Winter 2016 Quarter Notes

Students and faculty at the School of Music are engaged in scholarship and performance across the UW campus and beyond this quarter and welcoming a number of visiting artists and scholars for collaboration and inspiration. Visiting artists this quarter include longtime Gospel Choir director Phyllis Byrdwell, who brings a lifetime of devotion along with extensive knowledge to her Gospel Piano class as the UW's Ethnomusicology Visiting Artist for Winter Quarter. Read more about Phyllis and her work with our students below. In upcoming performances, percussion students of Tom Collier present a concert Feb. 24 of works by Japanese composers in observance of the fifth anniversary of the Japanese earthquake of 2011, just one of dozens of events on our calendar in the final weeks of the quarter.

Faculty profile: Phyllis Byrdwell

The UW’s Ethnomusicology Winter Quarter Visiting Artist is a musician and scholar very familiar to members of the UW School of Music community. Phyllis Byrdwell, who leads classes in Gospel Piano this quarter at the School of Music, has developed her skill and expertise in the genre through a lifetime of practice and devotion. The longtime (and founding) director of the UW Gospel Choir, which over the course of the past two decades has drawn thousands of students from throughout the UW... Read more

Concerto Competition winners appear with UW Symphony in upcoming performances

Hye Jung Yang performs with the UW Symphony on March 11

Winners of the School of Music’s 2015 Concerto Competitions perform their winning entries with the UW Symphony in two upcoming concerts. Strings competition winner Hye Jung Yang, cello, appears with the UW Symphony on its March 11 program, performing the first movement of Schumann’s Cello Concerto in A minor, Op. 129. A student of Sæunn Thorsteinsdóttir who is earning a doctoral degree in cello performance, Hye Jung earned a bachelor’s degree in orchestral instruments at Ewha Women’s... Read more

Music is our Research: New recordings by School of Music faculty

Recent research activities by School of Music faculty include the release of several new recordings in a range of musical styles. Tom Collier: Across the Bridge (2015, Origin Records) The percussionist revisits settings from throughout his life in this nine-track set featuring guest appearances by a host of talented musicians, including Larry Coryell and Bill Frisell on guitar, Dan Dean on bass, and John Bishop and Ted Poor on drums. Sixty years into his professional music career, Collier... Read more

Key Priorities: Piano fleet refurbishment

Dubs the UW's Husky mascot takes a piano lesson from Prof. Robin McCabe

Recent in-kind gifts and new purchases have allowed the School of Music to make needed upgrades to its aging piano fleet. Now the School has embarked on a renewed effort to raise funds for additional enhancements to this vital resource that benefits every area of the school and its degree programs. Of all the musical instruments in play at the School of Music, the piano stands apart in its relevance to the study and performance of nearly every individual affiliated with the school, whether... Read more

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