The halls of the Westbrook Music Building are once again busy and our faculty, staff, students and alumni are all doing amazing things! Read about them here:
Alumni Update – Anne Madison
BM in Piano
Chair of the Piano Department at Omaha Conservatory of Music
Regular faculty member of the Tyrolean International Piano Academy in Innsbruck, Austria
Alumni Update – Julie Duensing
BME
Personal Lines Account Manager at Inspro Insurance, Lincoln, NE
Current Board member of the UNL Band Alumni Association
President of the Lincoln Southwest High School Performing Arts Boardroom
Alumni Update – Nicholas A. Kenney
MM, DMA - horn performance
Associate Professor of Horn, Southeast Missouri State University, Cape Girardeau, MO
2020 SEMO Horn Day, hosted UNL Alumna Lanette Lopez Compton as guest artist and 57 horn players from the area.
Invited Faculty to Saarburg Music Festival in Saarburg Germany for Summer 2020 and 2021.
Promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure (2019) in fifth year at Southeast.
Peer Selected performance (Castel Del Monte by Nino Rota) on the opening recital of the Southeast Horn Workshop (2019)
2019 SEMO Horn Day, hosted Joshua Williams as guest artist and 35 horn players from the area.
Guest Artist Recital at SEMO with Dr. Alan Mattingly from UNL (2018)
Performed Schmuann's Konzertstuck with the Jackson (TN) Symphony and the Savannah Philharmonic (2018)
Performed Britten's Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings with the Duke University Symphony Orchestra (2018)
Alumni Update -- Matt Hill
DMA Choral Conducting
Director of Choral Activities, Peru State College
Artistic/Executive Director, Sing Omaha
Elected to serve as the Treasurer of the Nebraska Choral Directors Association in 2018
Nebraska ACDA Choral Conductor of the Year (2019)
Teaching Excellence Award recipient (faculty member of the year) Peru State College (2019)
Alumni Update – Kelli Griffin
Dance
I work four jobs, currently full-time Advanced Line Behavioral Tech at Sonnenberg ABA Consultants working with kids on the spectrum, along with coaching a high school dance team and teaching dance in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Recipient of the Kenosha Junior Women’s Club Scholarship for my work in that community in dance.
Anthony Bushard
Associate Professor of Music History Anthony Bushard was recently published in the Jazz Research Journal.
‘What to do over the week-end’: Towards an understanding of distraction, advertising and newspaper coverage of the Kansas City jazz scene in the 1930s
Alumni Update – Leah Stevens
Master of Music
New World Symphony Flute Fellow, Miami Beach, FL (started in September 2019)
As for New World, there’s no other place like it where you can get the experience of a full-time orchestra job along with the initiative to try new things. The Fellows have a freedom here for trial and error, and the administration follows suit when trying to create innovative programming. In an environment like this, where it’s ok to make mistakes, you find it’s the type of environment most conducive for growth as a performer.
As Fellows, we also have access to more resources than most young musicians. Coaches from all over the world, from major symphony orchestras, are brought to us for intensive lessons and classes. We have the opportunity to go into the community and get to know them through community engagement initiatives. If we have an idea for a performance or outreach, we can make it happen; the possibilities are endless.
Alumni Update -- Emily Solo
Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance (2014)
Singer-actress, New York City
After graduating from UNL in 2014, Emily went on to complete a Master of Music in Voice Performance and Pedagogy at Westminster Choir College in 2017. Since then, she's been performing professionally around the country.
Recognized as a fearless singing-actress, she has been praised for her “light and expressive soprano” (South Florida Classical Review). Known for her aptitude in contemporary and crossover repertoire, her versatile skills as a singer, actress, and dancer are in demand from opera and musical theatre to plays and film. She was most recently seen in The Threepenny Opera (Polly Peachum) with Everyman Repertory Theatre in Rockport, Maine.
Emily made her Shakespearean debut in the 18/19 Season, as Ophelia in Hamlet and Bianca in The Taming of the Shrew with the Camden Shakespeare Festival. She also performed with TheatreMidwest and MTH at Crown Center. The 17/18 Season saw Emily in It’s A Wonderful Life with Iowa Stage, as the title role in Amahl and the Night Visitors with Music On Site, and as an Apprentice Artist with Charlottesville Opera. Her interest in performing new music led her to create the role of Tommie in the world premiere of Tesla with SoBe Arts in Miami Beach. The 16/17 Season featured Emily in a new production of A Christmas Carol at the Tony Award-winning McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton. She also sang Le Rossignol in Ravel’s L'enfant et les sortilèges and Esmeralda in Smetana’s The Bartered Bride, both with Westminster Opera Theater.
Emily performs regularly in NYC with the immersive event company Cirque du Nuit. You can also see her in the short films Knee High and L'alphabete noire. Up next, Emily will be a featured soprano with New Camerata Opera in the NYC premiere of the circus-opera Barnum’s Bird by Libby Larsen.
Here is a link to one of Solo's scenes in the Knee High film: https://youtu.be/gWL14Ly-BUE
UNL Jazz Singers
The UNL Jazz Singers had a great day last Friday traveling to the Solon (Iowa) Vocal Jazz Festival and performing for a big audience of high school musicians. Then Friday night everyone saw the professional vocal jazz quartet SAJE perform (Jazz Singers Director David von Kampen played in the rhythm section for the concert), and our students got to hang out with them afterward. Von Kampen also adjudicated high school groups all day during the festival.
Alumni Update -- Gretchen Pille
Bachelor of Arts in Vocal Performance
Singer, based in New York City
Opera Iowa, 2019
Des Moines Metro Opera, 2019
Anna Sosenko Assist Trust Grant Recipient, 2019 – Allowing her to get new headshots, pay for lessons and coachings, take dance classes, and use practice studios in New York.
Opera Naples Resident Artist, 2020
Heartland Opera Theatre, Mainstage Debut, 2020 (upcoming)
Opera Naples mainstage debut, 2020 (upcoming)
She’s singing Nella in Gianni Schicchi and Suor Genovieffa in Suor Angelica at Heartland Opera Theatre, and Zerlina in Don Giovanni at Opera Naples
"This last year has been such an adventure and I'm feeling immense gratitude and excitement for the opportunities still to come."