Associate Professor of Music History, Rebecca Geoffroy-Schwinden, has received, in a rare occurrence, TWO nationally competitive awards from the National Endowment for the Humanities. An NEH Summer Stipend will support her research for a project entitled “Stories of Music, Luxury, and Loss in the Age of Revolutions (1760s–1820s).” The second award is the NEH-Hagley Fellowship on Business, Culture, and Society allowing Dr. Geoffroy-Schwinden to carry out eight months of archival research at the Hagley Museum and Library in Wilmington, Delaware. This research will culminate in a book about the musical and sonic world of the du Pont women's community from the French Revolution to the American Civil War.

University of North Texas Associate Professor of Cello, Horacio Contreras, with fellow Reveron Piano Trio’s, Simón Gollo and Ana María Otamendi, have released Iberoamérica: Trios by Villa-Lobos, Turina, and Ponce. Released by Ibs Classical. Photo: Natali Herrera-Pacheco.

UNT Professor of Music Theory, David Bard-Schwarz, has a published chapter titled, “Modes of Understanding Disruption in the First Movement of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony,” in the book Ästhetische Normativität in der Musik. Edited by Tobias Janz and Jens Gerrit Papenburg, the publisher is Verlag Vittorio Klostermann edit the book.

Manhattan Concert Productions (MCP) presents the UNT Professor of Choral Studies, Allen Hightower, conducting "Requiem" by John Rutter. The festival chorus performs with the New York City Chamber Orchestra and soloists as part of MCP’s Masterwork Series.

Michael Crawford becomes Lecturer in Music Education along with additional teaching duties in the Percussion Area starting Fall 2023. In May 2021, Michael graduated from @UNT with his PhD in Music Education. 

As part of the 150th anniversary of Temple Emanu-El in Dallas, Texas, the temple collaborated with AURORA in producing “Light Years - An Innovative Art and Technology Experience.” The Temple commission by David Stout, UNT Professor of Composition Studies, is titled “In Their Arms We Hold the Sky,” a panoramic film and music work.

The Houston Symphony Chorus director and UNT Professor of Choral Studies, Allen Hightower, shown being acknowledged by Itzhak Perlman at the conclusion of the Houston Symphony performance of “Requiem” by Mozart recently conducted by Perlman at Jones Hall for the Performing Arts in Houston.

Katherine Carothers McBain is joining our faculty as Senior Lecturer of Horn in the Division of Instrumental Studies. She earned a BA in Music from the University of Houston, MA from the University of Texas at Tyler, and both the MM and DMA from Eastman School of Music. She has held teaching positions at Stephen F. Austin State University, University of Texas at Tyler and Tyler Junior College and performs with the Texarkana Symphony and Longview Symphony.

Tamar Sella joins us as Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology in the Division of Music History, Theory and Ethnomusicology. Her current research is “an ethnographic study of contemporary Mizrahi performance and cultural memory that seeks to illuminate the ways in which ongoing Jewish diasporic formations reframe colonial and racial logics in Israel/Palestine.” She holds a BA from the University of California, Berkeley and a PhD from Harvard University. She comes to us from Rice University where she is the Samuel W. and Goldye Marian Spain Postdoctoral Fellow.

Bokyung Byun is joining our faculty as Assistant Professor of Guitar in the Division of Instrumental Studies. Dr. Byun made history as the first female winner of the JoAnn Falletta International Guitar Concerto Competition and has won numerous other awards, including the 2021 Guitar Foundation of America International Concert Artist Competition and a 2023 Avery Fisher Career Grant. As a sought-after artist, Dr. Byun is frequently invited to perform and give masterclasses for orchestras, festivals, and guitar societies. She earned the BM and MM degrees from the Juilliard School and the DMA from the University of Southern California. She currently serves on the faculty of California State University Fullerton.