Peabody musicology faculty member Andrew Talle and Erik Helzer, assistant professor of management at Carey Business School, are among the first funding recipients in the JHU Exploration of Practical Ethics program with the project “Understanding the Ethics and Value of Higher Education: When Is Specialized Training ‘Worth It?’” Faculty member Dan Trahey (BM ’00, Tuba, Music Education) has been chosen by the Los Angeles Philharmonic to help develop three youth orchestras and teach low brass while continuing his existing roles at Peabody and OrchKids. The National Take a Stand orchestras — sponsored by the Longy School of Music, Bard College, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic — will work with students from underserved communities and will take place at Bard College, the Aspen Music Festival, and Walt Disney Concert Hall. Musicology faculty member Joshua Walden’s new book, The Cambridge Companion to Jewish Music, was published by Cambridge University Press. His book Sounding Authentic: The Rural Miniature and Musical Modernism won the Association for Recorded Sound Collections Award for Excellence in Historical Research in Classical Music: Discography. Dr. Walden also received a 2015 ASCAP Foundation Deems Taylor/Virgil Thomson Award for his 2014 article “The ‘Yidishe Paganini’: Sholem Aleichem’s Stempenyu, the Music of Yiddish Theatre, and the Character of the Shtetl Fiddler,” published in the Journal of the Royal Musical Association.
STUDENTS Peabody computer music students, faculty, and alumni were featured at the 2015 International Computer Music Conference at the University of North Texas this fall. Among the performed pieces were works by Joshua Armenta (MM ’14, Composition; MM ’15, Computer Music), master’s student Yi-an Hwang, and Ivan Voinov (’15, Computer Music; Recording Arts and Sciences) and Wuan-Chin Li (MM ’99, Computer Music). Members of the department presented a paper entitled
“Peabody Computer Music: 48 Years of Looking to the Future” written by Director of Computer Music Geoffrey Wright (MM ’81, DMA ’92, Composition), faculty members Greg Boyle and Joshua Armenta, master’s student Ryan Woodward, and alumna Sunhuimei Xia (MM ’14, Computer Music). GPD student Zoe Band (BM ’12, MM ’14, Voice) placed second in the 2015 Wonderlic Voice Competition and performed alongside Dawn Upshaw at Tanglewood Music Center. Ms. Band currently studies under William Sharp. GPD violin student Alan Choo (MM ’14, Early Music, Violin) and master’s piano student Hengyue Lin worked with five Peabody composition students and alumni on SG Inspirations, a new music initiative to celebrate Singapore’s 50th anniversary. The composers were alumni Zhangyi Chen (MM ’11, DMA ’15, Composition; MM ’15, Music Theory Pedagogy) and Wynne Fung (MM ’15, Composition) and students Jun An Chew, Kok Jun Phang, and Yuting Tan.
John Thomas Dodson (MM ’83, Conducting) and Executive and Education Director Yolanda Borrás (BM ’85, Piano). DMA candidates Yonatan Grinberg, violin, and Sarah Lowenstein (BM ’08, MM ’10, Viola), along with Andrea Grinberg, cello, have created the Chamber Encounters Concert Series at the Peggy and Yale Gordon Center for Performing Arts.
Edwin Huet (BM ’15, Computer Music), a recording arts and computer music master’s student studying with Geoffrey Wright, won the third award in the Luigi Russolo International Sound Art Competition in Barcelona for his work Meridian. As part of the prize, the piece will appear on a compilation CD from the competition. Senior percussionist Ji Su Jung, a student of Robert van Sice, won second prize in the PercussiveLinz International Marimba Competition at the Bruckner Conservatory in Austria.
The Vice City Brass, a quintet featuring master’s trumpet student David Deshler, released its first CD, I’m Dreaming of a Vice Christmas, featuring classical and crossover versions of holiday favorites. The quintet is the ensemble-in-residence at the Fredericksburg Brass Institute, a summer festival Mr. Deshler co-founded with Austin Boyer (BM ’14, Trumpet, Music Education). The Peabody Renaissance Ensemble was invited to the Conciertos de la Villa de Santo Domingo Festival in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic in February. The festival is founded and directed by Artistic and Music Director
Junhong Kuang, a 16-year-old guitar student of Manuel Barrueco, performed in recital with the Baltimore Classical Guitar Society on December 5. He also performed a recital at Symphony Space in New York on December 11. L’abri Trio — cellist Young Eun Lee (MM ’10, DMA ’15, Cello), GPD saxophone student Kenny Baik, and GPD vocal accompanying student Ju Young Lee (MM ’14, Vocal Accompanying) — performed at the Embassy of the Republic of Korea’s Korean Cultural Center in Washington, D.C., on December 10. Master’s cello student JacquesPierre Malan (GPD ’12, Cello; GPD ’13, Chamber Music), a student of Amit Peled, won second
prize in the inaugural Stellenbosch International Chamber Music Festival International Study Bursary Competition. Mr. Malan was also a finalist in the Getting to Carnegie Competition, which was started by Peabody alumnus Julian Gargiulo (MM ’97, Piano). The finalists competed on January 17 at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall in New York. In September, Symphony Number One, founded by DMA conducting student Jordan Randall Smith and junior Nicholas Bentz, opened its inaugural season with the world premiere of a saxophone concerto — by Andrew Boss (MM ’13, Composition), featuring senior Sean Meyers — commissioned by the group. Symphony Number One also released its debut album worldwide in November. The album features recordings from the chamber orchestra’s debut concert in May 2015. Symphony Number One will perform as part of Light City Baltimore, the first largescale, international light festival in the United States. Tenor John Chong Yoon Noh, a senior voice student of Stanley Cornett, recently won an Encouragement Award in the Metropolitan Opera National Council District Auditions in Washington, D.C. Jiaoyang Xu (BM ’15, Cello), a master’s student of Amit Peled, has been invited to attend the 2016 Piatigorsky International Cello Festival as a fellow. In addition to participating in master classes and workshops with festival artists, Ms. Xu will be part of the mass cello ensemble — consisting of over 100 cellists — performing at Walt Disney Concert Hall on May 17.
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