School of Music students and alumni report recent awards, appointments, publications, promotions, competition wins, and more.
School of Music alumnus Scott Brown retires in June after a distinguished career at Seattle's Roosevelt High School. Brown joined the Roosevelt music program in 1984 after graduating from the UW with a degree in Music Education. Directing the Roosevelt High Concert Band, Symphonic Band, Wind Ensemble, Marching Band, Jazz Band, and Percussion class, he has spent countless evenings and weekends rehearsing, performing, meeting, or traveling with Rooesvelt's many musical groups and leading ensembles in prize-winning performances at festivals and competitions nationwide.
"That one musician-educator could create daily 'peak experiences' for his students, and shape the life course of SO many people—in music and at large—is remarkable and rare," says Professor Patricia Campbell, chair of Music Education. "We've been privileged to the max to have Scott Brown in our midst: He's confirmed that Music Education is a force and a necessity in our schools and society. Scott, may you have a rousing coda to your impressive career!"
Darcy Copeland (’21 MM, Composition), a former student of Huck Hodge and Joël-François Durand, has been accepted into the Composition PhD program at Harvard University. She begins the program in Autumn 2022.
Kelsey Guo, PhD candidate in Music Education, performed in a concert this May of Sephardic song with Trio Guadalevin. She sang all songs in Ladino, the language of her specialized study, and played harp (as well as Chinese di-tzi, flute) in the program, “Antiguas Olas, Kostas Muevas: Music of the Sephardic Diaspora.” Guo has been awarded the Antoinette Wills Endowed Scholarship for the 2022-23 academic year in support of her upcoming fieldwork in Spain, Portugal, Turkey, and Israel. She also received a research grant from the American Academy for Jewish Research. “You’ve landed very well in this competitive process, as your application/proposal drew the interest (and support) of an interdisciplinary team of reviewers to your research on Sephardic music and its transmission and acquisition,” says Professor Patricia Campbell. “We wish you well in your upcoming field research within Sephardic communities of Spain and elsewhere in the Mediterranean region, and look forward to your continuing contributions as a musician, scholar, and educator to the fields of Music Education and Ethnomusicology.”
Marcus Anthony Evans (BM, Music Education) was selected as the 2022-23 recipient of the Peeler-Horan Scholarship for the Performing and Visual Arts. The scholarship was established in 2013 by L. Lincoln Johnson, former University of Washington Associate Vice President for Student Life and Director of the Husky Union Building (HUB), who created the scholarship to honor inspirational professors Karen Peeler and Leta Horan, former faculty members at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, where Mr. Johnson earned his B.A. in Music. In addition to his degree studies in Music Education, Evans served as the trumpet section leader in the Husky Marching Band in Autumn 2021 and is a student employee with UW Libraries.
Cee Adamson (DMA, Voice) has been awarded a Howard P. Dallas Endowed Fellowship for the 2022-23 academic year. The scholarship is designed to provide financial assistance to highly deserving students in the Arts to use for tuition, fees, books, and other educational needs.
Jenny Cooper, a guitar student of Michael Partington, won second prize at the most recent Northwest Guitar Festival, with recent alumnus Lucas Victor ('19 BM, Guitar Performance) taking fourth place in the competition. Partington's students were busy off campus this spring, making four trips in May to perform for local high school students. Abbey Regan, Isaac Estrada, Jenny Cooper and Oliver Callahan played and sang for classes at Ballard, Lincoln, Newport and Bellevue High Schools, answering questions and discussing their own stories and experiences as students at the UW School of Music.
Pianist Hanyan Zheng, doctoral student of Robin McCabe, has won first prize in the 2022 Charleston Spring Music Competition, 21 and older class. Hanyan also was first-prize winner at the 2021 Faszlo Spezzaferri Italy international music competition and third-prize winner at the 2021WPTA Finland international piano competition.
Alumnus Mario Alejandro Torres (DMA, Orchestral Conducting) returned to the UW on Tuesday May 31 to conduct chamber orchestra Philharmonia Northwest and piano students of Robin McCabe and Craig Sheppard in a program of concerto movements, originally scheduled for 2020 but twice delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Featured soloists were pianists Alice Liu (student of Professor Craig Sheppard), Kiwa Mizutani, Hanyan Zheng, Nicholas Tagab, and Yiyi Chen (students of Professor Robin McCabe). The program was made possible through support from the Michiko Morita Miyamoto Professorships in Piano, currently held by Professors McCabe and Sheppard. Music director of Philharmonia Northwest is another School of Music alumna, Julia Tai ('10 DMA, Orchestral Conducting).
Brian J. Winnie (’14, DMA, Choral Conducting) was promoted to Associate Professor of Music and awarded tenure at Western Illinois University in the spring of 2022. He was also awarded the WIU College of Fine Arts and Communication award for "Excellence in Scholarly and Professional Activities." He published an article within ACDA's June/July issue of the Choral Journal entitled "What's in Your Vocal Model? Establishing a Voice Quality Ideal in the Choral Rehearsal." He was an invited headliner for the Colorado Music Educators Conference in January 2022.
Timothy Little Trần (’22 DMA, Choral Conducting) has been appointed Director of Choral Studies and Assistant Professor of Music at Slippery Rock University, in Pennsylvania, where he will conduct choral ensembles and teach courses within the academic music curricula. He begins his new appointment in Autumn 2022.
Nick Klein (’21 DMA Voice), former student of Thomas Harper, has accepted a position as Head of Voice at Cleveland State University beginning in Autumn 2022. “Since completing his DMA here last June he has been teaching at Eastern Washington University this school year,” Harper says. “This is a big move for him, and we are really proud of him!”
Voice student Mavis Chan, soprano, a voice student who studies with Carrie Shaw, won the Lower Classical Treble Voice division in the Northwest Region of the National Association of Teachers of Singing, performing songs and arias by Richard Hundley, Georg Friedrich Handel, and Johannes Brahms with her collaborative pianist Karen Haining.
Voice student Virginia Elizondo, soprano, a voice student who studies with Carrie Shaw, was featured as the soprano soloist for the Mozart Requiem with the Tyler Civic Chorale of Texas this May. She travels this summer to the Trentino Music Festival to perform the role of Drusilla in Monteverdi's 'Incoronazione di Poppea.'
Students from the UW Voice program staged a two-night run of David T. Little’s comic one-act opera Vinkensport in late April in the Meany Studio Theater under the stage direction of Kelly Kitchens. Singers participating were Sarah Santos, Mallory McCollum, Karen Dunstan, Kenneth Foster, Zach Rude, Will Schlott, and Limuel Forgey.
Meg Stohlmann (’18 DMA, Choral Conducting) has accepted a position as Director of Choral and Vocal Studies at Gonzaga University in Spokane beginning in August 2022. She previously had been an Assistant Professor of Choral Music Education at Appalachian State University in North Carolina.
Heather MacLaughlin Garbes (’08 DMA, Choral Conducting) has been named the Program Chair for the upcoming 2023 College Music Society's International Conference to be held in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. She recently presented at the Baltic Musics Beyond Post-Soviet conference at Amherst College and the Mägi Ensemble, the professional choral ensemble that she founded, was a featured performer. MacLaughlin Garbes was recently appointed Artistic Director for the Everett Chorale and continues to conduct the Finnish Choral Society.
Jennifer Rodgers (DMA Choral Conducting) has been promoted to Assistant Director of Choral Activities and Assistant Teaching Professor of Voice at Iowa State University. Rodgers also has been selected to be guest conductor for MidAmerica Productions 40th season next year - conducting Clif Hardin's Requiem at Carnegie Hall on May 29, 2023.
Tiffany Walker, DMA candidate in Choral Conducting, has accepted a Visiting Assistant Professor position in the music department at Pacific Lutheran University.
Recent publications by Clayton Dahm, PhD candidate in Music Education, can be found in The Orff Echo, “Exploring Jeliya: Creative Possibilities with a West African Music Tradition” and a co-authored piece with Dr. Patricia Shehan Campbell in The Kodaly Envoy, “Music in Cultural Context: The Legacy of Alan Lomax.”
Kimani J. Bishop, PhD student in Ethnomusicology, will serve on the faculties of the internationally renowned course in Caribbean music performance and pedagogy called “My People Tell Stories,” and the World Music Pedagogy course at the University of Hartford. He is also engaged as a performer for the music ministry of Greenlake Seventh-Day Adventist Church in Seattle.
Maria Price, a second-year graduate student in Ethnomusicology, will present a paper at the Music and the Moving Image 2022 Conference titled "Rafiki: Sound and Silence in Queer Worldmaking." She will be performing in June with the AfroBrazilian drum and dance group VamoLa! at HONKFest West, and at the Fremont Solstice Parade.
Laura Stambaugh (PhD Music Education) has completed a new book, Music and the Brain for Musicians, scheduled for publication by Conway Press in August 2022. Stambaugh is Professor and Head of Music Education at Georgia Southern University, where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in music education, music cognition, and research methods.