In September, Liberal Arts faculty member Greta Berman presented a paper called “Ciurlionis as Symbolist Painter and Composer” at a conference on artist/composer Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis in Vilnius, Lithuania. The following month, she presented a paper titled “Vincent Van Gogh, Synesthete” at the annual meeting of the American Synthesia Association, at the University of California at San Diego.

In October, dance faculty member Laura Glenn (BS ’67, dance), was honored by the Connecticut Dance Alliance for her 14 years of work with the Ted Hershey Dance and Music Marathon, of which she is the artistic director. The ceremony took place at the Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center in Old Saybrook, Conn. 

Evening Division faculty member Julie Jordan (MM ’83, piano) presented a concert in October at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall as part of her Julie Jordan Presents series. The concert was conducted by Paul Hostetter (MM ’89, percussion) and included performers Yang-Xu (MM ’05, violin), fourth-year violist Liyuan Liu, Wei Yu (MM ’06, cello), Keun-A Lee (MM ’06, Artist Diploma ’09, collaborative piano), Mike Block (MM ’06, cello), first-year master’s violinist Eric Silberger, fourth-year violinist Niv Ashkenazi, and fourth-year pianist Konstantine Valianatos.

Graduate studies faculty member Mari Kimura (DMA ’93, violin) gave a solo recital in October at Brooklyn’s Roulette, where she premiered her piece Eigenspace for augmented violin and Andrew Lovett’s Wrestling an Angel. Artist Tomoyuki Kato created visual art for the performance. Later that month, the Cassatt String Quartet premiered Kimura’s first string quartet with interactive computer,
I-Quadrifoglio, at New York City’s Peter Norton Symphony Space. 

Music history and graduate studies faculty member John Muller gave two lectures for the Metropolitan Opera Guild on character development in Wagner’s “Ring” cycle in October. In August, he was the English-language lecturer for the Bayreuth Wagner festival, where gave talks sponsored by the Wagner Society of New York on all five operas that were performed: Tannhäuser, Lohengrin, Die Meistersinger, Tristan und Isolde, and Parsifal.   

Music history, chamber music, and graduate studies faculty member Joel Sachs received the Polish Composers Union Award and the Gloria Artis Medal in honor of the 2011 Focus Festival, which featured contemporary music of Polish composers. 

Works by Literature and Materials faculty member Behzad Ranjbaran were performed throughout the summer. In May, William Harvey (’02, violin, composition; MM ’06, violin) performed the Mexican premiere of Ranjbaran’s Violin Concerto with the Orquesta de Jalisco. In July, Ranjbaran’s Dance of Life for violin and bass was performed at the Bowdoin International Music Festival in Maine. A few weeks later, Fountains of Fin received its Swiss premiere at the Verbier Festival, and in August, his Piano Concerto was performed by Jean-Yves Thibaudet and the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra in Santa Cruz, Calif.

STUDENT NEWS

In November, fourth-year pianist David Aladashvili presented a performance of Georgian folk, classical, and contemporary music in Paul Hall. Joining him for the performance were second-year violinists Mariam Machaidze and Yuri Mitsuhashi, fourth-year pianist Marika Bournaki, first-year master’s violinist Justyna Jara, fourth-year flutist Daniel James) and faculty member Joel Sachs. Temuri Yakobashvili., the ambassador from the Republic of Georgia, was in attendance. 

Master’s flutist Emi Ferguson and master’s vocal arts student Lilla Heinrich-Szasz are recipients of a Paul and Daisy Soros graduate studies fellowship that is awarded on a merit basis to 30 foreign-born Americans each year.

Pre-College students Valerie Kim (piano and violin), Dominique Kim (piano and flute), and master’s pianist Sean Chen were featured on the Ventura (Calif.) Music Festival’s Rising Stars concert in May. 

Doctoral composition student Wei-Chieh Lin received an honorable mention for his composition Tracing the Shadows of Broken Time at the annual Gaudeamus Music Week competition in Utrecht, the Netherlands. This year the competition received more than 385 entries, and as a recipient of an honorable mention, Lin will be invited back to the Gaudeamus Music Week in 2012.