Michigan Muse Spring 2026 > Student Updates
Student Updates
The updates in this section were submitted by our SMTD community members. If you’d like to submit your news for the next issue of Michigan Muse, please do so via this form.
The 2026 SMTD Concerto Competition
On January 8–9, 2026, SMTD held the 2026 Concerto Competition for undergraduate and graduate students. Anne-Marie Atanga (BMA ’26, voice) and Tieran Holmes (BM ’26, flute, music education) were named the undergraduate winners. Cezary Karwowski (DMA ’27, piano; MM ’26, fortepiano), Grace Ryan (MM ’26, voice), and Jinzhao Xu (DMA ’27, piano) won the graduate competition. Each of the winners will have the extraordinary opportunity to perform their competition piece with one of the school’s major ensembles in a future concert at Hill Auditorium. The winners also receive the Bossart Prize, a monetary award.
Clockwise from top left: Tieran Holmes, Anne-Marie Atanga, Jinzhao Xu, Grace Ryan, and Cezary Karwowski
Laura Clapp
Laura Clapp (MM ’26, choral conducting) received the 2025 Conductor Scholarship from the Gena Branscombe Project, which recognized the winners for their dedication to promoting equity and inclusivity in music. At SMTD, Laura conducts the prison outreach choir, Out of the Blue.
Darla Hand founded Loonlight Theatre; its inaugural production was It’s Only a Play, performed at Lowertown Bar & Café in Ann Arbor. Photo: Images by Shara
This past August, senior Darla Hand (BA ’26, music) founded Loonlight Theatre, a new independent theatre company dedicated to bringing high-quality performances to unexpected spaces across southeast Michigan. Its inaugural production, It’s Only a Play, by Terrence McNally, was staged outdoors on Lowertown Bar & Cafe’s patio in Ann Arbor, bringing together artists from the local community and drawing sold-out audiences both nights for drinks and plenty of laughs. The production marked the first of many to come, demonstrating the potential for compelling, low-budget theatre outside traditional performance venues. Following this successful debut, Loonlight Theatre is planning its next production for April 2026.
Zhengyi Huang
Zhengyi Huang (DMA ’29, piano) was recently invited to perform solo concerts with orchestras in Athens, Greece, and Woodland, Texas, and at Carnegie Hall in New York City. He is releasing three solo albums with MSR Classics (Connecticut), TVClassique (Paris), and Hunnia Records (Budapest). In June of 2026, he will embark on an eight-city concert tour in China, with engagements at major venues planned in cities such as Shenzhen, Chengdu, Zhengzhou, and Suzhou.
Maya Lai. Photo: Abigayle Flack
Maya Lai (BM ’27, harp) is the winner of the 2025 Mitchell-Hogg Competition, jointly organized by the Texas Music Festival and the Houston Symphony. She was a featured soloist with the Houston Symphony in their 2025–26 season, performing the third movement of Ginastera’s Harp Concerto on January 27, 2026. She is the 2025 recipient of the American Harp Society’s Ruth Wickersham Papalia Scholarship Award and will present a solo recital at the American Harp Society and World Harp Congress’s One Harp World event in the summer of 2026.
Clockwise from top left: Isaiah Liggins, Maxwell Vernon, Christina Parson, and Grace Ryan
The 2025 Friends of Opera Competition
On October 4–5, 2025, the annual Friends of Opera vocal competition was held for both undergraduate and graduate students in the SMTD Department of Voice & Opera. In the John Knapp Undergraduate category, Isaiah Liggins (BM ’27) took home first prize, and Maxwell Vernon (BM ’27) secured second prize. In the Anna Chapekis Graduate category, Grace Ryan (MM ’26) won first prize, and second prize went to Christina Parson (DMA ’27). The competition, which includes cash prizes for the winners, was made possible by the generosity and annual giving of Friends of Opera, a group of donors funding the vocal performing arts at U-M.
Lukas Nepomuceno (BM ’26, music & technology) received the 2026 Raoul Wallenberg Fellowship. The fellowship, awarded in the spring of each year to a graduating U-M senior who is committed to service and the public good, provides $25,000 to carry out an independent project of learning or exploration anywhere in the world during the year after graduation. Nepomuceno won for his submission “Sounds of a Revolution: Music’s Role in the National Democratic Movement of the Philippines”; after he graduates, he will travel to the Philippines and live there for about a year.
Joseph Reichelt
Joseph Reichelt (BM ’26, viola) was awarded the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts Honors Program’s 2025 Jack Meiland Scholarship for Excellence in Interdisciplinarity. The scholarship acknowledges his exceptional engagement in both performance activities at SMTD and his honors thesis work through the Department of Organizational Studies, researching organizational adaptation at the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.
Grace Ryan
Grace Ryan (MM ’26, voice) was selected to receive the prestigious Jessie Walker Memorial Voice Award in the 2025 Opera Index Vocal Competition in October 2025. She then performed at the annual winners recital and gala in Manhattan in January 2026.
Global Engagement Photo Contest
During spring and summer 2025, the SMTD Global Engagement Office supported several learning opportunities abroad for SMTD students. To celebrate those experiences, the office organized a photo contest, inviting students to showcase moments from their international travels. Ladina Schaller (BFA ’26, dance) won first prize for her photo “Rangoli Powder at Deveraja Market, India.” Second prize went to Joseph Murphy (BM ’26, French horn) for “Elephant – Pilanesberg National Park, Mogwase, South Africa,” and third prize went to Sophie Bracken (MM ’26, clarinet) for “Sunset over the Atlantic from Cape Town, South Africa.”
“Rangoli Powder at Deveraja Market, India”
“Elephant – Pilanesberg National Park, Mogwase, South Africa”
“Sunset over the Atlantic from Cape Town, South Africa”
Renata Schmult sound edits a movie in the Duderstadt Center (Studio B) on North Campus. Photo: Emma Powell
Renata Schmult (BFA ’26, performing arts technology) has been nominated for the Motion Picture Sound Editors 2026 Golden Reel Award in the Verna Fields Outstanding Achievement in Sound Editing Student Film category for Dancing Spiders Play Jazz in Nooks. She is one of eight student film sound editors and one of three undergraduates nominated internationally.
Lauren Blair Smith. Photo: SinYu Deng
In 2025, Lauren Blair Smith (MFA ’27, dance) continued to bridge the gap between performance, choreography, and pedagogy. Her company was adjudicator-selected to perform and lead repertory as a professional artist at the Wisconsin Dance Council Annual Dance Conference and was invited to showcase work at the National Dance Education Organization’s (NDEO) national conference in Detroit. Additionally, Smith’s award-winning dance film, We Are, achieved significant international acclaim, winning Best Dance on Screen at Dance City Festival Detroit and Best Dance Film at the World Film Festival in Cannes, with further selections for the RED Movie Awards and Austin Community College Dance Film Night.
Hannah Wolkowitz. Photo: Timothy McAllister
“Euphoria,” an original work by Hannah Wolkowitz (BM ’29, saxophone, composition), was selected from over 600 international applications for the 1st Biennial Heidelberg New Music Festival and Symposium (March 2026). “Euphoria” was also performed during the United States Navy Band Saxophone Symposium (January 2026). Additionally, Wolkowitz, who is pursuing a minor in performing arts management and entrepreneurship, was named Grand Prize winner of the Hierax Call for Scores with “Freylekh Soul.” In the summer of 2025, her piece “Unleashed” was premiered by the Bergamot Quartet. Additionally, Wolkowitz received an orchestral commission from the La Jolla Symphony, with the world premiere scheduled for January 31 and February 1, 2026, in La Jolla, California.
Meghan Wysocki (BA ’26, music) passed the associate carillonneur examination of the Guild of Carillonneurs in North America.