January 2025

As we approach the end of the month, musical events involving Emory students and faculty are beginning in earnest and are described below. All of these events are free and open to the public. The vocal Symposium will be a fascinating opportunity to hear a noted conductor and composer work with students in singing works that would be performed with an orchestra. It is always a treat to get to hear our own faculty perform, and the concert with Elena Cholakova and guest Miroslav Hristov is not be missed! The Music Department has a strong composition program, and CompFest 2025 puts the program on display in a big way. We are pleased to be one of the sponsors of CompFest 2025. For anyone interested in composition and new music, this will be an amazing festival, involving local performers as well as many Emory faculty, Artist Affiliates, and students. The masterclasses sponsored by ECMSA are a great opportunity for our students to work with outstanding musicians, and a unique opportunity for the public to see that educational process.

Speaking of ECMSA, Chamber Music America has awarded the 2025 Community Impact Award / Presenter of the Year to William Ransom and the Emory Chamber Music Society of Atlanta. You can read about that award below. We are so fortunate to benefit from the activities of the ECMSA in many ways!

We are very sad to announce the death of Mary Emma McConaughey who died on December 19, 2024. Mary Emma was a longtime member of the Friends of Music, served as President from 2008 to 2011, and on the Board for 15 years. It was both a great pleasure and privilege to have known her and I know many of you feel the same way. You can read more about her below and be sure to use the link to read her full obituary that describes her remarkable life. 

With best wishes,

Gray Crouse

A note about the event entries below. You can click on most of the headings of the events and be taken directly to the Music Calendar listing for that event for additional details. At the time of publication, the programs for many of these events are not yet available but will typically be added to the Calendar entry close to the performance date. You can also click on most of the names of the groups and performers and will be taken to more information about them. There is not enough room in the newsletter to include their bios, but it is well worth reading about them.

David Itkin trained as a classical singer and made his professional career as a conductor of singers and a composer. He is currently Music Director and Conductor with the Abilene Philharmonic and Professor of Music and Director of Orchestral Studies at the University of North Texas. Itkin’s career has taken him to 45 U.S. states and 15 countries in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. For this symposium he will be working specifically with the singers on the preparation of arias and songs from musicals from the lens of a conductor and singing with an orchestra. Selection will include arias from the repertoire including Rigoletto, Le Nozze di Figaro, La Boheme, and more.

Dr. Cholakova holds a Doctor of Music and Master of Music degrees in piano performance from Northwestern University. She serves as Director of Piano Studies at Emory University and Director of the Emory Young Artist Piano Competition. Bulgarian pianist Elena Cholakova regularly performs in important musical venues in Eastern and Western Europe, South America and the United States. She has given solo recitals at the Liszt Academy in Budapest, Hungary, U.S. Embassy in Budapest, Hungary, Bulgaria Hall and Sofia Conservatory in Sofia, Bulgaria, Aosta Concert Hall in Aosta, Italy, Fellbach Musicschulle in Fellbach, Germany, Fazioli Salon in Chicago, IL, and more.

Miroslav Hristov is Professor of Violin at the University of Tennessee. He is also Founder and Director of the University of Tennessee's Ready for the World Music Series, which brings renowned artists to perform and talk about musical styles and literature from diverse regions around the world, emphasizing each region's contribution to western classical music. He was hailed by Fanfare Magazine for his "razor sharp technique" and a "full palette of tonal colors." He presents master classes and performs extensively throughout the United States, Europe, Latin America, and Asia. As a soloist and chamber musician, he has performed in several international festivals and concert series, including the Musical Treasures series in Carnegie Hall, the Interharmony International Music Festival in Arcidosso, Italy, the Sofia Music Weeks International Festival, the Balabanov House Music Days, the Big Arts Concert Series in Florida, and the Fredell Lack Series in Houston, Texas.

The Emory Friends of Music is very pleased to be one of the sponsors of this program! CompFest 2025 “In Our Own House” looks local to explore building creative arts communities within and around Emory. This year’s featured guest artists are Atlanta-based musicians: new music ensemble Bent Frequency and composer Alvin Singleton. For 20+ years Bent Frequency, which is co-directed by Jan Berry Baker (saxophones) and Stuart Gerber (percussion), has championed innovative chamber music and engaged the Atlanta community with thrilling and mind-opening performances. Internationally-celebrated composer Alvin Singleton has resided in Atlanta since his invitation by Robert Shaw in 1985 to serve as the Atlanta Symphony’s Composer-in-Residence.

Singleton’s chamber quartet In our own house, which inspired the Festival theme, opens the Festival. Singleton chose this title in part because two of the musicians he was writing for (Branford Marsalis and Jason Marsalis) were brothers. Within the composition, there is an ambiguous relationship between the individual parts and the ensemble as a whole. All four musicians play together during only one section. Other passages are written as duets (trumpet and saxophone, piano and percussion). A sense of isolation and fragmentation is maintained throughout the 7-minute piece. In Our Own House invites a question: what is “our” house? Singleton will lead a Creativity Conversation at 7pm on Friday.

Each of the works on the Festival program were selected for the different ways they could help build community at Emory as an experimental art practice. In Fall 2025 Bent Frequency Duo Project (the duo subset made up of the two co-directors) worked with six Emory Composition Students. During this extended residency, each student workshopped, rehearsed, and revised a 2-3 minute miniature composition. These are presented as a Suite on the first night’s concert, which also includes Emory Professor Dwight Andrews’ Three Baldwin Poems (sung by the brilliant Maria Clark) and a new electronic piece Paresthesia by Emory Assistant Professor Adam Mirza.

The Festival extends new connections to faculty, students, and guest artists. Virtuoso flautist Lina Andonovska, who will join Emory’s performance faculty in Fall 2025, performs a solo piece from Singleton’s Argoru series. Experimental and new music (electric) guitarist Jesse Langen visits from Chicago to play a new arrangement of Sivan Cohen Elias’s Engine Room with Andonovska and to join Bent Frequency for Camilles, a chamber piece with electronics by Emory Assistant Professor Katherine Young.

The concluding piece on the festival is Raven Chacon’s American Ledger No. 1, which the composer describes as “a narrative score for performance, telling the creation story of the founding of the United States of America.” A large graphic score in the form of a flag is being created by students and faculty under the direction of Dana Haugaard (Emory Director of Visual Arts), who received guidance from Chacon on the creation of this one-of-kind piece specific to Emory and Atlanta. Following the Festival, the score/art piece will be deposited in the Emory Rose Special Collections for future study and use. For the concluding performance, the directors of Bent Frequency will lead a group of Emory students, faculty, and guest artists.

More information can be found on the CompFest2025 website.

Chee-Yun has performed with many of the world's foremost orchestras and conductors. Her past faculty positions have included serving as the resident Starling Soloist and Adjunct Professor of Violin at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and as Visiting Professor of Music (Violin) at the Indiana University School of Music. From 2007 to 2017, she served as Professor of Violin at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

Note: Chee-Yun will also be performing in the ECMSA: Cooke Noontime Series on Friday, January 31, 2025, at 12pm in the Schwartz Center.

Mary Emma McConaughey, longtime member of Friends of Music, died on December 19 at age 89. She was president of the Friends of Music (2008-2011) and served on the board for 15 years. She graduated from Emory University in 1956, where she was in the university’s first coed class. Much more information about her rich and full life can be read in her obituary. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests that donations be sent to the Amani Women Center, Emory Friends of Music, or Winship Cancer Institute. Her children sent this additional information on January 5^th: “Our dad, Dan McConaughey, passed away peacefully this morning, January 5th, at The Falls with the three of us by his side. After 68 years of marriage to the love of his life, Mary Emma, 17 days were all he could endure without her. We will hold a joint memorial service to celebrate their lives this spring.”

Chamber Music America was founded in 1977 by a group of musicians determined to create a more sustainable chamber music field. One of CMA’s 2025 Awards Recognizing Vanguards of Innovation was the Community Impact Award / Presenter of the Year to William Ransom and the Emory Chamber Music Society of Atlanta. The award stated:

Previously titled the CMAcclaim Award, this award recognizes those who have made lasting contributions to their community through the presentation of chamber music performances, educational outreach initiatives, collaborations with local musicians and organizations, or audience development programs. In more than three decades, Emory Chamber Music Society of Atlanta has enriched the lives of the greater Atlanta area and created a new generation of chamber music enthusiasts and advocates. Under the helm of Artistic Director William Ransom, ECMSA has grown into one of the largest chamber music organizations in the Southeast and presents over 60 concerts, masterclasses, and events each season that are all free to attend.

EUSO is building a YouTube page with selected videos of some recent performances. You can go to their YouTube page and see everything that is available. There is hope that it will be possible to expand the student video performances available, but it is a large amount of work to make and edit the videos. Thanks to Paul Bhasin for the great videos that are posted!

Although most of the EUSO performances are on YouTube, there are two videos from earlier this year that are on the Schwartz Center Virtual Stage. On January 26 of this year, the Canadian Brass gave a great sold-out concert. For two of their pieces, they invited Emory student musicians to play with them. The video of the Gabrieli Jubilate Deo is on the virtual stage (the program for the concert can be seen by clicking here). On March 7 of this year, EUSO gave a program featuring two works. The Mahler Symphony 1 was the second piece; the video of that wonderful performance is on the EUSO YouTube page. The first piece on the program was the Southeastern premiere of Vital Sines by Viet Cuong, played by EUSO with Eighth Blackbird. The video of that piece is on the Schwartz Virtual Stage and well worth watching. The program for that concert can be seen by clicking here.

A big Thank You to those who have contributed during this year, and especially to those of you who have contributed in the past few months and have even increased your level of support or are new or returning supporters! There is no way to thank you enough. It was the strong level of giving last year that enabled us to substantially increase our grants to music students and faculty for this year.

Much of our support for students and faculty is through grants to provide scholarships for students to help pay for required music fees, to help fund undergraduate research projects, and to provide enhancements for classes. You can see the grants for this year by clicking here.

A special thanks to those of you who are sustaining members, either through payroll deduction, or a continuing contribution on your credit card. On the donations page you can choose to give a one-time gift or a monthly gift. You can click here to donate or visit our FOM page for other ways to give.

The list of members can be seen by clicking here.

Please Note: It is surprisingly difficult to generate a list of members who are current in their giving. We measure our giving year from the start of our annual campaign, which is usually in July of each year. Some members give through payroll deduction or give more than one gift per year (thank you to both!) and we want to make sure we correctly acknowledge the level of giving. We don't have a set format for how names are listed and depend on member's preference. Sometimes we make mistakes. Please let us know if you find any errors in the list of members above. You can just reply to this newsletter and we will be glad to correct any mistakes. The date that the list was updated is given at the bottom. Among other problems, we are finding that it can take several weeks for us to get news of gifts.

This newsletter focuses on Emory music students and faculty. There is clearly much additional music being performed in Atlanta, including many performances at Emory. There is no space in this newsletter to give specific information about those many performances, and most of them are separately well advertised. All music performances on the Emory campus are listed in the Emory Arts Calendar (linked to in the top left of our newsletters). Below is information about the separate music organizations with strong Emory ties.

The Schwartz Center is the hub of music at Emory, with the Performing Arts Studio being a major secondary location for many recitals and concerts. In addition to the Box Office that sells tickets for all ticketed events, the Schwartz Center hosts two major concert series, the Candler Concerts and the Schwartz Artists in Residence.

I assume that all of our readers are familiar with ECMSA, whose Artistic Director is Professor William Ransom. All of their concerts are free, which is certainly remarkable given the extremely high quality of their performances with professional musicians. ECMSA has a variety of music series, most of which are at the Schwartz Center. The full array of their concerts can be seen on the ECMSA website.

Of particular note is the Masterclass Series which is an incredible gift for our students. These masterclasses feature outstanding musicians who will teach Emory students in these classes. Moreover, our members are invited to attend these masterclasses. There are ten masterclasses planned for this year, with an impressive array of artists involved.

The Artistic Director of the Atlanta Master Chorale is Professor of Music Eric Nelson, and the chorale is one of the finest in the country. All of their local performances are in the Schwartz Center, and there is a livestream option for concert tickets, available through the Schwartz Center Box Office. In addition, all purchased tickets include a link to the livestream recording for one week after the concert. I usually view the recording at least once after attending the concert, surely a form of having one's cake and eating it too! For those of you who can't attend their concerts live, viewing the livestream is a great option.

Not only is the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra a great orchestra, but our students benefit greatly from the ASO, as many of the Music Department Artist Affiliates are ASO musicians.

The entire ASO concert series is detailed on the ASO website. There continues to be a lot of excitement about the ASO’s new (as of two years ago) Music Director Nathalie Stutzmann. An indication of her “rock star” status is this from her ASO biography:

Named "Best Conductor of the Year" at the 2024 Oper! Awards, Nathalie Stutzmann has been the Music Director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra since 2022 and is the second woman in history to lead a major American orchestra. She is also the Principal Guest Conductor of The Philadelphia Orchestra.

Nathalie made big news in the opera pit in 2023 with her debut in Wagner’s Tannhäuser at the Bayreuth Festival. She also made "a splashy debut" and "the coup of the year" (The New York Times) with her unanimously acclaimed double debuts at the Metropolitan Opera.

The ASO responded to the pandemic in a very creative way, beginning a series of "Behind the Curtain" performances featuring musicians playing without an audience. The "Behind the Curtain" series has continued, with a very modest yearly charge, featuring a selection of recorded performances from previous weeks.  Even if you can attend the live ASO performances, viewing the Behind the Curtain programs gives an entirely different perspective than you can get from the audience. Unless you are a player, it is rare to get close enough to a player to see the strings vibrate!