Hannah Krall ‘18
Tell us about your career after leaving Cornell!
After graduating from Cornell University with a BA in music (2018), I entered Duke University’s PhD program to study musicology with Dr. Thomas Brothers. My dissertation is on the Creole of Color clarinet tradition and its intersections with the music of Duke Ellington, and I received my PhD in May 2024. As I was dissertating, I started working as an instructor of music at Shaw University (the first HBCU in the Southern United States). I currently serve as the chair of their music major, teaching music history and music theory, revising their music major, and advising students. I am in the process of being promoted to assistant professor!
How did the music program at Cornell help you get there?
The music program at Cornell is great at cultivating both music performance and scholarship for its undergraduate students. Musicologists in the department, such as Rebecca Harris-Warrick and Neal Zaslaw, took me under their wing once I discovered my interest in musicology. They guided me in the right direction when it came to my research projects and academic future. I gained performance experience through the jazz ensemble, jazz combos, and the wind symphony directed by Paul Merrill and James Spinazzola, which oftentimes invited extraordinary guests to work with us, such as Wynton Marsalis and David Maslanka. My musicianship during my time at Cornell grew exponentially with their guidance. More importantly, the music department at Cornell gives its students space to explore their own passions at the highest level. I am a founding member of the Original Cornell Syncopators, an early jazz combo geared toward the study of historical performance practice. Because of the Syncopators, I started researching early jazz, the topic of my dissertation. Without them, I probably would not be the musicologist I am today.
What are your favorite memories or takeaways from your time in the music department?
One of my favorite memories is working with and performing for Wynton Marsalis in 2018 with the jazz ensemble, the Syncopators, and the wind symphony. While rehearsals leading up to the performance were stressful, it was a remarkable experience learning from such a jazz giant! I also enjoyed learning how to play the viola da gamba and participated in the viol consort, which performed semesterly. Learning how to play Renaissance music was a unique experience that I still use in my teaching.
Why should people support the department/music education in general?
Music touches everyone and is a vital part of the humanities. It has the power to move and inspire. With that much strength, it needs to be supported and studied!
Ömer Aziz Kayhan ‘20
Tell us about your career after leaving Cornell! What was your pathway from Cornell to the present?
I am currently a Visiting Professor of Choral Studies at the University of Redlands in California, where I teach 7 courses and a choir. I teach Diction for Choral Singers with our Vocal Chamber Masters program, private lessons in conducting to our graduate students, and co-teach Choral Seminar with my supervisor Dr. Nicholle Andrews. I recently became the assistant conductor to Choral Arts Initiative under artistic director Brandon Elliott, a fully professional choir based in Orange County with the proliferation and world-class performances of new choral music as its mission. I will be leading the PREMIER Project Festival, one-of-a-kind festival, where we provide selected composers with a remarkable workshop/commission experience by offering in-depth seminars, mentoring sessions with renowned composers, and interactive rehearsals with an award-winning choral ensemble.
After I graduated Cornell with Economics and Music, I went back to my home country of Turkiye and studied for the masters in conducting entrance exams. I attended Eastman School of Music where I graduated with an MM in Conducting with a choral emphasis, conducting choirs, opera, and orchestras throughout my degree, culminating in my degree recitals and assistant work with MET conductor Tim Long on Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites.
How did the music program at Cornell help you get there?
The music program at Cornell emphasized strong musicological and writing skills. My work in each of my academic classes at Cornell gave me an edge in research in the institutions I study and work in. My advisor, Benjamin Piekut, opened my eyes and ears to so much new music and so many new sonic experiences and dismantled the judgements I had towards music that follows John Cage. Having participated in Chorale and as an assistant conductor for the Wind Symphony, I have sung with and conducted several works while at Cornell, and I am really grateful for the invaluable experience my teachers provided me. Time on the podium as a conductor is the only place where we get to practice our instrument, and my teachers in the music department at Cornell supported my endeavors all the way.
What are your favorite memories or takeaways from your time in the music department?
My favorite memories are the concerts with Chorale and Wind Symphony, especially Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms. It was my first time experiencing Stravinsky's harmonic universe, and I was utterly captivated. This fascination led me to discover the research of Taruskin and my undergraduate thesis paper I wrote under the supervision of Neal Zaslaw, focusing on the premier of The Rite of Spring. In my graduate studies at Eastman, I programmed his “Dumbarton Oaks” Concerto as a recital.
Why should people support the department/music education in general?
By proportion, a small section of the population makes their living off of music, but its importance to our biology, happiness, and well-being is undeniable. The study of it is the attunement of our sense of hearing. Music and music education contribute to our lives as dreams do to our slumber!
Patricia Ku ‘22
Tell us about your career after leaving Cornell! What was your pathway from Cornell to the present?
I am currently a Master of Architecture I student at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. I have just completed the first two years of my program and am taking a gap year to work before completing my last two years of the program. This past fall, I participated in a four-month art and architecture residency in Pueblo Garzón, Uruguay, and now I am in Toronto, Canada, interning at an architecture practice of one of my professors. Even though I am primarily focused on my architectural studies, I continue to be involved with music, playing as a violinist in the Harvard Baroque Chamber Orchestra while having the incredible opportunity to collaborate with students from the nearby Longy School of Music, New England Conservatory, and Berklee College of Music. Continuing to play music well into my graduate studies isn’t something I expected, and I have the Cornell music program to thank for it.
At Cornell, I completed my Bachelor of Science in Hotel and Restaurant Administration from the Nolan School of Hotel Administration with minors in Music and Architecture. During those four years, however, I considered and attempted to pursue several career paths, including Spanish and pre-med. Amidst all this confusion and uncertainty regarding my studies, however, I had one constant, and that was music - it accompanied and grounded me as I was figuring things out but also helped keep me in touch with my creative side that continues to influence my design process today.
How did the music program at Cornell help you get there?
The history and theory courses offered by the department have contributed immensely to my decision in pursuing architecture and design. Taking David Yearsley’s Bach and Handel course introduced me to the world of baroque music and architecture. This course was the most intriguing balance of history, music appreciation, and creativity. I learned not only about the composers’ lives and their pieces but also was introduced to a whole new world of cathedrals and organs. The following year I enrolled in yet another course of Yearsley’s and Annette Richards’ - The Music, Art and Technology of the Organ. I got to touch, play, and step inside an organ for the first time in my life, and I immediately fell in love with the space and construction of it all, an instrument that is very much a structure of the building in which it resides. I have never seen instruments in the same way again, including my little violin, which I disassembled and put back together with the luthier of my instrument as part of a photographic study for one of my architecture design studios.
What are your favorite memories or takeaways from your time in the music department?
My memories with the Cornell music program began my first week at Cornell, where I met two of my best friends at the Cornell Symphony Orchestra welcome picnic. From there, every rehearsal quickly became a grounding element of my undergrad routine - the time commitment was not light, but I was always eager to attend no matter how busy or stressed out I was because I knew I was going to spend time with my favorite people playing and enjoying great music. The most unforgettable memory, though, would be the 2019 tour to Taipei, Taiwan, with the Cornell Orchestras. It was during this tour that we all really bonded through our week-long routine of hard-boiled eggs for breakfast, subway commutes, 7/11 runs, and night market snacking. And of course, it was amazing to meet and play with talented musicians from the Taipei Symphony Orchestra and local students. What made it extra special was being able to perform with my Taiwanese extended family in the audience for the first time.
Many of my memories were made in and around the Cornell campus, with no shortage of events being offered here - from the Hot Toddies Jazz Band masterclass, to the Ithaca Winter Village music camp, to busking at the Ithaca Farmers Market. I also cannot forget to mention the violin studios I participated in during my last year at Cornell, a cherished time with lots of growing alongside my studio mates - I will always be grateful to Rebecca Anderson and Ariana Kim, who taught me so much about my instrument and individual musicality, and always cheered me on in my creative endeavors outside of music.
Why should people support the department/music education in general?
Speaking personally, a music education has not only helped me achieve my personal goals in music, but it has more importantly provided me with a family of people with whom I continue to live and share my life. The regularity and routine of practice has been an integral learning experience in both music and my other studies and pursuits. Concerts and recitals have consistently helped me become a more confident person, in and out of music, feeling more secure in expressing myself and not being afraid to take a stance in my creative choices. And no matter where I am in the world, I am always able to connect with someone new through music and can always feel at home when I am not.
The Cornell music program, specifically, has given me my greatest support system during my four years at Cornell, and at the same time the most intellectually and artistically stimulating and challenging environments/community. I’ve always loved how while the majority of us in the Cornell Symphony Orchestra comprised engineering, business, government, pre-med, hotel, architecture and urban planning students (I’m sure there are many more I am missing), we were just as equally a group of young people who simply enjoy playing music. It also goes to show that with music, you learn everything, as all fields are inextricably related. The Cornell music program also offers a must-see, wide breadth of concerts and shows that are so valuable to Cornell and the greater Ithaca community, some of my favorites being the “Irish music dream team” of Lúnasa and the “popular, brilliant, conductorless chamber orchestra” of A Far Cry (fun fact, the director of the Harvard Baroque Chamber Orchestra is Sarah Darling, whom I first saw perform at this very show - it feels like a full circle moment to now be able to play with her in the same ensemble!)