Students
In his year-end message, Dean John Davis reflects on the college's commitment to both refining and expanding our offerings: "Our faculty members, advisors and other staff are highly motivated to ensure that our students not only master their chosen craft, but also emerge as well-rounded, adaptable professionals prepared to take on the opportunities and challenges of a rapidly changing world."
We are thrilled to announce the winner of the 2024-25 Bruce Ekstrand Memorial Graduate Student Performance Competition: The Koa String Quartet!
With support from a CU Boulder Center for Humanities & the Arts grant, the Chicago-based ~Nois Saxophone Quartet returned to the College of Music as guest artists in our Faculty Tuesdays series and SoundWorks series. Says Composition Chair Carter Pann, “These guys increase the learning horizon tenfold.”
Willem Rohwer comes to the College of Music from Edwards, Colorado, to pursue an undergraduate degree in double bass performance. “Developing my own musical opinions and character are really something that I want to find here,” he says. Discover Rohwer’s unique approach to a successful audition and his other interests.
The College of Music has had an alternatively-sized keyboard on loan since April 2023. Recent graduate Abigail Terrill shares how the narrower keyboard is helpful, why it’s needed and what her thesis research found about the process of transitioning between pianos.
It was a long time coming. Piano Technician Mark Mikkelsen—who, for more than eight years, has supported the care and maintenance of the College of Music’s fleet of 160 pianos, two harpsichords and an organ—was thrilled when the opportunity arose to rebuild, refurbish and restore one of two fortepianos donated to our college by the late Douglas Taylor and his wife, Avlona, as an in-kind gift in 2019.
At the CU Boulder Entrepreneurship Center for Music, students can find the skills and tools they need for their music careers. This spring, the ECM awarded $5,820 in grants to support eight student-led professional development and community engagement projects.
The College of Music’s 2024 New Opera Workshop (CU NOW) is underway, leading up to performances of Gene Scheer’s “Polly Peachum”—as well as performances of opera scenes presented by our Composer Fellows’ Initiative—in June.
When Joy Yamaguchi graduates from our College of Music next week with a Doctor of Musical Arts degree, the work she started here will continue. “Completing this degree has helped me realize my strength and solidify my focus as a multifaceted artist,” she shares.
At the College of Music’s commencement ceremony on May 9, we look forward to celebrating the remarkable accomplishments and indelible impact of undergraduate cellist Louis Saxton!