Student and Alumni News | March 2024

Our students and alumni have been busy achieving meaningful things. Here’s our latest news roundup!

Orchestral conductor Stefano Boccacci ’25MMA will assist in productions of Verdi's Aida and Kurt Weill's The Threepenny Opera at the Immling Festival in southern Bavaria. Boccacci will also coach Italian for the production of Aida.

In April, pianist Richard Dowling ’87MM will perform two all-Gershwin concerts at Bargemusic in Brooklyn in celebration of the 100th anniversary of Rhapsody in Blue.

Guitarist Joseph Ehrenpreis ’24MM ’25MMA will release an album of arrangements of music by Ólafur Arnalds, performed on an eight-string Brahms guitar. The album will be released on the Etymology Classics label. Ehrenpreis will premiere works by Julián Fueyo ’23MM, Keiko Fujiie, Dai Fujikura, Arseniy Gusev ’24MM, and Benjamin Webster ’23MMA ’29DMA on a tour that will include performances in Hiroshima, Kyoto, Niigata, and Tokyo in June.

Tenor Daniel Espinal ’24MM was named a winner of the Metropolitan Opera Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition.

Composers Luka Haaksma ’24MM, Aaron Israel Levin ’19MM ’27DMA, and Harriet Steinke ’22MM ’23MMA were selected to participate in the Blackbird Creative Lab for two weeks in May and June.

Tenor Seiyoung Kim ’24MMA will join the Vienna Volksoper's two-year young artist program in August. Kim will make his company debut at the Glimmerglass Festival this summer where he'll sing the role of Little Victor Farrell in Elizabeth Cree by composer Kevin Puts ’96MM and cover the roles of Pane and Natura in Cavalli’s La Calisto. Kim will also participate in a workshop of Derek Bermel’s The House on Mango Street that will culminate in a "Pipeline Preview" performance in August.

Lawrence Loh ’98AD was named Music Director and Conductor of the Waco Symphony Orchestra.

Violist Matthew McDowell ’23MM reached the quarter-final round of the 2024 Primrose International Viola Competition.

The Amnis Piano Quartet, which includes violinist Minkyung Lee ’23MM ’24MMA, violist Matthew McDowell ’23MM, cellist Jenny Bahk ’23MM ’24MMA, and pianist Linda Lee ’23MM ’24MMA, reached the finals of the Coltman Chamber Music Competition and the semifinals of the Concert Artists Guild Competition, the finals of which will take place in May. The Amnis was also one of two ensembles to reach the finals at the Yellow Springs Chamber Music Competition, which will take place on April 28, and was selected as a Shouse Ensemble at the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival.

Trombonist Timothy Maines ’24MMA has garnered 350,000 followers on YouTube, 300,000 on TikTok, and 145,000 on Instagram through his creation of classical-music content.

Mezzo-soprano Kara Morgan ’24MMA finished in first place and was given a contract at Opera Tampa's D'Angelo Young Artist Competition. Morgan will spend the summer participating in the prestigious Merola Opera Program in San Francisco before joining Minnesota Opera's Resident Artist Program, in which she'll make role and house debuts as Stéphano in Gounod's Roméo et Juliette and Rosina in Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia.

Conductor Julian Pellicano ’07MM ’09MM was appointed Staff Conductor of the National Ballet of Canada and will start in the 2024-2025 season. Pellicano will continue to serve as Music Director of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet but will step down as Associate Conductor of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra.

Organist David Preston ’24MM reached the final round of the 10th Miami International Organ Competition, where he received Second Prize and the Audience Prize.

Composer Kevin Puts ’96MM was appointed a visiting faculty member at The Juilliard School and will begin in that role in the 2024-2025 academic year. Composer Andrew Norman ’09AD will continue to serve as a visiting faculty member at Juilliard.

Orchestral conductor Patrick Quigley ’02MM was featured on NBC News in a segment about premiering Edmond Dédé’s opera Morgiane, 137 years after its composition, with OperaCreole and Opera Lafayette in New Orleans, Washington, D.C., and New York. “Dédé was a free person of color born in New Orleans in 1827 who studied in Paris and was the conductor and composer at the Alcazar Theater in Bordeaux, France, for nearly 40 years,” Quigley explained. “His opera, Morgiane, is the earliest-known opera by a Black American.” Quigley and the above-mentioned ensembles will also record the work, with Quigley serving as conductor and editor of the first performance edition of the opera.

Anaglyph: A Repository of Imaginary Languages by composer Kyle Rivera ’24MM was named Chamber Music America's Commission/New Work of the Year. The work was commissioned by the Cross-Country Chamber Consortium.

Harpsichordist Jonathan Salamon ’17MM ’23DMA was selected as a 2024 Gates Cambridge Scholar and, with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, will pursue a Ph.D. in music at the University of Cambridge beginning in the fall. In his dissertation, Salamon plans to explore G.F. Handel's keyboard music.

Enrico Sartori ’05MM made his debut with the National Symphony Orchestra of Moldova conducting a performance of Davis Brown's Icelandic Suite and Bruckner's First Symphony in celebration of the latter composer's 200th birthday. The concert was broadcast on TV and radio.

Organist Alexander Straus-Fausto ’24MM will appear in concert at Mechanics Hall in Boston on April 10, Trinity Episcopal Church in Boston on April 12, Saints-Anges Gardiens Parish in Lachine, Quebec, Canada, on April 28, Grace Cathedral in San Francisco on June 2, St. Barnabas Catholic Church in Scarborough, Ontario, Canada, on June 9, St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, England, on Aug. 11, Coventry Cathedral in the UK on Aug. 12, Westminster Abbey in London, UK, on Aug. 18, and La Madeleine in Paris on Aug. 25.

These news updates feature alumni and current students! Submit your news by May 1 to be included in the next Student and Alumni News roundup.