Alumni
Amy is currently creating a new opera with singer and producer, Kelly Balmaceda. She's also launched a radio show, Composer’s Studio, that features interviews with living composers. Previous interviews are archived and a podcast will be available soon.
A senior music specialist at the Library of Congress, David Plylar spearheaded The Boccaccio Project in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. The project, a series of 10 short videos featuring new, commissioned pieces, premiered daily from June 15-26, 2020.
Candace Bailey (Ph.D. 1992) has been awarded The Kate Winkle Keller Fellowship for Research in Early American Music for 2019-2020.
The Royal Society of London performed Fanny Hensel's Easter Sonata, attributed to Hensel by Angela Mace Christian, on International Women's Day 2017.
Claire Fontijn is Phyllis Henderson Carey Professor of Music at Wellesley College. In November 2017, she returned to Duke to give a pre-concert lecture for "The Sound World of Carlo Dolci," at the Nasher Museum of Art.
Clara Yang (T '11) was granted a Fulbright Graduate Degree Grant to spend time in London, England pursuing a Masters in Music Leadership (MMus) at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
Dan Ruccia's (PhD Composition, 2013) new album "Scratch Slice Jag" was released in October 2017 by Out & Gone Music. It is a collaboration between violist Ruccia and trombonist Jeb Bishop.
Darren Mueller has been awarded the "Best Essay in Popular Music Scholarship" from the Popular Music Study Group of the AMS for his article (based on a dissertation chapter) "The Ambassadorial LPs of Dizzy Gillespie: World Statesman and Dizzy in Greece," Journal of the Society for American Music 10:3 (2016).
David Kirkland Garner's new CD, "Dark Holler," was released by New Focus Recordings on July 28, 2017. The recording features his dissertation piece for large chamber orchestra.
Ivy Zhou auditioned in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions of the North Carolina District on January 21, 2017 and received an Encouragement Award.
Jean-Paul Montagnier's new book, The Polyphonic Mass in France, 1600-1780, will be released in May 2017 by Cambridge University Press.
Kristina Warren (Trinity '11, BA: Music Composition) is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Brown University.
Page Stephens is Assistant Director for Operations at the Butler School of Music, University of Texas at Austin. She is also a performing mezzo soprano and maintains a private voice studio.
Penka Kouneva (Ph.D., Composition, 1997) was one of three 2017 inductees into the Graduate School's Few-Glasson Alumni Society.
Sara Womble made her debut in 2017 with Boston Lyric Opera, performing the role of Barbarina (and covering Susanna) in BLO's production of Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro.
Carl Schimmel has been promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in the School of Music, Illinois State University.
Charles Youmans, Associate Professor of Music at Penn State, has recently published Mahler and Strauss: In Dialogue (Indiana University Press, 2016). The book "reconstructs the 24-year relationship between Mahler and Strauss" using a wealth of documentary material.
Georgiary Bledsoe is Founder and Director of BUMP: The Triangle, a non-profit music education organization with a focus on music of the African Diaspora. BUMP was recently featured on My Carolina Talk.
Katharina Uhde has been awarded honorary membership in the Society of Musicology Ireland for "particularly notable contributions to furthering musicology in Ireland." She recently presented at two Irish musicology conferences: one this past September and one in October 2015. Uhde is Assistant Professor in Violin and Musicology at Valparaiso University, IN.
Soprano Marlissa Hudson returned to Duke on February 22, 2016 to present a workshop for undergraduates entitled “Where Your Passion Meets Your Purpose” - exploring unconventional paths to a career in music. She talked about harnessing social media and crowd sourcing as a viable alternative to more traditional career building methods in the arts.
Recently described by Opera News as "poetically compelling," "delectably stylish" and "technically refined," soprano Talya Lieberman is equally at home with operatic, art song, and musical theater repertoire. Starting in September 2016 she will be seen frequently on stage at Komische Oper Berlin, where she will be assuming the soprano position in the Opernstudio.
Thom has been accepted a position at Sonoma State University as Assistant Professor of Music.
An excellent article from Duke Magazine catches up with alumni composer George Lam (Ph.D. '11). George is currently an Assistant Professor of Music at York College, The City University of New York, as well as a co-artistic director of Rhymes With Opera.
Joy's new book, Arnold Schoenberg's 'A Survivor from Warsaw' in Postwar Europe, was released this month from the University of California Press. Calico is Assoc. Prof. of Musicology at the Blair School of Music, Vanderbilt University.
Kelley has been appointed Assistant Professor of Music at North Central College in Naperville, Illinois.
Dr Ken Shifrin (Class of 1974) was President of the Wind Symphony while a student at Duke. A native of Washington, DC, he earned a Ph.D. in Musicology from Oxford University and is Principal Trombone (former) of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (England). From 2000-2004, he was a Research Scholar at the Czech Academy of Science.
Michael's paper, "Dissonant Harmony and 'Seed-Tones': Organic Coherence in the Piano Music of Dane Rudhyar," will be published in Music Theory Online in June.
Paul Leary (Ph.D. 2011) and pianist Thomas Rosenkranz were featured on WUNC 91.5 FM's "The State of Things" on March 6, discussing the premiere of Leary's piece, "Perfume," a tribute to the music of Kurt Cobain and Nirvana.
Since graduating from Duke, McStoots has performed around the world with such groups as Boston Lyric Opera, Pacific MusicWorks, Boston Camerata, Handel Choir of Baltimore, New Haven Symphony, Tragicomedia, and the Tanglewood Music Center.
The American Academy of Arts and Letters 2016 Wladimir and Rhoda Lakond Award in music composition was awarded to Chia-Yu Hsu.
In 2008 Hirsch received a publication contract through the University of Michigan Press for her book, Hitler's Jewish Orchestra: Musical Politics in the Berlin Jewish Culture League.
"Ever since I was a boy, classical music has made me weep uncontrollably. I hope The Composer Is Dead does the same for a new generation. It’s certainly either alarmingly original or originally alarming." - Lemony Snicket
Atlas and Boerner operate SoundPure, a high-end guitar and music gear boutique and recording studio in Durham, NC.