News
Congratulations to Professor James Primosch on his 2020 award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters
Professor of Music, James Primosch wins the 2020 Virgil Thomson Award in Vocal Music of $40,000, which recognizes an American composer of vocal works. The award, endowed by the Virgil Thomson Foundation and administered by the American Academy of Arts and Letters, recognizes an American composer of vocal works. Candidates were nominated by the Academy’s members, and the winner was chosen by a committee of Academy members: Melinda Wagner (chairperson), Robert Beaser, Martin Bresnick, Chen Yi, George Lewis, David Rakowski, and Augusta Read Thomas.
Penn alumni Jeremy Gill wins 2020 award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters
We congratulate former Penn Doctoral Fellow of the Department of Music who receives the 2020 Goddard Lieberson Fellowship of $15,000, endowed in 1978 by the CBS Foundation. The award is given to mid-career composers of exceptional gifts. Bravo!
Flannery Cunningham, Third Year Graduate in Composition and Musicology wins 2020 Hildegard Competition
Flannery Cunningham is a composer and musicologist fascinated by vocal expression, auditory perception, and the resonances of environmental sounds. She aims to write music that surprises and delights. Her work has been performed at festivals such as Aspen, June in Buffalo, TCML, SPLICE, and Copland House’s CULTIVATE and by performers such as International Contemporary Ensemble, TAK, and Music from Copland House. Her current projects include commissions for PRISM Quartet and Musiqa Houston and a new work for Sō Percussion.
Jennifer Higdon honored through Penn's 2019 Alumni Award of Merit Gala!
Award-winning composer, Jennifer Higdon (PH.D. in Composition '94), received the 2019 Creative Spirit Award for her life-long commitment to and excellence in the arts. She received her PhD and master’s degrees from Penn following a certificate from the Curtis Institute of Music and bachelor’s from Bowling Green State University. A Pulitzer Prize and two-time Grammy Award winner, Dr. Higdon is one of this country’s most frequently performed living composers. As the Milton L.
Ian MacMillen (Ph.D. 2012) publishes book
Playing It Dangerously: Tambura Bands, Race, and Affective Block in Croatia and Its Intiamtes (Music/Culture). Wesleyan University Press.
Jim Sykes, Associate Professor in Music, wins 2019 Bruno Nettl Award
from the Society of Ethnomusicology for his book The Musical Gift: Sonic Generosity in Post-War Sri Lanka (2018, Oxford University Press). The award aims “to recognize an outstanding publication contributing to or dealing with the history of the field of ethnomusicology, broadly defined, or with the general character, problems, and methods of ethnomusicology.”
Ph.D. Candidates in Musicology Present at 2019 American Musicology Society Conference:
Charles Crichton Shrader: “‘The Labor of the Madman’: Charlatanry at the Piano.” Bess Xintong Liu: “‘The Timpani Beats just Hit on My Heart!’ Music, Friendship, and Diplomacy in the 1973 Philadelphia Orchestra’s China Tour.” Tristan Paré-Morin (Ph.D. Musicology, CL19): “Reassessing Nostalgia(s): Postwar Memorialization and the Controversial Tombeau de Debussy.”
Juan Castrillon's (Ph.D. Candidate in Ethnomusicology) film REHAVI
(Timekeepers) is among the official selection of Cinemistica International Film Festival and will be screened in Granada, Spain. November 7th to 30th, 2019.
Winnie W C Lai (Ph.D. Candidate in Ethnomusicology) presents paper at an International Sound Studies Workshop
Winnie's paper: "Sound Acts and Sonic Subversion: Interaction between Functional Urban Sounds and Populations" will be presented at Sound in Motion--International Workshop in the University of Bern, Switzerland, September 20-21, 2019. Link to the workshop: https://sound-density-environment.com/workshop-sound-in-motion/.
Deirdre Loughridge, Musicology Ph.D. '11, Receives Institute for Advanced Study Membership
Deirdre Loughridge has been awarded a membership at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ for her book project Sounding Human.