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September Student Updates
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
David Blalock (Maryland Opera Studio) won a Career Grant from the Schuyler Foundation for Career Bridges in New York City in May. In August, he won the Outstanding Studio Artist award with Central City Opera.
Greg Adams (Ethnomusicology) was quoted on NPR's All Things Considered in a piece titled, "The Banjo's Roots, Reconsidered."
David Wacyk participated in New England Conservatory's Wind Conducting Symposium, where he studied with Frank Battisti and Charles Peltz. Recently, he won a director position with the Falls Church Concert Band in Falls Church, VA.
From September 7-17, the Aeolus Quartet toured in China at the invitation of the Wu Promotion, a premier performing arts advocacy and event scheduling group based in Beijing. Of the 30 international instrumental ensembles and solosits invited by Wu Promotion, the Aeolus Quartet is one of only two performing groups - and the only chamber ensemble - to represent the United States. You can read about Aeolus's exciting journey here and on their blog.
The UMD Chamber Singers’ video footage from their summer tour of France is finally up on YouTube! The performance of Verdi’s Ave Maria was featured by Chorus America as Performance of the Day.
John Leszczynski's (MM Composition) piece, Scherzo a la Britten, was performed at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music by the Wind Ensemble. A review of the piece in The Herald Times, a local Bloomington paper, declared:
"Then came the mighty ear-stunner. John Leszczynski's Scherzo a la Britten made the hall shake and the ears quiver. Leszczynski writes of his score: 'I wanted to see how many perceivable ideas I could have going on at the same time -- and it turned out to be quite a lot.' Indeed so. The tonal tapestry in this short piece becomes increasingly dense and noisy, culminating in an aural chaos exhilarating to experience."
Out of 48 candidates, Matthew Gray (MM Horn), and alumnus Peter Morris (BM Horn '11) were 2 of the 8 semi-finalists in the recent Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra audition for Third/Associate Horn.
