Faculty In the News

Jennifer Barker’s composition Tout Entiere (for baritone and piano) was performed by Robert Brandt and Julie Nishimura on the Kimmel Center's 'Free Concerts in the Plaza' series at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, PA on Sunday, May 18, 2008.

Dr. David Blackinton, UD director of marching band, wind ensemble, and professor of trumpet from 1965-1980, has just retired from his position as Professor and director of the Wind Symphony at Brigham Young University. Dave and his wife Jane are now on a Mormon mission at Nauvoo, Illinois, where he is directing a band which performs daily at the historic Mormon settlement.

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The keyboard faculty hard at work, in the new CFA garden

Suzanne L. Burton presented research on emergent music literacy and its practical application at the Early Childhood Music and Movement International convention in Providence, Rhode Island, July 3, 2008. She also represented the Gordon Institute for Music Learning at a colloquium held by the Associazione Italiana Gordon per l'Apprendimento Musicale in Rome, Italy on July 18, 2008 and presented information about current research and practice regarding audiation in the US. While in Italy, she presented a research-based seminar on school-university partnerships in music education at the International Society for Music Education Conference in Bologna, Italy, July 25, 2008. She has been invited by music education researchers at the University of Orebro (Orebro, Sweden) to represent the USA in an international comparative study on music teacher preparation to begin Fall of 2008.

Jon Conrad recorded and selected an Opera News Online audio introduction of Britten's Peter Grimes. He was also a speaker at the conference "American Musical Theater" (a collaboration of the two conference series "Music in Gotham" [CUNY] and "Song, Stage and Screen III" [UK]), which took place April 2-5 at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. In addition, he was one of three presenters on April 2 in the discussion "Understanding and Preserving the Craft of the Musical Theater Orchestrator." The session was chaired by William Everett (University of Missouri, Kansas City), and the other speakers were George Ferencz (University of Wisconsin—Whitewater) and Bruce Pomahac (the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization).
http://www.metoperafamily.org/operanews/issue/article.aspx?id=4138&issueID=179&archive=true

In 2008, Christine Delbeau performed at Philadelphia Orchestra Connection Chamber Music Concerts at the Philadelphia Art Museusm and on the Philadelphia Orchestra Postlude Recital at the Kimmel Center's Verizon Hall in Philadelphia.

Interim Faculty Member Lee Hartman, as Assistant Director of Musica Nova while at UMKC, conducted Stephen Yip's "Gorintou." One of the live performance recordings of that piece has been selected to appear on the SCI CD Series released by Capstone and distributed by Albany Records. The CD should be released later this year or early next year.

The original opera "Agostino and the Puccini Clarinet", with the story and libretto by Vincent Marinelli (adjunct woodwind faculty) and music by Charles Holdeman (former bassoonist of UD Woodwind Quintet), was presented at the Wilmington Music School on Thursday, May 29 and Friday, May 30. The plot of the opera, involving a young boy's desire to play in the band, unfolds on Wilmington's West Side during the St. Anthony's Italian Festival in the 1940s and 1950s. This past season Vince Marinelli has performed with the Philadelphia Orchestra on the Saratoga Springs (New York) series and at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia on alto and tenor saxophones for Bernstein's "Kaddish Symphony", and Ravel's "Bolero" with an additional performance featuring Patti Labelle. He continues to run his "Expert Woodwind Sales and Service" business as well as teach clarinet and saxophone privately. Many of his students were selected for All-State band. Some have gone on to conservatories, such as Curtis and Peabody, as well as other institutions of higher learning such as the University of Delaware, with intentions of pursuing musical careers or playing for the love of music.

Heidi Sarver was the guest conductor for Kent County's Senior Honor Band, April 2008. She taught with the George N. Parks Drum Major Academy this summer, and was the lead clinician at Bands of America Summer Symposium at Kutztown University, West Chester University, and University of Massachusetts, working with over at total of 1500 high school students at these 4 locations. She will also be returning as Associate Director for the 300-member Bands of America National Honor Band's second appearance in the Tournament of Roses Parade, January 2009, and as the Guest Conductor for Delaware All-State Junior High School Band, January 2009.

Tom Palmer has been appointed to a full-time, continuing jazz studies position which was previously temporary.

John Smith won the position of Principal Horn with The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia. He won the position against a highly competitive group of 60 top-tier professionals from around the world.

http://www.udel.edu/PR/UDaily/2008/mar/horn031208.html

http://www.udel.edu/PR/UDaily/2009/jul/horn072108.html