Peabody alumni and faculty composers have a number of noteworthy events and releases kicking off the fall concert season. Silent Light, the new opera by Paola Prestini (BM ’95, Composition) and librettist Royce Vavrek, opens National Sawdust’s tenth anniversary season September 26, and was named one of New York magazine’s “30 Classical-Music Performances We Can’t Wait to Hear This Fall”. Prestini’s production company, VisionIntoArt, just released a recording of her last opera with Vavrek, 2023’s The Old Man and the Sea. Faculty composer Oscar Bettison’s “On the slow weather of dreams,” a response to Louis Andriesen’s De Staat, received its world premiere during the Gaudeamus Festival 2024 in Utrecht earlier this month, and the Asko|Schönberg orchestra performs it around Europe this fall. Faculty artist Du Yun’s Where We Lost Our Shadows, performed by the Peabody Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Ruth Blaustein Rosenberg Artistic Director of Ensembles Joseph Young (AD ’09, Conducting), was recorded in Miriam A. Friedberg Concert Hall by the Peabody Recording Arts & Sciences Department in 2023 and was recently released by Beijing’s Bié Records. And on September 28 and 29, the Baltimore-based ensemble Mind on Fire, co-founded by artistic director Allison Clendaniel (BM ’14, Voice) and executive director James David Young (DMA ’14, Composition), presents the world premiere of and we, each—the new opera by composer and faculty artist Michael Hersch (BM ’95, MM ’97, Composition) with a libretto by poet Shane McCrae, starring faculty artist Ah Young Hong (BM ’98, MM ’01, Voice) and baritone Jesse Blumberg

Additionally, the Library of Congress recently announced the 2024 Serge Koussevitzky Music Foundation commissions, which included awards for Andy Akiho and Sandbox Percussion (Victor Caccese (BM ’11, Percussion), Terry Sweeney (BM ’13, Percussion), and faculty artist Ian Rosenbaum (BM ’08, Percussion)); faculty artist Sky Macklay and Project Fusion Saxophone Quartet with faculty artist Doug O’Connor; and Kurt Rohde (BM ’86, Viola, Composition) and Brightwork New Music.

As we enter the 2024-25 academic year, it is exciting to note that the Conservatory has seen unprecedented enrollment growth of more than 40% over the past eight years, and this year tops 815 students. Importantly, due in part to our new financial aid for undergraduates, selectivity improved this year from accepting nearly half of a highly qualified and competitive audition pool to accepting a little more than one-third of that pool. We expect that acceptance rate to continue to tighten over the next few years. Similarly, we have seen our yield—the percentage of students who accept our offer of admission—increase by five percentage points and we expect that number to continue to rise. Selectivity and yield are key measures of Peabody’s competitiveness among peer institutions and these trends are indicative of our increasing appeal and brand strength.

Increasing access to a Peabody education was a central driver of our efforts to meet full need. Here, too, there is positive news to report. The number of students eligible for Pell grants is projected to increase from 15% last year to 22% this year, and the percentage of FLI students (first generation in a family attending college including those with limited income), is projected to increase from 18% to 24%. In addition, this year’s entering undergraduate class is a record 25% underrepresented students, compared to 18% last year. So, with this entering undergraduate class, Peabody gets both more competitive and more socioeconomically diverse than ever before by removing prior financial barriers to access for many students. I am also excited to reiterate that Bloomberg Philanthropies’ most recent, generous gift to Johns Hopkins University to support need-based graduate financial aid will also add to available Peabody financial aid funds in the future.

It is exciting to see Peabody’s competitive position continue to grow but even more important to note that as this happens, financial barriers to a Peabody education are also falling away resulting in a student cohort marked both by talent and socioeconomic diversity. We look forward to seeing this trajectory continue in the coming years. 

Sincerely,

Friday, September 6, 5:30 pm EDT

In 2019, Emmy Award-nominated director, choreographer, and performer Katherine Helen Fisher came to Peabody and collaborated with the inaugural class of Peabody BFA Dance students to create Scattered. Place., a dance film shot in the George Peabody Library. Starring Dance BFA alumni Julia Asher, Chase Benjamin, Elizabeth Chaillé, Natalie Cox, Chase Fittin, Lincoln Gray, Rush Johnston, Elle Krasner, Rebecca Lee, Clare Naughton, Aren Vaughn, and choreographed by Dance Chair danah bella, Scattered. Place. screens as part of the 2024 Detroit Dance City Festival on September 6 at the Detroit Institute of Arts and tickets are available online.

Sunday, September 15, 3:00 pm EDT

For their Herr, Frau, und Klavier program, Edwin Sungpil Kim (DMA ’20, Piano), countertenor Min Sang Kim (DMA ’19, Voice), and soprano Seyoung Jeong reimagine the works of Robert and Clara Schumann to explore the relationship between the Romantic-era composer and the celebrated pianist/composer, respectively. The repertoire—Robert Schumann's Dichterliebe and Frauenliebe und-leben song cycles, solo piano works, and Clara Schumann's Drei Romanzen, Op. 11—offers a sophisticated interplay of music and storytelling. The concert takes place September 15 at Capitol One Hall in Tysons, Va., and tickets are available online.

Sunday, September 15, 3:00 pm EDT

Mark Cudek (MM ’82, Lute), Ronn McFarlane (’79, Guitar), and Mindy Rosenfeld (BM ’80, Flute) are all longtime members of the Early Music ensemble the Baltimore Consort that former Peabody faculty lutenist Roger Harmon founded in 1980. All three continue to celebrate the songs and tunes heard in taverns, on the street, at dances, or in the theater in pre-1600s Europe, and their Gut, Wind, and Wire trio performs Early and Celtic music at its free September 15 concert at St. David's Church in Baltimore. 

Monday, September 16, 7:00 and 9:00 pm EDT

Trumpeter and vocalist Benny Benack III adds a dash of cabaret verve to the Javier Nero Jazz Orchestra’s recent single “Smack Dab in the Middle,” a brassy arrangement of undersung songwriting legend Jesse Stone’s 1955 standard. Faculty artist and trombonist/composer Nero brings his all-star big band to Dizzy’s Club at Jazz at Lincoln Center September 16 for a pair of concerts featuring two special guests: up-and-coming vocalist Ashley Pezzotti and trumpeter Sean Jones, Peabody’s Richard and Elizabeth Case Chair of Jazz Studies. Tickets for both shows are available online.

Friday, September 27, to Sunday, September 29

Jazz faculty artist Darin Atwater presides over the 2024 Monterey Jazz Festival, his first as artistic director, in Northern California later this month for a jam-packed weekend of music. The 67th annual edition of the festival features some of the biggest names in jazz right now—Robert Glasper, Mavis Staples, Samara Joy, Jason Moran, Brandee Younger, Ulysses Owens, Jr.—as well as the adventurous Harriet Tubman trio, the SFJAZZ collective (which includes faculty artist Warren Wolf), bassist Endea Owens and her Cookout group, faculty artist Tim Green and his quartet, and so much more. Tickets 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.

Caliburn

Soprano and faculty artist Ah Young Hong (BM ’98, MM ’01, Voice) sings a haunting series of words-as-sounds to open “The Quiet Sound of Making Beds,” a setting of poet Kelly Xio’s “In Search of Blue Peonies” by composer James David Young (DMA ’14, Composition). In the liner notes for Caliburn, the album on which the song appears, the composer notes that all seven of its tracks are partially indeterminate, and Hong bends notes, barely whispers, musically mumbles, and otherwise makes artful decisions that add an intense intimacy to the piece. This moving and playful idea animates Young’s works here, which captures composition from the past seven years. The title track, a setting of Mike J. Maguire’s poetry performed by Allison Clendaniel (BM ’14, Voice), Jennifer Hughson (MM ’12, Clarinet), Sarah Manley (BM ’17, Trombone), Tyrone Page Jr (BM ’16, MM ’18, Saxophone; BM ’16, Music Education), bassist Robin Rhodes, and Young, is a dramatic low-end journey through intense emotions. 

A Dream So Bright: Choral Music of Jake Runestad

Composer/conductor Jake Runestad (MM ’11, Composition) has carved an impressive career since his Dreams of the Fallen was debuted on Veterans Day 2013 by the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra and Symphony Chorus of New Orleans, including a 2022 regional EMMY award for his choral Earth Symphony, which features a libretto by Todd Boss. A Dream So Bright (Reference Recordings), Runestad’s new album, includes the debut recordings of both of those acclaimed works by the Arizona-based True Concord Voices and Orchestra. The album is available to stream or purchase online.

History of the Vibraphone

Faculty artist Warren Wolf teased his History of the Vibraphone concert program when discussing his Chano Pazo: Origins album last year. Backed by an ensemble of bassist Vincente Archer, drummer Carroll “CV” Dashiell III, and faculty artists Tim Green on saxophones and Alex Brown on piano, vibraphonist Wolf delivers a gorgeous musical lecture on the greatness of Roy Ayers, Gary Burton, Terry Gibbs, Lionel Hampton, Bobby Hutcherson, Milt Jackson, Joe Locke, Dave Samuels, and Cal Tjader with his new album, History of the Vibraphone. Any one of the dynamic performances here is a ready made “5 Minutes that Will Make You Love the Jazz Vibraphone” entry if the New York Times is paying attention.

My Mother in Love

Faculty artist and adventurous soprano Tony Arnold brings nuance, emotional depth, and a restrained intensity to composer Anna Weesner’s My Mother in Love, a 10-movement monodrama for voice, flute, oboe, violin, cello, and two guitars about a family coming apart that inhabits a space between opera and art song. Commissioned by New York’s Cygnus Ensemble, My Mother in Love anchors Weesner’s recent release of the same name, which also includes her Love Story in Six Parts and The Eight Lost Songs of Orlando Unground, on Bridge Records, the label founded and run by David Starobin (BM ’73, Guitar) and Becky Starobin (BM ’73, Violin). The album is available for purchase and streaming online.