NEWS & UPDATES
April 25, 2025
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Princeton faculty, arts fellows, and alumni receive prestigious Guggenheim Fellowships | |
This year, as a part of the Guggenheim Foundation's 100th class, two Princeton arts fellows and one associate affiliated with the Department of Music at Princeton were named 2025 Guggenheim Fellows.
yuniya edi kwon, a 2023-25 Princeton Arts Fellow in the Lewis Center for the Arts and the Department of Music, was awarded the Guggenheim in the field of music composition. Kwon is a composer, violinist, vocalist and interdisciplinary artist. This spring she is teaching the undergraduate course “Cultivating a Transdisciplinary Performance Practice,” cross-listed in dance, music, theater and visual arts.
Peter S. Shin, a 2025-26 Hodder Fellow in the Lewis Center for the Arts, was awarded the Guggenheim in the field of music composition. Shin is a composer whose music interweaves Korean and American themes and influences. His yearlong project as a Hodder Fellow is a composition for the vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth.
In addition, Michael Dease, from Michigan State University, was awarded a Guggenheim in the field of music composition. Dease was a guest of Princeton's annual jazz festival in 2023.
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UPCOMING AT
THE MUSIC DEPARTMENT
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Arts at Work Alumni Day
Apr 29, 2025, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
Lewis Arts Complex
Arts At Work Alumni Day includes panels and career conversations led by alumni volunteers that will introduce a variety of paths available to students interested in pursuing careers in the arts and creative fields.
Sessions will include:
- Brunch and Panel Discussion: Arts & Social Impact Careers
- Creative Writing Career Conversation
- Visual Arts Career Conversation
- Theater and Musical Theater Career Conversation
- Dance Career Conversation
- Music Career Conversation
- Networking and Closing Pizza Reception
FREE TO STUDENTS.
Register through Handshake by April 26:
https://princeton.joinhandshake.com/login
The Arts at Work program is designed to provide Princetonians with a supportive arts and creative community and opportunities to learn about the realities of life and work in various creative fields. Co-sponsored by the Center for Career Development, the Lewis Center for the Arts, and the Department of Music.
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Wendy Heller and Andrew Feldherr for HUM 470/MUS 470
| | The Music Department joins Wendy Heller and Andrew Feldherr for a peak behind the scenes in their team-taught class this semester, Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities: The Sound of Ovid's Metamorphoses. | | |
What is the question, idea, or topic motivating your class? How do the themes of your class align with or augment your personal research interests and commitments?
Andrew Feldherr: The basic idea behind the course is to combine an investigation of how sound matters thematically within the poem (which is filled with myths that focus on music) with an exploration of how the poem helped shape musical soundworlds, especially during the evolution of opera as a form of performance. While the second aspect of the course is obviously Wendy’s specialty, the first relates closely to my research interests. Sound provides an important technology by which mortal characters (and artists) approach the status of the gods, and this kind of transformation not only marks the poem’s conclusion (where the sounding of Ovid’s epic accompanies his own flight beyond the stars) but relates to its larger questions about whether the categories on which the order of the world depends are established or transcended by metamorphosis.
Wendy Heller: For me this is the ideal way in which to the do the kind of interdisciplinary work that has been at the heart of my research for so long, and in particular to help me finish a book I’ve been working on for a while dealing with Ovid and opera in early modern Italy. I knew Andrew’s ideas would stimulate my thinking, but I had no idea how much my own ideas would metamorphosize over the course of the semester.
Who are the students in your class, and what unique perspectives do they bring?
AF: There were absolutely no pre-requisites for the course—we do not expect students either to read Latin or have any background in music. (In fact, I can’t read music myself.) We have a fantastic group of students, most of whom are veterans of the Humanities Sequence (HUM 216-219)—especially those who have subsequently done further work in either classics or music. It has been delightful and surprising to discover how much overlap there is between these interests.
WH: I’ve been impressed at how receptive the students are to diving into difficult material and engaging with the ideas with such originality and passion.
What are key texts, scholars, and/or other media that you have had students engage with this semester?
AF: The course relies mostly on primary material—both reading the epic completely and carefully and spending time with the music. I have tried to add some particularly rich and suggestive readings by scholars (mostly those whose interests are a little oblique to traditional concerns of classicists).
WH: I’ve tried to give them a wide variety of operas to watch and listen to so that we can consider the variety of ways in which the same character or dramatic situation was imagined by different poets and composers at various moments in time—who was Orpheus in the seventeenth-century, according to Monteverdi? And how he is represented differently, for instance, in the show Hadestown, which we saw in Broadway).
Can you share a little about any special assignments and/or projects that students have completed/are working on in the seminar? How does this assignment/project intersect with or build upon readings and seminar discussions?
AF: The papers for the course are all designed to encourage reflective reading and listening, and ultimately putting those two experiences in dialogue. The first paper was a traditional close reading exercise, which could be based either on Ovid’s poem or on one of its musical interpretations. The second asks them to find a topic that combines work in both media. There have been so many terrific insights already that it is hard to single out one in particular. One of the students will combine her final paper with the performance of a 20th century British art song with a text about Daphne—I am really looking forward to that. We also had a terrific thought-piece about how an oboe piece by Britten was inspired by Ovid’s account of Narcissus—and I hope that will be developed further.
WH: I’ve been particularly impressed with the students’ creativity – their willingness to experiment in their papers and try on new ideas and approaches and to make connections between the work we do in class and their own experiences as performers and scholars.
Can you share a “eureka” moment from the semester – a moment where you or the students arrived at a discovery, idea, or question that clarified the stakes of the seminar, or stood out as particularly generative and thought-provoking?
AF: Not so much ‘eureka moments’ but there are two things that I have particularly learned from in the course that will change the way I read Ovid. First, Wendy’s remarkable knowledge of early opera has made me understand how fundamental the transformative world of Ovid’s poem, in which art not only describes but enacts metamorphosis, was for the conceptualization of opera. And in terms of my own approach to Ovid’s poem, an attentiveness to the sound of the poem, its own rhythm and meter, but especially the sound world it depicts has revealed a new sensory aspect of the work that is essential to Ovid’s understanding of the power of his art.
WH: Andrew’s expertise has had a profound influence on the ways in which I have been thinking about my own writing on Ovid. I was far less acutely aware of the sonic dimensions of the poem itself, and his discussions of the material has heightened my awareness, for instance, of all kinds of intertextual relationships within Ovid’s works that I had missed. Bouncing ideas off of one another—and the students—has truly been a joy!
We are truly fortunate not only to have the opportunity to teach a course like this, but to have such wonderful students who are so responsive and adventurous!
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Nathalie Joachim to Perform at Lincoln Center's Summer For the City
Assistant Professor of Music Nathalie Joachim is slated to perform at Lincoln Center as a part of the Living Music Underground series, which aims to cultivate the next generation of experimental music. The performance will be held at The Underground, a cabaret-inspired performance space tucked away on Jaffe Drive, located below Lincoln Center's Josie Robertson Plaza. The performance is free and open to the public.
WHEN: Thursday, June 12, 2025 at 8:00 pm
WHERE: The Underground at Jaffe Drive
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Congratulations to Our Class of 2027 Music Majors and Minors!
The Department of Music is thrilled to welcome the following students into our community.
Music Majors
Charles Dutta
Jason Kim
Yuri Lee
Morgan Taylor
Music Minors
Kevin Guan
Saikalyan Jongannagari
Benjamin Jungels
Aarya Kumar
Alexander Levin
Yende Mangum
Matthew McWeeney
Bennett Opie
Micah Petit-Bois
Bethany Mariel Suliguin
Justin Yang
Julia Young
MPP Program
Madison Anderson (Vocal Consort)
Ian Barnett (Violin)
Adam Bathurst (Voice)
Isabelle Bruening (Piano)
Isabella Bustos (Voice)
Ian Chang (Percussion)
Arturo Cruz Urrutia (Voice)
Charles Dutta (Jazz Piano)
Heidi Gubser (Flute)
Elliott Kim (Cello)
Daniel Lee (Violin)
Yuri Lee (Vocal Consort)
Tendekai Mawokomatanda (Double Bass)
Jason Seo (Viola)
Evan Shidler (Voice)
Morgan Taylor (Vocal Consort)
Marcello Troncoso (Jazz Saxophone)
Otto Trueman (Vocal Consort)
Jeffrey Xu (Piano)
Sarah Yuan (Piano)
Congratulations to all, and welcome to the Department of Music!
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Certificate Recital: Samuel Gerhard, Piano
WHEN: Friday, April 25, 2025, 8:00 pm
WHERE: Taplin Auditorium, Fine Hall
Click here for more info about Samuel Gerhard
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African Music Ensembles Spring Concert
WHEN: Saturday, April 26, 2025, 8:00 pm
WHERE: Richardson Auditorium, Alexander Hall
Click here more info about the AME Concert
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Certificate Recital: Alessandro Troncoso, Saxophone
WHEN: Saturday, April 26, 2025, 8:00 pm
WHERE: Taplin Auditorium, Fine Hall
Click here for more info about Alessandro Troncoso
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Certificate Recital: Melody Choi, Violin
WHEN: Sunday, April 27, 2025, 7:00 pm
WHERE: Taplin Auditorium, Fine Hall
Click here for more info about Melody Choi
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MPP 214 Concert Presentation: Voicecraft
WHEN: Tuesday, April 29, 2025, 2:30 pm
WHERE: McAlpin Rehearsal Room, Woolworth Center
Click here for more info about MPP 214 recital
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Princeton University Wind Ensemble Spring Concert
WHEN: Tuesday, April 29, 2025, 7:30 pm
WHERE: Princeton High School Performing Arts Center
Click here for more info about PUWE spring concert
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Princeton Sound Kitchen presents Elijah Daniel Smith
WHEN: Tuesday, April 29, 2025, 8:00 pm
WHERE: Taplin Auditorium, Fine Hall
Click here to learn more about PSK x Elijah Daniel Smith
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Princeton Steel Drum Band Spring Concert
WHEN: Wednesday, April 30, 2025, 2:30 pm
WHERE: McAlpin Rehearsal Room, Woolworth Center
Click here for more info about Princeton Steel Band
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MPP 213 Culminating Spring Concert
WHEN: Wednesday, April 30, 2025, 6:00 pm
WHERE: Lee Rehearsal Room, Lewis Arts Complex
Click here for more info about MPP 213 Concert
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Jazz at Princeton presents: Jazz Small Groups Z & 1
WHEN: Thursday, May 1, 2025, 7:30 pm
WHERE: Taplin Auditorium, Fine Hall
Click here for more info about Jazz Small Groups Z & 1
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Certificate Recital: Thomas Verrill, Jazz Trombone
WHEN: Friday, May 2, 2025, 5:00 pm
WHERE: Taplin Auditorium, Fine Hall
Click here for more info about Thomas Verrill
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Sinfonia Spring Concert
WHEN: Friday, May 2, 2025, 7:30 pm
WHERE: Richardson Auditorium, Alexander Hall
Click here for more info about Sinfonia Spring Concert
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Jazz at Princeton presents: Jazz Small Groups X & A
WHEN: Saturday, May 3, 2025, 7:30 pm
WHERE: Taplin Auditorium, Fine Hall
Click here for more info about Jazz Small Groups X & A
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Certificate Recital: Dorothy Junginger, Viola
WHEN: Sunday, May 4, 2025, 3:00 pm
WHERE: Taplin Auditorium, Fine Hall
Click here for more info about Dorothy Junginger
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Certificate Recital: William Yang, Voice
WHEN: Sunday, May 4, 2025, 7:00 pm
WHERE: Taplin Auditorium, Fine Hall
Click here for more info about William Yang
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MPP 216 Concert
WHEN: Monday, May 5, 2025, 5:00 pm
WHERE: Lee Rehearsal Room, Lewis Arts Complex
Click here for more info about Michael Pratt Culminating Event
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Certificate Recital: Isadora Knutsen, Jazz Guitar
WHEN: Monday, May 5, 2025, 8:00 pm
WHERE: Taplin Auditorium, Fine Hall
Click here for more info about Isadora Knutsen
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Princeton Flute Studio Recital
WHEN: Tuesday, May 6, 2025, 7:00 pm
WHERE: McAlpin Rehearsal Room, Woolworth Center
Click here for more info about Flute Recital
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Certificate Recital: Kerrie Liang, Percussion
WHEN: Wednesday, May 7, 2025, 4:00 pm
WHERE: Taplin Auditorium, Fine Hall
Click here for more info about Kerrie Liang
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Certificate Recital: Sara Shiff, Voice
WHEN: Wednesday, May 7, 2025, 7:00 pm
WHERE: McAlpin Rehearsal Room, Woolworth Center
Click here for more info about Sara Shiff
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Certificate Recital: Audrey Yang, Flute
WHEN: Thursday, May 8, 2025, 3:00 pm
WHERE: Taplin Auditorium, Fine Hall
Click here for more info about Flute Recital
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Reminders About Finances and Reimbursements
Please note the following reminders about reimbursement processes:
- All out of pocket expenses must be submitted through Concur within 60 days of transaction date
- Expenses on Princeton credit cards must be submitted every 30 days through Concur
- Important dates: Final Concur submission of expense reports for this Fiscal Year is May 15, 2025. Please complete purchases on or before May 1, 2025, and submit expense reports by May 15, 2025. This step allows Beth Schupsky, the Department's Business Manager, to focus on closing the books by June 30, 2025
Thank you for your understanding and cooperation.
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New from Princeton University Concerts (PUC)
PUC recently closed their 2024-25 Season and announced their 2025-26 Season. Check out their latest Spotlight Newsletter, which includes an address from PUC Director Marna Seltzer; coverage of their Spring Semester programs promoting access, campus and community engagement, and educational outreach; and more.
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Senior Spotlight Questionnaire
To our Graduating Seniors,
Please use the link below to share some information about yourself and your studies while here at Princeton. Your responses will be used to create a slideshow highlighting your accomplishments that will be shown on a screen at the music department’s class day celebration on Monday, May 26.
Deadline: Monday, May 19
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Attention Graduate Musicology and Composition Ph.D. Students
Years G1 – G6: Graduate Reenrollment applications opened on April 15, and they are due April 30, 2025. Please check for an email sent to you from the Graduate School on or about April 15. To reenroll, you must log into TigerHub to complete and submit your application. (The Graduate School email contains complete instructions.) Reenroll asap! Your 2025-26 financial support depends on it.
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Calling all Grad Students: Princeton Research Day 2025 is here! | |
Share your research or creative work with the Princeton community and enhance your public engagement skills - all presenters are eligible to win awards with cash prizes up to $1,500, and several awards are specific to only grad students.
Learn more at researchday.princeton.edu.
Submission Deadline: April 30
Voting Opens: May 2
Princeton Research Day: May 8
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Regarding Instruments and Lockers
A friendly reminder that all instrument lockers are to be vacated and/or department instruments returned by May 6, 2025 (Spring Dean's Date).
If you would like a locker and/or instrument lease extension, please email mus-instruments@princeton.edu by April 29, 2025 for consideration. Please include the reason for the extension and expected clear out date (ex. Performing in the Reunions Fireworks Concert, will vacate by Class day etc.).
A $100.00 NON-REFUNDABLE FEE will be charged to student accounts not cleaned and cleared out by the date above.
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Increase in Phishing Attacks and How to Stay Protected
If you receive a Duo request that you did not request, your account has been compromised. Please immediately reset your password at princeton.edu/changepassword or call the Service Desk at (609) 258-4357, option-2 for assistance in securing your account.
Take the 20-minute, online security training at princeton.edu/securityeducation.
Check the Phish Bowl for confirmed phishing emails, as well as a list of legitimate emails. Please report suspicious messages using the Send to Phish Bowl button or by forwarding the email to: phishbowl@princeton.edu
OIT will never ask you for your password. Please do not provide your netID or password to anyone via email or through an online form.
Confirm your Duo two-factor devices are up to date by visiting: oit.princeton.edu/duo
The option of phone call and text messages for Duo notifications will be discontinued by June 1, 2025. These methods are easily subverted by phishing attacks and lead to compromised accounts. More details will be sent to those using these methods throughout the month of May.
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Princeton Record Exchange in PAW
For Princeton Alumni Weekly, Wayne Coffey writes about the history of Princeton Record Exchange in honor of Record Store Day, which was on April 12th. For his reporting, coffey speaks to Jon Lambert, who has worked at PREX since 1988, as well as several alumni who remain loyal customers.
Click here to read the full story
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Princeton Porchfest 2025
The fourth annual Princeton Porchfest will be held Saturday, April 26 from 12-6 pm. Porchfest is a free, walkable music festival where neighbors offer up their front porches as DIY concert venues. Talented performers play 45-minute sets throughout the neighborhood during this day-long celebration of music, art, and our wonderful community. Stroll from porch to porch to enjoy live, local talent!
Click here for more info about Princeton Porchfest
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Mendel Music Library Study Break
Please join us in the Mendel Music Library first floor Reading Room on Wednesday April 30th & Thursday May 1st for our spring study break, Amusing Musical Reads: Novels & Photo Books! Stop by to relax and unwind while browsing a selection of fun music books, including novels, art books, photo collections, and other light leisure material. Assorted snacks will be provided during both days.
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University Organist Eric Plutz to play at Reunions
Eric Plutz, University Organist, plays the Reunions Organ Concert, 3:00 pm, Friday May 23, 2025, at the University Chapel.
As part of the many varied offerings during Reunions, Eric will offer a less-formal, yet enjoyable and entertaining concert for Princeton Alumni and the general public alike. All are welcome. No ticket required.
| | | Please submit any event or news you would like to share with the Department of Music students, faculty, and staff in future iterations of the Synthesizer. | | |
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