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Winter 2020 Faculty Notes

Submitted by Joanne De Pue on January 24, 2020 - 12:37pm
  • Pianist Craig Sheppard has both local and international engagements on the calendar in the coming months.
  • Drummer Ted Poor celebrates the release of his first album on the Verve/Impact! label.
    Drummer Ted Poor celebrates the release of his first album on the Verve/Impulse! label. Photo: Meredith Truax/Universal.
  • David Alexander Rahbee, director of orchestral activities
    Director of Orchestral Activities David Alexander Rahbee received recent recognition as an American Prize finalist for his work with the UW Symphony (Photo: courtesy Crosscut).
  • Patricia Campbell
    Professor Patricia Campbell was recently named WMEA’s Educator of the Year at the college/university level.

Honors, accolades, research highlights and other news from the School of Music faculty.

Patricia Campbell, Music Education, Ethnomusicology

Patricia Campbell presented on World Music Pedagogy at the national meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology, Indiana University, this past November, and served as moderator and discussant for a panel on “Intergenerational, Transnational, and Emotional Connections that Shape Music Making among Children and Youth”. She presented keynote addresses at the 50th anniversary of the Japanese Society for Music Education (Tokyo, in November) and the annual conference of Music Education in Ireland (Dublin, in January). Likewise, she will be featured keynoter at meetings of the Organization of American Kodaly Educators (Portland, in March) and The College Music Society-Northwest (Seattle, in March). She is contracted for two books to come out in late 2020, one each by Oxford University Press and Routledge, on topics of globalizing music studies in higher education. Along with the supervision of 17 graduate students this Winter in their programs, projects, and dissertations, she is hosting Kedmon Mapana of Tanzania (University of Dar es Salaam) as Visiting Artist in Ethnomusicology and Francis Ward (Dublin City University) as Fulbright Scholar, from January through June 2020. The Washington Music Educators Association (WMEA) recently named Professor Campbell Washington State Educator of the Year at the university level (see story here).

Robin McCabe, Piano

Robin McCabe has been appointed Professor of Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for the China Conservatory of Music and the Chinese National School of Music. She gave a duo piano recital in November with her sister Rachelle, for Bellevue’s Eastside Music Teachers’ Association. Almost $10,000 was raised for student music scholarships.  In December she presented students Hexin Qiao and Kiwa Mizutani in performance for University Rotary. 

Ted Poor, Jazz Studies

Jazz Studies assistant professor Ted Poor celebrates the release of his New Deal/Impulse! debut album You Already Know, out on February 28. Produced by Blake Mills, the nine-track album features saxophonist Andrew D’Angelo, indie folk-rocker Andrew Bird, and multi-instrumentalist Rob Moose. An album release event is set for March 7 at Seattle’s Columbia City Theater, with Poor joined by faculty colleague Cuong Vu, trumpet. 

Fred Radke, Jazz Studies

Jazz Studies faculty member Fred Radke directs the Harry James Orchestra (HJO) in several upcoming high-profile engagements. April concerts at the Cincinnati Music Hall and at Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan precede a big bash on May 16, when the Harry James Orchestra competes against the Glenn Miller Orchestra in a Battle of the Bands at Seattle’s Museum of Flight, part of a commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II. Radke’s spouse and UW Music faculty member Gina Funes and the Swing Gals, an Andrews Sisters tribute act, also appear on this program. On August 12 and 13, Radke leads the HJO in two performances at the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C. as special guests of “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band.

David Alexander Rahbee, Orchestral Activities

The UW’s Director of Orchestral Activities appeared as a guest conductor with the Chattanooga Symphony in October, leading an all-Haydn program, and conducted more Haydn in New York in January, as a guest-alum speaker and conductor at the Second Annual Monteux School and Music Festival Winter Workshop at Lincoln Center. He was awarded second prize for conducting in The American Prize national non-profit awards in the arts, and was also awarded third prize for Orchestral Programming, for his work with the UW Symphony. He has placed among the winners for orchestral programming for each of the seasons since his arrival at the UW in 2013. His recording of Mendelssohn's early Piano Concerto in A minor with pianist Ana-Marija Markovina and the Kammerphilharmonie Berlin-Brandenburg was released this past October, as part of a 56-CD complete Mendelssohn box set by the German record label Hänssler. 

Christopher Roberts, Music Education

Music Ed lecturer Christopher Roberts recently published “World Music Pedagogy in Early Schooling: Issues of Implementation,” a chapter included in the Springer book Music in Early Childhood: Multi-disciplinary Perspectives and Inter-disciplinary Exchanges.  He has also given workshops for music educators in Ohio, California, Washington, and Alaska, on topics including “Empathy in the Elementary Music Class,” “Culturally Responsive Classroom Management,” and “Attending to Diversity in Music Teacher Education.”

Craig Sheppard, Piano

Chair of the UW Keyboard program performs the second of three recitals of the Beethoven Piano Trios with colleagues Rachel Lee Priday and Sæunn Thorsteinsdottir on February 29 in Meany Theater. He returns for the third time to the Jerusalem Music Center in March to teach and perform a joint recital with the Dutch flutist Jacques Zoon. In April, he performs Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy with the Kirkland Chorale, conducted by Glenn Gregg ('94 DMA, Choral Conducting) in Benaroya Hall. On May 1, he performs Mozart’s Piano Concerto K.503 with the UW Symphony, conducted by David Rahbee, then flies back to Israel for three weeks as a jury member of the 16th Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition in Tel Aviv. 

JoAnn Taricani, Music History

Professor Taricani is lead organizer, with UW alumnus Doug Fullington,  of an April 16-17 symposium on the 1841 ballet Giselle. Support is from the Simpson Center for the Humanities, Pacific Northwest Ballet (PNB) contributor Patty Edwards, and Princeton University's Department of Music. April 16 events include a panel on current issues in arts criticism with critics from the New York Times, New Yorker, and Seattle Times  presenting a panel on current issues in arts criticism.  On April 17, eight presenters from the U.S. and Russia will meet to discuss aspects of "Giselle" and the reconstruction being presented at the PNB in April.  Registration is required for the April 17 event ($25 for visitors; free to UW staff and students with ID).  More details, and a link to registration, can be found here.  

Sæunn Thorsteinsdóttir, Strings

Her recording of Icelandic composer Páll Ragnar Pálsson´s cello concerto “Quake” with the Iceland Symphony, released in November, made the Best of 2019 lists for National Public Radio and the New York Times. She recently spent two weeks working with students at the Royal College of Stockholm in Sweden and The Guildhall School of Music in London on presenting their music in an interactive and engaging way to school children.

Kevin Weingarten, Music Education

The Visiting Lecturer collaborated in fall quarter with two music research groups that moved articles into press. “Music Stimuli in Mindfulness Meditation: Comparison of Musician and Non-Musician Responses” will appear in a future issue of Psychology of Music, and “Content and Correlational Analysis of a Corpus of MTV-Promoted Music Videos Aired between 1990 and 1999” will appear in Music & Science.

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