Fall 2013 faculty, alumni student news
CU-Boulder College of Music faculty, students and alumni at the biennial Symposium on Music Teacher Education, which took place this September at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
Faculty/Staff News
Professor of Piano and College of Music Keyboard Department Chair, Dr. Andrew Cooperstock, along with violinist Dr. William Terwilliger of the University of South Carolina, presented recitals and master classes throughout Peru in March 2013 as guests of the United States Embassy.
Paul Erhard, Professor of Double Bass, has been awarded the Fulbright scholarship to conduct research in India.
Daphne Leong, Associate Professor, Music Theory, received the University of Colorado Boulder Faculty Assembly’s 2013 Excellence in Teaching Award.
Yonatan Malin joined University of Colorado Boulder faculty in 2012 as Associate Professor of Music Theory. Yonatan is the author of Songs in Motion: Rhythm and Meter in the German Lied, and editor of field-leading online publisher Music Theory Online, and online journal of the National Society for Music Theory.
Paul Miller has accepted a two-year Mellon Research Fellowship at Cornell University for 2013-2015.
Director of Entrepreneurship Center for Music and Assistant Professor Jeffrey Nytch was selected through a competition for the best business conference papers of 2012 for his paper The Aesthetic Product as Entrepreneurial Driver: An Arts Perspective on Entrepreneurial Innovation. His paper appeared in the Journal of Management Policy & Practice.
Assistant Professor of Music Education David Rickels participated as one of four panelists in review of STEM Launch K-12 School sixth-grade project presentations, which attempted to resolve an issue regarding two adjoined classrooms and their sound leaks. STEM gives students the opportunity to work on problem-based projects several times a year, which are then evaluated by panelists relevant to the field in order to offer the children real-world interaction.
Thomas Riis, Professor of Musicology and Director of the American Music Research Center, gave a seminar at London’s Royal Academy of Music called Paul Robeson and His Signature Song, the Many Lives of Ol’ Man River.
Kris Shaffer joined faculty in 2013 as Instructor of Music Theory. Kris is a pedagogical leader, having pioneered applications of the inverted classroom and innovative technologies in music theory teaching. His research interests include the music of 20th- and 21st-century composers, computational analysis of harmonic and formal structures, schema theory, popular music analysis, and the pedagogy of music theory and musicianship.
Instructor of Classical Guitar Nicolo Spera released Maurice Ohana, Complete Works for Solo Guitar, published by Soundset Recordings.
Michael Thornton, Associate Professor of Horn, has been working for the past two years in Medellin, Columbia with the RED School of Music Network, instructing young horn players to help them hone their craft.
Professor of Music Theory Keith Waters’ book Studio Recording of the Miles Davis Quintet has received numerous accolades: the 2011 Society for Music Theory jazz publication award, a Kayden Book Award Honorable Mention, a Certificate of Merit in the 2012 Association for Recorded Sound Collections Awards for Excellence in Historical Sound Research in Jazz music, a “best of 2011” book selection from the New York City Jazz Record, and an “editor’s pick” from Down Beat magazine. Keith also released Carolina Tracks, a collaborative recording with top North Carolina jazz musicians.
Alumni News
Gregory Walker (DMA ’92) is currently a professor at the University of Colorado Denver. Debuting as a soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra in 2009, he performed the world-premiere of Pulitzer Prize-winning composer George Walker’s Bleu for solo violin, with a new computer-scanned Betts Stradivarius copy, known as the Oberlin Betts, at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. In May 2013 Centaur Records released his CD, Electric Vivaldi: Global Solstice, a recording of symphonic electric guitar music.
Kenneth Johnson (DMA ’99) serves on faculty of Indiana-Purdue University, Fort Wayne, teaching theory and composition. He also serves as Technology Chair on the Indiana Educators’ Board of Directors. In 2012, he received the IPFW Innovative Online Teaching award for his class Music for the Listener. He is a founding member of IPFW’s Faculty Jazz Ensemble, dedicated to composing and performing contemporary jazz works, and his compositions have been published by Arizona University of Publications and Centaur Records.
Yelena Balabanova (DMA ’01) is an active concert performer and presenter of piano. She was named a Steinway Artist in 2013, and has released a new CD, At God’s Waterfall, and additional recordings featured on The Ten Grands CDs produced by MAH Records.
Jared Chase (BM, BME ’03) is presently the Director of Bands for Nazareth College in Rochester, N.Y. He directs the wind symphony, teaches courses in conducting and brass methods, coordinates the instrumental department and performs in the faculty brass quintet. Prior to Nazareth, he was the Director of Bands and Chair of the Department of Music at Bethany College in Lindsborg, Kan. He also is Visiting Professor of Ensembles and Conducting at the Eastman School of Music.
In April 2013 Andrew Palmer Todd (DMA ’05) began as the Executive Director of the Grand Teton Music Festival in Jackson Hole, Wyo., which just concluded its 52nd season.
Christie Hageman (MM ‘10) is currently a Resident Artist at the Minnesota Opera. She has performed with the Livermore Valley Opera, Helena Symphony, Stockton Opera, Rimrock Opera, Opera Fort Collins, the Colorado Symphony Orchestra in Denver and the Minnesota Opera. In 2010, she received first place in the Denver Lyric Opera Guild competition.
Kimberly Patterson (DMA ’12) recently released her debut album, with Patrick Sutton, Cold Dark Matter: Music for Cello & Guitar. The Patterson/Sutton Duo’s album is available for purchase through MSR Classics and Amazon.com.
Anna Seda (BM ’13) is living and teaching in Cusco, Peru and working to raise money for cellos for her young students.
Megan Marino (MM ‘13) lives in New York, where she performs locally and nationwide. She is scheduled to make her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in November 2013, as one of the Unborns in Richard Strauss’s Die Frau Ohne Schatten.
Student News
Bonnie Draina, DMA and Musicians’ Wellness Associate, has been awarded the 2013 Van Lawrence Fellowship by The Voice Foundation, to support her ongoing research on muscle tension dysphonia. She is currently accumulating nationwide research to support the creation of a website devoted to MTD, and contributions to book The Breathing Book for Singers, published by Mountain Peak Music.
Nathan Smith won the O’Neal Taniguchi Entrepreneurship Prize for his Piano Plus, presented at the 2013 New Venture Challenge Music Track.
PH.D. musicology candidate Sienna Wood has been awarded a Thomas Edwin Devaney Dissertation Fellowship by CU’s Center for Humanities and the Arts. This is a highly competitive fellowship, with students nominated from disciplines campus-wide, and will help support her work towards the completion of her dissertation.
CU Boulder’s chapter of the National Association for Music Education (NAfME) Collegiate division was recognized with two National Chapter of Excellence Awards. The first, for Professional Development, recognizes the chapter’s unique student-led initiative known as the Colorado Conductors Ensemble (CCE), a voluntary weekly program where music education students have the opportunity to practice secondary instruments and teaching strategies in lab-like settings prior to teaching in classrooms. The award for Music Program highlights the work of chapter members with the Middle School Wind Ensemble and String Ensemble program. Students apply to work as conductors or small group coaches as a part of the outreach, and after about 12 weeks of work present a concert, allowing them to gain practical teaching experience and the application of concepts from the classroom. In addition, the NAfME Collegiate chapter was awarded a campus grant from the Student Group Funding Board (SGFB), providing $20,000 in funding toward travel to professional conferences in the 2013-2014 academic year.
College of Music graduate students in musicology gave papers in Flagstaff, Ariz., for the regional chapter meetings of the American Musicological Society, Society for Enthnomusicology, and Society Music theory including: Cassidy Grunninger, Michael Harris, Teresita Lozano, Chase Peeler, Alan Reese, Ryan Sargent, Cara Schreffler, Melanie Shaffer and Steven Spinner. Recent alumni Lisa Cook and Dawn Grapes also were welcomed at the federation.
Three recent graduates of the Master of Music in Music Theory program entered prestigious doctoral programs in theory with top fellowships and assistantships: John Peterson (MM ’11), Florida State University, Legacy Fellowship, Landon Morrison (MM ’12), McGill University, Teaching Assistantship and Scholarship, and Alan Reese (MM ’13), Eastman School of Music, Teaching Assistantship and Award.
In Memoriam
Helen Walker-Hill (DMA, piano performance, ‘81) died on Aug. 7, 2013. A pianist and scholar, she issued a CD of piano and violin music in 1995 titled Kaleidoscope: Music of African-American Women. She published From Spirituals to Symphonies: African American Women Composers and Their Music in 2002. She later published several new editions of 19th- and 20th-century music, and her research materials are held by the AMRC at CU as well as the Center for Black Music Research in Chicago.
Peter Weil, strong supporter and friend of the College of Music, died recently after a long struggle with Parkinson’s Disease. Peter played piano all his life, and several years ago established the Helen and Peter Weil Faculty Fellowship.