Winter 2018 Quarter Notes

UW Music students and faculty are making an impact world-wide, as this issue of Quarter Notes reveals, with research and performance activities from Gitameit, Myanmar to the University of Cambridge and beyond. In this issue of Quarter Notes, learn more about research and publication highlights, recent awards and accolades, and the extraordinary generosity of School of Music friends whose support and encouragement makes important things happen—at the University and in the world beyond.

Faculty composer Huck Hodge awarded Charles Ives Living

Faculty composer Huck Hodge (Photo: Dennis R. Wise).

The American Academy of Arts and Letters has named UW faculty composer Huck Hodge the recipient of the Charles Ives Living, the largest monetary award granted exclusively to American composers. The cash award of $200,000 enables—and in fact requires—the recipient to “quit his day job” for a two-year period in order to focus solely on composing, a luxury not afforded Ives himself, who composed the body of his work in relative obscurity while earning a living in the insurance trade. “Mr. Hodge... Read more

Faculty News: Winter 2018

UW Music faculty report new publications, recordings, appointments, presentations, and more in their recent work at the UW and beyond. Jonathan Bernard (Music Theory) The Music Theory professor delivered a keynote address, “The Path to Ligeti’s Late Style: Surface Disjunction, Underlying Continuity,” at the György Ligeti Symposium at the Helsinki Music Centre (Sibelius Academy) in Helsinki, Finland. His essay, “‘Octatonicism,’ the Octatonic Scale, and Large-Scale Structure in Joan... Read more

Student and Alumni Update: Winter 2018

Current and former UW Music students are making an impact at the UW and beyond, winning competitions, appointments, honors, and other recognition and advancing their life’s work worldwide. Tigran Arakelyan (’16 DMA, Orchestral Conducting) is the Music Director of Bainbridge Island Youth Orchestras, the Federal Way Youth Symphony Orchestra, and serves as the Artistic Director/Conductor of the Port Townsend Community Orchestra. He is a finalist for the position of Music Director of the... Read more

New Publications and Recordings

A roundup of recent publications and recordings by UW Music faculty reveal a range of interests and areas of focus in myriad dimensions of the musical arts. Cuong Vu 4-Tet:Ballet: The Music of Michael Gibbs This live collaboration between UW Jazz Studies chair Cuong Vu and guitarist Bill Frisell grew out of the latter’s desire to bring his former teacher, the jazz composer/arranger Michael Gibbs, to the University of Washington for performances of Gibbs’ music with the orchestra and... Read more

Global Impact: Letter from Myanmar

UW Music Prof. Patricia Campbell working with students in Myanmar.

UW Music students, faculty, and alumni are making an indelible stamp on the study of music in far-away Yangon, Myanmar through a sustained partnership recognized by the UW Office of Global Affairs. At the Gitameit Music Institute in Yangon, Myanmar, musicians and scholars from around the world converge to perform and study music of a range of styles, from Burmese piano to Afro-Cuban rhythms, Hindustani Indian music to Western classical music. Since its founding in 2004, this nonprofit... Read more

A Grandmother's Gift

The happiest moments for Molly Gong are when she’s sitting on the steps outside the closed door of the piano room listening to her granddaughter, Emily, practice. Music has always been an important part of Molly’s life since her childhood in Shanghai, and she and her family members have always believed—and still continue to believe—that musicians are a noble class of people, doing important work, some of the most important and highest work, in fact, that a person can do. “I sit on the steps... 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!