Music Teachers National Association recently announced the UNT Frieden Quartet has been named finalist of the 2020-2021 MTNA Chamber Music Competition. Members include Charles Latimer, violin, Clarissa Tamara, violin, Patrick Hayes, viola and Alex Paradis, cello. The quartet is coached by Julia Bushkova, Professor of Violin.
Yamaha Drums recently announced that John Sturino (MM ’18, BM ’16) was added to the roster of Yamaha Artists. Sturino is based in New York and is drummer, arranger, composer and educator.https://tinyurl.com/YamahaSturino
Annette Nevins writes for Denton County Magazine about the UNT College of Music efforts to expand livestreaming capacities to continue reaching the community.
See page 50 at https://tinyurl.com/UNTLivestream
Kris Chesky, Professor and co-director of the Texas Center for Performing Arts Health, joins the Association for Body Mapping Education Scientific Advisory Board.
The International Society of Jazz Arrangers & Composers (ISJAC) has recognized alumna Courtney Wright as co-winner of the 2021 ISJAC/University of South Florida Owen Prize in Jazz Composition and the inaugural ISJAC/USF Prize for Emerging Black Composers.https://isjac.org/news/2021-isjac-usf-prize-winners-announcement
Professor of Euphonium, David Childs, presented “Reflections - David Childs and Friends - A New Year’s Eve Concert” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtThp8yHvmE
Assistant Professor of Jazz Piano, Dave Meder, received a grant enabling his trio to tour the Southeast (USA). Jazz Road, a national initiative of South Arts, is funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation with additional support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Opera News features University of North Texas alumna Latonia Moore and speaks to her “coming of age in a time when operas by Black composers and on Black subjects are finally getting recognition by major opera companies.” Story by #NaomiAndré. Images by Jeffery Salter.
In an announcement via an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Phillip Kennedy Johnson (MM ’03), said he will begin writing both monthly issues of Action Comics which launched Superman in 1938. His duties begin March 2021.
Lyanne Alvarado (BM ’16) has been included in the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis inaugural class of Fellows for the Clayco Future Leaders Fellowship, a program designed to cultivate leaders in arts administration who come from historically underrepresented backgrounds, particularly those who identify as Black, Indigenous, and People of Color.
Philip Dizack, Assistant Professor of Jazz Trumpet – Improvisation appears in quartet on the new Shai Maestro album “Human.” The release is January 29, 2021 by ECM Records.
Vocal Studies graduate, Mario Antonio Porras (BM '20), won a $50,000 scholarship from the Dr. Pepper 2020 Tuition Giveaway to continue his education.
Jazz Studies student Joshua C. Jennings has been named a 2021 National YoungArts Foundation Merit winner in Jazz Trumpet.
Arsentiy Kharitonov (DMA ‘17) was awarded First Place (Gold) in the All-Russia Composers Competition "STAM" in Moscow. He also received Special Prize from the Composers Expert Council. His composition in the finals was "Four Vignettes for Four Violins" written for and performed by Professor of Violin, Julia Bushkova and the soloists of ensemble ViolUNTi.
MM student jazz pianist and former One O'Clock Lab Band® member Michael Clement's composition, “Evading Karmacities,” to be highlighted during the 2021 Jazz Education Network National Conference. The Young Composer Showcase Session takes place on January 9, 2021 and will be performed by the Ryan Middagh Jazz Orchestra.
DMA tuba student, David Humphreys, has been appointed Adjunct Instructor of Music, Tuba and Euphonium at Texas Woman’s University in Denton beginning January 2021.
MM student, Vannesa Nates, joins the National Alliance for Audition Support training program in a collaborative effort led by the Sphinx Organization “to increase diversity in American orchestras by offering Black and Latinx musicians a customized combination of mentoring, audition preparation, financial support and audition previews.”
John W. Richmond, Dean of the UNT College of Music, stands with 67 boxes containing materials for the Bruce Broughton Collection. The collection is to be quarantined then scanned for scholarly observation and research then permanently stored at the Research Collections Library.
Amy Wilson (MM ’07) Artistic Director of the Atlanta Philharmonic Orchestra, spoke with Georgia based Huthmaker Violins “Classes for the Curious Musician – Amy Wilson, Woman in Charge” where she discusses what it’s like to become a conductor and what a musician can do to be a contributing, vital member of an ensemble.
The Yale Institute of Sacred Music has appointed Steven Friedson, University Distinguished Research Professor of Music and Anthropology, to its new Black Sacred Arts Steering Committee to design and implement a series of international conferences and related publications over the next four years. “This initiative will make a substantial contribution to an underrepresented field of study and to the diversification of sacred music studies.”
Garry Williams (MEd ’19, BM ’99) has become the Director of Arts Conservatories at Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Dallas, Texas.
Geoffrey Durbin, (MM'11) euphonium, recently won a position with U.S. Navy Fleet Band Activities. He also holds a DMA from the University of Memphis.
The National Opera Association Opera Production Competition for 2019-2020 recently announced that the UNT Opera production of Don Giovanni won 2nd Place in Division VI of the competition. Jonathan Eaton is the Margot and Bill Winspear Chair in Opera Studies.
Lindsay Pope (DMA ’19) has received the Julius Herford Dissertation Prize recognizing outstanding doctoral terminal research project in choral music. Her dissertation titled Beyond the Binary: The Intersection of Gender and Cross-Cultural Identity in Reena Esmail's Life and Choral Works was previously honored with the University of North Texas 2019 Toulouse Dissertation Award in the Fine Arts field by the Toulouse Graduate School. According to Allen Hightower, Professor of Music and UNT College of Music Director of Choral Studies says, “There is no higher academic recognition in our field than the Julius Herford Dissertation Prize.”
The American Brahms Society has awarded the Karl Geiringer Scholarship to current UNT PhD student, Robert Anderson, in support of his dissertation “Ideale Hausmusik”: Johannes Brahms’s Vocal Quartets (opp. 31, 52, 64, 65, 92, 103) and the Politics of Domestic Music.
