Currently living in Davis, CA, Tekla Babyak (PhD, 2014, musicology) is an independent scholar and disability activist with multiple sclerosis. In 2022, her chapter, “Rehearing Brahms’s Late Intermezzi: The Eternal Recurrence of Reflection,” was published in Rethinking Brahms (Oxford University Press), in which she openly disclosed her MS in the contributor bio to express disability pride. Along similar lines, she recently gave an interview for the scholarly publishing platform Scholastica, “Steps journals can take to support authors with disabilities.” Further amplifying her disabled presence in academic spaces, she organized panels on Goethe and music for the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Conference (March 9-11, 2023, St. Louis, MO). All of these diverse activities were guided by her quest for anti-ableist visibility.
Judy Singer Bercuvitz (BA, 1960, music) writes, “While at Cornell I played the piano, including playing duo piano with Andy Thomas in the Carnival of the Animals. I had wonderful professors: Karel Husa, Donald Grout, John Kirkpatrick, and Thomas Sokol. I sang in the University Choir and in a small women's singing group called The Notables. I taught music theory and ear training at McGill University after I got my MMA from McGill in 1975. Over the years I also played the flute, timpani, and viola da gamba. I conducted my synagogue choir. I may not be a "notable alum" in the traditional sense, but I think it might be noteworthy and even meaningful -- especially for some of your younger readers -- to know that I have maintained my passion for music and my commitment to my piano playing for almost 65 years. I am turning 85 next week and despite having lost part of a finger in an accident enduring much physical pain, I still play the piano every day. I have played in Montreal and in my travels around the world to lift the spirits of friends suffering from cancer treatments or the loss of a spouse and for strangers, just to make their day better. Right now, I am preparing a Beethoven Sonata, Op. 31, No. 2, to play for my children and grandchildren when they come to Montreal for my 85th birthday party this week. To me, at least, this feels very notable. My Cornell music education was a gift that keeps on giving."
Can Bilir (DMA, 2019, composition) recently completed his yearlong research on acoustic ecologies in Thailand, where he was the Second Century Fund Postdoctoral Fellow at Chulalongkorn University. With his composition Fallen, he was listed among the top fifteen composers in global usage of the Contemporary Music Score Collection at UCLA, two years in row. He was commissioned to write a new work for the 2024 Oxford Lieder Festival in the United Kingdom for the 100th anniversary of Franz Kafka’s death. His article, “Scaling Refrains,” has been published by the Columbia University based peer-reviewed experimental music journal, Openwork. He will be joining the University of Michigan as a Research Associate and the University of Oxford as the Albi Rosenthal Fellow in the upcoming academic year.
Patrick Braga (BA/BS, 2017, music, urban studies, economics) is consistently writing new liturgical music for Catholic parishes in the Detroit metro area.
Dan Brown (BA, 1971, music) writes, “I've published a couple of innovative e-books on music. They link accessible (I hope) yet incisive (I hope) commentary to self-playing scores and are intended for music-lovers ranging from the layperson to the expert. The books are Why Bach?: An Audio-Visual Appreciation, and Bach, Beethoven, Bartok: Confluence in Music. More info under "Books" on my website danielbrownpoet.com. (Confession: I've published books of poetry too.)”
Ellie Cherry (BA, 2019, music) is a composer of acoustic, electronic, and electro-acoustic experimental music. Her work draws inspiration from natural phenomena, human connectivity, and post-modern gestalt, incorporating techniques of spectral theory, field recording, and algorithmic processes. After completing her degree magna cum laude at Cornell, she went on to fulfill an MMus of Composition at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, where she studied with Emily Doolittle, Alistair MacDonald, and Linda Buckley. In 2022, her piece Boiling Frog was selected for a premiere by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. She is currently fulfilling a PhD in Music Composition at Princeton University as a Roger Sessions Fellow. More info and links to her music can be found on her website at www.elliecherrycomposer.com.
Evan Cortens (PhD, 2014, musicology) was appointed Interim Dean of Continuing Education (which includes our music conservatory) at Mount Royal University in June 2022, while also retaining his position as Director of Institutional Research and Planning at the same institution. He is currently finishing up the chapter on cantatas by J. S. Bach’s contemporaries, to be published in the Cambridge Companion to the Bach Cantata. He serves as Secretary-Treasurer for the Society for Eighteenth Century Music.
Rebecca Cypess (BA, 2000, music) writes, “I'm thrilled to be serving a two-year term as Review Editor of the Journal of the American Musicological Society and to have become an area editor of the early modern section for Grove Music Online's women and gender revision project. My recent publications include "Girolamo Frescobaldi's Fiori musicali: Music and Flowery Metaphors in Early Modern Europe" (Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music), "Notation, Performance, and the Significance of Print in the Music of Ignatius Sancho" (Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies), and "The Poetics of the Wise Fool in the Music and Letters of Ignatius Sancho" (Music & Letters).”
Michael P. DiGiovanna (BA/BS, music and biological sciences) writes, “I am now Professor of Medicine (Oncology) and Pharmacology at Yale. That’s what happens when one double majors in Music and Biochemistry at Cornell!”
Emily I. Dolan (PhD, 2006, musicology) writes, “In Fall 2022, the Oxford Handbook of Timbre, co-edited by Emily I. Dolan and Alexander Rehding won the Ruth A. Solie Prize from the American Musicological Society, awarded annually to a collection of musicological essays of 'exceptional merit.'”
Tyler Ehrlich (BA, 2014, music) writes, “After teaching at the collegiate and secondary levels in Atlanta for five years, I moved to Austin last summer and began my DMA in Wind Conducting at The University of Texas.”
Timothy Eng (BA/BS, 2022, music and physics) writes, “I’m just finishing up my MEng in Engineering Management here at Cornell where I participated in the CSO, chamber music, vocal ensemble accompaniment, and started and conducted my own ensemble. I am beginning to pursue orchestral conducting: I recently studied with Markand Thakar at the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra and will soon study at the International Conducting Workshop and Festival with Don Schleicher, and NOI+F with Marin Alsop and James Ross.”
Cheryl B. Engelhardt (BA/BS, 2002, music and biology) writes, “Just before the pandemic, I co-produced the musical I wrote the music and lyrics for, Boiler Room Girls, and was working on edits with my book writer and best friend, director Kevin Archambault. Last year, Kevin passed away from cancer, and my grief found me on a cross-country train trip to process it all. On that trip, I wrote and produced an ambient/electronic album called The Passenger. It was my seventh album and my third in the New Age genre (the first four were singer-songwriter projects.) Well, The Passenger made it to #1 on iTunes and was also nominated for a GRAMMY award! I continue to compose music for ads, films, social justice choirs, and meditation apps. (More info at www.cbemusic.com.)
Drake Eshleman (BA, 2020, music) writes, “After living and working in Ithaca for two years after graduating, I started a PhD in Music Theory at the Jacobs School of Music in Indiana University! Aside from my coursework and teaching opportunities, I've been doing editing work for the Indiana Theory Review and Analytical Approaches for World Music. I recently started a summer job with the Archives of Traditional Music here, and I also had the opportunity to sing with NOTUS, Indiana University's contemporary vocal ensemble, for a year!”
Elizabeth Field (DMA, 1999, keyboard studies) writes, “My period instrumental ensemble, The Vivaldi Project (co-directed with Cornell alum, Stephanie Vial) will record volume 4 of our critically acclaimed series Discovering the Classical String Trio on MSR Classics. Hailing the ensemble as “simply breathtaking,” Fanfare Magazine also wrote, “The group’s exquisite sense of ensemble, vibrant sound and ardent cantabile represent period instrument playing at its best.” I also continue into my 22nd year as the concertmaster of the Bethlehem Bach Orchestra which will be recording Mendelssohn's version of Bach's St. Matthew Passion in October of 2023. This recording will be produced by renowned musicologist, Malcolm Bruno, released simultaneously with the publication of his new critical edition of the score. Please visit The Vivaldi Project at www.thevivaldiproject.org.”
David Friend (DMA, 2019, keyboard studies) has recently performed extensively with a variety of new music groups including Talea Ensemble, Ensemble Signal, and Switch~ Ensemble. Performances have included those at Warsaw Autumn Festival, Time of Music Festival (Finland), and the Walker Art Museum, featuring premieres of major new works by composers such as Mark Applebaum and Agata Zubel. He performed in the Frederic Rzewski tribute at Merkin Hall, alongside piano luminaries including Ursula Oppens and Conrad Tao, and also recently joined forces with Vicky Chow for a two-piano performance for Bang on a Can's Long Play Festival. A long-time advocate of Julius Eastman's music, he joined Talea Ensemble for Finland's first performance of Eastman's Femenine as well as its first performance at NYC's Sidewalk Studio, Lincoln Center's new performance space.
Patricia Hurley (BA, 1959, music) writes, “Thanks for reaching out! I have not had a "distinguished career" but have been involved with music my entire life. After Cornell I received an MM in music ed from Eastman, followed by 38 years of public-school teaching. As a trumpet player I have performed in many orchestras and chamber groups, most notably as co-principal trumpet in the Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestra and in my brass quartet, Fair Winds. While I was teaching in my hometown in CT, I founded the Community Music School in Centerbrook. The school is celebrating its 40th anniversary with an event featuring one of our board members, Todd Ellison, a renowned Broadway conductor. I founded and directed a chapter of the New Horizons Band in 2009 at the school. Our 20 musicians (the oldest is a 91-year-old trombone player) perform concerts in local retirement homes and senior centers as well as for elementary and middle schools. I also continue to teach trumpet at the school and perform with local opera companies, choral groups as well as with the Wesleyan University Orchestra. I was fortunate at Cornell to play in the orchestra under the beloved Karel Husa as well as studying conducting with him. My class celebrated him at our 45th reunion with a gift of a piano and practice room in the newly dedicated music building, as well as a performance of a brass quintet composed in his honor by one of his composition students, Tom Duffy, director of Yale Bands.”
Takuma Itoh (DMA, 2012, composition) writes, “I led the "Symphony of the Hawai‘i Forests" project, an educational orchestra concert that brings together new music, animation, hula, storytelling, student art, and science to bring attention to Hawai‘i's rich forest ecosystems. The concert, performed four times by the Hawai‘i Symphony Orchestra between April 20-21, 2023, attracted nearly 3,000 young students and teachers from across O‘ahu. The project featured compositions from myself and fellow Cornell alumna Tonia Ko, among others. This project builds on the success of another project I led in 2018 called the "Symphony of the Hawaiian Birds," which focused on the diversity of Hawaiʻi’s native forest birds, many of which are highly endangered. The program has been performed 10 times thus far on O‘ahu, and was also performed by the Utah Symphony in early 2020 as part of their educational program.”
Seth Kibel (BA, 1996, music) writes, “On May 19, I released my latest album on Azalea City Recordings, Clown With A Stick. The eleven tracks on the album range stylistically from straight-ahead jazz to Jewish klezmer to even a little taste of Motown. There are melodies familiar to all, as well as rarer selections and four original compositions by yours truly. I'm featured on clarinet on most tracks, as well as two where I play one of his “other sticks,” the flute. The album is available at pretty much every online music source, both digitally and as a physical CD. More info can be found at www.sethkibel.com."
Tonia Ko (DMA, 2017, composition) is enjoying an active freelance career from London, UK, where she has been based since 2019. This past season she had premieres at Manchester’s Stoller Hall, LSO St Luke’s, Hawai‘i Theater (see Takuma’s post), National Sawdust, and Berliner Ensemble. Tonia’s bubble wrap practice continues: her 2021 Koussevitzky Commission Breath, Contained III for soloist and chamber orchestra was premiered by Contemporaneous in June. An expansion of this concerto format for full symphony orchestra is planned to take place in 2024 with the Luxembourg Philharmonic. (Breath, Contained I & II were developed at Cornell) She is teaching at the soundSCAPE and Plurisons festivals this summer and continues to serve as Lecturer in Composition at Royal Holloway, University of London.
Leonard J. Lehrman (DMA, 1977, composition) writes, "My experiences at Cornell continue to have a great influence on various aspects of my career. It was there that I first auditioned for the role of King Gama in Princess Ida, and coached my then girlfriend, Karen S. Campbell (Class of 1975), who became my first wife, to audition for the production. I now find myself conducting that opera with the Gilbert & Sullivan Light Opera Company of Long Island's biggest production of this century, June 17-July 1. I've also been producing a series of concerts live and on Zoom, in conjunction with the local Henry Waldinger Memorial Library and Court Street Music (which I co-founded in 1999) in Valley Stream, every June featuring Students & Teachers. This year's June 27 performance included works by my teacher at Cornell Robert M. Palmer and my fellow Cornell grad student Brian M. Israel, and interviews with Bob's daughter and son-in-law as well as Brian's widow, Rev. Christine Day (Class of 1975)."
In May 2023, Rebecca Lomnicky (BA, 2014, music and anthropology) graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with her Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology. Her dissertation is titled “Precarious Labor: Performance as Livelihood in Scotland’s Traditional Music Scene” and will become available open access later this summer. During her time at Berkeley, she also earned two MA degrees (in Folklore and Ethnomusicology) and has continued her career as a professional fiddler, recording artist, and performer of Scottish traditional music. To see Rebecca’s performance schedule and latest updates, please visit her website: www.rebeccalomnicky.com
Heather MacLachlan (PhD, 2009, ethnomusicology) was promoted to the rank of Professor at the University of Dayton (Dayton, Ohio), beginning August 2022.
In March 2023, Albany Records released String Cosmology, a collection of works for string orchestra performed by the Sinfonietta of Riverdale (NY), conducted by Mark Mandarano (BA, 1987, music), including works composed by Steven Stucky and Karel Husa. In June 2023, Mark will conduct the Sinfonietta in the world premiere of the Byron Adams’ Horn Concerto featuring soloist Leelanee Sterrett of the New York Philharmonic. The 2022-23 season was Mark's first as Artistic Director of the Minnesota Youth Symphonies, which featured performances at Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis, including works by Brahms, Elgar, Coleridge-Taylor, and Amy Beach. Finally, in May 2023, Mark was promoted to full Professor at Macalester College, where he is the Director of Instrumental Music.
Fang Man’s (DMA, 2010, composition) symphonic poem, Song of the Flaming Phoenix, for sheng and large orchestra was premiered by the San Francisco Symphony under Esa-Pekka Salonen on March 3-5, 2022. She was also commissioned by the Queen Elisabeth Competition to compose a new cello concerto to be premiered by the eleven finalists and large orchestra in 2026.
Nanette McGuinness (BA, 1980, music) writes, “SF contemporary chamber music Ensemble for These Times, which I co-founded and am Artistic Executive Director of, just celebrated our 15th anniversary season after winning The American Prize for Chamber Music Performance in 2021. E4TT released our fourth recording last year, The Guernica Project (Centaur Records)—music by Spanish and California composers in honor of Picasso’s masterpiece and the 1937 tragedy that inspired him—and toured our multi-year initiative (focus of our upcoming recording), “Emigres & Exiles in Hollywood,” last summer to the Krakow Jewish Festival. I’m also the translator of 100+ books and graphic novels (from French, Italian, German, and Spanish), with Alice on the Run: One Child’s Journey Through the Rwandan Civil War(2022) just shortlisted for the GLLI YA Translated Book Prize.
Kyungyoon John Nam (BA, 2002, music) writes, “I'm a jazz pianist and Associate Professor in the Department of Applied Music and Sound at Keimyung University in South Korea where I've been teaching since 2010. This year, I've had the honor of receiving the Outstanding Faculty Achievement Award, which was given to 30 out of about 900 full-time professors. I was the only faculty member to receive this award from the School of Music and Performing Arts this year. My notable accomplishment is that I released my fifth jazz piano album as a leader (recording with world-class drummer Ari Hoenig and GRAMMY-award winning bassist Ben Williams from the US) and was highly praised by the critics. I was also featured on the cover of MM Jazz Magazine in South Korea in 2019.”
Stefania Neonato (DMA, 2011, keyboard studies) writes, “I received tenure in 2016 at the Stuttgart Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst where I coach and advise students from all over the world. I started giving masterclasses on historical performance practice on period pianos at conservatories in Italy, (Turin, Vicenza, Parma), the University of Music in Lisbon, and in Vác, Hungary. In 2018, I released my fifth CD rediscovering and premiering piano music by Italian composer Giacomo Gotifredo Ferrari, a contemporary of Mozart. I also started a very fruitful collaboration with violinist Christine Busch with whom I performed the complete Beethoven Sonatas for fortepiano and violin in Stuttgart (Landesmuseum-Fruchtkasten) in 2016. Two of these were recorded in 2022 and broadcast by German Radio station SWR 2, with a CD recording to be released. After the long COVID pause, my concert activities resumed and I traveled to Vienna, Lisbon, and Rome, among other places. I will make my debut at the Boston Early Music Festival, on June 8th, 2023. Current projects involve work on women composers from the 18th and 19th centuries and V. Alkan's piano works."
Nancy November (PhD, 2003, musicology), Professor of Musicology at The University of Auckland, was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand Te Apārangi.
Riley Owens (BA, 2017, music) writes, “I was an Assistant Engineer on the upcoming Boys Like Girls record and am now preparing for summer gigs in Nashville and New York City.”
Pierpaolo Polzonetti (PhD, 2003, musicology) has been granted the 2023 Library Travel Grant from the Cuban Research Institute (CRI), the Kimberly Green Latin American and Caribbean Center (LACC), and the FIU Libraries, to conduct research in the Díaz-Ayala Cuban and Latin American Popular Music Collection on “Cuban Sound Recipes: Songs About Food from Son to Salsa."
Carlos Roberto Ramírez (PhD, 2019, musicology) recently piloted the course "Music of/in Puerto Rico" at the University of Illinois (Champaign-Urbana); the course--a macro history of sound and culture in the Island from the 15th century to the present--is among the only of its kind in the US and enrolled 300 undergraduates from across the University. He is currently working on a monograph titled Sound and Power in Puerto Rico: A Quincentennial Sonic History.
Camila Reynolds-Dominguez (BA, 2020, music) writes, “I recently completed my second year of law school at the University of Maryland. Over the last few months, I helped get the Trans Health Equity Act passed into state law here. I am about to release an EP with my band, Pet Names, and am playing a concert in DC on June 23 with two other Cornell alums. Check us out at petnamesmusic.com!”
Emanuele Senici (PhD, 1998, musicology) writes, “The undisputed highlight of 2022 was delivering the annual Donald J. Grout Memorial Lecture in the Cornell Music Department on 21 April, on the topic of "Puccini, Rossini, and Us."”
Matt Testa (BA, 2003, music and psychology) writes, “I have been the archivist for the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University since 2016, managing historic institutional records and special collections related to the performing arts. I co-authored a chapter titled “Music Specialists in Archives, Special Collections, and Museums” for the 2022 book Careers in Music Libraries IV (A-R Editions) and delivered a presentation on access to born-digital performance videos for the annual meeting of the Music Library Association in March 2023.”
Weston Walker (BA, 2004, music) writes, “My architecture firm, Studio Gang, has just opened a significant new addition to the American Museum on Natural History in NYC: the Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation. We hope you will visit!”
Xi Wang’s (DMA, 2008, composition) work Ensō, commissioned by the Philadelphia Orchestra, was premiered on December 8, 9, and 10, 2022 at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia. The New York premiere was on December 13, 2022, at Carnegie Hall, under Yannick Nézet-Séguin. A review by The New Criterion can be found here. Lotus Prayer, commissioned by the League of American Orchestras and supported by the Toulmin Foundation, was premiered by the Berkeley Symphony on June 4, 2023, at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley, CA under Joseph Young. YEAR 2020, a concerto for violin, trumpet, and orchestra, which was commissioned by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, will be premiered on February 22, 23, 24, & 25, 2024 at Meyerson Symphony Center under Fabio Luisi, and will feature violinist Karen Gomyo and trumpeter Tine Thing Helseth. Xi Wang received a Fromm Foundation commission from Harvard University in 2019 and recently, received the Alumni Achievement Award from the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
Richard Will (PhD, 1994, musicology) is Professor of Music and Chair of the Department of Drama at the University of Virginia. His new book, “Don Giovanni” Captured: Performance, Media, Myth, was published by the University of Chicago Press in June 2022!
Andrew Willis (DMA, 1994, keyboard studies) writes, “In March, I directed the international conference "Between Old Worlds and New: Keyboard Encounters c. 1700-1900" at the Sigal Music Museum in Greenville SC, sponsored by the Westfield Center for Historical Keyboard Studies. Summer activities include teaching at Academy of Fortepiano Performance, Hunter NY; a recital at the Accademia Bartolomeo Cristofori, Florence; and a presentation on J.G. Müthel at the College Music Society International Meeting in Riga.
