Arianna Dotto (DMA ’21, violin) was appointed principal leader of the second violin section at the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg (France) in March 2023.

Gregory Gropper (BM ’22, voice) completed the first year in a master’s program in classical voice at Manhattan School of Music. During summer 2023 he performed in operas at the Israel Conservatory of Music.

Danielle Kim (BM ’21, flute) performed Carl Reinecke’s Concerto for Flute and Orchestra with the Flint Symphony Orchestra on February 11, 2023. This performance was part of her prize for winning first place in the 2022 William C. Byrd Young Artist Competition.

Anthony Larson (MM ’22, voice) is performing two major operatic roles this summer. He will sing Sarastro in Die Zauberflöte with Alexandria Summer Nights and Frank Maurrant in Street Scene with Varna International Music Academy in South Carolina, where he will also perform the bass solo in Verdi’s Requiem and sing bass in choral works.

Eric M. Schroeder (BM ’20, music education, euphonium) has successfully started a K-5 music program and a middle school band program at Schulze Academy for Technology and the Arts in Detroit. He has also established himself as a wind band composer; his works have premiered across Michigan and been performed across the nation. He is currently accepting commissions for new works and is excited to continue serving the ensembles of Michigan and beyond.

“Cultivating Supportive Musical Communities,” an article by Ellen Sirower (BMA ’20, piano), who also earned a BA in philosophy, was published in the spring 2023 issue of Piano Magazine, a publication by the Frances Clark Center for Keyboard Pedagogy. The article explores the idea of “psychological safety” – a group climate characterized by interpersonal trust and mutual respect where people are comfortable taking risks and being themselves – and its practical applications to private and group teaching in all age groups and levels.

Immanuel T. Abraham (BM ’13, MM ’15, violin) is an award-winning performer, dazzling live audiences across nine countries to date. He shares knowledge and inspiration with students from renowned institutions all over the United States. After completing his DMA in violin in 2019, he finally published his ten-year “magnum opus” – a 76-page compilation of works titled 24 Caprices for Solo Violin. The work has sold over 460 prints in its first two years. The music cataloging department of the University of Arizona has called it “a masterpiece of advanced violin repertoire reflecting the musical globalism and diversity of the 21st century.”

Jacob Berglin (MM ’14, music education) was appointed to the faculty at Western Michigan University, where he teaches courses in music education, supervises student teachers, and conducts AMPHION, the university’s tenor/bass ensemble.

Leah Claiborne (MM ’12, DMA ’18, piano performance & pedagogy) has edited two volumes of piano music by Black composers for beginning and intermediate students. This collection begins to fill a large hole in piano pedagogy by addressing representation by Black composers at the most fundamental levels of piano studies. Both volumes of Expanding the Repertoire: Piano Music of Black Composers are published by Hal Leonard, the largest sheet music publishing company in the world, and are available for purchase through Hal Leonard and Amazon.

Alison DeSimone (PhD ’13, historical musicology) served as interim chair of music performance at University of Missouri – Kansas City from 2022–23. She published two articles: “Handel as Miscellany” (Eighteenth-Century Music, 2023) and “Beauty, Voice, and Wit: Learning Courtship and Sex through Song in Early Eighteenth-Century England” (Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture, 2023). She served as scholar-in-residence for Northwestern’s production of Handel’s Alcina in May 2023.

Billy Harrington (BMA ’10, jazz studies) is currently on the 2023 North American tour of The Simon & Garfunkel Story (Maple Tree Entertainment and Right Angle Entertainment) as drummer and vocalist, after just wrapping up the national tours of Dirty Dancing Live in Concert (Quatro Entertainment) and The British Invasion: Live on Stage (Maple Tree Entertainment and Quatro Entertainment) in 2022.

Jeri Hockensmith (MM ’16, music education) is currently in pursuit of her doctorate in music education at Boston University. She is also teaching high school orchestra full time in Westport, Connecticut.

Following two years of teaching middle and high school band, Liam Jackson (BM ’18, bassoon, music education) performed with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as a substitute bassoonist and contrabassoonist for three separate concert programs this season, including a performance of Leonard Bernstein’s Symphony no. 3 Kaddish, under the direction of Marin Alsop. This performance was recorded for PBS’s Great Performances. Jackson was also a member of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago through June 2023.

Joseph Kemper (DMA ’18, choral conducting) will be joining the choral faculty at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, this fall as the new assistant professor of choral music and conductor of the Concordia Chapel Choir and Kantorei. Kemper was previously a visiting professor of music and director of choirs at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington.

Nate May (BFA ’11, jazz & contemplative studies) received a Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and completed his DMA in composition at Yale. His work was the subject of chapters in two newly published books. He recently founded Synthase, an online school for music creators, and published The Synthase Guide to Chords. Synthase uses innovative pedagogy and technology to connect theory and creative music instruction with students’ innate love of music, and it partners with music teachers to create a holistic learning ecosystem.

Andrew Munn (BMA ’14, voice) performed Schubert’s Winterreise with pianist Rami Sarieddine at the Berlied Festival in Berlin in January 2023, and he headlined the Berliner Festspiele’s MaerzMusik in March 2023 with the new and experimental music collective Phønix16 with Pauline Oliveros’s Sonic Meditations and the world premiere of Jakob Ullmann’s voice, books and FIRE II. With pianist Jacob Greenberg he presented a recital of Charles Ives songs, soon to be released on an album with soprano Sharon Harms. In May 2023 he sang Shostakovich’s Suite on Verses by Michelangelo in concert at the Hungarian State Opera.

After a fantastic winter vacation in Vietnam, Wil Pertz (DMA ’11, composition) returned home to Daejeon, South Korea. During the months of January and February 2023, he released four new videos that explore image and video manipulation from his travels. These videos also spotlight synthesizers he recently designed to use Max MSP and extreme polyrhythmic and polymeric time solutions. In April, his installation Singularity ran at CICA International Gallery in Seoul, South Korea. In May, the Daejeon Arts Collective (DJAC) in Daejeon displayed his new synth sounds, titled Space Between Nothing. Pertz’s new book, Music for the Non-Musician, was published in spring 2023.

Dan Ray (BA ’16, vocal music) recently moved to Des Moines, Iowa, and published her first piece of writing with Iowa Public Radio in April. She dropped her third single, “Water,” in March 2023 to rave reviews. She began modeling in Des Moines and has done numerous shoots with local photographers.

Karl Ronneburg (BM ’17, percussion) works at the Metropolitan Opera as the assistant for new works, commissioning, and dramaturgy. He premiered his chamber-rock opera, The Precipice, with alums Grey Grant (BM ’16, composition, voice; MA ’22, composition) and Corey Smith (BM ’14, composition, trumpet) at the Riverside Arts Center in Ypsilanti on April 29–30 with their company, Fifth Wall Performing Arts.

Nicholas Shaneyfelt (DMA ’16, collaborative piano) was promoted to associate professor of music at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, an undergraduate liberal arts institution in which one-third of students participate in music in some capacity. Shaneyfelt serves as the faculty collaborative artist, vocal coach, and instructor of collaborative piano, and he music directs the Luther College Opera.

Sam Vettrus (BFA ’14, theatre design & production) recently served as the automation carpenter on the 50th Anniversary Pilate Tour of Jesus Christ Superstar. After closure of the tour in June, she looked forward to another Worklight Productions Broadway tour as a flyman.

Emily Albrink (BFA ’04, musical theatre) released her debut album, Force of Nature, on the Lexicon Classics label, with pianist Kathleen Kelly. The album features world premiere commissions by Jake Heggie, Rene Orth, Nailah Nombeko, and Steve Rouse. It is dedicated to her late mother, pianist Nancy Albrink, and centers on stories by women, about women.

Heather Chockley (BFA ’01, theatre design & production) continues her journey as the director of production at Troika Entertainment, which has recently been acquired by Crossroads Live.

Travis Cook (BM ’08, trombone, music education) is the director of bands at Plymouth Christian Academy in Canton, Michigan; director of music at Covenant Baptist Church in West Bloomfield, Michigan; bandleader and lead trombone of the Swing Syndicate Big Band; and music director and trombonist of the Cuivré Brass Quintet. He was also recently appointed music director of the Troy Metro Symphony Orchestra in Troy, Michigan.

New York Times bestselling author Erin A. Craig (BFA ’05, theatre design & production) had her new young adult novel, House of Roots and Ruin, published on July 25 with Delacorte Press. She has also sold her adult debut, A Land So Wide, to Anchor Books.

Roundhouse Designs, a company founded by musical theatre alums Ryan Foy (BFA ’07) and Nick Gaswirth (BFA ’06), has developed the website for RISE Theatre, a newly launched initiative from Maestra Music, Inc., funded in part by the Lin-Manuel Miranda Foundation, U-M alumnus Jeffrey Seller, and the Nederlander Organization. RISE (Representation, Inclusion, & Support for Employment) Theatre is a national personnel directory created to promote visibility of individuals who work backstage, behind-the-scenes, and in support of theatre-making. It amplifies those who are often overlooked, including women, people of color, and folks from underrepresented backgrounds, allowing them to be discovered for employment opportunities in the industry.

Gregory Hamilton (DMA ’02, sacred music/organ) continues his tenure at St. Joseph Church in Macon, Georgia, a historic church on the national historic register. He continues his composing activities, fulfilling a number of commissions, and his music is published by Lorenz, Concordia, Augsburg Fortress, CanticaNova, and Paraclete Press, with over 100 works currently in print. Performances have taken place internationally, at churches, concert halls, and airports. Hamilton also continues his performance schedule, with solo appearances playing organ, harpsichord, and lute/theorbo, at the Macon Cherry Blossom Festival (First United Methodist) and Bach Ascending in Savannah, Georgia, and with the Atlanta Baroque Orchestra and the Amethyst Baroque Ensemble.

Adam Levi (BFA ’01, musical theatre) recently became a business representative for live performance at United Scenic Artists, Local USA 829, IATSE, after serving nearly 11 years as contract affairs representative for the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC). At Local USA 829, Levi oversees the administration of all designer and assistant designer contracts and the negotiation of collectively bargained agreements with employers nationwide in the live performance field (including theatre, opera, and dance). In addition to his role at Local USA 829, Levi recently completed his final semester at the City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law and received his Juris Doctor in May 2023.

Ron Merhavi (DMA ’04, double bass) was chosen to present a recital at the International Society of Bassists Convention, held on campus in June 2023. With his collaborator, pianist and composer Eyal Bat, Merhavi traveled from his native Israel to perform a recital entitled Hidden Treasures, which includes Israeli and Jewish music for double bass and piano, composed or arranged at Ron’s request.

After a busy 2022 with opera performances all over the United States, Andy Papas (BM ’07, voice) returned to his hometown in May for Boston Lyric Opera’s production of the acclaimed opera Omar. He covered the roles of Owen/Johnson in Omar in Boston, and he performed those roles at the 2023 Ojai Music Festival in June, alongside composer Rhiannon Giddens. In Ojai, he premiered a new chamber version of the opera titled Omar’s Journey. This summer, he reprised the title role in Don Pasquale for back-to-back performances for Opera Saratoga and, in St. Louis, for Union Avenue Opera.

Daniel Pesca (MM ’07, composition, piano) has been appointed assistant professor of composition at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, where he will begin teaching in fall 2023. In addition to his prolific career as a composer, Pesca maintains an active schedule as a pianist, both as soloist and as member of the Grossman Ensemble at the University of Chicago.

Felicia Sandler (PhD ’01, music composition & theory) is developing a critical edition of the collected works of Ephraim Amu (1899–1995). Amu is recognized as the “Father of Ghanaian Art Music,” and as such is a national treasure in that country. The first volume is complete and available for purchase.

Vaughan Williams (Oxford University Press, 2022), written by Eric Saylor (PhD ’03, historical musicology), was named the 2022 Book of the Year by the Presto Music Awards and was named a Best Book of 2022 on Classical Music by the Financial Times. One of the latest entries in Oxford’s acclaimed Master Musicians series, it is the first comprehensive survey of Ralph Vaughan Williams’s life and works published in the twenty-first century, and it has received critical approbation in outlets ranging from the Guardian and the New Statesman to the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

Brittni Sennett (BM ’08, French horn) works as a financial advisor with Northwestern Mutual, running a national practice supporting career-driven women and entrepreneurs to take ownership of their financial life.

Rob Stow (BM ’03, music education) recently finished his first year teaching K-12 performing arts with students at Glen Lake Community Schools in Maple City, Michigan. Stow led his small school to successfully advance to State Choral Festival and State Solo and Ensemble appearances and led his elementary students to success in learning how to perform proudly in several languages, incorporating movement and musical literacy and joy.

In April 2023, Benton Whitley (BFA ’08, musical theatre) launched Whitley Theatrical, a new casting and producing office in New York City for theatre, TV, and film.

In the spring of 2023 Janet Davis (BFA ’91, musical theatre) launched a new branch of Clarkson Davis, the management consulting company that she and her husband Wyatt founded 16 years ago. Clarkson Davis Arts will specialize in collaborating with executives and boards of nonprofit arts and cultural organizations. The specialty offering marries Davis’s passion for the arts and her three-plus decades of nonprofit management experience. Her mission is to help forward-thinking leaders of the cultural economy plan, operate, and fund their visions, helping bring new ideas and approaches to fruition by embracing the unique challenges inherent in the creative sector.

Two-time GRAMMY Award winner Joseph Gramley (BM ’92, percussion) – winner of the Stanley Medal while at SMTD – has been named chair of the percussion department at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music and was appointed to the Jacobs School Council. Gramley performed and toured with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra in May in New York City, New Jersey, and Washington, DC. He will perform as a guest artist with the American Ballet Theatre at the Met Opera Lincoln Center in a ballet co-production with the Royal Ballet of a new evening-length work by Christopher Wheeldon. Gramley continues to perform, tour, and record with the Knights and to teach at Juilliard.

Daniel Gwirtzman (BFA ’92, dance) joined the SMTD Alumni Board in January, along with being re-elected to another three-year term as a policy board member for the National Dance Education Organization. Daniel Gwirtzman Dance Company’s dance/theatre piece e-Motion had its world premiere May 26–June 4 at the Cherry Arts in Ithaca, New York, with six livestreamed performances edited with multiple cameras in real time. Gwirtzman dances in the program-length duet, which he choreographed and co-developed with playwright Saviana Stanescu and Cornell professor So-Yeon Yoon. His dance film Charged screened in Reno, Nevada, in February and in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, in March, and was featured during the American Dance Festival’s 90th anniversary programming in June.

Aimee McDonald (BFA ’96, dance) is artistic director of Terpsichore Collective, which just had its first performance of the company’s relaunch in Ann Arbor. Her work How We Got Here, with music by David T. Little, was presented on May 20 at the Detroit Collage Dance Festival hosted by DDCdances and again in Grand Rapids on June 3, while McDonald served as a guest artist at Mosaics of Humanity by Atelier Dance Company. She is currently working on numerous dance for camera projects.

Performer and lyricist Daniel Neer (SM ’95, voice) recently performed the world premieres of numerous collaborations in new art song and vocal chamber music, including Polar Bear with Sara Carina Graef, Hopper Haiku with Ellen Mandel, and the opera And Here We Are with Matthew Welch, for which Neer supplied the libretto. In addition to performances with Washington National Opera, American Repertory Theater, and Experiments in Opera, Neer recently presented a lecture recital entitled “The Final Waltz: Viennese Operetta and the Anschluss” at Temple University, where he serves on the voice faculty in Temple’s Boyer College of Music and Dance.

Peter DuBois (MM ’80, organ) retired from his position as director of music/organist at Third Presbyterian Church, Rochester, New York, after 32 years of service there and 42 years of full-time music ministry. He will continue to host the nationally syndicated public radio program, With Heart and Voice, a program of sacred choral and organ music heard on over 100 public radio stations nationwide.

A Composition in Memory of U-M Alum

A new composition by Stephen Michael Gryc (BM ’71, music education; MM ’78, composition & theory; DMA ’83, composition) recently received three performances. Stone Colors: Three Desert Images for Wind Symphony was commissioned by a large consortium in memory of Michigan graduate Eric Rombach-Kendall (MM ’84, clarinet, music education; MM ’88, clarinet, choral conducting), director of bands at the University of New Mexico. Michigan graduate Glen Adsit (BM ’86, trombone; MM ’94, trombone, conducting) conducted performances in Santa Fe (March 19) and Hartford (April 29). The Washburn University Wind Ensemble also performed the work (March 26) on its Topeka campus, where Gryc served as composer-in-residence. On May 1, Adsit recorded the work with the Hartt Wind Ensemble for the Naxos label.

Tong Soon Kwak (DMA ’81, organ) started the YouTube channel “Musician K,” which hosts videos of her organ and church music concerts.

After a decade as dean and assistant vice provost at the University of Hawai’i, R. Anderson Sutton (PhD ’82, ethnomusicology) has moved to the music department, where he is teaching full time and is chair of the ethnomusicology program.

University of North Texas professor emeritus Thomas S. Clark (BM ’71, MM ’72, DMA ’76, composition) retired from Texas State University in 2020, having served 12 years as director of the School of Music. He previously served as dean of music at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. In the last two years since administrative retirement, he has composed 24 new pieces and published 12 of his “sound sculptures” on the TClark Art Music YouTube channel. He also recently wrote his fourth book, published at MappingTheMusicUniverse.com. Clark and his wife, Elizabeth, continue to live near their six granddaughters in San Marcos, Texas.

Connie (Bergstein) Dow (MFA ’76, dance) is publishing two picture books about dance in 2023: Beastie Jamboree (Young Dragons Press, April 2023), and Tap and Rap, Move and Groove (Free Spirit Publishing, October 2023).

Peter Kentes (MFA ’78, dance) is the instructor of the Lifetime Fitness Program at Briarwood Mall in Ann Arbor, a Kinesiology Community Program offered through the U-M School of Kinesiology, where he has taught for over 30 years. Kentes is also active in professional and community dance and theatre performances and choreography. He most recently performed the role of R.H. Macy in the Croswell Opera House production of Miracle on 34th Street in Adrian, Michigan. Kentes is currently involved with a three-part premium documentary series about Madonna to be filmed by Optomen Television, a UK Emmy Award-winning production company, to be shown on Sky Documentaries on BBC, ITV, Discovery+, and Netflix.

Bill Ritchie (MM ’77, double bass), assistant principal bass of the Omaha Symphony, retired in June after serving in this position for the past forty years. He began his career as the director of orchestras for the St. Joseph Public Schools in his hometown of St. Joseph, Michigan, after graduating with a bachelor of music degree from Western Michigan University in 1975 and a master’s degree from U-M in 1977. He is frequently asked to coach bass players from the Omaha Area Youth Orchestras and has given master classes at the University of Michigan, Michigan State University, Western Michigan University, and the University of Nebraska. He is married to Patty Ritchie, a professional cellist and conductor.

Charles M. Atkinson (MM ’65, music education) has just seen published his article “Über den Wechsel der Tonarten im östlichen und westlichen Gesang: Techniken, Texte und Rhetorik,” (“On Modulation in Eastern and Western Plainchant: Techniques, Texts, and Rhetoric”) in Beiträge zur Gregorianik 74 (2022): 27-85. The article is the redacted version of his keynote address for the German-Language Section of the Associazione Internazionale Studi di Canto Gregoriano, held in Reichenau, Germany, November 12–14, 2021.

Tubist Brent Herhold (BM ’64, MM ’65, music education) and the Altos Brass Quintet performed at the March 4th afternoon concert of the Fortnightly Music Club in Palo Alto, California, playing Victor Ewald’s Quintet No.1. That evening, Herhold joined the Stanford Wind Symphony for their winter concert at Bing Concert Hall on the Stanford University campus. The program included Michael Daugherty’s Lost Vegas. In May, Brent joined the Stanford Wind Symphony for their spring concert, featuring clarinetists Wenzel Fuchs, principal clarinet soloist with the Berlin Philharmonic, and Sebastian Hayn, of the Salzburg Philharmonic.

William V. Johnson (MM ’66, music education), professor emeritus at California Polytechnic State University, served as that university’s director of bands and coordinator of instrumental music from 1966 to 2010. He is past president of the World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles (WASBE). As an arranger and transcriber of music for the wind band, Johnson’s works have been performed by wind bands from many countries. As a guest conductor, lecturer and clinician, Johnson has conducted wind ensembles and orchestras in many countries. He was selected as one of three Distinguished Teachers at Cal Poly. Recently, he was presented the Lifetime Achievement Award by the California Band Directors Association and received the Distinguished Service to Music Medal from Kappa Kappa Psi.

Composer Paul H. Kirby (BM ’67, music education) provided incidental music for the recent off-Broadway play, Bonhöffer – The Final Days. The Zoom reading of his musical, The Boy Who Listened to Paintings, is available on YouTube.

After teaching instrumental music in public schools, Janet Harmon (BM ’56, music education) became an adjunct instructor at Olivet College. She had a choral anthem published and later began accompanying Dr. Eugenia Yau, a soprano soloist, in Michigan, Kansas, and Hong Kong. Harmon is retired now and living in California.