Alumni Updates

2020s / 2010s / 2000s / 1990s / 1980s / 1970s / 1960s

Christian Bashi (BM ’21, music education) is transitioning from his role at the Metropolitan Opera to provide full-time administrative and operational support to conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Last summer, Bashi assisted Nézet-Séguin during the Met Orchestra’s Asia tour, with concerts in Seoul, Hyogo, Tokyo, and Taipei. He also supported Nézet-Séguin at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, at the Domaine Forget de Charlevoix and the Lanaudière Festival in Québec, and at various concerts in Montréal. In his new role, Bashi manages a wide range of tasks including artistic and business agreements, strategic development, sponsorship opportunities, and daily operational needs, all while traveling globally and experiencing top-tier classical music.

In April, Gregory Gropper (BM ’22, voice) performed the title role of Kaiser in Viktor Ullmann’s Der Kaiser von Atlantis (composed in 1943, Terezin, Germany) at the Manhattan School of Music, where he received a master’s of music in vocal arts in May. During this past summer, Gropper performed the title role in the Berlin Opera Academy’s production of Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi (1918).

Peter Kadeli (MM ’20, choral conducting) has accepted two new important posts in Washington, DC. Beginning in fall 2024, Peter became the head of sacred music, director of choral activities, and assistant professor (tenure-track) at the Catholic University of America Rome School of Music, Drama, and Art. Kadeli is also now the new associate conductor for the Washington Chorus (TWC). He joins his graduate conducting mentor and TWC artistic director, Eugene Rogers.

Emily Kirven (BM ’18, oboe, music education; MM ’22, music education) is entering her second year as the director of bands and choir at Anchor Bay Middle School North (New Baltimore, Michigan). Previously, she taught for five years in New York City. She is an active oboe player in Metro Detroit, including in the Detroit Community Band, Southeast Michigan Wind Ensemble, and the Ann Arbor Civic Band, with whom she performed Gabriel’s Oboe in June 2023. She lives with her fiancé, Joseph Richards (MM ’21, music education), whom she met in the U-M summer master’s of music program.

Valentin Kovalev (MM ’21, saxophone) was named a winner of the 2024 Concert Artists Guild (CAG) Louis and Susan Meisel Competition. Valentin was also selected as the 2024 Audience Prize winner. Since 1951, CAG has helped more than 500 young musicians launch their careers. Winners of CAG’s annual competition receive comprehensive management support, New York performances, concert bookings, and professional career development and coaching.

In September, Daniel Kumapayi (BM ’20, music education, double bass) launched a nonprofit e-commerce marketplace for pan-African art music. The platform offers digital sheet music, interpretative resources, lessons, workshops, a pan-African art music blog, and community directories. Founded in 2020, Àkójọpọ̀ has grown from a grassroots organization into a global pan-African music and education center, run mainly by volunteers. Kumapayi, who also earned an MPA from the University of Illinois, aims to create new financial avenues for African artists.

Hannah Marcus (BFA ’20, dance) premiered her new work bones fragile as part of the LookOut Series at Steppenwolf Theatre. Through live vocal looping and movement partnerwork, Marcus and her collaborator explored themes of care and lineage, situating sound as oral history while  they traced the gaps of familial relationships, moments of tenderness, and physical memories. Objects such as cords, amps, mics, bubble wrap, and netting became the visual and sonic landscape through which they interacted. After their March shows, they created a second iteration for DePaul Art Museum in July, bones fragile bones fractured.

Ella Olesen (BFA ’22, musical theatre) recently played Carol, the student, in Pulitzer Prize-winner David Mamet’s two-person play, Oleanna, at the Florida Repertory Theatre. Opposite her, playing the professor, was Michael Turner (Come from Away, Golden Boy) followed by Denis Lambert (Broadway’s Spamalot, A Chorus Line). Onstage with only the professor for 90 minutes straight, Olesen lived the play’s intense, challenging dialogue eight times a week, provoking audiences nightly. Broadway World described her performance as “frightening as she changes from mousy to confident.” This marked Olesen’s second time performing at the Florida Repertory Theatre, after debuting as Cecily in The Importance of Being Earnest in 2023.

Phil Sylvester (MM ’23, music education) will begin his sixth year in Chelsea, Michigan, just 20 minutes west of Ann Arbor. He directs the popular community Chelsea House Orchestra (CHO), now in its 28th year. The group performs Celtic music with a variety of flexible instrumentation including violins, violas, electric cellos, electric bass guitar, acoustic guitars, amplified classical guitar, electric ukulele, flutes, clarinets, oboes, harp, and a variety of drums. CHO performs throughout the Midwest at concert halls, Celtic Highland games, concert in the park venues, and community outreach events. CHO welcomes all who would be interested in coming to a rehearsal, jamming, or collaborating.

Leith Campbell (MA ’17, media arts) was awarded a residency in the inaugural cohort of the Michigan Central x Newlab Art + Technology Residency program hosted by Newlab in Detroit, along with several graduates of the Stamps School. The residency was formed to celebrate the reopening of Michigan Central Station and show its founding parties’ investment in the Detroit creative community. Campbell is working on a project combining composition, architectural installation, and machine learning. 

In July 2024, Sommer Forrester (MM ’08, PhD ’15, music education) traveled to Jordan, where she served as a member of an esteemed artistic faculty who coached the Palestinian Youth Orchestra. Forrester served alongside members of the Oslo Philharmonic and the Copenhagen Phil. All proceeds from the sold-out concerts were donated to the relief fund established to rebuild the conservatory in Gaza. In addition, Forrester was recently appointed to the Journal of Music Teacher Education editorial committee. 

Ali Gordon (BFA ’12, musical theatre) performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe throughout the month of August in the companies of Shamilton and Baby Wants Candy. These musical improv shows are Fringe favorites and have sold out for more than six years in a row.

Sean Hoskins (MFA ’11, dance) has been very active recently as a dance maker and community event producer. He collaborated with Romanian artist Cristina Lilienfeld on an international project funded by a Romanian arts grant in June, and his creative work with Hillsdale College dancers was part of the 2024 Detroit Dance City Festival in the Rivera Court, Detroit Institute of Arts, in September. He performed with Jessica Post (MFA ’14, dance) in Portland, Oregon. This August marked the fifth annual presentation of the shape // matter Movement Showcase in Ann Arbor’s Liberty Plaza, and he celebrated the launch of the Ann Arbor Dance Network with an evening program at the Ypsilanti Freighthouse in October 2023.

Alex Kip (BFA ’10, musical theatre) was cast in a supporting role as a romantic 18th-century British aristocrat in a new period film, Amazing Grace: The True Story, featuring Indiana Jones’s John Rhys-Davies.

Emily Lyon (BFA ’13, theatre & drama: directing) directed a world premiere production of Diana Ly’s Sex and the Abbey in August at the Brick Theater in Brooklyn. Centered on Hrotsvitha (considered to be the first female playwright; she wrote in 900s Saxony), the play aligns with the mission of Expand the Canon, which Lyon runs. Expand the Canon celebrates and unearths under-appreciated plays by historic women and non-binary writers from 1600–1990, giving them back their legacies and providing hope, guidance, and insight to contemporary writers of all kinds. Sex and the Abbey ran August 22–September 7, 2024.

Nermis Mieses (MM ’09, DMA ’13, oboe) released her solo debut album Oboe in Hues: Through the Virtuoso Landscapes of Gilles Silvestrini on Navona Records, which stated: “Accomplished oboe virtuoso Nermis Mieses champions rarely heard compositions for solo oboe by Gilles Silvestrini with astounding empathy and bravado… An intriguing exploration of the oboe and all that it is capable of.”

Madison Montambault (BM ’17, MM ’19, voice) made her company debut with Dayton Opera in Wagner’s Das Rheingold, singing Wellgunde while also covering Fricka. Later in the season, she made her Canadian and company debut at Edmonton Opera in Das Rheingold as Wellgunde. In January 2024, she made her solo Kerrytown Concert House recital debut. During the 2024 season, Montambault was a finalist in the International Hans Gabor Belvedere Singing Competition and was a prize winner of the Indiana District of the Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition.

Dan Piccolo (BM ’01, percussion; MM ’06, improvisation; DMA ’15, percussion); fellow alumni Anthony DiSanza (MM ’92, DMA ’03, percussion), Neeraj Mehta (MM ’07, DMA ’12, percussion), and Jonathan Ovalle (BM ’98, MM ’00, percussion); and Canadian percussionist Shawn Mativetsky perform together as Ensemble Duniya. The ensemble brings together non-Western percussion performance traditions with contemporary chamber percussion playing. Their debut album, Time’s Arc, was released in March 2024, and in May 2024 they recorded a series of videos that will be released later this year.

Karl Ronneburg (BM ’17, percussion) was promoted to the role of dramaturgy and commissioning associate at the Metropolitan Opera, where he helps shape commissions and new productions from inception to premiere. He also premiered his first original opera, The Precipice, with collaborators Grey Grant (BM ’16, MM ’22, composition) and Corey Smith (BM ’14, composition) in Brooklyn in June, commissioned by Contemporaneous. He performed as a percussionist in Meredith Monk’s Indra’s Net at the Park Avenue Armory in September and October 2024.

Deanna Sirkot (BM ’13, clarinet) joins the seven-time national-prize-winning Akropolis Reed Quintet as operations and development manager, marking the ensemble’s first administrative position. Bringing a wealth of experience driving extraordinary operational impact and growth for artistic enterprises as the founding executive director of the Arts Collab and director of education for the Alabama Symphony Orchestra, Sirkot has spearheaded initiatives that increased arts education opportunities, uniting hundreds of partners across sectors and transforming the landscape for the entire arts education community in Birmingham, Alabama. Her visionary initiatives have reached thousands of young artists each year.

Luke Steinhauer (BFA ’16, musical theatre) gave a TEDx talk, “How You Say It Matters: Harnessing the Power of Your Voice for Strategic & Effective Communication,” offering tips for using one’s voice to “engage, excite, empathize, and entice.” During the talk, which was part of the TEDx CUNY 2024 conference in New York City, Steinhauer led the audience in exercises that taught them how to control the pitch, clarity, loudness, and speaking rate of their voices. He shared that communications training usually focuses on what to say, but not how to say it. Steinhauer is a professional vocal coach whose clients include Broadway, film, and TV stars and executives from Google, Meta, and other companies. 

Teaching and Performing in Europe

In March 2024, Briana Stuart (BFA ’13, dance; BA ’13, sociology) performed her latest work, Moving Meditations, in her first international show (outside of Belgium) as an independent artist at Korzo Theater in the Hague in the Netherlands. She also taught and performed at Move Your Bottom Dance Festival in Valencia, Spain. This fall she performed in Lila Magnin’s work, Sāmara, at La Balsamine Theater in Brussels, Belgium, and in the production of The Golden Stool at the internationally renowned Barbican Centre in London.

Jessica Vaughan-Marra (PhD ’19, music education), associate professor of music and coordinator of music education at Seton Hill University (Greensburg, Pennsylvania), was recognized by Yamaha in their 2024 “40 Under 40” program for music educators. Vaughan-Marra oversees music teacher licensure and degree completion at Seton Hill. She teaches undergraduate music education courses, coordinates fieldwork placements, and supervises student teaching internships as well as the music teacher education curriculum and content.

Brandon Bascom (MM ’08, piano performance & pedagogy) has achieved a remarkable milestone in his role as advisor to the Fresno City College (FCC) collegiate chapter of the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA). Under his guidance the FCC student chapter has been honored as a co-recipient of the prestigious Collegiate Chapter of the Year award from MTNA; the award recognizes exceptional student chapters that demonstrate outstanding leadership, innovation, and engagement within the field of music education. Bascom, who honed his skills and knowledge at U-M under the tutelage of John Ellis, has successfully translated his educational experiences into impactful leadership.

Joshua S. Duchan (MA ’03, PhD ’07, musicology: ethnomusicology) has been appointed associate chair of the Department of Music at Wayne State University after having served as director of graduate studies for eight years. In addition, his paper, “Extra! Extra! Sing All About It: Portraying Newsies in 19th and 20th Century Sheet Music,” co-authored with Professor Eric Freedman (MSU), was named one of the top papers in the History Division at the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication conference in August 2024.

Chris Fisher-Lochhead (BM ’06, composition) was awarded a commission from the Fromm Music Foundation at Harvard University to compose a new hour-long work for the Chicago Wind Project. The new work, which is based on a text by Renee Gladman, will premiere in fall 2025.

Anne Gross (DMA ’07, voice) began her second decade as associate professor of music at Elizabethtown College in August 2024. She teaches voice, diction for singers, and vocal chamber music, and she directs Fenice, the college’s gender-inclusive treble choir. She also maintains a private voice studio in Lancaster County. In addition to her teaching, Gross frequently (and happily) collaborates in art song recitals with pianist Thomas Bandy (MM ’04, DMA ’07, piano). 

Gregory Holt (BM ’01, music education) is the current president of the Michigan School Band and Orchestra Association. He is in his 24th year of teaching and in his second year at Larson Middle School in Troy following 22 years in the Warren Woods Public Schools. Outside the classroom, he serves as a clinician and guest conductor for bands throughout Michigan and maintains an active schedule as a freelance French horn player.

Cynthian Knight (MM ’09, voice) has recently been named the winner of three Scottish Gaelic singing competitions, including the NYC Tartan Week Mòd, the North Carolina Mòd at Grandfather Mountain Highland Games, and the Chesapeake Mòd in Maryland. She was featured soloist at the Scottish government’s Robert Burns celebration at the British Ambassador’s residence in Washington, DC, as well as with Seán Heely’s Celtic Christmas Concert at Strathmore Hall and the Pipes of Christmas. This fall she will be performing a concert of Gaelic song at the Scotland County Highland Games in North Carolina and hosting the  Washington, DC, launch of The Hebridean Baker:The Scottish Cookbook by Coinneach MacLeod.

Dina Maccabee (BM ’02, viola) is a recipient of a 2024 Discovery Grant from the OPERA America Opera Grants for Women Composers program, made possible with the generosity of the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation, and a New Music USA 2024 Creator Fund award, for development of the vocal ensemble piece Roses Are Blue with collaborator Jesse Olsen Bay. She composed and performed the score for the 2024 limited series podcast Hysterical, produced by Pineapple Street Studios.

Composer Jeff Myers (DMA ’07, composition) recently released his debut album, Requiem, with Rachel Calloway and the Grammy-nominated JACK Quartet, on the Innova Label. The album features two works tailored especially for them: Requiem aeternam and dopamine. Calloway’s rich mezzo navigates the requiem, which features the words of such diverse poets as Oscar Wilde, Frida Schanz, Petrarch, and Rumi. Myers’s string quartet dopamine takes the listener on a wild ride with the famous neurotransmitter, exploring a re-tuned sound world full of unusual delights. Myers plans to release more music in the future with JACK violinist Christopher Otto, soprano Rachel Schutz, and pianists Stephen Gosling and Andrea Christie.

Alan Posner (BM ’08, music education) is entering his 10th year as the band director at Bloomfield Hills High School (BHHS) and 17th year teaching. Last year, the BHHS Klezmer Ensemble, established by Posner, performed at the Michigan Music Conference. Additionally, the BHHS Tri-M chapter won its third National Association for Music Education (NAfME) State Chapter of the Year award. Posner performs regularly with his band Klezundheit and with Cass Quartet (saxophone), and he started a Klezmer Academy in Metro Detroit this past summer at Temple Beth El in Bloomfield Hills.

Ellen PutneyMoore (BMA ’05, vocal performance) has been named the new executive director of the New York Choral Society (NYCHORAL). With extensive experience in nonprofit management and a background as a professional opera singer, PutneyMoore brings strategic marketing, fundraising, and operational leadership skills to NYCHORAL. She has successfully led marketing campaigns and increased community engagement at the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan, Michigan Theater Foundation, and the American Kennel Club Museum of the Dog. She is excited to join NYCHORAL, praising the artistic director David Hayes’s innovative programming and looking forward to advancing the organization’s mission of excellence and inclusivity in choral music.

Darryl Semira (BFA ’01, musical theatre) tackled the role of Victor Prynne in Noel Coward’s Private Lives at Irish Classical Theatre Company this past June. He continues to work at regional theatres throughout the country and will be playing the role of Dan in the Pulitzer Prize-winning Next to Normal in early 2025 at MusicalFare Theatre.

Jason Sifford (DMA ’01, piano performance and pedagogy) was elected to the board of the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) as West Central Division director-elect. Six of the pieces from his collection Beware the Jabberwock (Willis Music) were also selected for inclusion in the National Federation of Music Clubs (NFMC) Festivals Bulletin for 2024-2028, and his fourth children’s musical camp with writing partner Katie Colletta marked a major milestone: the Footliters Traveling Playhouse reached over 1,000 students this past summer in eastern Iowa.

Ann Marie Stanley (PhD ’09, music education) was appointed director of the Penn State School of Music and professor of music education on July 1, 2023. She was previously the associate dean for graduate studies and the Aloysia L. Barineau Professor of Music Education at Louisiana State University.

David Troiano (DMA ’06, organ) presented an organ recital that featured the world premiere of A Liturgical Suite for organ by Alejandro Consolacion III of Manila. It was given at the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption in San Francisco and is based on several Eucharistic chants.

Adam Wachter (BTA ’05, theatre) wrote Your Rep Book: How to Find, Choose, and Prepare Successful Audition Songs, which was published by Bloomsbury imprint Methuen Drama and is available anywhere books are sold. He continues to teach musical theatre performance on the faculty of the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, and his original musicals are performed in productions around the world.

Deborah Rebeck Ash (MM ’77, DMA ’99, flute) performed two of her compositions, Green Spaces and Calliope Cantations, at the Florida Flute Association Convention in January. In April she gave a lecture at the International Low Flute Festival and a world premiere of Gay Kahkonen’s Flying Past Grief on solo alto flute with low flute ensemble. In May she conducted the Southeast Michigan Flute Association (SEMFA) Flute Choir’s world premiere of the Nina Shekhar (BM ’18, composition, flute) composition Cloudburst at the SEMFA Flute Festival. In August she performed Flying Past Grief and her composition Does Heaven Rain? at the National Flute Association (NFA) Convention. In September she gave a concert at the Marshall Fredericks Sculpture Museum in Saginaw, Michigan. Ash is NFA’s low flute competition coordinator and is on the Low Flutes Committee.

In the spring semester of 2024, Cassie Barnhardt (BDA ’97, dance), who also earned her BA in psychology and PhD in higher education from U-M, was promoted to full professor at the University of Iowa, College of Education. She is currently the principal investigator of a $3.9 million, five-year USAID grant in the Republic of Kosovo that is focused on connecting public universities with the private sector.

The second edition of The Breathing Book for Oboe, by Stephen Caplan (MM ’82, DMA ’92, oboe), was recently published by Mountain Peak Music. Caplan also performed and presented an “UnMasterClass” for the International Double Reed Society Conference held in Flagstaff, Arizona. Caplan is professor of oboe at University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and principal oboist with the Las Vegas Philharmonic.

Emma Cotter (BFA ’97, dance) was a selected artist for the Human Impacts Institute 2024 Creative Climate Awards, with one of her bottle cap tapestries, “RESIST, 2017,” featured in their international exhibition in Brooklyn’s Dumbo neighborhood. An image of the tapestry was also included in rotating projections onto the Manhattan Bridge every evening during Earth Week. Cotter lives and works in NYC, where she incorporated her dance/art/design company, RETTOCAMME Inc., in 2010.

Jamal Duncan (BM ’98, clarinet) is currently associate director of bands at Arizona State University. In March 2024, he and his ASU Wind Symphony gave a featured performance at the College Band Directors National Association Western/Northwestern Divisional Conference. In July, Duncan presented at the World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles (WASBE) Conference in Gwanju, South Korea. In January 2025, Duncan will conduct the Michigan Middle School All-State Band in Grand Rapids.

As a successful fundraiser and producer for his University of Delaware (UD) Master Players Concert Series, Sean Gao (BM ’96, MM ’97, violin) has been promoting SMTD excellence as a concert performer, composer, and concert presenter. In March 2024, Gao traveled to Singapore to join U-M development officers and his parents Rich and Susan Rogel (of the U-M Rogel Cancer Center) to celebrate newly established Singapore cancer research projects and to explore possible new connections for U-M at large. Gao’s Master Players International Music Festival on the UD campus has enjoyed five years of success and will continue to serve as a branding and recruitment platform for the UD School of Music. Supported by Bloomberg Philanthropists, Shanghai Sonatas, the new American musical-in-development conceptualized and composed by Gao, was presented by the Powerhouse Theater in Poughkeepsie, NY.

Daniel Gwirtzman (BFA ’92, dance) spent five weeks as an artist-in-residence at the Dora Maar Cultural Center in Provence, France (June/July), where he created a dance film involving inhabitants of the village of Ménerbes and a body of photographic dance self-portraiture. In July, he taught dance to 50 high school students from around the US at Ithaca College Summer Theatre Conservatory. In August, Daniel Gwirtzman Dance Company was in residence at the American Dance Festival, developing and performing a new dance, Flashpoint. Gwirtzman presented his research, “Explaining Dance to All,” at the 2024 National Dance Education Organization conference in September in Seattle.

Bruce Kiesling (BFA ’95, musical theatre; MM ’98, conducting) continues as music director of the Sequoia Symphony Orchestra (California) and the Adrian Symphony Orchestra (Michigan) and as conductor of the orchestra and opera at UC Santa Cruz. Recent highlights include guest conducting appearances with the San Francisco Symphony, the Florida Orchestra, the San Diego Symphony, and orchestras in Boston, San Antonio, Madison, Greensboro, and Huntsville. This season, Kiesling returns to San Diego, San Francisco, Greensboro, and Madison and will debut with the Greenville Symphony Orchestra (South Carolina).

LFP, the production company of Becky Bahling Lythgoe (BFA ’99, musical theatre), expanded productions in 2024 to the Bank of America Performing Arts Center (Thousand Oaks, California). Other presenting houses have included Pasadena Playhouse, Theatre Under the Stars (Houston), Tennessee Performing Arts Center (Nashville), the North Carolina Theatre (Raleigh), Laguna Playhouse, and Balboa Theatre (San Diego). Shows have starred Ariana Grande, Sabrina Carpenter, Michelle Williams, Neil Patrick Harris, Shoshana Bean, Alex Newell, and others. LFP is also actively working on the musical adaptation of To Sir, with Love, which will have its world premiere on the Ogunquit Playhouse stage in 2025 – cast by SMTD alum Rachel Hoffman (BFA ’99, musical theatre) of the Telsey Office.

As artistic director for Terpsichore Collective, Aimee McDonald (BFA ’96, dance) has focused on reigniting the contemporary dance scene in the Ann Arbor area by launching a new dance festival, Dancing in Summer, the Festival! in June 2024. The festival, which will be an annual event, was held at Riverside Arts Center in Ypsilanti and featured dance artists from across the state and country, as well as international artists. It included two professional showcases, two days of high-level master classes, a choreography showing, and a dance film screening. McDonald also worked in collaboration with U-M alum Teri Sarristo to create a documentary on the history of dance in Ann Arbor, Local Movement.

Stephen Michael Newby (DMA ’94, composition) currently holds the inaugural Lev H. Prichard III Endowed Chair in the Study of Black Worship and Professor of Music and serves as ambassador for the Black Gospel Music Preservation Program at Baylor University. He is currently co-authoring – with Robert Darden, Baylor University’s emeritus professor of journalism – the book Soon and Very Soon: The Transformative Music and Ministry of Andrae Crouch, to be released March 2025 by Oxford University Press.

Darryl Taylor (MM ’91, DMA ’95, voice) was honored with the 2024 Trailblazers Award by the National Association of Negro Musicians. He is recognized for his performances, recordings, and advocacy of marginalized composers, especially African Americans and women.

Stephen Gryc (BM ’71, music education; MM ’78, music theory; DMA ’83, composition) traveled to Prague in May for a recording session with the acclaimed chamber ensemble the Belfiato Quintet. The group recorded Gryc’s Five American Portraits for release on the Parma label. Gryc’s Evensong (2000) for trumpet and band has been embraced by trumpeters as standard repertoire and has received four performances so far this year. Carrie Koffman (BM ’91, saxophone) also performed the work on alto saxophone on April 27 with the Hartt Wind Ensemble in a concert celebrating the life of conductor Glen Adsit (BM ’86, music education; MM ’94, conducting). 

James Johnston (BM ’81, composition) has been busy in his electronic music studio producing several works during summer and fall of 2024. Of note are a re-mix of a work called The Farewell, composed while he was working on his degree at the University of Michigan. Johnston completely re-orchestrated the work using modern synthesis and sampling technology as well as using the Cubase digital audio workstation. It was published on YouTube in June 2024. Johnston completed a new work integrating orchestral and rock elements called Infinite Beyond This World, published on YouTube in July 2024.

Derek Parsons (MM ’85, DMA ’89, piano) has been elected to the board of directors of the American Liszt Society (ALS) as editor of the society’s newsletter. His other ALS activities have included serving as artistic director of the 2018 Liszt Festival and as a jurist for the 2021 Los Angeles International Liszt Competition. He also continues to advocate for Healey Willan’s Piano Concerto, offering a two-piano reduction score that he co-authored in 2017. With almost 30 lecture-performances at major universities throughout the US and abroad, he continues to seek that elusive American orchestral premiere of this beautiful and unappreciated work.

Bradford Pickett (MM ’82, music education) retired in 2023 after 40 years of teaching public school music in Kern County, California. Pickett taught primarily junior high band in the Panama-Buena Vista School District in Bakersfield. His bands won numerous awards and were consistently rated superior in California Music Educators Association (CMEA) rating festivals; he also served as site chair at many CMEA festivals. Pickett placed many of his students in honor music festivals. He was awarded the Kern County Music Educators Association Hall of Fame Award following his retirement.

Joseph Talleda (BM ’88, piano) is in his ninth year as pianist for Civic Chorale of Greater Miami, a community performing arts organization of many years’ standing. In addition, he maintains an active and lively presence as pianist for Miami Collegium Musicum, as staff collaborative pianist at the Kendall campus of Miami-Dade College, and as freelance collaborative pianist throughout the south Florida area. On Sunday mornings, he regularly performs at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Miami.

In August 2023, Stephanie (Pelz) Bennett (BM ’76, harp) was the featured artist in the “Hangin’ with the Harp” Zoom seminar presented by the Atlanta Harp Center. In January 2024, she taught child actor Adriana Murigu to play harp for a national commercial and provided the harp for Atlanta harpist Angelica Hairston for the same shoot. In March 2024 she entertained at the reception for music Oscar nominees, delighting the nominated songwriters with her harp arrangements of their songs. Also in March 2024, she played Celtic and pedal harp in the 7-piece Celtic Hollywood band led by legendary bagpiper Eric Rigler.

Gloria J. McEwen Burgess (BA ’75, performance studies; MA ’77, theatre) celebrates her creative artistry as a performer, director, producer, author, professor, and entrepreneur. Her current projects center on Pass It On!, a sumptuously illustrated visual biography about her father, Earnest McEwen Jr., and his unique relationship with Nobel Prize laureate William Faulkner. The Library of Congress selected her book for two of its collections. Burgess’s Pass It On! has been set to music; produced on stage with actors, dancers, and music; and selected as an essential resource in learning and civic communities fostering belonging, compassion, generosity, kindness, and passing it on! 

Carolyn Eynon (BM ’69, MM ’70, choral conducting) was awarded the Arts Hero award by ON Media, an Arizona arts publisher. She was recognized for outstanding music leadership for her work with the Carolyn Eynon Singers.

Bruce Gustafson (PhD ’77, musicology) is the author/editor of the critical edition of Jean-Baptiste Lully: Les Amants magnifiques, le Divertissement royal, mêlé de comédie, de musique et d’entrées de ballet, with Noam Krieger. A preliminary version of the score is also published (without critical apparatus and essays) in the Thèâtre complet of Jean-Baptiste Molière, edited by Charles Mazouer, published by Classiques Garnier.

Ann McCutchan (MM ’76, clarinet) gave lectures at Florida Southern College (September 2023) and the St. Augustine Women’s History Month celebration (March 2024) based on her recent book, The Life She Wished to Live: A Biography of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Author of “The Yearling” (Norton, 2021). She received a new opera libretto commission: The Devil’s Dream, after the novel by Lee Smith, with composer Mara Gibson; the first two scenes were publicly workshopped at Louisiana State University (February 2024). At the City University of New York, McCutchan spoke at the Biographers International Organization (BIO) conference on “Alternative Approaches to Biography” (May 2024). 

Thomas Poshak (BM ’70, music education; MM ’73, trombone) was selected for the 2024 Hall of Fame Award by the Missouri Bandmasters Association.

Charles M. Atkinson (MM ’65, music education) published “On Modulation in Early Medieval Chant in East and West” in Musikkontakt und-transfer zwischen Byzanz und dem lateinischen Westen (5.-12. Jahrhundert), edited by Susanne Rühling and Klaus Pietschmann, Musiktheorie 39 (2024): 25-35. He read the papers “‘I have a dream’: Future Projects in Computer-Aided Chant Research” for the meeting MedRen (Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Music) in Granada, Spain, in July, and “‘Wrong-Way Corrigan’? Or just a little off-course? The Alia musica’s Expositor and the Modes” for the meeting of the IMS Study Group Cantus Planus in Gödöllő, Hungary, later in the summer.

While dining in Venice, Italy, Bruce Galbraith (BM ’62, music education, euphonium) and wife Karen (who earned a BA from U-M in 1963) struck up a conversation with the family at the next table. Galbraith mentioned that he and his wife had met at U-M, showing his “M” ring obtained when he received the SMTD Hall of Fame award in 2009. The man at the table, who turned out to be the general manager of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, asked to take a picture of the ring so he could send it to Tom Brady, who “never stops talking about Michigan!”

Sheilah Rae (née Bernstein Gross) (BM ’67, voice) is honored to have written the foreword for neurologist Sam Markind’s new book, Music Between My Ears: The Value of Music to the Brain. Published by Johns Hopkins Press, the book is expected to be released July 2025. Known as a theatrical songwriter and former Broadway performer, Rae received a Lifetime Achievement Award from New York Theatre Barn, an established off-Broadway company that she co-founded. In October she was thrilled and honored to give Lynne Shankel New York Theatre Barn’s Impact Award for outstanding songwriting for the theatre. The award was presented to Professor Shankel by conductor, composer, and Maestra founder Georgia Stitt.