Soprano Laura Strickling (MM ’06, Voice) has forged a noted recital career performing art songs, finding the intimate possibilities of the form endlessly alluring. “When I sing a song recital, I am putting stories, ideas, or emotions out into the universe and hoping that they start conversations; hoping that they make a difference in someone’s life,” she told the new music hub I Care If You Listen last year. “Art song organizations are sprouting up in cities all over the United States, and I want to see more of that moving forward because it builds community.”

Strickling recorded a collection of 21st-century art songs by women composers or featuring settings of text by women authors, including “To See What I See” by Amy Beth Kirsten (DMA ’10, Composition), for her solo debut album featuring pianist Joy Schreier, Confessions (Yarlung Records). The album earned a Best Classical Solo Vocal Album Grammy Award nomination by the US Recording Academy, one of a handful of Peabody Institute alumni nominated for the 64th Annual Grammy Awards. Sandbox Percussion—the quartet of Victor Caccese (BM ’11, Percussion), Terry Sweeney (BM ’13, Percussion), Ian Rosenbaum (BM ’08, Percussion), and Jonathan Allen—was nominated in the Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance category for its album Seven Pillars, a collaboration with composer Andy Akiho. The album also earned Akiho a nomination for Best Contemporary Classical Composition, a category that also includes composer Caroline Shaw’s Narrow Sea, performed by the Sō Percussion ensemble, which includes Eric Cha-Beach (BM ’04, GPD ’05, Percussion). Percussionist Rosenbaum also performs on composer Christopher Cerrone’s album The Arching Path, which was nominated in the Best Classical Compendium category.

The Grammy Awards ceremony, originally scheduled for January 31, 2022, is currently indefinitely postponed due to the pandemic. 

Happy New Year to all! As we prepare to begin the spring semester of the 2021-22 academic year here at Peabody, we do so as we always do, determined to make the most of it and persevere despite some of the most recent COVID challenges that we all face. As we have done since the start of the pandemic, we will ensure that our students can fully pursue their degrees and careers, even as we ensure their safety, and safety of our faculty and staff. We were able to do this throughout the fall semester when we had fully returned to campus. Similarly, despite the spike presented by the Omicron variant, we are fully confident that we will do so again for the spring semester and will be fully operational with 750 Conservatory students on campus regularly, and several thousand Preparatory students weekly. And as we’ve done since the beginning of this pandemic, we will operate with safety top of mind and, at the same time, ensure our students’ progression and productivity in their work.

This includes but is not limited to a number of exciting projects ongoing at Peabody. In November I wrote about Peabody’s remarkable compositional history as we celebrate 150 years of composition at Peabody this academic year. One of the most recent manifestations of Peabody’s full-throated commitment to music of our time is the recording and filming this semester of Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and Peabody faculty member Du Yun’s Where we Lost our Shadows under the baton of Peabody director of graduate conducting and world renowned conductor Marin Alsop. This will be the Peabody Symphony Orchestras’ third recording in recent years under the leadership of Marin Alsop.

As you can see, we look forward to a very productive spring semester, and a great 2022 here at Peabody!

Fred Bronstein, Dean

The North/South Chamber Orchestra kicks off its 42nd concert season with a selection of vocal and instrumental works by composer Robert Martin (BM ’74, MM ’75, Composition), including Emerson Songs, Affirmation, Cello in the Universe, Chrysolith, Piano Trio, String Trio, and Two Ancient Pieces. The free, virtual concert will be livestreamed through Musea.

Jacomo Bairos (GPD ’11, Conducting), the co-founding artistic director of the genre-defying Nu Deco Ensemble in Miami, leads the ensemble through an eclectic program featuring Bela Bartok’s Dance Suite, Erich Korngold’s Much Ado About Nothing, Nu Deco’s second foray into reimagining the music of Radiohead, and a collaboration with Canadian pop musician JP Saxe. The concert takes place at the North Beach Bandshell, and tickets are available online.

Qing Hou (BM ’92, Violin), as a veteran member of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, performs a program of Baroque masterpieces—Antonio Vivaldi’s Concerto for Four Violins in B Minor, RV 580; Flute Concerto in G Minor, “La Notte,” RV 439; Concerto in C Major, “Per la solennità di San Lorenzo,” RV 556; and Georg Frideric Handel’s Water Music, Suite No. 1—under the direction of Maestro Riccardo Muti. The concert takes place at the Chicago Symphony Center, and tickets are available online.

Peabody viola professor and Philadelphia Orchestra principal violist Choong-Jin Chang performs composer Ke-Chia Chen’s gorgeous The Desires for viola and string orchestra as part of the Orchestra’s Pictures from an Exhibition program, which also features Ludwig van Beethoven’s Leonore Overture No. 3 and Modest Mussorgsky’s intense work that gives the evening its name. The concert takes place at Verizon Hall and ticket are available online.

The Naples Community Orchestra in southwest Florida, where Kyle Szabo (MM ’95, Violin) is Orchestra Director, opens its season with this afternoon concert of Felix Mendelssohn’s Hebrides Overture (Fingal’s Cave); Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7; and Max Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1 in G Minor featuring violin soloist Isabelle Durrenberger. The concert takes place at the Moorings Presbyterian Church, and both tickets and livestream instructions can be found online.

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