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Spring 2024 Faculty Notes

Submitted by Joanne De Pue on May 23, 2024 - 3:21pm
School of Music director Joël-François with Clark Tenakhongva, Hopi singer and recording artist, whose group The Öngtupqa Trio were in residency at the UW in April 2024 (Photo: Joanne DePue).
School of Music director Joël-François with Clark Tenakhongva, Hopi singer and recording artist, whose group the Öngtupqa Trio were at the UW in April 2024 for a residency organized by faculty John-Carlos Perea and Jessica Bissett (Photo: Joanne DePue).

School of Music faculty report recent performances, residencies, teaching engagements, summer tour plans, and other updates.

Geoffrey Boers, Choral Conducting

A concert tour of Europe is on the itinerary this June for the UW Chamber Singers, led by Professor Geoffrey Boers, and the University Chorale, led by Professor Giselle Wyers. The singers and graduate student conductors are scheduled to present concerts in Prague, Czesky-Krumłowski, Vienna, Bratislava, and Budapest. In other summertime activites, Boers leads the Cascade Master Classes in choral conducting, a weeklong music festival for orchestral and choral conductors, and composers. Participants come from throughout North and South America. The focus of this program is to support and develop under-represented communities in these areas.  In July, Boers is a lead lecturer and adjudicator at the Xian International Choral Festival, where he will present master classes for teachers and conductors in addition to working with choirs of all ages.  

Michael Partington, Guitar

Head of the UW’s Guitar Program recently reprised his portrayal of the guitarist in Seattle Opera’s May 2024 production of Rossini’s Barber of Seville, a role he performed in 2011 and again in 2017. In addition to playing in the first act, for this production the guitar reappeared on stage in act two, replacing the orchestra to accompany Bartolo in the music lesson scene, and adding some lively rasgueados to the finale Fandango.

John-Carlos Perea, Ethnomusicology

Associate Professors John-Carlos Perea (Ethnomusicology) and Jessica Bissett Perea (American Indian Studies, Music History adjunct) hosted a visiting artist residency with the Öngtupqa Trio from April 17-20, 2024.

The Öngtupqa Trio partnered with the University of Washington to bring Hopi music, culture, history, current environmental protection initiatives, and other relevant topics to UW students during Spring Quarter 2024. The Öngtupqa Trio is made up of Clark Tenakhongva, Gary Stroutsos, and Matt Moon Nelson. Clark is a Hopi singer and recording artist, and served as Vice Chairman of the Hopi Tribe from 2018-2022. Gary is a gifted flute player with more than 45 albums to his credit; he specializes in playing the leena or Southwestern rim flute. Matt is a percussionist, ethnomusicologist, and world music radio DJ on KXCI-FM.

Perea presented his first faculty concert at UW on May 1, 2024 with a program of cedar flute songs and arrangements of jazz standards by Coltrane, Ellington, Ayler, and Jordan. Special guests included Jessica Bissett Perea (voice), School of Music graduate student Rose Martin (percussion, voice), School of Education graduate student Jess Peña Manalo (voice), and School of Music Jazz Faculty Marc Seales(piano). 

Craig Sheppard, Piano

Chair of the keyboard program performed Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy in Benaroya Hall on April 27 with the Northwest Sinfonietta and the Kirkland Choral Society, conducted by former DMA student, Glenn Gregg.  He joined colleagues Robin McCabe, Cristina Valdés, and Rachelle McCabe in performing four-hand and two-piano works on their Piano Power concert in Meany Theater on April 30. His UW piano studio presented a performance of the complete Schubert Impromptus in Brechemin Auditorium on May 21.

Stephen Price, Organ Studies

Dr. Stephen Price recently presented an organ concert at Anchorage Lutheran Church in Anchorage, Alaska, performing on the Byrad Fritts Organ. The performance included works by Bach, Daveluy, Gawthrop, Handel, Hilden, and Coleridge-Taylor. Students from his UW organ studio participated in a masterclass with Dr. Kimberly Marshall, the organ professor at Arizona State University. The masterclass, held at First Lutheran Church in West Seattle, was co-sponsored by the Seattle Chapter of the American Guild of Organists.

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