University of Wisconsin School of Music
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Updates of UW School of Music Alumni Listed below by decades - scroll down or search in above box
1950s
Lavern Wagner (MM 1953, PhD Musicology 1957) is finishing the study, "Johannes Heugel: Reformation Music From Hesse, v. 1. Two Weddings and a Funeral." She is planning to place this volume with 45 pages of commentary and 165 pages of music on the internet for free use by interested musicians and scholars. The music is transcribed from microfilms of original manuscripts in the Murhadsche Bibliothek, Kassel, Germany. This volume is expanded from the original concept of the study. It focuses on a little-known composer from the mid-16th century at a smaller court of the time. Heugel has made his unique contributions to music of the period. Volume 2 of this study is in preparation, entitled: "Johannes Heugel: Occasional Works." She was the first graduate student to receive the degree of Ph.D. in historical musicology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music. Previous projects on 16th century music have been published by The American Institute of Musicology, and A-R Editions. She has also published a volume in the field of mid-19th century band music.
Darrell Aderman (BM 1954) was honored with the dedication of the Darrell Aderman Auditorium at the Shell Lake Arts Center’s annual Tribute to the Big Bands Concert in June 2012. The Tribute Band, under the direction of Jazz Ensemble & Combo Clinic Program Director, Greg Keel, consisted of instructors and camp alumni and staff. Initially known as the Indianhead Arts Center, the Shell Lake Arts Center began with the vision of Prof. Darrell Aderman, who was a Shell Lake music teacher. Started in 1968, the Arts Center is the longest-running Jazz Ensemble camp in the nation. Prof. Aderman retired as Professor Emeritus in 1995 and received the UW-Extension Award of Excellence, Wisconsin Music Award, International Association of Jazz Educators Award, and Who’s Who in America. His Masonic activities include Grand Master of Masons in Wisconsin, 33° of Scottish Rite and the Grand Lodge Meritorious Service Award. Prof. Aderman and his wife, Billie, received the 1984 Shell Lake Citizens of the Year award.
Jane Frazee (BM 1958) is founder and former director of Graduate Music Education Programs at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. Her 30 years of Orff work in the classroom and with music educators has brought her local, state, national and international recognition. A former Fulbright teaching scholar at the Orff Institute in Salzburg, Austria, she has presented workshops and courses throughout the United States, Canada and Australia. Author of many articles on Orff Schulwerk, Jane Frazee has published exclusively with Schott Music. Her first book, Ten Folk Carols for Christmas, was published in 1977; it was followed by several other best-selling titles including the first textbook for applied Orff Schulwerk in North American classrooms, Discovering Orff. Three subsequent books address Orff Schulwerk practice in North America: Discovering Keetman, Playing Together and Orff Schulwerk Today. Her most recent book, Mindful-Artful-Playful is currently in press. The Minnesota Music Educators Association named Jane Frazee Elementary Classroom Music Teacher of the Year in 1987 and she received the organization’s President’s Award (2000) in recognition of service and dedication to music education in Minnesota. She was named to the MMEA Hall of Fame in 2007. Jane received the American Orff Schulwerk Association’s Distinguished Service Award in 1992 and she is the 1997 recipient of the international Pro Merito Award of the Orff Schulwerk Foundation in Munich. Her biography appears in the second edition of the New Grove Dictionary of American Music.
Dick Schroeder (BM 1958, MS 1961) was a high school band director for 19 years before changing vocations. In 2002 he and his wife, Karen, joined the Hampton Roads Metro Band, and he was named Music Director/Conductor of the band in 2005. The HRMB is a community band made up about 60 musicians ranging in age from the teens to the 80s from the Norfolk/Virginia Beach/Chesapeake area. Dick has composed about a dozen marches and other music for the band. He expresses his thanks to Bob Crane, Hilmer Luckhart and Ray Dvorak. Tom Norager 1959 Tom Norager (BM 1959) received a Master of Science in Music Education from Queens College of the City University of New York in 1970. He continues to sing professionally in the Detroit Concert Choir as a tenor soloist and as the tenor section leader. He and his wife, Jean, live in Port Huron, Michigan. Tom and Jean are members of NOMADS, a service organization of the United Methodist Church that travels around the United States to do work projects. At the annual national meeting of NOMADS in Hamburg, New York in late September, Tom directed (and accompanied) a choir of meeting participants. Coincidently, Ann Jones (BM 1961), who sang with Tom in the 1958-59 UW-Madison A Cappella Choir directed by J. Russell Paxton, sang soprano in the NOMADS choir.
1960s
Bob Klassy (BM 1960) has served as an adjunct clarinet/woodwind teacher at Hoffman Estates High School in Hoffman Estates, IL, since 2000. He is active in two music clubs composed of former and current music teachers. Both clubs sponsor a scholarship competitions for students attending college in the Chicago area. Klassy serves as the scholarship chair and corresponding secretary for one club and Vice President of the other. He is also a docent for the Lyric Opera of Chicago and present opera preview lectures at colleges, libraries, retirement homes and other community centers. He studies voice privately and has sung a number of Schumann and Schubert song cycles. Klassy spends six weeks or more in Florida every winter.
Marshall Brickmann (BA 1961) joined the folk group the Tarriers after college, where he struck up an acquaintance with Woody Allen. Over the next few decades, Brickman and Allen developed a collaboration, writing stand-up material, TV specials and, eventually, screenplays. The two co-authored the films "Sleeper," Annie Hall" and "Manhattan" among others. Brickman’s first foray into musical theater resulted in the international hit “Jersey Boys,” about the life and times of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. The show won an Olivier, four Tonys including best musical, the prestigious Austrian Helpmann Award, and countless other accolades worldwide. The Broadway company, now in its seventh year, remains in the top ten shows in New York and has been seen by over 15 million people worldwide. In addition to his work in film and theater, Brickman has been a contributor to The New Yorker, Playboy, the New York Times and other periodicals. He is the 2006 recipient of the Writers Guild of America Ian McClellan Hunter Award for lifetime achievement in writing. He makes his home in New York City with his wife Nina, a writer and editor. They have two daughters, Jessica and Sophie. He plans to die at age 96 in his sleep, surrounded by his loving family and their attorneys.
Joyce Altman (MM 1964) served as President and CEO of the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music and is now a consultant to non-profit organizations (strategic planning, fund raising, board development, capital campaigns, etc.). She is still tickling the ivories, mostly by playing eight-hand piano music.
Dennis R. McKinley (BM 1967, MS 1984) accepted the Madison Area Musicians Association's 2012 Teacher of the Year Award during the annual MAMA Awards Ceremony on June 2, 2012.
Sherill Roberts (BM 1968) released a CD in 2007 titled “Mello Cello” that continues to sell well, particularly through digital distribution. Every month, when she gets the list of sales, she enjoys seeing where in the world her music has gone. She likes to think of little ripples of mellowness spreading around the planet, here and there. Sherill holds the position of principal cellist of the Portland Opera Orchestra and is the delegate to the Regional Orchestra Players Association. Every summer she travels to a different part of the U. S. to meet with delegates from 85 other orchestras and exchange information and ideas designed to better the lot of the professional orchestra musician. She is a certified Andover Educator, teaching Body Mapping and injury prevention. Sherill finds gratification in being able to help people who have been injured as well as teach young cellists to play in ways that prevent future injuries. This summer she and her husband hiked all the way across England along the Hadrian’s Wall Path.
Dr. Jennifer Johnson Arndt (BM 1969) retires in June 2013 after 16 years with the Austin Independent School District in Austin, Texas, teaching vocal music at all levels. In May 2012, Dr. Arndt had the pleasure of bringing her fifth-grade choir to sing at the Seedling Foundation luncheon. The Seedling Foundation provides mentors for children of incarcerated parents, a cause close to the heart of guest speaker Laura Kaeppeler, the reigning Miss America and former Miss Wisconsin. Kaeppeler was very surprised to hear children "deep in the heart of Texas" entertain her with "On Wisconsin" as part of a patriotic medley and mentioned on her TV interview that it was the first time during her reign anyone had sung that song to welcome her.
Sorrel Doris Hays (MM 1969) has lectured at many universities including Queens College CUNY, Vassar College, Yildiz University Istanbul, Heidelberg University, Cornell College and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is presently on the faculty of the University of West Georgia. She was a composer and consultant in new music to the Silver Burdett MUSIC text series. Her operas were performed by New York City Opera, West German Broadcasting and Encompass Theater in collaboration with the Chattanooga Opera. Her music may be heard on the Townhall, Wergo, Innova, Finnadar, Smithsonian Folkways, Centaur and Opus One labels. In her new book, TOUCHING SOUND, Sorrel Hays provides a refreshingly new and unique approach to understanding and valuing music. She begins with a simple song, the lullaby, as the initial focus, in a variety of cultural contexts from North and South America, Africa, China, Turkey and Europe, with substantive essays on the history and evolving nature of lull music and the science of psychoacoustics.
1970s
James P. Colias (BM 1970), Trustee for the Gunnar and Lorraine Johansen Charitable Trust and Business Manager/Consultant for Victor Borge Productions, Inc, writes: “Earlier this year, I embarked on an EXTENSIVE CONCERT TOUR of the southern United States. Actually, it was only in Florida … and the two performances took place on March 5. But: one of them was sold-out! At the events, I spoke about my 25-year association with the pianist/humorist Victor Borge and played the American premiere of a “tango” he composed as a young man … under the pseudonym of Fred. Bernhard. I met Victor Borge through my connection as student and later assistant to the incomparable Gunnar Johansen, the very first Artist-in-Residence in Music in America, who taught at the UW-Madison from 1939-1976. Borge and Johansen were lifelong friends who had studied with the same teachers in Copenhagen, Vienna and Berlin. In June of this year, I performed at the Johansen Archives Center in downtown Blue Mounds, Wisconsin, under the auspices of the Blue Mounds Historical Society. I played several selections on Gunnar’s rare Bosendorfer-Moor Double-Keyboard Piano … proving that I continue to perform in the MOST IMPORTANT AND PRESTIGIOUS music venues of rural south-central Wisconsin, before audiences numbering well into double digits.
Dr. William Jones (DMA 1972) will conduct All-State Orchestras in Louisiana, Florida, Illinois and Delaware this year, and conducting workshops and clinics in other states. In addition, Jones will travel to several cities in China in May 2013 to conduct their top Conservatories of Music orchestras and give master classes for their conducting majors. Jones is Professor of Graduate Conducting at the University of Iowa where his responsibilities include conducting the UI Symphony Orchestra, the Graduate Chamber Orchestra, and conducting a fully staged opera each semester plus a summer opera.
Jeffrey Ernstoff (BS 1973) gave lecture-performances and directed creative development meetings for the Nordic Innovation Council at Tivoli Gardens, Copenhagen in 2012. He did the same for the Panama Canal Arts program at the Miraflores Locks Visitors Center, the Fortune Global Forum in Chegdu, China and the Chicago Civic Opera for Northwestern University's Kellogg Innovation Network.
Theodore Guerrant (MM 1973) is a coach and accompanist on the staff of the University of Maryland in College Park. He is also the organist and Choirmaster at St. Margaret's Episcopal Church in Washington, DC, the associate organist at St. Mark the Evangelist Catholic Church in Hyattsville, MD, and an accompanist for the Central Maryland Chorale, the Federal City Performing Arts Association, and the National Philharmonic Chorale at Strathmore Music Center in Rockville, MD, where he recently celebrated his 30th anniversary in that position.
Christine Seitz (BM 1973, BM 1974, MM 1976) is currently Associate Teaching Professor in Music at the University of Missouri, where she is director of the Show-Me Opera. Recent productions at MU include Rossini’s La Cenerentola, Lehar’s The Merry Widow, Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi and Mozart’s The Magic Flute. Seitz has also been on the stage directing staff at the Des Moines Metro Opera since 2006, and she sang the role of Madame Larina in DMMO’s 2012 production of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin. She appears on the Odyssey Concert Series on October 12 in Columbia, Missouri, singing Schoenberg’s The Book of the Hanging Gardens, with pianist Peter Miyamoto.
Gary Ciepluch (BM 1974, PhD 1988) is currently in his 25th year as the Director of Winds and Bands at Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Institute of Music in Cleveland, Ohio. He is the founder and music director of the Cleveland Youth Wind Symphonies, comprised of three groups totaling more than 350 of Northeast Ohio's most advanced high school instrumentalists. On November 4, 2012, the groups opened their 24th season with a performance in Severance Hall, home of the Cleveland Orchestra. They have performed eight times at the Ohio Music Educators Association's State Conference, and this past June, they took their 10th International Concert Tour to Poland, with performances in Gorzov, Krakow and Zakapani, with a closing performance at St. Stephen's Bacilica in Budapest, Hungary.
Fritz Kaenzig (MM 1975) accepted an adjunct faculty position teaching the euphonium and tuba students at UCLA in 2012. The first week of their fall quarter coincided with the opening weekend of concerts of the Los Angeles Philharmonic on which he played Second Tuba for their performance of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, with Gustavo Dudamel conducting. Last summer marked his 29th season as the Principal Tubist in the Grant Park Orchestra in Chicago’s Millennium Park. His University of Michigan students were active participants in the International Tuba & Euphonium Conference held in Linz, Austria last May. Two tuba students and two euphonium students were chosen as semifinalists in the solo competitions, and two quartets were also chosen as semifinalists for the quartet competition. The UM Graduate Euphonium/Tuba Quartet won second place. A junior euphonium major won the euphonium artist competition at the Women’s Brass Conference last spring also. Prof. Kaenzig was chosen to receive the Outstanding Alumnus Award from the Ohio State University School of Music, receiving the award at their Honors Convocation last spring. He will return to his undergraduate alma mater in January to present a master class and recital as part of the award. Also in late January, he will present master classes and recitals at the Memphis Low Brass Workshop and at the Ball State University School of Music, where one of his former students succeeded another former student upon his retirement as the professor of tuba/euphonium two years ago.
Donna Smith-Wilkinson (BM 1975) is currently teaching music (K-8th) at St. Bernard school in Green Bay and directing a contemporary praise and worship band and vocal team at First United Methodist Church in Green Bay.
Beverly Lautz Haimerl (BM 1976) just retired after teaching K-5 general music for 39 years in the Madison Public Schools. 36 of those years were spent in the school she attended from kindergarten through sixth-grade!
Nicholas Orovich (BM 1976) has been a member of the Department of Music faculty at the University of New Hampshire since 1980. Since January 2012, Nic has served as the Chair of the Department. In addition to his duties at UNH, Nic has served as the principal trombonist of the Portland Symphony Orchestra since 1979.
Leyla Sanyer (BM 1976, MME 1987) is starting her 36th year of teaching in Wisconsin public schools (Manitowoc and Oregon). She is president of the Wisconsin Music Educators Association and violinist in the Madison-based Oakwood Chamber Players.
Harvey Felder (BM 1977) is entering his nineteenth season as music director of the Tacoma Symphony Orchestra. He has also served as assistant conductor of the Milwaukee Symphony, resident conductor of the Saint Louis Symphony, and conductor of special projects with the Atlanta Symphony. He has served on the faculties of Eastern Michigan University, Haverford College, Bryn Mawr College, Johns Hopkins University, West Virginia University, and the University of Connecticut where he currently serves as director of orchestral studies.
Scott MacPherson (BM 1978, MM 1980 MM 1981) is currently the Director of Choral Activities at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, where he conducts the KSU Chorale and Kent Chorus, teaches conducting, and directs the graduate program in choral conducting. Before moving to Ohio, Dr. MacPherson held choral positions at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas for 15 years and prior to that at the UW-Madison School of Music for 6 years. MacPherson is also the founding Artistic Director of Madison's Isthmus Vocal Ensemble (IVE), a community choir of 55 singers now in its eleventh year under his direction. IVE was selected to sing at the North Central American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) North Central Division conference held in Madison this past February. MacPherson also founded the San Antonio Chamber Choir (SACC), a professional choir of 24-30 voices in San Antonio, Texas, now in its eighth season. SACC received an invitation to perform at the prestigious National Conference of the ACDA held in in Dallas in March 2013. Dr. MacPherson will conduct the Texas Private Schools Music Educators Association All-State Honor Choir in February 2013.
Dave Henning (BM 1979) is now in his 33rd year as a music educator and continues to love teaching kids and working with music. He is teaching in Carrolton Texas, a suburb of north Dallas, along with writing, arranging and publishing. He currently has over 40 published arrangements and compositions available for band.
Doug Maurer (BM 1979) earned the Master of Music in Music Performance at Northwestern University and an MBA at UW-Madison following his Bachelors in Music Education. Maurer has been working in the investment business in New York City since 2000. As the portfolio manager and managing editor of Value Line Select, his primary responsibilities are to choose Value Line’s top stock each month. Happily married and living in Montclair, NJ, Doug now performs on a part-time basis in the NYC area on a saxophone he purchased from the great alto-saxophonist David Sanborn.
1980s
On June 1, Mitchell Gershenfeld (MM 1980) became President & CEO of the McCallum Theatre in Palm Desert, California. He has been with the McCallum Theatre since 2000, having served previously as Director of Presentations and Theater Operations. The McCallum Theatre is ranked among the top 50 theaters in the world by Pollstar, an industry publication. Prior to coming to Palm Desert, Mitch served as President & CEO of the East County Performing Arts Center in the San Diego area, Executive Director of the Historic Paramount Theater in Denver and as Music Producer for the Cultural Olympiad of the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. He has held senior management positions with the Atlanta Symphony, National Repertory Orchestra and Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities. After receiving his MM degree from UW-Madison in 1980, he served as Lecturer in Music and Specialist in Radio at UW-Madison for four years, performing with the Wisconsin Brass Quintet and hosting and producing programming on Wisconsin Public Radio.
Trez Marie Zotkiewicz (BS 1981) studied with Dr. Carroll Chilton at UW-Madison and was a member of the Wisconsin Singers for two years. She is currently a Nurse Practitioner and continues to play piano for personal enjoyment. She enjoyed accompanying her oldest daughter and her daughter’s friends over the years for various vocal performances and competitions before they went off to college. She and her husband have always supported the Arts. They currently live in New Orleans, where Trez is a symphony volunteer for the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra. She had the privilege of hosting pianist Jeffery Siegel for a performance at her home a few years ago. Their girls have been raised with an appreciation of all types of music, a critical ear and eye for any performance at hand and the belief that “music and the arts make everyone whole.”
Kathryn Engelhardt (BM 1982) and her organization, Double Entendre Music Ensemble, commissioned a new piece for oboe, violin, viola and cello, composed by Martin Bresnick and funded with support from Meet The Composer, New York State Council on the Arts, and the Jarvis and Constance Doctorow Family Foundation. The new work, Going Home, (Vysoke, My Jerusalem), premiered in 2010 and was published in 2012.
Ben Locke (MM 1982, DMA 1985) is starting his 29th year of employment at Kenyon College where he leads the choirs, teaches conducting and basic musicianship and conducts the Knox County Symphony based in Mount Vernon, Ohio. He also composes and arranges music, and one of his recent creations was used as ending-credit music for Josh Radnor's new film "Liberal Arts." He also appears as an extra in the film, but you won't find him unless he's there to point it out.
Dr. Lori McCann (BM 1982), Assistant Professor of Voice at the John J. Cali School of Music, Montclair State University, recently participated in multiple events at the National Conference of the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) where she was a representative of the New York City Chapter of the organization. McCann taught at The American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria this past summer. She was an adjudicator for the Artist Awards (NATSAA), a panelist for the Carnegie Hall Royal Conservatory (Toronto) Achievement Program, and a co-presenter for the NYC-NATS sponsored event "A Microphone Workshop," which addressed the interface between audio professionals and singers and their teachers, as well as microphone techniques. In August she completed extensive training to become a member of the College of Adjudicators for the Carnegie Hall Royal Conservatory of Music Achievement Program, a highly effective, sequenced course of music study from beginner to advanced levels which inspires excellence through individual student assessments. As a Founding Voice Teacher Member, McCann's aim is to help spread this excellent program of study to voice teachers and music schools throughout the country in order to help raise the level and scope of early training of the nation's vocal students.
Robert Beck (BM 1984) is currently the Principal Bassist of the Symphony of Southeast Texas. This past year he performed the bass solos for Mahler's First Symphony and Stravinsky's Pulcinella Suite. He has been the Principal Bassist for that orchestra for 10 years. Beck is now currently in his 26th year as a Texas music educator.
Tom Linker (BM 1984) had his original ballet "The Enchantment" performed by the Minnesota Dance Theater in October 2012 at the Cowles Center for Dance in Minneapolist, Minnesota. Liner performs regularly with the Minnesota Orchestra. Since 2008, he has also served as the CFO of Middle English, an ASL interpreter referral business since 2008.
Christine Anderson (BM 1985) currently teaches in Shiocton, WI. Shs is the Middle and High School Choral director and teaches music theory, music appreciation and a sixth-grade general music rotation class as well. She is the Northeast Representative for the Wisconsin Choral Director's Association and the Appleton Site chair for the Singing in Wisconsin Festival. She has a son who is a junior at UW-Madison!
Nicholas J. Contorno (DMA 1985) retired in 2007 as director of bands and orchestra and music programs at Marquette University. Since then he has started an elementary band program with John Szycgiel at St. Paul Parish, Genesee Depot, WI. He received the Michael G. George Distinguished Service Award from WMEA in 2007. A newly formed music school in Haiti was named after him (see musical-haiti.org for more information). He was selected to be a member of the board of advisors of the Instrumentalists Magazine. His "Big Top Brass" band was invited to play at the Field of Honor at Miller Park as well as at several homecoming events at Mitchell Field celebrating World War II Veterans. He has been busy writing several pieces for publication by Daehn Publications, including Go Galop, Chili Sauce Rag, Pink Lemonade, Miss Trombone and Tres Moutarde (Too much mustard). He has also done several publications by Kendor and JPM Publications.
Alan Rieck (BM 1986, MM 1994, PhD 2000) was promoted to full professor of music education and choral music at UW-Eau Claire in August 2012. Alan was awarded the UW-Eau Claire Excellence in Teaching Award in August 2011. In January 2013 he conducts the All-State Women’s Choir for the Wisconsin Choral Director’s Association Conference in Milwaukee.
Chris Washburne (BM 1986) co-leads FFEAR (Forum for Electro-Acoustic Research), an improvising quartet, along with his frequent collaborator Ole Mathisen. Their collaborations have been called a “pointedly cosmopolitan post-bop collective” (The New York Times). FFEAR’s objective is to explore new sonic possibilities by adopting contemporary classical compositional techniques into an improvisational setting. Conventional uses of meter, tonality, and harmony are replaced with multiple meters, microtonality, and open templates of form to create a fresh approach to improvised music. FFEAR delights in blending and blurring the divide between jazz and contemporary classical music and producing a truly original voice and approach to improvised music.
Scott Brickman (BM 1987) has seen performances of many of his works in 2012. Solo over Changes (2011) for piano and digital audio, was premiered at the UAH-Huntsville New Music Festival on February 11, Snowball (2003) for violin, guitar and piano was performed several times by the Strung Out Trio on their Midwestern tour of Kansas, Nebraska and Missouri March 12-16 and He couldn’t Boogie Woogie worth a Damn (2012) for Tenor Sax and Piano was performed in NYC and Romania on May 13 and 17 respectively. On April 3, 2012, Ravello Records, a subsidiary of Parma Recordings, released his CD, Winter and Construction, which features performances of his works by members of the Strung out Trio.
Soprano Gale Ketteler (BA 1987) performed Spohr’s Six German Songs with clarinetist Darlene Carl-Beck and pianist Jayne Latva in Dixon, IL on November 11, 2012, and was soloist in Schubert’s Mass in G for Music Sunday at the Unitarian Universalist Church-Rockford in December 2012. She also sang works by Scarlatti, Britten and Henson-Conant with Mark Baldin-trumpet and Nanette Felix-harp, at a December 7, 2012 Mendelssohn Performing Arts Center season concert in Rockford IL.
David Barker (BM 1988) teaches beginning band at Horning Middle School in Waukesha, Wisconsin and Music Appreciation and Music in Films in eAchieve, the district's online virtual school.
Warren Gooch (DMA 1988) received the 2012 Educator of the Year award from Truman State University. Gooch is Professor of Theory/Composition and Chair of the Master of Arts program at Truman State.
Steven Morrison (MM 1988) has been appointed Associate Editor and Editor-Elect of the Journal of Research in Music Education, the flagship research journal of the National Association for Music Education.
In spring 2012, Kurt Dietrich (DMA 1989) received the James R. Underkofler Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award from Ripon College, where he has been teaching for the past thirty years. He is currently working on his third book, a history of jazz in Wisconsin. So far he has interviewed over 50 musicians from around the state, with plenty more to go. He anticipates the book to be completed in 2014.
Jeff Vallier (BM 1989) is currently serving as the Assistant Director of Purdue Musical Organizations (Choral Department) at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. Jeff sang with the UW Concert Choir under the direction of Robert Fountain and the UW Symphony Orchestra under the direction of David Becker from 1984-1988. Jeff went on to earn a Master of Music in Choral Conducting under Craig S. Arnold at Western Michigan University (1999). Jeff directed high school choral music in Michigan and Indiana for 19 years prior to accepting his current position at Purdue University.
Peggy Dettwiler (BM 1980, MM 1982) is the Director of Choral Activities at Mansfield University in Mansfield, Pennsylvania. The Mansfield University Concert Choir was one of 362 choirs from 64 countries around the world to participate in the 5th World Choir Games held in Cincinnati, Ohio, in July 2012. The choir competed in three categories, Musica Sacra, Folklore and Mixed Youth Choir, and won Gold Medals in each one. They were one of only two American choirs to receive three Gold Medals in these games. 167 choirs from the United States participated.
1990s
Jeffrey Snedeker (DMA 1991) was selected as Higher Education Music Educator of the Year by the Washington Music Educators Association in 2012. He was selected as a Distinguished University Professor for Service at Central Washington University in Ellensburg, WA, for 2012-13. He was also selected as the CWU nominee for CASE Professor of the Year in 2012. Jeffrey released two CDs in 2011 to critical review. The first is The Contemporary Natural Horn, which features modern compositions for the natural horn, including works by Douglas Hill, Jeffrey Agrell, and Jeffrey Snedeker. This is the first CD entirely devoted to this repertoire. The second release is Minor Returns: Tributes to the Horn in Jazz, his second jazz horn release. Both CDs are available by contacting him at [email protected] or via Amazon and iTunes. Jeffrey teaches at CWU (since 1991) and is Principal Horn of the Yakima Symphony Orchestra (since 1992). He is in his ninth year as Book and Music Reviews Editor for The Horn Call, Journal of the International Horn Society (President of IHS 2006-2010). He and Marilyn Wilbanks (MM piano 1989), who is also featured on The Contemporary Natural Horn, have two sons.
Lydia Van Dreel (BM 1991) was recently promoted to Associate Professor of Horn at the University of Oregon, where she has been a faculty member since 2006. Van Dreel’s playing was recently featured in the 2012 Chrysler Super Bowl ad “Its Halftime, America”. Van Dreel maintains an active and diverse performing career as a regular member of QUADRE: The Voice of Four Horns, Oregon Bach Festival Orchestra, The Iris Orchestra (Germantown, TN) the Eugene Symphony Orchestra, and the UO's Faculty Brass Quintet and Oregon Wind Quintet. Before joining the Oregon faculty, Van Dreel held a ten-year tenure as co-principal horn of the Sarasota Orchestra (FL).
Craig Baldwin (BS 1992) accepted a full-time Rehearsal Pianist position at Lincoln Center's New York City Ballet in January 2012.
Janet Heukeshoven (DMA 1994) is currently Director of Bands, Music Education Program Coordinator and Music Department Chair at Saint Mary's University in Winona, Minnesota. In the fall of 2012, she guest conducted the Dairyland Honor Band in western Wisconsin and the Hiawatha Valley Honor Band in southeast Minnesota. She also directed the Upper Midwest Flute Association's High School Honors Flute Choir in Minneapolis in May 2012. Janet was a participant in the International Harmoniemusik Symposium in St. Moritz, Switzerland, in August 2012 as well as piccolo soloist with the Minnesota Ambassadors of Music in July 2012. Janet recently published a modern performance edition of Rossini/Sedlak Barber of Seville for Harmoniemusik ensemble with Floricor Editions (floricoreditions.com). The Rossini/Sedlak Italiana in Algeria is being prepared for a March 2013 lecture/recital performance at Saint Mary's University and future publication. Janet is a frequent clinician (band and flute) and high school music contest adjudicator.
Dr. Christian Elser (BM '94) was recently promoted to Associate Professor of Music and granted Tenure at Presbyterian College, in Clinton, SC where his Voice Division Director, and Director of the Musical Theatre and Opera program. Christian is also the founder and General Director of GLOW Lyric Theatre in Greenville, SC, South Carolina's only professional opera company. This summer he is conducting the orchestra for their production of Puccini's "La Bohème" and is music directing the musical "Rent," both at Greenville's Peace Center for Performing Arts. Christian also continues to perform, having recently sung the role of "Simeon" in Debussy's "L'Enfant Prodigue" at the Piccolo Spoleto Festival in Charleston, and as the baritone soloist in concerts with the Charleston Chamber Orchestra and Augusta Choral Society. This summer he returns to LOOK Musical Theatre in Tulsa, OK to perform roles in Gilbert & Sullivan's "The Gondoliers" and Sondheim's "Sweeney Todd."
Matthew Hill (DMA 1995) recently released his CD recording, Silent Colors, through the Blue Griffin recording label. The album contains works by Liszt, Debussy, Messiaen, and several Gershwin songs arranged as virtuoso etudes by Earl Wild. The American Record Guide commenting on this recording states, “Matthew Hill is a talented pianist who has definite ideas as to how this music should go. He has a respectable technique to accomplish his aims.” Dr. Hill is currently Professor of Piano at Goshen College. After conducting the St. Louis, Indianapolis, San Diego, Atlanta, Richmond and Dallas Symphony Orchestras as Liza Minnelli's maestro.
Jamie Schmidt (BM 1996) was engaged to conduct two all-symphonic programs with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra in November 2012, with the Cirque Musica troupe. He continues his position as Associate Conductor with the national tour of The Lion King as his "day job." Most recently, Jamie was contracted by the Chicago agency LipmanHearne, the driving force behind the University's annual fundraising campaign this year, "Share the Wonderful." He composed, scored, performed and recorded the new U-Rah-Rah song for the University, a little tune he calls On Wisconsin.
Dan Plummer (BM 1997, DMA 2005) is General Director of Opera for the Young. Opera for the Young, a professional touring opera company based in Madison, Wisconsin, was founded in 1970 by members of the School of Music community, and today the company’s mission "to ignite enthusiasm for opera" is still being advanced by many School of Music alums. Dan adapted and arranged the musical score for this season’s new adaptation of Massenet’s Cinderella. The new production will be seen by over 75,000 children across the upper Midwest, and the following UW alums are a part of the cast: Jeffrey Sykes, Saira Frank, J. Adam Shelton, Vince Fuh, and Katie Butitta.
Composer Paul Seitz (DMA 1997) joined the faculty of the University of Missouri, Columbia, teaching music theory, in 2009. Among recent performances and premieres of his music, highlights include a performance by Henri Bok and Ann Evans of In a Place of Deep Color at the World Saxophone Congress, St. Andrews, Scotland, and the premieres of Someplace Where Your Spirit Sounds, for tenor saxophone and chamber ensemble, featuring soloist Leo Saguiguit (commissioned by the Odyssey Chamber Music Series) and La Fiammeggiante Luce, by the University Singers (University of Missouri). 2013 premieres will include There is a Threeness About You, for trombone and wind quartet, at Texas Tech University (commissioned by Timothy Howe), and La Terra Illuminata for chorus and orchestra, in Columbia, Missouri (commissioned by the Columbia Civic Orchestra). For more information please visit www.paulseitz.net
Kathryn Briggs (BM 1998) has been teaching music for 15 years and is in her seventh year as the choir director at St. Mary's Academy in Portland, Oregon. Ms. Briggs earned her Bachelor of Music in Music Education from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and her Masters of Music Education with an emphasis in Choral Conducting from the University of St. Thomas. She earned highest honors at UST, and was featured in the graduate program for music education's annual Research Roundtable presentation. Ms. Briggs was recognized for outstanding teaching as a finalist in the OnPoint Community Credit Union Excellence in Teaching Awards in 2011, and as the Mt. Hood Conference "Advisor of the Year" in 2009. Her research in music education has been nationally published in the ACDA's Choral Journal and she has authored lesson plans for NAfME and VH1 Music Studios. She will be a session presenter at the 2013 Northwest Regional NAfME conference. Under her direction, the choral program at St. Mary's has grown from less than 25 students to over 150 singers. In 2008, her top choir was the first all-female choir in state history to compete in the Oregon State Choir Championships. They returned to the State Choir Championships once again in 2012. In 2009, her choirs were the leading forces at the 150th Anniversary Concert with a sold-out performance at the historic Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. In 2011, her choir won first place at the A Cappella in Albany Festival. Ms. Briggs' choir was recently invited to perform at the 2013 Northwest Region NAfME conference. During her years of teaching, Ms. Briggs' choirs have performed in New York City, Orlando, Seattle, Austria, Germany, Switzerland and France. In April, 2012, she lead a group of St. Mary's students from both the choir and orchestra programs to Europe for a music history tour through Vienna and Salzburg.
Dan Hosken (DMA 1998) has had two textbooks in music technology published recently by Routledge: An Introduction to Music Technology (2010) and Music Technology and the Project Studio: Synthesis and Sampling (2011). He is currently the Associate Dean of the Mike Curb College of Arts, Media, and Communication at California State University, Northridge where he has been on the faculty since 1999.
Since 2008, Jon Schipper (BM 1998) has been the director of bands at Madison Country Day School, an independent Pre-K through 12th grade school north of Madison. He has also enjoyed a freelance career over the last 15 years and has had the opportunity to play trumpet with a number of world-renowned artists, including Frank Sinatra Jr., Cheap Trick, The Temptations, Phat Phunktion, Madisalsa, The Isthmus Brass and many others. He was recently a featured soloist at the 2010 and 2011 UW-Madison Varsity Band Concerts.
2000s
Robert Hodson (PhD music theory 2000) has been promoted to full professor and is currently serving as chair of the Hope College Department of Music in Holland, Michigan.
This fall, Sam Handley (MM 2001) made his European debut as Escamillo in a new production of Carmen with Theater Aachen. He returns this season to Lyric Opera of Chicago for their production of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg as Hans Foltz and will debut with the Canadian Opera Company in Salome before finishing the season with Seattle Opera in their highly acclaimed Der Ring des Nibelungen. Last season, Sam made his Asian debut in Beijing, China at the National Centre for the Performing Arts as Basilio in Il barbiere di Siviglia, conducted by Lorin Maazel. He made his Severance Hall and Carnegie Hall debuts with The Cleveland Orchestra in performances of Salome with Franz Welser-Möst. After being chosen as a member of Lyric's Ryan Opera Center in Chicago, Sam returned to the Upper Midwest from Texas where he earned his DMA at the University of Houston in 2007. In his three years at Lyric he performed more than a dozen roles, and covered many more. He still maintains a home in downtown Chicago (near the Opera House), and enjoys hosting fellow UW alumni and Madison friends!
George Stoffan (DMA 2001) was awarded a Fulbright Teaching Fellowship to Czechoslovakia for the fall of 2012. He currently is Professor of Clarinet at Oakland University. Mr. Stoffan previously served on the faculty of Southern Utah University. He joined the United States Air Force Band in Washington D. C. in 1997 and served as that ensemble’s Concertmaster and Principal Clarinetist from 1998 until 2001.
Allison (Martin) Bloom (BM 2002, MA Historical Musicology 2008) is currently pursuing the PhD in Historical Musicology, and recently received the 2012 Thomas Hampson Award from the American Musicological Society for her dissertation, “‘Un paysage choisi’: Fêtes galantes in Fin-de-siècle French Music.” She lives in Madison with her husband and two daughters.
Scott Gleason (MA 2002) is Adjunct Instructor at Fordham University and completing his PhD in music theory at Columbia University. He edits for The Open Space Magazine, Perspectives of New Music, W. W. Norton & Co., Inc. and formerly for Current Musicology. His articles have appeared in The Open Space Magazine and Perspectives of New Music. He has presented talks at Columbia University, Princeton University, Rutgers University and University of Surrey. He was recently interviewed by Perspectives of New Music for their 50th Anniversary issue.
Cooper Grodin (BM 2002) is playing The Prince in the New York Public Theatre production of “Into the Woods”.
Cellist Pablo Mahave-Veglia (DMA 2002) recently presented recitals for the "Fringe" Series of the Boston Early Music Festival, at the Fontana Chamber Arts Series in Kalamazoo, Michigan, as guest artist at the HKBU in Hong Kong and as part of the Live from WFMT radio broadcast in Chicago. Upcoming engagements include the release of recordings with the Audite label and concerto appearances at Kingston University and the London College of Music in England.
Maureen O'Brien (BA 2003) was recently promoted to the position of Development Director at the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix, Arizona. In June, she graduated from Valley Leadership Class 33 and was named Secretary of the Board of Young Nonprofit Professionals Network (YNPN) in Phoenix. In addition, O'Brien serves as a co-founder of Classical Revolution PHX, a core team member of Emerging Arts Leaders Phoenix, and a legislative liasion with Arizona Citizens for the Arts. She volunteers with UnitED (Uniting Business and Education) and as a mentor for international exchange students studying at Scottsdale Community College. Musically, O'Brien stays active as a member of a woodwind quintet and choir.
James Boldin (MM 2004, DMA 2007) is an Associate Professor at The University of Louisiana at Monroe, and currently holds the Dr. William R. Hammond Endowed Professorship in Liberal Arts. In June 2012 he performed and presented master classes in Thailand at Mahidol University, Silpakorn University, and the Royal Thai Navy Music School. The trip was partially funded by a Career Advancement Grant from the Louisiana Division of the Arts, which he authored. James also performed at the 44th International Horn Symposium (May 2012) and presented at the Midwest Clinic International Band and Orchestra Conference (December 2011). Forthcoming projects include a solo recording featuring music for horn by the Dutch composer Jan Koetsier, to be released on the MSR Classics label in fall 2013.
Jane Riegel Ferencz (PhD Historical Musicology 2004) is Associate Professor of Music at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. In 2012 she recieved the UW-W Everett Long Award for the Advancement of General Education. According to the criteria, “the award is not intended primarily as a teaching award, but rather a way of recognizing those who have consistently nurtured the concept of general education, fostered multidisciplinarity within the program and modeled its ideals in their academic endeavors.” Jane has presented papers at Song, Stage and Screen VI (Kansas City, 2011), the American Musicological Society (Chicago and San Francisco meetings, 2011) and for the Society for American Music national meeting (Charlotte, 2012). She has been awarded a sabbatical leave for the 2012-2013 school year, during which time she will complete a book on music composed for the WPA Federal Dance Project.
Stacie Mickens (MM 2004) has been appointed the new Assistant Professor of Horn at the Dana School of Music at Youngstown State University (Youngstown, OH). She teaches horn, horn choir and coordinates the brass chamber ensembles. She also recently won positions in the Akron Symphony and Youngstown Symphony. She performed the Dana Wilson Concerto for Horn and Wind Ensemble with the YSU Wind Ensemble on October 15, 2012. Mickens received her DMA in 2012 from the University of Michigan, where she studied with Adam Unsworth.
Brenda Rae (BM 2004) made her debut with the Vienna State Opera in June 2012 in the role of Lucia (broadcast live over international radio). A member of the ensemble at Oper Frankfurt, she has sung roles including Olympia in Les Contes d’Hoffmann, and Pamina in Die Zauberflöte. Her 2011 debuts included Zerbinetta in Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos in Bordeaux and Armida in Handel’s Rinaldo with the Glyndebourne Festival. She will make her debut with Santa Fe Opera in 2013 as Violetta.
Russell Rolen (MM 2004) received his Doctor of Music degree from the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University in May 2012. His string quartet, the Spektral Quartet, was recently named "ensemble in residence" at the University of Chicago Department of Music.
Cara Sawyer (BM 2004) is an active freelance hornist in the Chicago area. After receiving her Master of Music from DePaul University in 2011, she joined the Civic Orchestra of Chicago as a regular member. She is a founding member of the exciting new brass quintet, The Alliance Brass (www.AllianceBrass.com) and performs with various organizations all over the city. In addition, Cara can be seen performing on natural horn throughout the Midwest. She was a member of the Civic Orchestra's MusiCorps educational outreach program and currently volunteers with the YOURS Project, an El Sistema-based music education program in the city of Chicago.
Christi Kugler (BA 2005) worked as a stereoscopic compositor for Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace in 1999 and for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader in 2010. Stereoscopic conversion is the process of adapting 2D film footage so it can be seen in the theaters and in home in 3D. The process involves working with a large team of artist to create a seamless viewing experience. It's a process that requires attention to detail, organization, math and an analytical and artistic eye for composition. Christi believes her degree in music theory prepared her for this work very well in that respect.
Jessica Lee Timman (MM 2005) has joined the Madison Opera as the mezzo-soprano Studio Artist for their 2012-2013 season. She will be performing in the chorus quartet for Acis and Galatea and will be covering the role of "Zerlina" in their production of Don Giovanni in 2013. Jessica also performed with the Florentine Opera Chorus for their production of Carmen in October 2012. She was recently recognized as a member of the Florentine Opera Chorus for her vocal and stage performance for the Naxos recording of Robert Aldridge's and Herschel Garfein's "Elmer Gantry", which won two Grammy awards in 2012.
Amber Dolphin (MM 2006) and current graduate student Carol Carlson have begun their second year of Music con Brio, a program for elementary and middle school aged students that they co-founded in 2011. Music con Brio's mission is to offer high quality music lessons at an affordable graduated tuition schedule to a diverse mix of Madison area students, forming an inclusive, supportive community to build students' self-esteem and pride in their talents. www.musicconbrio.org.
Patrick Zylka (BM 2006) was named Assistant Dean for Enrollment and Student Services at the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University in the summer of 2012. In this role, he oversees admission, financial aid, enrollment and student services for both the Music and Theatre Conservatories that make up CCPA. In addition to his position at CCPA, he is an active freelance bassoonist and lesson teacher in the Chicago metropolitan area.
Sarah Brailey (MM 2007) currently lives in New York City and works as a freelance singer. This fall, she made her Alice Tully solo debut singing Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream with the American Classical Orchestra. She also sang Handel's Messiah at Alice Tully in December with the Trinity Wall Street Choir. She is premiering the role of Mother in the new opera The Scarlet Ibis by Stefan Weisman, which is being presented by American Opera Projects. With a few of her colleagues, she formed a baroque chamber ensemble called Kielbasa Harmonika. The group presented concerts in New York City and Philadelphia this fall. In the spring, Sarah is returning to the Boulder Bach Festival as the soprano soloist in Bach's St John Passion. For more, see www.kielbasaharmonika.com and www.sarahbrailey.com.
Joshua Cutchin’s (BM 2007) New Orleans-style brass band, the Half Dozen Brass Band, will be releasing its second album, Cold Six, next month, featuring an arrangement by Tower of Power horn arranger Dave Eskridge. He was appointed Public Affairs Director for the Hugh Hodgson School of Music at the University of Georgia in July 2012.
Joel Spiess (BM 2007) joined the Florentine Opera chorus for the productions of Turandot (2011) and Carmen (2012). Joel also served as the vocal music director for Franklin High School's production of Seussical the Musical in March 2012. He is now employed full time as an academic advisor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Regina Haugen (MM 2008) is now in her second year of teaching MYP music at the American International School of Lusaka in Zambia.
Derek Powell (BS 2008) completed his Masters Degree at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University in May 2012 and is now a fellow at the New World Symphony.
Christiaan Smith-Kotlarek (BM 2008) earned a Master of Music in Voice at Indiana University-Bloomington, where he played Papageno in Die Zauberflöte and studied with Timothy Noble. Following that, he spent two years at the Boston University Opera Institute, where he studied with Jerrold Pope, was named 2011-2012 Phyllis Curtin Artist and performed the major baritone roles in Yerma, Roméo et Juliette, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Three Decembers, Il matrimonio segreto and Dialogues of the Carmelites. At BU he developed a friendship with composer Jake Heggie which led him to sing on Heggie's Composer Salon for Opera America in New York. Christiaan will sing the role of Joseph DeRocher in Heggie's Dead Man Walking in April 2013. Since graduation from UW-Madison, Christiaan has sung with the Des Moines Metro Opera, Indianapolis Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, and Ash Lawn Opera. He was very excited to return to Madison Opera to sing in their October 2012 production of The Masked Ball.
Nate Stampley (BM 2008) starred as Mufasa in “The Lion King” on Broadway, and played both Robbins and Porgy in American Repertory Theatre’s 2012 “The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess.” He was in the cast of the Broadway production “The Color Purple,” played Mufasa in West End London in a long-run production of “The Lion King” and toured across the United States in “Ragtime.”
Flutist Morgann Davis (MM 2009) recently relocated to southeastern Pennsylvania where she is a teacher and freelance artist. She was invited to perform in September on the first annual UW School of Music Alumni Association recital. Active in several music organizations, Morgann is on the Career and Artistic Development Committee of the National Flute Association. Prior to moving to Pennsylvania, Morgann was adjunct professor of flute at Maranatha College, and maintained an active private studio in Madison and Hartland, Wisconsin.
James Kryshak (MM 2009) finished with the Ryan Opera Center at Lyric Opera of Chicago in March 2012 and immediately sang the part of the Fourth Jew in a concert version of Salome with the Cleveland Orchestra and Franz Welser-Möst. Over the summer he joined the team of Wolf Trap Opera in the Washington D. C. area to create a new production of The Rake's Progress in which he sang Sellem, the Auctioneer! After a month off he is now in Berlin, Germany where he is making his headquarters for a three month audition tour in Germany and Austria to find a festival engagement in a European Opera House. It's been a very busy time since leaving UW, but everyday things are getting more and more exciting!
J. Griffith Rollefson (PhD Musicology 2009) is serving as ACLS New Faculty Fellow and Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Music at the University of California, Berkeley where he teaches courses on global hip hop, jazz, and African American music. This spring Griff was named UC Chancellor’s Public Scholar and is implementing a public scholarship project titled “Hip Hop as Postcolonial Studies in the Bay Area” that brings UC Berkeley students into Oakland and Richmond, CA high school classrooms and community centers through the American Cultures Engaged Scholarship (ACES) initiative. The program empowers inner-city high school students to take on the mantle of “expert,” adding value to hip hop’s ways of knowing and encouraging new forms of historical knowledge based on histories often elided in the classroom.
Adrianna Stoiber (BM 2009) is an accompanist for the Florentine Opera Company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
2010s
Paul Bhasin (DMA 2010) recently joined the conducting faculty of The College of William & Mary in Virginia, where he serves as Director of Bands and Assistant Professor of Music. In this capacity, he directs the William & Mary Wind Symphony and teaches conducting. Recently, Bhasin conducted the Washington Symphonic Brass (Washington, DC), saw his wind ensemble arrangements performed by the US Marine Band, US Air Force Brass in Blue, Grand Tetons Festival Orchestra Brass, and was a featured clinician at the 2011 Midwest Band & Orchestra Clinic. Bhasin continues to serve as an adjudicator and guest clinician for university wind ensembles throughout the region, and was recently appointed Music Director of the Williamsburg Youth Symphony. In addition to his conducting activities, Bhasin has performed as a trumpeter with the Virginia Symphony and Opera.
Ching-Chun Lai (DMA 2010) has been appointed director of orchestras and assistant professor of conducting at the Crane School of Music, State University of New York at Potsdam. She was faculty at Mount Holyoke College in 2010-2011.
Jessica Warmington (BA 2010) spent the last two years tutoring and teaching English in France with the Teaching Assistant Program in France, first in Bordeaux and then in Agen. She has now returned to Madison where she is in her first semester of Graduate School in UW-Madison's Professional French Masters Program.
Karen Bishop (MM 2011, DMA 2011) has completed a CD of unpublished songs of John Duke, with pianist Kirstin Ihde (DMA, 2012). This CD is available through Karen at [email protected].
Meghann Fougerousse (MM 2011) recently accepted a position as the music teacher at JC McKenna Middle School in Evansville, Wisconsin. She will be getting married in October, 2013.
Elias Goldstein (DMA 2011) was recently appointed Assistant Professor of Viola at Louisiana State University. He is also Principal Viola with the Baton Rouge Symphony. Elias taught at Sommer Symfoni in Kristiansand Norway, during the summer of 2012. He has upcoming recitals with the Myra Hess Concert Series, Touhill Performing Arts Center in St. Louis, Florida State University, Georgia State University, Kennesaw State University, Western Kentucky State University, the Georgia Youth Orchestras and the Interlochen Arts Academy. He has recently given master classes at Oberlin, Interlochen, the University of Michigan, Peabody, Penn State University, Ohio State University, the University of Iowa, Northern Iowa University, UW-Madison, DePaul University, University of St. Louis, the University of Alabama and the University of Southern Mississippi.
Danny Kim (BA 2011) has performed on Sesame Street with maestro Alan Gilbert, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music with the Metropolis Ensemble and ?uest Love and on VH1 for the Divas of Soul show. In the Fall of 2011, he started a Master of Music degree at the Juilliard School, where he received an alumni scholarship and now studies with Samuel Rhodes. He leads string/viola sectionals for the Juilliard Pre-College Division and, in June of 2012, was a semi-finalist for a section viola position with the Minnesota Orchestra. He was a viola academy member of the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan in 2012 and a viola fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra in 2011.
Justin Krawitz (DMA 2011) continues to lecture in piano and piano pedagogy at the University of Cape Town, where he was appointed Postdoctoral Research Fellow in 2012. In March he premiered a new sonata written for him by the acclaimed South African composer Hendrik Hofmeyr. The performance took place in the middle of the Cape Town Central Train Station as part of the public arts festival Infecting The City. June saw performances in Paris, as well as at the Chateau Kromeriz, a UNESCO heritage site in the Czech Republic, where he was featured in the international festival Forfest. Krawitz will round off the year with a concert tour of Zimbabwe in November.
Michael Pfitzer (MM 2011) was recently hired as the Choral Associate at Harvard University, where he is currently assistant conductor of the Harvard-Radcliffe Chorus (a group founded in 1979 by UW faculty member Beverly Taylor), administrator of the Holden Choral Program, coordinator of the Holden Voice Program and curator of the Holden Choral Library. He continues to serve as Director of Music at First Parish Church of Stow and Acton in Stow, MA and assistant conductor of the Cambridge Community Chorus. He was recently engaged to undergraduate sweetheart Caitlin Felsman.
Rose Valby (MM 2011) and Professor Les Thimmig performed together this October on tour with the New Sousa Band, conducted by Keith Brion. Their weekend tour included performances in Green Bay, WI and Aurora, IL.
Laura Weiner (MM 2012) recently joined The Academy Program, hosted jointly by Carnegie Hall, the Juilliard School and the Department of Education, in New York City as an ensemble hornist. Laura is on a two-year fellowship performing chamber music in venues all across New York City, teaching at a public high school and developing professional and educational skills. She made her Carnegie Hall debut in November 2012!
Lavern Wagner (MM 1953, PhD Musicology 1957) is finishing the study, "Johannes Heugel: Reformation Music From Hesse, v. 1. Two Weddings and a Funeral." She is planning to place this volume with 45 pages of commentary and 165 pages of music on the internet for free use by interested musicians and scholars. The music is transcribed from microfilms of original manuscripts in the Murhadsche Bibliothek, Kassel, Germany. This volume is expanded from the original concept of the study. It focuses on a little-known composer from the mid-16th century at a smaller court of the time. Heugel has made his unique contributions to music of the period. Volume 2 of this study is in preparation, entitled: "Johannes Heugel: Occasional Works." She was the first graduate student to receive the degree of Ph.D. in historical musicology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music. Previous projects on 16th century music have been published by The American Institute of Musicology, and A-R Editions. She has also published a volume in the field of mid-19th century band music.
Darrell Aderman (BM 1954) was honored with the dedication of the Darrell Aderman Auditorium at the Shell Lake Arts Center’s annual Tribute to the Big Bands Concert in June 2012. The Tribute Band, under the direction of Jazz Ensemble & Combo Clinic Program Director, Greg Keel, consisted of instructors and camp alumni and staff. Initially known as the Indianhead Arts Center, the Shell Lake Arts Center began with the vision of Prof. Darrell Aderman, who was a Shell Lake music teacher. Started in 1968, the Arts Center is the longest-running Jazz Ensemble camp in the nation. Prof. Aderman retired as Professor Emeritus in 1995 and received the UW-Extension Award of Excellence, Wisconsin Music Award, International Association of Jazz Educators Award, and Who’s Who in America. His Masonic activities include Grand Master of Masons in Wisconsin, 33° of Scottish Rite and the Grand Lodge Meritorious Service Award. Prof. Aderman and his wife, Billie, received the 1984 Shell Lake Citizens of the Year award.
Jane Frazee (BM 1958) is founder and former director of Graduate Music Education Programs at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. Her 30 years of Orff work in the classroom and with music educators has brought her local, state, national and international recognition. A former Fulbright teaching scholar at the Orff Institute in Salzburg, Austria, she has presented workshops and courses throughout the United States, Canada and Australia. Author of many articles on Orff Schulwerk, Jane Frazee has published exclusively with Schott Music. Her first book, Ten Folk Carols for Christmas, was published in 1977; it was followed by several other best-selling titles including the first textbook for applied Orff Schulwerk in North American classrooms, Discovering Orff. Three subsequent books address Orff Schulwerk practice in North America: Discovering Keetman, Playing Together and Orff Schulwerk Today. Her most recent book, Mindful-Artful-Playful is currently in press. The Minnesota Music Educators Association named Jane Frazee Elementary Classroom Music Teacher of the Year in 1987 and she received the organization’s President’s Award (2000) in recognition of service and dedication to music education in Minnesota. She was named to the MMEA Hall of Fame in 2007. Jane received the American Orff Schulwerk Association’s Distinguished Service Award in 1992 and she is the 1997 recipient of the international Pro Merito Award of the Orff Schulwerk Foundation in Munich. Her biography appears in the second edition of the New Grove Dictionary of American Music.
Dick Schroeder (BM 1958, MS 1961) was a high school band director for 19 years before changing vocations. In 2002 he and his wife, Karen, joined the Hampton Roads Metro Band, and he was named Music Director/Conductor of the band in 2005. The HRMB is a community band made up about 60 musicians ranging in age from the teens to the 80s from the Norfolk/Virginia Beach/Chesapeake area. Dick has composed about a dozen marches and other music for the band. He expresses his thanks to Bob Crane, Hilmer Luckhart and Ray Dvorak. Tom Norager 1959 Tom Norager (BM 1959) received a Master of Science in Music Education from Queens College of the City University of New York in 1970. He continues to sing professionally in the Detroit Concert Choir as a tenor soloist and as the tenor section leader. He and his wife, Jean, live in Port Huron, Michigan. Tom and Jean are members of NOMADS, a service organization of the United Methodist Church that travels around the United States to do work projects. At the annual national meeting of NOMADS in Hamburg, New York in late September, Tom directed (and accompanied) a choir of meeting participants. Coincidently, Ann Jones (BM 1961), who sang with Tom in the 1958-59 UW-Madison A Cappella Choir directed by J. Russell Paxton, sang soprano in the NOMADS choir.
1960s
Bob Klassy (BM 1960) has served as an adjunct clarinet/woodwind teacher at Hoffman Estates High School in Hoffman Estates, IL, since 2000. He is active in two music clubs composed of former and current music teachers. Both clubs sponsor a scholarship competitions for students attending college in the Chicago area. Klassy serves as the scholarship chair and corresponding secretary for one club and Vice President of the other. He is also a docent for the Lyric Opera of Chicago and present opera preview lectures at colleges, libraries, retirement homes and other community centers. He studies voice privately and has sung a number of Schumann and Schubert song cycles. Klassy spends six weeks or more in Florida every winter.
Marshall Brickmann (BA 1961) joined the folk group the Tarriers after college, where he struck up an acquaintance with Woody Allen. Over the next few decades, Brickman and Allen developed a collaboration, writing stand-up material, TV specials and, eventually, screenplays. The two co-authored the films "Sleeper," Annie Hall" and "Manhattan" among others. Brickman’s first foray into musical theater resulted in the international hit “Jersey Boys,” about the life and times of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. The show won an Olivier, four Tonys including best musical, the prestigious Austrian Helpmann Award, and countless other accolades worldwide. The Broadway company, now in its seventh year, remains in the top ten shows in New York and has been seen by over 15 million people worldwide. In addition to his work in film and theater, Brickman has been a contributor to The New Yorker, Playboy, the New York Times and other periodicals. He is the 2006 recipient of the Writers Guild of America Ian McClellan Hunter Award for lifetime achievement in writing. He makes his home in New York City with his wife Nina, a writer and editor. They have two daughters, Jessica and Sophie. He plans to die at age 96 in his sleep, surrounded by his loving family and their attorneys.
Joyce Altman (MM 1964) served as President and CEO of the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music and is now a consultant to non-profit organizations (strategic planning, fund raising, board development, capital campaigns, etc.). She is still tickling the ivories, mostly by playing eight-hand piano music.
Dennis R. McKinley (BM 1967, MS 1984) accepted the Madison Area Musicians Association's 2012 Teacher of the Year Award during the annual MAMA Awards Ceremony on June 2, 2012.
Sherill Roberts (BM 1968) released a CD in 2007 titled “Mello Cello” that continues to sell well, particularly through digital distribution. Every month, when she gets the list of sales, she enjoys seeing where in the world her music has gone. She likes to think of little ripples of mellowness spreading around the planet, here and there. Sherill holds the position of principal cellist of the Portland Opera Orchestra and is the delegate to the Regional Orchestra Players Association. Every summer she travels to a different part of the U. S. to meet with delegates from 85 other orchestras and exchange information and ideas designed to better the lot of the professional orchestra musician. She is a certified Andover Educator, teaching Body Mapping and injury prevention. Sherill finds gratification in being able to help people who have been injured as well as teach young cellists to play in ways that prevent future injuries. This summer she and her husband hiked all the way across England along the Hadrian’s Wall Path.
Dr. Jennifer Johnson Arndt (BM 1969) retires in June 2013 after 16 years with the Austin Independent School District in Austin, Texas, teaching vocal music at all levels. In May 2012, Dr. Arndt had the pleasure of bringing her fifth-grade choir to sing at the Seedling Foundation luncheon. The Seedling Foundation provides mentors for children of incarcerated parents, a cause close to the heart of guest speaker Laura Kaeppeler, the reigning Miss America and former Miss Wisconsin. Kaeppeler was very surprised to hear children "deep in the heart of Texas" entertain her with "On Wisconsin" as part of a patriotic medley and mentioned on her TV interview that it was the first time during her reign anyone had sung that song to welcome her.
Sorrel Doris Hays (MM 1969) has lectured at many universities including Queens College CUNY, Vassar College, Yildiz University Istanbul, Heidelberg University, Cornell College and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is presently on the faculty of the University of West Georgia. She was a composer and consultant in new music to the Silver Burdett MUSIC text series. Her operas were performed by New York City Opera, West German Broadcasting and Encompass Theater in collaboration with the Chattanooga Opera. Her music may be heard on the Townhall, Wergo, Innova, Finnadar, Smithsonian Folkways, Centaur and Opus One labels. In her new book, TOUCHING SOUND, Sorrel Hays provides a refreshingly new and unique approach to understanding and valuing music. She begins with a simple song, the lullaby, as the initial focus, in a variety of cultural contexts from North and South America, Africa, China, Turkey and Europe, with substantive essays on the history and evolving nature of lull music and the science of psychoacoustics.
1970s
James P. Colias (BM 1970), Trustee for the Gunnar and Lorraine Johansen Charitable Trust and Business Manager/Consultant for Victor Borge Productions, Inc, writes: “Earlier this year, I embarked on an EXTENSIVE CONCERT TOUR of the southern United States. Actually, it was only in Florida … and the two performances took place on March 5. But: one of them was sold-out! At the events, I spoke about my 25-year association with the pianist/humorist Victor Borge and played the American premiere of a “tango” he composed as a young man … under the pseudonym of Fred. Bernhard. I met Victor Borge through my connection as student and later assistant to the incomparable Gunnar Johansen, the very first Artist-in-Residence in Music in America, who taught at the UW-Madison from 1939-1976. Borge and Johansen were lifelong friends who had studied with the same teachers in Copenhagen, Vienna and Berlin. In June of this year, I performed at the Johansen Archives Center in downtown Blue Mounds, Wisconsin, under the auspices of the Blue Mounds Historical Society. I played several selections on Gunnar’s rare Bosendorfer-Moor Double-Keyboard Piano … proving that I continue to perform in the MOST IMPORTANT AND PRESTIGIOUS music venues of rural south-central Wisconsin, before audiences numbering well into double digits.
Dr. William Jones (DMA 1972) will conduct All-State Orchestras in Louisiana, Florida, Illinois and Delaware this year, and conducting workshops and clinics in other states. In addition, Jones will travel to several cities in China in May 2013 to conduct their top Conservatories of Music orchestras and give master classes for their conducting majors. Jones is Professor of Graduate Conducting at the University of Iowa where his responsibilities include conducting the UI Symphony Orchestra, the Graduate Chamber Orchestra, and conducting a fully staged opera each semester plus a summer opera.
Jeffrey Ernstoff (BS 1973) gave lecture-performances and directed creative development meetings for the Nordic Innovation Council at Tivoli Gardens, Copenhagen in 2012. He did the same for the Panama Canal Arts program at the Miraflores Locks Visitors Center, the Fortune Global Forum in Chegdu, China and the Chicago Civic Opera for Northwestern University's Kellogg Innovation Network.
Theodore Guerrant (MM 1973) is a coach and accompanist on the staff of the University of Maryland in College Park. He is also the organist and Choirmaster at St. Margaret's Episcopal Church in Washington, DC, the associate organist at St. Mark the Evangelist Catholic Church in Hyattsville, MD, and an accompanist for the Central Maryland Chorale, the Federal City Performing Arts Association, and the National Philharmonic Chorale at Strathmore Music Center in Rockville, MD, where he recently celebrated his 30th anniversary in that position.
Christine Seitz (BM 1973, BM 1974, MM 1976) is currently Associate Teaching Professor in Music at the University of Missouri, where she is director of the Show-Me Opera. Recent productions at MU include Rossini’s La Cenerentola, Lehar’s The Merry Widow, Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi and Mozart’s The Magic Flute. Seitz has also been on the stage directing staff at the Des Moines Metro Opera since 2006, and she sang the role of Madame Larina in DMMO’s 2012 production of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin. She appears on the Odyssey Concert Series on October 12 in Columbia, Missouri, singing Schoenberg’s The Book of the Hanging Gardens, with pianist Peter Miyamoto.
Gary Ciepluch (BM 1974, PhD 1988) is currently in his 25th year as the Director of Winds and Bands at Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Institute of Music in Cleveland, Ohio. He is the founder and music director of the Cleveland Youth Wind Symphonies, comprised of three groups totaling more than 350 of Northeast Ohio's most advanced high school instrumentalists. On November 4, 2012, the groups opened their 24th season with a performance in Severance Hall, home of the Cleveland Orchestra. They have performed eight times at the Ohio Music Educators Association's State Conference, and this past June, they took their 10th International Concert Tour to Poland, with performances in Gorzov, Krakow and Zakapani, with a closing performance at St. Stephen's Bacilica in Budapest, Hungary.
Fritz Kaenzig (MM 1975) accepted an adjunct faculty position teaching the euphonium and tuba students at UCLA in 2012. The first week of their fall quarter coincided with the opening weekend of concerts of the Los Angeles Philharmonic on which he played Second Tuba for their performance of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, with Gustavo Dudamel conducting. Last summer marked his 29th season as the Principal Tubist in the Grant Park Orchestra in Chicago’s Millennium Park. His University of Michigan students were active participants in the International Tuba & Euphonium Conference held in Linz, Austria last May. Two tuba students and two euphonium students were chosen as semifinalists in the solo competitions, and two quartets were also chosen as semifinalists for the quartet competition. The UM Graduate Euphonium/Tuba Quartet won second place. A junior euphonium major won the euphonium artist competition at the Women’s Brass Conference last spring also. Prof. Kaenzig was chosen to receive the Outstanding Alumnus Award from the Ohio State University School of Music, receiving the award at their Honors Convocation last spring. He will return to his undergraduate alma mater in January to present a master class and recital as part of the award. Also in late January, he will present master classes and recitals at the Memphis Low Brass Workshop and at the Ball State University School of Music, where one of his former students succeeded another former student upon his retirement as the professor of tuba/euphonium two years ago.
Donna Smith-Wilkinson (BM 1975) is currently teaching music (K-8th) at St. Bernard school in Green Bay and directing a contemporary praise and worship band and vocal team at First United Methodist Church in Green Bay.
Beverly Lautz Haimerl (BM 1976) just retired after teaching K-5 general music for 39 years in the Madison Public Schools. 36 of those years were spent in the school she attended from kindergarten through sixth-grade!
Nicholas Orovich (BM 1976) has been a member of the Department of Music faculty at the University of New Hampshire since 1980. Since January 2012, Nic has served as the Chair of the Department. In addition to his duties at UNH, Nic has served as the principal trombonist of the Portland Symphony Orchestra since 1979.
Leyla Sanyer (BM 1976, MME 1987) is starting her 36th year of teaching in Wisconsin public schools (Manitowoc and Oregon). She is president of the Wisconsin Music Educators Association and violinist in the Madison-based Oakwood Chamber Players.
Harvey Felder (BM 1977) is entering his nineteenth season as music director of the Tacoma Symphony Orchestra. He has also served as assistant conductor of the Milwaukee Symphony, resident conductor of the Saint Louis Symphony, and conductor of special projects with the Atlanta Symphony. He has served on the faculties of Eastern Michigan University, Haverford College, Bryn Mawr College, Johns Hopkins University, West Virginia University, and the University of Connecticut where he currently serves as director of orchestral studies.
Scott MacPherson (BM 1978, MM 1980 MM 1981) is currently the Director of Choral Activities at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, where he conducts the KSU Chorale and Kent Chorus, teaches conducting, and directs the graduate program in choral conducting. Before moving to Ohio, Dr. MacPherson held choral positions at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas for 15 years and prior to that at the UW-Madison School of Music for 6 years. MacPherson is also the founding Artistic Director of Madison's Isthmus Vocal Ensemble (IVE), a community choir of 55 singers now in its eleventh year under his direction. IVE was selected to sing at the North Central American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) North Central Division conference held in Madison this past February. MacPherson also founded the San Antonio Chamber Choir (SACC), a professional choir of 24-30 voices in San Antonio, Texas, now in its eighth season. SACC received an invitation to perform at the prestigious National Conference of the ACDA held in in Dallas in March 2013. Dr. MacPherson will conduct the Texas Private Schools Music Educators Association All-State Honor Choir in February 2013.
Dave Henning (BM 1979) is now in his 33rd year as a music educator and continues to love teaching kids and working with music. He is teaching in Carrolton Texas, a suburb of north Dallas, along with writing, arranging and publishing. He currently has over 40 published arrangements and compositions available for band.
Doug Maurer (BM 1979) earned the Master of Music in Music Performance at Northwestern University and an MBA at UW-Madison following his Bachelors in Music Education. Maurer has been working in the investment business in New York City since 2000. As the portfolio manager and managing editor of Value Line Select, his primary responsibilities are to choose Value Line’s top stock each month. Happily married and living in Montclair, NJ, Doug now performs on a part-time basis in the NYC area on a saxophone he purchased from the great alto-saxophonist David Sanborn.
1980s
On June 1, Mitchell Gershenfeld (MM 1980) became President & CEO of the McCallum Theatre in Palm Desert, California. He has been with the McCallum Theatre since 2000, having served previously as Director of Presentations and Theater Operations. The McCallum Theatre is ranked among the top 50 theaters in the world by Pollstar, an industry publication. Prior to coming to Palm Desert, Mitch served as President & CEO of the East County Performing Arts Center in the San Diego area, Executive Director of the Historic Paramount Theater in Denver and as Music Producer for the Cultural Olympiad of the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. He has held senior management positions with the Atlanta Symphony, National Repertory Orchestra and Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities. After receiving his MM degree from UW-Madison in 1980, he served as Lecturer in Music and Specialist in Radio at UW-Madison for four years, performing with the Wisconsin Brass Quintet and hosting and producing programming on Wisconsin Public Radio.
Trez Marie Zotkiewicz (BS 1981) studied with Dr. Carroll Chilton at UW-Madison and was a member of the Wisconsin Singers for two years. She is currently a Nurse Practitioner and continues to play piano for personal enjoyment. She enjoyed accompanying her oldest daughter and her daughter’s friends over the years for various vocal performances and competitions before they went off to college. She and her husband have always supported the Arts. They currently live in New Orleans, where Trez is a symphony volunteer for the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra. She had the privilege of hosting pianist Jeffery Siegel for a performance at her home a few years ago. Their girls have been raised with an appreciation of all types of music, a critical ear and eye for any performance at hand and the belief that “music and the arts make everyone whole.”
Kathryn Engelhardt (BM 1982) and her organization, Double Entendre Music Ensemble, commissioned a new piece for oboe, violin, viola and cello, composed by Martin Bresnick and funded with support from Meet The Composer, New York State Council on the Arts, and the Jarvis and Constance Doctorow Family Foundation. The new work, Going Home, (Vysoke, My Jerusalem), premiered in 2010 and was published in 2012.
Ben Locke (MM 1982, DMA 1985) is starting his 29th year of employment at Kenyon College where he leads the choirs, teaches conducting and basic musicianship and conducts the Knox County Symphony based in Mount Vernon, Ohio. He also composes and arranges music, and one of his recent creations was used as ending-credit music for Josh Radnor's new film "Liberal Arts." He also appears as an extra in the film, but you won't find him unless he's there to point it out.
Dr. Lori McCann (BM 1982), Assistant Professor of Voice at the John J. Cali School of Music, Montclair State University, recently participated in multiple events at the National Conference of the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) where she was a representative of the New York City Chapter of the organization. McCann taught at The American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria this past summer. She was an adjudicator for the Artist Awards (NATSAA), a panelist for the Carnegie Hall Royal Conservatory (Toronto) Achievement Program, and a co-presenter for the NYC-NATS sponsored event "A Microphone Workshop," which addressed the interface between audio professionals and singers and their teachers, as well as microphone techniques. In August she completed extensive training to become a member of the College of Adjudicators for the Carnegie Hall Royal Conservatory of Music Achievement Program, a highly effective, sequenced course of music study from beginner to advanced levels which inspires excellence through individual student assessments. As a Founding Voice Teacher Member, McCann's aim is to help spread this excellent program of study to voice teachers and music schools throughout the country in order to help raise the level and scope of early training of the nation's vocal students.
Robert Beck (BM 1984) is currently the Principal Bassist of the Symphony of Southeast Texas. This past year he performed the bass solos for Mahler's First Symphony and Stravinsky's Pulcinella Suite. He has been the Principal Bassist for that orchestra for 10 years. Beck is now currently in his 26th year as a Texas music educator.
Tom Linker (BM 1984) had his original ballet "The Enchantment" performed by the Minnesota Dance Theater in October 2012 at the Cowles Center for Dance in Minneapolist, Minnesota. Liner performs regularly with the Minnesota Orchestra. Since 2008, he has also served as the CFO of Middle English, an ASL interpreter referral business since 2008.
Christine Anderson (BM 1985) currently teaches in Shiocton, WI. Shs is the Middle and High School Choral director and teaches music theory, music appreciation and a sixth-grade general music rotation class as well. She is the Northeast Representative for the Wisconsin Choral Director's Association and the Appleton Site chair for the Singing in Wisconsin Festival. She has a son who is a junior at UW-Madison!
Nicholas J. Contorno (DMA 1985) retired in 2007 as director of bands and orchestra and music programs at Marquette University. Since then he has started an elementary band program with John Szycgiel at St. Paul Parish, Genesee Depot, WI. He received the Michael G. George Distinguished Service Award from WMEA in 2007. A newly formed music school in Haiti was named after him (see musical-haiti.org for more information). He was selected to be a member of the board of advisors of the Instrumentalists Magazine. His "Big Top Brass" band was invited to play at the Field of Honor at Miller Park as well as at several homecoming events at Mitchell Field celebrating World War II Veterans. He has been busy writing several pieces for publication by Daehn Publications, including Go Galop, Chili Sauce Rag, Pink Lemonade, Miss Trombone and Tres Moutarde (Too much mustard). He has also done several publications by Kendor and JPM Publications.
Alan Rieck (BM 1986, MM 1994, PhD 2000) was promoted to full professor of music education and choral music at UW-Eau Claire in August 2012. Alan was awarded the UW-Eau Claire Excellence in Teaching Award in August 2011. In January 2013 he conducts the All-State Women’s Choir for the Wisconsin Choral Director’s Association Conference in Milwaukee.
Chris Washburne (BM 1986) co-leads FFEAR (Forum for Electro-Acoustic Research), an improvising quartet, along with his frequent collaborator Ole Mathisen. Their collaborations have been called a “pointedly cosmopolitan post-bop collective” (The New York Times). FFEAR’s objective is to explore new sonic possibilities by adopting contemporary classical compositional techniques into an improvisational setting. Conventional uses of meter, tonality, and harmony are replaced with multiple meters, microtonality, and open templates of form to create a fresh approach to improvised music. FFEAR delights in blending and blurring the divide between jazz and contemporary classical music and producing a truly original voice and approach to improvised music.
Scott Brickman (BM 1987) has seen performances of many of his works in 2012. Solo over Changes (2011) for piano and digital audio, was premiered at the UAH-Huntsville New Music Festival on February 11, Snowball (2003) for violin, guitar and piano was performed several times by the Strung Out Trio on their Midwestern tour of Kansas, Nebraska and Missouri March 12-16 and He couldn’t Boogie Woogie worth a Damn (2012) for Tenor Sax and Piano was performed in NYC and Romania on May 13 and 17 respectively. On April 3, 2012, Ravello Records, a subsidiary of Parma Recordings, released his CD, Winter and Construction, which features performances of his works by members of the Strung out Trio.
Soprano Gale Ketteler (BA 1987) performed Spohr’s Six German Songs with clarinetist Darlene Carl-Beck and pianist Jayne Latva in Dixon, IL on November 11, 2012, and was soloist in Schubert’s Mass in G for Music Sunday at the Unitarian Universalist Church-Rockford in December 2012. She also sang works by Scarlatti, Britten and Henson-Conant with Mark Baldin-trumpet and Nanette Felix-harp, at a December 7, 2012 Mendelssohn Performing Arts Center season concert in Rockford IL.
David Barker (BM 1988) teaches beginning band at Horning Middle School in Waukesha, Wisconsin and Music Appreciation and Music in Films in eAchieve, the district's online virtual school.
Warren Gooch (DMA 1988) received the 2012 Educator of the Year award from Truman State University. Gooch is Professor of Theory/Composition and Chair of the Master of Arts program at Truman State.
Steven Morrison (MM 1988) has been appointed Associate Editor and Editor-Elect of the Journal of Research in Music Education, the flagship research journal of the National Association for Music Education.
In spring 2012, Kurt Dietrich (DMA 1989) received the James R. Underkofler Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award from Ripon College, where he has been teaching for the past thirty years. He is currently working on his third book, a history of jazz in Wisconsin. So far he has interviewed over 50 musicians from around the state, with plenty more to go. He anticipates the book to be completed in 2014.
Jeff Vallier (BM 1989) is currently serving as the Assistant Director of Purdue Musical Organizations (Choral Department) at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. Jeff sang with the UW Concert Choir under the direction of Robert Fountain and the UW Symphony Orchestra under the direction of David Becker from 1984-1988. Jeff went on to earn a Master of Music in Choral Conducting under Craig S. Arnold at Western Michigan University (1999). Jeff directed high school choral music in Michigan and Indiana for 19 years prior to accepting his current position at Purdue University.
Peggy Dettwiler (BM 1980, MM 1982) is the Director of Choral Activities at Mansfield University in Mansfield, Pennsylvania. The Mansfield University Concert Choir was one of 362 choirs from 64 countries around the world to participate in the 5th World Choir Games held in Cincinnati, Ohio, in July 2012. The choir competed in three categories, Musica Sacra, Folklore and Mixed Youth Choir, and won Gold Medals in each one. They were one of only two American choirs to receive three Gold Medals in these games. 167 choirs from the United States participated.
1990s
Jeffrey Snedeker (DMA 1991) was selected as Higher Education Music Educator of the Year by the Washington Music Educators Association in 2012. He was selected as a Distinguished University Professor for Service at Central Washington University in Ellensburg, WA, for 2012-13. He was also selected as the CWU nominee for CASE Professor of the Year in 2012. Jeffrey released two CDs in 2011 to critical review. The first is The Contemporary Natural Horn, which features modern compositions for the natural horn, including works by Douglas Hill, Jeffrey Agrell, and Jeffrey Snedeker. This is the first CD entirely devoted to this repertoire. The second release is Minor Returns: Tributes to the Horn in Jazz, his second jazz horn release. Both CDs are available by contacting him at [email protected] or via Amazon and iTunes. Jeffrey teaches at CWU (since 1991) and is Principal Horn of the Yakima Symphony Orchestra (since 1992). He is in his ninth year as Book and Music Reviews Editor for The Horn Call, Journal of the International Horn Society (President of IHS 2006-2010). He and Marilyn Wilbanks (MM piano 1989), who is also featured on The Contemporary Natural Horn, have two sons.
Lydia Van Dreel (BM 1991) was recently promoted to Associate Professor of Horn at the University of Oregon, where she has been a faculty member since 2006. Van Dreel’s playing was recently featured in the 2012 Chrysler Super Bowl ad “Its Halftime, America”. Van Dreel maintains an active and diverse performing career as a regular member of QUADRE: The Voice of Four Horns, Oregon Bach Festival Orchestra, The Iris Orchestra (Germantown, TN) the Eugene Symphony Orchestra, and the UO's Faculty Brass Quintet and Oregon Wind Quintet. Before joining the Oregon faculty, Van Dreel held a ten-year tenure as co-principal horn of the Sarasota Orchestra (FL).
Craig Baldwin (BS 1992) accepted a full-time Rehearsal Pianist position at Lincoln Center's New York City Ballet in January 2012.
Janet Heukeshoven (DMA 1994) is currently Director of Bands, Music Education Program Coordinator and Music Department Chair at Saint Mary's University in Winona, Minnesota. In the fall of 2012, she guest conducted the Dairyland Honor Band in western Wisconsin and the Hiawatha Valley Honor Band in southeast Minnesota. She also directed the Upper Midwest Flute Association's High School Honors Flute Choir in Minneapolis in May 2012. Janet was a participant in the International Harmoniemusik Symposium in St. Moritz, Switzerland, in August 2012 as well as piccolo soloist with the Minnesota Ambassadors of Music in July 2012. Janet recently published a modern performance edition of Rossini/Sedlak Barber of Seville for Harmoniemusik ensemble with Floricor Editions (floricoreditions.com). The Rossini/Sedlak Italiana in Algeria is being prepared for a March 2013 lecture/recital performance at Saint Mary's University and future publication. Janet is a frequent clinician (band and flute) and high school music contest adjudicator.
Dr. Christian Elser (BM '94) was recently promoted to Associate Professor of Music and granted Tenure at Presbyterian College, in Clinton, SC where his Voice Division Director, and Director of the Musical Theatre and Opera program. Christian is also the founder and General Director of GLOW Lyric Theatre in Greenville, SC, South Carolina's only professional opera company. This summer he is conducting the orchestra for their production of Puccini's "La Bohème" and is music directing the musical "Rent," both at Greenville's Peace Center for Performing Arts. Christian also continues to perform, having recently sung the role of "Simeon" in Debussy's "L'Enfant Prodigue" at the Piccolo Spoleto Festival in Charleston, and as the baritone soloist in concerts with the Charleston Chamber Orchestra and Augusta Choral Society. This summer he returns to LOOK Musical Theatre in Tulsa, OK to perform roles in Gilbert & Sullivan's "The Gondoliers" and Sondheim's "Sweeney Todd."
Matthew Hill (DMA 1995) recently released his CD recording, Silent Colors, through the Blue Griffin recording label. The album contains works by Liszt, Debussy, Messiaen, and several Gershwin songs arranged as virtuoso etudes by Earl Wild. The American Record Guide commenting on this recording states, “Matthew Hill is a talented pianist who has definite ideas as to how this music should go. He has a respectable technique to accomplish his aims.” Dr. Hill is currently Professor of Piano at Goshen College. After conducting the St. Louis, Indianapolis, San Diego, Atlanta, Richmond and Dallas Symphony Orchestras as Liza Minnelli's maestro.
Jamie Schmidt (BM 1996) was engaged to conduct two all-symphonic programs with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra in November 2012, with the Cirque Musica troupe. He continues his position as Associate Conductor with the national tour of The Lion King as his "day job." Most recently, Jamie was contracted by the Chicago agency LipmanHearne, the driving force behind the University's annual fundraising campaign this year, "Share the Wonderful." He composed, scored, performed and recorded the new U-Rah-Rah song for the University, a little tune he calls On Wisconsin.
Dan Plummer (BM 1997, DMA 2005) is General Director of Opera for the Young. Opera for the Young, a professional touring opera company based in Madison, Wisconsin, was founded in 1970 by members of the School of Music community, and today the company’s mission "to ignite enthusiasm for opera" is still being advanced by many School of Music alums. Dan adapted and arranged the musical score for this season’s new adaptation of Massenet’s Cinderella. The new production will be seen by over 75,000 children across the upper Midwest, and the following UW alums are a part of the cast: Jeffrey Sykes, Saira Frank, J. Adam Shelton, Vince Fuh, and Katie Butitta.
Composer Paul Seitz (DMA 1997) joined the faculty of the University of Missouri, Columbia, teaching music theory, in 2009. Among recent performances and premieres of his music, highlights include a performance by Henri Bok and Ann Evans of In a Place of Deep Color at the World Saxophone Congress, St. Andrews, Scotland, and the premieres of Someplace Where Your Spirit Sounds, for tenor saxophone and chamber ensemble, featuring soloist Leo Saguiguit (commissioned by the Odyssey Chamber Music Series) and La Fiammeggiante Luce, by the University Singers (University of Missouri). 2013 premieres will include There is a Threeness About You, for trombone and wind quartet, at Texas Tech University (commissioned by Timothy Howe), and La Terra Illuminata for chorus and orchestra, in Columbia, Missouri (commissioned by the Columbia Civic Orchestra). For more information please visit www.paulseitz.net
Kathryn Briggs (BM 1998) has been teaching music for 15 years and is in her seventh year as the choir director at St. Mary's Academy in Portland, Oregon. Ms. Briggs earned her Bachelor of Music in Music Education from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and her Masters of Music Education with an emphasis in Choral Conducting from the University of St. Thomas. She earned highest honors at UST, and was featured in the graduate program for music education's annual Research Roundtable presentation. Ms. Briggs was recognized for outstanding teaching as a finalist in the OnPoint Community Credit Union Excellence in Teaching Awards in 2011, and as the Mt. Hood Conference "Advisor of the Year" in 2009. Her research in music education has been nationally published in the ACDA's Choral Journal and she has authored lesson plans for NAfME and VH1 Music Studios. She will be a session presenter at the 2013 Northwest Regional NAfME conference. Under her direction, the choral program at St. Mary's has grown from less than 25 students to over 150 singers. In 2008, her top choir was the first all-female choir in state history to compete in the Oregon State Choir Championships. They returned to the State Choir Championships once again in 2012. In 2009, her choirs were the leading forces at the 150th Anniversary Concert with a sold-out performance at the historic Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. In 2011, her choir won first place at the A Cappella in Albany Festival. Ms. Briggs' choir was recently invited to perform at the 2013 Northwest Region NAfME conference. During her years of teaching, Ms. Briggs' choirs have performed in New York City, Orlando, Seattle, Austria, Germany, Switzerland and France. In April, 2012, she lead a group of St. Mary's students from both the choir and orchestra programs to Europe for a music history tour through Vienna and Salzburg.
Dan Hosken (DMA 1998) has had two textbooks in music technology published recently by Routledge: An Introduction to Music Technology (2010) and Music Technology and the Project Studio: Synthesis and Sampling (2011). He is currently the Associate Dean of the Mike Curb College of Arts, Media, and Communication at California State University, Northridge where he has been on the faculty since 1999.
Since 2008, Jon Schipper (BM 1998) has been the director of bands at Madison Country Day School, an independent Pre-K through 12th grade school north of Madison. He has also enjoyed a freelance career over the last 15 years and has had the opportunity to play trumpet with a number of world-renowned artists, including Frank Sinatra Jr., Cheap Trick, The Temptations, Phat Phunktion, Madisalsa, The Isthmus Brass and many others. He was recently a featured soloist at the 2010 and 2011 UW-Madison Varsity Band Concerts.
2000s
Robert Hodson (PhD music theory 2000) has been promoted to full professor and is currently serving as chair of the Hope College Department of Music in Holland, Michigan.
This fall, Sam Handley (MM 2001) made his European debut as Escamillo in a new production of Carmen with Theater Aachen. He returns this season to Lyric Opera of Chicago for their production of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg as Hans Foltz and will debut with the Canadian Opera Company in Salome before finishing the season with Seattle Opera in their highly acclaimed Der Ring des Nibelungen. Last season, Sam made his Asian debut in Beijing, China at the National Centre for the Performing Arts as Basilio in Il barbiere di Siviglia, conducted by Lorin Maazel. He made his Severance Hall and Carnegie Hall debuts with The Cleveland Orchestra in performances of Salome with Franz Welser-Möst. After being chosen as a member of Lyric's Ryan Opera Center in Chicago, Sam returned to the Upper Midwest from Texas where he earned his DMA at the University of Houston in 2007. In his three years at Lyric he performed more than a dozen roles, and covered many more. He still maintains a home in downtown Chicago (near the Opera House), and enjoys hosting fellow UW alumni and Madison friends!
George Stoffan (DMA 2001) was awarded a Fulbright Teaching Fellowship to Czechoslovakia for the fall of 2012. He currently is Professor of Clarinet at Oakland University. Mr. Stoffan previously served on the faculty of Southern Utah University. He joined the United States Air Force Band in Washington D. C. in 1997 and served as that ensemble’s Concertmaster and Principal Clarinetist from 1998 until 2001.
Allison (Martin) Bloom (BM 2002, MA Historical Musicology 2008) is currently pursuing the PhD in Historical Musicology, and recently received the 2012 Thomas Hampson Award from the American Musicological Society for her dissertation, “‘Un paysage choisi’: Fêtes galantes in Fin-de-siècle French Music.” She lives in Madison with her husband and two daughters.
Scott Gleason (MA 2002) is Adjunct Instructor at Fordham University and completing his PhD in music theory at Columbia University. He edits for The Open Space Magazine, Perspectives of New Music, W. W. Norton & Co., Inc. and formerly for Current Musicology. His articles have appeared in The Open Space Magazine and Perspectives of New Music. He has presented talks at Columbia University, Princeton University, Rutgers University and University of Surrey. He was recently interviewed by Perspectives of New Music for their 50th Anniversary issue.
Cooper Grodin (BM 2002) is playing The Prince in the New York Public Theatre production of “Into the Woods”.
Cellist Pablo Mahave-Veglia (DMA 2002) recently presented recitals for the "Fringe" Series of the Boston Early Music Festival, at the Fontana Chamber Arts Series in Kalamazoo, Michigan, as guest artist at the HKBU in Hong Kong and as part of the Live from WFMT radio broadcast in Chicago. Upcoming engagements include the release of recordings with the Audite label and concerto appearances at Kingston University and the London College of Music in England.
Maureen O'Brien (BA 2003) was recently promoted to the position of Development Director at the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix, Arizona. In June, she graduated from Valley Leadership Class 33 and was named Secretary of the Board of Young Nonprofit Professionals Network (YNPN) in Phoenix. In addition, O'Brien serves as a co-founder of Classical Revolution PHX, a core team member of Emerging Arts Leaders Phoenix, and a legislative liasion with Arizona Citizens for the Arts. She volunteers with UnitED (Uniting Business and Education) and as a mentor for international exchange students studying at Scottsdale Community College. Musically, O'Brien stays active as a member of a woodwind quintet and choir.
James Boldin (MM 2004, DMA 2007) is an Associate Professor at The University of Louisiana at Monroe, and currently holds the Dr. William R. Hammond Endowed Professorship in Liberal Arts. In June 2012 he performed and presented master classes in Thailand at Mahidol University, Silpakorn University, and the Royal Thai Navy Music School. The trip was partially funded by a Career Advancement Grant from the Louisiana Division of the Arts, which he authored. James also performed at the 44th International Horn Symposium (May 2012) and presented at the Midwest Clinic International Band and Orchestra Conference (December 2011). Forthcoming projects include a solo recording featuring music for horn by the Dutch composer Jan Koetsier, to be released on the MSR Classics label in fall 2013.
Jane Riegel Ferencz (PhD Historical Musicology 2004) is Associate Professor of Music at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. In 2012 she recieved the UW-W Everett Long Award for the Advancement of General Education. According to the criteria, “the award is not intended primarily as a teaching award, but rather a way of recognizing those who have consistently nurtured the concept of general education, fostered multidisciplinarity within the program and modeled its ideals in their academic endeavors.” Jane has presented papers at Song, Stage and Screen VI (Kansas City, 2011), the American Musicological Society (Chicago and San Francisco meetings, 2011) and for the Society for American Music national meeting (Charlotte, 2012). She has been awarded a sabbatical leave for the 2012-2013 school year, during which time she will complete a book on music composed for the WPA Federal Dance Project.
Stacie Mickens (MM 2004) has been appointed the new Assistant Professor of Horn at the Dana School of Music at Youngstown State University (Youngstown, OH). She teaches horn, horn choir and coordinates the brass chamber ensembles. She also recently won positions in the Akron Symphony and Youngstown Symphony. She performed the Dana Wilson Concerto for Horn and Wind Ensemble with the YSU Wind Ensemble on October 15, 2012. Mickens received her DMA in 2012 from the University of Michigan, where she studied with Adam Unsworth.
Brenda Rae (BM 2004) made her debut with the Vienna State Opera in June 2012 in the role of Lucia (broadcast live over international radio). A member of the ensemble at Oper Frankfurt, she has sung roles including Olympia in Les Contes d’Hoffmann, and Pamina in Die Zauberflöte. Her 2011 debuts included Zerbinetta in Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos in Bordeaux and Armida in Handel’s Rinaldo with the Glyndebourne Festival. She will make her debut with Santa Fe Opera in 2013 as Violetta.
Russell Rolen (MM 2004) received his Doctor of Music degree from the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University in May 2012. His string quartet, the Spektral Quartet, was recently named "ensemble in residence" at the University of Chicago Department of Music.
Cara Sawyer (BM 2004) is an active freelance hornist in the Chicago area. After receiving her Master of Music from DePaul University in 2011, she joined the Civic Orchestra of Chicago as a regular member. She is a founding member of the exciting new brass quintet, The Alliance Brass (www.AllianceBrass.com) and performs with various organizations all over the city. In addition, Cara can be seen performing on natural horn throughout the Midwest. She was a member of the Civic Orchestra's MusiCorps educational outreach program and currently volunteers with the YOURS Project, an El Sistema-based music education program in the city of Chicago.
Christi Kugler (BA 2005) worked as a stereoscopic compositor for Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace in 1999 and for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader in 2010. Stereoscopic conversion is the process of adapting 2D film footage so it can be seen in the theaters and in home in 3D. The process involves working with a large team of artist to create a seamless viewing experience. It's a process that requires attention to detail, organization, math and an analytical and artistic eye for composition. Christi believes her degree in music theory prepared her for this work very well in that respect.
Jessica Lee Timman (MM 2005) has joined the Madison Opera as the mezzo-soprano Studio Artist for their 2012-2013 season. She will be performing in the chorus quartet for Acis and Galatea and will be covering the role of "Zerlina" in their production of Don Giovanni in 2013. Jessica also performed with the Florentine Opera Chorus for their production of Carmen in October 2012. She was recently recognized as a member of the Florentine Opera Chorus for her vocal and stage performance for the Naxos recording of Robert Aldridge's and Herschel Garfein's "Elmer Gantry", which won two Grammy awards in 2012.
Amber Dolphin (MM 2006) and current graduate student Carol Carlson have begun their second year of Music con Brio, a program for elementary and middle school aged students that they co-founded in 2011. Music con Brio's mission is to offer high quality music lessons at an affordable graduated tuition schedule to a diverse mix of Madison area students, forming an inclusive, supportive community to build students' self-esteem and pride in their talents. www.musicconbrio.org.
Patrick Zylka (BM 2006) was named Assistant Dean for Enrollment and Student Services at the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University in the summer of 2012. In this role, he oversees admission, financial aid, enrollment and student services for both the Music and Theatre Conservatories that make up CCPA. In addition to his position at CCPA, he is an active freelance bassoonist and lesson teacher in the Chicago metropolitan area.
Sarah Brailey (MM 2007) currently lives in New York City and works as a freelance singer. This fall, she made her Alice Tully solo debut singing Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream with the American Classical Orchestra. She also sang Handel's Messiah at Alice Tully in December with the Trinity Wall Street Choir. She is premiering the role of Mother in the new opera The Scarlet Ibis by Stefan Weisman, which is being presented by American Opera Projects. With a few of her colleagues, she formed a baroque chamber ensemble called Kielbasa Harmonika. The group presented concerts in New York City and Philadelphia this fall. In the spring, Sarah is returning to the Boulder Bach Festival as the soprano soloist in Bach's St John Passion. For more, see www.kielbasaharmonika.com and www.sarahbrailey.com.
Joshua Cutchin’s (BM 2007) New Orleans-style brass band, the Half Dozen Brass Band, will be releasing its second album, Cold Six, next month, featuring an arrangement by Tower of Power horn arranger Dave Eskridge. He was appointed Public Affairs Director for the Hugh Hodgson School of Music at the University of Georgia in July 2012.
Joel Spiess (BM 2007) joined the Florentine Opera chorus for the productions of Turandot (2011) and Carmen (2012). Joel also served as the vocal music director for Franklin High School's production of Seussical the Musical in March 2012. He is now employed full time as an academic advisor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Regina Haugen (MM 2008) is now in her second year of teaching MYP music at the American International School of Lusaka in Zambia.
Derek Powell (BS 2008) completed his Masters Degree at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University in May 2012 and is now a fellow at the New World Symphony.
Christiaan Smith-Kotlarek (BM 2008) earned a Master of Music in Voice at Indiana University-Bloomington, where he played Papageno in Die Zauberflöte and studied with Timothy Noble. Following that, he spent two years at the Boston University Opera Institute, where he studied with Jerrold Pope, was named 2011-2012 Phyllis Curtin Artist and performed the major baritone roles in Yerma, Roméo et Juliette, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Three Decembers, Il matrimonio segreto and Dialogues of the Carmelites. At BU he developed a friendship with composer Jake Heggie which led him to sing on Heggie's Composer Salon for Opera America in New York. Christiaan will sing the role of Joseph DeRocher in Heggie's Dead Man Walking in April 2013. Since graduation from UW-Madison, Christiaan has sung with the Des Moines Metro Opera, Indianapolis Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, and Ash Lawn Opera. He was very excited to return to Madison Opera to sing in their October 2012 production of The Masked Ball.
Nate Stampley (BM 2008) starred as Mufasa in “The Lion King” on Broadway, and played both Robbins and Porgy in American Repertory Theatre’s 2012 “The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess.” He was in the cast of the Broadway production “The Color Purple,” played Mufasa in West End London in a long-run production of “The Lion King” and toured across the United States in “Ragtime.”
Flutist Morgann Davis (MM 2009) recently relocated to southeastern Pennsylvania where she is a teacher and freelance artist. She was invited to perform in September on the first annual UW School of Music Alumni Association recital. Active in several music organizations, Morgann is on the Career and Artistic Development Committee of the National Flute Association. Prior to moving to Pennsylvania, Morgann was adjunct professor of flute at Maranatha College, and maintained an active private studio in Madison and Hartland, Wisconsin.
James Kryshak (MM 2009) finished with the Ryan Opera Center at Lyric Opera of Chicago in March 2012 and immediately sang the part of the Fourth Jew in a concert version of Salome with the Cleveland Orchestra and Franz Welser-Möst. Over the summer he joined the team of Wolf Trap Opera in the Washington D. C. area to create a new production of The Rake's Progress in which he sang Sellem, the Auctioneer! After a month off he is now in Berlin, Germany where he is making his headquarters for a three month audition tour in Germany and Austria to find a festival engagement in a European Opera House. It's been a very busy time since leaving UW, but everyday things are getting more and more exciting!
J. Griffith Rollefson (PhD Musicology 2009) is serving as ACLS New Faculty Fellow and Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Music at the University of California, Berkeley where he teaches courses on global hip hop, jazz, and African American music. This spring Griff was named UC Chancellor’s Public Scholar and is implementing a public scholarship project titled “Hip Hop as Postcolonial Studies in the Bay Area” that brings UC Berkeley students into Oakland and Richmond, CA high school classrooms and community centers through the American Cultures Engaged Scholarship (ACES) initiative. The program empowers inner-city high school students to take on the mantle of “expert,” adding value to hip hop’s ways of knowing and encouraging new forms of historical knowledge based on histories often elided in the classroom.
Adrianna Stoiber (BM 2009) is an accompanist for the Florentine Opera Company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
2010s
Paul Bhasin (DMA 2010) recently joined the conducting faculty of The College of William & Mary in Virginia, where he serves as Director of Bands and Assistant Professor of Music. In this capacity, he directs the William & Mary Wind Symphony and teaches conducting. Recently, Bhasin conducted the Washington Symphonic Brass (Washington, DC), saw his wind ensemble arrangements performed by the US Marine Band, US Air Force Brass in Blue, Grand Tetons Festival Orchestra Brass, and was a featured clinician at the 2011 Midwest Band & Orchestra Clinic. Bhasin continues to serve as an adjudicator and guest clinician for university wind ensembles throughout the region, and was recently appointed Music Director of the Williamsburg Youth Symphony. In addition to his conducting activities, Bhasin has performed as a trumpeter with the Virginia Symphony and Opera.
Ching-Chun Lai (DMA 2010) has been appointed director of orchestras and assistant professor of conducting at the Crane School of Music, State University of New York at Potsdam. She was faculty at Mount Holyoke College in 2010-2011.
Jessica Warmington (BA 2010) spent the last two years tutoring and teaching English in France with the Teaching Assistant Program in France, first in Bordeaux and then in Agen. She has now returned to Madison where she is in her first semester of Graduate School in UW-Madison's Professional French Masters Program.
Karen Bishop (MM 2011, DMA 2011) has completed a CD of unpublished songs of John Duke, with pianist Kirstin Ihde (DMA, 2012). This CD is available through Karen at [email protected].
Meghann Fougerousse (MM 2011) recently accepted a position as the music teacher at JC McKenna Middle School in Evansville, Wisconsin. She will be getting married in October, 2013.
Elias Goldstein (DMA 2011) was recently appointed Assistant Professor of Viola at Louisiana State University. He is also Principal Viola with the Baton Rouge Symphony. Elias taught at Sommer Symfoni in Kristiansand Norway, during the summer of 2012. He has upcoming recitals with the Myra Hess Concert Series, Touhill Performing Arts Center in St. Louis, Florida State University, Georgia State University, Kennesaw State University, Western Kentucky State University, the Georgia Youth Orchestras and the Interlochen Arts Academy. He has recently given master classes at Oberlin, Interlochen, the University of Michigan, Peabody, Penn State University, Ohio State University, the University of Iowa, Northern Iowa University, UW-Madison, DePaul University, University of St. Louis, the University of Alabama and the University of Southern Mississippi.
Danny Kim (BA 2011) has performed on Sesame Street with maestro Alan Gilbert, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music with the Metropolis Ensemble and ?uest Love and on VH1 for the Divas of Soul show. In the Fall of 2011, he started a Master of Music degree at the Juilliard School, where he received an alumni scholarship and now studies with Samuel Rhodes. He leads string/viola sectionals for the Juilliard Pre-College Division and, in June of 2012, was a semi-finalist for a section viola position with the Minnesota Orchestra. He was a viola academy member of the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan in 2012 and a viola fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra in 2011.
Justin Krawitz (DMA 2011) continues to lecture in piano and piano pedagogy at the University of Cape Town, where he was appointed Postdoctoral Research Fellow in 2012. In March he premiered a new sonata written for him by the acclaimed South African composer Hendrik Hofmeyr. The performance took place in the middle of the Cape Town Central Train Station as part of the public arts festival Infecting The City. June saw performances in Paris, as well as at the Chateau Kromeriz, a UNESCO heritage site in the Czech Republic, where he was featured in the international festival Forfest. Krawitz will round off the year with a concert tour of Zimbabwe in November.
Michael Pfitzer (MM 2011) was recently hired as the Choral Associate at Harvard University, where he is currently assistant conductor of the Harvard-Radcliffe Chorus (a group founded in 1979 by UW faculty member Beverly Taylor), administrator of the Holden Choral Program, coordinator of the Holden Voice Program and curator of the Holden Choral Library. He continues to serve as Director of Music at First Parish Church of Stow and Acton in Stow, MA and assistant conductor of the Cambridge Community Chorus. He was recently engaged to undergraduate sweetheart Caitlin Felsman.
Rose Valby (MM 2011) and Professor Les Thimmig performed together this October on tour with the New Sousa Band, conducted by Keith Brion. Their weekend tour included performances in Green Bay, WI and Aurora, IL.
Laura Weiner (MM 2012) recently joined The Academy Program, hosted jointly by Carnegie Hall, the Juilliard School and the Department of Education, in New York City as an ensemble hornist. Laura is on a two-year fellowship performing chamber music in venues all across New York City, teaching at a public high school and developing professional and educational skills. She made her Carnegie Hall debut in November 2012!