Awards & Accolades
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The School of Music is pleased to announce that ten graduate students were awarded Summer Research Fellowships. These students are researching topics covering a wide range of subjects from American Indian opera to Polish art songs. Recipients include: Momcilo Aleksandric (DMA guitar performance), Alyssa Becker (DMA voice), Hon Ki Cheung (PhD music theory), Ines Guanchez (MM piano), Jeffrey Hanson (PhD musicology), Scott Iseminger (PhD music education), Christopher McGinley (DMA choral conducting), Zachary Ploeger (DMA trumpet), Ryan Rowe (MM voice), and Vinay Thomas (MM choral conducting). Learn more.
97th Annual Schubert Club Competition Winners: Koki Sato, Samuel Hines, Momcilo Aleksandric
2020 Harp Society Foundation Awards: Heather Cornelius, honorable mention
Kathryn Huether (PhD musicology) and Ryan O'Dell (PhD theory) were selected to receive the 2020-2021 Doctoral Dissertation Fellowships from the Graduate School at the University of Minnesota. Huether, an advisee of Professor Karen Painter, was selected for her dissertation topic, "Centering the Sonic: Voice and Affect in Holocaust Memory, Memorials, and Museums". O'Dell, an advisee of Professor Sumanth Gopinath, was selected for his dissertation topic "The Analysis of Multimedia through the Lens of Music Theory: A Model for Analyzing the Interaction of Auditory, Visual, and Narrative Stimuli in Multimediatic Artforms". Read more about the CLA Dissertation Fellows.
"We are tremendously proud that Amanda Weber's thesis – Choral Singing and Communal Mindset: A program evaluation of the Voices of Hope Women's Prison Choir – has been recognized with the prestigious Julius Herford Dissertation Prize. The documentation of her work and many accomplishments with the Voices of Hope Choir provides us with an invaluable case study on the significant impact of music, community, and restorative justice for those within and outside the American correctional system. For the many community partners who have connected with the Voices of Hope, the experience has been transformational. We applaud Amanda for sharing their story and celebrate the Voices of Hope for uplifting those around them through the powerful medium of song." – Professor Kathy Saltzman Romey. Read the full story.
Musicology Professor Peter Mercer-Taylor’s book, Gems of Exquisite Beauty: How Hymnody Carried Classical Music to America (Oxford University Press), has been published alongside his new website, americanclassicalhymns.com. Mercer-Taylor is on the hunt for choirs nation-wide to add more recordings to the website. Earlier this year, Peter Mercer-Taylor won a National Endowment for the Humanities-Mellon Fellowship for Digital Publication to fund the project. Read more.
Michael Silverman, director of the Music Therapy program and a distinguished teaching professor at the School of Music, and Dr. Sonia Wang, a pediatric neurologist with M Health Fairview and associate professor in the Department of Neurology at the University of Minnesota Medical School, received a grant worth more than $800,000 over two years from the National Institutes of Health to research the effects of music-based intervention (MBI) on neurodevelopment and pain response in preterm infants. The objectives for this research are to identify differences between MBI and controls in preterm brain maturation and early neurodevelopment and to measure differences in preterm pain responses between MBI and controls. Read more.
Professor Emily Threinen, named Yamaha Master Educator, was featured on the cover of Yamaha USA and the subject of a feature story "Emily Threinen: A Musical North Star". View the magazine.
Michael Cherlin, professor emeritus (music theory and composition), was awarded lifetime membership to the Society for Music Theory at the 42nd annual meeting of the Society in Columbus, Ohio earlier this month. Lifetime membership to the Society is the field’s highest award, made “in recognition of truly outstanding contributions to the field of music theory.” Read more.