Department of Chamber Music

The Department of Chamber Music supports the work of 60+ student chamber music groups every semester, including students studying woodwinds, brass, strings, piano, and voice from the undergraduate through doctoral degrees. These groups receive weekly coachings from artist faculty, perform for one another and guest clinicians through a series of Chamber Music Forums, and showcase their work during live streamed end of semester Chamber Fests. Organizing and running their own rehearsal schedules allow these groups to take artistic and logistical responsibility for their unconducted ensemble work in multiple genres branching from the traditions of western classical music – not just music of the eighteenth through twentieth centuries, but also new music, renaissance to baroque music, bluegrass, improvisation, and more.

Faculty

The current chair is Matt Albert (he/him), the founding violinist/violist of Eighth Blackbird, the GRAMMY-winning new music sextet. The chair collaborates with five coordinators who oversee the group formation, coaching assignments, and repertoire choices for students in their respective areas. This structure allows the chamber music faculty to serve students cross-departmentally, supporting a wide variety of groups in a single pedagogical structure.


Matt Albert

Chair of Chamber Music and Associate Professor of Music

Eric Chin

Adjunct Clinical Instructor of Music

Joseph Gascho

Associate Professor of Music and Director of the Stearns Collection
Early Music Chamber Coordinator, Harpsichord

David Jackson

Professor of Music
Brass Chamber Music Coordinator, Trombone

Degrees

chamber-music

Specialist in Music

Designed for pre-formed groups at the early stages of their professional career.

Performance Opportunities

The thriving chamber music scene at SMTD offers students nearly limitless options to perform, innovate, and collaborate in small, self-driven, and diverse ensembles.

  • Small ensembles from the traditional to the new.
  • Mixed ensembles including any combination of strings, winds, piano, percussion, and voice
    ensembles studying different styles: roots music, improvisation, commissions, and more.
  • Chamber Arts Ensemble, an advanced course providing a nose-to-tail experience of putting on mixed media events.

Competition Opportunities

Launched in 2014, with guest judges selecting winners from groups representing the breadth of SMTD’s chamber music offerings, the Briggs Competition is open to any instrumentation/voice types in unconducted groups of 3-10 members. Every member of an entering group must be enrolled at the University of Michigan in the winter semester of the competition.

Our Stories

Alumni Notes

Violinist Yuki Numata Resnick (MM ’06, violin, chamber music) began her career performing and recording around the globe. She co-founded Buffalo String Works in 2014, improving youth access to music education, and she became director of arts and culture at the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo in 2023.
Andreas Oeste (MM ’16, oboe, chamber music; DMA ’19, oboe) is the newly appointed chair of the Fernand Gillet-Hugo Fox Competition for Oboe. (9/2023)
In fall 2022, Mi-Eun Kim (MM ’14, piano, chamber music; DMA ’21, SM ’22, piano) joined the faculty at Massachusetts Institute of Technology as lecturer, teaching piano in the Emerson/Harris Scholarship program, as well as coaching for the Chamber Music Society and collaborative piano.

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