School of Music

BYU opera students attended the National Opera Association Convention in Memphis TN, where they competed in the National Opera Scenes Competition. Their performances of the two scenes from Mozart’s “le Nozze di Figaro” and “Cosi fan Tutte” were extremely well done. Students competed in both division one and division two and took first place in both divisions. This is truly an honor and we congratulate all students involved!

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BYU's Opera Program in the School of Music prepares students for the professional world by teaching voice techniques, stage presence, interpretation of a role and how to incorporate music with acting. Students in the program recently showed off their skills in a production of the two-act opera Béatrice et Bénédict by Hector Berlioz, based on William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing.

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Don L. Peterson, Director of Bands in the BYU School of Music, was recently inducted into the American Bandmaster’s Association (ABA).

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Steve Ricks, an associate professor of music composition at BYU, recently received a prestigious Fromm Music Foundation Commission and plans to use rhythmic sounds of urban cities as inspiration for the piece. Ricks, along with Pulitzer Prize winner David Lang, renowned composer Augusta Read Thomas and nine other musicians won the commission.

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Soon-to-be graduating students from the Music, Dance, Theater and Acting programs travel across the country each spring to showcase their talents in hopes of landing future auditions and jobs. This year, a group of 17 seniors, consisting of 13 girls and four boys, took their aspirations and dreams on to the road from LA to New York as they performed in front of producers, directors, agents, and other professionals in the theater industry.

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Performing before a sold-out audience at the Lincoln Center in New York City, Brigham Young University’s premier contemporary a cappella ensemble Vocal Point finished first runner-up at the finals of the 2011 International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella.

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Through the Barlow Endowment Education Grant and the Laycock Center for Creative Collaboration in the Arts along with the efforts of Steve Ricks, associate professor of music composition, the composition program brought in an acclaimed trio of musicians from the Big Apple to perform an evening concert as well as to play and critique various musical scores written by the school’s composition students.

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The success of BYU's Living Legends has come from its ability to tell audiences across the world from China to Chile a very important story through the spirit of dance and song ─ the story of the Book of Mormon. Living Legends recently celebrated 40 years of telling the story of the Book of Mormon.

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In a new book published by Oxford University Press, Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five and Hot Seven Recordings, BYU music professor Brian Harker brings to light just how Armstrong’s early work, now considered seminal, was viewed by musicians and audiences at the time of its release.

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The BYU Singers were recently given the honor of performing at the American Choral Directors Association’s National Conference held on March 9-12, 2011, in Chicago with highly regarded musical groups such as the “world reigning male chorus” group, Chanticleer, and the Grammy Award winning, Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

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Started in 2003 by Brigham Young Univeristy music education professor Andrew Dabczynski, the BYU New Horizons Orchestra was created and designed to give those in the community over the age of 40 an opportunity to learn or relearn a stringed instrument. Dabczynski realized that rather than having him or another professional conduct the orchestra, the task could be managed by BYU music students.

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Brigham Young University’s premier nine-man a cappella singing group, Vocal Point, is bringing alumni members back together for its 20th anniversary celebration in the “Maximum A Cappella” reunion concert Saturday, March 5, at 2 p.m. at the Covey Center for the Arts.

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Unlike many touring groups, the Army Brass Quintet not only gives concerts and performances to citizens across the country. It also makes an effort to visit schools across the country, ranging from middle schools to universities, to mentor, teach, and advise aspiring brass students. Recently the Quintet visited BYU and provided BYU brass students with a master class focused on honing their musical skill.

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After four years as editor of a national peer-reviewed music journal, Brigham Young University music professor Michael Hicks is receiving recognition for his work from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP).

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While in Denmark and Norway on tour this summer, Synthesis, BYU’s elite jazz band, gave some highly visible performances. It was the only university band invited to make an appearance at the Copenhagen Jazz Festival, one of the jazz circuit’s most popular international festivals. Two more jazz festival performances, civic concerts, LDS firesides, a jam session at a Norwegian lakeside barbecue and an intimate performance at a Danish prison also filled the band’s tour schedule.

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For the Brigham Young University Flute Studio, awards and recognitions come in handfuls. In the past year alone, BYU Flute Professor Dr. April Clayton has proudly announced several high-profile accomplishments by current students and alumni from the studio.

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BYU horn professor Laurence Lowe's “Sonata No. 2” for horn, soprano and piano won second prize in the International Horn Society Composition Contest in February of 2010. He was named one of two winners out of 97 entrants from 15 different countries.

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A group of BYU students will be singing a different tune this fall after spending five weeks in London on a choral study abroad. With a focus on British choral music past and present, the spring program allowed students to delve into music theory and history, experiencing it from the very foundation.

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Collectively proficient in Spanish, Navajo, Hopi, Maori and Samoan, Living Legends dancers can now add another language to the mix: Mandarin Chinese. Living Legends, a BYU dance group made up of Polynesian, Latin American and Native American dancers, spent three weeks in May touring and performing in China.

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BYU music student Richard Williams recently won the "student Emmy" for music composition for his ragtag piano and Dixieland jazz score on the BYU Center for Animation film, Mashed.
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