Happenings
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Recent news
Dean’s Downbeat
Innovation as a collaborative act
Greetings “from the road” where I’ve been engaged in two accreditation site reviews for the National Association of Schools of Music (NASM) as well as a trio of October conferences: From hosting the National Association of Music Executives at State Universities (NAMESU) Annual Meeting right here on our campus and at the new Limelight hotel to the 61st Annual Conference of the International Council for Arts Deans (ICfAD) in Santa Fe, New Mexico to the College Music Society (CMS) National Conference in Spokane, Washington this week where I’ll be interacting with other deans and senior arts administrators engaged in public service and mentoring. Everywhere I go, I enjoy representing the unique achievements, aspirations and opportunities of our College of Music; along the way, I’ve been struck by the supportive camaraderie and timely shared learnings among my counterparts.
As noted by American theatre and opera director Anne Bogart, “We have been discouraged to think that innovation can be a collaborative act” and yet it’s exactly that—a collaborative act—that’s at the heart of institutions like ours. MORE
Browse previous editions of the Dean’s Downbeat,
a regular communiqué from Dean John Davis.
Noteworthy media mentions
Balfour’s Memory Care patients treated to soothing Longmont Symphony experience (Dec. 4, 2025, Daily Camera)
Our Assistant Professor of Music Technology Grace Leslie—who directs the university’s Brain Music Lab—researches how the brain responds to music and why musical memories often endure even as other forms of memory fade. “Music can kind of provide scaffolding for memories to be built in the brain in a similar way that spatial navigation can do that,” she says.
The Takács Quartet announce cellist András Fejér's retirement (Dec. 3, 2025, Gramophone)
Takács Quartet Announces Retirement of Founding Cellist András Fejér (Dec. 3, 2025, The Violin Channel)
