Alumni news

We’re so excited to welcome alumnus Damani Phillips back to campus this week and to present him the College of Music’s 2022 Distinguished Alumnus Award at our commencement ceremony on May 5! “The versatile training provided by CU has been the cornerstone of my success to date, and has enabled me to do and be many things well beyond typical expectations,” he says. Meet Phillips and discover his powerful advice to graduating Music Buffs.

On May 5, we look forward to welcoming back Judith Glyde, formerly professor of cello and chamber music at the College of Music and chair of our string faculty. Since retiring in 2014 to live in New York City, the professor emerita she has been active with the college’s alumni community there, offering tremendous support to Forever Buffs who are now living and working in the city.

“While there’s no playbook for the unprecedented and the unknowable, by channeling collective despair into collective creativity, we become artistic entrepreneurs, contributing to society in impactful ways.” In this year-end reflection on triumphs over turmoils, Dean Davis offers his perspective on music as essential to human betterment.

The Genevieve McVey Wisner Memorial Scholarship Fund—named in honor of the lifelong activist and pioneering music educator—will provide undergraduate and graduate scholarship awards for underrepresented music students. Wisner, whose parents were among the first Black families to settle in Boulder in 1897, became the first Black graduate of the College of Music in 1940 with a bachelor’s degree in music education, followed by a master’s degree in 1944.

Recent alumnus Kaleb Chesnic has already made his mark on flute repertoire by transcribing all three of Edvard Grieg’s violin sonatas. He shared with us how his debut recording with collaborative pianist and alumna Nathália Kato came to be.

Brooklyn, New York-based saxophonist, composer and improviser Aakash Mittal is collaborating with current master’s student MarieFaith Lane on a project blending Hindustani and Western classical music.

“Even as we bear witness to loss and unknowable challenges with compassion and care, I see us rebounding with resilience again and again—undeterred in our shared quest for excellence, dogged in our pursuit to inform and influence what it means to be a successful, fulfilled creative artist in an increasingly diverse and interdisciplinary musical landscape.”

Recent alumna Carrie Proctor always knew she wanted to impact young lives by becoming a music educator. Discover her passion to inspire youths through a shared connection to music.

With some 32 years’ experience as an instrumental music teacher in public schools, alumnus Ed Cannava is ideally poised to serve band directors as an adjudicator, clinician, conductor and consultant.

“I have had an extremely rewarding musical career and now—after more than 50 years of being a musician and a music teacher—I am celebrating my good luck, getting my start at CU Boulder.”