The Department of Music at Columbia University warmly congratulates all of our graduating majors, concentrators, and graduate students and their families on the occasion of the 2012 Columbia University Commencement.

A reminder that all music graduates and their families are warmly invited to join us in 620 Dodge Hall for a celebratory luncheon on Wednesday May 16, which will begin shortly after the Commencement ceremonies conclude at around 1PM. 

Information on the 2012 Commencement Ceremonies (May 15-16) can be found here:
http://www.columbia.edu/content/commencement-week.html

Live webcasting of 2012 Commencement Ceremonies here:
http://www.columbia.edu/content/2012.html
 

The following students are receiving degrees in Music this year:
DMA in Composition:
Oscar Bianchi
Sampo Haapamaki
Steve Lehman
Alex Mincek
Sam Pluta
Kate Soper
Lu Wang

PhD (Ethnomusicology)
Simon Calle
Brian Karl
Maria Sonevytsky

PhD (Historical Musicology)
Andrew Haringer
Louise Chernosky
Kristy Riggs
Mark Seto

PhD (Music Theory)
Victoria Tzotzkova

MA in Music
Elliott Scott Cairns
Katharina Anne Crawford Clausius
Galen Philip DeGraf
Thomas William Lewis Fogg
Benjamin Konrad Hansberry
Ryan Hughes Pratt
Matthew Jonathan Ricketts
Maeve Ann Sterbenz
Christopher Michael Trapani
Lucie Vagnerova
Amy Zhang

Bachelor of Arts/Science (Music Majors, Columbia College)
Akornefa Korkor Akyea
Lewis Lester Bibler
Katherine Ann Borowiec
Mercer Truett Bridges
Shawn David Broukhim
Daniel Halldor Burdman
Holly Elizabeth Druckman
Andrea Iminah Gillis
David Jacob Halpern
Emily Grace Hamilton
Alexander David Klein
Victoria Wolf Lewis
Ilan Herzl Marans
Mark Micchelli
Cesar Adrian Montufar
Emily Anne Ostertag
George Christopher Pitsiokos
Jason Todd Raylesberg
Christopher Matthew Ruenes
Rieko Holland Shepherd
Chunyu Shi
Ian Andrew Shirley
Mark Yan-Wei Sim
Jacob Samuel Snider
Gregory Eugene Somerville
Matthew Jordan Star
Maria Elaine Sulimirski
Berkley Mikel Todd
Sarah Jane Wald
Natalie Louise Weiner
Johnna Nan Wu

Music Concentrators (Columbia College)
Lawrence Stanley Geyman
Bryant Gregory Hopkins
Chiemika Chioma Ihiasota
Min Jae Kwon
Jeremy William Martin
Natalie Jane Robehmed

Music Majors/Concentrators (School of General Studies)
Brito Paulo Emmanuel Do Nascimento
Christopher Barrett Bosco
Sebastian B Clegg
Alena Derkach
Iva Kupresak
Benjamin Adam Loya
Joshua Warren Owens
Raphael Roald Peterson (Phi Beta Kappa)
Josephine Engeng Teng
Isaac Torres-Verdugo

Music Majors (Barnard College)
Caroline Blehart (Ethel Stone LeFrak Prize) -- Ethnomusicology
Kandace Coston -- Music
Emily Drinker -- Ethnomusicology
Keryn Kleiman  (Phi Beta Kappa) -- Ethnomusicology
Althea SullyCole -- Ethnomusicology

Music Minors (Fu School of Engineering & Applied Sciences)
Louis Michael Cialdella
Arjun Rakesh Mudan
Ryan Edward Mulvey
Alejandro Salgado Tovar

The Department of Music warmly congratulates Barnard College graduating seniors and their families on the occasion of the Barnard College 2012 Commencement.  We also join the entire Columbia/Barnard community in welcoming President Barack Obama as the commencement speaker for today's ceremonies.

Congratulations to our Barnard senior music/ethnomusicology majors:

Caroline Blehart (Ethel Stone LeFrak Prize) -- Ethnomusicology
Kandace Coston -- Music
Emily Drinker -- Ethnomusicology
Keryn Kleiman  (Phi Beta Kappa) -- Ethnomusicology
Althea SullyCole -- Ethnomusicology

A live stream of the Barnard Commencement ceremony, including the President's remarks, may be viewed here:

https://barnard.edu/commencement/webcast

As an alternative, the events may also be viewed at:

http://whitehouse.gov/live

http://www.c-span.org/Events/Pres-Obama-to-Deliver-Barnard-College-Comme...

The Music Department's Academic Department Administrator, Anne Gefell, is profiled in the current issue (vol. 3709) of the Columbia Record, celebrating her 16 year career at Columbia and her many activities and accomplishments beyond the Department.   Congratulations to Anne!

"WHAT SHE DOES: Anne Gefell manages the Department of Music’s office and its staff of four in Dodge Hall. On any given day, she handles payroll, talks with prospective students and their parents, troubleshoots technology issues in the classrooms, investigates leaks and other building problems, and interviews candidates for staff and work-study positions in the department. As the academic year winds down, Gefell is already busy preparing next year’s budgets, pre-registration and courses, and monitoring the faculty hiring processes.
Gefell is also a part of the seven-member steering committee of academic department ad- ministrators of Arts & Sciences at the University. And she manages the Alice M. Ditson Fund, a grant program that supports performances and recordings of works by American composers, and sits on the advisory board of the department’s journal, Current Musicology. Founded in 1965, it is the oldest musicology journal run by graduate students in the country."

Read more . . . Download the full article (PDF)

The Department of Music cordially invites all graduating Music students (grad and undergrad!) and their families and guests to join us for a congratulatory luncheon reception in 621 Dodge Hall at approximately 1PM on Wed. May 16, immediately following the conclusion of the commencement ceremonies (approximately 1PM). 

Congratulations Grads!

Above photo: Matthew Star (CC '12) and Sarah Dooley (BC '11) in the recording studio. Click to enlarge.

Graduating Music Major Matthew Star wins Louis Sudler Prize

The Department of Music congratulates graduating senior and music major Matthew Star, who has been awarded Columbia's prestigious Louis Sudler Prize in the Arts.  The Sudler Prize is awarded annually to a graduating Columbia College senior who, in the opinion of the Faculty, has demonstrated excellence of the highest standards of proficiency in performance or execution or in the field of composition in one of the following general areas of performing and creative arts: music, theatre, painting, sculpture, design, architecture, or film.

Mr. Star was awarded the Sudler Prize for his senior honors thesis, which entailed producing a new album of music by Sarah Dooley's (herself a Barnard College alumna, 2011). This project grew out of conversations Mr. Star had with the Computer Music Center's Terry Pender about what it means to be a 21st century music producer, especially with the advances in recording technology.   Star writes that "after [these] discussions, I read as much as I could about record producing and recording techniques to learn how to use all of the Computer Music Center's recording equipment and microphones. Sarah had always wanted to record an album of her original songs; she's an amazing songwriter but she's always been a solo artist, meaning each song only has vocals and piano parts. In producing her album, I arranged and recorded instrumental parts, and then mixed them all together."  He also worked extensively with Prof. Brad Garton, Director of the Computer Music Center.

Two of the completed songs produced by Mr. Star for Ms. Dooley's album may be heard at Ms. Dooley's website: http://sarahdooley.bandcamp.com/

Mr. Star is spending the summer in New York City, recording, building up his music library and doing freelance jobs, as well as scoring a web series and a video game, and recording as much music as he can. He plans to continue his career in music and media production.

Mr. Star is also bassist for the band Capital, which features fellow Columbia graduating seniors and Jazz Performance Program students Jesse Chevan and Evan Johnston.

Matthew Star Biography:
Mr. Star got his first taste of music with piano lessons when he was 6 years old.

Department of Music Spring 2012 General Meeting and Party!

All affiliates of the Department of Music (including students in music classes or MPP lessons and ensembles) are invited to attend the Department's annual Spring General Meeting and Party. 

Wed. May 2, 2012
11AM-12:15PM, 622 Dodge (Meeting)
12:30PM-3PM, 620 Dodge (Luncheon/party)

Download the event poster here (PDF)

The Department of Music warmly congratulates Ms. Lety ElNaggar, who has been awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to study music in Egypt during 2012-13. Lety graduated from Columbia College in 2011.  While at Columbia, where she majored in Middle Eastern Studies, she was an active member of our Music Performance programs as a saxophonist and clarinetist, playing both jazz and classical music, as well as a student in several music classes.  In 2010 she won the MPP's Dolan Prize to study nay (Arabic flute) with renowned nay virtuouso Bassam Saba, and also received a presitgious Kluge Independent Research Fellowship.

Lety was awarded the Fulbright grant to study nay performance within the contexts of classical and folkloric Egyptian music with masters at the "Academy of Arts" and “Makan Egyptian Center for Culture and Arts" in Cairo. Through Makan, Lety will also travel throughout the Egyptian countryside to observe and participate in festivals that still feature local live musicians. She plans to incorporate her studies into further composition and performance of jazz and crossover music genres.

Columbia Middle Eastern Music Ensemble Spring Concert

Sunday, April 29, 2012
2 PM
Lerner Party Space
FREE!  (BUT RSVP for attendees without CU ID, please see below**)

Performing Turkish, Arabic, Yemeni Jewish, Armenian, Kurdish, Greek, Ladino, Gilaki, and Persian folk and art music

The CMEME is made up of Columbia and Barnard undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, and staff

**RSVP Required for Non-CUID**
For more information contact
hemmasi@gmail.com
or
ozanaksoy@gmail.com

Download full-sized poster!  (PDF)

Columbia College senior music major Holly Druckman invites you to  her final concert-lecture in her series of three: "Aspects of Orpheus". This presentation will focus on the Death of Orpheus, and how it is depicted and what it means across the course of our cultural and artistic history. This concert is the culmination of Ms. Druckman's work on the myth of Orpheus this year, as her senior project.

Friday, April 27th at 7:30PM.
Barnard's Sulzberger Parlor (inside Barnard Hall), on
(Campus map attached)

This concert-lecture will include performances of and/or discussions about music by Monteverdi, Birtwistle and Stravinsky.

The concert is free and open to the public, and will include a light reception.

THE COLLEGIUM MUSICUM of Columbia University

    presents

    Motets and Chansons: SONGS OF REMEMBRANCE

    Music by Binchois, Ockeghem, Josquin, Debussy, Ravel, Duruflé, and Messiaen

    Monday April 30, 2012
    7:30PM-8:30PM
    Low Memorial Library Rotunda - Columbia University
    FREE ADMISSION!!!

PROGRAM:
Josquin Des Prez:         Ave Maria
Gilles Binchois:            Se la belle
Johannes Ockeghem:    Tu as navré
Josquin Des Prez:          La déploration sur la mort d'Ockeghem
Olivier Messiaen:          O Sacrum Convivium
Maurice Duruflé:           2 motets sur les thémes grégoriennes
Maurice Ravel:              Trois beaux oiseau du Paradis (from Trois Chansons)
Claude Debussy:           Quant j'ai ouy le tabourin (from 3 Chansons de Charles d'Orleans)

WKCR-FM Proudly Presents:
The Han Bennink 70th Birthday Festival
Featuring Bennink in a special 70th Birthday Concert and five-day radio marathon

70th Birthday Concert:
Saturday, April 21 at 7:30 PM (doors at 6:30 PM)
The Italian Academy of Columbia University
1161 Amsterdam Avenue
New York, NY 10027
Advance tickets available here

Radio marathon:
All day Tuesday, April 17th through Saturday, April 21st on 89.9 FM or streaming on wkcr.org

Starting on Tuesday, April 17th on 89.9 FM and wkcr.org, WKCR-FM will commence a five-day radio marathon celebrating the 70th birthday of inimitable Dutch drummer and multi-instrumentalist Han Bennink. With Bennink present for the festivities, WKCR will delve into half a century of his exuberant and imaginative playing on record.

The radio festival will then culminate on Saturday night, April 21, in a live performance at The Italian Academy of Columbia University, featuring Bennink with his esteemed colleagues Mary Oliver, Michael Moore, Thomas Heberer, Richard Teitelbaum, Ray Anderson, Uri Caine, and Mark Dresser.

Bennink is renowned for his dazzling energy and versatility as a percussionist and performer.  He excels equally in straight-ahead swinging- as exemplified by his early collaborations with Sonny Rollins, Eric Dolphy, Dexter Gordon, and many others-as he does in the form of European free improvisation, which he helped to found in the 1960´s.

The Department of Music congratulates Ethnomusicology PhD candidate Nili Belkind, who has been awarded a prestigious Whiting Fellowship by Columbia's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.  The fellowship is provided by the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation to enable the completion of innovative and excellent doctoral dissertations. 

Ms. Belkind's dissertation research is an inquiry into the relationship between musical culture and political life in Israel/Palestine, where for the past century, violent conflict has been both shaping and claiming the lives of Palestinians and Jews. She focuses on the complex ways in which musical culture acts as a sphere in which power and hegemony are asserted, negotiated and resisted between and within different groups, in relation to the political situation. She analyzes the politics of sound as a sphere that is both reflective of the situation and constitutive of identity formations, particularly in relationship to conceptualizations of citizenship, nationality, ethnicity, and ‘home.’

Themes highlighted in her dissertation include: the role of cultural policy in the production of social imaginaries in Palestine and Israel through musical activity; the relationship between identity, music making, spatiality, and temporality in Palestine, where movement is highly constricted by the occupation; the musical activity that surrounded the summer 2011 social protest movement in Israel, during which attempts were made to disrupt the hegemony of class and ethno-national hierarchies, and the musical production of individual Palestinian artists who are citizens of Israel and who, due to their minoritized status and the political situation, must negotiate between multiple and contradictory spheres of belonging.
 

Congratulations Nili!

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY’S ITALIAN ACADEMY FOR ADVANCED STUDIES
PRESENTS:

AMP New Music and Ekmeles Vocal Ensemble:
A Luigi Nono U.S. premiere, a Gregory Cornelius world premiere, and works by Giacinto Scelsi

Wednesday, May 9, 2012 at 8 PM
Teatro of the Italian Academy
1161 Amsterdam Ave.
FREE ADMISSION – NO RESERVATIONS REQUIRED
www.italianacademy.columbia.edu

 
The Spring 2012 concert series at Columbia University’s Italian Academy for Advanced Studies will continue on Wednesday, May 9, 2012 at 8 PM when AMP NEW MUSIC and the EKMELES VOCAL ENSEMBLE will present a program of works by Giacinto Scelsi (1905-1988), a world premiere by Gregory Cornelius (born 1977), and the United States premiere of Luigi Nono’s 1982 masterpiece Quando stanno morendo, diario polacco n.2 – 1982, scored for four female voices, flute, cello, and live electronics.

The Italian Academy is located at 1161 Amsterdam Avenue between 116th and 118th Streets. For information call 212 854 1623, email rw2115@columbia.edu, or see our website, www.italianacademy.columbia.edu.


Program:

The Center for Jazz Studies at Columbia University, in collaboration with Harlem Stage, presents:

CELEBRATING CECIL

Three of today’s most celebrated pianists, Vijay Iyer, Amina Claudine Myers and Craig Taborn, will honor the uncompromising creative force of Cecil Taylor in an evening of solos and duos for piano, with a special performance of poetry by Amiri Baraka.
 
Dig Deeper with a post-performance discussion – Decoding Cecil – with Prof. George Lewis and the artists.
 
Wednesday, May 9, 2012, 8pm
Harlem Stage Gatehouse 150 Convent Ave. at West 135th Street
Tickets: $10
For tickets, visit www.harlemstage.org, or call the Harlem Stage box office at 212-281-9240, ext. 19 or 20.
 
Presented in association with: The Columbia University School the Arts, Community Outreach; Center for Jazz Studies; Issue Project Room and Office of Government & Community Affairs.

This event is supported by NEA Jazz Masters Live, an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest.
 

Please join us as well for these upcoming events . . .