NJSO Edward T. Cone Composition Institute Final Concert
Jul 11, 2018
Professor Steven Mackey, director of the NJSO Edward T. Cone Composition Institute, will host the program’s final concert on Saturday, July 14, 2018 at 8PM in Richardson Auditorium (Alexander Hall). The concert will feature five new works for orchestra, performed by the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra conducted by David Robertson, including works by incoming Princeton graduate …
Barbara White: A Plea for Compassion
Mar 12, 2018
In an article titled “Barbara White: A Plea for Compassion,” Professor Barbara White speaks with Frank Oteri of New Music Box about her compositions, musical inspirations, and social challenges that inform her artistic choices. Thanks to the rise of the #MeToo movement, our society is beginning to be more aware and sensitive about how gender inequities have …
Kris Davis Releases Duet Album
Feb 22, 2018
On her 2016 album Duopoly, pianist and member of the Performance Faculty in the Music Department of Princeton University Kris Davis highlighted her deeply attuned artistry as never before. Conceived as a set of rotating duo performances, Duopoly found Davis in the company of Bill Frisell, Tim Berne, Don Byron, Julian Lage, Marcus Gilmore and …
Rudresh Mahanthappa named Best Alto Saxophonist in JazzTimes’ 2017 Expanded Critics’ Poll
Feb 22, 2018
The Anthony H. P. Lee ’79 Director of Jazz at Princeton University, saxophonist and composer Rudresh Mahanthappa has been named “Best Alto Saxophonist” in the JazzTimes 2017 Expanded Critics Poll, published in the March 2018 issue. For the poll, critics were asked to focus on artists’ achievements in 2017. Mahanthappa also came in third in the “Electric/Jazz-Rock/Contemporary …
Jeff Snyder Releases Solo Album
Jan 25, 2018
“Sunspots,” on Carrier Records, will be released on Friday, January 26, 2018. After years of appearances on compilations and as a group member, Director of Electronic Music composer and improvisor Jeff Snyder releases his debut album, Sunspots. Much like the actual phenomena of sunspots – cyclical, chaotic, and powerful – Snyder’s album invokes the sense that there are underlying forces …
Eighth Blackbird in a Week-long Residency
Jan 22, 2018
The Department of Music is thrilled to host the MacArthur Award and four-time GRAMMY Award-winning sextet, Eighth Blackbird, in a week-long residency at Princeton Sound Kitchen, February 20-26, 2018. Over the course of two decades, the Chicago-based ensemble has commissioned and premiered hundreds of works by composers such as David Lang, Steven Mackey, Missy Mazzoli, …
Concerto Competition Winners Announced
Jan 16, 2018
The winners of this year’s Princeton University Orchestra Concerto Competition are: Leland Ko ’20, cello (Ernest Bloch: Schelomo Rhapsodie Hébraïque) Solène Le Van ’18, soprano (Samuel Barber: Knoxville Summer of 1915, Op. 24) Hana Mundiya ’20, violin (Sergei Prokofiev: Violin Concerto No. 2 in G Minor, Op. 63) Henry Peters ’20, marimba (Emmanuel Séjourné: Concerto for Marimba and …
Rudresh Mahanthappa’s “Agrima” on New York Times’ “Best Albums of 2017”
Dec 7, 2017
It has been an exciting week for Jazz at Princeton University. On the heels of the Creative Large Ensemble’s joining saxophone legend Archie Shepp on the Richardson Stage (a review by the prestigious jazz publication JazzTimes is available here), the program’s director Rudresh Mahanthappa‘s latest and self-released album “Agrima” was featured in the New York Times’ “Best Albums of 2017.” “Mr. …
Marna Seltzer Selected as Musical America’s Top 30 Professionals of the Year
Dec 5, 2017
Marna Seltzer, Director of Princeton University Concerts, has been recognized by Musical America Worldwide as one of its Movers & Shapers: Top 30 Professionals of the Year. This prestigious distinction, presented annually by the renowned organization that has served as the voice of the performing arts industry for over a century, selects individuals who are transforming and “shaping programs, …
CD Release: Olagón: a Cantata in Doublespeak
Nov 6, 2017
Olagón: a Cantata in Doublespeak is a new collaboration between Princeton University Department of Music Professor Dan Trueman, Global Scholar Iarla Ó Lionáird, and the Lewis Center for the Arts Professor Paul Muldoon, with the multiple GRAMMY Award-winning chamber ensemble Eighth Blackbird. The CD will be released on Friday, November 10, 2017, and the production will come to the Wallace …
A Showcase of Music Department Talent at National Sawdust (NYC)
Oct 26, 2017
The creative forces of the Music Department’s composition faculty Donnacha Dennehy and Dan Trueman, and Visiting Scholar Iarla Ó Lionáird, come together in a performance this Saturday, October 28, 2017 at 7:30PM at the renowned National Sawdust venue in Brooklyn, NYC. Ó Lionáird will perform Prof. Dennehy’s “Grá agus Bás”, the reimagined sean-nós songs of Prof. Dan Trueman. Created from the oldest …
Profile on Performance Director Michael Pratt in the Princeton Packet
Oct 16, 2017
The Princeton Packet has published a profile on Michael Pratt, the Director of the Program in Performance and conductor of the Princeton University Orchestra, who celebrates his 40th anniversary at the Department this season. The orchestra performs their first concerts of 2017-18 this Friday and Saturday evenings at Richardson Auditorium. Read more
A Festival of the Arts: Feature on the Princeton University Homepage
Oct 10, 2017
“During a four-day Festival of the Arts, Oct. 5-8, Princeton University celebrated the opening of the new Lewis Arts complex with a bonanza of events, open to the public. More than 100 events across arts genres took place in more than 30 venues of every shape and size, from the expansive University Chapel to a …
Music Department Purchases 48 New Steinway Pianos
Oct 2, 2017
by Nick Barberio, Office of Communications Now on Princeton University’s homepage, an article and video story on the acquisition of 48 brand-new Steinway pianos for the Effron Music Building at the Lewis Center for the Arts complex. Through a selection process spanning two years, dozens of new Steinway & Sons pianos have been purchased for the new …
Rudresh Mahanthappa Featured in Downbeat Magazine
Sep 27, 2017
Jazz at Princeton University director Rudresh Mahanthappa has been featured in the November 2017 issue of Downbeat Magazine! Look out for the magazine, hitting newstands next week.
Stephanie Tubiolo Appointed As Assistant Director Of Choirs
Sep 26, 2017
Stephanie Tubiolo is the incoming Assistant Director of Choirs at Princeton University. She spent the past seven years in New Haven, CT, where she worked as a Teaching Artist with the Yale Music in Schools Initiative, eventually serving as its first Postgraduate Fellow. Since 2015, she has developed and directed Morse Chorale, a performance-intensive choir for …
Princeton University Performs Ballet With Rarely Heard Cole Porter Score
Jul 3, 2017
Two years ago, Princeton University music professor Simon Morrison was working on an article in the archives of Yale University when he noticed the original score for a ballet by none other than Cole Porter. Within the Quota, which had libretto, scenery, and costumes by wealthy expatriate artist Gerald Murphy, premiered in Paris in 1923 and …
Rudresh Mahanthappa, Director of Jazz, Wins DownBeat Magazine Critics Poll
Jun 30, 2017
Congratulations to Director of Jazz, Rudresh Mahanthappa, who has again been named a winner in the 2017 DownBeat International Critics Poll in the category of Alto Saxophone. The August issue of DownBeat, which arrives on newsstands in mid July, has features on winning artists as well the complete results for all 62 categories, listing more …
Profile on Prof. Donnacha Dennehy in the Irish Times
Jun 23, 2017
Composition Faculty Donnacha Dennehy has been featured in the Irish Times. An excerpt can be found below. Read the article online, or see the PDF attachment. “I went to Ballyroan Boys’ National School, in Rathfarnham,” says the composer Donnacha Dennehy by way of introduction. The same establishment as the golfer Pádraig Harrington, I point out. Dennehy chuckles. No …
A Festival of the Arts: Celebrating the Opening of Princeton’s New Lewis Arts Complex
Jun 19, 2017
To celebrate the opening of Princeton’s new Lewis Center for the Arts complex, join us for an exciting multi-day Festival of the Arts highlighting the breadth and uniqueness of the arts at Princeton. The Festival will include concerts, plays, readings, dance performances, art exhibitions, multidisciplinary presentations, community workshops and site-specific events presented by the Lewis …
Profile on Rudresh Mahanthappa, Director of Jazz, in US1
Apr 17, 2017
As Princeton’s new director of jazz studies, internationally known alto saxophonist and innovator Rudresh Mahanthappa shows his hands-on involvement when he says, “I play with all my groups in rehearsal and sometimes in performance.”
Simon Morrison’s New York Times Interview
Dec 27, 2016
By Zachary Woolfe, from The New York Times Confusion has flooded the web since it was announced that dozens of members of the Alexandrov Ensemble, a famed army choir and orchestra, were among the 92 killed when a Russian military passenger plane headed for Syria crashed into the Black Sea on Sunday. Did that choir …
Graduate Composers Emma O’Halloran and Alex Dowling Make LP Debut as “Games Violet”
Nov 15, 2016
‘…fascinating pop moments full of strong, haunting, imaginative electronic lines and shadows.’ – Irish Times ‘Combining creative rhythm patterns, choice keys, wailing guitars & whispering harmony duet-rounds; Games Violet are one of the most exciting Philly acts around.’ – Impose Magazine The album was created using synths, guitars, drums, and vocals in the duo’s home …
Prof. Simon Morrison’s “Bolshoi Confidential” Receives Instant Critical Acclaim
Oct 17, 2016
Musicology Professor Simon Morrison has published a new book, Bolshoi Confidential: Secrets of the Russian Ballet from the Rule of the Tsars to Today, to instant critical acclaim. While reviews continue to pour in, read some of the most recent reactions to Prof. Morrison’s latest tour-de-force: “Morrison turns to the past in order to unpack the conundrum …