In the 64 years since the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences introduced the Best Orchestral Performance category in 1959, a youth orchestra has never won the category until this year. The New York Youth Symphony's debut recording, Works By Florence Price, Jessie Montgomery, Valerie Coleman (Avie Recordings), was awarded the Best Orchestral Performance at the 2023 Grammy Awards February 5, and conductor Michael Repper (DMA ’22, Conducting) proudly acknowledged the youth orchestra's tremendous achievement when accepting the award. Repper is not the only member of the Peabody community who took home a Grammy this month. Faculty composer Kevin Puts was awarded the Best Contemporary Classical Composition for Contact, performed by the string trio Time for Three and the Philadelphia Orchestra under the direction of conductor Xian Zhang. A complete list of 2023 Grammy winners can be found online, and a hearty congrats to all.

February is always a critical and exciting month for us at the Peabody Conservatory. It is when we welcome prospective students to our campus for a week of intense auditions, where students get to show what they have, and, in a very real sense, come face to face with others who share their passion to excel in the arts at the highest level. This year we welcome 1,100 students to campus during Audition Week, from 20 countries and 45 states. We have seen a 6% increase in undergraduate applications, which is a welcome measure of both interest and resilience following two challenging years for undergraduates everywhere during COVID. This increase also helps to balance a very healthy increase in our graduate student population that we realized coming into this year. There is so much to be gained in the performing arts when undergraduates and graduates work in close proximity. It provides a visceral path of achievement demonstrating how one changes as an artist over these few but critical years of development.

Indicators of quality and interest in the incoming cohort have already been manifested in a number of important areas. At our inaugural Dance Audition Weekend, applicants met with faculty and students, watched a spectacular showcase with current students, and mingled with each other and their families. We also garnered a record number of students in our Early Decision round this year and will bring in more than twice the number of new students in just the second year of our Low Residency Master of Music in Composition.

So the early indicators are strong, and we are optimistic about the future. It continues to be a reminder that the arts have a critical role to play in society, for humanity, and certainly for a group of aspiring dancers and musicians eager to ensure that their love of music and dance is infectious and as critical and essential to whomever will listen or watch as it is to them personally. Audition Week is one step on a long road, but one that will shape many things for these future professionals.

Sincerely,

Fred Bronstein, Dean

New York City-based choreographer/dancer Rush Johnston (BFA ’22, Dance) performs in choreographer Leigh Ann Gann's new work as part of the I Love Your Vibe dance concert at the SMUSH Gallery, a community art space dedicated to anti-oppression work and equitable practices. The contemporary dance showcase takes place at the Jersey City, NJ, gallery and tickets are available online.

Soprano Toni Marie Palmertree (BM ’06, Voice) returns to Opera Delaware, where she sang Countess Almaviva in The Marriage of Figaro last year, for a pair of Valentine's Day performances. Palmertree, a 2022 Olga Forrai Foundation grantee, is joined by pianist Aurelien Eulert for A Valentine's Cabaret, featuring romantic, whimsical works by the likes of Benjamin Britten, Cole Porter, and Kurt Weill. Tickets are available online.

The annual Mid-Atlantic Jazz Festival returns to celebrate jazz over President's Day weekend. Professor and Richard and Elizabeth Case Chair Sean Jones leads the Peabody Jazz Ensemble, featuring special guest saxophonist Walter Smith III, on the festival's main stage February 18 at 3:00 pm EST. Later that evening, Chelsey Green (MM ’09, Viola) performs 7:00 and 9:00 pm concerts. And on February 19, faculty artist Fran Vielma and his Jazz Orchestra hit the festival's main stage at 4:00 pm. The festival takes place at the the Hilton Hotel in Rockville, Maryland, and tickets are available online.

Professor and Director of the Graduate Conducting Program Marin Alsop heads to Texas for a series of eclectic performances with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. The DSO performs Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz's Antrópolis, is joined by Venezuelan pianist Gabriela Montero for her own Piano Concerto No. 1 “Latin,” and finally Alsop takes the podium for Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's splendidly colorful Scheherazade. The concerts take place at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center in downtown Dallas and tickets are available online.

The Baby Laurence Legacy Project currently in progress by tap dancer Brinae Ali, Peabody dance faculty and the 2022-23 Artist in Residence of the Johns Hopkins Billie Holiday Center for Liberation Arts, is creating new work that celebrates the life of Laurence "Baby Laurence" Jackson, a tap dance icon from Baltimore who died in 1974. Ali is joined by Peabody faculty artists such as Kris Funn, Sean Jones, Wendel Patrick, the Peabody Tap Ensemble, and more to celebrate Baby Laurence's 102nd birthday at the Creative Alliance at the Patterson in Baltimore; tickets are available online for both in-person attendance and livestream.

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Peabody Notes highlights select off-campus performances featuring Peabody performers. For other events, please visit our Peabody Conservatory Facebook page.