The Peabody Conservatory has expanded graduate degree offerings in recent years, harnessing the unique strengths of our outstanding faculty and Breakthrough Curriculum to create a low-residency Master of Music program in Composition in 2022 and, this academic year, an MM in Jazz Studies, whose inaugural cohort is nearing the end of its busy first year.

Two new master’s programs launch with the 2024-25 academic year: the MM in Choral Conducting, led by of Director of Choral Studies Dr. Beth Willer; and the MM in Music for New Media: Film and Game Scoring, overseen by the Taylor A. Hanex Professor in Music for New Media Thomas Dolby.

And in the wake of our exciting financial aid news of meeting 100% of demonstrated financial need for all domestic undergraduate students with no loans, Peabody recently offered admission for its 2024-25 academic year to more than 900 students who hail from 28 countries spread over five continents, and 90% of them are eligible for merit-based scholarships. We look forward to welcoming many of them to the Peabody community this fall.

When Peabody launched its Breakthrough Curriculum in 2018, we put a stake in the ground around issues critical to training artists for a constantly evolving, very different world. While it remains critical to develop all the traditional skills needed to compete in a highly competitive field, it’s not enough—more was needed to teach all artists skills of flexibility and adaptability, technology, audience development, community engagement, and more. And it wasn’t enough for Peabody just to say we were doing this; we had to gather and use real data to assess the efficacy of this kind of training.

This is where the Strategic National Arts Alumni Project (SNAAP)—a collection of data representing attitudes of arts alumni nationally—comes in. The skills being taught in the Breakthrough Curriculum are now being reflected back in the assessment of recent Peabody alumni (2020 through 2022) as compared with the national average for arts alumni, benchmarked in the SNAAP data. The data show that recent Peabody graduates express higher satisfaction with their education than the national average in the following areas:

• 26% higher in Business, Financial or Entrepreneurship Skills
• 7% higher in satisfaction with Exposure to a Broad View of Career Options
• 8% higher in Work on a Project with or in a Role Serving the Community
• 17% higher in Networking with Alumni
• 7% higher in Networking with Artists, Designers, and Other Creative Professionals
• 10% higher in Utilizing Career Services Offerings

We are committed to building on these results as we think about the continued evolution of the Breakthrough Curriculum. And we are grateful to our alumni who represent the best of Peabody in the professional world each and every day. 

Sincerely,

Tuesday, April 2, through Sunday, April 7

Drummer, composer, and activist Max Roach helped liberate the drum kit from mere time keeping during jazz’s explosive mid-20th century, and arts organizations nationwide are honoring him during this centennial year of his birth. For its weeklong Roach celebration, the Joyce Theatre in Manhattan commissioned a new work from choreographer Ronald K. Brown and his EVIDENCE, A Dance Company in collaboration with the Havana, Cuba-based Malpaso Dance Company. Set to Roach’s politically engaged and rhythmically adventurous 1961 album Percussion Bitter Sweet, the dance work, “Tender Wonders,” sees Ui-Seng Francois (BFA ’23, Dance) performing as an EVIDENCE company member. Tickets are available online.

Friday, April 5, through Sunday, April 7

Faculty composer Du Yun’s Ears of the Book concerto for pipa and orchestra, premiered last February, draws some inspiration from the ephemeral, episodic quality of Polaroid photos and was co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Chinese composer and pipa player Wu Man joins the Detroit Symphony to perform Ears of the Book on a program that includes Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun and Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances, Op. 45, at Orchestra Hall; tickets are available online.

Friday, April 19; Sunday, April 21; Saturday, April 27

When she’s not performing before Baltimore Orioles games with her chamber-pop duo Outcalls, Melissa Wimbish (GPD ’11, Voice; GPD ’14, Chamber Music) maintains a busy schedule in more typical soprano roles. She stars as Miss Jessel in Opera Ithaca’s production of Benjamin Britten’s The Turn of the Screw April 19 and 21 at the Hangar Theatre in Ithaca (tickets available online). And on April 27, Wimbish is the featured soloist in the Rochester Oratorio Society’s Resonanz ensemble’s Freedom Song: When Gospel Came to the Empire program, a musical account of the Fisk University Singers’ historic 19th-century tour via their original songs, narrator, Gospel choruses, and jazz combo. Freedom Song takes place at the Fort Hill Performing Arts Center in upstate New York; tickets available online. 

Saturday, April 13, 1:00 pm EDT

The Bethesda-based Boulanger Initiative, which advocates for women/gender-marginalized composers, and the Mansion at Strathmore co-present the three-day WoCo Fest 2024: Evolve festival celebrating women composers with performances, workshops, installations, and discussions. The April 13 program features performances by Musica Spira, the early music ensemble of Grace Srinivasan (MM ’16, Voice), Assistant Professor Paula Maust (MM ’16, DMA ’19, Harpsichord), and Amy Domingues (MM ’12, Viola da Gamba); Andrea Casarrubios (BM ’11, Cello); and the Ghost Ensemble, which includes oboist and faculty composer Sky Macklay, whose Harmonitrees sound sculptures will be installed in the Mansion’s second-floor galleries. The festival takes place at the Mansion at Strathmore and tickets are available online.

Saturday, April 13, 1:00 pm EDT

Nine Baltimore colleges and universities and cultural institutions collaborated on a city-wide initiative to recognize and honor the late Black fiber artist Elizabeth Talford Scott, whose work from 1970 on represents an outpouring of mature creative ideas. Trumpeter Brandon Woody, a Preparatory/Tuned-In alum, and his UPENDO band, which includes Troy Long (BM ’19, Jazz) and faculty artist Wendel Patrick, join poet Nia June and Preparatory faculty artist and dancer Asya Shaw for the “Threads–In Honor of Elizabeth Talford Scott” performance at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture; tickets are available online.

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

Ancient City: a Non-visual Film Score

Paola Prestini (BM ’95, Composition) composes and sings on her new Ancient City: a Non-visual Film Score, a genre-defying collaboration with trombone-and-drums duo Nelson Patton, on her own VIA Records imprint, with a release performance at National Sawdust April 15. The album is an abstract adventure incorporating field recordings of the natural world alongside the duo’s percussion and trombone and Prestini’s voice. 

The Griot, Vol. IV

Sean Jones, the Richard and Elizabeth Case Chair of Jazz Studies, is one of the jazz greats featured in trumpeter/producer Jeremy Pelt’s recently published The Griot: Examining the lives of Jazz's great storytellers, Vol. IV collection of interviews, alongside George Coleman, Billy Hart, Carmen Lundy, Bobby Watson, Mark Whitfield, and more.