DEI
We’re so excited to welcome alumnus Damani Phillips back to campus this week and to present him the College of Music’s 2022 Distinguished Alumnus Award at our commencement ceremony on May 5! “The versatile training provided by has been the cornerstone of my success to date, and has enabled me to do and be many things well beyond typical expectations,” he says. Meet Phillips and discover his powerful advice to graduating Music Buffs.
“While there’s no playbook for the unprecedented and the unknowable, by channeling collective despair into collective creativity, we become artistic entrepreneurs, contributing to society in impactful ways.” In this year-end reflection on triumphs over turmoils, Dean Davis offers his perspective on music as essential to human betterment.
On April 22, the Flute studio will present diverse works by Valerie Coleman, Jennifer Higdon, Toru Takemitsu and Annika Socolofsky to commemorate Earth Day.
In a delayed celebration of the College of Music’s 100th anniversary, the Symphony Orchestra will perform a specially commissioned work by renowned composer Christopher Theofanidis. “The one thing you can do is create something that represents you—a musical poem that you leave behind for others to enjoy and perform,” says the Grammy-nominated composer whose “On the Bridge of the Eternal” will debut in Macky Auditorium on April 26.
The Genevieve McVey Wisner Memorial Scholarship Fund—named in honor of the lifelong activist and pioneering music educator—will provide undergraduate and graduate scholarship awards for underrepresented music students. Wisner, whose parents were among the first Black families to settle in Boulder in 1897, became the first Black graduate of the College of Music in 1940 with a bachelor’s degree in music education, followed by a master’s degree in 1944.
The College of Music’s Diverse Musicians’ Alliance presents this year’s Diversity in Performance event—“Roots and Branches”—on March 31.
Recently, The Washington Post listed “22 composers and performers to watch in 2022.” Included were two Boulder College of Music students: Kedrick Armstrong, a first-year master’s student in orchestral conducting and composer Anthony Green, who attended our Doctor of Musical Arts program. Be inspired by the impressive trajectory of their careers and learn how both confront issues of diversity in classical conservatory curriculum.
In this edition of our monthly Dean’s Downbeat, John Davis reflects on our students’ successes, introduces new violin faculty—welcome, Alex Gonzalez!—and celebrates Susan Thomas’ BFA Excellence Award. Transcending pandemic burnout, “our faculty offer anchorage through their teaching excellence, and their wonderfully consistent artistic achievements as performers, composers and researchers,” he writes.
On Feb. 20, flutist Courtney Badura (BM '23) and violinist Reuben Kebede (AD '22) took the "gold." Congratulations!
Brooklyn, New York-based saxophonist, composer and improviser Aakash Mittal is collaborating with current master’s student MarieFaith Lane on a project blending Hindustani and Western classical music.