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 …
Michael Pratt named honorary member of Royal College of Music
Mar 19, 2018
Michael Pratt, conductor of the Princeton University Orchestra and director of the Program in Musical Performance, has been named an honorary member of the Royal College of Music in London. Read more
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 …
Simon Morrison in Playbill on Prokofiev’s “Romeo & Juliet”
Jan 23, 2018
Professor Simon Morrison has written an essay in this month’s Playbill: “Experience Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet—Without Dance.” “This month’s all-Prokofiev program at the New York Philharmonic is an opportunity to experience the composer’s musical storytelling in its purest form.” Prof. Morrison was also quoted in a feature New York Times article published today, “The Tortured History …
Barbara White and Juri Seo Receive Fromm Music Foundation Commissions
Dec 11, 2017
Congratulations to Barbara White and Juri Seo, both on the Music Department’s Composition Faculty, who have each received a commission from the Fromm Music Foundation at Harvard University. Other recipients this year are Michael Fiday (Cincinnati, OH); Erin Gee (Somerville, MA); Pierre Jalbert, (Stafford, TX); Tonia Ko, (Lawrence, KS); John Liberatore, (Notre Dame, IN); Scott Lindroth, (Durham, NC); Sky Macklay, …
Michael Pratt Reflects on 40 years at Princeton University
Dec 7, 2017
An article written by Emily Spalding for the Daily Princetonian on December 7, 2017 (link): As the euphonious sounds of piano and violin echoed down the hallway, Michael Pratt sat in his office in the Effron Music Building and opened the score of Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony No. 2. While he explained a composing technique, he ran his fingers …
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. …
Tenebrae Choir, with Gabriel Crouch, Receives GRAMMY Nomination
Nov 28, 2017
The Tenebrae Choir, in which Director of Vocal Activities Gabriel Crouch is a principal singer, has been nominated for their first GRAMMY award! The ensemble’s album Music of the Spheres: Part Songs of the British Isles is nominated in the category of “Best Choral Performance.” Congratulations to Gabriel Crouch and to Tenebrae! Beloved to the Princeton community after sold-out concerts on the …
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 …
Gavin Steingo Awarded Alan Merriam Prize
Nov 2, 2017
Congratulations to Gavin Steingo, our new Assistant Professor of Music, who has been awarded the Society for Ethnomusicology’s Alan Merriam Prize for his book Kwaito’s Promise: Music and the Aesthetics of Freedom in South Africa (The University of Chicago Press). The Alan Merriam Prize, one of the highest honors awarded by the Society for Ethnomusicology, is given to “recognize the …
Juri Seo Awarded Library of Congress’ Koussevitzky Commission
Oct 31, 2017
Assistant Professor of Music Juri Seo is one of six composers awarded a commission from the Library of Congress’ Serge Koussevitzky Music Foundation. Established in 1949, the program awards commissions to “established composers who have demonstrated considerable merit through their works.” The Foundation has commissioned some of the most iconic works by the world’s most celebrated composers, including Bartók’s …
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
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 …
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 …
Donnacha Dennehy’s New Opera Awarded Fedora Prize
Jun 6, 2017
Congratulations to Prof. Donnacha Dennehy, whose latest opera, The Second Violinist, was awarded the Fedora’s 2017 Generali Prize for Opera. This prize of €150,000 is given to support future international co-productions. Co-producers for The Second Violinist include The Galway International Arts Festival and The Dublin Theater Festival. Additional performances will take place in Dublin October …
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 …
Prof. Dan Trueman Awarded 2016 Bessie Award
Nov 2, 2016
Congratulations to Prof. Dan Trueman who has received the 2016 Bessie Award for “Outstanding Musical Composition/Sound Design”! Prof. Trueman was recognized for his contributions to There Might Others,choreographed by Rebecca Lazier, Senior Lecturer in the Lewis Center for the Arts’ Program in Dance, premiering earlier this year at New York Live Arts in collaboration with Mobius Percussion and the Music Department’s Edward T. …