Alumni News 2019

Graduate Alumni News

  • Evan Cortens (Ph.D. Musicology, 2014) is the Manager of Academic Initiatives at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. His article “‘Die Music sowohl in alß außer der Kirchen’: Graupner’s Cantatas and the ‘Opernteufel’ of Darmstadt” was recently published in Fasch-Studien 14 and his edition of C. P. E. Bach's 1782 St. Mark Passion is entering the final stages of preparation for publication. Evan was recently elected as a Director-at-Large on the board of the Spiritus Chamber Choir (Calgary, Canada); he is also the Secretary-Treasurer for the Society for Eighteenth-Century Music, the Web Editor for the American Bach Society and an American Musicological Society Statistician. 
  • Mark Ferraguto (Ph.D. Musicology, 2012) received tenure and was promoted to Associate Professor of Music at the Pennsylvania State University. His book, Beethoven 1806, will be published by Oxford University Press this fall. 
  • Chris Gendall (DMA Composition, 2010) is a New Zealand-based freelance composer, fulfilling a number of commissions and other related projects. Most recently, he has released his debut portrait album on the Rattle label: a violin concerto for Mark Menzies and the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra, and a solo horn work for Ensemble Modern horn player Saar Berger. He has held a number of residencies since graduating in 2010: the Jack C. Richards/Creative New Zealand Composer in Residence at the New Zealand School of Music, the Mozart Fellowship at the University of Otago, Composer in Residence with Orchestra Wellington, and Fellow at Civitella Ranieri. 
  • Balázs Mikusi (Ph.D. Musicology, 2010) has just completed his three-year term as President of the Hungarian Musicological Society and Vice-President of the International Association of Music Libraries (IAML), respectively. In April 2019, he was elected to be a member of the Academy for Mozart Research of the Salzburg Mozarteum Foundation. The same month his collection of articles entitled A pók és a méh (The Spider and the Bee) was published in Budapest, including the Hungarian translations of 24 articles on Haydn and Mozart, most of which originally appeared in journals including Ad Parnassum, Eighteenth-Century Music, Eisenstädter Haydn-Berichte, Haydn-Studien, Journal of Musicological Research, Mozart-Jahrbuch, Studia Musicologica, and The Musical Times. 
  • Norbert Palej (DMA Composition, 2008) has been continuing as Associate Professor and Head of Composition at the University of Toronto, as well as the artistic director of the New Music Festival. Last year, he also served as Advisor on Internationalization to the Dean. Musical journeys have taken him to Chile, for performances and a recording of his orchestral “Buscame en la Luz del Mediodia,” and to New York’s Carnegie Hall for a premiere of his “Crimean Sonnets” for baritone and string quartet. He is currently working on a chamber opera based on Ovid. 
  • Emily I. Dolan (Ph.D. Musicology, 2006) is currently co-editing The Oxford Handbook of Timbre with Alex Rehding. This July, Dolan will be joining Brown University as Department Chair and Associate Professor of Music. 
  • Heather Miller Lardin (DMA 2006) has been appointed Principal Bass of the Handel and Haydn Society in Boston. She lives in Philadelphia, where she directs the Temple University Early Music Ensemble and teaches a Suzuki double bass studio.
  • Sarah Day-O'Connell (MA Arts&Sci, 1998; Ph.D. Arts&Sci, 2004) is Associate Professor in the Music Department at Skidmore College. The Cambridge Haydn Encyclopedia, which she edited (and contributed to) with Caryl Clark, will be published this month. Her review of Cherubino's Leap: In Search of the Enlightenment Moment appeared in JAMS (The Journal of the American Musicological Society) in April 2019. Sarah also published "Seminar as Schubertiad, or, A New Journey for Schubert's Winterreise" in the Journal Accelerate in 2018. 
  • Jack Sheinbaum (Ph.D. Musicology, 2002) is happy to announce the publication of his book Good Music: What It Is and Who Gets to Decide (University of Chicago Press, 2019). He is an associate professor of musicology and the Associate Director for Academic Affairs at the University of Denver’s Lamont School of Music. He can be contacted at jack.sheinbaum@du.edu 
  • James Matheson (DMA Composition, 2001) “It’s been a busy year! In January, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra premiered Still Life on tour and then at Carnegie Hall – the first performance of my music in the main hall, which was quite a thrill. I just completed a new set of songs – Pessoa Songs – on poems by Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa, who had the habit of writing from identities that he created and inhabited. Four new CDs with recent piano music are now available as well. In other news, Ezra starts this fall at Bard High School Early College. We couldn’t more proud of him. In April we welcomed Phoebe, a 1 year old rescue puppy from Tennessee, into our home. She’s full of love and a little nuts – so she fits right in.” 
  • David Feurzeig (DMA Composition, 1997) has a new chamber music CD, Lingua Franca, on AMR-Naxos and streaming on a streaming service near you. He was promoted to Professor at the University of Vermont this spring, where he has taught composition and theory since 2008. More at dfeurzei.w3.uvm.edu/web
  • Carol Traupman-Carr (Ph.D.,1995) was named Vice Provost of Moravian College in February 2019, after 17 years in various academic administrative positions there. She has published over a dozen brass arrangements, often commissioned works, and founded the nation's only honor society for first generation college students, Alpha Alpha Alpha; she serves as president of the society.
  • Richard Will (MA A&S, 1989; Ph.D. Musicology, 1994) is finishing a book on the performance history of Mozart's Don Giovanni, to be published by the University of Chicago Press. In Fall 2018, he was appointed to a three-year term as Chair of the Department of Drama at the University of Virginia. 

  • Andrew Willis (DMA Historical Performance, 1994) has been appointed to a 5-year term as Marion Stedman Covington Distinguished Professor in the UNC Greensboro School of Music. Willis serves on the Board of Trustees of the Westfield Center for Historical Keyboard Studies and will perform at Westfield’s 40th anniversary conference at the Oberlin College Conservatory in October. His research study of the Six Partitas of J. S. Bach (Clavierübung I), using a replica of an early 18th-century Florentine fortepiano by David Sutherland, resulted in a monthlong performance tour of venues in the Northeastern U.S. this past spring. 

  • Carl Blake (DMA Historical Piano Performance, 1988) is currently Director of Music at The Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples in San Francisco and is an Advisory Board Member of San Francisco’s Noontime Concerts. He received Fulbright Scholar Awards in 1999 and 2006 in Honduras, has performed at the Weill and Wigmore Recital Halls, and held positions at the Herzen Pedagogical State University (St. Petersburg, Russia) and at Penn State University.
  • Leonard J. Lehrman (MFA '75, DMA '77) recently posted an article of particular interest to Cornellians, on Prof. Robert Palmer and Adam Tendler's new CD devoted to most of his solo piano music. Lehrman and Lehrman’s wife, Helene, made their London debut February 1st, launching that CD. He wrote a review devoted to most of Marc Blitzstein's solo piano music. His newest opera, "A Loveletter from Rosa Luxemburg," had four U.S. performances in January in English and one in Hamburg on February 9 in German. It will be sung again at the Lueneburg Festival October 10. Upcoming performances will be in Ann Arbor, MI; Madison, WI; and Moravia, NY.

Undergraduate Alumni News

  • Meredith Glaze (2018) has been pursuing her M.Ed. in School Counseling at the University of Maryland. While her internship work in Prince George's County Schools has reduced the amount of time she spends engaging in her own musical endeavors, she will continue to be an advocate for music education in public schools as she enters her career as a school counselor next year.
  • Tiffany Ge (2017) graduated in 2017 with a major in biology and minor in music. She’s currently a first-year Ph.D. student in a biomedical science program at Northwestern University and recently performed with their newly-formed orchestra. Though she took a brief respite from music, she was very happy to pick up cello again and is thankful for the opportunity to be a part of a warm community that shares our love for music with patients, friends, and the locals.
  • Riley Owens (2017) just released his first EP with new musical project, Stillwater Sound. The record is titled Kinetic Memory, a concept album symbolizing the cyclical nature of energy. Since graduating, Riley has been working alongside Gregg Lehrman '02, CEO and Founder of Output Inc., and would like to extend his thanks to Gregg and the team for encouraging the band to record in the Output studio. 
  • Michael Lee (2016) graduated in May with an Sc.M. in Computer Science from Brown University and is currently working on his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics. In March, his quartet was selected to perform Hindemith's Quartet for Clarinet, Violin, Cello, and Piano and Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time at Lincoln Center in New York City as part of the Intercollegiate Chamber Music Festival.
  • Migyan (Sally) Yu (2016) graduated with a major in Electrical and Computer Engineering and a minor in Music. She has decided to pursue music professionally and is very thrilled to share that she will be starting her Master’s Degree in Conducting at New England Conservatory this Fall.
  • Gilad Fefer (2015) recently earned a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine from Cornell's College of Veterinary Medicine Class of 2019 and will be starting a small animal rotating internship at the Animal Medical Center in New York City.
  • Garret Montoya-Jancich (2015) has teamed up with Nolan Jones ('13) to form an artist/production duo called Papa Bare + Prof. J. In November 2018, they released their debut project – a pair of EPs, "Peach" and "BlueGreen" that express their two musical and lyrical voices as they see them through color. They have garnered over 350,000 streams and are planning a tour through the Northeast this August 2019, with more music to come this summer as well. Their music is available on all digital platforms, and you can visit their website. They thank you for listening!
  • Tyler Ehrlich (2014) is serving as the Interim Wind Ensemble Conductor at Emory University for the 2019-2020 school year. He continues to serve as the Associate Director of Bands at Centennial High School (Roswell, GA) where he teaches 170 students daily. Tyler also works as an Associate Conductor with the Atlanta Wind Symphony, an adult community ensemble in the metro-Atlanta area. 
  • Amy S. Li (2014) "I am an English Ph.D. candidate at Emory University, and anticipate graduating in Spring 2020. In my dissertation, "A Future for Hopeful Monsters: Gender, Disability, Race, and Embodiment in Science Fiction," I analyze science fiction literature, film, and media that represent marginalized identity and socio-economic oppression. I have published an article on Stranger Things and have presented papers at several national and global conferences. I will be the 2019-2020 Digital Humanities Fellow at the Emory Center for Digital Scholarship, where I will be copy editor for the Atlanta Studies Journal and writer/content manager for upcoming projects. When I have time at home I still play keyboard, occasionally sing, and dream of a day when my neighbors won’t complain about my (admittedly rusty) violin playing."
  • Ray Li (2014) "At Cornell, my music partner and I developed a technology that lets us control music with motions and gestures. Since leaving Cornell, we continued working on what we created, and now work full-time as performing artists using our technology. Our group is based in Las Vegas. We travel often to perform shows as well as create videos and original music. See us in action here.
  • Solveig Imsdahl (2013) graduated in 2013 in music and premed, and qualified for the US National Rowing Team last year. Solveig will be representing the US in the women's pair at the 2019 PanAm Games in August in Lima, Peru.
  • Paul Maier (2013) “I've been living in Dublin, Ireland since graduating with a BSc. Hons. from ILR in 2013. Music has been a big part of what's made Dublin home for me and my fianceé, Andrea (who I met on a Glee Club trip to Smith, by the way!). We've played trombone and trumpet respectively with the Rathfarnham Concert Band Society, and we’ve sang with the RTÉ Philharmonic Choir and our chamber choir of close friends, Habemus. I just recently became a naturalized citizen of Ireland, and music was the way we’ve created the friendships to make us part of our community.”
  • Jacob “Jack” Reep (2013) is currently in his third year of medical school at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School in Newark, NJ. In the summer of 2018, his band, the Center Connect Quartet, wrote, produced, and recorded two original jazz albums. In August of 2018, Jacob founded and became the director of the NJMS Vocal Chords Jazz Ensemble. Over the 2018-2019 school year, they amassed three sets worth of repertoire of jazz standards, reggae/ska tunes, and some of Jacob’s original compositions. They have since played several school administration and student event gigs. Between finally putting an original band together and becoming the director of a school-based ensemble, this past year for Jacob has bought plenty of new musical experiences.
  • Greg Monte (2012) has released singles and remixes under the pseudonym “warner case" through Kitsuné Musique, Ultra Records, Unity Records, and independently, amassing over two million streams worldwide across platforms. Based in NYC, he was named one of Audiomack’s “Top Emerging Artists of 2019,” had his music performed during CBS’s NFL Honors Awards and synched in The Real World, and has shared the stage with many notable acts like Grammy-nominated Disclosure, artistic director of Louis Vuitton and Off-White founder Virgil Abloh, and many more. He is currently on his “kind of a tour” tour. For more, visit warnercase.com 
  • Liza Sobel (2012) has been busy as a composer and singer.  She is one of four composers selected to compose a new piece for the Orchestra of Saint Luke’s (OSL) DeGaetano Composition Institute. OSL will perform her piece at NYC’s DiMenna Center this July. In August, Liza will sing a concert at the Thirsty Ears Festival, Chicago’s classical music street festival. This March, Liza attended the Young Composers Meeting in Apeldoorn with orkest de ereprijs. Last summer, she attended both the Aspen Music Festival and Eighth Blackbird’s Creative Lab. In January 2020, Liza will participate in the Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute where her piece Ticking Time Bomb will be performed. Liza studies at Northwestern University for her DMA in composition.
  • Ian Chen (2011) moved to Los Angeles in 2013 to pursue a career as a film and TV composer. In 2018, his score for the feature documentary THIS LAND won him nominations at several film and music festivals across the globe, including Fimucité in Spain, and was in competition for the Crystal Pine Award at the International Sound & Film Music Festival alongside strong contenders such as Oscar-winning film ICARUS (2017). In 2019, he collaborated with Taiwanese horror director Lingo Hsieh on the new Netflix Original TV series GREEN DOOR, which features legendary singer Jam Hsiao and Golden Horse Best Leading Actress Yeh Ying-Hsuan in the leading roles. The show is now available on Netflix.

  • Robert Whalen (2006) was appointed Assistant Chorus Master of Opera Philadelphia. Katherine Skovira (2006) was appointed inaugural Zeller Chair of Opera Studies and Director of Dramatic Vocal Arts at Willamette University. As Music Director and Artistic Director of the Philadelphia-based ensemble SoundLAB, Robert and Katherine were in residence with the Philadelphia Orchestra in Fall 2018 for the Barnes/Stokowski Festival.

  • Rebecca Cypess (2000) is Associate Professor of Music at Rutgers University and has become Associate Director of her department. Her recent publications include Sara Levy's World: Gender, Judaism, and the Bach Tradition in Enlightenment Berlin, which she co-edited with Nancy Sinkoff. She also recently released the CD Sisters, Face to Face: The Bach Legacy in Women's Hands, which won the Noah Greenberg Award from the American Musicological Society for outstanding contributions to historical performance.

  • Seth Kibel (1996) continues to perform and record throughout the Mid-Atlantic.  His latest recording is "Tiny Hands," a politically-themed EP of original material co-written with singer-songwriter Flo Anito. More info at www.sethkibel.com.
  • Kathryn Emerson’s (1983) life has taken her far from Western music and the piano, although she continues on a daily basis to use the habits of mind and skills she cultivated at Cornell. She has lived in Indonesia for 27 years now, studying and performing Javanese gamelan and running an arts center to introduce foreigners to Javanese traditional arts. She received her Ph.D. at Leiden University in 2016, with her dissertation in both English and Indonesian entitled: Transforming Wayang for Contemporary Audiences. Together with Ki Purbo Asmoro, a world-famous Javanese shadow-puppet master, she completed the seven-volume Wayang Educational Package in 2013. Along with her husband Wakidi Dwidjomartono, a renowed Javanese drummer, she has performed at Cornell on a number of occasions over the past decade.
  • Nanette McGuinness (1980) and her chamber group Ensemble for These Times were awarded second place in Chamber Music Performance for 2018-19 by The American Prize. Their recording on Centaur, The Hungarians: from Rozsa to Justus, also won a Gold Medal in the 2018 Global Music Awards. E4TT's 11th season included a collaborative commissions program, "The Film Noir Project," and the penultimate concert in its "56x54" Call for Scores series, as well as sessions for two new recordings, the "Guernica" Project (music by Spanish and American composers commemorating Picasso's iconic painting inspired by the horrific 1937 bombing) and Once/Memory/Night: Paul Celan (new music in homage of seminal 20th century poet, Paul Celan) and a Southern California tour of its "Emigres & Exiles in Hollywood" program.

  • Brad Ross's (1979) musical setting, 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, has been performed by over 20 orchestras nationwide including The Oregon Symphony, The Rochester Philharmonic, The Dayton Philharmonic and The Arkansas Symphony. It is scored for solo vocalist with orchestra, SATB choir with orchestra, and a Swingin' Holiday Pops version for two vocalists and orchestra. Rather than being narrated, this version of the classic story is entirely sung!

  • Daniel Dorff (1978) is Vice President of Publishing at Theodore Presser Company and a frequently-performed composer. There are over 200 YouTube videos of his work, with over 1 million views. Recent and upcoming highlights include international performances of his 2018 Concertino for Flute, several all-Dorff chamber concerts at universities, and many performances of his narrated works at orchestral family concerts. More complete information is available at www.danieldorff.com.
  • Adam Perl (1967) has been living in Ithaca since 1972 and is happily married with 3 grown children including one Cornell grad, Amanda Perl, mother of his triplet grandchildren, age 2 ½. He retired in 2018 from 40 years as the owner of Pastimes Antiques, Ithaca, NY. Adam is a Cornell University Glee Club Alum and later on was a singer with the Cayuga Vocal Ensemble for 40 years. He was singer and choral director of the Savage Club in Ithaca, an offshoot of the Cornell University Glee Club (CUGC), founded in 1895. The Savage Club has performed at every Cornell Reunion since 1929. Adam has been a frequent singer in local theatrical productions and at the First Congregational Church, singer with the CUGC at Reunion Concerts, and has organized three reunions of the 1966 CUGC Asian Tour at Cornell in 1991, 2006, and 2015. He is also a constructor of crossword puzzles and has 30 published in the NY Times.
Top