Renowned soprano, arts leader, and arts/health advocate Renée Fleming will address the graduates and receive the George Peabody Medal for Outstanding Contributions to Music in America during the Peabody Conservatory’s 2021 Graduation ceremony. Awarded America’s highest honor for an individual artist, the National Medal of Arts, as well as four GRAMMY awards, Fleming has been hailed as having “possibly the most beautiful soprano voice in the world.” She has spearheaded the Sound Health initiative at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, championing the work being done nationally at the intersection of health and the arts. This year marks the Peabody Conservatory’s 139th graduation exercises, and the second to be held virtually. 58 Bachelor of Music degrees, 95 Master of Music degrees, six Master of Arts degrees, 16 Graduate Performance Diplomas, one Artist Diploma, and seven Doctor of Musical Arts degrees are scheduled to be conferred. To join the virtual ceremony, which begins at 10:00 am on Wednesday, May 26, visit peabody.jhu.edu/graduation.

As we approach Peabody’s 139th graduation on May 26, we do so as we always do – knowing that graduation is both an end and a beginning. Of course, this year is different. For the second year in a row, our graduates will leave Peabody and we will celebrate their successes, virtually. It will be a wonderful event, as we salute their accomplishments and hear from our students, faculty, and the extraordinary Renée Fleming, this year’s George Peabody Medal awardee. Nonetheless, we’ll be apart and not together on campus. At the same time, we gather online with the knowledge that this is the last year we will have to do that. And in much the same way that graduation every year represents both an end and a beginning, we stand at an extraordinary moment – seeing the coming end of a pandemic which has shaped all our lives for the last year and then some, and the beginning or rebirth of pre-pandemic life with the knowledge that some things may never quite be the same. While we may not even know exactly what that looks like, we know it is both an end and a beginning.

Maybe that is what makes this year’s graduation just that much more poignant. As we let go of our students, and they start this next phase of their lives, we all are letting go of this pandemic, and looking forward to what comes next. In both cases, we don’t know exactly what lies ahead, but we do know that good things are again possible.

Fred Bronstein, Dean

Symone Harcum (MM ’18, Voice) performs as Trio/Girl in the Virginia Opera's fully-staged production of Leonard Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti in partnership with the Virginia Arts Festival. Tickets are being sold in socially-distanced pods and CDC safety protocols will be observed at the tented, outdoor Bank Street Stage in Norfolk, Virginia.

The Mount Vernon Virtuosi, led by Cello Professor Amit Peled, will perform a concert at The Chrysalis in Columbia, Maryland’s Symphony Woods Park, presented by the Candlelight Concert Society. The program includes pieces by Mozart, Barber, Haydn, Morricone, Tchaikovsky, and Piazzolla. COVID safety protocols will be in place for this in-person, outdoor event. Tickets must be purchased online in advance.

Assistant Professor of Guitar Thomas Viloteau and the Atlantic Guitar Quartet, including chair of the Preparatory Guitar department Zoë Johnstone Stewart (MM ’05, Guitar), will perform in a virtual concert presented by the Baltimore Classical Guitar Society. The hour-long concert and a post-concert “Meet & Greet” with the artists will be broadcast online for ticket holders only.

Violin Professor Judith Ingolfsson and pianist Vladimir Stoupel of Duo Ingolfsson-Stoupel perform repertoire from their album La Belle Époque at the Indiana Landmarks Center in Indianapolis. The concert is presented by the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis, which awarded Ingolfsson its gold medal in 1998. The performance, featuring works by Théodore Dubois, César Franck, and Eugène Ysaÿe, is available for both live and virtual viewing.

scattered. place, a dance film created by the Conservatory Dance Department and directed by Katherine Helen Fisher, has been selected to be shown at the 8th Annual Utah Dance Film Festival at the SCERA Center for the Arts in Orem. Based on the annual pilgrimage on Dia de la Virgen in Mexico, the work embodies the physical and emotional anguish endured on a spiritual journey. Tickets for the festival, screening live and online, are available now.

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

New online courses from Peabody Pro – specifically designed for performing artists, arts educators, and arts administrators interested in expanding their professional knowledge – are on sale now. Summer offerings include String Pedagogy Master Classes; Diversifying the Instrumental Music Repertoire; and True Inclusion in Music Education: Engaging All Learners Through Creative Music Education. Most courses start in mid-June. Learn more and register for Peabody Pro online.