School of Music students and alumni report recent academic appointments, performances, career milestones and other notable achievements.
Voice student Sophia Parker, soprano, a senior who studies with Thomas Harper, sang the role of “Sandmännchen” in a live, professional production of Englebert Humperdinck's Hansel und Gretel in Wichita, Kansas in December 2021. In early March she was the soprano soloist in a performance of Ēriks Ešenvalds’ "Only in Sleep,” presented by the Bellevue Chamber Chorus (Ben Luedcke, director).
Saxophone students of Michael Brockman were featured on the Wind Ensemble and Symphonic Band's March 8 concert at Meany Hall. Saxophonists Diego Mesquita, Katie Zundel, Lisa Dockendorff, and Nick Franks performed William Bolcom's Concert Grosso, and, according to Brockman "absolutely nailed it!" Bolcom, a UW alumnus and Seattle native who first studied at the University as an 11-year old child prodigy, went on to acclaim as both a performer and composer, winning the National Medal of Arts, Pulitzer Prize, and Grammy. In 2003, the University of Washington bestowed upon him the UW's Alumnus Summa Laude Dignatus Award. Read more here.
HyeYeon Kim, DMA student of Craig Sheppard, won the Keyboard Division’s Concerto Competition in February. She will perform the first movement of the Chopin Piano Concerto in E minor, Opus 11, on June 3, 2022, with the University of Washington Symphony Orchestra conducted by David Rahbee. David Lin, a BM student of Craig Sheppard, was the Alternate, performing Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto in G minor, Opus 22.
Abbie Naze (’17 MM, Orchestral Conducting) has been named Conductor-in-Residence at the Northwest Edvard Grieg Society.
Lorenzo Guggenheim (’18 MM, Orchestral Conducting) is a finalist for the position of the Oakville Symphony in Ontario, California.
Julia Tai (’10 DMA, Orchestral Conducting) is a finalist for the position of Music Director/Conductor of the Lexington Philharmonic in Lexington, Kentucky.
Music Education doctoral student Clayton Dahm was awarded the 2021 Elizabeth May Award by the Society for Ethnomusicology for his paper on the topic of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, “Activating Music Archives and Disrupting Bias,” presented at the society’s annual conference. Dahm also is lead author of “Families as Small-Community Quarantine Pods of Sociomusical Engagement,” accepted for publication in the International Journal of Community Music.
Dahm co-presented "Global Jukebox: Resources and Strategies for Teaching Diverse Musical Cultures," at the Washington Music Educators Association (WMEA) 2022 Conference in Yakima with Dr. Patricia Shehan Campbell. He is first author of an article appearing in the WMEA Voice this spring on “Star-Songs and Constellations,” a new curriculum he has developed with Professor Campbell within Alan Lomax’s The Global Jukebox.
Alumnus Pat Vandehey (BM, BA) has been awarded the Oregon Music Education Association’s John C. McManus Distinguished Teacher Award. The award is conferred annually by the Association to honor individuals with a life-time of service to music education and a highly distinguished record of professional accomplishment. The longtime Director of Bands and Associate Professor of Music at Portland State University is scheduled to retire from teaching this year. Prior to his work at PSU, Vandehey taught 14 years at George Fox University and 23 years in the Beaverton, Oregon School District.
John Aguilar (‘17 BM, Music Education), director of the Eagle Staff Middle School music program in Seattle, is making great strides with his young instrumental music students. His Jazz Band I was named "Junior Instrumental Large Ensemble Winner" and "Sweepstakes Award Winner" at the 2022 University of Idaho Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival.
Amy C. Beegle (‘06 PhD, Music Education) is Associate Professor of Music Education at the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati. She wrote a chapter on Orff-Schulwerk for General Music: Dimensions of Practice (Abril & Gault, 2022, Oxford University Press), and an article for the Orff Echo on the topic of maintaining music teacher community during the COVID-19 pandemic. She is an active master teacher-clinician in the American Orff-Schulwerk Association and the Organization of American Kodaly Educators, and serves as Chair of the Alliance for Active Music Making subcommittee of the American Orff-Schulwerk Association.
Cory Meals (‘18 PhD, Music Education), an Assistant Professor of Music Education at the University of Houston, recently presented research exploring ensemble coordination and visual communication at the 2021 Oxford Conducting Institute Conference in Oxford, UK. He additionally presented two talks focused on increasing composer diversity and teacher personal knowledge management, respectively, at the 2022 Texas Music Educators Association Conference. Also at TMEA, he delivered the keynote address to the Texas chapter of the National Association for Music Education (NAfME). In addition to his research and presentation activity he serves as the Head of Analytical Activities for the Institute for Composer Diversity, an organization dedicated to the celebration, education, and advocacy of music created by composers from historically underrepresented groups.
Mark Montemayor (‘98 MA, ‘06 PhD, Music Education) is Associate Professor of Music recently appointed as Interim Director of Undergraduate Studies at the University of North Texas, where he is serving 1600 enrolled music majors. He recently published his research on musicians' perceptions of conducting expressivity in the International Journal of Music Education, and another article on the topic he co-authored was accepted for publication in the Journal of Research in Music Education (JRME). Dr. Montemayor is completing his term as an editorial committee member for JRME and continues to serve on the board for the Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education.
Jocelyn Mory (‘21 PhD, Ethnomusicology) was hired as Senior Analyst at Hypothesis, a market and strategy firm that does consulting work for a variety of industries. Dr. Mory does mostly qualitative research (mini-ethnographies, in-depth interviews) and some quantitative research with global audiences as part of a dynamic team that works closely with a design team and analytics team to produce high quality insights and deliverables.
Bryan E. Nichols (‘13 PhD, Music Education), Assistant Professor of Music at Penn State University, recently published two book chapters in the Choral Conductor’s Companion (Winnie, Meredith Publications) and Routledge Companion to Interdisciplinary Studies of Singing, Vol. I. He co-authored an article, "Melody, not beat perception, predicts rhythmic error detection” in the Journal of Research in Music Education with UW alumna Laura Stambaugh. He also co-authored an article, "Graduate mentoring practices in music education” in the same journal, along with others in press for 2022 in Music Educators Journal and Update: Applications of Research in Music Education. Dr. Nichols is the director of the Pitch Exploration Lab, a research pedagogy forum for undergraduate and graduate students from across campus majoring in the sciences or the arts.
Elisabeth Crabtree, PhD student in Music Education, recently directed and conducted a performance of the Seattle Youth Opera Chorus. She also published an article in the Fall 2021 edition of the Orff Echo titled, "Singing in the Schulwerk: Vocal Pedagogy in the Orff Classroom."
Ke Guo, PhD candidate in Music Education, led an archiving project with The Benmayor Collection of Eastern Sephardic Ballads in Fall 2021-Winter 2022, cataloguing for the digitalization of historical ethnographic audio recording from the Los Angeles Sephardic community. During her research and concert trip to Spain in December, she performed as pianist and vocalist with local artists on Spanish Navidad repertoires in Valladolid, Arévalo and San Lorenzo de Escorial. This spring, Guo performed with Seattle-based early music group Trio Guadalevín and Paco Diaz (former Ethnomusicology Visiting Artist) at the University of Puget Sound and was featured performer for the inauguration ceremony of the Hazzan Isaac Azose Fund for Community Engagement in the UW’s Sephardic Studies program.
Maria Price, MA/PhD student in Ethnomusicology, presents a paper titled "Rafiki: Sound and Silence in Queer Worldmaking" at the 2022 Music and the Moving Image Conference based out of New York University.
Music (is still) Alive! in the Yakima Valley (MAYV): A team of four graduate students from Music Education and Ethnomusicology (Julia Aguilar Jerez, Jack Flesher, Skuli Gestsson, and Cooper Schlegel) are continuing the Music Alive! In the Yakima Valley project this year. For 2021-22, the team is working together with the Yakama Nation Tribal School to facilitate both in-person and remote collaborations, including collective songwriting workshops, informational sessions on the history of social protest music around the world, and music production tutorials. Likewise, the team is excited to revive the project’s earlier collaborations with White Swan High School, working with the high school’s music production class towards creating and producing their own music. Finally, the team is excited for the culmination of this year’s project: a multi-day collective songwriting workshop in the Yakima Valley over UW’s Spring Break. MAYV is made possible with funding by the Jubilation Foundation, the American Orff Schulwerk Association, and the UW School of Music.