Alumni Return to Peabody - Peabody Institute

Alumni
SUMMER 2015
THE NEWSLETTER OF THE SOCIETY OF PEABODY ALUMNI
Dear Fellow
Peabody Alumni,
Happy summer! I hope you and your loved
ones are well. What a great year we have had
with the Society of Peabody Alumni (SPA). We
welcomed our new dean, Fred Bronstein, into
the Peabody extended family. We have hosted
numerous receptions for students, graduate
and undergraduate, throughout the academic
year. We awarded four awards to Peabody
Conservatory alumni: Taylor Hanex, Zuill Bailey,
Mark Cudek, and Wilda Heiss. We had an amazing
Homecoming/Alumni Weekend in April. Alumni
participation with Homecoming went up 15%. We
even had an alumna travel from Switzerland to
attend. It was great to reconnect with classmates.
In addition, some members of the Society of
Peabody Alumni have served on the Alumni
Council for Johns Hopkins. As I type this I am
on the train coming to Baltimore to serve on the
Executive Committee of the Alumni Council with
Johns Hopkins.
It has been inspiring to see Peabody, or more
specifically Dean Bronstein, start a conversation
about what classical music looks like in the
21st Century. Did you see the symposium that
was held in October? The panelists were Dean
Bronstein, Marin Alsop, Ben Cameron, Thomas
Dolby, and Marina Piccinini. If you haven’t, please
do so at peabody.jhu.edu/symposium. Did you
read Dean Bronstein’s op-ed in The Baltimore Sun
entitiled “The Future of Classical Music”
(goo.gl/wKFwey)?
It is an exciting time at Peabody. Let us, the
Society of Peabody Alumni, know what you
are doing. Be in communication with us about
your concerts, recitals, master classes, and
performances. Tell us about how Peabody has
shaped you with what you are currently doing.
Are you preparing for a competition? Did you go
on to graduate school? Are you studying for the
bar exam? Are you expecting your first child?
Did you go to medical school? Where are you
auditioning? We want to know what you are
doing. The Society of Peabody Alumni needs your
skill-sets, joy, love, and affinity to continue to
support alumni throughout the globe. Think about
how to give back. Or just come back and visit.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
All the best,
Matthew Rupcich
Class of 1990
Voice and Music Education
40th Reunion Class
25th Reunion Class
50th Reunion Class
Alumni Return to Peabody
Alumni from as far as Switzerland came back to campus in April to share memories, hear performances of
current students and alumni, and share their stories of life since Peabody. The campus was in full swing with
classes, rehearsals, recitals and concerts, and alumni were invited to take advantage of all the offerings.
The campus has changed significantly in the last 50 years, and even recent grads had not seen the new
Centre Street Performance Studio. However, there are many spaces that still look just as they did years ago or
similar enough to bring out the ghosts and stories of the past.
If you missed the events or came and want to return again, contact the Alumni Office for a personal tour.
Peabody is also always interested in stories of the past and learning the paths alumni take after they leave our
campus, so call or write anytime!
More pictures can be found on the Peabody website and alumni Facebook page. The Alumni Office can be
reached at 410-234-4763 or [email protected].
Dear Alumni,
I could not help but to think about you,
our alumni, as I prepared for Peabody’s 133rd
graduation ceremony in May. We added 224
students to your ranks, and it was moving and
exciting to see these young artists prepare to
take the first steps in their careers as they enter
the next phase of their lives.
I found myself hoping that you would share
your path from Peabody and your experience
wherever you are, both with these new alumni
and with us. We see the complex and increasingly
unpredictable world that the 21st century
musician faces, the world in which you are living,
working and making a difference. Your experience
both within the musical world and outside in the
world in general, provide insight into the future of
classical music, its role in the 21st century, and the
journeys of our future graduates.
Having just concluded my first year as dean of
the Peabody Institute, one of the most gratifying
aspects of the year has been meeting and talking
with so many of you. I look forward to forging a
strong partnership with our alumni. My thoughts
and some of our exciting plans for Peabody are
regularly updated and posted on the Peabody
website: peabody.jhu.edu/fromthedean. (If you
would prefer to get these updates by letter, don’t
hesitate to contact Debbie Kennison, and she
would be happy to send these to you.) I’d love to
have your feedback on these ideas, new things
that we’re experimenting with and are engaged
in; but most of all, I would like your continued
active engagement with Peabody. Together with
Society of Peabody Alumni (SPA) President Matt
Rupcich and Debbie Kennison in the Alumni
Office, we are looking for better, more dynamic
ways to connect with you and for alumni to
connect with each other. Let us know if you have
any thoughts on this, and be assured that your
ideas, stories, and insights are always welcome
and can be sent to [email protected]
I look forward to hearing from you and to
engaging with you in the coming year.
Sincerely,
Fred Bronstein
Dean, Peabody Institute
Johns Hopkins University
Dean Bronstein (left) and Alumni President Matt Rupcich (right) present Wilda Heiss with the JHU Heritage Award.
Wilda Heiss 2015 JHU Heritage
Award Winner
Wilda Heiss (TC ’60, BM ’62, AD ’63, MM ’64, Flute)
wanted her reunions to be fantastic — and she
had many reunions coinciding with her numerous
degrees — so she stepped up and chaired the
reunion committee for the last three reunions.
She was instrumental in planning the events and
increased attendance each time, this year by 15%, by
organizing alumni volunteers to make phone calls,
send postcards, post on Facebook, and by making
many, many calls and connections herself.
Wilda also had a wish to share pictures from
Peabody’s past not only with reunion participants
during the activities every-other year but all the
time. With her knowledge of the contents of the
Archives, a small committee, and her own willingness to make a gift that would bring it to reality, there
is now a permanent photo exhibit at Peabody. She
would rush to explain that the exhibit is permanent,
but the pictures will be changed every two years with
the reunion cycle.
Alumni, students, faculty, and staff have all
benefited from her dreams and her willingness
to bring them to reality. You can see the results in
the pictures throughout this newsletter and by the
smiles on people’s faces as they slowly walk up the
hallway that connects the Arcade to the CohenDavison Family Theatre.
Wilda Heiss at the ribbon cutting for the Peabody
Alumni/Archives Exhibit. She is joined by Dean Bronstein;
Christine and Paul Heiss, Ms. Heiss’ nephew and his wife;
Dante Beretta, archivist at the Garrison Forest School;
and Jackie Capecci (BM ’87, Viola).
So it was with great thanks and appreciation that Dean Bronstein and Alumni President
Matt Rupcich presented Ms. Heiss with the Johns
Hopkins Alumni Association Heritage Award on the
final evening of Homecoming. The official citation
can be found in the alumni section of the Peabody
website. There you can see that over the years there
have been many other contributions to Peabody in
time, talent, and treasure, in addition to the ones
that were so evident in April. Congratulations to
you, Wilda Heiss, and thank you, thank you, thank
you as well for what you have done for Peabody.
President of the Taiwan Alumni Chapter President Peter Lee (BM ’06, MM ’08, Voice) and the local alumni committee organized their second annual alumni concert in
May. In addition to those living in Taiwan, alumni from the U.S., Korea, and Japan were in attendance. Piano faculty member Yong Hi Moon was the guest artist. For more
information about the concert and activities of Taiwan alumni, please visit their Facebook page.
—琵琶地音樂院台灣校友會 Taiwan Chapter Society of Peabody Alumni
Front Cover:
50th Reunion Class – Back row, left to right: Ernest V. “Duke” Baugh (BM ’65, MM ’71, Voice); Bradley Smith (BM ’64, Music Education); John Van Cura (BM ’65, Voice); Bob Barrett (BM ’65, MM ’69, Music Education);
Front row, left to right: Wilda Heiss (TC ’60, BM ’62, AD ’63, MM ’64, Flute); George Gaylor (BM ’64, Music Education-percussion); Kim Neill Van Cura (BM ’65, Music Education)
40th Reunion Class and classmates – Back row, left to right: Kim Miller (BM ’76, Violin); Linda Gilbert (BM ’75, Piano); Claire Riggle Ingalls (BM ’74, Guitar); Bruce Casteel (’74, Guitar); David Morrocco (BM ’74, Music Education);
Michael Cobbler (BM ’74, Music Education); Keith Ward (BM ’75, Guitar); Front Row, left to right: Vickie Yanics (BM ’75, Violin); Terry Shuch (BM ’76, Music Education; MM ’78, Bassoon); Sandra Goldberg (MM ’75, Violin);
Susan Taylor Dapkunas (BM ’75, Viola; MM ’84, Music Education); Paul Matlin (BM ’70, MM ’72, Violin)
25th Reunion Class – Back row, left to right: Hilary Vrooman Szczublewski (TC ’90, Clarinet; BM ’90, Music Education); Tim Viets (BM ’90, MM ’99, Music Education; TC ’91, Clarinet); Lorne Graham (BM ’90, Trumpet);
Susan Hahn Graham (BM ’90, Flute); Front row, left to right: Jennifer Cumerma Viets (BM ’90, Voice); Sheri Segal Melcher (BM ’90, Piano)
2
Financial Management and Wealth Building for Musicians
A Peabody Alumnus Shares the Concepts and Methods that Enabled Him to Invest Well and Retire (in Modest Comfort) in His Early 60s
This is an edited version of the original. The complete version can be found at peabody.jhu.edu/alumni.
We heard it when we were young: “You’ll find
that it’s hard to make a living in music.” Making
music can have great rewards but they might not
be financial. As challenging as our financial lives
might be, the application of some very simple concepts can make it possible to face the challenges
and even overcome them.
ADVANTAGES YOU HAVE AS A MUSICIAN
If the subject of money management seems
totally foreign to you, keep this in mind: As a
musician, you have some strengths that can help
you succeed. You’re good at working on long-range
projects in which the goal is beyond the horizon.
You have determination, patience, and the courage
to take calculated risks. Also, you’re good at math
and ratios (even if you think you’re math-phobic):
rhythms are basically ratios, as are many of the
mathematical concepts in investing (and, to manage
your finances, you won’t need to understand any
complicated math anyway). If you spend a moderate
amount of time and effort studying this field, you
can learn enough to do well.
THREE TIME HORIZONS OF PERSONAL
MONEY MANAGEMENT
One of the first things to understand about
personal money management is that it includes
several subfields: short-, medium-, and long-term
money management. The first involves day-to-day
and month-to-month finances (often called personal finance). The second is a hybrid of the first
and the third, and involves saving for big-ticket
items that you’ll want to pay for long before you
retire, such as a house or your children’s education, and also building an emergency reserve in
case you’re hit with an unexpected financial burden. And the third involves investing for things far
in the future, such as retirement.
The most basic element of personal finance is
budgeting — estimating your income and expenses
in advance for a given time period. One of the most
frustrating things about being a musician is our
fluctuating incomes: How can we achieve financial
stability when our incomes keep going up and down?
But consider this: the incomes of just about every
business on earth fluctuate, yet many of them do very
well. One accounting tool that businesses use to manage their finances is simple yet powerful, and you can
easily learn how to use it too. It consists of the totals
of all income and expenses for a given period (such
as a month) with breakdowns by category for each. So
yours would include subtotals for income items such
as teaching, gigs, a day job, and the like. For expenses,
you would have subtotals for housing, transportation,
groceries, meals away from home, medical expenses,
and so forth. You would add up the subtotals to get
grand totals for income and expenses, and the difference between the two grand totals would be your
profit or loss for the period.
Just having those figures won’t change your situation, but it will make it crystal-clear, and that can
be a first step toward figuring out how to improve
it. Can you take on a few more students or gigs?
Can you charge higher fees for any of your work?
Can you cut any of your expenses? Small changes in
these things can shift your balance from just barely
getting by to prospering, even if modestly, and putting money away for your future.
The most important goal of this practice — and
if you want to succeed financially, it should be a
regular, life-long practice — is to help you figure out
how to save money regularly. For that is the key to
building a nest egg so that you can be free of financial worries. Many Americans of average means have
become wealthy, and almost all have done it in a very
unexciting way: gradually, by saving and investing
modest amounts regularly over a long period of time.
Another tool for improving your finances is a little out-of-the-box thinking. Taking money out of the
bank is easy, and that can make it difficult to save.
Money you have earmarked for specific purposes is
much easier to manage if it is in different accounts
or even different places, and there is no limit to the
number of accounts you can have. Accounts in multiple places can be a powerful tool to help you save.
While you’re in the early stages of learning
about personal money management, it will be
good to internalize an old adage: Pay yourself first.
Whenever you receive payment for anything, put
off at least for a moment any thoughts about your
financial obligations and see the first fraction of
that payment going into savings.
One critically important aspect of personal
finance is paying off debt. If you have any debt, you
want to pay it off as soon as you can. But a slight
departure from that very sound principle says that
while you’re discharging your debt, save a little,
even if it’s just a tiny bit. That will mean taking a
little longer to pay off the debt, but having even a
small financial cushion will give you some peace of
mind. I know those two ideas are contradictory, but
I suggest that you mull them over and decide which
course is most comfortable for you.
While you’re getting your short- and intermediate-term finances in order, it isn’t too early to start
learning about investing to achieve your long-term
goals. By learning about investing well before you
start doing it, you’ll probably make better choices
than you would if you started into it with little
preparation. So plan to spend some time building
your stores of both knowledge and of funds to invest
until you feel ready for the next step.
RESOURCES FOR LEARNING
The resources for learning about investing are
vast. There are books, college courses, websites,
investment advisors, and TV and radio programs.
Books have the advantage of allowing you to learn at
your own pace, and in college courses — and there are
many inexpensive ones at community colleges geared
toward beginning investors — you can ask questions
until you’re satisfied that you understand everything
that’s covered in the course. My recommendation as
the best place to start is a general, introductory book
that proceeds logically through the various aspects
of investing. You’ll find comments about sources of
information on both investing and personal finance
in the online version of this article.
THE BASIC INVESTING CONCEPTS
The first subject you’ll encounter as you learn
about investing is the many kinds of investments
that are available to you. Making your initial choice
will take time because you’ll need to sift through
so many possibilities. There are stocks, bonds, real
estate, commodities, collectibles, and a seemingly
infinite variety of mutual funds, which pool the
money of many investors and buy and sell the
stocks, bonds, real estate, or whatever the fund
consists of, for all of those investors at once.
I’m not going to name specific mutual fund
companies, but the large, well-known ones are
reputable, and with at least one of them, you can
start investing in low-cost, relatively low-risk funds
with as little as $100.
An extremely important fact about stocks and
mutual funds is that past performance is not a
guarantee of future performance. Be wary of recent
performance; look more at a stock or fund’s overall
soundness and long-term performance.
Diversification is a concept you’ll encounter early
in your studies. It simply means dividing your investments among different things; some will do better
than others, and by diversifying you can spread the
chances of achieving good results and the risks of
poor performance among your investments.
SOME IMPORTANT CONCEPTS THAT HELPED ME
their money in safer ones. So risk is a good thing
to learn about. All investing, like everything else
in life, involves risk, but reasonable risks can yield
substantial rewards.
UNDERSTANDING VOLATILITY
A basic fact about investments is that their value
goes up and down. There is a natural tendency, after
you’ve bought a stock, to want to see it go up and
up, but that will seldom happen. It will go up some
days and down on others. But that can work to your
advantage. If you accumulate shares in a mutual
fund, you’ll probably buy them over a period of
years, and if you buy a fixed dollar amount at fixed
time intervals, you’ll get more shares when the price
is below its average, and the number of shares you
accumulate will be greater than it would be if you
bought all of them at once at a higher price. That
practice is called dollar cost averaging, and it is a
time-honored way to take advantage of volatility and
leverage one’s limited buying power.
Here is my most important suggestion of all:
DO NOT, DO NOT get all excited when stock prices
are going up and then start buying shares of stocks
or mutual funds. The market will eventually top
out, prices will fall, and after they have gone below
the level where you bought, you’re likely to wonder
if you made a mistake and then sell your shares.
Simple arithmetic will tell you that that is a sure-fire
way to lose money, and it cannot be called investing.
TAXES AND INVESTMENTS
You’ll also need to learn about how investments
are taxed. There are two broad classes of investment
accounts: taxable and tax-advantaged. In the first,
you have to pay taxes on dividends you receive and
on gains you realize from the sale of assets. In the
second, your requirement to pay taxes is usually
delayed until you retire. If you have taxable investments, you’ll probably need to have an accountant
prepare your tax returns.
FINANCIAL CALCULATIONS
Finally, learn how to do some basic financial
calculations. This will take some of the mystery out
of the mathematical side of investing; you’ll find
that much of it isn’t as complicated as it might look.
Many sources are available online, as well.
FROM LEARNING TO DOING
After you’ve decided that you know enough about
investing to start doing it, the next steps are simple.
All you need to do is fill out a form and submit the
first payment to your new investment account.
Soon after you’ve made your first investment,
you’ll undoubtedly check to see how much it
went up, but the chances are about 50-50 that it
went down a bit. Because you studied this subject
before you invested, you’ll view both increases and
decreases with equanimity. You will not be tempted
to get into day trading, but you will occasionally
rebalance your portfolio.
Most importantly, you’ll continue to add to your
holdings regularly — a little at a time (or a lot at
a time, if your circumstances permit), over a long
period of time.
And as your portfolio grows, you’ll have a growing sense of financial comfort, and that will give
you a peace of mind that will enhance your ability
to do one of the greatest things humankind has
ever invented, which is bringing music into the
world. I wish you great success in both your musical and financial endeavors.
Beyond the basics of deciding what to invest in,
here are the concepts that helped me the most in my
years of investing:
UNDERSTANDING RISK
An old truism states that low-risk investments tend
to produce low returns and high-risk investments
have the potential for yielding higher returns. That is
known as the risk-reward relationship. Many investors manage their overall level of risk by dividing
their holdings among low-, medium-, and higherrisk investments in order to try for higher returns
from some investments while keeping some of
The author attended Peabody in the 1970s. He has
written this anonymously because he does not wish
to have widespread attention brought to his finances.
3
Class Notes
1950
Recent live performances of music by Vivian
Adelberg Rudow (TC ’57, BM ’60, piano; MM ’79,
Composition) include The Head Remembers! Victims
of 54th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry for
saxophone and tape, at the Boston Workers Alliance
Roxbury, Mass., and Devy’s Song, at the Women
Composers Class, Odyssey of JHU, and later at The
Women’s Club of Roland Park Baltimore. Numerous
radio performances of her music have been heard
this spring including airings in Amsterdam, South
Africa, England, and Wales.
Paul Jan Zdunek (BM ’91, Composition) was
hired as the chief capital development officer for
Singpoli Capital Corporation — a company within
the Singpoli Group dedicated to commercial real
estate investing. His 12-year career as a turn-around
specialist and consultant included working with organizations like the Pasadena Symphony Association
and the Modesto Symphony Association.
2000
Dan Trahey (BM ’00, Tuba, Music Education)
was recognized as being the first American to win
the Austrian Brass Band Championship, as tubist
with the RET Brass Band of Innsbruck, Austria.
The prize came with a trip to the World Brass Band
Championship in Frieburg, Germany, in May.
1960
Howard Gruber (BM ’68, Vocal Performance)
performed with New Jersey’s Pro Arte Chorale in the
rarely performed Epithelemion by Ralph Vaughan
Williams. He performed in Bizet’s Carmen at the
performing arts center in Engelwood, N.J., and in
performances of Carmina Burana with the Westfield
Symphony Orchestra.
1970
Faculty artist Manuel Barrueco’s (BM ’75, Guitar)
discography was reviewed in Fanfare Magazine in
September. Barrueco’s playing was described as
exquisite, and all three of these CDs are recommended for guitar playing of the highest caliber.
Jerry Dubins, the author of the article offers, “If
[Barrueco]’s not the greatest living guitarist on the
world stage today, I don’t know who is.”
1980
Jose Lezcano (BM ’81, Guitar), professor of music
at Keene State College, appeared as soloist with the
Portsmouth Symphony, in Joaquin Rodrigo’s guitar
concerto Concierto de Aranjuez on November 9, in
Portsmouth, N.H.
Master Gunnery Sgt. Charles Casey (BM
’86, Trombone) performed on the Late Show at Ed
Sullivan Theater in New York City on April 30 as a
member of “The President’s Own” United States
Marine Band. Casey, assistant principal trombone
player in the U.S. Marine Band, performed with the
band during the show’s taping with the First Lady of
the United States in the Late Show’s guest chair.
Joe Terwilliger (BM ’87, Tuba) was part
of the documentary Dennis Rodman’s Big Bang
in Pyongyang. In a review in Variety Magazine,
Terwilliger was called the comedic relief.
1990
Mark Lanz Weiser (BM ’ 91, Piano; MM ’93,
Composition) has been named recipient of the 35th
annual ASCAP Foundation Rudolf Nissim Prize.
The prize was awarded for Symphony No. 2 (Sinfonia
Magalhães). Where Angels Fear to Tread, an opera
composed by Weiser which premiered at Peabody in
1999, opened at Opera San Jose in February.
4
So-Yoon Yim (Piano, MM ’99, GPD ’00) performed
a concert at Old Town Hall in Fairfax, Vir., on
December 12 with Jun Kim (BM ’97, Violin) and
his wife You-Seong Kim (Soprano). The program
consisted of music by Norwegian composer Edvard
Grieg. This concert was part of the Bonita Lestina
Performance Series sponsored by the City of Fairfax
Commission on the Arts. Yim is currently on piano
faculty at the Levine School of Music and Kim
serves as the director of orchestral activities at the
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Hilda Goodwin
(class of 1954 and 1967)
photographed at Homecoming
Leela Breithaupt (BM ’93, MM ’96, Flute) was
featured on the cover the October issue of Flute Talk
magazine where the first of her series of articles on
“Historically Informed Performance for Modern
Flutists” was published. She has taught “Go
Baroque” master classes on this topic at the Rice
University Shepard School of Music and Interlochen
Arts Academy. Her recent performances include
solo engagements in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany;
Baroque trio concerts at the Twin Cities Early Music
Festival with her Baroque trio Les Ordinaires; and
solo performances of Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 2
in B minor with Bourbon Baroque.
Bin Huang (BM ’93, Violin) has been named an
associate professor of violin at the Eastman School
of Music of the University of Rochester.
The premiere of Rise, a meditation on civil rights
in America, by composer Judah Adashi (MM
’02, DMA ’11, Composition) took place on April 19 at
Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church
in Washington, D.C. The work was performed by
Howard University’s renowned jazz a cappella group
AfroBlue and Cantate Chamber Singers, who commissioned the piece in celebration of its 30th anniversary, and is set to poetry by Tameka Cage Conley.
Adashi and Lavena Johanson (MM ’13, Cello)
presented at the inaugural New Music Gathering
in San Francisco, in January. Johanson performed
Caroline Shaw’s in manus tuas for unaccompanied
cello and Adashi’s my heart comes undone for cello and
loop pedal; Adashi spoke about presenting new music.
Erik Meyer (BM ’02, MM ’04, Organ) won the JHU
Song Contest with Truth Guide Our University—The
Spirit of JHU, a reworking The Johns Hopkins Ode.
Mezzo-soprano Jessica Renfro (MM ’03, Voice;
GPD ’05 Opera) made her European debut at the
prestigious Opera di Firenze’s Maggio Musicale
singing the role of Paquette in Bernstein’s Candide
from May 23 to June 3.
Violinist Carolyn Huebl and Mark Wait (DMA
’76, Piano) premiered Michael Hersch’s (BM
’95, MM ’97, Composition) Zwischen Leben und Tod
(Between Life and Death): Twenty-two Pieces After
Images by Peter Weiss in February in Nashville,
Tenn. The piece was commissioned by Vanderbilt
University’s Blair School of Music and dedicated to
Huebl and Wait.
Serap Bastepe-Gray (BM ’96, MM ’99, Guitar)
received a visiting scientist grant from TUBITAK,
the Turkish Scientific and Technological Research
Council. In April, she continued her fMRI study in
kinesthetic imagery in musicians in collaboration
with Niyazi Acer of the Erciyes University and
Charles Limb in Turkey. The study explores the
neural bases for visualization (mental practice)
in instrumental musicians with potential implications on efficient sensorimotor learning and
performance reliability.
Pianist Sarah Chan (MM ’96, Piano) performed at
the Berlin Philharmonic Hall’s Kammermusiksaal,
giving her solo debut recital on April 27. She was
interviewed by Fueilletonscout, an online arts and
culture interest website based in Berlin. Ms. Chan
will spend her summer in residency in China,
performing and giving master classes at Beifang
University for Nationalities.
Jennifer Blades (MM ’97, GPD ’98, Voice), with
pianist John Nauman, presented a concert, “Seasons
of Love,” on February 14 at the Cabaret at Germano’s
in Baltimore created around the emotion of love.
Peabody alumni at Wolf Trap Opera
for Mozart’s The Magic Flute:
(pictured left to right)
Jenni Bank (BM ’06, Voice) as Marcellina,
Filene Young Artist; David Garcia
(MM ’08, Oboe) in the orchestra;
Fatma Daglar (MM ’95, GPD ’97, Oboe)
in the orchestra; Mike Janney (BM ’05,
Voice; BM ’05, Music Education), stage
manager, and Wolf Trap production
manager; Alex Rosen (BM ’14, Voice) as
Antonio, Studio Artist
Jessica Satava (MM ’04, Voice) performed Anton
Bruckner’s Te Deum with the Annapolis Chorale
and Chamber Orchestra on April 10 and 11. On April
24 and 25, she appeared as the soprano soloist for
Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Dona Nobis Pacem with
the American University Symphony Orchestra.
Also on April 25, she competed in the semifinals of
the Annapolis Opera Competition. On May 3, she
appeared with the Bach Concert Series in Baltimore
performing the soprano solos for Johannes Brahms’
Ein Deutches Requiem.
CD Releases from Peabody Alumni
Time Goes Dancing, a new CD of 12 songs by
Chesley Kahmann (’58, Composition), was
published by Orbiting Clef Productions, Inc.
in October. The CD is Vol. 10 of The Kahmann
Touch series, sung by her long-time singing
group, The Interludes.
Elam Ray Sprenkle (BM ’70, MM ’71, DMA
’79, Composition) has two compositions on the
Annapolis Brass Quintet’s new CD Forever—is
Composed of Nows. Sprenkle’s Three Fanfares
opens the CD, and Six Songs, his setting of six
poems of Emily Dickinson for mezzo-soprano and
brass quintet, closes the CD.
Hilary Vrooman
(class of 1990)
photographed at Homecoming
Mezzo-soprano Jenni Bank (BM ’06, Voice) performed the role of the Duchess in Unsuk Chin’s Alice
in Wonderland with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Ms. Bank also won the Metropolitan Opera National
Council Buffalo/Toronto District and the Great
Lakes Regional Competition. She sang in the semifinal auditions on the stage at the Metropolitan
Opera in New York City in March. She will spend her
summer at Wolf Trap.
Tucker Fuller (MM ’06, Composition) was
recently awarded a 2014 Tribute to the Classical
Arts Award by Gambit Magazine in New Orleans.
The award honored the world-premiere of Fuller’s
Salve Regina for Best New Classical Music
Presentation. The piece was performed by New
Resonance Orchestra and conducted by Francis
Scully (MM ’05, Orchestral Conducting). Scully’s
ensemble also won the 2013 award for Best Choral
Arts Presentation for their presentation of the 1610
Vespers of Monteverdi.
Charles Halka’s (BM Piano ’06, MM ’08
Composition and Music Theory Pedagogy) Impact
(2013) was chosen by Marin Alsop, for the Cabrillo
Festival in Santa Cruz, Calif. Alsop will conduct the
piece on the final concert of the festival on August
16. Additionally, Halka’s latest chamber opera, And
Jill Came Tumbling After (2013), was chosen for Fort
Worth Opera’s Frontiers program, with a performance
set for May 7.
Benjamin Kramer (BM ’07 Jazz Bass, BM ’07
Recording Arts and Sciences) recently accepted a
position as the director of the Los Angeles Film
School’s Music Production degree program.
Baritone Kevin Wetzel (MM ’06, GPD ’08, Voice)
received the Cheryl and Richard Hack Study Award
and mezzo-soprano Yun Kyong Lee (BM ’09,
MM ’10, GPD ’12) received the Adrienne Goldberg
Memorial Study Award in the 2015 Annapolis Opera
Competition.
DMA student Faye Chiao (MM ’07, Composition)
composed the music for a production of Charles
Mee’s Utopia Parkway by Baltimore’s Single Carrot
Theatre. Britt Olsen-Ecker (BM ’09, Voice)
was the music director for this production that
centers around the story of a widow saved from a
robbery, and the young girl forced to marry the boy
in exchange for his heroism, despite her very warranted objections.
Michael Compitello (BM ’07, Percussion)
has been appointed a professor at the University of
Kansas to start in the fall of 2015.
Ji Hye Jung (BM ’07, Percussion) was named
associate professor of percussion at Vanderbilt
University’s Blair School of Music. She previously
served as associate professor of percussion at the
University of Kansas for six years.
Marc Regnier (BM ’79, Guitar) released a CD,
Tempo Do Brasil, on June 9, on the Reference
Recording label.
Elizabeth Anderson (MM ’86, Composition)
released a monographic cd of electroacoustic
works, L’envol, produced by the label empreintes
DIGITALes.
Rosemary Tuck (MM ’86, Piano) and the English
Chamber Orchestra are featured on Carl Czerny:
Bel Canto Concertante, inspired by the most
famous and attractive themes from the Bel Canto
operas. The CD was a Naxos Highlight for March
and entered the UK Specialist Classical Music
Charts top 20.
Gershwin: Music for Violin and Piano, the newest
release by Opus Two – Andrew Cooperstock
(DMA ’88, Piano) and William Terwilliger,
violin, with Ashley Brown, soprano – features
transcriptions by Jascha Heifetz and Eric Stern.
The CD, under Azica record label, was included
in the American Record Guide in the November/
December issue.
Patrick Hawkins (BM ’92, Organ) recently
released a CD under Navona Records, Haydn
and the English Lady. The record includes works
by Franz Joseph Haydn and Maria Hester Park,
illustrating the diversity and refinement of
classical repertoire.
Last Autumn, the recording of the two-hour work
for horn and cello by faculty member Michael
Hersch (BM ’95, MM ’97, Composition), was
released on Innova Records. The work was performed by Jamie Hersch and Daniel Gaisford.
Flauta Boricua/Puerto Rican Flute – This new CD
by María Hernández-Candelas (MM ’97, Flute)
features contemporary classical Puerto Rican
composers and traditional Puerto Rican Danzas.
It was named one of the best 20 CD productions
of 2014 by the Fundación Nacional para la Cultura
Popular in Puerto Rico. Ms. Hernández-Candelas
is currently the piccolo soloist of the Puerto Rico
Symphony on leave as she pursues a doctoral
degree from the University of Kansas.
Rachel Choe (MM ’02, GPD ’03, DMA ’09, Flute)
released a debut album Après Un Rêve in October,
through Fieldstone House. This album explores
her new musical language by breaking the barrier
between classical and jazz, enriching and magnifying each genre’s beauty. Not only are many
jazz standards relived in this album but it also
includes folk tunes and film music.
Einav Yarden (GPD ’03, MM ’05, Piano) released
Oscillations CD on Challenge Classics in 2013. It
presents a juxtaposition between off-the-beatenpath piano works by Beethoven and Stravinsky.
The CD received much international acclaim and
was selected as ‘CD of the Month’ on the German
magazine, Piano News.
Devin Gray (BM ’06, Jazz Percussion) released a
new jazz CD, RelativE ResonancE, in June. A CD
release party was held in Baltimore at An die
Musik Live.
Conundrum - The debut instrumental jazz album
by Ian Sims (BS ’08 Electrical Engineering; BM ’08,
AD ’10, Jazz Saxophone; MA ’10, Audio Science)
highlights Alex Norris (BM ’90 Music Ed; PC ’90,
Trumpet), and faculty artist Paul Bollenback, guitar;
with Ed Howard, bass, and EJ Strickland, drums.
The album mix is a really full-sounding balance
of warm, articulated upright bass; crispy, crunchy,
and fizzy drums; singing horns; and guitar.
Duo Bohème, the San Francisco-based flute/
guitar pair of Lyle Sheffler (BM ’10, Guitar) and
flutist Courtney Wise, put together an eclectic
new album, Senza Misura, featuring works by
Ravel, Faure, Giuliani, Shankar, Tedesco, Ibert,
and Borne/Bizet.
Three Ravens, a new CD of ancient ballads from
the British Isles, was released by Brian Kay
(BM ’13, MM ’15, Early Music). This album explores
the range of interpretational possibilities spanning from historical practice to a very modern
approach. Mr. Kay just returned from a five-concert tour with Apollo’s Fire (a baroque orchestra
from Cleveland) and has also been interviewed
in the spring 2015 issue of Early Music America.
Julien Xuereb (MM ’15, Guitar) released
Introspection, the first solo album recorded by
Xuereb and features his original compositions for
classical guitar. Some pieces, such as Méditation,
are among Xuereb’s earliest works; they were
influenced by Middle-Eastern lute music using
mostly modality and improvisation. Gradually,
Mr. Xuereb incorporated elements from Western
Classical music and Jazz to create his unique
musical style. In addition, each piece of this
album outlines aspects of the human experience,
including time, love, death, remembrance and
humanity’s place in the universe.
Nominated for a Grammy!
Paul Avgerinos’s (BM ’81, Double Bass)
recording on Round Sky Music, Bhakti,
was nominated for Best New Age Album.
Jory Vinikour (’83, Piano) was nominated
for his recording of contemporary American
harpsichord music, Toccatas (on Sono
Luminus), in the category of Best Classical
Instrumental Solo. This is Mr. Vinikour’s
second Grammy Award nomination.
5
Samuel Brannon (BM ’09, MM ’10, Composition),
presently a Ph.D. candidate in musicology at
the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,
was recently awarded an Alvin H. Johnson AMS
50 Dissertation Fellowship from the American
Musicological Society. This award supports the
completion of his dissertation, “Writing about
Music in Early-Modern Print Culture: Authors,
Printers, and Readers,” which examines the impact
of printing technology of Renaissance music theory.
His research has also been supported by a fellowship from the Newberry Library in Chicago, which
he was awarded last summer.
Megan Ihnen, (MM ’09, Voice), has published an
article on NMBx. In it, she discusses the role of performance versus perception in new music. She is an
enthusiastic supporter of new music and a blogger
with an appreciable reach.
Matthew Viator
(BM ’09, composition) and his studio
in the D.C. Pride Parade
Geoff Knorr (BM ’07, MM ’08, Composition;
BM ’08 Recording Arts and Sciences) was the lead
composer, orchestrator, and mixing engineer for the
video game soundtrack to Sid Meier’s Civilization:
Beyond Earth which won the 2014 International Film
Music Critics Association (IFMCA) Award for Best
Original Score for a Video Game or Interactive
Media and was nominated for a 2015 ASCAP
Composer’s Choice Award.
On April 22, Ken Lam (MM ’07, Conducting) led
the Montclair State University Symphony Orchestra
in Johannes Brahms’ Double Concerto in A minor,
Op. 102 with Netanel Draiblate (MM ’07,
GPD ’09, Violin) and Yotam Baruch (MM ’07,
Cello) in the Alexander Kasser Theater in New
Jersey. Mr. Lam is music director of the Charleston
Symphony Orchestra and associate conductor for
education of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra,
Netanel Draiblate is concertmaster of the Annapolis
and Lancaster Symphony Orchestras, and Yotam
Baruch is the former associate principal cello of the
Jerusalem Symphony in Israel.
Pamela Stein (MM ’07, Voice) performed a recital
of David Wolfson’s song cycle The Particle Songs
with Helix! New Music Ensemble at Le Poisson
Rouge in New York on April 12. She also spoke on a
panel at The New Music Gathering at San Francisco
Conservatory of Music and introduced her latest
project, Your Music Bus, with new music composers
Lisa Bielawa and Aaron Jay Kernis. Your Music Bus
is a service-oriented ensemble of flexible size and
instrumentation that comes through your town on
a dedicated student readings tour. Motivated by the
desire to give students of composition at American
universities the best possible chance to hear their
own music and to have quality recordings of their
works to use in the advancement of their careers,
a team of professional composer mentors and
musicians will visit American universities to provide
coachings, readings, and recording sessions.
Andrew Arceci (BM ’08, Double Bass) was
offered a teaching position at the Narnia Arts
Festival in Narni, Italy, in the Umbria region for
the summer. Mr. Arceci and Amy Domingues
(MM ’12, Viola da Gamba) performed in J.S. Bach’s
Brandenburg Concerto No. 6 with the National
Philharmonic Orchestra in January at Strathmore
Hall in Bethesda. He was also featured on the
soundtrack of BBC’s drama series, Silent Witness.
Mi Yeon Han (Vocal Accompanying, ’08) has
joined the graduate collaborative piano faculty at
Sejong University in Seoul, Korea. She was featured
in a collaborative recital at the Youngsan Art Hall in
Seoul on December 6.
The Beijing Guitar Duo, made up of Yameng
Wang (MM ’08, GPD ’11, Guitar) and Meng Su
(PC ’09, GPD ’11, Guitar), gave their third concert
appearance for San Francisco Performances (SFP)
in November. They have been SFP Guitarists-inResidence since 2012.
6
Simeone Tartaglione (GPD ’09, Conducting)
conducted the 50th anniversary gala concert for
Catholic University on April 12 at the Kennedy
Center in Washington, D.C. The program consisted
of Orff’s Carmina Burana, Copland’s Rodeo, and
excerpts from West Side Story. The concert included a
200-member choir and almost 100 orchestra players.
Joseph Young (AD ’09, Conducting), who
in 2007 was the first recipient of the Baltimore
Symphony Orchestra-Peabody Institute Conducting
Fellowship and is currently assistant conductor of
the Atlanta Symphony and music director of the
Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra, is one of the
nine conductors who are receiving this year’s Solti
Foundation U.S. Career Assistance Awards.
Roger Zare (MM ’09, Composition) was com-
missioned to compose a piece by the 30th Annual
Chesapeake Chamber Music (CCM) Festival, which
will be held in Easton, Md., from June 7 through
June 21, 2015. In honor of the 30th Festival, Artistic
Directors J. Lawrie Bloom and Marcie Rosen have
commissioned 30-year old award-winning Mr. Zare
to write a piece for piano, oboe, clarinet and cello
which will be featured at the Avalon Theatre concert
on June 19. His works have been performed on
five continents and The New York Times praised his
“enviable grasp of orchestration.”
poems by Federico García Lorca that were originally
featured in George Crumb’s Federico’s Little Songs
for Children, for harp, flute and voice. Ms. Hogan
will invite seven different composers to collaborate in this project, one for each of the original
Lorca poems. One of the composers will be David
Smooke (MM ’95, Composition), who studied with
Crumb. Ms. Hogan is currently an Artist Diploma
candidate at Peabody.
An all-Chopin recital by DMA candidate Sungpil
Kim (BM ’11, MM ’12, Piano), a student of Brian
Ganz, aired on WWFM Radio’s “Celebrating Our
Musical Future” program on May 11.
Hyejin Kwon (BM ’09, Piano; MM ’11, Vocal
Accompanying) was featured in Broadway World’s
article: Canadian Opera Company to Welcome
Three New Rising Starts. She has been invited to
join Canadian Opera Company’s Ensemble Studio
for 2015/16 season.
Gemma New (MM ’11, Conducting) has been
appointed music director of Hamilton Philharmonic
Orchestra in Ontario, Canada. For the 2014-15
season, she was the recipient of the prestigious
Dudamel Fellowship with the Los Angeles
Philharmonic and conducted eight education
concerts in Los Angeles.
Bijan Olia (BM ’11, MM ’12, Computer Music) was
an associate producer for the Academy of Television
Arts and Sciences’ Score! concert on May 21, the
first-ever live performance of television themes by
a 67-piece orchestra and the 40-voice L.A. Chorus,
at UCLA’s Royce Hall. Darren Otero (MM ’92,
Computer Music) served as supervising copyist;
Lynn Kowal (MM ’91, Computer Music) was the
music consultant; and Julienne Gede (BM ’12,
Voice) also served as assistant to the production
team for the concert.
2010
Tung-Chieh Chuang (’10, Conducting) won the
2015 Malko Conducting Competition, one of the most
prestigious competitions internationally. The breakthrough for Mr. Chuang, 32, from Taiwan came in
2013 when he won the Mahler Competition. Since
winning second prize and audience prize at the most
recent Solti competition (first prize not awarded), he
has attracted numerous worldwide engagements.
He has worked with Die 12 Cellisten der Berliner
Philharmoniker, Bamberger Symphoniker, National
Symphony Orchestra (Taiwan), Taipei Symphony
Orchestra, among others.
Tenor William Davenport (BM ’11, Voice), a
student of Stanley Cornett, was a first place winner in the 2015 Gerde Lissner International Vocal
Competition and was awarded $10,000. He was
featured in the Winner’s Concert on April 12, at
Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Recital Hall in New York. Mr.
Davenport was also a 2015 regional winner in the
Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions
and competed in the national semi-finals.
Antoinette Gan (BM ’11, cello), student of
Amit Peled and Alison Wells, and recent graduate
from the Shepherd School of Music (MM ’15, cello),
has won a section cello position with the Oregon
Symphony Orchestra.
Jasmine Hogan (BM ’11 Harp, MM ’14, Harp/
Pedagogy) won the Presser Award for 2015. Ms.
Hogan will use the $10,000 that comes with the
award to realize her vision of commissioning a
set of new compositions based on the children’s
Bryan Young
(class of 1996)
photographed at Homecoming
Nola Richardson (MM ’11, Voice) made her
professional debut with American Bach Soloists in
January in the San Francisco Bay area as Galatea in
ABS’ production of Handel’s Acis and Galatea. This
summer she will appear as a young artist and cover
the title role in the Boston Early Music Festival’s production of Handel’s Almira and return for a second
season with the American Bach Soloists Academy.
Jake Runestad (MM ’11, Composition) was commissioned by Washington National Opera for his
latest composition, Daughters of the Bloody Duke,
which had its world premiere at the John F. Kennedy
Center in Washington, D.C., in November. Daughters
of the Bloody Duke is a dark, comedic one-act opera,
in which Margot, the young daughter of the Bloody
Duke of Ravenswood, must choose between love
and the demands of her revenge-crazed family. Mr.
Runestad also led a session at the American Choral
Director’s Association in February in Salt Lake City.
His session “New American Voices: Developing the
Choral Art” was presented with famed choral conductor Dale Warland.
Mezzo-soprano Zoe Band (BM ’12, MM ’14, Voice)
was one of seven finalists for the Canadian Opera
Company Ensemble Studio Competition and
performed on November 25 in Toronto. Ms. Band,
who recently placed second in the 2015 Russell C.
Wonderlic Competition in Voice, will appear alongside Dawn Upshaw this summer at the Tanglewood
Music Center. She is also a finalist in the Young
Artists competition for Vocal Arts DC, along with
musicology faculty member Richard Giarusso and
Carrie Quarquesso (BM ’15, Voice).
Sopranos Danielle Buonaiuto (MM ’12, Voice)
and Kristina Gaschel (MM ’14, Voice) performed
in the Bronx Opera’s production of Albert Herring
by Benjamin Britten. They sang the roles of Miss
Wordsworth and Cis, respectively, on January 11 at
Lehman College and January 17 at Hunter College.
Mezzo-soprano Diana Cantrelle (MM ’12,
Voice) presented a concert in April with Park Slope
Opera in Brooklyn, N.Y. Her repertoire for the
concert included scenes from Tales of Hoffman by
Offenbach, the famous duet from Delibes’ Lakmé
Duet, Bellini’s Mira Norma, and Mozart’s Act II finale
from Le Nozze di Figaro.
Jungwon Kim (Vocal Accompanying, ’12) won
the opera accompanying award in the 25th annual
Journal of Music Competition for accompanists.
Georgi Videnov (BM ’12, Percussion) has been
appointed assistant timpanist and percussionist in the
Toronto Symphony Orchestra for the 2015–2016 season.
The Baltimore Choral Arts Society’s sold-out
Christmas Concert on December 2 featured soloists David Artz (MM ’13, Voice) and Kerry
Holahan (MM ’14, Early Music Voice) as well
as compositions by DMA candidate Michael
Rickelton (MM ’10, Composition) and Douglas
Buchanan (MM ’08, Composition, Music Theory
Pedagogy; DMA ’13, Composition). The concert was
aired on WMAR TV (ABC-2) on WBJC 91.5 FM Radio.
Celeste Johnson (MM ’14, Vocal Accompanying)
joined Opera Coeur d’Alene’s company as coach/
accompanist for Puccini’s La Fanciulla del West. She
is employed as a pianist/accompanist for the choral
and vocal departments of Gonzaga University and
Whitworth University. In January, Ms. Johnson
joined artists from the Curtis Institute for an
“Opera in the Afternoon” recital in Saint Paul, Minn.
Scott Lee (MM ’ 13, Composition) is a recipient of
the American Society of Composers, Authors and
Publishers Foundation’s 2015 Morton Gould Young
Composer Award for his piece Bottom Heavy. Mr. Lee
is currently a James B. Duke Fellow at Duke University
where he is pursuing a PhD in composition.
Mark Meadows (GPD ’13, Jazz Piano; JHU BA ’11,
Psychology) was named D.C. Jazz Artist of the Year and
Best Composer for 2014 by Washington’s City Paper.
In October, Young-Ah Tak (DMA ’13, Piano
Performance) performed two piano concerts with
piano faculty artist Yong Hi Moon in Busan, Korea,
at the Eulsukdo Cultural Center. She also performed
Brahm’s Piano Concerto No.1 with Seongnam
Philharmonic Orchestra in Seongnam, Korea.
Mary Trotter (MM ’13, Vocal Accompanying)
teaches theory, class piano, applied piano, and
is the accompanist coordinator for the Voice
Department at Whitworth University. She plays and
coaches all voice recitals at Whitworth, oversees
piano proficiency exams, and accompanies the voice
faculty in recital. This past summer, Ms. Trotter was
a full scholarship participant at SongFest, and the
accompanist for Opera Coeur d’Alene’s On the Lake
production of Pirates of Penzance.
Pianist and composer Jennifer Nicole Campbell
(BM ’14, MM ’15, Piano) won first prize in the 2014
Newark Symphony Orchestra Concerto Competition
on November 9. The prize includes a cash award
and a performance with the Newark Symphony
Orchestra in their Symphony Series on May 10.
Janna Critz (GPD ’14, Voice) has been accepted
into the Carmel Bach Festival this summer as one of
the Virginia Best Adams Fellows. Four participants
are chosen each year and receive a $2,100 stipend
plus airfare and housing. This is the only program
in North America that pays singers to study and
perform baroque music within a fully professional
performing environment.
Kristina Gaschel (MM ’14, Voice) was among only
nine rising musicians chosen from a national search
to take part in the 2015 Fall Island Vocal Arts Seminar.
Now in its fourth season, the Fall Island Vocal Arts
Seminar featured Ms. Gaschel in master classes and
concerts in May at The Crane School of Music at The
State University of New York of Potsdam.
Rachel Blaustein (MM ’15, Voice) was accepted
and cast in the opera apprenticeship summer program in Des Moines, Iowa.
Devon Borowski (MM ’15, Voice, Musicology)
was awarded the inaugural Sara Berry Award for
Excellence in Comparative Study for his presentation “[She] Loves You, Porgy”: Color Boundaries
in Nina Simone’s Porgy and Bess,” in the Fourth
Annual Racism, Immigration, and Citizenship
Graduate Student Conference at Johns Hopkins.
Update
from
Gerald
Klickstein
Director, Music
Entrepreneurship
and Career Center
Since our launch in 2012, MECC has grown into
a major resource for Peabody students and alumni.
We log an average of about 1,400 career advising
encounters annually, and approximately one-third
of advisees are alumni. Our seminar series also
brings a range of industry leaders to our campus to
counsel students.
We’ve increased the number of companies
recruiting Peabody students by more than tenfold,
from 13 before we opened to almost 150 this
past year. We also seek out and post opportunity
notices – this year we’ve published more than 1,500
on our website and Facebook page. In tandem, we
provide on our site extensive tools for musicians to
discover opportunities.
We’ve created other powerful online resources:
we’ve published 16 MECC-curated documents for
vocalists, a list of orchestra academies worldwide, six curated resources for composers, and
more.
Our off-campus work-study initiative has
grown substantially – more than a dozen Peabody
students with work-study awards earned their
grants this year by working as teaching assistants
at the Baltimore School for the Arts or the Baltimore
Symphony OrchKids program; other students
assisted the BSO’s Youth Orchestra and Education
Department. Such work often leads to post-graduation employment.
We’ve grown our Musician Referral Service, too,
and now refer students and alumni for around 600
paying performances each year. MECC also ran
concert series in Baltimore and Washington that
featured Peabody performers. Visit our website to
learn more about MECC and to take advantage of
our industry-leading resources.
Visit the MECC website for more information:
peabody.jhu.edu/mecc
Current student Ruiqianxi (Cissy) Li, (MA, Audio
Sciences) (pictured bottom) designed a pilot project
for alumni to help current international students
practice their conversational English. The result
was a dinner held at Szechuan House in Lutherville,
Md. Pictured below are Jiaojiao Chang (MM, Music
Education), Phyllis Harris-Stewart (BM ’67, Music
Education), and Chenchen Wang (Senior, Piano).
The other participants in the evening were Carol
Cannon (BM ’67, Voice), Matthew Rupcich (BM ’90,
Music Education), Londa Lee (EDU, MS ’77; BUS, MA
’83) and Debbie Kennison, director of constituent
engagement for Peabody.
Min Young Park, piano, winner of the Harrison L. Winter Piano Competition with conductor Leon Fleisher
7
8
IN THIS ISSUE:
Peabody Alumni
Homecoming/Reunion
All Peabody alumni are also alumni
of the Johns Hopkins University.
Be sure to take advantage of this
affiliation by visiting alumni.jhu.edu.
Please send your news, comments, ideas,
suggestions, and questions to:
PeabodyAlumni Office
1 East Mount Vernon Place
Baltimore, Maryland 21202
410-234-4673; fax: 410-783-8576
[email protected].
BALTIMORE, MD
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NON-PROFIT
JHUTSA Presents Taiwanese Night Market
by Grace Tsai
On Saturday, April 11, 2015, the Johns Hopkins
University’s Taiwanese Student Association (JHUTSA)
and the Taiwanese American Students Association
(TASA) at Johns Hopkins University held a
Taiwanese Night Market on Homewood campus.
On the Brody Lawn, more than 400 students and
visitors enjoyed Taiwanese gourmet food, played
traditional games, and gained valuable information
about Taiwan.
JHUTSA divided the booths into three sections.
The food section served QQ eggs, stir-fried ricenoodles, marble eggs, popcorn chicken, Taiwanese
BBQ, and gourd tea. The game section invited local
people to play games like goldfish scooping, ringtoss, and pitching grid, entertaining them with the
experience of Taiwanese children’s fun. The cultural
section combined traditional apparel and tourism,
providing visitors with costumes and back­grounds
of Taiwan’s landmarks for photographs. They also
involved fortune telling in the cultural section to
introduce Taiwan’s vernacular culture and folk religions. Moreover, on the front stage, 7th Grade Band,
Lion Dance Group, and Electric-Techno Neon Gods
were performing to add more Taiwanese flavors
to the fair. The performance reached its climax as
Electric-Techno Neon Gods, the three huge effigies
with big heads seen in Taiwanese religious parades,
tapped, danced, and wiggled to the beat and tempo
of western electronic pop music.
The fair was preluded with Din-Tao – Leader of the
Parade, a film featuring Taiwanese folk religion and
youth subculture, in Hodson Hall at the Homewood
campus on April 9. Over the years, JHUTSA strived
to help Taiwanese students as well as to advocate for
Taiwanese culture. Not only did students of JHUTSA
want to tease everyone’s palates with a series of fun
events; more importantly, they wanted to articulate
that T-A-I-W-A-N are not just six abstract letters but
represent Taiwan’s beautiful tradition and their love
of Taiwan.
The event was sponsored by the Taipei Economic
and Cultural Representative Office in the United
States, the Office of International Affairs of National
Taiwan University, the Taiwan International
Graduate Program, and the Teach for Taiwan
Program of Academia Sinica.
Grace Tsai (above right) has been Peabody’s
representative for the JHUTSA since 2013. Ms.
Tsai is pursuing her 5-year BM/MM degree in flute
performance. In addition to improving both her
academic and artistic performance, she also commits
herself to developing the relationship between
Taiwanese students and the community.