Department News

On February 8, 2009, at the 51st annual Grammy Awards, Gloria Cheng's CD, Piano Music of Salonen, Stucky, and Lutoslawski, won in the category for the Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (without Orchestra).  Released in 2008 by Telarc, the disc features two works of Professor Steven Stucky—his Album Leaves (written for and premiered by Xak Bjerken in Barnes Hall, February 2003) and Three Little Variations for David (written for David Zinman's gala 65th-birthday concert in July 2001 at the Aspen Music Festival), as well as the liner notes.
continue...

Xak Bjerken and Miri Yamposky have new CDs both with a release date of February 2009.  Might this suggest a bit of competition in the family?  Actually, it's merely coincidence that both of these pianists can celebrate releases in this month.

Xak Bjerken is pianist for Chandos' CD, The Horse with the Lavender Eye,  featuring piano and chamber music of American composer Stephen Hartke (b. 1952). 

Pianist Miri Yampolsky and long-time collaborator Ariadne Daskalakis recorded Witold Lutoslawski's complete works for violin and piano, as well as music of Szymanowski and Janacek for their Naxos CD.
continue...

Sarah Day-O'Connell, assistant professor of music at Knox College (Galesburg, Illinois), has received a national award for innovative course design. Day-O'Connell was one of three winners in the 2008-09 Innovative Course Design Competition, sponsored by the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies.  She earned her Ph.D. in history and world music at Cornell University in 2004. See Knox College full release.

continue...

Congratulations to cellist Adrianne Ngam, this year's concerto competition winner! She played Ginastera's Pampeana No. 2.  Read more about the competition here.

continue...

Composer Steven Stucky's new piece "Rhapsodies" will be featured this month, September 18-20 and 23, by the New York Philharmonic.  An online video featuring Stucky discussing his new work can be found here on nyphil.org. continue...

Composer Roberto Sierra, the Old Dominion Foundation Professor in the Humanities at Cornell, has been selected to compose the inaugural work for the Sphinx Commissioning Consortium.
continue...

Student Nathan Ward (Music 120, 220, 620, 302) will present work developed at the Cornell Electroacoustic Music Center at the 2008 NIME (New Interfaces for Musical Expression) conference in Genova, Italy (June 5-7).  His work "presents examples of a wireless sensor network as applied to interactive media applications. continue...

Malcolm Bilson's performance of Haydn's Fantasia in C, performed in the Esterháza Castle in Fertöd, Hungary. continue...

Mayfest '08 (Xak Bjerken and Miri Yampolsky, Artistic Directors) offers intimate chamber music concerts in Cornell’s Barnes Hall as well as at the nearby Hay Loft of the Carriage House Café.  A lively combination of classics, newer works, and jazz are presented by internationally renowned guests, Cornell music faculty, and select student performers, as well as works written just for us by Cornellians Steven Burke and Chris Gendall. continue...

The Cornell University Chorus and Glee Club will travel to cities in mainland China March 13-25 to perform for a wide range of audiences, building on the Cornell-China relationship founded more than a century ago. continue...