heinkel Kristen Helou Gordon Henderson Timothy Hendrix Julie & Mark Herman Sharon Hermann Laura Herrero Kathleen & Jonas Heuer Kristina & Eric Hoerner Nancy & A.B. Hoffman Hannah Hogan Gary Hollander Sharon & Roger Holmes Lisa Hopkins Barry Jennifer & Frank Houlihan Tena & Todd Hoyt Janet & Dennis Huber Sharon Huff Michael Hurtubise & Ann Murray Kendra & David Iffland Lois Irion Kristin Jaburek Patricia & Edward Jarot Denise Jean Jeannine Jezowski Christine Jones Richard Jorgensen Karen & Myron Julien Barbara & Jeffrey Julis Judith Jung Derek Justmann Anne & Frank Kabbes Donna & Baruch Kaelter Melissa & Jeffrey Kallis Alexander Kamilewicz & Deborah Plager Stephen Kammerer Kristi Kaplan Linda Karlen Karen & Christopher Karnish Marcia Karol Deanna & Carl Karoub Stephen Kasak & Deborah Trotter Kasak Amy & Ken Kazin

s on or ities

William Keck & Starry Wolden Becky & James Kehias Rebecca Keller Maribeth & John Kelly Shawn Kenney Nina Key Sally & Peter Kim Steven Kimball Jennifer & Scott King Timothy King David Kline Colleen Knapik Tina & Kris Knox Korina & Jon Knudson Lauren Konchan Eric & Kelly Kuchefski Susan & David Kuehn Barbara & Michael Kuempel Sara & George Kuhns Karen & John Kula Ann & David Kurlinkus Katy Kuzel Dorothy LaBounty Heather & Boyd Lafoon Helen Landreth Michael Lane Veronica Lane Warren Lavey & Holly Rosencranz Dian Lawler-Johnson Maria & Steven Leavitt Susan Lee & James Lund Christine & Bradley Leeb Diana & Gene Lenzi Janet & Michael LeRoy Lisa & Michael Lewis Laura & Jeffrey Lies Martha & Mark Lindvahl Susan Lingle Pamela Litchfield Megan Livingston Susan & Robert Losby Jeremy Loui Illa Lower Karen Lyvers Alberto Macin Ellen & Steve Maglio Sr. Gregory Malek & Stefanie Ladao Karyn & Robert Malench Melissa Martier Matthew Martuzzo Maria & Jameson Marvin Angel Mattos-De Jesus & Arelys Escabi Kimberly Maude

Candice McCafferty Maura & Joseph McCarthy Carol & William McCarty Joy & Ralph McClaugherty Megan & Scott McClung Karen Mcdowell Angela & Robert McMahon Brenda & William McNeiland Angela & Dennis McNulty Lorraine & Robert Merker Kathleen & James Merwin Sharon Michaelsen Laura Middaugh Polly Middleton Cynthia & Todd Miller Ester & Jon Mitchell Karen & Daniel Moffett James Moffitt Rohan Mohta Ivy Moore Jennifer Morrow Frank Mueller Lisa Mullaney Carol Mullarkey Dawn & David Munson Raymundo Muro-Barrios Cassidy Murphy Linda Musser Yuta Nakamura Brenda & Danny Nardi Matthew Nee Angela Nelson James Nelson & Diane Foust Keith Nelson Susan & Eric Nelson John Nepywoda Theresa & Jan Carter Niccum Kristen & Gerald Nilles Jean & Ronald Ninmer Catherine Norden Heather Mrozek Novak Kathleen O’Connell John Oldfield Annette & Kenneth Olson David Osterlund Nancy & Joel Ottosen Jennifer Paddack Lisa & Todd Patterson Miriam & Greg Pendleton Stacey Peterik Laurie & Brian Pettit Kevin Phan Jeffrey Piade & Martin Tilzer

Barbara Piazza Hannah Pickard Dominic Plucinski & Jean Launspach Carol & Thomas Podraza Justin Poole James Popp & Debra Kowalczyk Carol Posraza Stefanie Postula Judith & David Poultney Patricia & David Powless Lita & Darrell Proksa Joann & Douglas Purcell Maria & Conrado Cabildo Sarah Rabin Amy & Robert Raczka Amy & David Reeter Paula & Robert Regan Mariann & Robert Reilly Lee Ann & Vernon Reinert Brad Repplinger Diana & Bruce Rhoades Kyle Rhoades Patricia & Joe Rice Diedra Richards Nancy & David Richardson Karyn & Michael Riddle Patricia & Stephen Rinkenberger Agnes Rivera Stewart Roberts Jennifer & Mitchell Rogers Jodeen & J. David Rogers Susan & Marc Rohde Jane & Joseph Rolland Lori & Andrew Rollins Mary Higley Rosser Michelle & Daniel Rowin Dawn Ruch Linda & Gary Rudenberg Barbara & Gregory Rudolph Diane & Thomas Russell Cheryl Ryan Diane & Mike Sakach William Saluski Julie Santeford Trevor Santiago Candice Sarver Janice & David Saunders Bruce Scafe Lynne & Douglas Scafe Gracie Scambiatterra Cindy & Alan Schaer Jessica Schatz

Michael Schatz Karl Scheer Barbara & Charles Schlesinger Keelin & Kevin Schneider Tobie Schroeder Beverly & Kurt Schroeder Glenda & Allan Schultz Susan & Steven Schwartz Michelle Scott Carol & Thomas Seery Durba Sen Beth Shackelford Madeleine Sharko Suzanne Shell Nancee & Dale Shipe Jill Shires Sally & Jeffrey Shlosberg Michel Siblik Erika & David Sieh Julie & Earl Simmons Brenda & Dale Slack Paula & Michael Slinger Suzanne & John Smentowski Kristin & Darek Smiegielski Andrew Smith Jay Smith Rebecca & Mark Smith Rhonda Snearley Christina & Alan Sodetz Alejandro Soejarto Robert Solimeno Holly Spinner Zachary Spoor Kathryn & Donald St. Ledger Gayle Staber Harry Steckman Timothy Stephens & Mary Kay Dailey Roberta & L. A. Stiles Cheryl & Tom Stolz Merry Stover Michael Strasser Kristy Sucich Mallory Suppa Lisa & J. Shale Susin Kyla Swain Iris Swanson Jean & Steven Sweeney Carrie & Timothy Taylor Frederick Taylor Thomas Taylor Jennifer & John Tenuto

David Thurmaier & Martin Nedbal Dolores & Charles Timko Thomas Topalis Wendy & Steven Tracy Peggy Tribble Brian Tucker Kathleen & Richard Tunstall Michelle & Daniel Tuskey Denise Umpierre Ella Van Wyk & Christopher Kienke April Venzon Judy Victorson Mary & Tino Villaflor Joan Vogen Julie & Samuel Volchenboum Kimberly Walden Jennifer & Jeff Walsdorf John Ward Steve Warters & Stacey Elliot Thomas Webb & Kathleen Soso Eitan Weltman & Gina Thiel Weltman Allison Wheeler Larry White Susan & Ralph Whitsitt Paul Wiercioch Sandra Wilkinson Rachel & Michael Willens Russell Willis Pamela & Jeffrey Wilson Robert Wilson Kathleen & Michael Wingren Susan Wingren Rhonda & Edward Wirtz Betty & Clark Wise Lorraine & Kenneth Wistrom Trudy & Allen Wolf Gina & Jonathan Wych Rosalyn Wykes Cameryn Wysocki Yehuda Yannay Laura Yoo Carol & Mark York Nicole Zable Sally & Stephen Zahos Frank Zelko & Laurel Carney-Zelko Jaqueline & Alan Zelkowitz Artur Zochowski Douglas Zylstra

Corporations, Foundations & Organizations AbbVie Adorama Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld Matching Gift Program Bank of America Foundation Boeing Bradley Leeb Photography Carnegie of New York Celanese Foundation Champaign County Retired Teachers Association Community Foundation of East Central Illinois CVS Health Deloitte Foundation Matching Gift Program DOXA Insurance Holdings DuPage Medical Group Eaton Eighty Eight Erwin & Linda Arends Foundation ExxonMobil Foundation EY Foundation Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund Hewlett Packard InFaith Community Foundation International Business Machines James P Popp Kirkland & Ellis KPMG Foundation LP Group LR Peck Meredith Foundation MR Bauer Foundation Pfizer Foundation Presser Foundation PricewaterhouseCoopers Renaissance Charitable Foundation Richlind Architects Roe Family Trust State Farm Companies Foundation Walt Disney Foundation Wells Fargo Foundation Wigley Family Fund

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