School of Music faculty report recent performances, travels, honors, appointments, transitions, presentations, and more.
Joël-François Durand, Composition
His wind quintet, "Musica fict(iv)a, Six pièces et deux interludes, pour quintette à vent," commissioned by the Chicago Wind Project was premiered at the Check Out, Chicago, on April 19, 2026. The group recorded the piece on the following day in preparation for a new CD to come out under the Kairos label, later this year.
Robin McCabe, Piano
Chair of the UW keyboard program was the featured guest artist for the Pacific Northwest School of Music’s benefit concert on April 26, performing both solo and collaborative repertoire with faculty of the school. In May she served on the Preliminary Jury of the Vancouver International Piano Sessions Concerto Competition.
Jessica Bissett Perea, Music History
Music History affiliate faculty member Jessica Bissett Perea, associate professor of American Indian Studies at the UW, is among faculty leading a Sawyer Seminar project recently awarded a grant from the Mellon Foundation. The seminar focused on rethinking academic freedom, democracy, and the university through Indigenous and de-colonial approaches to knowledge, art, and institutional governance, is co-led by UW faculty Jessica Bissett Perea (American Indian Studies), Ben Gardner (Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences), and Tony Lucero (Comparative History of Ideas and Jackson School of International Studies).
John-Carlos Perea, Ethnomusicology
Head of the UW's Ethnomusicology program presented music from his upcoming album, "Improvising Home," in his May 10 faculty concert at the School of Music. He was joined onstage by current and former UW faculty colleagues Michael Brockman, saxophone, and Marc Seales, piano, as well as guests Gary Hobbs, drums, and Shahin Shahbazi, tar. They performed works by Perea, Seales, John Coltrane, Duke Ellington, and Wayne Shorter.
Stephen Price, Organ Studies
Stephen "Steph" Price, Artist-in-Residence and Head of Organ Studies, recently released his second album, Sparkling Intensity, published by the Raven label, and recorded at St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral in Seattle, featuring new works by living composers, including Karim Al-Zand, Erland Hildén, Rachel Laurin, and Eurydice Osterman. He performed a CD-release concert in March as part of the music series at Seattle’s St. Mark's Church. A recent review in The American Organist magazine declared the work “a thoughtfully curated program that moves fluently between historical reference, contemporary idiom, and performer-centered creativity.”
Stephen Rumph, Music History
Chair of the UW Music History program recently sang Haydn's Creation with Northwest Chorale in a benefit performance supporting Northwest Harvest.
The Cambridge Companion to French Art Song (edited by Rumph) was published in February of this year, providing scholars up-to-date resources and research highlights from what the publisher deems a “crucial yet understudied song repertory.”
Anne Searcy, Music History
Professor Searcy delivered the keynote address, "Choreographing Minimalism after the Dance Boom" for the 10th International Conference on Music and Minimalism May 7–10, 2026, at the University of Maryland. Her talk examined two case studies demonstrating how and why ballet companies and choreographers used minimalist music during the 1980s and 90s. First, she analyzed Twyla Tharp and Philip Glass’s In the Upper Room, which used the propulsive quality of minimalist music to enable their dancers to perform to the point of total exhaustion. Then, she turned to Ulysses Dove’s Dancing on the Front Porch of Heaven, choreographed to the music of Arvo Pärt, to explore how Dove used minimalist music to create a ritual space that enabled him to mourn during the HIV/AIDS crisis.
Melia Watras, Viola
Professor Melia Watras returned to her alma mater, Indiana University, to serve as guest professor for a one-week residency, teaching for Distinguished Professor Atar Arad this past March. In May, Watras performed world premieres of works by Pulitzer Prize finalist Mary Kouyoumdjian and UW percussionist Bonnie Whiting, as well as world premieres of her compositions “Quadrato" and “Pelagic."
Giselle Wyers, Choral Conducting
Mid-America Productions presented the Carnegie Hall premiere May 23 in New York City of Giselle Wyers’ multi-movement choral work “Lips of the Sky,” conducted by the composer herself, featuring the New England Symphonic Ensemble, the University of Washington Chorale, Concord Chamber Choir, Boise Philharmonic Master Chorale, and Boise Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. University Chorale subsequently presented several movements of the work at the final UW performance of the Choir on May 28 at Meany Hall.