School of Music faculty report recent honors and appointments, publications, world premieres, and other notable achievements.
Robin McCabe, piano
Robin McCabe served as a judge for the Russian Chamber Music Foundation Concerto Competition in November 2024. In February, she led a guest master class at Seattle Pacific University.
David Alexander Rahbee, Orchestral Activities
David A. Rahbee appeared as guest conductor with the Bellingham Symphony Orchestra on Sunday, January 26, in a program that featured works by Joseph Haydn, Joseph Boulogne Chevalier St. Georges, and his own orchestration of Maurice Ravel’s Menuet sur le nom d’Haydn.
Franciso Reyes, Music Education
Assistant professor Francisco Reyes was among a cohort from the School of Music that traveled to Spokane over the weekend of February 14 for the 2025 National Association of Music Educators (NAfME) Northwest Regional and Washington Music Education Association Conference. The UW group included Christopher Roberts, chair of Music Education, Geoffrey Boers, director of Choral Activities for the School of Music, Rylan Virnig, assistant director of admissions, and a group of students from the Music Education program. Dr. Roberts and Dr. Reyes partook in a two-day panel, "Collectively Addressing 21st Century Music Educator Challenges," in which they engaged with scholars, policy makers, NAfME leadership and schoolteachers in exploring pathways to more effectively solve longstanding obstacles and challenges in the profession.
Timothy Salzman, Band Activities
Timothy Salzman, director of UW Bands, was a clinician for the University of North Florida Annual Conducting Symposium held in Jacksonville in early September, 2024. He also served as an evaluator for the Music for All National Concert Band Festival in Indianapolis in March of 2025.
Anne Searcy, Music History
Associate Professor Anne Searcy co-authored a chapter about the reception of West Side Story in the USSR for The Cambridge Companion to West Side Story, which was published in January 2025.
Craig Sheppard, piano
Students from the UW piano studio of Professor Sheppard performed live on air March 7 on Classical KING FM’s Northwest Focus Live.
Melia Watras, Strings
Professor Melia Watras, chair of the Strings program, had world premiere recordings of three compositions for violin recently released. Doppelgänger Dances, A dance of honey and inexorable delight, and Homage to Swan Lake are featured on Michael Jinsoo Lim’s album “Kinetic" from Planet M Records. Her music video “Doppelgänger" was premiered by The Strad. Watras spent a week as guest teacher at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. She taught the studio of her former teacher, distinguished professor Atar Arad.