Awadagin Pratt to Speak at Commencement
This year's Peabody Conservatory Commencement ceremony will take place on Wednesday, May 18, at 10:30 am with Peabody alumnus Awadagin Pratt (PC '89, Piano; PC '89, Violin; GPD '92, Conducting) as the graduation speaker. Since winning the Naumburg International Piano Competition in 1992 and being awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant two years later, Mr. Pratt has performed concerts and recitals around the world and participates in educational residencies and outreach activities wherever he appears. Also a conductor, he has led the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center and worked closely with Leonard Slatkin. He is currently professor of piano and chairman of the Piano Department at the College Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati. Mr. Pratt is also the artistic director of the World Piano Competition in Cincinnati as well as the artistic director of the Art of the Piano Festival at CCM. Commencement, including the speech and student performances, will be available to view online via live stream.
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FROM THE DEAN
We've been talking a lot about community connectivity here at Peabody, and last week's Peabody Pop Ups really brought it all to life. Over two hours, 44 Peabody students fanned out to 19 sites across Baltimore including City Hall, Penn Station, schools, a Water Taxi on the Inner Harbor, and more, delighting listeners with impromptu performances. You can follow their journey at
peabody.jhu.edu/popupmap.
Graduation is always festive here at Peabody. This year we look forward to welcoming Awadagin Pratt, internationally renowned pianist and Peabody alumnus, as commencement speaker. Winner of the 2008 Johns Hopkins University Alumni Association Distinguished Alumnus Award, Mr. Pratt remains active with his alma mater as a member of the recently formed Peabody Diversity Pathway Task Force.
The highest honor bestowed by the Peabody Institute, the George Peabody Medal will be awarded this year in absentia to Yo-Yo Ma. The medal honors individuals who have made exceptional contributions to music in America. Yo-Yo Ma's name and career is synonymous with excellence as well as finding new ways to make music accessible. Similarly, the Four Pillars Awards were created this year to celebrate those who exemplify Peabody's vision in the areas of excellence, interdisciplinary experiences, innovation, and community connectivity. We are proud to award this year's Four Pillars Award for Community Connectivity to the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra for its acclaimed OrchKids program, which nurtures a better future through music for more than 1,000 Baltimore City schoolchildren each year.
Fred Bronstein, Dean |
ON STAGE / OFF CAMPUS
"Party of Three," the inaugural performance by a new Baltimore chapter of the
If Music Be the Food... - a benefit concert series to increase awareness and support for the hungry in our community through the sharing of music - will take place at St. Ignatius Church, 740 North Calvert Street, Baltimore. Faculty artists
Phillip Kolker, bassoon;
Yong Hi Moon, piano; and
Alexander Shtarkman, piano, will be featured as well as master's student Lior Willinger, piano, and the Peabody Honors Ensemble Trio Phoenix. The concert is free with encouraged donations of non-perishable food items for the Maryland Food Bank.
Saturday, May 7, Sunday, May 8, 7:00 pm
Brandon Keith Brown (MM '11, Conducting) will conduct the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra in the Schlüterhof of the Deutsches Historisches Museum in Berlin. The program includes Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy's String Sinfonie No. 8 in D major, C.P.E Bach's Cello Concerto in A major with Marie-Elisabeth Hecker, and Mozart's Symphony No. 38 in D major, "Prague."
Jiaoyang Xu, a master's student of Amit Peled, has been selected as a 2016 Piatigorsky International Cello Festival fellow. Ms. Xu will be part of the mass cello ensemble - consisting of over 100 cellists - performing at Walt Disney Concert Hall. The festival is presented by the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music and the Los Angeles Philharmonic in partnership with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.
Saturday, May 21, 8:00 pm; Sunday, May 22, 4:00 pm
Bargemusic, New York's floating concert hall at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge, will present a concert by the Aspen String Trio - faculty artist
Victoria Chiang, viola; Michael Mermagen (
BM '84, Cello); and David Perry, violin. The trio will perform works by Brahms in these Masterworks Series concerts with pianist Rita Sloan.
Wednesday, June 1, 7:00 pm
Faculty artist and violinist Courtney Orlando and her ensemble, Alarm Will Sound, will present the East Coast premiere of Donnacha Dennehy's The Hunger, a new opera about the Great Famine in Ireland, addressing both the human and societal scales of this historic tragedy. The performance will take place at the Terrace Theater of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., as part of its IRELAND 100: Celebrating a Century of Irish Arts & Culture festival.
Peabody Events highlights select off-campus or live-streamed performances featuring Peabody performers. For other events, please visit our Peabody Institute Concerts Facebook page. For the complete weekly list of concerts at Peabody, subscribe to Events at Peabody at peabody.jhu.edu/news.
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ARTISTIC ACHIEVEMENTS
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Tuned In students Desha Banks, Keyona Carrington, Janai Charles, Nyshae Cheatam, London Diggs, Keith Fleming, Lowrider James, Jonah Lassiter, Kaneese Mack, Tantrice McKoy, Andre Palmer, Asia Palmer, and Imani Witherspoon will be attending the Interlochen Center for the Arts on scholarships this summer. Scholarship funding is being provided by Tuned In, Interlochen Center for the Arts, Southwest Airlines, and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Tuned In is directed by Preparatory brass faculty artist
Daniel Trahey (
BM '00, Tuba, Music Education).
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Gregory Campbell (
BM '05, Trombone) and his band, Fountain City Brass Band, took first prize for the second year in a row in the 2016 North American Brass Band championships. Mr. Campbell performs as a freelancer with orchestras such as the Kansas City Symphony, the Wichita Symphony, and the Symphony Orchestra of Northwest Arkansas.
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Elaine Lachica (
BM '97, Voice) won a Juno Award from the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences for Classical Album of the Year: Vocal or Choral Performance with her ensemble L'Harmonie Des Saisons. The CD
Las Ciudades de Oro, which explores the music of Spain's New World colonies, also features conductor and harpsichordist Eric Milnes and multi-instrumentalist and artistic director Mélisande Corriveau.
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D. Mark McCoy (
MM '92, Music Education) has been named the 20th president of DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, and will begin the position in July. Dr. McCoy served as dean of the DePauw School of Music since August 2011, where he led the 2013 launch of the 21st Century Musician Initiative (21CM), an extensive re-imagining of the professional music school curriculum and student experience with the aim to create flexible, entrepreneurial professionals prepared for the challenges of today's music world.
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Preparatory student Brandon Woody, trumpet, was named one of five 2016-17 Brubeck Fellows by The Brubeck Institute, where he will receive a full-scholarship in jazz performance and be a member of the Brubeck Institute Jazz Quintet. The fellows study with faculty, visiting jazz educators, and professionals at The Brubeck Institute at the University of the Pacific in San Francisco.
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RECENT RECORDINGS
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Ebb and Flow is the fourth album by Café Musique, a band led by Brynn Albanese (
PC '91, Violin) known for its world music style including gypsy, swing, tango, folk, and their self-defined genre, "wild classical."
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Mark G. Meadows (GPD '13, Jazz Piano; JHU BA '11, Psychology) released To the People, a new CD which aims to break through social barriers and spread peace, love, and understanding with a mix of jazz, gospel, R&B, rock, and rap.
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New Music with Guitar, Vol. 10, a new CD by David Starobin (
BM '73, Guitar) released on his Bridge Records label, also features William Bland (
BM '69, MM '70, DMA '73, Composition), Patrick Mason (
BM '72, Voice), Becky Starobin (
BM '73, Violin), former viola faculty member Paul Coletti, and former choral faculty member Gregg Smith.
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