LIVE VIDEO
The College of Music is finalizing testing of new live webcasts, and we’d love you to join us for Faculty Tuesdays this fall! For a schedule and to view video, visit music.colorado.edu/live/
Join us in celebrating Daniel Sher
We hope you’ll join us for this week’s celebratory events!
Reprinted from the Daily Camera:
CU-Boulder College of Music’s Dan Sher to be honored in performance celebrations
Dean is stepping down at end of June after 20 years at the helm
By Brittany Anas Camera Staff Writer
Dan Sher — who has spent two decades on the University of Colorado’s campus, serving as dean of the College of Music — says his favorite place on campus is Grusin Music Hall on a Tuesday night when faculty members are performing.
It’s a close tie with the walk from the Imig music building to the historic Macky Auditorium on a snowy winter afternoon right before the college’s holiday festival program.
Those music school traditions link the college to the broader community — and, in fact, when Sher looks back on his career, that relationship is among his proudest achievements. Sher will be stepping down as dean at the end of June, and he will join the faculty.
“What makes me so happy is the wonderful relationship that our faculty and students have developed with our community audience,” Sher said. “It’s just grown and grown. To have them feel like they are a part of our concerts and value them the way they do is so important.”
To honor Sher, there will be two performances this week to celebrate the outgoing dean — including a free, public musical fete 7:30 p.m. Thursday in Macky Auditorium. Faculty performers will premiere performances of “Sher’s Originals,” penned by faculty composers.
In Denver, student musicians at the college will dedicate their Wednesday performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony to the outgoing dean. The concert is at 7:30 p.m. in Boettcher Concert Hall and tickets are $15 for general admission.
“I can think of no music better suited for this than the monumental Ninth Symphony by Beethoven, which has been integral to many important events since its premier,” said Gary Lewis, director of orchestral studies and conductor for the Wednesday concert.
The program — which also includes Brahms’ “Academic Festival Overture, Op. 80″ — is “truly a celebration of Sher’s tenure as dean of the college,” Lewis said.
Sher, a pianist, first started taking lessons at age 5, but became focused on a music career after going away to a music camp while in high school.
“I think everyone here knows I’m just a sucker for the 19th century romantic music of Brahms and Schubert and Chopin,” Sher said. “But as an educator and a dean, I have just come to value and appreciate all of the things that we do here.”
Sher came to CU from Louisiana State University in 1993. During his time on the Boulder campus, the college has added programs in jazz studies and collaborative piano, as well as launching the Entrepreneurship Center for Music, which was the first of its kind in the United States.
The past three years in a row, CU has been cited by the Fiske Guide to Colleges as one of just 25 in the nation — among a total 1,200 music programs in higher education — for its excellence in music. It has been ranked in the top 20 among all college, university and conservatory music programs by U.S. News and World Reports.
“I think his legacy is he’s created a nationally prominent College of Music,” said CU Provost Russell Moore. “It was a fine school before he came, but he has taken it up the charts. What I think is really telling is the school has sustained its national reputation. It’s one thing getting there, but staying there is an accomplishment — especially in a challenging fiscal environment.”
Judith Glyde, chairwoman of the strings department, said Sher’s “interest and support of faculty is celebrated.”
“He’s a musician first,” she said. “He’s a real humanist. And, as an administrator he had a real passion for music.”
If you go
What: Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, performed by CU College of Music symphony orchestra and choirs, conducted by Gary Lewis, dedicated to outgoing Dean Daniel P. Sher
When: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday
Where: Boettcher Concert Hall, Denver Performing Arts Complex, 1400 Curtis St., Denver
Tickets: $15 general admission, $20 reserved
More info: cupresents.org or 303-492-8008
If you go
What: A CU College of Music faculty concert in honor of Dean Daniel P. Sher
When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday
Where: Macky Auditorium, CU campus
Tickets: Free and open to the public
Daniel & Boyce Sher Colorado Music Scholarship Endowment Fund
After 20 years at the helm of CU College of Music, Dan Sher will step down as Dean at the end of July, 2013. Under Dan’s visionary leadership, the College of Music has grown to be an internationally-recognized institution and is an important resource to the campus and the community. He and his wife Boyce have worked tirelessly to build bridges and cultural connections through music.
The Daniel & Boyce Sher Colorado Music Scholarship Endowment Fund honors the Shers’ 20 years of exceptional leadership and service. A permanent endowment, this fund will provide merit-based scholarships to undergraduate students from Colorado high schools.
We invite you to join board, staff, faculty and community members in honoring Dan and Boyce in the most meaningful way-by creating a lasting legacy that will support talented young Colorado musicians who wish to attend the College of Music.
If you have questions or would like additional information about ways you can support this scholarship and the College of Music, please call 303 735-6070.
19th Annual Summer Course in the Alexander Technique
The 19th Annual Summer Course in the Alexander Technique at the University of Colorado will be held July 8-12, 2013 in beautiful Boulder. Daily sessions run from 9:00 to noon. In addition to group instruction, each participant receives a private session with a member of the teaching faculty. This year, Ed Bilanchone and Amy Likar will join CU Professor James Brody on the Course. For those unable to attend the full week, a four hour Intensive will be held Saturday July 13 from 1-5:00 pm. More information about specifics is available elsewhere on this site, or contact Prof. Brody. (303-492-1641, brody@colorado.edu)
Glinka – Trio Pathétique in D Minor
Daniel Silver, clarinet; Yoshi Ishikawa, bassoon; David Korevaar, piano
Glinka – Trio Pathétique in D Minor
I. Allegro moderato
II. Scherzo
III. Largo
IV. Allegro con spirito
University of Colorado Boulder, College of Music Faculty Tuesday Series
CU International Guitar Festival & Competition
SoloDuo
For three days, from February 14th to 16th, 2013, the CU campus and the College of Music will open its doors to the guitar world. The CU Guitar Studio and the College of Music will present a unique, exciting and unprecedented event – The First CU International Guitar Festival & Competition.
Guitar Instructor Nicolò Spera and the CU Guitar Studio will be hosting prestigious guests, guitar lovers and students from all over the world. CU will become an agorà, a public space where students, teachers, performers – the entire community – can come together to share ideas and their love for the guitar.
Concerts, master classes, and an international competition: all of these events will expose our students and our community to a deeply ethical and meaningful way to relate to music making. The exciting presence of world-renowned artists such as Adam Levin, Matteo Mela, Lorenzo Micheli and Paco Peña will be extremely enriching and stimulating. Each artist will bring a different and varied treasure of musical and international experiences: students will learn how to collaborate with others, how to find their musical personality, and how to enlarge their cultural and human horizons – all in the endeavor to build their unique artistic path.
Most of the events (except Paco Pena February 14th) are free and open to the public. Please, join us for this first, special and unique guitar extravaganza at CU Boulder!
Visit the festival website for a schedule and more information.
VIDEO: Doug Walter and Steve Mullins
Excerpted from Second Story Garage:
Steve Mullins and Douglas Walter of Rim of the Well perform “Rim of the Well,” the title track to their upcoming album and the name of their band.
Rim of the Well takes its name from something the Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca said about “duende,” a Spanish term that refers to a kind of soul in art. The artist grapples with it “on the rim of well,” Lorca said, giving the impression of a thrillingly precarious dance that in a moment could lose its balance.
Steve Mullins and Doug Walter, two members of the quartet Rim of the Well, engage in this kind of dance when they make music. With Mullins on guitar and Walter on marimba, the duo visited the Garage and gave a performance that twisted, twirled and ran around the rim.
Click here to check out the other performances: “Iguana Caliente” and “Equilibrio.”
Christina Jennings in Cuba
Master class at Havana's Amadeo Roldan Conservatory
Christina Jennings just returned from Havana, Cuba where she presented a concert and master class with the Philadelphia new music ensemble: Orchestra 2001. The concert was sponsored by Havana’s 25th Festival of Contemporary Music which took place at the “Basilica Menor del Convento de San Francisco de Asis.” The program included George Crumb’s “Dream Sequence” and “Night of the Four Moons,” together with Jay Reise’s new “Flight of the Red Sea Swallow” for flute and piano written for Christina Jennings.
She also gave a master class at Havana’s Amadeo Roldan Conservatory. Among the gifts she brought to these talented and underserved students, was the complete Rubank Method Books for all band instruments, compliments at the CU Band Department.
Play It Forward: CU-Boulder Students Mentor Aspiring Musicians, Music Teachers
Sustaining a Community of Practice graduate student coordinator and doctoral candidate Lisa Martin directs middle school musicians.
If it weren’t for dedicated mentors in her high school, University of Colorado Boulder student Lisa Martin would not have considered a career as a music educator. “It definitely took some persuasion on the part of my directors, and I am forever grateful that they saw in me what I did not see in myself back in the day,” she said.
Now a doctoral candidate in music education, Martin had the opportunity to ‘play’ it forward last spring by mentoring musicians and aspiring music teachers as the graduate student coordinator for the Sustaining a Community of Practice program.
Supervised by Margaret Berg, associate professor of music education, Sustaining a Community of Practice invites middle school band and orchestra students from the Boulder and Denver area to weekly after-school ensemble and small group rehearsals taught by CU-Boulder music education undergraduate students.
At a time when public schools are faced with limited funds for music programs, Sustaining a Community of Practice prepares young musicians and future music teachers through a chain of multifaceted mentoring relationships. The program involves high school students as teacher interns. They are mentored by undergraduate students who serve as ensemble teachers. Graduate students then mentor undergraduate-teacher mentors. The program concludes with cumulating performances directed by undergraduate teachers and performed by the Middle School Wind Ensemble (MSWE) and Middle School String Ensemble (MSSE).
“Participants in this community have a shared goal and may participate on different levels— as a middle school student, teacher intern, teacher, teacher mentor, or CU faculty supervisor— and therefore assume various roles within the program,” Berg said. “Over the course of the experience, those involved often become invested in this music teaching community we called MSWE/MSSE, which contributes to their growth into the role of professional music teacher.”
Since its inception in 2007, more than 45 high school students have participated in the project and many went on to choose music education, education, or music therapy majors in college. Undergraduate participation has grown from six students in its first year to nearly 30 in spring 2012.
“I enjoy seeing our undergraduate students grow over the course of the semester in confidence and effectiveness,” Berg said. “Also, I appreciate seeing our graduate students provide such excellent modeling and support for the undergraduate, high school, and middle school students.”
Martin understands the emotions and intrigues the musicians and teachers are experiencing at various stages in their practice and, in some case, steps towards careers in music education.
“I think that because of my own uncertainty with pursuing music education, I can really relate to the high school interns who are themselves testing the waters,” she said. “As I go on to become a music teacher educator myself, I look forward to bringing this experience with me, so that another thriving community of music learning can be born.”
Story courtesy of CU Outreach and Engagement
Charles Wetherbee concerts
Charles Wetherbee
New Assistant Professor of Violin Charles Wetherbee will perform with his string quartet Carpe Diem on November 10. The program is entitled “American Routes” and takes place at the Chautauqua Community House, 8 PM, with featured guest, banjo soloist Jayme Stone.
On December 2, Professor Wetherbee makes his Boulder recital debut with David Korevaar, piano, as part of The Library Concert Series Presents: The Annual Ridi VanZandt Concert.