Fall 2017 Quarter Notes

The School of Music launches the 2017-18 academic year in typical eclectic fashion, with faculty and students engaged in a multitude of initiatives, good works, and projects in musical realms from the experimental to the tried-and-true. In this issue, we welcome new arrivals in the Music Library and the tuba studio; anticipate our first-ever Oboe Day (Sunday, October 22) with a closer examination of an essential skill every serious double reed player must master; and share a visit by soprano Renée Fleming to the DXARTS Brain Lab.

Sophisticated Whittling: Quest for the Golden Reed

When UW music student Logan Esterling decided, in his sophomore year of high school, to switch from saxophone to oboe in order to fulfill his dream of performing in an orchestra, he had no idea that he was consigning himself to a life requiring constant, diligent attention to his instrument far above and beyond that required of other instruments in the ensemble. He had no idea he would soon be carrying four knives in his oboe case wherever he’d go and that razor blades and sandpaper would… Read more

Faculty Update: Fall 2017

World travels, new recordings, performances, world premieres, and keynote presentations kept School of Music faculty on the go throughout the summer break. Patricia Campbell, Music Education and Ethnomusicology Patricia Campbell, Music Education and Ethnomusicology professor at the University of Washington, used a sabbatical year to further interests and initiatives internationally throughout 2016-17. Recognition of her work in world music pedagogy led to multiple invitations to speak,… Read more

Student and Alumni Update: Fall 2017

Honors, appointments, presentations, and accolades set the tone for recent news and updates from UW Music students and alumni. School of Music students Elise Kim, flute, and Logan Esterling, oboe, won the festival-wide concerto competition at the Sewanee Summer Music Festival in Tennessee last summer. They were selected from 200 students after successfully passing through three rounds of adjudication. Both appeared as soloists with the Sewanee Festival Orchestra at the festival’s end, Kim… Read more

New Arrivals at the School of Music: Fall 2017

Erin Conor, Music Library Long-time patrons of the UW Music Library may notice the new head of the Music Library, Erin Conor, looks familiar. That’s because her new role represents a bit of a homecoming for Conor, who earned graduate degrees in music history and library and information science at the UW in the mid-2000s. Most recently the performing arts librarian at Reed College in Portland, Conor earned an MA in Music History (2006) and and MLIS… Read more

Soprano Reneé Fleming Visits DXARTS Brain Lab

The buzz about the research underway at the Center for Digital Arts and ExperimentalMedia (DXARTS) attracted a high-profile visitor recently when world-renowned sopranoReneé Fleming, in town for an engagement with Seattle Symphony, paid a visit toDXARTS’ Art+Brain Lab. Fleming received a personal demo donning wearable sensors and learning more aboutresults and methods for collecting data that have been developed over the course ofthe past several years at DXARTS. Professors Richard Karpen… Read more

Thank You

Your gifts to our scholarship funds provide our students educational and performance opportunities that would otherwise not be possible, and we are grateful for your generosity. To make a gift in support of UW music students, please view a list of priority funds here. Thank you!