The Vanderbilt Opera Theatre and Vanderbilt University Orchestra presented Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte last November in Ingram Hall. Pictured are Ben Edquist as Guglielmo (left) and Julia DiFiore as Doraballa.

Gregory Barz, associate professor of musicology (ethnomusicology), recently published The Culture of AIDS in Africa: Hope and Healing Through Music and the Arts. He served as program chair for the annual meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology. He was elected treasurer of the Society for Ethnomusicology and sits on the board of directors. He spent the summer conducting research on music HIV/AIDS in South Africa where he will continue his field research for the next few years. His documentary film, Inanga: A Song of Survival in a Daughter’s Rwanda, on music after the genocide in Rwanda, was recently released.

Joy Calico, associate professor of musicology, presented her Schoenberg research on the Lyceum Lecture Series at Baylor University and at the “Jewish Music and Germany after the Holocaust” conference at Dickinson College. She was also a keynote speaker at the “Music in Divided Germany” conference hosted by the University of California at Berkeley and gave a paper on the state of German studies in musicology at the national meeting of the German Studies Association. She published a book chapter on opera stagings in the collection Art Outside the Lines: New Perspectives on GDR Art Culture; a chapter on musical commemorations of Bertolt Brecht in Brecht and the GDR: Politics, Culture, and Posterity; and a book review in Modern Drama. She was also elected to a five-year term on the executive committee of the discussion group on opera for the Modern Languages Association.

Laurence Lesser, one of the most distinguished cello pedagogues in the world and former president of the New England Conservatory of Music, presented a master class in early December. With him is Blair senior Alexander Berry.

Amy Dorfman, associate professor of piano, joined violist Amy Leventhal in October to present a recital at Georgia Perimeter College in Atlanta.

Jen Gunderman, senior lecturer in music history, performed this summer with Tom T. Hall, Buddy Miller, Duane Eddy, Bobby Bare, Patty Griffin, Jim Lauderdale and others at the Country Music Hall Of Fame’s Ford Theater for Tom T. Hall’s 75th birthday party/ tribute concert. She also played with Paul Burch and Chris Scruggs at the Summertyne Festival in Newcastle, England; with The Wrights at Music City Roots Live From the Loveless Cafe; with Rolling Stones’ saxophonist Bobby Keys at the Copper Country Festival in Copper Mountain, Colo.; and with the Long Players, Vince Gill, Sam Bush, John Oates, and others at a benefit for Pete Huttlinger in Nashville. She also produced an album for Vanderbilt student Sarah Barr and gave a Vanderbilt Family Weekend lecture.

Grammy and Tony award winner Audra McDonald presented a concert in Blair’s Ingram Hall on Nov. 15. She also taught a master class while at Blair. McDonald is currently starring on Broadway in the newly opened The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess at the Richard Rodgers Theater.

Michael Holland, senior lecturer in percussion, in preparation for the April 1 Blair Percussion VORTEX concert, traveled to New York in December to witness the final performance of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. He returned in January to work with former dancers from the company as they prepare to collaborate with VORTEX in a centennial celebration that honors renegade American composer John Cage (see additional story).

Jim Lovensheimer, associate professor of musicology, presented the first Chancellor’s Lecture this year in Ingram Hall on Sept. 6, discussing “Why Musicals Matter.”

John Johns, associate professor of guitar, presented Serenata Italiana on the Blair Signature Series in September featuring music by Italian composers. Johns was joined by Kathryn Plummer, professor of viola, and Felix Wang, associate professor of cello. In October and November, he presented solo recitals in New York City at St. Stephen of Hungary’s Guitar Festival, a series featuring guitar alumni from the Peabody Conservatory of Music, as well as performances on the Faculty and Friends series at David Lipscomb University and at the University of the South.

Valerie Middleton, adjunct artist teacher of piano, performed at the October meeting of the Nashville Piano Study Club.

Cheri Montgomery, lecturer in voice, was invited to be a guest author for the September/October issue of the Journal of Singing. Her article “The Dynamic Diction Classroom” provides innovative methods for teaching lyric diction and sets standards for the course, instructor and student.

James Foglesong, adjunct professor of music business, announced plans to retire from teaching in May. Prior to coming to the Blair School in 1991, Foglesong was president of Dot Records and the Nashville divisions of ABC, MCA and Capitol Records.

Kathryn Plummer, professor of viola, gave a lecture and a viola master class last March at the National Conference for the American String Teachers Association in Kansas City. She also will serve a three-year term as the viola forum editor for the American String Teachers Association Journal. She was re-elected in April 2011 to serve as a national board member with the American Viola Society through 2014. In June 2011, she gave concerts for the 40th anniversary of the Sitka Summer Music Festival in Sitka, Alaska. In September, she served as viola clinician at the Middle Tennessee Suzuki Association. In November, she was visiting professor for a week at Indiana University in Bloomington.

Michael Alec Rose, associate professor of composition, on Sept. 30, heard Peter Sheppard Skaerved and Neil Heyde perform his violin and cello duo, Dr. Johnson and Mr. Savage, in the National Portrait Gallery in London, England, where the great portrait of Samuel Johnson by Sir Joshua Reynolds hangs. The concert was related to the NPG exhibition “Only Connect” curated by Skaerved. Rose performed as the “bell ringer,” hitting an antique Israeli brass bowl with a kitchen spoon (both of which he brought from Nashville) when the two friends “heard the chimes at midnight” together.

U.S. Senators Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), at right, listen as Susanna Johnson, at left, plays the viola and Kameron Myers, second from left, plays the violin at a constituent event on July 12. Pre-college student Myers, a member of the Curb Youth Symphony, and Johnson, an alumna of the CYS, were in Washington, D.C., to participate in the National Symphony Orchestra’s Summer Music Institute.

Helena Simonett, adjunct assistant professor of music history and literature, presented her current research at the SEMSEC meeting on “The Soundingness of Seeing: A Phenomenological or a Neurological Problem?” and at the ICTM Music Archeology Study Group meeting in Valladolid, Spain, on “Songworks: Insight into Musical Practices of the Past through Ethnography.” Three of her articles on transnational musical phenomena have been published this year: “Giving Voice to the ‘Dignified Man’: Reflections on Global Popular Music,” Popular Music 30 (2); “Re-localized Rap and Its Representation of the Hombre Digno,” in the volume Transnational Encounters: Music and Performance at the U.S.-Mexico Border; and “‘La vuelta al mundo en 80 tambores’: reflexiones sobre músicas migrantes.” With a grant from a Swiss foundation she finished her applied ethnomusicology project: the illustration of a children’s book narrated by a Mexican indigenous musician that tells the story of the beginning of the ceremonial fiesta. She spent the month of May continuing her fieldwork among the Yoreme in northwestern Mexico.

Longtime patron of the Blair School and for 16 years chairman of Blair’s KeyBoard, Martha Rivers Ingram was honored with a concert celebrating her affiliation with Blair in September at Ingram Hall. Pictured are Mrs. Ingram with Dean Mark Wait (left) and Chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos at the reception following the concert.

Celeste Halbrook Tuten, senior artist teacher of Suzuki violin, was one of the accompanists for the Middle Tennessee Suzuki Association fall workshop at St. Cecilia Academy in September.

Amanda Virelles, adjunct artist teacher of piano, played recitals last spring at Jackson State Community College and at Blair with guest artist Alejandro Drago. She released Souvenir de Cuba, in July featuring music by Ignacio Cervantes, Manuel Saumell, Nicolas Ruiz Espadero and L.M. Gottschalk. The CD is available on iTunes, CDbaby and Amazon. In October she played the Nightcap Concert Series at Blair and recitals in Huntsville, Ala., and at Union College in Kentucky.

Felix Wang, associate professor of cello, was a featured guest artist at the University of North Carolina Greensboro’s Cello Festival in March, where he performed and taught master classes. He also coached and led Vanderbilt’s String Orchestra in a performance of Webern’s Langsamersatz and Mahler’s arrangement for string orchestra of Beethoven’s Op. 95 quartet. He helped direct Cellaboration, overseeing the Blair cello and composition studios in a presentation of eight new works by student composers for student cellists. In addition to performances with the Blair Quartet and Blakemore Trio, he also continued his role as principal cello of the IRIS Orchestra. During the summer, he joined the faculty of the National Music Festival in Floyd, Va., where he taught lessons, performed chamber music and served as principal cello of the festival orchestra. He also served again on the faculty of the Brevard Music Center. At Brevard, he was a featured soloist with the Brevard Sinfonia, performing Haydn’s Cello Concerto in D major. His performance at Brevard of Chopin’s Sonata for Cello and Piano, with fellow Blair faculty member Craig Nies, associate professor of piano, was chosen for radio broadcast on the program SummerStages, which broadcasts to NPR stations across the country.

(From left) Mark Wait, Martha Rivers Ingram Dean’s Chair and professor of music; Rebecca Boelzner and Jason Gnasigamany, recipients of the Wilma Ward Scholarship, endowed during Shape the Future; and Chris Teal, Joseph Joachim Professor of Violin.

Musicians know that without the help of arts patrons, there would be no music to fill concert halls and teach the next generation of music students. At the Blair School of Music, the support of so many in our community—alumni, parents, faculty, staff and friends—contributed to the enormous success of Vanderbilt’s Shape the Future campaign. The campaign secured more than $1.9 billion across the institution in an historic initiative focused primarily on investing in people through scholarships and endowed faculty chairs throughout the university.

We at Blair would like to say thank you.

Through Shape the Future, donors supported the creation of four faculty chairs at the Blair School: the Martha Rivers Ingram Dean’s Chair to Dean Mark Wait; the Chancellor’s Chair to Roland Schneller, professor of piano; the Joseph Joachim Chair in Violin to Chris Teal, professor of violin; and the Valere Blair Potter Chair to Connie Heard, professor of violin. Ten students receive aid as a result of scholarships endowed during Shape the Future.

Thank you, also, for your contributions that have supported Blair’s educational programs, community outreach programs and a concert season that provides the Nashville community with some of the most enduring and entertaining performances and master classes available in any city in the United States.

Ongoing support for scholarships continues

More than 62 percent of undergraduates at Vanderbilt receive financial assistance. For Blair undergraduates, that number increases to 91 percent. Through your generosity, gifts through Opportunity Vanderbilt support the university’s commitment to expand financial aid. With your support and that of others committed to arts education, Blair will continue its role in advancing some of the best musicians and arts educators to be heard at Vanderbilt and beyond.

Sophomore Brian Woods and senior Jeannette Mathieu were co-winners of Blair’s Concerto Competition last January. In recent years, the competition has been open to the public during the final round. Both Woods and Mathieu like the new format, because it feels more like playing a concert or recital and less like a competition.

They say everyone loves a winner, so musicians, like athletes and entrepreneurs, spend an inordinate amount of time preparing to outperform the competition. There’s no scoreboard or balance sheet. Musicians leave their progress lingering in the air to hear every time they perform.

“There’s no way of avoiding competition,” says Roland Schneller, Chancellor’s Professor of Piano. “They play in recital, they all hear each other, they compare themselves, and they want to be as good as they possibly can be.”

But there are few winners declared in a competition and limited numbers of scholarships or chairs in an orchestra. How, then, do music students prepare for a lifetime of auditions and competitions, when the outcome is anything but certain?

Working toward a goal

Culture and competition don’t usually go hand in hand. But all disciplines of the arts at some point become competitive.

“Music is not inherently competitive,” Schneller states. “I have students who are not interested in competition, and I think that’s fine. But when you share music, it is only human to compare yourself to others and it becomes competitive. I have all my [pre-college] students do the yearly local music club auditions, as we call them, in which they play for a judge and get comments. I ask them to do that because it’s a motivating goal to work toward.”

Each year students are nominated for and then compete to perform on the Blair Student Showcase. Above, Natalie Taylor, soprano, rehearses “Tornami a vagghegiar” from the opera Alcina by G.F. Handel for the 2011 Blair Student Showcase.

Melissa Rose, associate dean and associate professor of piano, agrees that competing strengthens a student’s skills. Many teachers have their pre-college students prepare for these auditions, sponsored by the local music teacher associations, where students are given a rating and comments. At the state level, however, the auditions become more identified as a competition.

“I coordinate the Tennessee state instrumental competitions for the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) which include both pre-college and college students,” Rose explains. “They get comments, and a winner, runner-up and sometimes honorable mentions are declared in each category. The winners of those categories go on to the division level, which includes eight states. Ours go on to the southern division.

“In that case, they are competing against one another,” Rose says. “Most teachers emphasize that this is a way to perform for somebody else. As long as it is promoted in a healthy way by the teacher and the family, I think it can be healthy for the student, because it shows them what’s out there. You might be a big fish in a little pond here, but then you go to this level, and you see that another student can do this [particular piece]. It can encourage the student. You try to avoid the demoralizing aspect of it. I think that’s the responsibility of the support network for the student and the organizers [of the competition].”

The Apollo Trio, (Lillian Johnson, violin; Jennifer Pittman, cello; and Paul Dab, piano), performed the first movement (allegro vivace e con brio) of Beethoven’s Piano Trio in D, Op. 70, No. 1 “Ghost” for the showcase.

Emphasizing the journey and not the end result is also important to get through a competition without debilitating stage fright. Jared Hauser, assistant professor of oboe, thinks the word “competition” is a stumbling block. “When you go to an orchestral or solo competition, you’re being compared to everybody else,” he says. “That can [turn into] a mind game, so it’s a lot more effective in my experience to say, ‘I know this music; I have a way of playing this that’s my way, and I’m going to show you how it goes.’ If I worry about what they want to hear, then I tie myself up in knots, and I can’t execute anything.”

Schneller concurs, noting that the younger the student is, the less stage fright they have. “Even students who have no stage fright can develop it as adults. Once the onset of puberty arrives, you become very self-conscious, and it becomes a bit more common. Competition affects you more when you’re older,” he says, “because you are aware you’re being judged, when before it felt more like a chance to show off your talent.”

“The more you compete, the more comfortable you are,” Rose says. “That’s another valuable part of competition.”

A different mindset

Whether a student is performing in a local music audition or a more intense competition, repertoire frequently comes from several contrasting styles of music. Mindset varies depending on the context—a solo competition judged by a panel of three requires a different mental approach than a chamber music competition in which a student is playing as part of a group in front of judges and an audience. The context affects the way the student prepares the repertoire and the performance.

Lindsey Reymore, a senior oboe performance major at Blair, has competed in both solo competitions and in chamber music competitions.

“There’s definitely a difference whether you’re doing it with a group or by yourself,” she says. “Each individual musician has to figure out what motivates them and be able to use it in any situation. I’m much more naturally motivated in a chamber music setting,” she explains, “because I’m working with other people who I respect and support, so I have a responsibility to them, and that motivates me to practice.

Susan Yang performed Rhapsody in B minor, Op.79, No.1 by Johannes Brahms.

“That same reasoning doesn’t apply to a solo competition,” she says, “so I have had to figure out how to get the same degree of motivation in a different way.”

The mental preparation for solo competitions and orchestral auditions is also different. Orchestral auditions are usually behind a screen, even for the Vanderbilt Orchestra. Students walk in without speaking, play the excerpts and leave. On the other hand, auditions for summer festival spots or solo competitions are done in view of the judges.

Reymore auditioned for several summer festivals last year. “[Professor Hauser] prepared me for how I walked into the room and what I [would] wear,” Reymore says. “All these details don’t matter with an orchestral audition because you don’t interact with the judges at all.”

“Preparing for a solo competition, the process is going to be more lengthy and involved than for an orchestral audition, where you’re playing small snippets of orchestral pieces or solos out of context that may be only eight bars long,” Hauser says. “For a solo competition, the student should be thinking big picture: broad, long phrases, direction within the piece, how one movement relates to the next, and how their own personal appearance is important.

“At a solo competition you want to look bigger than life when you’re on stage. Every detail is important, from what you wear, to how you walk on stage, to the way you bow, if you bow.”

Practice makes perfect

Preparation also entails picking repertoire that the student can learn and perform well by the time the competition happens. Because of the time it takes to pick and learn repertoire specific to a competition, students frequently pick something they already feel comfortable performing.

“With MTNA, you apply early in September and auditions are in November,” Rose says. “So you have to predict in September what you’re going to be able to play in November. I always get the question, ‘I couldn’t get the piece ready, so can I change it?’ No, you cannot.

“I think if you really want to win a competition, you’re going to want to take your seasoned repertoire. You generally don’t take something new.”

Bassoonist Thomas Crespo, who graduated last spring, oboist Lindsey Reymore and pianist Valerie Hsu made up the trio called Troika that competed at the national Fischoff Chamber Music Competition.

Reymore, along with Thomas Crespo, BMus’11, (bassoon) and junior Valerie Hsu (piano) made up Troika two years ago. The undergraduate chamber music trio made it to the live rounds of the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition along with the pre-college Parthenon String Quartet, made up of Alvin Kim (cello), Will Bender (viola), Jacob Schafer (violin) and Annie Bender (violin). The Fischoff is one of the best-known and influential competitions in the United States. Reymore and her trio only decided to compete at the end of the fall semester.

“We put together the whole thing in one semester. They came over to my house for a week during winter break to rehearse all day, and then after that we had as many coachings as we possibly could at school,” she says. “We rehearsed five days a week and then every day coming close to the competition. I think it was a little too much, looking back on it,” she says.

Their youth as a recently organized trio made it even more significant that they were chosen by the Fischoff, which only selected 48 entries from a total of 130 to play in the live rounds that year.

“They were pretty young, compared to most of the field for Fischoff,” says Hauser. “The judges were looking for the overall package of a group and not the individual virtuosity of each player. It doesn’t mean that the players aren’t virtuosic,” he explains, “it just means they’re looking for a blend and a maturity.”

“Our biggest comment from the judges as to why we didn’t advance [to the semifinal round],” Reymore says, “was that we had balance issues. We had played in various places—at Blair, in people’s houses—but it shows maturity for a group and for individual musicians to be able to adjust to a hall right away, which is not even something I had thought about until then. It was a learning experience to realize that there were subtle things like that that can make such a huge difference.”

“The Fischoff does a really nice thing,” Rose says. She helped coach Troika and her son was a member of the Parthenon String Quartet. “After they announce the finalists, they have an ice cream social for all the groups, and they have all the judges available to talk to each of them. They can go over things that the judge didn’t write in the comments. I really liked the more educational component, and that they could actually talk to the judge and get some feedback.”

With big competitions like the Fischoff, competing is a way for a performer to launch a career. However, only concentrating on competitions does not necessarily lead to a well-rounded educational experience for a musician. “Competitions sometimes get a bad rap, too,” Rose says. “If you’re only always working toward a competition, I think that’s very limiting. You’re limiting your repertoire and not working on other areas of your musicianship.”

The bottom line is that competitions are not necessary to enjoy making music, but they can help serious students progress in technical skill, planning and musicianship, whether they win or not.

“If you use competitions as a tool to help you grow, then they’re great,” Rose says. “You always have to enter a competition thinking, ‘Gee, if I win, it would be really nice.’ Don’t go thinking, ‘I’ve got to win this competition,’ because there’s no point in it. You need to think that this is an opportunity to play for other people, to get comments and to grow as a musician. If you go with that attitude, you’re fine, and I think most teachers try to promote that.”

Craig Nies, Piano

Friday, March 30, 8 p.m.
Ingram Hall

After five years, indefatigable and prodigious pianist Craig Nies concludes his Well-Tempered Clavier concert series. In the spring of 2007, Nies embarked on a journey to perform in concert the entire Well-Tempered Clavier of J. S. Bach, which includes 48 preludes and fugues. These concerts have also featured signature works from other important composers, including the complete Debussy Preludes.

This final installment will feature the last three preludes and fugues by Bach; the last six Debussy Preludes; and Beethoven’s mighty “Hammerklavier” sonata, which, fittingly, ends with what Nies says is the most demanding fugue ever composed for piano.

“It has been a great pleasure to work on the complete Well-Tempered Clavier,” Nies says. “While I enjoy the variety in every program, I am very happy just working on Bach for hours!”

Sponsored by the parents of a current Blair student

Sundays in April at Cheekwood

Blair faculty artists will perform Sundays in April in the drawing room of the Cheekwood mansion. Performances will start at 2 p.m. and last about an hour. Performances are free with paid Cheekwood admission.

April 1:  John Johns, guitar

April 8: The Ars Nova Quartet (Caroline Hart and Ben Hart, violins; Christopher Lowry, viola; Emily Nelson, cello)

April 15: Blakemore Trio (Carolyn Huebl, violin; Felix Wang, cello; Amy Dorfman, piano)

April 22: Lauren Coplan, piano

April 29: Christian Teal, violin, and Jennifer McGuire, piano

The Annual Appalachian Celebration

Saturday, April 21, 8 p.m.
Ingram Hall
Matt Combs, director

This annual hoedown features Blair’s own folk and instrument performance faculty, plus plenty of surprise guests from the Nashville music industry. Come for the unexpected and stay for the joy of our region’s favorite folk music performed by some of the very best players in the country.

Sponsored by the David Schnaufer Fund
This concert is a benefit for the Jerome “Butch” Baldassari Pre-College Scholarship Fund at the Blair School of Music. Donations at the door will be accepted but are not required.

SPECIAL EVENT: A Celebration of the 100th Birthday of John Cage

Revolutionaries in the Academy! — John Cage and Merce Cunningham. A Conversation on Form, Composition and Creativity

Thursday, March 29, 3 p.m.
Steve and Judy Turner Recital Hall

Michael Holland, artistic director of Blair Percussion VORTEX, introduces this dialogue on the intersection of music and dance, featuring Jennifer Goggans, a former dancer with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, and Michael Slayton, chair of Blair’s music composition department

Blair Percussion VORTEX celebrates John Cage with former dancers of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company
Plus: COMPANY ROSE

Sunday, April 1, 8 p.m.
Ingram Hall
Michael Holland, artistic director
Marsha Barsky and Erin Law, choreographers
7 p.m. Cage Musicircus in Ingram Lobby and Plaza. “You won’t hear a thing. You’ll hear everything!”
7:40 p.m. Pre-concert talk with Professor Robert Fry in Ingram Hall

Witness history. Make history. Join VORTEX and artistic director Michael Holland in the centennial birthday celebration of John Cage and his 50-year collaboration with Merce Cunningham. Rare, archival photographs, audio clips and historic film footage let Cage and Cunningham speak to you as VORTEX performs with former members of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, just off their historic international farewell Legacy Tour.

A reception in Ingram Lobby follows the performance.

For information on related Cage/Cunningham/VORTEX events, call (615) 322-7651.

Support for these programs is provided by a Curb Creative Campus Innovation Grant.  Additional support provided by: Mark Wait, Dean, Blair School of Music; Frank Wcislo, Dean of the Martha River Ingram Commons at Vanderbilt; Sandra Stahl, Office of the Dean of Students; and by JoEl Logiudice, Office of Creative Engagement. Blair thanks the Hutton Hotel for providing accommodations for all visiting artists.

Meagan Nordmann Rhodes

Meagan Nordmann Rhodes, BMus’09, says the perfect job “fell into my lap.”

After having a self-described “crisis moment” during her senior year that left her doubting her aspirations as an oboist, Rhodes began looking for something that combined the arts with the regular hours of an office job. After confiding her interests to Kip Bennett, chef and manager of C.T. West, the restaurant in the basement of Carmichael Towers on campus, he handed her a copy of Nashville Arts Magazine and asked if she would be interested in working for something like it.

“His wife had written for the first issue,” Rhodes says, “and he mentioned me to her, and she mentioned me to the editor, who called me up and said, ‘Would you like to work for us in an internship?’ ”

Ten days later, he offered her a paying position at the monthly magazine. Now production manager, Rhodes has worked her way up since the internship started in November 2009. On September 1, she added website maintenance to her roster of job duties after the magazine launched Art Now Nashville, a website that provides timely criticism of classical music and jazz performances, visual arts, theater, dance and opera—something the production schedule of the printed monthly could not accommodate.

“John Pitcher, former music critic for the Washington Post and NPR, came up with the idea,” Rhodes says. “He had moved here and was used to fast-paced classical music criticism and there was none. Alan Valentine [CEO of the Nashville Symphony] sent him to us, and a week later we were signing the paperwork. A month later we had the site up.”

It was a crazy month for Rhodes, but the work has been worth it.

“We’ve had more than 40,000 views since September 1,” she says. “The other day I looked at it and there were 700 views in one day.”

Rhodes loves the variety in her job. “It has worked out great for me these last two years,” she says, “and every time I see Kip, I say thanks for the job!”

For more, see the Art Now Nashville website at artnownashville.com.

Dancer and choreographer Merce Cunningham, left, with composer John Cage

From John Cage aficionados to new listeners, surprises are in store when Blair’s percussion ensemble VORTEX joins with former dancers of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company and Nashville’s Company Rose on Sunday, April 1. The two-hour production will feature works spanning four and a half decades, including a presentation of Cunningham choreography in a 30-minute “MinEvent” with the percussion students of VORTEX.

“With the closure of the company on December 31, any collaborative performance of John Cage’s music with Cunningham-trained dancers is a rare event,” Artistic Director Michael Holland says. “To put this in perspective, this is comparable to having Nijinsky’s dancers from the Ballet Russe on hand for a student performance of the Rite of Spring. One cannot understand Cage without taking into account the artistic relationship with Cunningham. These are giants who changed the landscape of art and waited for the world to catch up to them.”

Nashville’s Company Rose will restage the lost Cage work Fads and Fancies in the Academy. Created by Cage and 1940s modern dance pioneer Marian Van Tuyl, this barely known piece was originally subtitled by Cage and Van Tuyl as A Gentle Satire on Progressive Education. For the first time since the work was created, Company Rose and VORTEX will reunite Cage’s rhapsodic program music with choreography created by Marsha Barsky and Erin Law and informed by Van Tuyl’s original work. The new staging was made possible by Michael Holland’s recent uncovering of archival film footage and notes from Van Tuyl’s work with Cage.

This retrospective concert is one of the largest in the nation and will involve students and faculty from across the campus in addition to guest artists in Nashville. Music, art, theater, dance and film studies are pooling talents and resources to make this a once-in-a-lifetime event. And at the center of everything are the students of VORTEX: Alexander Carter, Daniel Closser, Robby Hill, Orion Phillips, Lucas Polson, Kevin Rilling, Ian Shaw, Tarique Shotwell, Shelby Flowers, Valerie Hsu, Revanth Sanne, Olivia Smith, Rami Grossman and Daniel Corona.

None of this would be possible without the support of the John Cage Trust, the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, the Other Minds Archive in San Francisco, and the scholarly assistance of Holling Smith-Borne, director of the Anne Potter Wilson Music Library.

The project is funded by a Curb Creative Campus Initiative Grant with additional support from Mark Wait, dean, Blair School of Music; Frank Wcislo, dean of The Martha Rivers Ingram Commons at Vanderbilt; Sandra Stahl, Office of the Dean of Students; and JoEl Logiudice, Office of Creative Engagement. Admission is free.

Planned events include:

Thursday, March 29, at 3 p.m., Turner Recital Hall

A panel featuring Merce Cunningham Dance Company Assistant Director of Choreography Jennifer Goggans with Blair’s Michael Slayton, Joy Calico and Michael Holland in a discussion on form, composition and creativity in the collaborative works of John Cage and Merce Cunningham.

March 29 and 30

Master classes in Cunningham movement with Jennifer Goggans

Sunday, April 1, 1:30-5 p.m., Blair Choral Rehearsal Hall

Mini-Cage symposium organized by Joy Calico, associate professor of musicology, showcasing Cage’s work in various media (music, performance art and film). It features musicologist David W. Patterson, performance artist Amelia Winger-Bearskin, assistant professor of art, and Jonathan Rattner, assistant professor of film studies, who will screen and discuss some of Cage’s avant-garde film projects.

Sunday, April 1, Ingram Hall

7:00 p.m. Cage Musicircus in Ingram Lobby and Plaza

7:40 p.m. Pre-concert talk with Professor Robert Fry

8:00 p.m. Blair Percussion VORTEX
celebrates John Cage with former dancers of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, plus Company Rose with Marsha Barsky and Erin Law, choreographers

Blair student chamber ensembles presented fall recitals in Turner Recital Hall. Shown performing are Hunter Guthrie and Allison Connelly.

Chamber music, with its graceful, intimate character, presents a special set of challenges and pleasures to the musicians who play it.

In the same way that listening to Beethoven string quartets is a different experience from listening to Beethoven symphonies, there’s a significant difference between playing in a small, leaderless ensemble and performing in a large orchestra under the baton of a conductor. Both genres require a high degree of musicianship, but the methods and goals are quite distinct.

Bil Jackson, associate professor of clarinet at Blair and a veteran performer in both orchestras and chamber ensembles, describes it as “driving a Ferrari versus a Cadillac Escalade—both elegantly serve a different purpose.” Jackson also likens the unique interaction within a chamber ensemble to a musical dance. But with no designated leader, how does the group achieve the cohesiveness needed to attain that perfect musical choreography?

It starts, according to associate professor John Kochanowski, violist with the Blair String Quartet and coordinator of university student chamber music, with each member’s strong desire to shape the performance. Good chamber players, Kochanowski says, should have “a tremendous belief in the way they want to make phrases in music.” He believes that phrasing is “all about emotion,” and he tries to help his students learn to express their own emotional interpretation of the music. “Ultimately, if they can’t talk about love and hate and angst and all these things in front of me,” Kochanowski says, “they aren’t going to be able to do it in their practicing and, in the end, come out with a performance that’s going to be what all these great composers put notes on a page for.”

The Blair String Quartet, one of Blair’s signature chamber music groups, performing.

Each member’s strong feelings, however, must go hand in hand with a willingness to compromise. “You may have one, two, three or four opinions in a string quartet,” Kochanowski says. “So how do you get your idea across when there may be three other ideas? That comes down to compromise. You take some of your idea and put it with the other ideas, and you come up with the solution.” The players must respect each other’s opinions, he notes, and be willing to honor a group vote or even an occasional coin toss. Kochanowski approvingly cites a mentor’s advice to him that a chamber ensemble should ultimately function “as one big head with eight hands.”

Of course, in addition to opinions and emotions, the players must possess a mastery of their instruments. Technical competence is critical for any musician, but in a small ensemble it is essential that the members’ skill levels are well-matched. Benjamin Hart, BMus’10, violinist with the Ars Nova String Quartet, believes that a group “is only as strong as its weakest member.” Jackson compares a chamber group to a team climbing Mount Everest and says that it “only takes one person who is not up to the task to significantly compromise the success of summiting.” Each member is responsible for keeping up with the group, or, as Kochanowski notes, they’re “going to be exposed for what they haven’t done.”

Jackson, Hart and Kochanowski all agree that, ultimately, a responsive, attentive relationship among the members is at the core of a successful chamber ensemble. “The greatest quartet players are dynamic listeners,” Hart says. “At no given moment is anyone playing louder or softer, faster or slower without complete awareness of the ensemble.” Jackson emphasizes the need for a “unified musical concept,” and agrees that the players must have a heightened awareness of each other if they are to deliver a great performance. For Kochanowski, the ideal relationship goes even deeper, with the group experiencing a real emotional bond. “When I sit on the stage—and I think my colleagues would say the same thing—even though I love the energy the audience is bringing, we’re playing for each other. We’re making music for each other.”

Bzur Haun, who graduated in 1993, was a well-known figure around the Vanderbilt campus. Double-majoring in musical arts/piano at Blair and in human and organizational development at Peabody, Haun was involved in many campuswide activities—from leading orientation tours to performing in musical ensembles and involvement in student politics. After graduation, he made his way to California where he worked in several “starter jobs” in the hospitality industry while playing piano for the random paycheck. He eventually realized, however, that what he really needed was a career.

Using some Vanderbilt connections, he landed a job with Andersen Consulting (later Accenture), where he developed expertise in human performance management or “performance technology.” Right about then the 1990s high-tech boom hit the nation. Fortuitously living on the West Coast in the nerve center of the industry, Haun was primed to ride that wave.

“I basically had a 10-year runway, where it was textbook,” Haun explains. “You got your experience in a big company, then moved to a small company, which went through a dot.com phase and eventually sold.” He ultimately wound up as an authority in distance learning, or e-learning.

By 2003, however, he was ready to hang up his e-learning spurs to try something different. “I got to the point in my life where I thought, ‘Wow. If I don’t diversify my experience, I’m going to become pigeonholed,’” Haun says. “I just wasn’t ready at the age of 33 or 34 to say that the rest of my life would be e-learning.”

Since leaving e-learning, Haun has been focusing on the world of enterprise mobility at two different companies. He has been with Visage Mobile since late 2008. At the time, it was a midstage wireless technology start-up that hadn’t yet launched a product and didn’t have a single customer. Fast forward, and today he is the president and CEO of Visage, which now has more than 200 customers, including members of the Fortune 500, and 50 full- and part-time employees. The company weathered the recent economic downturn and continues to do well.

Haun is married to Page Shaper Haun, BA’92, whom he dated briefly in college, lost touch with and then reconnected to 14 years later. They have three children, 4-year-old son Hamer, 2-year-old daughter Tempo, and daughter Zigi born in November. After a long stint away from musical performance, Haun is now planning a piano recital jubilee for friends, family and colleagues to celebrate his 40th year. He’s also involved with Blair as a member of the KeyBoard.

“Little creatures who look like you do strange things to your mind,” he says with a laugh. “All of a sudden I thought about the impression I want to make on my children and what’s important to me.

“No one in my professional network has any idea that I’m a musician. But if I can get my hands back, [the recital] might actually sound good. I need music for balance in my life, and I’m excited to share it with people.”

---

Jonathan Chu wasn’t sure whether he wanted to be a musician or a financier. After graduating from Vanderbilt in 2003 with a double major in violin performance and economics, he went on to earn a master’s degree in violin at the Juilliard School, thinking he’d like a career with a chamber music quartet. That is until his mentor, famed Juilliard violinist Robert Mann, warned him off. The music world was changing, Mann said. Venues were cutting budgets, searching for different types of music ensembles and canceling concerts. Chu, who had performed and toured with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and the Santa Fe Opera Orchestra, decided to cast his lot with a symphony.

“I was concerned about basic supply and demand,” says Chu, his economics background coming into play. “The demand wasn’t growing and the supply [of opportunities] was shrinking.”

He joined the St. Louis Symphony that year, and although the pay was satisfactory and the job was stable, something about it didn’t feel right. At Vanderbilt, he’d studied violin under Chris Teal, but for one year had also played viola in a string quartet under the tutelage of John Kochanowski. He went out and purchased a viola “just to have.” Chu left the St. Louis Symphony and moved to New York City to freelance and explore career opportunities on Wall Street or with a hedge fund in Connecticut. In the end, however, he chose to stay with music.

Basically, he says, “I love playing more than I love banking.”

He took odd jobs, such as playing violin and viola on the debut album of a then-unknown, now hit-maker indie rock band Vampire Weekend.

In the summer of 2008, he migrated to Vermont to audition for the Marlboro Festival on the viola, simply because there were no violin openings. He won the tryout and spent a full three months playing viola. That fall he heard that the Philadelphia Orchestra had an opening in viola, and importantly, anyone who made the finals of the auditions was automatically placed on the “sub list.” Aiming for a spot on the sub list, Chu instead was hired as a company member after his audition.

The Philadelphia Orchestra is considered one of the top five orchestras in America, and one of the best in the world. Chu says, “The sound of the orchestra is very distinct. The strings sounds are rich and warm and lush. We have a thing called the ‘Philadelphia Sound.’ You can hear it in the audience, and you can feel it on stage. It’s very edifying and fulfilling to be a part of that.”

Unfortunately, the most recent Philadelphia sound was that of lawyers and union negotiators arguing in backrooms. In April 2011, the management of the Philadelphia Orchestra filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy after disagreements with the players’ union over salaries and pensions. Even though he was one of the newest and youngest members of the orchestra, his colleagues respected his dual degree in economics from Vanderbilt and elected him to the negotiations committee. After months of slogging through 12-hour days during the negotiations, Chu says that the two sides have reached an agreement, and he hopes the orchestra will emerge from bankruptcy in the next few months.

“Despite the dispute, we have a full season. No concerts were canceled and we’re going on a China tour in the spring,” he says. “Every article written about us says that in spite of having filed Chapter 11, the orchestra never sounded better.”

In 2010, Chu married violist Beth Guterman, and their son, Apollo, was born in 2011. “I’ve been happy with the way my life has gone,” he says. “Vanderbilt prepared me for what I’ve been able to accomplish musically. And having a broader education has enabled me to do other things—like working on resolving problems during times of uncertainty.”

Dean Mark Wait

This issue of the Quarter Note goes to the very heart of what we do at the Blair School, and why we exist: our students. In these pages, we will focus on the critical moments in the lives of Blair students, from their auditions for admission to their professional lives after graduation. You will also learn why we emphasize chamber music in our undergraduate curriculum, and how that emphasis contributes to greater musicianship generally, and to the training of seasoned professionals. In addition, you will learn about one example of what makes life at the Blair School quite special: the opportunities for our students to encounter intensive experiences that are rarely found at other institutions. In this case, that experience will be the performances and seminars around the music of John Cage, whose centenary is being observed this year, with choreography from former dancers in the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, which is being disbanded following Cunningham’s death. It is a wonderful opportunity for our students and audiences to witness a fusion of music and dance that is already both historical and contemporary.

In all these activities, our primary focus is on students—preparing them for lives in music, whether as professionals or as amateurs in the best, literal sense of that term. It is affirming to see that Blair training and a Vanderbilt education have served both types of students well. The breadth of education is important. As you may know, the Blair School is one of the few schools of music where students are encouraged (by their dean, anyway) to pursue a double major. I like to say that they have the best of two worlds at Blair: the intensity of conservatory training and the breadth of a superb liberal arts education. As you will see in these pages, that combination has served alumni Bzur Haun and Jonathan Chu very well.

Ultimately, of course, a focus on students is really about the future: preparing the artists, scholars, and composers of the mid-21st century, and therefore creating still-evolving art forms. That is an exciting and noble mission, one that we at Blair embrace with enthusiasm and fervor.

Mark Wait, Dean and Professor
Martha Rivers Ingram Dean’s Chair

Blair first-year student Allison Connelly, right, escorts a prospective student to her admissions audition.

Auditioning to be admitted to a collegiate school of music or conservatory is a very different process than auditioning for an orchestra or to get comments or ratings. Blair has refined the audition weekend process, and, according to Dwayne Sagen, assistant dean for admissions at Blair, current students are his best recruiters.

“Our current Blair students really help to sell the school,” Sagen says. “They remember what it was like when they came, and they show [the prospective students] the ins and outs of the school.”

Early-decision students come in December to audition. Additional audition weekends happen the last weekend of January and the second and fourth weekends of February.

Prospective students play for the faculty in their particular department. Auditions are short, averaging 12 minutes for most instrumentalists, though piano auditions can take a little longer. “That’s where some of our students are at their best; they put the students at ease,” Sagen says. Blair students work shifts as runners to greet the students, get them to their practice rooms and then to the audition.

“They get the student and take him or her where they need to go, and they can also calm them down,” Sagen says. “They may say, ‘What are you playing? Oh, the Hummel trumpet concerto—I played that last year.’”

At the audition, preparation is key. “I understand that people get nervous and make mistakes. I look past mistakes quite a bit,” says Jared Hauser, assistant professor of oboe. “However, if they seem unprepared, that’s different. I also listen for musical spark,” he says. “Does this person speak to me?”

After the audition, faculty members will take the students to their studio and talk to them one on one or give a lesson.

“The personal interaction in the lesson and their growth in the lesson is sometimes more important to me than the audition itself,” Hauser adds.

The audition weekend also includes a Friday-night dinner where prospective students and their families can meet faculty and hear Blair student musicians perform. Often they attend a recital afterward where they may hear a Blair faculty ensemble or a student group such as the wind ensemble, choir or orchestra. They take a required music theory quiz, and at noon on Saturday, parents of current students meet with parents of prospective students, while their sons and daughters meet with current Blair students. “They can ask questions without mom and dad around,” Sagen says. “The whole point is to get their questions answered and leave with as much information as they possibly can.”

After the audition weekend, Dean Mark Wait and the Blair faculty keep in touch with students. “Dean Wait and the faculty are excellent at following up,” Sagen says. “They write them emails, call them, ask if there is anything else they need to know about Blair.”

Each year, approximately 450 students audition for one of about 50 spots in Blair’s first-year class. Though Blair does allow students who live more than 400 miles away to send tapes and DVDs or attend a regional audition site, the Blair admissions office prefers that they come in person to audition.

“That way we get to know them,” Sagen says. “The whole point of the audition weekend is for them to be a student here and get a feel for what it’s like to go to class, to rehearsals, to eat the food and walk the campus. We’ll pair them up with our students, so if they’re a trumpet player, we pair them up with a trumpet player, and they follow the student around and shadow them.

“So, the [Blair] students really help to sell the school,” he says. “We know that, because the parents tell us that. They say, ‘We didn’t find many students like that at other schools.’ ”

For more information on Blair admissions weekends and requirements for auditions, visit: blair.vanderbilt.edu/prospective-students.

The Blair Quarter Note,
Vol. 36 No. 1, Spring 2012
© 2012 by Vanderbilt University.
All rights reserved.

Editor, Bonnie Arant Ertelt
Art Director, Donna DeVore Pritchett
Designer, Christopher Collins
Contributors, Maria Browning, Lisa DuBois, Michael Patrick Holland, Kristin Whittlesey
Web Edition, Christopher Craig
Associate Dean for Pre-college and Adult Programs, Pam Schneller
Associate Dean for Development and Alumni Relations, Virginia Payne
Director of External Relations, Kristin Whittlesey

Pre-college, adult and undergraduate alumni are encouraged to send their professional or personal news to:

The Blair Quarter Note
2400 Blakemore Avenue
Nashville, TN 37212-3499

Or by e-mail to: quarternote@vanderbilt.edu

Undergraduate alumni news now appears in both Vanderbilt Magazine’s class notes section and in the Blair Quarter Note. Any news sent by undergraduate alumni is forwarded to Vanderbilt Magazine.

Visit us on the Web at http://blair.vanderbilt.edu

Vanderbilt University is committed to principles of equal opportunity and affirmative action.

The Blair Quarter Note,
Vol. 35 No. 1, Fall 2011
© 2011 by Vanderbilt University.
All rights reserved.

Editor, Bonnie Arant Ertelt
Art Director, Donna DeVore Pritchett
Designer, Keith Wood
Contributors, Joanne Beckham, Joan Brasher, Cindy Steine, William Williams
Web Edition, Devin McWhorter
Associate Dean for Development and Alumni Relations, Virginia Payne
Director of External Affairs, Kristin Whittlesey

Pre-college, adult and undergraduate alumni are encouraged to send their professional or personal news to:

The Blair Quarter Note
2400 Blakemore Avenue
Nashville, TN 37212-3499

Or by e-mail to: quarternote@vanderbilt.edu

Undergraduate alumni news now appears in both Vanderbilt Magazine’s class notes section and in the Blair Quarter Note. Any news sent by undergraduate alumni is forwarded to Vanderbilt Magazine.

Visit us on the Web at http://blair.vanderbilt.edu

Vanderbilt University is committed to principles of equal opportunity and affirmative action.

Harris opened his law firm on Music Row in Nashville in 1975 to concentrate his practice on music, copyright and entertainment law. An active civil litigator in these fields, he handles contract and copyright infringement cases for both plaintiffs and defendants. In the course of his career, he has represented artists, managers, writers, producers, publishers and the various business entities through which these music industry personnel pursue their careers. He was certified in February 2009 as a civil trial specialist by the Tennessee Commission on Continuing Legal Education and Specialization and by the National Board of Trial Advocacy. Harris has received an AV rating with Martindale-Hubbell, which identifies lawyers with a very high to pre-eminent legal ability, indicating that they practice in accordance with the highest professional and ethical standards. He was admitted to the Bar of the Supreme Court of the United States on June 6, 2011.

Harris has been a member of the KeyBoard since 2006. He succeeds Martha Rivers Ingram, who stepped down this year after chairing the Blair KeyBoard for 16 years, as well as chairing the Vanderbilt University Board of Trust.

First, Jane and Frank Kirchner have retired from teaching at Blair. Jane taught flute at Blair for more than 40 years, and Frank was our saxophone instructor for many years. They provided expertise and inspiration to generations of Blair and Vanderbilt students, upholding the highest standards and guiding the Blair School in its dramatic progress. Now they will pursue their love of traveling and spending time with their grandsons. Although we will miss them terribly, we have the consolation of knowing that they will continue to live in Nashville and plan to attend events at Blair.

In addition, Cynthia Estill and Cassie Lee, who have taught bassoon and clarinet, respectively, in our collegiate program for more than 20 years, are making the transition to our Pre-college Program, which was the foundation of the Blair School and continues to be our anchor. Our pre-college students will be fortunate to have the benefit of their wisdom and expertise.

Joining the faculty of our collegiate program will be Brian Utley, adjunct associate professor of saxophone; Philip Dikeman, associate professor of flute; and Bil Jackson, associate professor of clarinet. You can read more about them in this issue. They join the Blair School as the result of extensive (and highly competitive) national searches. We are delighted to have these wonderful artists joining the Blair family.

I should add that we have an outstanding new class of 57 first-year students at Blair. These students continue a trend of the Blair School’s upward trajectory, a trend that confirms the artistry and dedication of our excellent faculty.

There are other transitions, as well. After helping lead the transformation of the Blair School as chair of the KeyBoard for the past 16 years, Martha Rivers Ingram has stepped down. We are presenting a special concert in honor of Mrs. Ingram on September 18. I am pleased to announce that Nashville attorney Jim Harris, JD’67, now serves the KeyBoard as chairman, and we welcome him and his leadership in the coming years.

Mark Wait, Dean
Martha Rivers Ingram Dean’s Chair

“It’s been a long, drawn-out project, but I hope to finish it by the end of the summer,” she says.
“It started as an assignment to read one of Shakespeare’s plays and write a prelude. As I was reading, I kept thinking, ‘This would make a good aria here.’ I was telling that to Dr. Deakin, and he asked if I would like to write an opera. I think now, if I could go back, I’d say, ‘No, I don’t want to do this thing that’s going to take years,’” she says with a laugh.

This remarkable Blair pre-college student also practices harp and piano four hours a day, studies high-school physics, pre-calculus, Bible, German and economics, and takes an online English course from Nashville State Community College.

“Amy is one of the most gifted pre-college students I have ever had the privilege to teach at Blair,” says Paul Deakin, senior lecturer in music theory. “She completed our four-year college-level theory program in a year—an incredible achievement. She has been taking private composition lessons for two years and has already produced several works of the highest quality.”

Home-schooled since she was 7, Thompson began piano instruction at age 6 and lessons on a tiny harp when she was 11. She enrolled at Blair in the eighth grade, receiving the Myra Jackson Blair Scholarship for harp in ninth grade and for piano last year.

Thompson has composed several pieces for piano and harp, including “a compelling piece for voice and harp,” Deakin says, “a series of haiku by the Japanese poet Basho connected to create a cyclic form that takes the listener on a journey through the seasons. It’s a beautiful work.”

Thompson is also an accomplished performer. She placed seventh in her division at the 18th American Harp Society National Competition held in Salt Lake City, Utah. In 2010 she won the Nashville Area Music Teachers Association’s Young Artists Achievement Award for piano in the junior/senior category, as well as the Sewanee Summer Music Festival’s 2010 Concerto Competition.

Marian Shaffer, adjunct professor of harp, calls Thompson “a wonderfully talented student who truly loves all aspects of music.” Valerie Middleton, adjunct artist teacher of piano, says her technique and artistry exhibit “a refinement few high school students achieve.”

Although she feels most comfortable with the piano, Thompson’s heart belongs to a beautiful, 80-pound Lyon and Healy harp, which she brings back and forth from her home in Springfield, Tenn., several times a week.

“I love the way the harp resonates and vibrates on my shoulder,” she says. “My fingers are in direct contact with what makes the sound. I also love the look of the harp.”

So what does this hard-working student do for fun? “Music is fun,” she says. But like any teen, the soft-spoken brunette enjoys friendships with the other pre-college students at Blair. She also completed a half-marathon last year and volunteers her time playing the harp at nursing homes on a regular basis.

As for the future, Thompson envisions a teaching career. “I want to continue to study at an academic university,” she says, noting that only three schools in the top 20 offer courses in harp: Vanderbilt, Rice and Northwestern.

Deakin predicts great things for his gifted student: “With all that she’s accomplished thus far, I wonder, ‘What’s next?’ She has the world at her feet.”

Scott Seaton, BMus ’04, conducting the Toronto Philharmonia Orchestra.

Within the conducting profession, the word “maestro” is sometimes used to describe the person wielding the baton and coaxing joyous sounds from voice, instrument or both.

Blair School of Music’s community of maestros—gaining influence both at home and abroad—is venturing into the world of orchestral conducting with an energy and success that would spur Jorma Panula, renowned teacher of conducting, to step from the podium and take note.

Interestingly, Blair’s rise has come despite, or perhaps because of, the fact that it offers no degree in conducting.

“Fortunately, Blair does not have a conducting program, and this is fantastic as people like myself were able to take advantage of so many resources not available at other institutions where graduate students would have priority,” says Scott Seaton, who graduated from Vanderbilt in 2004 with a bachelor of music in saxophone performance. For the past two years Seaton was director of orchestras at Kent State University in Ohio. He is now principal guest conductor of the Toronto Philharmonia Orchestra and music director of the Lakeland Civic Orchestra, maintaining an active guest conducting schedule with orchestras in North America and Europe.

“For example, in my senior year at Blair, I was able to form an all-volunteer orchestra and perform Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring,” Seaton explains. “I am not sure this would have been possible at other institutions.”

But those other institutions are, indeed, recognizing Blair School of Music’s talented graduates.

“Since Blair has had many rising conductors in recent years, I think that people are starting to notice that Blair is a fantastic nest for conductors to develop without the formalities of a conducting ‘program,’” Seaton says.

There may be no structured orchestral conducting program at Blair, however, Robin Fountain, professor of conducting and director of the Vanderbilt Orchestra, handles the preparation of orchestral conductors in a highly effective manner. Fountain’s efforts are the key to why the music school has seen its alumni earn admission to graduate schools such as Yale and Vienna Conservatory.

Fountain graciously downplays his role and impact at Blair, saying simply: “I try to train young musicians to collaborate as performers and conductors.”

Fountain—who has studied at Oxford University, the Royal College of Music and Carnegie Mellon University—decided he wanted to be a conductor when he was pressed into service while a member of his high school choir.

“I found that not only did I enjoy it, but that others enjoyed the work when I did it.”

As have Blair students.

“I decided I wanted to be a conductor after attending Professor Robin Fountain’s beginning conducting class,” says David Torns, who graduated from Vanderbilt in 1998 with a bachelor’s in violin performance. “From that point, I enrolled in the advanced class, and I was fascinated with the possibilities of the symphony orchestra as a vessel for music. The colors and palettes that are available to a composer are limitless. So the possibilities for a conductor’s interpretation in serving the composer become limitless as well.”

John Concklin, BMus ’06, conducting the July 4th concert of the Georgia Symphony Orchestra last year.

John Concklin played with the Vanderbilt Orchestra at Blair, eventually earning his bachelor’s in 2006 in viola and piano performance. The creative director of the Cobb Symphony Orchestra in Kennesaw, Ga., from 2008-10, Concklin spent this past year enrolled at the Cleveland Institute of Music. He says the tools he uses to lead an orchestra are based upon his experience as member of an orchestra.

“It’s sort of like playing on a team,” he says. “If you know how to play the game, then it stands to reason that you may be able to lead others in doing it themselves.”

Torns says Blair provided personal guidance.

“I had wonderful coaching in chamber music from all of the members of the Blair String Quartet, which was immeasurable,” Torns says. He currently serves as assistant conductor of the Baton Rouge Symphony and music director of the Louisiana Youth Orchestra.

In addition to recognizing Fountain, Torns credits Amy Dorfman, associate professor of piano, and Emelyne Bingham, senior lecturer of the teaching of music. The trio, among many others at Blair, helped Torns hone his skills in transitioning from hearing the violin to hearing multiple instruments and understanding how they work in tandem.

Torns says such aural aptitude involves hearing the instruments’ “particular colors.”

“You can begin to pick out what an oboe is playing compared to a bassoon, for instance, because the two timbres are unique to one another,” he notes. “At the same time, as a conductor you are trying to blend the two colors so that neither of them sticks out more than the other.”

Getting to the point of hearing on that level requires years of work. For Blair’s conductors, much was done long before arriving at that point.

Joseph Lee, who received his bachelor’s from Vanderbilt in 1998 after studying bassoon, knew at a tender age he wanted to wield the baton.

David Torns, BMus ’98, is assistant conductor of the Baton Rouge Symphony and music director of the Louisiana Youth Orchestra.

“When I was 12 years old, I told my parents that I wanted to be a conductor and that I would need to begin lessons on a string instrument,” says Lee, who filled in as adjunct assistant professor of orchestra and conducting during the spring 2011 semester while Fountain was on sabbatical.

Lee says he was inspired by both his middle school band director and civic youth orchestra conductor.

Today, Lee is the resident conductor of the Huntsville Symphony Orchestra, director of the Huntsville Youth Orchestra, and music director of the Murfreesboro Symphony Orchestra and the Sewanee Symphony Orchestra, the latter two to which he was recently appointed.

Lee echoes the words of Seaton, emphasizing the fact that Blair’s lack of a formal conducting program gave him the freedom to “create my own path.”

“I began my conducting studies as a sophomore,” he recalls. “Not only did I organize my own ‘lab’ orchestras by bribing friends with pizza and soda, [Emelyne] Bingham also allowed me to share the podium with her during the Vanderbilt Opera Theatre production of Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte.  She had me conduct the entire first act, which was a monumental first experience for me.”

Lee went on to take Blair’s conducting courses and study privately with Fountain during the next two years.

“He would fast become my mentor and friend, a relationship that has continued into the present,” Lee says.

Dean Whiteside understands the advantages of Blair’s approach. Whiteside, who earned his bachelor’s in viola and philosophy in 2010, was admitted to the prestigious Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien during his junior year—a notable accomplishment—but deferred until he could finish his Blair degree. He now studies conducting in Vienna full time and recently made his European debut conducting the Ruse Philharmonic (Bulgaria) on tour.

“Music-making should be a dialogue,” Whiteside says, “and this is what Blair excels at creating.”

Michael Hersch, regarded as being among today’s foremost pianists, was 25 when he won first prize in the American Composers Awards. He was one of the youngest recipients ever of a Guggenheim Fellowship in composition. He serves on the composition faculty of the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University.

How an artist or composer brings a work into being varies individually. As opposed to visual art, which is usually a solitary exercise, composing music cannot be entirely a one-on-one experience. The composer needs musicians as intermediaries to define the work for an audience. In the case of Images from a Closed Ward, the creative cycle began with visual artist Michael Mazur’s etchings individually eliciting a response from composer Michael Hersch. Hersch then set about translating his feelings about the images musically, ultimately to be interpreted by the Blair String Quartet and rendered to many people in an audience, making the process one of creativity as domino effect.

“The fact that it was something visual [as a catalyst] was a new experience for me,” Hersch says. “It’s not about trying to render these [images] musically, it’s more a shared experience. I found in these images something that I was feeling already, and they became, for lack of a better word, sort of companions with me in the journey of writing this piece.

“What I see in the artwork is a shared terrain,” he says, “[the artwork and music] share similar human landscape. Below the surface feels quite similar.”

How Hersch brings that shared human landscape to the music is enhanced by his titles for each of the 12 movements in the work.

“Most of his movements have expressive titles,” violinist Christian Teal says. “The third movement says ‘longing, quiet, extreme grief.’”

“The second [movement] is ‘ferociously,’” adds violinist Connie Heard. “The 11th movement says ‘raging violently throughout,’ and it was some of the most loud, ‘raging violently throughout’ music that we’ve ever played.”

The climactic 11th movement is a massive contrapuntal movement that reminds the quartet of Beethoven’s “Grosse Fuge”, originally written as the last movement of the Opus 130 Quartet in E flat Major. This piece has been described by NPR commentator Cathy Fuller as “a roller-coaster ride: Beethoven takes four voices, fully engaged and throbbing at high speeds, and drives them to the edge of a cliff before stopping them on a dime to listen to the vastness of silence.”

“This movement is quite long also,” Heard says. “The difference is that in [Beethoven’s] ‘Grosse Fuge,’ there are moments of relief and moments of melodic beauty. In the ‘raging violently throughout,’ there is no relief. It was a very intense experience to read it the first time and say, ‘Wow, how are we going to do this?’”

The Blair String Quartet will premiere Michael Hersch’s Images from a Closed Ward on Feb. 17, 2012, at Ingram Hall. The New York City premiere will take place on April 5, 2012, at Weill Recital Hall in Carnegie Hall.

“It’s interesting that for the movement right before that movement, [Hersch] writes the word ‘frozen’ over that, and it’s a very sparse, quiet movement,” Teal says.

“It makes a shocking moment that much more shocking,” violist John Kochanowski says.

“My expectation would be that if someone had the experience of looking at these images,” Hersch says, “and they separately had the experience of listening to the music, it wouldn’t be surprising that they came away with similar feelings, even though each person is going to bring something different to the table.

“That’s one of the wonderful things about art.”

The rising junior from Dallas (Class of 2013) is pursuing a double major in voice at the Blair School of Music and economics in the College of Arts and Science.

A country singer who hails from Colleyville, Texas, he wowed audiences with his rendition of Tim McGraw’s “Live Like You Were Dying” in his first audition.

The show is similar to American Idol in that home viewers vote for their favorites. What’s unique is that the judges, including pop songstress Christina Aguilera and country crooner Blake Shelton, select which contestants they would like to mentor during the competition based on hearing them—but not seeing them—perform.

Founder’s Medalist: Lillian Elizabeth Johnson
Banner Bearer: Madeline Sarah Myers
Alma Mater Vocalist: Hilary Elizabeth White
Commencement Performer: Blake Anthony Johnson (cello)
Student Marshals: Erin Mara Steigerwald and John A. Woller III


AWARDS

Dean Mark Wait (left) and Chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos with Blair Founder’s Medalist Lillian Johnson during Commencement ceremonies.

Sigma Alpha Iota College Honor Award: Lara Marie Pitts
Sigma Alpha Iota Scholastic Award: Kathryn Gay Heaton
Achievement in Teaching Recognition Award: Lauren Elizabeth Pratt
The Blair Volunteer Service through Music Award: Andrew Henry Silverstein and Michelle Kiyoko Godbee
Martin Williams Award: Lillian Elizabeth Johnson
Robin Nell Dickerson Award: Kathryn Gay Heaton
Delene Laubenheim McClure Memorial Prize in Opera: Thomas Boatwright Mulder
Confroy-Lijoi Award: John Charles Fontaine and Brent Stanley Baker
Magda Lachs Award: Matthew Benjamin Edquist
L. Howard “Zeke” Nicar Award: Thomas Robert Crespo
Jean Keller Heard Prize: Justin Edward Goldsmith, Kelsey Elizabeth Hudson and Dana Jillian Kelley
Sue Brewer Award: Andrew Henry Silverstein
Richard C. Cooper Award: Allison Drucker Winstein
Gall/Martin Collaborative Arts Award: Paul Jeremy Dab
Elliott and Ailsa Newman Prize: Audrey Olivia Whittle
S.S and I.M.F. Marsden Award: Erin Mara Steigerwald
David Rabin Prize: Christopher Daniel Lowry
Margaret Branscomb Prize: Luke Sebastian Witchger
Presser Award: Lindsey Elizabeth Reymore



Newly elected members of the Eta Iota Chapter of Pi Kappa Lambda, the music honor society

Dean Mark Wait presents Lara Pitts with the Sigma Alpha Iota College Honor Award during award ceremonies held in April as Associate Dean Pam Schneller looks on.

Class of 2011
Paul Jeremy Dab
Michelle Kiyoko Godbee
Emily Cannon Green
Maria Grace Hibbard
Lillian Elizabeth Johnson
Scott Franklin Lee
Madeline Sarah Myers
Anna Victoria Perretta
Erin Mara Steigerwald
John Arnold Woller III
Class of 2012
Peter Neil Dayton III
Caroline Marie Hart
Jeannette Lucie Mathieu
Lindsey Elizabeth Reymore
Meredith Mallison Vaughan

How Hersch and the quartet came to work together is described by both as serendipitous.

“I had been asked a fair number of times over the last two decades to write string quartets,” Hersch says, “but there was nothing in my imagination, nothing in my mind’s ear. I didn’t think that I could write a good one. I wanted to write other things, and I didn’t hear a string quartet.

“It was an extraordinary confluence of events,” he says. “If they had contacted me two or three months earlier, I would have said no. It’s as simple as that.”

The ignition point, as Hersch calls it, for writing a string quartet was living with prints by the American visual artist Michael Mazur, whom Hersch met in Rome in 2000. Mazur’s The Inferno of Dante, an exhibition of 41 etchings with accompanying texts translated into English, was being shown at the American Academy in Rome at the time. As Hersch wrote in his composer’s note to the piece for the Blair String Quartet, “Although we worked in different mediums, I often felt that Mazur understood what I was doing better than most.” A friendship developed between the two artists.

Hersch acquired some of Mazur’s prints in 2008 from the Closed Ward and Locked Ward series of etchings done in the early 1960s. They hang in his work space.

In mid-2009, “this amazing period of serendipitous events happened,” Hersch says. “My mind’s ear started composing a string quartet around these images of Mazur’s, and then I was going to contact him.” Instead, Hersch read of Mazur’s death in a newspaper the day before he planned to reach him. “Not more than a few months later, I was contacted by the Blair String Quartet.”

The Blair String Quartet listened to 30 or 40 different composers before deciding that they wanted to ask Michael Hersch to compose a piece for them. Each member of the quartet was inspired by different aspects of Hersch’s work.

“For me,” says John Kochanowski, professor of viola, “it was a certain passion that he brings to every piece he’s written, and a discovery of voicing, as Beethoven voiced so beautifully. Michael has that ability to voice for four people in an extraordinary way. He really understands the conversational attitude, the parameters, the darkness, the ecstasy. We were excited by the possibility that he could be a great quartet composer.”

“We also wanted a prominent American composer who had not written for string quartet, so that this would bring some attention as the first string quartet of his work,” says Christian Teal, Joseph Joachim Professor of Violin.

Connie Heard, Valere Blair Potter Professor of Violin, honed in on Hersch’s ability to focus. “When we first listened to him,” she says, “we listened to some short piano pieces that he was playing. They were beautiful, very personal and focused—they weren’t trying to do a lot of things. He will have the kernel of an idea and really develop that kernel rather than trying to do six different things at once.

“He’s not bound by the instruments he’s writing for. He’s not afraid to be stark,” she says. “He’s not afraid to be performed only once.”

“When you hear this piece, it’s not going to be something a string quartet would sound like. It’s not necessarily going to follow those parameters. The voice that you hear in his music is original.”

- Felix Wang

Felix Wang, associate professor of cello, was impressed by Hersch’s artistic integrity. “When you hear this piece, it’s not going to be something a string quartet would sound like. It’s not necessarily going to follow those parameters. The voice that you hear in his music is original.”

“I think we just lucked out with the timing,” Heard says, “where he was in his life, where he was with his composing. His thoughts were that we just happened to drop in at the right time.”

Hersch was somewhat familiar with the Blair String Quartet as well.

“I’d never met any of them before,” Hersch says, “but I knew John’s name, because he was with the Concord Quartet, and I heard them a lot when I was younger. So he was very familiar to me, even though I didn’t know him. And I had known of the Blair quartet’s reputation broadly, because they had been around a long time in different iterations. All I had to do was hear them, and I listened to them a fair amount and was very excited.

“It just felt right, and deciding to write a piece for someone, a group or an individual, is a very serious commitment,” he says. “A lot has to be right. It’s as intimate a connection as you can have in terms of creating something.”

Kochanowski agrees. “There is no way to write a string quartet without tremendous intimacy,” he says. “Because of our four ways of discussing, arguing, doing everything we do with each other musically, I think it’s a challenge for someone to say, ‘I want to get involved in that discussion with four human beings.’”

Writing the piece took less time than the quartet expected, with the score delivered to them about six months earlier than originally projected. Now that they have the score, there will be much more interaction between Hersch and the quartet, though, as Hersch puts it, the collaboration begins when you know for whom you’re writing.

“A lot of people think that there has to be a lot of back and forth, and that does happen,” he says, “but in this case, the process of composing the piece went relatively quickly, and the biggest part they played was that I felt that I could write whatever I wanted. That is participatory. That doesn’t mean that things won’t change after they start working on it,” he explains, “but I knew who I was writing for from the very beginning, and that’s a major collaboration in and of itself.”

The quartet met Hersch last February, when he came to Blair with his brother, horn player Jamie Hersch, and cellist Daniel Gaisford for a performance of Hersch’s Last Autumn for horn and cello. Hearing the piece, written in two parts and lasting two and a half hours, was revelatory for the quartet.

“The piece was stunningly beautiful, powerful,” Heard says. “The idea that someone could make French horn and cello work for two and a half hours is original and bold, and he is both those things. He is not a composer who is always trying to get his works performed. He’s writing for the purity of what he wants to write.”

Hersch puts it this way: “At the end of the day, one of the most important things for a composer is to feel that whatever the composer is writing feels necessary. So, if I’m going to write for a string quartet, I have to feel that the music I want to express, it’s necessary that it be a string quartet. It couldn’t have been anything else. And if you do a good job, all the things that are important to the musicians will follow.

“I was deeply moved that they approached me,” he says, “because it meant that they felt something in my work that they connected with. I will assure you that not everybody gets what I do,” he says with a laugh, “so when people do connect with it, that’s meaningful to me. It means that there’s something there that’s worth pursuing, because it doesn’t happen with regularity.”

“The performer/composer relationship can be very complicated,” Wang says. “Ultimately, it can be very rewarding, but it can be complicated because you have these artistic personalities that by nature have strong opinions. But the creative process of taking a piece of music, learning it and eventually performing it and letting it come to life is very satisfying. Spending time in collaboration with someone you deem artistically inspiring is very satisfying.

“And selfishly,” he adds, “we just want to be part of the process of bringing to life a masterwork.”

A CELEBRATION CONCERT HONORING MARTHA RIVERS INGRAM

September 18, 3 p.m.
Ingram Hall
Martha Rivers Ingram has been a longtime patron of the Blair School of Music, Vanderbilt University and the arts in Nashville. This fall, Mrs. Ingram relinquishes her position as chair of Blair’s KeyBoard after 16 years of dedicated service and stewardship. Please join us for a special concert featuring both new and long-beloved faculty artists and ensembles as we honor Mrs. Ingram for helping Blair become what it is today and will be in the future.

Schocker’s Suite Française for Flute and Piano featuring Philip Dikeman, flute, and Melissa Rose, piano
Strauss’s Sonata in E-flat, Op. 18 featuring Carolyn Huebl, violin, and Mark Wait, piano
Debussy’s Première Rhapsodie featuring Bil Jackson, clarinet, and Amy Dorfman, piano
Ravel’s Quartet in F Major featuring the Blair String Quartet

A wine reception in the lobby will follow the performance.
Presented by Chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos and Lydia Howarth, Dean Mark Wait and Deborah Wait,
and the Blair School of Music KeyBoard

Bill Monroe’s 100th Birthday Celebration

September 28, 7 p.m.
Ingram Hall
The Blair School of Music and the Country Music Hall of Fame join forces to celebrate what would have been the 100th birthday of bluegrass pioneer and founding father Bill Monroe. The evening will be a retrospective of Monroe’s life accompanied by video, live music and stories, featuring top names in country and bluegrass. Be sure to watch blair.vanderbilt.edu for more details about this very special celebration. This is a ticketed event.

Sponsored by the Sartain Lanier Family Foundation

The Blair String Quartet with special guest Bil Jackson, clarinet

October 14, 8 p.m.
Ingram Hall
Bil Jackson, new associate professor of clarinet at Blair and a renowned performer, joins the quartet for a performance of the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings by Mozart, one of the great works of chamber music. The program opens with the String Quartet No.1, Op. 49 of Dmitri Shostakovich and closes with Ravel’s only string quartet.

Sponsored by Marsha and Ken Mifflin

BLAIR PRESENTS

A Special Evening with the Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet

October 27, 8 p.m.
Ingram Hall
After a hugely successful Blair debut last fall, the world’s most celebrated wind quintet returns by
popular demand, with an exciting and wide-ranging program showcasing their range of expression, their
tonal spectrum and their conceptual unity. Don’t miss this rare opportunity to enjoy these world-class artists.

Sponsored by an anonymous friend of the Blair School of Music
Blair thanks the Hutton Hotel for providing accommodations for the members of the Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet
Artist management for the Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet provided by David Rowe Artists

Audra McDonald

November 15, 8 p.m.
Steve and Judy Turner Recital Hall
Winner of four Tony Awards, Broadway legend Audra McDonald returns to the concert stage after four seasons on the hit ABC television series Private Practice. The two-time Grammy winner will perform an intimate evening of favorite show tunes, classic songs from the movies, and original pieces written expressly for her. McDonald is an extraordinary artist who is at the height of her expressive powers.

Sponsored by the Mary Cortland Ragland Master Series Fund

Cellist Laurence Lesser performs Bach’s Six Suites for Solo Cello in a two-concert presentation

December 3, 8 p.m. and December 4, 1:30 p.m.
Steve and Judy Turner Recital Hall
Laurence Lesser was a top prize winner in the 1966 Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, and has been soloist with orchestras around the world. One of the foremost cello pedagogues in the world, he has taught at the New England Conservatory of Music since 1974, where he was also the president for 13 years. He was teaching assistant to legendary cellist Gregor Piatigorsky and was a guest on the historic Heifetz-Piatigorsky concerts and recordings. As part of his residency, he will also present master classes and lectures. Check the Blair website for the latest details.

These are just a few of the concerts scheduled for your enjoyment.
Visit the website at http://blair.vanderbilt.edu for more information about concerts and events at the Blair School of Music.

Emelyne Bingham, senior lecturer of the teaching of music, returned to Conroe, Texas, as artistic director of the 27th Annual Young Texas Artists Music Competition last March at Conroe’s historic Crighton Theatre.

Allan Cox, professor of trumpet, conducted a brass sectional for the Indiana All-State Orchestra in January in Fort Wayne. In early February he presented a weeklong brass seminar in San Jose, Costa Rica, for youth orchestra directors as part of the Costa Rican SiNEM and Blair School of Music educational collaboration. His trumpet and organ CD, Hymnus, recorded with his wife, Hildegard Holland Cox, was released in June by Mark Custom Recording Service in New York.

Jen Gunderman, senior lecturer of musicology and ethnomusicology, recorded extensively in Austin, Texas, and Nashville, including sessions with Lyle Lovett, Patty Griffin, Roseanne Cash, Rambling Jack Elliot, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Shawn Colvin and others for a Guy Clark tribute project. She also performed with Steve Cropper, Foster and Lloyd and other musicians at a Kick the Crap Outta Cancer benefit concert in Nashville, and welcomed members of Old Crow Medicine Show and Widespread Panic to her History of Rock Music class.

Jared Hauser, assistant professor of oboe, appeared as soloist with the National Music Festival Orchestra in June performing Blauth’s Concertino for Oboe and String Orchestra. He served as an oboe mentor and as principal oboist of the National Music Festival Orchestra in May and June and was oboe instructor at Interlochen Center for the Arts in July and August.

Karen Ann Krieger, associate professor of piano and piano pedagogy, was cited at the March 2011 MTNA Conference in Milwaukee for her contribution to the new pedagogy textbook Creative Piano Teaching by James Lyke (Stipes Publishing). Karen also spoke at a memorial held in Milwaukee to honor the life of piano pedagogue Robert Pace. In April, she judged the St. Louis Young Artists piano competition.
Valerie Middleton, adjunct artist teacher of piano, adjudicated students at the Tennessee Music Teacher’s annual conference in June.

Joe Rea Phillips, senior artist teacher of guitar, had his course Tai Chi for Musicians featured in an article that was published by Examiner.com, an online news publication.

Deanna Walker, adjunct artist teacher of piano, co-wrote (with Amanda Havard, BS’08, MEd’10) and produced a song for the release of The Survivors, the first in a five-book series of young adult books written by Havard. Chris Mann, BMus’04, was the artist. “Pretty Girl,” the first of several songs for the series, is on Chris’s YouTube channel and available on iTunes. The video was produced by Gaby Romanoski (BA’10).

Former students came from as near as Nashville and as far away as Afghanistan to celebrate with Jane (back row, fourth from right) and Frank Kirchner (back row farthest left) at the retirement reception held for them on May 14 in the lobby of the Martha Rivers Ingram Center for the Performing Arts at Blair.

Cindy Steine, who served as director of external relations at Blair for more than 10 years, left Nashville to join her husband, Raoul Russell, who is a member of the diplomatic corps at the United States Embassy in Nicosia, Cyprus. Cindy joined the Blair School in 2001 as part of the team that inaugurated the Martha Rivers Ingram Center for the Performing Arts, directing the school’s public relations, venue management and community relations initiatives.

In 1987, Dikeman began his professional career when he was appointed principal flute of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, a position he held for five seasons. Prior to joining the DSO, he played principal flute for a short period with the San Antonio Symphony. He has also played guest principal flute with the Minnesota Orchestra and the St. Louis Symphony, and most recently joined the Los Angeles Philharmonic on its 2010 U.S. Tour as guest associate principal flutist.

Bil Jackson joins the Blair School as associate professor of clarinet. He enjoys a varied musical career that includes solo, orchestral and chamber music appearances. Jackson is the principal clarinetist with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra and the Aspen Chamber Symphony and has performed as principal clarinetist with the Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Minnesota, Cincinnati and Honolulu symphony orchestras. He also has appeared as a soloist with the Colorado, Honolulu, Denver, Charlotte, Dallas Chamber and Aspen Chamber orchestras.

Jackson was most recently professor of clarinet at the University of Northern Colorado and is on the artist-faculty of the Aspen Music Festival. He has also served on the faculties of the University of Texas, University of Colorado and Duquesne University. Jackson studied at the Interlochen Arts Academy, where he won the Academy’s Concerto Competition three times and was awarded the gold medal for superlative musicianship upon graduation. He continued his formal study at Northwestern University with Robert Marcellus. Jackson is the only player ever to win the International Clarinet Competition twice, and he was a finalist in the Prague International Clarinet Competition.

Brian Utley has been named adjunct associate professor of saxophone at Blair. Previously, he was associate professor of saxophone at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas. The Owensboro, Ky., native received the doctor of musical arts in saxophone performance, with a minor in music theory, from Louisiana State University. He also holds the master of music from Louisiana State University and the bachelor of music from Murray State University. His primary saxophone teachers include Griffin Campbell and Scott Erickson.

Utley maintains a highly active performance schedule and has been a featured soloist with the Shreveport Symphony Orchestra and the Stephen F. Austin State University Wind Ensemble. He is a regular performer at regional and national conferences of the North American Saxophone Alliance and has also performed at conferences of the Texas chapter of the National Association of Composers, USA, the 2003 World Saxophone Congress, the 2006 Conference of the International Clarinet Association, and the 2011 University of Alabama-Huntsville New Music Festival. He also performs in a variety of chamber music settings and is a co-founder of the award-winning Red Stick Saxophone Quartet. He has recorded on the New Tertian Records and Magni Publications labels.

At the International School of Kabul in Afghanistan, Blair alumna Amanda Earnest leads her students in music-making activities not unlike those taught to children in the United States.

Boom! The cannon blasts at the end of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture. The eighth-graders in my music class don’t react, they just listen. To me, it is a great moment of pure genius. To end a piece of music celebrating the victory of war with a cannon blast should get some sort of reaction of excitement: wide eyes, a jump in the seat, a quick turn of the head. I get no reaction from them. However, I, on the other hand, am fighting back tears. Just to take a moment and analyze what I am doing, playing an almost 200-year-old piece of music about war to a group of students who have grown up in war can be a little overwhelming at times. After the piece ends, I ask the class, “What was that sound at the end of the piece?”

“A bomb?” one student asks. I tell him that is a good guess, but that it is a cannon blast, because in those days they didn’t use bombs in war, they used cannons. “Oh,” the student says.

Then I ask, “What if someone here in Afghanistan wrote a piece of music to celebrate the end of the Soviet invasion, the end of the Taliban regime, or to celebrate the new democracy? Wouldn’t that be a great way to celebrate your country’s victory?”

“Yes!” they all chime in with agreement. As a class we talk about how cool it would be, and how the composer could take the melodies of their childhood songs and incorporate them into the work. “Then people would recognize it,” one student says.

Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture is an orchestral piece historically associated with war. There are other pieces that are not conveying the sounds of war at all, yet these children hear war sounds. For instance, a few weeks later I play Handel’s “Hornpipe” from Water Music for my second-grade class. As we pass out their music listening journals, I remind them of the instructions. I say, “Listen to the piece of music and finish the sentence, ‘When I listen to this piece of music, the picture I paint in my head is …,’ then draw a picture at the bottom of the page of the picture you see in your head.”

It’s Handel’s Water Music. It’s majestic and somewhat triumphant. Surely they’ll associate it with a happy image. Though a couple of girls draw pictures of princesses in castles, as I collect their journals I am mostly face to face with pictures of war—battles, blood-stained people and people in victory standing over dead bodies holding a gun in the air.

These children live in a world that is not normal, and I teach at a school that is the only one of its kind. I live in Kabul, Afghanistan, and teach music at the International School of Kabul. I teach preschool through eighth-grade music, direct the high school choir and teach a high school general music class that takes an academic look at the history of music and hopefully instills in the students a new appreciation of all music. This school is the only college preparatory, U.S.-accredited school in the country of Afghanistan. I live in a gated compound and walk across the street to my classroom. At our gates are guards holding guns ready to protect us at a moment’s notice. There are many times that we do not get to leave the compound, because there are direct threats to Americans outside our gates. This is normal life here, and for my students, it’s the only life they know.

Earnest teaches music to students at the International School of Kabul from preschool through eighth grade, directs the high school choir and teaches a high school music appreciation class.

The music of Afghanistan is comprised of the sounds of helicopters flying overhead so low that the house shakes. The sound of a bomb blast is more common than the sound of a thunderstorm. The kindergarten teacher told me a story of a thunderstorm that came through last spring, and the whole class jumped in fear, running to the windows of the classroom to see the dark clouds.

When I shake the thunder tube instrument in music class, the children scream, but then they suddenly hear a low tremolo coming from outside that is quickly making its way toward our building. As the ground starts to shake violently, we wonder if it’s a bomb. After it passes, the debate begins. Was it a bomb or an earthquake? After a few seconds they realize that it was just a bomb. Just a bomb. Really? I ask myself, have I become so numb to the reality of this war zone that even I think, “It’s just a bomb”?

The next day at school, there is no discussion about it. Not even the kindergarteners talk about it during morning circle time. But, if there had been a thunderstorm, they would have walked into the classroom talking about it.

Last spring a bomb hit a loaded public bus about a half-mile from our school. We heard and felt the blast in the classroom. There was a pregnant pause at the time, and then life went on. I remember some of the students talking about it the next day, only because as they rode home after school, they had seen the bodies of the victims lying on the side of the road. No tears were shed. These children have not been taught to cry when someone dies.

This is normal life here, but it is not normal. I am a Commodore living in Kabul, and my music is not the music I played at the Blair School when I was an undergraduate. My music is comprised of the sounds of helicopters flying low, bombs blasting so close that the ground shakes and children crying at thunderstorms.

Thomas Verrier, associate professor and director of wind studies at Blair (in green shirt), saw great potential for Blair’s involvement in Costa Rica’s SiNEM program during his first visit to the country two years ago.

The small Central American country of Costa Rica is famous for its rich natural resources and for its exceptional political stability in a part of the world that has seen much upheaval. In spite of these advantages, Costa Rica is troubled by poverty and its attendant problems. The country’s democratic government is committed to offering the Costa Rican people opportunities to improve their lives, and one of its initiatives is a remarkable music education program, Sistema Nacional de Educacion Musical, generally known as SiNEM. Modeled on Venezuela’s renowned El Sistema youth orchestra program, SiNEM is dedicated to providing high-quality music training to children from all walks of life in all areas of the country.

When Thomas Verrier, associate professor and director of wind studies, traveled to Costa Rica two years ago at the invitation of SiNEM’s director, Ricardo Vargas, he was impressed with the vast potential of the program, which was then in its first year. He also saw a possible role for the Blair School. “I was excited to come down and see what was happening,” he recalls. “I immediately saw an opportunity to help them in several ways.”

Verrier returned to Nashville with a proposal to create a partnership between SiNEM and Blair—an idea that was warmly received by Dean Mark Wait.

“I spoke with Dean Wait about what was happening there, the energy and commitment of the instructors, the joy in the kids’ faces,” Verrier says, “and he shared my excitement at the potential for the Blair School to assist on a larger scale.”

For his part, Dean Wait saw involvement with SiNEM as very much in keeping with Blair’s primary mission. Noting that Blair began as a pre-collegiate academy, he observes that music education for younger students is “part of our DNA.” He saw support of SiNEM as an exceptional chance for Blair to extend its work.

“To be able to participate in that kind of effort at the ground level is a great honor,” Wait says, “and an opportunity that we simply could not let pass.”

Last April, Wait and Verrier traveled to Costa Rica together to meet with Vargas and the Costa Rican Minister of Culture to discuss specific ways that Blair might assist SiNEM, and, as Verrier puts it, “come to a mutually beneficial understanding between the institutions.” Wait, who had not previously visited Costa Rica, became even more enthusiastic about the partnership after witnessing SiNEM in action. He was particularly impressed by a visit to an orphanage, where he saw a dozen or more children under 12 playing violins.

“Seeing these children, so accomplished in spite of their circumstances,” Wait says, “was one of the most deeply moving experiences of my life. For us to have any kind of role in that is a great privilege.”

Blair’s Thomas Verrier works with conducting student Sergio Cubero Mata during a Thanksgiving workshop with SiNEM instructors in Costa Rica.

A blueprint for training teachers
The blueprint for Blair’s partnership with SiNEM is designed to assist the Costa Rican program in its unique challenges. Unlike Venezuela’s El Sistema, which serves a largely urban population, SiNEM is focused on reaching children in rural, often remote communities. The program currently has more than two dozen established programs across the country. About half that number are music schools where the students have the opportunity to take theory and musicianship classes, while the rest are orchestral or ensemble programs, which often have just three instructors for 200 or more children. These students get little individual instruction, though—unlike in the Venezuelan El Sistema program—they all get real instruments to play within a few months of beginning the program. The universal allocation of instruments represents a substantial financial investment and is a measure of the Costa Rican government’s commitment to the program.

The focus of Blair’s contribution has been on the training of SiNEM instructors. As Verrier points out, university music degrees in Costa Rica are essentially performance degrees.

“Their instruction in pedagogy and teaching is not sufficient for the demands on an instructor in SiNEM,” Verrier says, “especially in the programs with only three instructors.”

To supplement the instructors’ training, Verrier began teaching workshops in Costa Rica, and in January 2010, four SiNEM instructors arrived in Nashville for three weeks of study on conducting, pedagogy and musicianship.

In 2011, Blair and SiNEM will commence a formal program, the SiNEM Institute for Professional Development (SiNEM Instituto de Desarrollo Profesional), which will provide a two-track course of study, each track consisting of eight classes covering the different instruments. All of the classes will be taught in Costa Rica by Blair faculty, during two-week sessions in February and August. The 2011 courses will focus on pedagogy, and in 2012, the institute will add another track devoted to conducting. Participants will receive certification for each track as well as a professional credential on completion of the entire two-year program. That accreditation will come with the stamp of Blair as well as the Ministry of Education of Costa Rica. In addition, Blair will continue to bring a few SiNEM instructors to Nashville every year, eventually instituting a third level of professional study.

Four Costa Rican music educators traveled to Nashville in February for three weeks of instruction and observation with Blair faculty. Here (second row, from left), Christian Alvarado Rodriguez, Marco Mora Solis, Ana Cecilia Umanzar Rodriguez and Roxana Patricia Borges Rojas observe as Blair junior Phillip Franklin (foreground) takes a turn in a choral conducting class. Blair students (front row, from left) Sarah Wood, Ryan Parker and Drew Silverstein look on.

Roxana Patricia Borges Rojas (center) and Ana Cecilia Umanzar Rodriguez (back to camera) in a keyboard harmony class with Blair’s Karen Ann Krieger (left), associate professor of piano and piano pedagogy.

In addition to development classes for SiNEM personnel, the partnership will provide opportunities for Blair’s fifth-year master’s students in teacher education to do internships in Costa Rica. The first group of three students went last year, each one spending 10 days with a different SiNEM program out in the countryside. They stayed with SiNEM instructors and, says Verrier, “lived locally, ate locally and really were immersed.” He describes the experience as “enormously valuable” for the students, and looks forward to sending a group every November. Beyond the formal course program, Blair faculty will also be taking part in SiNEM-sponsored master classes and performances. Robin Fountain, professor of conducting and director of the Vanderbilt Orchestra, will be conducting the Costa Rican National Youth Symphony Orchestra this spring, and the Blair String Quartet has been invited to appear.

SiNEM’s administration sees the Blair partnership as an invaluable aid to the program. Sandra Herrera, SiNEM’s national academic coordinator, says the training has already been “extremely helpful” to the instructors, and describes the partnership as a “great opportunity to encourage and support our instructors with pedagogical tools that will greatly benefit the students.” Melissa Pacheco, who heads the production department at SiNEM, notes that, with the high student-to-teacher ratio, the Blair training helps instructors teach each instrument and conduct rehearsals more effectively. Beyond that, she says, “It has been encouraging to have such a prestigious school help us so generously.”

Nashville Symphony Music Director Giancarlo Guerrero, who grew up in Costa Rica and has worked extensively with Venezuela’s El Sistema, observes that SiNEM has radically improved the opportunities for music education across the country.

“It makes me very happy,” Guerrero says, “to see that in my own country now, kids in little towns and little communities are starting to have access to music education.” He regards this kind of grassroots training as “the future of classical music,” and he lauds the role Blair is playing in this change. “It’s very important that they are providing them with expertise and advice.”

As everyone involved in the Blair-SiNEM partnership is quick to stress, the benefits of the program go far beyond music education. Pacheco says that the primary goal is “to help children and teenagers transform their lives through music. It gives them a chance to change their future and open their minds to new opportunities.” Herrera notes that the positive change in the children ultimately benefits “family, neighbors and the whole community.” As Guerrero puts it, “First and foremost this is a social program.” Along with bringing the kids to classical music, he says, programs like SiNEM and El Sistema are about “keeping young people off the streets and giv[ing] them something meaningful to do.”

As Dean Wait sees it, the long-range benefits of SiNEM provide an enormous return on Blair’s investment.

“This is a project that will have significant ramifications in the lives of these students 50, 60 or 70 years from now,” Wait says. “That’s about as good as it gets in terms of having influence and bringing good into the world.”

Blythe Barkley Bonnaffons’ first teaching job has taken her to Cairo, Egypt, where she has had the experience of riding a camel to visit the pyramids of Giza in the desert outside Cairo.

The sound of “Allahu Akbar” several times daily and the permeating dust of the desert surrounding the Nile Valley have changed very little since Napoleon’s entourage first described the city of Cairo, Egypt, in the early 19th century. But for Blythe Barkley Bonnafons, BMus’09, MEd’10, a “world of experiences” awaits outside her classroom door, and every experience becomes a lesson for this newly minted educator.

As a first-year teacher of English and music to primary students at the International School of Choueifat, Bonnaffons has the opportunity to visit many of the glories of Egypt: the pyramids and the Sphinx, the Citadel and the Egyptian Museum. She’s also experienced the challenges of life in an unfamiliar country far from home.

“This city is dusty and polluted, the traffic is crazy and often the simplest errand becomes a huge ordeal,” she says. “But Cairo also holds extraordinary beauty. Alongside the most dismal of buildings, mosques and other magnificent structures are built. Above car horns and the shouts of vendors, you can always hear the call to prayer projected over loudspeakers. I love it here.”

Bonnaffons is the first graduate of Blair’s five-year bachelor of music/master of education program to teach abroad in the program’s 14-year history, says Associate Professor Thomas Verrier, director of teacher education and wind studies. “She’s a wonderful musician and incredibly open to new possibilities,” he says.

The International School of Choueifat, a private school with close to 1,700 students, attracts the sons and daughters of leading Egyptian families, including the country’s minister of education.

“I have taught privately and spent time in classrooms connected with my education degree, but this is my first ‘real’ teaching job,” Bonnaffons says.

Her students are remarkably similar to American children. “They’re full of energy, generally want to please and often get distracted by their peers,” she says. “And their parents are very, very heavily involved in their children’s academic life.”

Blythe Bonnaffons leads her music students during the annual Christmas concert at the Choueifat School in Cairo, where she teaches.

Her two English classes are very small, but the 10 music classes contain 32 students each. All instruction is in English, which is the second language for most students, and teachers and students alike are discouraged from speaking Arabic.

“Classroom management is a huge challenge,” she says. “But it still amazes me how a neon bassoon sticker can make the worst kid behave for 55 minutes.”

A flutist, Bonnaffons has difficulty finding time for her own music since she’s staging two musicals this year: Oliver for the middle-school students and Annie for the second- to fourth-graders. “Most of my free practice time is spent trying to get the piano score under my fingers,” she says ruefully.

Her Blair classes definitely helped prepare Bonnaffons for her new position. “All the courses I took on general music were really helpful as far as offering me practical knowledge and tons of resources I can use in the classroom,” she says.

She notes that teaching in a foreign country can be “incredibly lonely” at times. “Teaching itself is a challenge, stepping outside your own culture puts you at another level of vulnerability. But that vulnerability is largely what attracts me to teaching abroad. I can admit that I don’t know anything. I am as much a learner as I am a teacher.”

Editor’s Note:
At press time, President Hosni Mubarak had just stepped down as president of Egypt after 18 days of protests. Blythe Bonnaffons left Cairo at the end of January, after two days at the airport, taking an American chartered flight to Istanbul. Prior to leaving, she took photos of the protests on Friday, January 28, the “day of wrath,” as labeled by Cable News Network. She writes, “My friend Carla and I went to the top of Cairo Tower to watch as the protesters gathered in Midan al Gala, and the police fired tear gas and rubber bullets into the crowd. We watched as a nearby building caught on fire, and protesters sent a police truck up in flames. The protesters made it onto the bridge leading to Tahrir Square, but were knocked back by water hoses. When the call to prayer went off, everything stopped. The protesters kneeled down on the bridge. The police stopped firing. Prayer lasted for about ten minutes, after which the fight continued.”

Bonnaffons returned to Cairo on Sunday, February 20, for the reopening of Chouifat School. She plans to finish the semester teaching there.

Sarah Danielle Williams (top right) went to Haiti last summer as a member of an AidWEST Humanitarian Missions team. While there she learned popular songs in Creole and sang and played flute and guitar with the students.

Sarah Danielle Williams, composition student at Blair, volunteered as part of a seven-person AidWEST Humanitarian Missions in Haiti team in early August. She organized and participated in a spring fundraising concert in Atlanta that raised nearly the entire $900 participation fee so she could volunteer for the team. She contacted various music schools in the weeks prior to the trip, focusing on the Ambassador Music Institute near the capital of Port-au-Prince to address their urgent needs for music education and replacement of instruments (most of which were crushed in the earthquake). While attending the Bard College Conducting Institute earlier in the summer, she met and encouraged another music student to join the AidWEST team and bring down brass, woodwind and string instruments to donate.

While working in the Orphanage Loyal in Croix des Bouquettes and the Muslim Hands Emergency School in Delmas, she learned popular songs in Creole and sang and played flute and guitar to the students. (Despite having only just learned how to play guitar earlier in the summer, she was able to teach some students how to play.)

She hiked to various tent camps in the mountain foothills north and south of the capital, to help in medical aid and to help the team distribute 900 pounds of humanitarian and medical supplies and French books to many victims. She also donated her personal laptop computer to the team translator, so he is now able to continue working as a liaison for AidWEST via the Internet.

The Ars Nova Quartet (Ben Hart, violin; Caroline Hart, violin; Emily Nelson, cello; and Chris Lowry, viola) attended the Vanderbilt Music Academie in Aix-en-Provence, France, last summer.

Music transcends all national and cultural boundaries, and in programs as far-flung as Australia and Japan, Blair students are taking advantage of the chance to educate themselves as citizens of the world. They are broadening their horizons with the full support of their home institution, according to Associate Dean Melissa Rose. “If students can incorporate study abroad into their current degree track,” she says, “it’s easy for them to go.”

According to Rose, 37 Blair students have traveled abroad for academic study during the past three years. Most of them—26—have gone to Vienna through IES Abroad, formerly known as the Institute of European Studies. As Associate Professor of Musicology Joy Calico points out, the students in this program have the opportunity to take private lessons with members of the renowned Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. “They get to experience musical life in one of the cities that has been most important for the historical development of the Western art music canon,” she says. In addition to living and learning in the city that was home to Mozart and Beethoven, the students can hear world-class performances several nights a week.

Other students pursue study in cities around the globe. There is an established IES program in Amsterdam, and through a program at Butler University in Indiana, Blair students have attended the Sydney Conservatorium of Music in Australia. The cities of Leeds, Tokyo and Florence have all served as study destinations for Blair students. Four students go to the Royal Academy of Music in London every other year, part of an exchange program that sends four Royal Academy students to Blair.

As part of the Vanderbilt-in-France program, Blair students can attend the Conservatoire Darius Milhaud during the academic year. This for-credit study is a separate opportunity from the summer program, Vanderbilt Music Academie, which sends a student string quartet and a woodwind quintet to the Aix-en-Provence festival each year. VMA seeks to provide the students with a rich cultural experience during their brief time abroad. In addition to attending master classes with members of the Berlin Philharmonic, the students learn about French cooking and winemaking, as well as devoting time to study of the visual arts and theater.

The Nashville Boychoir and Young Men’s Chorus sang with the Ely Cathedral Choir (above) for two days during their summer tour of England. They also worked with British conductor Stephen Cleobury at Kings College Chapel. The Concert Choir also toured England, though the groups traveled to different areas of the British Isles.

More than 50 members of the Blair Children’s Chorus (Boychoir, Concert Choir and Young Men’s Chorus) gathered on a beautiful summer afternoon last July in London’s historic Southwark Cathedral for a festive concert. This was the grand finale to a week of touring by the Boychoir and Young Men’s Chorus. The tour included two days of singing with Ely Cathedral Choir, a chance to sing for noted British conductor Stephen Cleobury in the world-famous King’s College Chapel (where they also teamed up with former Blair chorister Parker Ramsay, who started as organ scholar there in the fall), and two days of concerts in Yorkshire in the north of England. Meanwhile, the girls of the Concert Choir embarked on a week of workshops and concerts in the west of England, staying at Sherbourne School, with concerts at Sherbourne Abbey and Wells Cathedral and visits to Stonehenge and the city of Bath.

The tours were a triumph for the groups and a wonderful experience for the young singers, their parents and chaperones, accompanists Lauryn Moody and Valerie Matney—not to mention a logistical challenge for Alison Warford as administrator and quite a marathon for Director Hazel Somerville. Somerville was particularly happy when her weekend of chasing choirs all over London (Boychoir arriving on a coach from Yorkshire, Concert Choir arriving at Heathrow, boys staying at one end of London and girls rehearsing the other end of town) came to a successful and satisfying conclusion.

The Atlantic Ensemble (from left, Seanad Dunigan Chang, Kirsten Cassel Greer and Wei Tsun Chang) in front of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.

The Atlantic Ensemble (Kirsten Cassel Greer, adjunct artist teacher of cello; Seanad Dunigan Chang, adjunct artist teacher of violin and viola; and Wei Tsun Chang, adjunct associate professor of violin), gave the world premiere in November of Trio for Violin, Viola and Violoncello: Savannah Shadows by Associate Professor of Composition Michael Kurek in Paris, France, at the American Cathedral of Paris, the Fondation Danoise at Cite Universitaire (sponsored by the Danish government) and a few days later at L’Eglise St. Merri.

Stan Link, associate professor of the philosophy and analysis of music, on the Pyramid of the Moon in Teotihuacan.

Josh McGuire, senior lecturer in aural studies, and Stan Link, associate professor of the philosophy and analysis of music, traveled to Mexico City to premiere Link’s Toda la Tierra, for amplified classical guitar, two speakers and computer-generated accompaniment at the El Chopo Museum last September. The concert was part of the Music of the Stones project, in which visual artist Will Berry commissioned musical responses from several composers, including Blair alum Zach Miskin, BMus’06, to a series of large works he created by printing with rolling discs of lava rock on 30-foot-long Japanese paper. The installation of the scrolls in a gallery of the museum was also accompanied by ambient sound installations, including two extended works commissioned from Link at the beginning of the Music of the Stones project. The source sounds for these pieces included a clay flute that Link brought back from the pyramid city of Teotihuacan 34 years earlier. Ironically, this little souvenir was ultimately what brought McGuire and Link to Mexico City.

McGuire performed Toda La Tierra from a score that Link composed to simulate the 10 paths of the lava disks across the paper as well as the eye’s wandering path over the image. In this respect, McGuire became a kind of “co-composer” of the piece, which is never played the same way twice. By following the connections among the 10 cycles Link composed to represent the 10 lava disks, a new event emerges every time he plays it. McGuire’s trip through this musical labyrinth takes place against a background soundscape that Link constructed entirely from sounds made from paper and rocks. McGuire’s guitar in conjunction with the soundscape then forms the setting for four texts. The texts consist of Mexican poems, both contemporary and ancient, that refer to paper and stones. The title, Toda la Tierra, comes from an Aztec “flower and song” poem by Nezahualcoyot (Hungry Coyote), a poet/ruler who lived in pre-Cortes Mexico from 1402-1472. The poem describes the transience of human life, and ends with the line, “Vanished are these glories, just as the fearful smoke vanishes that belches forth from the infernal fires of Popocatepetl. Nothing recalls them but the written page.” Each of McGuire’s performances then mirrors the transience of human existence—which might be recorded, but can never be recreated.

Gregory Barz, associate professor of musicology (ethnomusicology), was elected to the board of directors of the Society for Ethnomusicology and will serve a two-year term as treasurer. In addition, he has accepted a five-year research fellowship at the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein, South Africa, where he will conduct summer research in neighboring Lesotho on issues related to music and HIV/AIDS. Last fall he co-produced the CD Kampala Flow: East African Hip Hop from Uganda on Nashville’s Lime Pulp Records.

Joy H. Calico, associate professor of musicology, presented a paper entitled “Epic Gesamtkunstwerk” at the national meeting of the German Studies Association in Oakland, Calif., in October and a paper entitled “Schoenberg’s A Survivor from Warsaw in Warsaw (1958)” at the national meeting of the American Musicological Society in Indianapolis, Ind., in November.

Matt Combs, adjunct instructor in fiddling and member of the John Hartford String Band,  garnered a Grammy nomination. The John Hartford String Band CD titled Memories of John on Red Clay/Compass Records was nominated in the category of Best Traditional Folk Album. One of the guest artists who played on the CD is Alison Brown, adjunct artist teacher of banjo.

Elizabeth Eckert, adjunct artist teacher of piano, toured supporting her album Bloomington with stops in Chicago, Bloomington, Ind., Washington D.C., Atlanta and Louisville. In November, she performed for Indiana University’s Colloquium for Women. Eckert was joined by other prestigious presenters including Meryl Streep, Jane Pauley and Noble Prize winner Dr. Elinor Ostrom.

Jen Gunderman, senior lecturer in music history and literature, played at the Americana Music Association and Goose On The Lake festivals; pro bono concerts at the Tennessee Prison for Women and Park Center: Recovery From Mental Illness; and a concert at the Station Inn with bluegrass legend Mike Auldridge. Recent recording session highlights include tracking with Buddy Miller, Patty Griffin and others for a Tom T. Hall tribute album; recording with Kris Kristofferson, Radney Foster, Willie Nelson and others for a Guy Clark tribute album; recording with Todd Snider and Don Was; and recording with Heidi Newfield. She also welcomed Los Angeles punk pioneer Exene Cervenka to her History of Rock class and played a show with her later that night.

Jared Hauser, assistant professor of oboe, had a recent American Record Guide review of his latest solo CD, Operatic Oboe, which raves that Hauser plays “with passion, lyricism and an operatic sensibility.” Operatic Oboe was released late last year by Blue Griffin Records.

Connie Heard, Valere Blair Potter Professor of Violin, taught and performed at the Aspen Music Festival and School during the summer and gave violin and chamber music master classes in Winchester, Mass., in November and in Irvine, Calif., in January.

Michael Holland, senior lecturer in percussion, traveled to Wichita, Kan., in December and January for developmental work on a collaborative project between Blair Percussion VORTEX, musician/computer engineer John Harrison, Hack.Art.Lab, composer Mary Ellen Childs and Jerry Scholl with the Wichita State University Percussion Ensemble, the results of which will be on display at the April VORTEX concert. In February he traveled to Shenandoah Conservatory in Winchester, Va., to provide master classes in the live accompaniment of film, performance practices in the presentation of illustrated popular song of the early 20th century, and performance practices in the music of Eric Stokes, the late Minneapolis composer, with whom he performed at the Walker Art Center and at numerous colleges and universities.

Carolyn Huebl, assistant professor of violin, spent her summer performing chamber music and teaching at the Brevard Music Center in Brevard, N.C. Her recording of the complete sonatas for violin and piano by Alfred Schnittke with Dean Mark Wait was released online in June. It will be released on CD in June 2011 on the Naxos label.

John Kochanowski, associate professor of violin, taught last summer at Charles Castleman’s quartet program at SUNY-Fredonia in New York.     

Karen Ann Krieger, associate professor of piano and piano pedagogy, is a contributor to the fourth edition of Creative Piano Teaching, a highly respected pedagogy textbook by James Lyke. The book will be released in March. Krieger, who serves as collegiate piano chair, is co-author of Technical Development for Young Pianists—A Foundation for Musical Progress.

Michael Kurek, associate professor of composition, had his new Trio for Violin, Viola, and Violoncello: Savannah Shadows given its world premiere in early November by the Atlantic Ensemble (Wei Tsun Chang, Seanad Chang and Kirsten Cassel Greer, click here for more) in Paris, France, at three venues: the American Cathedral of Paris, the Fondation Danoise and L’Eglise St. Merri (next to the Pompidou Centre) and Cassandra Lee, associate professor of clarinet, to play a concert at Michigan State University, was also presented at Tennessee Tech. In addition, she performed for the quarterly meeting of the Atlanta chapter of Mu Phi Epsilon, a national music fraternity.

Maureen May, adjunct instructor in piano, had her solo “Slapstick” selected as one of the required piano solos by the Federation of Music Clubs at the Moderately Difficult II level. This solo, along with other published solos and duets by Maureen May, are available through FJH Music Co.

Jennifer McGuire, senior lecturer in collaborative piano, performed a recital with soprano Melissa Shippen Burrows in Clarksville in September. She then travelled with the Atlantic Ensemble (Click here for more) and Cassandra Lee, associate professor of clarinet, to play a concert at Michigan State University, was also presented at Tennessee Tech. In addition, she performed for the quarterly meeting of the Atlanta chapter of Mu Phi Epsilon, a national music fraternity.

Carol Nies, adjunct senior artist teacher of conducting, served as guest conductor for the Rome Festival Opera and Orchestra last summer. She conducted Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore and eight additional Rome Festival Orchestra and Opera concerts in June and July. She has been invited to return as guest conductor of the Rome Festival Orchestra and Opera (including a performance of Verdi’s Falstaff) for the 2011 season and to serve as conductor of the New York 2011 All-State String Orchestra.

Marianne Ploger, senior artist teacher of musicianship, was in residence last January at Hamilton College, New York, where she presented lecture demonstrations for the brass ensemble and orchestra and served as one of three clinicians at the conducting workshop presented by the Academy for Advanced Conducting. In July, she was in residence at the University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point to provide a special musicianship intensive for its music theory/composition faculty. In July, she served as clinician at the national Art of Wind Band Teaching Symposium at the University of Minnesota, where she gave seven lectures in which she demonstrated and taught her theories of aural perception and cognition to 70 music educators from around the world. In September, David Arcus at Duke University premiered Ploger’s Toccata and Fugue in G Minor, commissioned by the Duke University Divinity School as part of the dedicatory concert for the newly installed Richards, Fowkes & Co. organ. Also in September, she and Keith Hill presented their paper “The Craft of Musical Communication” at the national College Music Society conference in Minneapolis, Minn.

Crystal Plohman, senior artist teacher of fiddling, returned last summer for her ninth year as fiddling instructor at the Chicago Suzuki Institute. Earlier in the year, she traveled to Houston to perform as guest artist and give fiddling workshops at the Fort Bend Day for Strings. She also served as the fiddling workshop instructor in Nashville at the Fine Arts Summer Academy, the Blair School Spring Suzuki Workshop and at the Middle Tennessee Suzuki Association workshop in September.

Jonathan Retzlaff, associate professor of voice, returned to Graz, Austria, for his fourth summer of teaching on the faculty of the American Institute of Music.

Michael Alec Rose, associate professor of composition, had his piece Five Bucolics: A Cycle of Songs on Poems of Maurice Manning (composed for Tony Boutté, tenor) premiered at the University of Miami in late November. He has just completed a piano quartet entitled Burlesques before the Ark.

Helena Simonett, adjunct assistant professor of music literature and history, was invited by the Music Library Association to address the conference participants at the plenary session in San Diego last March on “Mexican Traditional Musics Pushing the Border(s).” She presented a paper entitled “Of Real and Wannabe Narcos: Doing Fieldwork in the Mexican Underworld” at the Annual Meeting of the American Folklore Society in Nashville and another on “Cantos de venado—Deer Songs: New Insights into Mexican Indigenous Performance and Composition Practices” at the International Congress of Musicology in Mexico City. The Journal of Popular Music Studies invited her to contribute an article, “A View from the South: Academic Discourse across Borders,” about canonizing popular music studies. She spent the month of May doing fieldwork among indigenous people in northwestern Mexico. While in Mexico, she gave a lecture at the Autonomous University of Sinaloa in Mazatlán on narco-music and another at the Casa Pérez Meza on the grupero movement. The latter was attended by students and faculty of the two major music schools in Mazatlán.

Michael Slayton, associate professor of music, had his piece Le Soir Tombe receive its New York premiere in June at Symphony Space. The book, Women of Influence in Contemporary Music: Nine American Composers, for which he wrote two chapters and served as editor, was released by Scarecrow Press in December.

Celeste Halbrook Tuten, senior artist teacher of Suzuki violin, in May assisted the Hull-Jackson Montessori String Ensemble with their spring concert. In July she accompanied the group when they performed at the graduation of Montessori teachers at Belmont University.

Thomas Verrier, associate professor and director of wind studies, returned to Asia in November to conduct the Hong Kong Wind Ensemble, a group for whom he has served as artistic adviser for the past four years. The program was presented in the historic Tsuen Wan Town Hall and included a screening of Charlie Chaplin’s silent film The Adventurer presented with a live performance of the orchestra score and a double concerto with soloists Chris Moyse and trombonist Ben Pelletier.

Felix Wang, associate professor of cello, taught at the Brevard Music Center this summer, where he also performed with fellow faculty member Craig Nies, associate professor of piano. In the fall, they played recitals at the Blair School and the University of Iowa, where Wang was the guest cellist for the Iowa Cello Festival. In addition to his duties in the Blair Quartet and Blakemore Trio, Felix also appeared as principal cellist of the IRIS Orchestra’s opening concert in Memphis with Yo-Yo Ma.

In Memory

Debra Creasman, of Mt. Juliet, Tenn., August 12, 2010. For 16 years, Debra served as director of public relations at Blair. After being diagnosed with breast cancer, she was treated at the Vanderbilt Breast Center. Impressed with the nurses and the loving care that she received there, she earned her L.P.N. at Volunteer State Community College, graduating second in her class at age 50. She went on to complete her R.N. at Columbia State Community College. Her last year was spent at the Vanderbilt Breast Center working with patients like herself.

Jena Carpenter in the role of Adina in L’elisir d’amore by Donizetti at the National Theater Mannheim.

Jena Carpenter, BMus’09, recently completed her first year in the master’s degree program at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Mannheim in Germany. After one year in the masters program, she was awarded a scholarship to attend the Bayreuth Festival by the Wagnerian Society of Mannheim. She has been contracted in her first professional engagement with The National Theater Mannheim as Servilia in Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito and has been cast in four leading roles at the Hochschule: Adina in L’elisir d’amore; Ännchen in Der Freischütz; Despina in Cosi Fan Tutte; and Sister Constance in Dialogues des Carmêlites. In addition, she has scheduled two debut concerts in Nevada and Arizona for 2011. She is a former voice student of Jonathan Retzlaff.