Announcements: Community News

Press release for CUNY DMA Alumna Sarah Grunstein

Acclaimed pianist Sarah Grunstein, assistant professor of music at the College of the Holy Cross, has returned from a concert and teaching tour in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.

In Italy on July 6, Grunstein performed Bach’s encyclopedic Goldberg Variations, as part of the series of the XIV International Music Festival at Rocca Grimalda, Alessandria organized by the Comune of Rocca and the Regione Piemonte. From there she traveled to Durham University, England, presenting a lecture-recital at the conference, “Performing Romantic Music: Theory and Practice.” Her lecture titled “Playing the Changing Face of Chopin's Score,” investigated Frederic Chopin as improviser. Her performance-demonstration included her own improvisation between preludes. In Norway she presented a master-class for the Piano Forum at the Norwegian Academy of Music, Oslo. In New Zealand, Grunstein was Distinguished Artist-in-Residence at the University of Auckland, where she presented classes, master-classes, studio teaching, piano classes, and a recital featuring Chopin, Debussy, Beethoven, and Schumann. From there she returned to Australia to give a master-class at Monash University, Melbourne.

A member of Holy Cross faculty since 2002, Grunstein has taught at the Juilliard School, the Manhattan School of Music, the City University of New York, Fordham University, the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, and the Victorian College of the Arts.

Judith Tick at the Library of Congress. On 26 March 2008, CUNY alumna Judith Tick (Northeastern University) delivered the first of a series of lectures at the Library of Congress, sponsored by the Library together with the AMS. Her topic is "Ruth Crawford Seeger, Modernist Composer in the Folk Revival: Biography as Music History."

H. Wiley Hichcock 1923-2007. The CUNY community deeply mourns the passing of Distinguished Professor emeritus H. Wiley Hitchcock, 84, on December 5, 2007, after a lengthy illness.
Hitchcock was born September 28, 1923, in Detroit , MI. After attending Dartmouth (A.B., 1944) and University of Michigan (M.M. 1948, Ph.D. 1954) – studying in 1949 at the Conservatoire Américain (under Nadia Boulanger) – and after teaching at the University of Michigan, N.Y.U., and Hunter College, Professor Hitchcock came to Brooklyn College in 1971 where he founded The Institute for Studies in American Music, now in its 36th year. Wiley was brilliant, a true man of letters, a model musicologist with multifaceted interests, impeccable standards, and path-breaking publications. His highly esteemed work in American music studies (New Grove Dictionary of American Music; his Prentice-Hall textbook series that included his Music in the United States; studies on Charles Ives, etc. etc.) was built upon his excellent contributions to the fields of French and Italian Baroque music (M.-A. Charpentier, G. Caccini, et al.). He was a staunch advocate for American music of all kinds. In 1990-92 he served as elected president of the American Musicological Society, and the number of distinguished projects and boards on which he served seems endless. Wiley was a respected colleague at Brooklyn College’s Conservatory of Music as well as at the CUNY Graduate Center’s Doctoral Program in Music, where he became a helpful and encouraging mentor and friend to many newly minted Ph.D.’s in music. His presence at I.S.A.M. was deeply felt even since his retirement in 1993, and as both colleague and friend he will be sorely missed by all who knew him.

Prof. Jeffrey Taylor wins Palisca Award: The Brooklyn College Conservatory of Music was delighted to learn that at last week’s annual meeting of the American Musicological Society (AMS) in Quebec City, Jeffrey Taylor, Associate Professor of Music and Director of I.S.A.M., was presented the Claude V. Palisca Award for Earl “Fatha” Hines: Selected Piano Solos, 1928-1941, his fine, meticulous transcriptions published by A-R Editions last year in its MUSA series, vol. 15. This Palisca Award “honors each year a scholarly edition or translation in the field of musicology . . . deemed by a committee of scholars to exemplify the highest qualities of originality, interpretation, logic and clarity of thought, and communication.”

Cynthia Lee Wong wins the 2007 Robert Starer Composition Award for "On Baldness and Other 
Songs" for Soprano and Orchestra.

The 2008 Barry Brook Award has been awarded to Jadranka Važanová for "Svadobné nôty: Ceremonial Wedding Tunes in the Context of Slovak Traditional Culture."

If you have any other news or announcements that you would like to see posted on this page, please contact Prof. Poundie Burstein. 

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