Not only did Nicolas Pallesen (BA Music ‘05) recently received wonderful reviews for his performance in Johannes Brahms’ “A German Requiem” with the Alabama Symphony, he also won the Birmingham Opera Competition! Congratulations, Nicolas!
This summer, Nicolas will be performing “La Traviata” with Wolf Trap Opera and the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C.
After he completes the performances in Washington, D.C., Nicolas is set for an exciting season of performances, including debuts at the New Orleans Opera, the Lyric Opera of Chicago and the Metropolitan Opera.
Great job, Nicolas and good luck in the upcoming season!
Vincent Oaks (BA Music Education ‘00) is in his ninth year as director of the Tennessee Chattanooga Boys Choir. Under his leadership, the choir has been invited to perform in Cuba. This is the first time a youth choir will travel to Cuba in over half a century!
To warm-up their vocal chords, the boys will be performing tomorrow, June 5 at 7 p.m. The performance will be an hour long in Gainesville Oak Hammock, a retirement community, with the Oak Hammock Singers.
This will be an intergenerational singing experience, with performers ranging from ages 10 to 18 and 65 to 95!
The performance is free and open to the public.
Two UF alums were among the winners of the International K-12 Teacher of the Year Award presented by the University of Florida International Center (UFIC). The 2013 International K-12 Teacher of the Year Award winner is Donald DeVito from Sidney Lanier Center School. Robert Ponzio from Oak Hall School received an Honorable Mention.
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Aaron Keebaugh (Ph.D. Musicology 2011) presented his paper “Asleep Among the Son of God’s Disease: Mikel Rouse’s Failing Kansas and the Legacy of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood” at the National Conference of the College Music Society November 2012 in San Diego.
Presently, Aaron teaches courses in music history and World history at North Shore Community College in Danvers, MA. He is a music critic for The Boston Classical Review.
UF SoM alum Christina L. Reitz (Ph.D. Historical Musicology, ‘07) is an Assistant Professor of Music at Western Carolina University where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in musicology.
Recently, Dr. Reitz has been contracted to write two entries for the Music in the Social and Behavioral Sciences Encyclopedia through Sage Publications (anticipated publication date August 2014).
Dr. Reitz will present her research entitled “Monster Concerts: Gottschalk’s Brobdingnagian South American Festivals” at the College Music Society’s International Conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina in June. Dr. Reitz also presented the following papers this past spring: “Sacred and Ecological Works of Meira Warshauer” at the Athena Festival in Murray, KY and “The Civil War Concert Tours and American Departure of Gottschalk” at the Nineteenth Century Studies Association in Fresno, California. For the Nineteenth Century Studies Association, she serves on the Board of Directors and the Publicity Committee and hosted the national conference in Asheville in 2013.
On Saturday, April 27, members of the UF organ studio performed a concert at St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Savannah, Georgia.
Pictured from left to right: Michelle Klima, Shawn Thomas, Caitlin Pearse, Matt Gender, Mitchell Stecker, and host Donald Martin.
UF SoM alum Sondra Allison Wenninger Collins has been selected to attend the 2013 Symposium on Music in Schools at the Yale School of Music and to receive the Yale Distinguished Music Educator Award! From a pool of nearly 300 nominees representing 45 states, Collins has been chosen as the representative of the state of Florida. Collins is currently a music teacher in the Marion County Public Schools in Ocala, FL.
The Yale Distinguished Music Educator Award is presented biennially to fifty music educators selected for their outstanding accomplishments teaching music in the nation’s public schools. From a pool of nearly 300 nominees representing 45 states, a panel of music professionals selected this year’s 50 Distinguished Music Educators. The selected educators hail from 32 different states, including the first ever Symposium attendees from Kansas and Mississippi.
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Congratulations to School of Music Facilities Manager, Trent Weller (third from the left in the blue shirt), for winning a prestigious Superior Accomplishment Award at the April 18 ceremony at the Reitz Union Grand Ballroom. The event was attended by President Machen and Provost Glover who both spoke in high praise of the hard working staff at UF, as well as the importance of staff in achieving top 10 university status. Trent specifically won a Jeffrey A. Gabor Employee Recognition Award, for which he received a beautiful Gator trophy, a Gator frame and $1,000.
The Superior Accomplishment Award program “recognizes those who contribute outstanding and meritorious service, efficiency and /or economy, or to the quality of life provided to students and employees.” Trent certainly represents high achievement in all of these areas. Administrators, faculty and staff wrote letters of support that reflected the high regard in which he is held, and poignantly described how important Trent is to the school, college and university. Thank you to all who recognized Trent’s exemplary work and supported him in winning this much deserved award.
From left to right: Jonathan Birner (host organist of Grace Lutheran Church), Wagner Schulz, Michelle Klima, Mitchell Stecker, Matt Gender, and Dr. Laura Ellis.
On April 21, the University of Florida Organ Studio presented an organ recital at Grace Lutheran Church in Naples, Florida.
Dr. Kristen Stoner, Associate Professor of Flute in the UF School of Music, will be performing as a featured Guest Artist at the XXVIII Festival Internacional de Flautistas in Lima, Peru. The prestigious Festival, which runs from May 20-24, 2013, is the longest-running international flute festival in the world. Dr. Stoner is the only flutist from the United States invited to perform at the Festival this year, and she will be highlighted in a concerto performance, two solo recitals, and a masterclass. Congratulations!
Cellular phones, tablets, and televisions are not the only “smart technologies” anymore. Musical instruments have now joined the ranks of other smart technologies by allowing users to interact with their environment on a whole new level. UF Music Composition alum, Dr. Chet Udell, invented ready-to-use systems that allow a musician’s instrument to become an extension of the body. Udell’s company eMotion Technolgies, LLC was granted the exclusive license by the UF Office of Technology Listening (UF-OTL) to begin producing the technology commercially.
The technology was developed by Udell as part of his research for his dissertation here at UF. Chet graduated in 2012 with his PhD in Music Composition with emphasis in Electrical Engineering. Upon graduation, Udell accepted a position as Instructor of Music Technology at the University of Oregon and still serves as the chief inventor and CTO for eMotion Technologies.
eMotion Technologies has launched a month-long Kickstarter campaign where musicians everywhere have the opportunity to beta-test the technology.
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Plaque given to Bill Booth from NASA
Bill Booth, First Chair Tuba Player, 1966-1968.
UF School of Music and Marching Band alum Bill Booth’s (BFA Music Education, ‘70) skydiving technology is being recognized and used by NASA. Booth’s 3-ring release is going into space on NASA’s Orion manned capsule in 2014. The three ring system allows for rapid-release of a malfunctioning parachute. Booth currently holds 16 US patents for his skydiving safety systems, including a hand-deploy chute, a tandem diving system and the 3-ring release.
School of Music Professor Paul Koonce, along with Music Composition PhD students Andrew Babcock, Adam Scott Neal, and Benjamin O’Brien, and SoM alumni Ed Martin and Chet Udell will all be presenting music at the Society of Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States (SEAMUS) 2013 National Conference in St. Paul, MN this week. Congratulations!
