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In 2013 Maestra Marin Alsop, director of Peabody’s Graduate Conducting program, became the first woman to lead the Last Night of the BBC Proms in the summer classical music festival’s 118-year history. A decade later, she returns to Royal Albert Hall to lead the series finale to the 2023 season, which opened July 14. Alsop is joined by cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason and soprano Lise Davidsen for this season’s Last Night of the Proms on September 9, leading the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus through a jubilant program that includes the world premiere of composer James B. Wilson’s 1922 (a BBC commission); Max Bruch’s Kol nidrei, Op. 47; Richard Strauss’ Don Juan; Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s “Deep River,” and more.
The Proms features a huge breadth of programming over its eight-week run, and Maestra Alsop’s Last Night is just one of several events featuring Peabody performers. On Tuesday, August 1, Carnegie Hall’s National Youth Jazz Orchestra—directed by Sean Jones, Richard and Elizabeth Case Chair of Jazz Studies—made its Proms debut, performing a collection of jazz standards and big-band classics with special guest Dee Dee Bridgewater. And on Friday, August 18, conductor Gemma New (MM ’11, Conducting), artistic advisor and principal conductor of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, makes her Proms debut leading the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra through the European premiere of Samy Moussa’s Symphony No. 2, Igor Stravinsky’s The Firebird, and Dmitri Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 2.
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It seems impossible to imagine that we are just weeks away from starting the 2023-24 academic year here at Peabody. It feels like just yesterday that we said goodbye to our class of 2023. Nonetheless, we’re excited to be ramping up for another great year.
And this year, with a projected enrollment of more than 760 students, we’ll have our largest cohort in Peabody’s more than 165-year history. Many factors across multiple areas have contributed to that trajectory, not the least of which has been the 10% growth in technology-based disciplines over the last year, with 168% growth since 2018. This year our students come from 44 states across the US and from 33 countries. Our population is 58% domestic students and 42% international, with the top three countries represented being China, Korea, and Taiwan. With a continued commitment to a diverse community at Peabody, 17% of our total student body are BIPOC students. And this year we welcome our first two students, chosen from more than 70 applicants, to the inaugural Pathways to DMA program. As always, the incoming class is well balanced and talented, with yield having increased this year across both the undergraduate and graduate populations.
As we welcome our students this fall, I can’t help but to think of our revitalized mission, To elevate the human experience through leadership at the intersection of art and education, and to remember that these individuals will eventually go out into the world as artists with gifts that do indeed elevate the human experience, where they are not just participants but leaders, and that they’ll spend their lives devoted to that critical space where art and education meet.
Best wishes to all of you for a pleasant and productive remainder of the summer.
Sincerely,
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Monday, August 7, 7:30 pm EDT
Mezzo-soprano Taylor-Alexis DuPont (MM ’16, Voice), one of three 2023 Lotte Lenya competition winners, marks her second appearance in the Glimmerglass Festival’s Young Artists Program and stars in the world premiere of composer Ben Morris and librettist Laura Fuentes’ The Rip Van Winkles, a modern adaptation of Washington Irving’s short story. The Rip Van Winkles opens August 7 in Cooperstown, NY, and continues August 13 at 7:30 pm and August 18 at 1:00 pm. Tickets are available online.
Friday, August 18, 8:00 pm EDT
Jazz faculty percussionist Fran Vielma brings his afro-Latin jazz orchestra to Mr. Henry’s, the long-standing nightspot in Washington DC’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, as part of his bi-monthly residency celebrating Pan-American music alongside world-class players from the Mid-Atlantic region. Tickets are available online.
Saturday, August 19, 7:30 pm EDT
Rising senior Gwenyth Aggeler and graduate student Bowen Zheng (BM ’23, Guitar) were selected as two of the six Ex-Aequo Emerging Artists Initiative fellows for 2023, convening in Austin, Texas, August 17 through 20. Aggeler, Zheng, and the rest of the cohort participate in workshops with the Austin Classical Guitar Society, record with prolific guitarist/producer Drew Henderson, and premiere a new sextet piece by Brazilian guitarist, composer, and arranger Sergio Assad at the Rosette. The August 19 concert will be livestreamed.
Saturday, August 26, 8:00 pm PDT
Rising second-year jazz saxophonist Ebban Dorsey appears on jazz/hip-hop vocalist José James’ On & On: José James Sings Badu, released earlier this year, and has toured Europe, the US, and Japan with the group. She joins them for a journey through the Erykah Badu songbook at the outdoors John Anson Ford Theatre in the Hollywood Hills of Los Angeles. Tickets are available online.
Friday, September 1, 7:30 CEST
Peabody faculty composer Du Yun and librettist Royce Vavrek’s opera Angel’s Bone, awarded the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in Music, received its European premiere earlier this year at the Staatstheater Augsburg in an expanded orchestra version. Oper Wuppertal in Germany stages this opera about two fallen angels nursed back to health by a couple who exploits them, opening September 1 at Alte Glaserei in Wuppertal and continuing Sept. 2 and 3 and September 8-10. Tickets are available online.
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Peabody Notes highlights select off-campus performances featuring Peabody performers. For other events, please visit our Peabody events page.
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Piano graduate student Bailey-Michelle Collins (MM ’22, Piano) won the Bronze medal, and its $10,000 prize, in the Artists Division of the inaugural Nina Simone Piano Competition held in June. The Competition was started by Awadagin Pratt (PC ’89, Piano; PC ’89, Violin; GPD ’92, Conducting) with a grant from the Sphinx Organization. | | |
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The James M. Weaver Prize in Organ Scholarship celebrates scholarship and performance telling the histories of pipe organs in Canada and the U.S. Andrew Johnson (MM ’22, GPD ’23, Organ) won the inaugural prize at the National Convention of the Organ Historical Society in Toronto with a presentation on the 1965 Casavant organ at Toronto’s Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Church. | | |
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Dance faculty artist Colette Krogol and her creative partner Matt Reeves received a 2023 Ruby Artist Grant from the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation for developing an artificial intelligence-operated dance and multimedia performance that uses smart home technology. Krogol also received a $10,000 Mary Sawyers Baker Prize from the Baker Artist Awards. | | |
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Preparatory alumna Nadia Sirota joins the Juilliard faculty this fall, teaching in Chamber Music and Graduate Studies, as well as serving as the Creative Associate-At-Large who works from within the President’s Office on creative enterprise initiatives and special projects. | | |
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Claire Galloway Weber (MM ’15 Voice) is the 2023-24 Artist-in-Residence at Bard College. She joins the Voice faculty with a studio of seven students and assists with the Opera Workshop production throughout the semester. She continues her Peabody teaching as well, leading German, French, and Italian diction and vocal literature classes. | |
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King of Clones
Baltimore-based electroacoustic pop artist Dan Deacon composed the score to the Netflix documentary King of Clones, released in June. The 22-track soundtrack features performances by musicians Peter Kibbe (BM ’12, Cello), Stephanie Ray (MM ’12, Flute), and Tyrone Page (BM ’16, Music Education, Saxophone; MM ’18, Saxophone, Wind Conducting), and can be found online.
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Korean Songs for Marimba
This collection of two- and four-mallet solo marimba études that celebrate and embrace traditional Korean music was co-authored and arranged by percussionists Ji Hye Jung (BM ’07, Percussion) and Eric Cha-Beach (BM ’04, GPD ’05, Percussion), a member of the Princeton Performers-in-Residence Sō Percussion. Ji Hye, director of the Percussion Program at Vanderbilt University's Blair School of Music, posts video performances of those pieces on her YouTube channel.
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Eugène Ysaÿe: Six Sonatas for Violin Solo Op. 27
A century after Belgian composer Eugène Ysaÿe wrote his Six Sonatas for solo violin, Op. 27, in 1923, three-time Grammy-winner and Preparatory alumna Hilary Hahn releases a new recording of these works that created new technical standards for the instrument that are still studied today. “Twenty years ago these pieces felt abstract, like they held secrets I would never be privy to,” Hahn says of the work on the Deutsche Grammophon website. “Now, the Ysaÿe sonatas feel natural to me, as if I’ve somehow grown into them.”
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More news about Peabody alumni, faculty, and students can be found online: Please keep sending us your news, career achievements, fellowships awarded, competitions and prizes won, commissions earned, albums released, and whatever else you’re currently pursuing. | | | Your generosity supports Peabody’s mission: to elevate the human experience through leadership at the intersection of art and education. |
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