News and Upcoming UConn Music Events:

Faculty Spotlight

Summer is a time when our faculty members accomplish much in the areas of performance and scholarship. We asked our faculty members to share about their summer plans and activities. This week we are pleased give details of reports from professors Hanzlik, MacDonald, and Rice.

Louis Hanzlik

This May, Louis Hanzlik will travel to Japan, performing Mendelssohn’s Italian Symphony and other works with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra in Tokyo, Osaka, Kitakami, Sendai, and Fujisawa.  While in Japan, Hanzlik will also serve as guest artist with the Kansai Trumpet Players’ Association, Osaka, where he will present master classes, brass chamber music coachings, and a public recital, performing works by Kennan, de Falla, and Nishimura.

In July, Hanzlik will be in-residence with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s at the Caramoor International Music Festival, Katonah, NY.  During the 5-week festival, Hanzlik will perform concerts that include Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, Rossini’s opera Ciro in Babilonia, and Bellini’s opera, I Capuleti ed I Montecchi.

In August, Hanzlik will be in-residence at MIT (Cambridge, MA) for the Atlantic Brass Quintet’s International Brass Quintet Seminar.  At MIT, Hanzlik will perform multiple concerts with the Atlantic Brass Quintet, and work closely with 50 brass students from around the country in brass chamber music technique and repertoire.
 
When not performing this summer, you’ll find Hanzlik at home, either enjoying time with his wife and children, or wading through the trout streams of “Quiet Corner” Connecticut.

Earl MacDonald

MacDonald plans to write a substantial amount of music this summer in preparation for a recording with his 10-piece band, “the New Directions Ensemble”. The group will perform in Hartford on August 13th, as part of the Monday Night Jazz in Bushnell Park series, and at Mansfield’s Festival on the Green in September. Other commissioned writing projects include a series of big band arrangements for Canadian jazz drummer, Tyler Hornby.

During May and June, MacDonald has undertaken a blogging challenge where he is chronicling his piano practicing as he goes about learning some of John Coltrane's most challenging tunes. You can read his posts at http://everupandonward.blogspot.com/.

In July, MacDonald plans to sharpen his skills on the drum set by taking lessons with jazz drummer, Ben Bilello. In August, MacDonald will be an artist-in-residence at the Kincardine Summer Music Festival in Canada.
Throughout the summer MacDonald will be posting his upcoming performances on his new web site, www.earlmacdonald.com.

When not writing, practicing and performing music, MacDonald can be found in skateboard parks throughout Connecticut, practicing “ollies” and other dangerous tricks with his son. Don’t worry --- he wears wrist guards and a helmet.

Eric Rice

This June, Eric Rice will conduct two concerts as part of the Connecticut Early Music Festival, for which he serves as Artistic Director. Ensemble Origo will perform “Nova Hispania – Music from the Cathedrals of Bogotá, Lima, and Quito”  at Christ the King Church in Old Lyme, CT, on June 9 and the Connecticut Early Music Ensemble will perform Mozart’s comic masterpiece Die Entführung aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the Seraglio) at Evans Hall, Connecticut College, New London, on June 23. Rice will also offer pre-concert talks before both of these performances. Several UConn students and colleagues will be performing at these concerts: Lisa Lynch (DMA candidate) sings soprano in Ensemble Origo, and Dr. Louis Hanzlik (faculty) and David Wharton (DMA candidate)  will play valveless trumpets with the Connecticut Early Music Ensemble.  For more about the festival, see www.ctearlymusic.org.

In July and August, Rice will continue a research project on music heard at the coronation of Emperor Charles V in Bologna in 1530 in preparation for a set of concerts given by Ensemble Origo in October.

Dean of the School of Fine Arts Appointed

Brid Grant has been named the next dean of the University of Connecticut’s School of Fine Arts. Grant, a pianist by training with a long career in higher education in Ireland, is the current Dean and Director of the Dublin Institute of Technology’s (DIT) College of Arts and Tourism. She was the Dean and Director of the school’s Faculty of Applied Arts from 2007 to 2010 and headed its Conservatory of Music and Drama from 2003 to 2007, where she began as a Senior Lecturer in Piano and Academic Studies in 1980. read more

Welcome Maestro Felder and Maestro Spillane

The Department of Music is delighted to announce that Harvey Felder has accepted UConn's offer of appointment as Associate Professor and Director of Orchestral Studies beginning with the 2012-13 academic year. A conductor with impressive professional experience, Mr. Felder currently is in a three-year process of resigning as Music Director of the Tacoma Symphony, remaining to permit that orchestra to conduct a national search for his replacement. Previously, he was Associate Professor at the University of West Virginia.

For a more comprehensive listing of his accomplishments, visit http://www.conductorscooperative.com/bio-harvey_felder.html.

The Department of Music is pleased to announced that Dr. Jamie Spillane will be joining us as our new Associate Professor and Director of Choral Studies. Dr. Spillane earned his Master of Music in Education at UConn and taught both here and at Central Connecticut State University as a visiting lecturer. Since earning his DMA in Choral Conducting (Minor in Music Education) at the University of Arizona, he has held positions at the associate-professor level at Iowa Wesleyan and Roberts Wesleyan Colleges, where he has taught voice, conducting, and diction classes and conducted choirs of various sizes as well as opera.