FROM THE CHAIR

It’s hard to imagine that we are already finishing week 5 of our semester! It’s so great to see our halls filled with students and faculty and to hear music throughout our corridors. The vibrancy of our department is amazing and I’m constantly impressed by the dedication that is evident.

Now that we are fully back to classes in face-to-face mode, it’s especially important to remember that we are not yet free of the pandemic. So, I urge everyone to still be a little bit cautious about hand sanitizing and mask wearing. We are optimistic collaborators by nature but we still need to watch out for ourselves and our neighbors to make sure that we continue to stay healthy and safe.

As you can imagine, there are a lot of concerts and recitals that will be happening over the next few weeks and I urge you to support each other and attend as many events as possible. Listening to live music is one of the best ways to grow your knowledge base and to find new pieces to work on. It also helps to build our community and strengthen relationships. If you’re a singer, take a chance and go to a Wind Ensemble concert; I know you’ll hear something you like! Or check out the classes offered by our Dance Program; for example, this semester, for the first time, we are offering a class on Hip-Hop dance!

Our faculty continues to do extraordinary work, both on campus and off, so please make sure to look for opportunities to hear them in action. As you’ll see later in the newsletter, many of our faculty are being featured on the Jewel Box series this year, so come out and support them.

You’ll also learn about some of our scholarship winners. This should encourage you to practice harder so you, too can join their ranks and get some well-deserved recognition for your hard work (and the cash award is also great). Our Concerto Competition will take place again this year, so talk with your teachers about what you can do to prepare for this.

Finally, it’s important that we stay in touch with our community-at-large who support our studies and attend our concerts. We thank them for their continued attendance and look forward to seeing them many more times this year.

Sing on, play on!

-- Dr. Robert Heitzinger

FOUR NEW MUSIC FACULTY MEMBERS

This fall, the NEIU Department of Music welcomes four nationally recognized faculty members!

• Andrew Carpenter, applied saxophone
• Claire DiVizio, opera workshop director
• Dr. Leah Hagel, applied cello
• Matt Ulery, applied double bass

Learn more about each of them at neiu.edu/music and help us welcome them into our musical community!

STUDENT SPOTLIGHT: LYDIA NANCE

My name is Lydia Nance and I am a bassoonist enrolled in the TLP and Master's in Applied Pedagogy! This is my second year here at NEIU and I will be student teaching next semester. I grew up in Huntsville, Alabama, received my performance degree in Nashville at Vanderbilt and lived there for a few years, and then moved to Chicago in fall of 2019. After searching for a new job in Chicago, I realized I wanted to work with students first and foremost and with some soul-searching through the pandemic, decided to return to school to earn my licensure to become a music educator. 

I am the Music Department graduate assistant. My work is involved with instrument inventory, instrument lockers, and all things wind ensemble related. My previous work within the realm of arts administration has informed a lot of the skills that I brought to this position and I continue to expand on them here. So much of the instrument inventory and wind ensemble preparation work is directly contributing to my experience in the behind-the-scenes of a band program and will be very applicable in a future job.

The music department here at NEIU is the kindest, most supportive group of faculty, staff, and students I have ever come across. I have gotten so close to the colleagues in my classes so quickly - particularly Katherine, Lenny, and Patrick who were in ALL of my classes at the beginning! A memory that sticks with me was attending the Chamber Singers and Chorus' Brahms Requiem performance at Queen of the Apostles Church in December, so just at the end of my first semester. I was immediately greeted by a dozen friendly faces who I saw regularly and still went out of their way to say they were glad to see me, told my husband how delightful it is to have me in the department, and wanted to grab a bite to eat afterwards. Adjusting to being back in school that first semester had been tough, but this memory still brings tears to my eyes because it was so nice to belong somewhere.

GUEST ARTISTS ON CAMPUS THIS FALL

The NEIU Department of Music is excited to host a number of exciting guest artists this fall in both Music and Dance: 

• Winnie Cheung brings her duo Tango with Winnie to NEIU’s Recital Hall on Tuesday, October 4 for an afternoon performance of music for piano and bandoneon. 
• The Ruth Page Dance Series’ Behind the Curtain season kicks off with a program titled Afro-Cuban Culture and Dance on Monday, October 10 at 2:30pm in the Auditorium. 
• On Friday, October 14 at 7:30pm, NEIU faculty member Katherine Petersen presents a recital of works by Amy Beach, Mieczyslaw Weinberg, Marc Mellits, Ruby Fulton, Lori Laitman and Rob McClure. The performance feature guest artists Rachel Brown (violin), Patrycja Likos (cello), Sarah Marchitelli (tenor saxophone), Marianne Parker (piano), and Jacob Swanson (alto saxophone).
• The Galan Trio, traveling from Greece for a North American tour, spends a day at NEIU reading new compositions by NEIU music students in the afternoon and then presenting a formal concert at 7:30pm in the Recital Hall.

CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR

NAMED SCHOLARSHIP RECIPIENTS

Each year, our students perform for a scholarship committee for the honor of receiving support from named scholarship funds, which have been established over the years to further the education of talented music students here at NEIU. We are thrilled to announce the winners of the following scholarships for the 2022-2023 school year:

2023-2024 Scholarships Auditions will take place on Saturday, March 4, 2023 and Saturday, April 1, 2023. Visit neiu.edu/auditions to stay up to date with current audition information.

NEIU MUSIC IN THE

2022-2023 JEWEL BOX SEASON

Check out the entire 2022-2023 Jewel Box Series and grab your tickets for these exciting shows before they sell out! We are especially excited for NEIU Music community to be featured:

• Hideko Amano (flute), Kay Kim (piano), and Friends! on January 20
• NEIU Faculty Brass & Percussion on March 3
• Camerata Chicago featuring Katherine Petersen on April 21

STAY IN TOUCH!

Stay in touch with the NEIU Department of Music on facebook and youtube (click on the icons below) or visit us at neiu.edu/music anytime. Prospective students can share their information with us using this form and anyone can sign themselves up for our newsletters here. You can also visit NEIU's online Arts Calendar any time.