DMA news from the June/July 2009 edition of 365 Fifth:

For the 2009 Commencement at Avery Fisher Hall, H. Roz Woll, a doctoral student in music, provided an arresting rendition of “The National Anthem,” her beautiful voice soaring in a hall with a long history of splendid musical occasions. (quote from the article written by Joe Reich)

Recent Student Honors and Activities: Vera Hui-Pin Hsu (D.M.A. graduate student) won the sixth annual International Conductors Workshop and Competition held January 15—19, 2009, at Mercer University, Macon GA. Ms. Hsu will guest conduct the Macon Symphony Orchestra in its 2009—10 season.

Alumni Notes: Fernando Hashimoto (D.M.A. 2008) professor of percussion a the University of Campinas, Brazil, performed with the Campinas Symphony Orchestra as percussion soloist in the world premiere of Concerto for Vibraphone and Orchestra by Brazilian composer Germano Fonseca, May 16—17, 2009, in Brazil.

Stephen Kalm (D.M.A. 2000) was appointed dean of the College of Visual and Performing Arts, University of Montana, Missoula.

June 2009 memo from Prof. Norman Carey: There is a fine new Yamaha upright piano in Room 3395, one of our practice rooms. (Eventually, it will be moved into another practice room, 3390.) This piano belongs to the Office of Special Events, not to the music program. Special Events is willing to let the music program use the piano whenever they don't require it, i.e., it will live permanently in one of the practice rooms. This piano may NOT be moved under any circumstances. It is positioned against the far wall when you walk into the room. Leave it there. Soon a dolly will be installed under it, making it easier to move. Donot move it even then. When I went into the practice room this morning, the piano had been moved from where it was originally placed. If I find that the piano gets moved again, we may decide that it needs to be stored elsewhere, out of use.This is a special arrangement, unlike that of any other piano in the practice rooms. I urge you to be good custodians for this instrument, and we can all continue to make good use of it.

Sabra Statham, Ph.D. Music 2009- has been awarded a faculty fellowship by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities at the University of Virginia for the summer of 2009. While in residence she will be
working with UVA scholars at Documents Compass, a digital development consulting group supported by the NEH, and developing a pilot project for an online digital archive of letters by American composer George Antheil.

The 2009 Barry Brook Award has been awarded to Quynh T. Nguyen for her study “An analysis of Olivier Messiaen’s Last Piano Solo Work: Les Petites Esquisses d’Oiseaux.”  Written with clarity and style, the analyses illuminate our understanding of the composer’s relationship between nature and the elusive spiritual world that this work invokes.  Dr. Nguyen’s interviews with Yvonne Loriod Messiaen offer compelling evidence concerning contemporary interpretations of Messiaen’s late works.  In this dissertation Dr. Nguyen successfully bridges the musical boundaries of pitch, tempo, and tone color to explain the “ethereal, intricate, and sparkling” quality that serves as a hallmark of Les Petites Esquisses d’Oiseaux and other significant works of the twentieth-century modernists.

The 2009 Robert Starer Award has been awarded to Karen Siegel for "Sponge Squeezed Dry" for horn and chorus of mixed voices; this piece may be heard at http://www.karensiegel.com/Karen_Siegel/listen.html .


CUNY Alum appointed Dean of UM
     Stephen Kalm, an award-winning vocalist, opera singer and music professor, has been appointed dean of the College of Visual and Performing Arts at The University of Montana.

 “We are very delighted to have Dr. Kalm accept this leadership role,” said UM Provost Royce Engstrom. “He has been an exceptional faculty member and did excellent work while serving as interim dean. We are entering an especially exciting time for the arts, with the new status as the College of Visual and Performing Arts and new leadership in the dean’s office.” UM President George Dennison agreed, saying, “With Dean Kalm providing the leadership, we have assurance that the college will continue the great tradition in the arts at The University of Montana.”

Kalm joined the UM faculty in 1994, serving as chair of the music department from 2002 to 2008. He is an active artist, performing in local, national and international venues. Kalm holds three degrees in vocal performance: a Bachelor of Music from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, a Master of Arts from Queens College and a Doctor of Musical Arts from the City University of New York.

CUNY faculty member wins Guggenheim
    Louise Lennihan made the following announcement on 15 April 2009: "It gives me special pleasure to ask you to join me in congratulating five members of the doctoral faculty who are winners of 2009 Guggenheim Fellowships. They are Heather Hendershot, Ph.D. Program in Theatre (GC and Queens College); Benjamin Carter Hett, Ph.D. Program in History (GC and Hunter College); Victoria Sanford, Ph.D. Program in Anthropology (GC and Lehman College); Jonathan H. Shannon, Ph.D. Programs in Anthropology and Music (GC and Hunter College); and Robert Courtney Smith, Ph.D. Program in Sociology (GC and Baruch College)."

Antoni Piza wins Neuerburg Award 
     The Norman Neuerburg Award, given by the Historical Society of Southern California (HSSC) for outstanding writing in early California history, was awarded to CUNY faculty member Antoni Piza, along with Craig Russell, Antoni Gili, and William J. Summers for their editing of  J. B. Sancho Pioneer Composer of California, (Palma de Mallorca, Spain, 2007).

Dissertation Proposal due dates for 2009 
     The Dissertation Proposal committee has set the April 2009 due dates for the proposals. Five copies of your dissertation proposal are due in the Music Office by 5 pm on Thursday, April 30, 2009. The committee will meet on Friday, May 15, 2009 to consider the proposals. All support letters from your advisor and first reader must be received by the committee chair, Anne Stone astone@gc.cuny.edu  before the meeting. This means that you should get copies of the proposal to your advisor and read before  you hand in the copies of the proposal – don’t expect them to agree to work with you if they have not had a chance to read the proposal thoroughly.

CUNY faculty/alumnus wins SMT Publication Award 
     CUNY faculty member and alumnus L. Poundie Burstein is the recipient of the 2008 Outstanding Publication Award of the Society of Music Theory (SMT) for his essay “The Off-Tonic Return in Beethoven's Op. 58 and Other Works,” in Music Analysis.
     Other members of the CUNY family who have received the SMT Outstanding Publication Award, Emerging Scholar Award, or Wallace Berry Award in the past include Joseph Straus, William Rothstein, Norman Carey, Carl Schachter, Joel Lester, and Channan Willner.

CUNY faculty/alumnus Bruce Salyor wins ASCAP Award
        CUNY faculty member and alumnus Bruce Salyor was chosen for a 2008 ASCAPPLUS Award int eh Concert Music Division.

CUNY student wins Honorable Mention
    Robert Wood of the CUNY Graduate Center was awarded Honorable Mention for his paper entitled "Edgar Varese and the Beyond of Science." The awards committee consisted of George Torres (Lafayette College), Laura Dolp (Montclair State University) and Eric Hung (Westminster Choir College).

Denise Broadhurst
     Nina Broadhurst sends us the following sad announcement regarding her sister, a member of the GC CUNY Music community:
    We are heartbroken over the loss of Denise Broadhurst who passed away Friday September 19th after a long and a courageous battle with breast cancer. She left this world peacefully, surrounded by family and close friends. Denise was a wonderful daughter and sister, a good friend, and a gifted musician.
     Denise has always had a passion for music from punk rock to classical, music was her life.
She was a beloved and dedicated teacher and has been selected to receive the State University of New York's Chancellor Award for Excellence in Teaching. As a tenured Assistant Professor of Music at Nassau Community College and earlier as an adjunct at Hosftra University she shared her love of music with her students. Her many compositions and performances will be here forever as a gift to us all.
     Thank you for your love and support during this difficult time.



Gregg Wrammage wins award
     Greg Wrammage has been awarded the 2008 EAMA Prize by the European American Musical Alliance, for his recent orchestral work, "La tristesse durera." A recording of "La tristesse durera" by Robert Ian Winstin and Millennium Symphony is scheduled to be released Fall 2008, on the first volume of ERM Media's "Made in the Americas" CD series, thanks to the support of the Copland House Sylvia Goldstein Award. You can find out more about the recording at http://www.ermmedia.org.

Harris Wulfson 1974-2008
     Harris Wulfson was one of our talented Composition students who because of health reasons was not with us very long. His work and presence will be missed by all who knew him or can in contact with his compositions. For those of you who did not have the opportunity to know Harris please simply remember the loss to his friends and family and join us in spirit as we celebrate Harris’ life and music. Recordings of some of his pieces may be found at http://wulfson.com/ and a bio of him may be found at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harris_Wulfson.


The 2008 Robert Starer Composition Award has been awarded to Cynthia Lee Wong wins for "On Baldness and Other  Songs" for Soprano and Orchestra. Excepts of this work may be found at http://www.cynthialeewong.com.
 

CUNY Music Department places high in rankings conducted by Academic Analytics! The Music Department ranked fifth in the country for the scholarly achievement of its faculty, according to the Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index. Further, in the “broad” category of humanities, the Graduate Center was fourth after Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. The rankings take into account scholarly publications, honors and awards and grants. The research was conducted by Academic Analytics and an overview of the findings were reported in the January 12, 2007 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education.