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Professor Roberto Sierra's String Quartet No. 3 will receive its world premiere on October 16 in New York City. The piece will be performed by the Momenta Quartet, for whom the work is composed and dedicated. String Quartet No. 3 takes its place in a program titled Night Dances, defined by Momenta violinist Emilie-Anne Gendron as "Dreamy and...
Assistant Professor Marianthi Papalexandri has been nominated for a residency at the Instrument Inventors Institution in The Hague, Netherlands. Over the last 11 years, Papalexandri has developed a variety of new mechanical electro-acoustic instruments. During her residency at the Instrument Inventors Institution, Papalexandri will be working...
New Meets Old: Collaborative ConfrontationsTo celebrate the opening of “726,” the September 6-7 celebrations offer a broad survey of all of the instruments in the collection. Concerts, demonstrations, talks, and lecture-recitals take place at Barnes Hall, Anabel Taylor and Sage Chapels, and at 726 University Ave. All events are free and open to...
Composer Christopher Rouse, a Cornell alumni (D.M.A. Composition '78) and Pulitzer Prize winner, passed away on September 21 at the age of 70. While at Cornell, Rouse studied with Karel Husa; Rouse would go on to teach at the University of Michigan and the Eastman School of Music. Rouse received the 1993 Pulitzer Prize in Composition for his...
From Thursday, October 3 to Saturday, October 5 fortepianist and Cornell alumnus Mike Cheng-Yu Lee will be in residence at the Cornell Center for Historical Keyboards, joined by colleagues Wayne Lee (violin) and Clancy Newman (cello). The trio's residency will encompass two concerts featuring the "Bartolozzi" trios of Joseph Haydn, an open house...
Assistant Professor Marianthi Papalexandri-Alexandri will have a new kinetic sound instrumental sculpture titled Untitled VII premiered and exhibited at the Festival ZeitRäume / Biennale for New Music and Architecture in the Kunstmuseum Basel on September 15, 2019. Papalexandri’s sculpture was created in collaboration with artist Pe Lang and is...
Papalexandri’s sound kinetic sculptures modular | nº 3, created in collaboration with Pe Lang, recently exhibited at Mazzoli Gallery in Berlin, and the Music 21Festival / Galleria Robert Drees in Hannover from September 6-9. The sculptures will also be on view at the Foundation Palazzo Contarini Del Bovolo in Venice, from September 14 to November...
The Cornell University Music Department is pleased to share the following interview with Malcolm Bilson, Frederick J. Whiton Professor Emeritus of Music, which has recently been made public. Speaking with Associate Professor Roger Moseley in April 2017, Bilson discusses, among other accomplishments, his early work and career that led to his...
The Cornell University Chamber Singers, under the direction of Dr. Stephen Spinelli, completed a week-long residency on the island of Nantucket in August. Among four performances, the singers worked with the Nantucket chapter of the Museum of African American History to learn about the island's historical significance. Director Steve Spinelli...
The Cornell Center for Historical Keyboards offers a new hub for historical keyboard studies at Cornell. With professor emeritus Malcolm Bilson’s fortepianos at its core, the collection encompasses a wide range of 18th- through early 20th-century pianos, as well as Cornell’s outstanding organs, harpsichords, clavichords, and other keyed...
Professor Alejandro Madrid’s article "Secreto a Voces: Excess, Performance, and Jotería in Juan Gabriel’s Vocality” has won the American Musicological Society's LGBTQ Study Group's 2018 Philip Brett Award, which recognizes “exceptional musicological work in the field of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender/transsexual studies completed during the...
Assistant Professor Marianthi Papalexandri-Alexandri will have a new performative sound kinetic installation/composition titled Resonators premiered by the Quiet Music Ensemble on August 18th at the Kilkenny Arts Festival, one of the biggest festivals in Ireland.Papalexandri’s commission was supported by a grant from the Irish Arts Council...
Associate Professor Benjamin Piekut has co-curated the Time:Spans 2019 Festival of contemporary music, to be held August 10–21 in New York City. Produced by The Earle Brown Music Foundation Charitable Trust (EBMF), Time:Spans is dedicated primarily to the presentation of twenty-first century music; its artistic director is Thomas Fichter. Piekut...
CNN's Karla Cripps profiled composition graduate student Piyawat Louilarpprasert and his Thailand New Music and Art symposium. Read the full article online.
The 2018-2019 academic year featured numerous highlights from programs and individuals. Click here to read our newsletter!
A new recording of music by Professor Roberto Sierra has been released on the IBS Classical label. Titled 33 Suenõs, the CD features two works composed by Sierra: 33 Sueños, using poems of Juan Carlos Garvayo, performed by Javier Povedano, baritone, and Garvayo, piano, as well as Julia, using poems of Julia de Burgos, performed by Quiteria Muñoz,...
Dear Friends of Music,Like most of us, I have a favorite recording. It’s a sentimental postcard of a track, and shouldn’t be particularly memorable. But in the song’s introduction there’s one particular note in the bass that always brings out a physical, tearful reaction in me. It’s an “impossible” pitch, played well below the bass’s normal range...
The Department of Music’s ensembles perform music from many cultures and historical periods, offering students a chance to find new outlets for artistic expression during each rehearsal or concert. Students frequently remark that their time in their respective ensemble was a central aspect of their Cornell career, providing them with fulfilling...
Cornell University held its fourth annual Giving Day on March 14, and the Department of Music directed all undesignated gifts to the Friends of Music Fund to support scholarships for music lessons. The Friends of Music is an initiative begun in 1977 under the leadership of Otto Doering ‘62 that serves as a fund dedicated to supporting student...
Sergio Ospina-Romero (Ph.D. Musicology '19) has accepted a tenure-track position at Indiana University as well as a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Department of Music of Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia. He will spend two years as a postdoctoral fellow at Universidad de los Andes, where he will work on transforming his dissertation...
College of Arts & Sciences graduate students were recognized earlier this month at a reception honoring their skills as teaching assistants and mentors to undergraduate students.“The graduate students being honored received stellar teaching evaluations and strong recommendations from their undergraduates and from faculty,” said Michael...
Rafael Torralvo da Silva, Ph.D. student in musicology, has been selected as a Latin American Studies Program (LASP) graduate fellow for the 2019-2020 academic year. The fellows program is intended to provide graduate students with opportunities to shape the content and direction of Latin American Studies at Cornell University. As a LASP graduate...
On Saturday, April 27 at 7:30 pm at Bailey Hall, Cornell’s Chorus and Glee Club will collaborate with the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra and soloists Tamara Acosta, soprano, and Sidney Outlaw, baritone, to present Brahms’ A German Requiem. Conducted by Cornelia Laemmli Orth, the work is celebrating its 150th anniversary, just as the Cornell Glee Club,...
Assistant Professor Marianthi Papalexandri-Alexandri will have a new composition titled Solo for Generators, Motors and Wind Resonators premiered by Susanne Fröhlich at the Archipel Festival in Geneva, Switzerland on March 31, 2019. Solo for Generators, Motors and Wind Resonators was commissioned by the Archipel Festival, with support from Pro...
Professor Judith Peraino will present a session titled "The Politics of Punk in the Era of Trump" during the 2019 South by Southwest (SXSW) Festival in Austin, Texas. Peraino outlines the presentation as follows: Right-wing media outlets have dubbed Donald Trump “The Punk Rock President” to validate his rule-breaking crudeness and appeal to white...