Karen Jane Ludwig (BMA ’23, multidisciplinary: voice), also known as KJ, included a minor in performing arts management & entrepreneurship in her degree. A dreamer at heart, she aims to blend her passions by opening KJ’s Cupcakes, a unique cupcake shop and music venue. Fueled by inspiration from music composition and electronic production courses and the support of professors, Ludwig combines baking, graphic scores, and painting in her creative endeavors. Her artist name (kjcup) and the recent release of her debut album, Identity Crisis, independently recorded and produced, celebrate her creative artistry where music, paint, and cupcakes harmonize.

Ella Olesen (BFA ’22, musical theatre) studied Shakespeare at the University of Oxford with the British American Drama Academy in July 2023, after being one of just 90 worldwide admitted to the Midsummer in Oxford program. She learned directly from renowned actors and teachers including Brian Cox CBE, Mary Lou Rosato, Madeleine Potter, Leo Wringer, Andrew Wade, Jackie Snow, and Robert Price. Completing the program, Ella joins the ranks of alumni including Chadwick Boseman, Louisa Jacobson, Tarell Alvin McCraney, Jack Davenport, and U-M professor Mark Colson.

The Hana Hou Music Program, founded by Kisa Uradomo (SM ’23, violin), held several benefit concerts in Ann Arbor to support those affected by the Maui wildfires. The concerts were the subject of a Detroit News article. Hana Hou develops, advocates, and provides music education in Maui, where Uradomo was born and raised.

Recent Graduates Reunite in NYC for SongStudio

Molly Schwall (BM ’23, musicology, voice), Natalie Sherer (DMA ’22, collaborative piano), and Tzu Kuang Tan (MM ’21, SM ’23, collaborative piano) reunited in New York City at Carnegie Hall for the week-long art song and vocal recital program SongStudio, led by Renée Fleming. Collaborative pianists Sherer and Tan participated in the program as part of two of the eight singer/pianist duos. Schwall recently started an artistic planning position at Carnegie Hall as the artist training programs associate, managing SongStudio along with the National Youth Orchestras and other guest artist master classes throughout the year.

Anthony Alterio (MFA ’16, dance) was hired onto the faculty of Ohio University in August 2023. He works in the School of Dance and the School of Theatre as assistant professor of instruction in musical theatre and dance. Alterio also premiered his new choreographed work, Underneath, at Dixon Place in New York City in November. In December he received funding from a grant to start his new interactive website combining media and movement entitled Conversations with My *Straight Boyfriends, which will archive dance and text from the lens of various LGBTQIA+ voices.

John Churchville (MA ’13, music education) engineered and produced the album Cosmic Convergence with Grammy Award–winning musician Peter Madcat Ruth and their band the C.A.R.Ma. Quartet. As the chair of the New Directions Committee for the Michigan Music Education Association, Churchville oversees the Young Composers of Michigan, which tripled the number of submissions of original work from K-12 students in Michigan.

Sarah Coit (MM ’15, voice) has had a busy season that consisted of role debuts as Nerone in Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea with West Edge Opera and as Angelina in Rossini’s La Cenerentola with the Toledo Opera, as well as concert appearances in Handel’s Messiah with American Bach Soloists and the Alabama Symphony. She will also sing Polly Thompson in the world premiere of Touch with Opera Birmingham and return to American Bach Soloists for a Baroque Mad Scenes concert.

In January 2024, Katrina Fasulo (BMA ’17, voice), who minored in performing arts management & entrepreneurship, joined Opera MODO as executive director.

Rebecca Fülöp (PhD ’12, historical musicology) completed dual MLIS/MAS degrees (master’s degrees in library & information science and archival studies) at the University of British Columbia in December 2020 and has been working at Temple University in Philadelphia as the performing arts librarian since January 2022.

Kiana June (BM ’13, violin) continues to break down barriers between the structured beauty of classical music and passionate creativity of the fiddle. Her online music academy, Fiddle Club, has brought best-in-class folk music education to students ages 10–72 across four continents. Uniquely skilled in translation of techniques between the two idioms, she has helped classical players find their voice as fiddlers. As a sought-after performer, she completed in 2023 a five-year project touring North America in Come from Away, the Tony Award–winning musical set in the soundscape of maritime Canada.

Michael Malis (BFA ’11, jazz studies) was appointed visiting instructor of jazz piano at Interlochen Arts Academy in September 2023. In October, his composition In Search of Softer Selves premiered at Edgefest in Ann Arbor, with support from the Foundation for Contemporary Art. In November, he gave a master class to Harvard University’s Contemporary Chamber Music class, which performed his composition Nourishment under the directorship of Professor Claire Chase.

Jules Pegram (MM ’15, DMA ’18, composition) recently composed the original score to the upcoming feature-length documentary Choral Singing in America: Nurturing the Country’s Soul, directed by Brian Gaukel (Collaborative Films) and advised by artistic director Jerry Blackstone (professor emeritus of conducting).

Nathan Platte (BM ’04, trombone; PhD ’10, musicology), associate professor of musicology and cinematic arts at the University of Iowa, received a 2023 Virgil Thomson Award for Outstanding Music Criticism from the ASCAP Foundation for his article “Mixed Motives: Soviet Symphonies and Propagandistic Duplicity in The Iron Curtain (1948).” The article, which explores the repurposing of Soviet music in an anti-Communist film, was published in the U-M open-access journal Music & Politics. Platte also contributed an article to the journal American Music describing his collaborations with students and community partners on the development of two podcasts, Sounding Cinema and FilmCastPodScene.

Jesus Sanchez (BM ’19, music education, jazz studies) is a general music teacher at Tecumseh Public Schools. He loves his job and has applied his non-traditional approach to music education to help his already successful district’s music department. Sanchez is also an active solo jazz guitarist and plays bass with an up-and-coming jam band called Keep It Casual, out of Toledo, Ohio.

The work of Robert Alexander (BFA ’07, performing arts technology; MA ’09, media arts; PhD ’15, design science) was recently featured in NASA’s Curious Universe podcast. While attending the University of Michigan, Alexander frequently traveled between SMTD and the Space Research Building, where he utilized the principles of psychoacoustics and deep listening to better understand the sounds of the solar wind through a process known as data audification. He is currently working with the HARP Citizen Science project to bring these sounds to space enthusiasts around the world. He and his team welcome ideas from potential collaborators.

Ryan Black (BA ’07, performing arts technology; BFA ’07, jazz & contemporary improvisation; MA ’09, media arts) designed and performed his original collaborative sound installation project “Temporal Biomes,” commissioned by the 150 Media Stream in Chicago, during summer 2023. The performance was a collaboration with artist JaNae Contag (NÆ). Black and Contag were sponsored performers at House of Vans Chicago, performed and hosted workshops at the University of Minnesota Morris’s Performing Arts Series, and were featured at Sound+Vision Synth Series in Rochester, New York. Black produced and mixed the experimental NÆ album Isolazen, which was released October 2023. Black’s art practice explores the performativity of technology. Black teaches at Columbia College Chicago in audio arts and acoustics and is a sound designer with Rocket Cat Games.

Joys Cheung (PhD ’08, musicology), was recently promoted to associate professor at the Graduate Institute of Ethnomusicology, National Taiwan Normal University. Her research has focused on the emerging field of “music” in Chinese modernity, 1930s to the present. Her 2023 publications include The Art Song of East Asia and Australia, 1900–1950 (Routledge) and “Making Chinese Instrumental Relics in Pre-UNESCO Modernity: Datong Music Society’s ‘Heritage’ Project” (Journal of Music Research, Taipei). She is now developing a collaborative exhibit and research project on a set of historically important musical instruments that were donated in 1925–26 to the Deutsches Museum in Munich. Cheung was a Barbour Scholar of the Rackham Graduate School; recently she met other Barbours in Taipei through the coordination of Rackham’s Michele Siegal. She looks forward to attending the upcoming Pan-Asia Alumni Reunion 2024, to be held in Taipei.

Matt Dievendorf (BFA ’05, jazz studies) received a grant for Strange Woman Records’ “UnSound Sundays,” his series of silent films with improvised graphic scores. In addition to Dievendorf on guitar and effects, performers at the recent screening of Nosferatu included Amy K Bormet (BFA ’06, jazz studies, piano) and Wesley Hornpetrie (MM ’16, SM ’18, cello).

Sean Jackman (DMA ’02, organ; MM ’05, organ, music education) is the teacher-leader of the Arts Academy @P-CEP in Plymouth-Canton Community Schools in Plymouth, Michigan. The Arts Academy is a smaller learning community of musicians and artists of all kinds who thrive on an arts-enriched curriculum at the high school level. The academy is open to all students in grades 9-12.

Francis Novak (BM ’03, clarinet) performed on the recently released award-winning Albany Records album, That Star in the Picture, alongside Grammy Award–winning mezzo-soprano Victoria Livengood and composer and pianist James Adler. Novak also recently earned his doctorate in psychoanalytic studies degree from the Parkmore Institute (South Africa) and has published a short essay in the journal Psychoanalytic Perspectives entitled “Seeing Is All the Rage.” His article “Queering Up Psychoanalysis – An Integrative Model with the Power to Meet the Moment” was published in the journal Psychoanalytic Inquiry in early 2024. Novak has joined the faculty of the Institute for Expressive Analysis in New York City.

Marisa (Meyer) Peters (BFA ’04, musical theatre) is an advocate for wellness, self-care, and proactive women’s health initiatives, and she is now a rectal cancer survivor. She currently serves as chief people officer at VideoAmp, growing the company to a multi-billion-dollar valuation and #1 best place to work, according to Ad Age, all while working with cancer. She is most proud of being a mom of three boys alongside Josh Peters, a film producer most recently premiering three features at Sundance ’24. Together, they are speaking out and using music to spread awareness so people recognize symptoms, get screened, and save lives, founding BE SEEN, with the mission to eradicate colorectal cancer once and for all.

Andrea Reinkemeyer (MM ’01, DMA ’05, composition) recently accepted the position of director of composition and associate professor in the Dewberry School of Music at George Mason University (Virginia). From 2014–23, she was the director of composition studies at Linfield University (Oregon), and in 2022–23, she was the Edith Green Distinguished Professor at Linfield and chair of the Department of Music. Her orchestral work Water Sings Fire was performed at the 2023 Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, Cristian Măcelaru conducting. Also performed at the Cabrillo Festival were the works of SMTD alums Peter Shin (BM ’14, piano, composition), Yanchen Ye (DMA ’23, composition), and Carlos Simon (DMA ’17, composition).

In September 2023, Kirsten Volness (MM ’04, DMA ’08, composition) conducted the world premiere of Flood It with Love, a song cycle featuring vocalist Catherine Feeny and the Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble at the 10th Annual Montavilla Jazz Festival in Portland, Oregon. Commissioned as part of the Views of an Urban Volcano project, the text and music were inspired by community events surrounding the geological and cultural history of Mount Tabor, an extinct volcano turned public park. DUO Stephanie and Saar also premiered two of Volness’s piano works, Ghosts of Cascadia and not all who wander are lost, at the Makrokosmos Festival in June 2023.

Gregory X. Whitmore (BM ’01, music education), who is an assistant professor of music education at California State University, Fullerton, has presented research at the New York State School Music Association and has presented on inclusive ensemble programming at the Southern California School Band & Orchestra Association (SCSBOA) Conference. Whitmore’s college band (CSU Fullerton Symphonic Winds) was selected as a featured ensemble in the SCSBOA conference. Whitmore gave a conducting lecture at Lehman College (New York City). He has also been invited to conduct honor bands throughout Southern California and was invited to be the Worldstrides Honors Performance Series Middle School Honors Band conductor at Carnegie Hall.

Zadda Bazzy (BFA ’96, musical theatre) recently received the North Carolina Symphony’s Maxine Swalin Award for Outstanding Music Educator for her work as an elementary music teacher on the coast of North Carolina. The recognition was presented by the North Carolina Symphony’s music director, Carlos Miguel Prieto, and the North Carolina state superintendent of public instruction, Catherine Truitt. The Music Educator Awards were organized by fellow Michigan alumnus, Jason Spencer (MM ’13, clarinet), the director of education for the North Carolina Symphony.

Stuart Bogie (BMA ’97, clarinet) has released Morningside (October 2023), an album of two long-form pieces for solo clarinet and drones on the record label DFA. The album was produced and mixed by James Murphy (LCD Soundsystem). Bogie premiered the pieces at Les Rencontres d’Arles in the Théâtre Antique as a guest of photographer Gregory Crewdsen. He is currently working on projects with drummer Joe Russo (the Selcouth Quartet), the dance company Pilobolus, and the conceptual artist Jill Magid, and he recently recorded with the rapper Logic.

Emma Cotter (BFA ’97, dance) and her company RETTOCAMME Inc had site-specific, roaming performances featured in the 2023 Chashama Gala in Times Square and in the 2023 Art in Odd Places: DRESS festival, which occurred along stretches of 14th Street in New York City and was curated by Gretchen Vitamvas and founder Ed Woodham. Collaborators in both events included fellow U-M alum Josef Woodson (BDA ’95, dance; minor in environmental studies) and visual artist Ryan Roth.

Linda Dzuris (BM ’92, MM ’93, DMA ’98, organ), University Carillonneur and chair of the Department of Performing Arts at Clemson University in South Carolina, was elected president of the Guild of Carillonneurs in North America in June. In August, she attended the World Carillon Federation Congress in Utrecht, Netherlands, as an appointed North American delegate. Dzuris returned to U-M in October for the 63rd Annual Organ Conference, teaching a carillon master class and honoring Professor Emeritus James Kibbie (organ) with a presentation on his teaching legacy.

Adam Glaser (MM ’98, orchestral conducting), who also earned an MBA at U-M in 2002, stepped in for the New Jersey Symphony music director Xian Zhang in early 2023 to conduct the symphony in two subscription concerts. The concerts featured Hilary Hahn performing the Sibelius Violin Concerto at the NJPAC (Newark) and Count Basie Center (Red Bank). In August 2023, Glaser began his first season as music director and conductor of Long Island’s South Shore Symphony. He serves as music director of the Juilliard Pre-College Orchestra and as associate professor with tenure and director of orchestras at Hofstra University.

Adam Greenfield (BFA ’97, theatre & drama) is artistic director of Playwrights Horizons in New York.

In July 2023, the Lincoln Center and the New York Public Library presented the Daniel Gwirtzman (BFA ’92, dance) Dance Company in a full program, Everybody Can Dance, kicking off the nonprofit’s 25th anniversary. In the fall, Gwirtzman’s film Charged screened in Caracas, London, and Exeter, after the American Dance Festival at Duke University in July. In September, Gwirtzman presented research, “Creating Comfort in the Classroom,” in Denver at the National Dance Education Organization’s conference. In October, while in Ann Arbor for the SMTD Alumni Board meeting, he taught a guest class at the Department of Dance. In November, Ithaca College’s production of Newsies, featuring choreography by Gwirtzman, ran for two weeks; “Gwirtzman’s choreography is thrilling,” stated the Ithaca Times.

Scott Lefurgy (BM ’99, voice; BS ’99, biochemistry) was promoted to professor of chemistry at Hofstra University (Long Island, New York).

Performer and lyricist Daniel Neer (SM ’95, voice) recently performed world premieres of two new vocal works: the L. Frank Baum–inspired Tin and Meat, by Francis Kayali, for baritone and piano, and Algo Viene. This chamber work for mezzo, baritone, and piano is based on elements of Taíno mythology; it is composed by Isabelle Lindsey with lyrics by Neer. A sneak peek of his libretto adaptation of Andreyev’s He Who Gets Slapped, a collaboration with composer Alex Burtzos, was recently offered at Orlando’s Steinmetz Concert Hall, as the newly composed opera’s arias and interludes were premiered by the University of Central Florida Symphony under the baton of Eric Jacobsen, with singers from Opera Orlando. 

David Vayo (DMA ’90, composition) is the recipient of a 2023 Artist Fellowship from the Illinois Council for the Arts. His most recent composition, “Diverted Metal,” is for a percussionist playing on sculpture made from industrial machinery. Retired from Illinois Wesleyan University since 2020, Vayo regularly presents intimate themed solo concerts at his home that combine jazz, concert, and popular music.

Paulette Brockington (MFA ’87, dance) is an active artist-in-residence and workshop teacher who has worked with dance, theatre, and opera companies. A former Michigan Arts Educator of the Year and Michigan Heritage Award Fellow, she is an assistant professor of dance in Michigan State University’s theatre department and directs A Company of Dancers (a contemporary ballet company) and the American Lindy Hop Championships. She is also a Fulbright Specialist available through the State Department. In April 2020 she launched an online dance training program, which, with her master teacher curricula, has morphed into the Lindy Technique and Teacher Training Workshop Series that certifies interested artists to teach Lindy.

Elaine Harriss (PhD ’81, music education), professor of music at the University of Tennessee at Martin (UTM), was inducted October 6, 2023, into the Steinway & Sons Piano Teachers Hall of Fame as a member of the hall’s fifth induction class. Harriss has taught piano for over 50 years. She joined the UTM faculty in 2001; there, she is pianist with the University Trio, directs the UTM piano ensemble, leads week-long summer piano camps, and chairs the annual pre-college piano competition. In previous years, Harriss played principal flute in the Paducah (Kentucky) and Jackson (Tennessee) symphonies, ran her own Kindermusik studio, and worked for Kindermusik International, teaching workshops across the US and five continents.

Naomi J. Oliphant (DMA ’82, piano) has come out of retirement to assume the role of chair of the MTNA Bluegrass Competition for the Kentucky Music Teachers Association. The first competition was held November 10–11, 2023, at Campbellsville University in Kentucky. Oliphant recently premiered a sonata for flute and piano by Steve Rouse (MM ’82, DMA ’87, composition) with flautist Kathleen Karr at the Kentucky Music Teachers State Conference Composer’s Concert. The work was originally to have premiered in March 2020.

Stephen Pratt (MM ’83, flute), professor of music emeritus, Jacobs School of Music, Indiana University, is currently the conductor of the Southern Indiana Wind Ensemble (SIWE). The concert on November 6, 2023, featured the world premiere of composer Harold Popp’s Fanfare for Anemographic Celebration, which is dedicated to SIWE.

Jenny Lynn Stewart (BM ’81, voice) hosted Sing-a-long-a Sound of Music, presented by Tarrytown Music Hall, Tarrytown, New York, on November 18, 2023. Stewart has had the pleasure of performing the role of the Mother Abbess across the globe, most notably in the international tour with Marie Osmond. She continues to perform her one-woman shows for age 55-plus audiences, featuring uplifting and inspiring songs from classic Broadway musicals.

Stephanie (Pelz) Bennett (BM ’76, harp) shared her expertise as the featured speaker for two online events in the summer of ’23: “Harp Teachers’ Gathering,” presented by Melody’s Traditional Music (Texas) on July 6, and “Hangin’ with the Harp,” presented by Atlanta Harp Center (Georgia) on August 15.

Tyrone Greive (DMA ’77, violin) was deeply moved in July when he was presented with a photo album, “Student Memories for Professor Greive on the Occasion of His 80th Birthday,” by students he had taught at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and with whom he had interacted between 1985 and 2023. His edition of Jakob Dont’s 15 Selected Exercises, Opus 38, for two violins, which was released by International Music Co. in October, is his 14th violin performance edition published since he retired from UW-Madison in 2013. A number of his past articles, book contributions, and other printed research continue to be utilized in more recent violin-related publications.

Tina Grosowsky (MFA ’76, dance) is retired from a career in public health. She volunteers with Elders Climate Action Mass, advocating for clean energy.

Richard Jennings (MM ’78, composition), who minored in composition, has composed music for 50-plus theatrical productions (including more than 30 Shakespeare plays), from Tony-winning to tiny. American Theatre Magazine has published Jennings’s Music for Plays, A Step by Step Guide. Jennings scored and led the stage band in a stellar summer production of The Comedy of Errors in Inverness, California. Currently he’s scoring a short horror film, Quaranteen. Jennings is a founder of the musical development non-profit, Musical Cafe. Four original musicals were recently provided with dramaturgy and musical direction and showcased to enthusiastic audiences. Jennings continues to teach voice to students online around the world and in his Berkeley studio.

Charles M. Atkinson (MM ’65, music education), professor emeritus in musicology at the Ohio State University, was recently notified of the publication of a Festschrift, a collection of scholarly essays in his honor. Music in the Carolingian World: Witnesses to a Metadiscipline: Essays in Honor of Charles M. Atkinson is edited by Graeme M. Boone and published by Brepols in the series Épitome Musical.

A three-week production of The Boy Who Listened to Paintings, a musical co-written by Paul H Kirby (BM ’67, music education) and Dean Kostos (based on his memoir of the same title), with music composed by Kirby, took place at Theater for the New City (TNC), in New York, beginning on February 1, 2024. In the story, the young protagonist overcomes many obstacles through love of art. The songs are generally uplifting and have titles such as “Art Is What Matters,” “I Can Speak Correctly,” and “I’ll Just Embrace My Feelings.” A Zoom reading of an earlier version of this musical was given by TNC on April 29, 2021.