Faculty concert featuring Bonnie Whiting.

 In never leave story, percussionist Bonnie Whiting explores intersections of storytelling and experimental music, integrating text, movement, creative sonification, and technology. Act I features collaborations with dancer Jennifer Salk and ceramicist Timea Tihanyi, plus music by Jeffrey Treviño and field recordings of poet Alice Notley. In Act II, Whiting extends her speaking percussionist project via a new commission from composer Kevin Clark and a reimagining of a historic work by Iannis Xenakis. Tennyson’s Ulysses looks back on his life, while Aeschylus’ Kassandra looks forward: in reality, both point to the urgency of “the now.”

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Program

Act I
flow/bell curve/ebb (2025/6): Bonnie Whiting

Slackwater (2026): Jennifer Salk, dance & Bonnie Whiting*              

Corpus to Corpus (The Third Body) (2025): Timea Tihanyi, ceramics & Bonnie Whiting  

Act II
Being Pollen (2011): Jeffrey Treviño/text by Alice Notley
I.    Conversation (Bolinas, 1971)
II.    The Song Called “Get Away” (Buffalo, 1987)
III.    Pollen (Philadelphia, 2006)   

Kassandra (1987): Iannis Xenakis/text Aeschylus Agamemnon 
(c.a. 450 BCE; supertitles from the Anne Carson’s An Oresteia, 2009)

Some Work of Noble Note (2026): Kevin Clark*/text: Ulysses Alfred, Lord Tennyson with Hymn to Poseidon (Homeric Hymn, c.a. 500 BCE)
                    Stage direction: Rose Ginsberg

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Program Notes

flow/bell curve/ebb
In late 2025, king tides and a series of atmospheric rivers contributed to catastrophic flooding in the Salish Sea floodplain and surrounding rivers. flow/bell curve/ebb uses creative realization to sonify data and texts related to those events. I am curious about how structured improvisation, filtered through my own taste and memory, changes how I respond to my environment. Salvaged and traditional metals are activated on a resonating drum surface. The head of the instrument slopes and bends and a hidden pedal plummets and soars, while the force of striking, the pull of gravity, and the malleability of the head itself contributes to instability, change, and an unpredictable physical and sonic environment. The objects move and shift as they are activated, generating both precarity and independence. Listening -to myself, to others, to the environment- and responding is a way to cultivate resilience as things change. The instability of the surface itself proposes new directions. Improvisation, listening, and response is, for me, a way to perform agency -and process climate grief- during our time of wilder rivers, changing tides, and rising seas.

Slackwater
Slackwater is the most recent outgrowth of my collaboration with dance artist Jennifer Salk: a playful and deep process of co-creation and experimentation. This summer, we both read Melissa Kirsch’s essay on the year’s midpoint, Gravitational Pull,  in the New York Times. I often use mesostic writing as a way to create structure from existing texts. This one yielded the following:

                thiS week
       an apheLion  
            the plAnet’s tilt
                we Can fathom
                   taKing up inches of space

              We can 
             fAthom
  the exacT middle
              wE can picture
midpoints fRom which to look forward and back  

Kirsch writes: Odysseus is hardly a man to tread water in the middle of a punishing sea, but he gets aid from the gods when he’s drowning: “The current ceased; the River God restrained / the waves and made them calm. He brought him safe / into the river mouth.” It takes Odysseus 10 years to make it home from the war. Ten aphelia, 10 summers, 10 midpoints from which to look forward and look back.
-Bonnie Whiting

Corpus to Corpus 
Timea Tihanyi's sculptures in Corpus to Corpus were generated through Touching Space, an interactive touch-based Virtual Reality environment Tihanyi co-created with Zoe Kaputa in 2024, with support from the UW Reality Lab. In Touching Space, participants wearing Quest2 headsets enter a virtual space that looks and feels both architectural and visceral. Through their hand gestures, participants can shape the walls of the space using a form of virtual touch. The walls shiver, heave, and change shape as the hands nudge them. The experience feels both haptic and kinetic, while the virtual space around becomes alive and, once set into motion, continues to morph on its own. Participants may capture the 3-dimensional shape of this virtual space at a precise moment of their choosing. The digitally-formed space-forms are subsequently printed in porcelain on a ceramic 3D printer. In this version of the project, with percussionist Bonnie Whiting, a third body, enters in a performance environment, activating these amplified resonant structures alongside recordings of the objects themselves.
-Timea Tihanyi

Being Pollen
I don't want the poems transformed in any way, they are exactly the way they're supposed to be. If someone sets them to music, it's as if they're not complete enough as they are.... I just don't consider my poems to be malleable.... I know a lot of famous poems have been set to music (I'm thinking of German and French poets) — and there's a case to be made for that; but I feel oh so leery of it right now. Poetry doesn't get its own due as the kind of music it is.... I want the poems as read by me heard by the audience. I've gone to a lot of trouble to make them be the way they are.
—Alice Notley, 2011 (excerpted from correspondence with the composer; ellipses indicate the composer's omissions)

In Being Pollen for percussionist and loudspeaker (commissioned jointly by percussionists Bonnie Whiting and Johannes Fischer in 2011), composer Jeff Treviño honors the poet Alice Notley's objections to conventional text setting through a continuous, multi-movement structure that accompanies and transitions between three unaltered recordings of her recitations: 'Conversation,' as read in Bolinas, California in 1971; 'The Song Called 'Get Away',' itself an excerpt from the much longer 'In Ancient December,' as read in Buffalo in 1987; and 'Pollen,' as read in Philadelphia in 2006. Because the recitations occur nearly two decades apart from one another, together spanning more than thirty years, we hear Notley's speaking voice across three different stages of life.
The piece's structure alternates between solo movements and accompaniments that explore different relationships between sound and recorded recitation. In 'Conversation,' a poem full of playful repetition, the music waltzes with and then dissolves into incantations of a single found conversational fragment: 'My name is Wesley Jackson, and my favorite song is 'Valencia' — isn't that beautiful?'; the repetitions in the poem occur because Notley reads aloud from its symmetrical graphic layout. A solo interlude varies the poem's rhythms to bridge to 'The Song Called 'Get Away',' in which a composite rhythm, created by layering the rhythms of fragments from 'Conversation,' repeats and gradually slows throughout the unaltered recitation. Lastly, in 'Pollen,' an ecstatic hymn to disintegration, the percussionist first recites the poem silently, while playing in alignment with its unspoken syllables, and then repeats the movement with Notley's recitation playing audibly.
The work's instrumentation favors small, quiet, high instruments and found objects that might appear at first to be more at home in a kitchen or garage than in a concert hall. Whiting and Treviño began work on the piece in the recording studio, working directly with Whiting's percussion sounds and Notley's recorded recitations before the creation of any notation, and composer Ben Hackbarth's AudioGuide program enabled Treviño to measure similarity between recordings of Whiting's percussion sounds and Notley's spoken words. These measurements became a material for composition in the 'Pollen' movement, in which the composer paired sounds with the timing of Notley's spoken words according to how closely each sound resembled the syllable it accompanied, or composed silence in cases where no similar sounds existed.
-Jeffrey Treviño

Kassandra
More than twenty years after the premiere of his opera the Oresteia, Iannis Xenakis added  Kassandra (1987), a scene for baritone and percussion. In it, the singer alternates between a piercing falsetto voice (the prophet, Kassandra, foretelling both Agamemnon’s grisly death and her own) and a naturally-deep modal voice (the Chorus and Chorus leader, interrogating this foreign woman, mostly misunderstanding and disbelieving what she foretells.) I’ve performed this work with the wonderful bass baritone Nicholas Isherwood many times, and am always struck by the chilling quality of the falsetto. This gender-bending setting of the ancient tale amplifies what seems hysterical and unbelievable about Kassandra’s story. In both tessituras, the vocal line uses graphic rather than precise notation, and the lower Chorus passages are often marked “spoken” to better fit an individual singer’s range.  Furthermore, both parts must be exactly synchronized, with precise accents and sharp punctuations from the percussion instruments that must, somehow, carefully align with the singer’s idiosyncratic realization of the graphic material.  While I don’t have an operatic range, I found a solo-simultaneous version for a treble-voiced singing/speaking percussionist irresistible: what if we heard Kassandra herself as the reliable narrator, and the Chorus more false? To achieve this effect, I use a simple octave doubler pedal (the appropriately-named TC Helicon VoiceTone D1) to shift my voice down an octave and double it for the Chorus parts. I’m also providing supertitles; these are based on Anne Carson’s evocative version of the scene from An Oresteia (2009.) Still: some of the text doesn’t translate; this is by design. More than 100 years ago, in her essay ‘On Not Knowing Greek’, Virgina Woolf writes: 
The meaning is just on the far side of language. . .By the bold and running use of metaphor [Aeschylus] will amplify and give us, not the thing itself, but the reverberation and reflection which, taken into his mind, the thing has made; close enough to the original to illustrate it, remote enough to heighten, enlarge, and make splendid. . .No splendour or richness of metaphor could have saved the Agamemnon if either images or allusions of the subtlest or most decorative had got between us and the naked cry ὀτοτοτοῖ πόποι δᾶ· / ὤπολλον ὤπολλον’. 
In this powerful musical setting Xenakis uses sound to build a bridge toward sense, inviting us to hear not just the denotation but the connotation of the syllables themselves. 
-BW 

Some Work of Noble Note
Among poets, Tennyson sure does get the blood flowing. His “Ulysses” is set after the Odyssey, and shows us an unhappy Odysseus, with an unstoppable drive to travel, to explore, to act. We see him alone, late at night in Ithaca, deciding to use his famous cleverness to change his life. This piece adds to Tennyson’s poem both the Homeric “Hymn to Poseidon” and a flashback to one of Odysseus’ military successes from the Iliad. These elements bring some of the worldview of antiquity into Tennyson’s 19th century poem, and help us see Odysseus as, in Emily Wilson’s translation, a ‘complicated man.’ Listen today for both the exciting Tennyson, and for the wily Odysseus. What is he asking of you? And what will you do?
-Kevin Clark 

*world premiere

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Acknowledgements

Many thanks to The Meany Center, especially Seah Johnson (lighting designer), The School of Music, especially Doug Niemela (sound), Joanne DePue (publicity), and student workers Daisy Waters and Devon Rafanelli. 

The University of Washington acknowledges the Coast Salish peoples of this land, the land which touches the shared waters of all tribes and bands within the Suquamish, Tulalip and Muckleshoot nations. 

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Biographies

Bonnie Whiting performs, improvises, and creates new music for percussion. Exploring intersections of storytelling and experimental music, her work integrates text, movement, and technology. Her debut album, featuring a solo-simultaneous realization of John Cage's 45' for a speaker and 27'10.554 for a percussionist was released by Mode Records in 2017, and her second album, Perishable Structures, launched on the New Focus Recordings label in 2020. Her third solo album Through the Eye(s) (Neuma, 2026) is an extractable cycle of nine pieces for speaking/singing percussionist collaboratively developed with composer Eliza Brown and ten artists and writers incarcerated at the Indiana Women’s Prison. The project was featured on NPR’s nationally-syndicated Slingshot program, and locally via Seattle’s ClassicalKING radio station. Her original music with James Falzone (clarinets) and Lisa Cay Miller (prepared piano) can be heard on Six Artifacts (Allos Documents, 2024). Recent projects include collaboration with composer Wang Lu on the expansive solo theatrical work Stages, the world premiere of Jonathan Bingham’s percussion concerto with the National Symphony Orchestra, performances on the original Harry Partch instrumentarium, and concerto appearances with the State Symphony Orchestra of Turkmenistan.  She is the on-stage percussionist in The Ritual of Breath Is the Rite to Resist, a multimedia opera featured at Lincoln Center, The Hopkins Center at Dartmouth, and Stanford Live. Her collaboration with multimedia artist Afroditi Psarra generated (Zero Moon records.) Their project with designer Audrey Desjardins transcoding data from IoT devices as performance received a Mellon Creative Fellowship, lives as an interactive net art installation, and was explored in workshop at the 2020 Transmediale Festival. She is co-Artistic Director of Seattle Modern Orchestra, and has performed with Ensemble Dal Niente, International Contemporary Ensemble, Talea Ensemble, and red fish blue fish percussion group. She is the Donald E. Peterson Endowed Associate Professor of Music and Chair of Percussion Studies at the University of Washington in Seattle. More at is a composer, facilitator, and mission-driven technology leader. His music uses historical texts, theatre, and participation to explore issues of collective agency. Currently COO at Productable, Kevin previously led public-interest technology projects at Pivotal Labs. A sought-after facilitator, he has led workshops at Brown University, Jacob’s Pillow, and the Biden White House. Formerly Director of Platform at New Music USA, he developed influential grantmaking tools, and continues to advise funders on participatory funding, technology, and strategy.

Alice Elizabeth Notley was born on November 8, 1945, in Bisbee, Arizona, and grew up in Needles, California. She received a BA from Barnard College in 1967 and an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in 1969. She moved frequently during her youth—to San Francisco, Bolinas, London, Essex, and Chicago—and eventually married the poet Ted Berrigan in 1972, with whom she had two sons. In the early 1970s, Notley settled on New York’s Lower East Side, where she was very involved in the local literary scene for several decades. In 1979, she received a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. After Berrigan’s death in 1983, she married the British poet Douglas Oliver.
Though Notley is often identified as a prominent member of the eclectic second generation of The New York School, her poetry also demonstrates a continuing fascination with the desert and its inhabitants. Her collections of verse include Early Works (Fonograf Editions, 2022); Certain Magical Acts (Penguin, 2016); Songs and Stories of the Ghouls (Wesleyan University Press, 2011); Grave of Light: New and Selected Poems 1970–2005  (Wesleyan University Press, 2006), which was awarded the 2007 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets for the best book of the year; Disobedience (Penguin, 2001), winner of the 2002 International Griffin Poetry Prize; Mysteries of Small Houses (Penguin, 1998); Selected Poems of Alice Notley (Talisman House, 1993); Margaret and Dusty (Coffee House Press, 1985); and Sorrento (Sherwood Press, 1984). 
Notley’s collection How Spring Comes (Toothpaste Press, 1981) received a 1982 San Francisco Poetry Award. Other early titles include Waltzing Matilda (Kulchur Foundation, 1981); Alice Ordered Me to Be Made (Yellow Press, 1976); and 165 Meeting House Lane (“C” Press, 1971). She has also published Tell Me Again (Am Here Books, 1982), an autobiography, and experiments with visual arts. Her work in the latter field includes collages, watercolors, and sketches.
Notley has said that her speech is the voice of “the new wife, and the new mother” in her own time, but that her first aim is to make a poem, rather than present a platform of social reform.
Notley’s other awards include the Los Angeles Times Book Award for Poetry. She was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. In 2001, she received both an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Poetry Society of America’s Shelley Memorial Award. In 2015, she was honored with the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. 
Notley died on May 19, 2025, in Paris, France, where she had lived for decades.

Iannis Xenakis was born to Greek parents living in Romania in 1922. His childhood interests included the rich folk music of his native region as well as mathematics and engineering, which led him to enter Athens Polytechnic with the intention of becoming an engineer. He began to seriously pursue music during this period.
When World War II broke out, Xenakis joined the Resistance movement and eventually moved to Paris. It was here that his complementary interests - engineering and music - led to an encounter with architect Le Corbusier, who introduced him to two leading members of the musical avant-garde, Varèse and Messaien. It was with these early contacts in France that the self-taught musician was able to find encouragement, support and the help he needed to publish an article and conduct several premières. He even completed a formal music degree under Messaien at Sorbonne. Xenakis' acquaintance with Le Coursier enabled him to undertake some engineering calculations and collaborate with the architect on several studies for housing projects in Nantes and Marseilles, the convent of La Tourette, the assembly building at Chandigarh, and the Baghdad stadium. He invented an architecture constructed entirely from faces derived from the hyperbolic paraboloid for the Philips Pavilion at the 1958 Brussels Exposition.
This was an architectural revolution that was closely associated to the composer's breakthrough work and first composition, Metastasis, in which he unified architectural space and music. His obsession with 'space' permeates his pieces most directly concerned with sound, and the connections between the two are elaborated in his works. It is the use of mathematical processes that allow Xenakis to discover patterns and communicable musical ideas out of a totally unrestricted musical vocabulary. His compositions arise from more abstract structures and mathematical models, recalling Greek mathematical philosophy.
Metastasis (1953-4) and Pithoprakta (1955-6), another orchestra piece concerned with global, mass phenomena, were followed by the first product of Xenakis work in the Groupe de Recherches Musicales: Diamorphoses (1957-8). His use of set theory in musical composition is exemplified by Herma for piano (1960-4). His music also reflects an interest both in electronic music and in Greek culture, especially folk culture and ancient Greek drama.
To stimulate research into music theory, he founded the Equipe de Mathematique et d'Automatique Musicales (EMAMu) in Paris in 1966. In the years following he toured the globe attending performances of his music, lecturing and giving courses in composition and aesthetics. He taught for several months of each year at Indiana University, Bloomington from 1967 to 1972, where he founded a sister branch to the EMAMu: the Center for Musical Mathematics and Automation. In 1970, the EMAMu was granted official recognition by the French government and accommodation in the Centre de Recherche Nucléaire of the Collège de France.
Aeschylus, often regarded as the 'father of Western tragedy,' was a seminal figure in ancient Greek theater, born around 525-524 BCE in Eleusis, an Attic town near Athens. His aristocratic background provided him with a solid education, fostering a deep appreciation for poetry and civic responsibility. Although much of his early life is shrouded in unreliable accounts, Aeschylus's military service during significant battles against the Persian Empire, such as Marathon and Salamis, is well-documented and likely influenced his later works.
Aeschylus wrote approximately eighty plays, of which only seven tragedies survive today, including the renowned 'Oresteia' trilogy. His innovative approach to dramatic structure, particularly his use of connected trilogies and dialogues, set new standards for theater. His works often drew from themes of myth and historical events, showcasing complex moral and social issues. Aeschylus's legacy endures not only through his plays but also through the influence he had on subsequent playwrights, establishing a foundation for the evolution of Greek tragedy. He died in Gela, Sicily, around 456 or 455 BCE, leaving behind a body of work that continues to be studied and revered in literature and theater.
Born on August 6, 1809, in Somersby, Lincolnshire, England, Alfred, Lord Tennyson is one of the most well-loved Victorian poets. Tennyson, the fourth of twelve children, showed an early talent for writing. At the age of twelve he wrote a six-thousand-line epic poem. His father, the Reverend George Tennyson, tutored his sons in classical and modern languages. In the 1820s, however, Tennyson’s father began to suffer frequent mental breakdowns that were exacerbated by alcoholism. One of Tennyson’s brothers had violent quarrels with his father, a second was later confined to an insane asylum, and another became an opium addict.
Tennyson escaped home in 1827 to attend Trinity College, Cambridge. In that same year, he and his brother Charles published Poems by Two Brothers. Although the poems in the book were mostly juvenilia, they attracted the attention of the “Apostles,” an undergraduate literary club led by Arthur Henry Hallam. The “Apostles” provided Tennyson, who was tremendously shy, with much needed friendship and confidence as a poet. Hallam and Tennyson became the best of friends; they toured Europe together in 1830 and again in 1832. Hallam’s sudden death in 1833 greatly affected the young poet. The long elegy “In Memoriam” and many of Tennyson’s other poems are tributes to Hallam.
In 1830, Tennyson published Poems, Chiefly Lyrical and in 1832 he published a second volume entitled simply Poems. Some reviewers condemned these books as “affected” and “obscure.” Tennyson, stung by the reviews, would not publish another book for nine years. In 1836, he became engaged to Emily Sellwood. When he lost his inheritance on a bad investment in 1840, Sellwood’s family called off the engagement. In 1842, however, Tennyson’s Poems in two volumes was a tremendous critical and popular success. In 1850, with the publication of “In Memoriam,” Tennyson became one of Britain’s most popular poets. He was selected as poet laureate in succession to William Wordsworth. In that same year, he married Emily Sellwood. They had two sons, Hallam and Lionel.
At the age of forty-one, Tennyson had established himself as the most popular poet of the Victorian era. The money from his poetry (at times exceeding ten thousand pounds per year) allowed him to purchase a house in the country and to write in relative seclusion. His appearance—a large and bearded man who regularly wore a cloak and a broad-brimmed hat—enhanced his notoriety. He read his poetry with a booming voice, a habit later adopted by Dylan Thomas. In 1859, Tennyson published the first poems of “Idylls of the Kings,” which sold more than ten thousand copies in one month. In 1884, he accepted a peerage, becoming Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
Tennyson died on October 6, 1892, in Aldworth, Surrey, England, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

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Additional Notes and Texts

Alice Notley: ConversatIon
Alice Notley: The Song Called Get Away
Jeffrey Trevino: Score image of 'conversation'
Excerpts: Agamemnon (Aeschylus), as translated by Anne Carson in An Oresteia
Ulysses by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

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Students of the UW School of Music perform in this lunchtime concert series co-hosted by UW Music and UW Libraries. 

Featured Performers

  Program details coming soon!

Concert featuring students of the UW School of Music.

Faculty pianist Cristina Valdés performs works honoring the 100th birthday of 20th century composers Betsy Jolas, Morton Feldman, and Gyorgy Kurtag. Program includes Betsy Jolas's Signets, hommage à Maurice Ravel; Morton Feldman's Palais de Mari; and Gyorgy Kurtag's Eight Piano Pieces, Op. 3, as well as works by Ravel and Haydn.

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Program

Betsy Jolas - Signets, hommage à Maurice Ravel

Maurice Ravel - Menuet sur le nom d'Haydn

Franz Joseph Haydn - Sonata No. 47 in B minor, Hob.XVI:32

-Intermission-

Morton Feldman - Palais de Mari

Gyorgy Kurtag - Eight Piano Pieces, Op. 3

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Biography

The UW School of Music encourages prospective freshmen, transfer students, and current UW undergraduates to attend a School of Music information session. These sessions provide a great opportunity to learn more about what the School of Music has to offer as well as ask questions about admissions, auditions, or life as a UW music student.

 Topics covered include:

• An overview of the School of Music and its resources
• Degree programs offered
• The application and audition process
• Scholarships
• Opportunities for non-music majors

Time and location: Information sessions are held from 12:00-1:00 PM over Zoom. 

Register

Registration is required. To ask a question, please email SoMadmit@uw.edu.

Since its founding in 1974 by violinist Irvine Arditti, the world-renowned Arditti Quartet has inspired hundreds of composers to write groundbreaking works specifically for the ensemble, among them School of Music director and faculty composer Joël-Francois Durand, whose connection to the group goes back decades. 

In this free concert following the Quartet’s Concerning the same work, The Toronto Star observes: 'The music pulsed with fabulous rhythmic and tonal effects that the Ardittis shaped into palpable 3-D soundscapes. Clarke's mastery of dissonance and overtone, aided by the Ardittis' playing, created sound waves that are not usually heard in a quartet program.'

Durand: Quatuor à cordes no. 4, Musica fict(iv)a II (2026) 
Like my second (2020) and third (2024) string quartets , this fourth quartet makes extensive use of “first order beats,” an acoustic phenomenon which naturally occurs when two tones of very close frequency are played at the same time. When these two tones approach the unison, one can perceive pulsations (beats) of ever slower frequency. Musica fict(iv)a II is based on musical materials from Musica fict(iv)a, Six pièces et deux interludes, for wind quintet. Four of the five movements of the string quartet (I., II, IV and V) are dervied from movements of the wind quintet, while the 3rd movement, the Prologue and the two Interludes present new materials that puts the other movements in a new perspective.

The title, Musica fict(iv)a, refers to both the notion of 'outside' notes found in the musical theory of musica ficta from the middle ages, and to the 'fictive' character of the beats produced by these outside notes. In parallel to the medieval notion of Musica ficta, the reference here is to the fact that the tonal inflections that generate beats don’t so much create a microtonal language as they are explorations of the musical potential of beats, in particular as we approach the unison. In that sense, they operate outside the conventional notion of intervals. Additionally, since the beats are not actually produced by the musicians (the performers just play two different, closely related tones), but result from the acoustic phenomenon of interference, one could argue that the sound they create is not 'real': it exists in another, non-material dimension. The beats produce a 'fictive,' but clearly perceived musical line above the more traditional musical gestures.
 
One the main reasons why I find this particularly interesting is because these two types of discourse, the fictive and the traditional ones, require very different types of listening, different types of attention. In order to perceive these beats, one must almost “not hear” the tones that are produced by the instruments, but concentrate on the resulting beats that emanate from their combination. This requires shifting our listening attention from one level to the other, as if listening to some sort of new polyphony. The beats are a very delicate acoustic phenomenon—often much fainter than the main tones. They are also fairly unstable because they rely on the performers maintaining an absolutely steady intonation, something that is almost impossible to achieve for a long period of time: on string instruments, in particular, the pitch can vary minutely with the pressure of the bow on the string, or with the slightest movement of the finger on the string that is being stopped. These tiny changes are usually not heard because with larger intervals, the ear adapts to the context—“understands the pitch,” so to speak. But the production of beats requires extremely small intervallic differences and, in this world, these changes in frequency can alter the effect dramatically. Far from being an inconvenience, I value this evanescence, this uncertainty, both in the production and the perception, as an essential part of the musical language based on this acoustic phenomenon. This fourth string quartet, like the preceding two, invites us to bring our listening attention to a very focused kind of concentration, inside the movement of the sound.

Ferneyhough: String Quartet No. 3 (1987)
The final form of this quartet is quite different from that which I had planned at the outset. Initially (several years before the main period of composition) I had sketched out a five-movement structure; in the event this was finally reduced to a two-movement layout, in which the second movement contains superimposed elements of several other movemental types. The change may be attributed, in large part, to questions of musical balance: at the same time the altered perspective permitted me to regard the piece very much as a record of two very different reactions to a state of extreme inner crisis. Since both movements, very different in regard of contents, are approximately of the same length, I thought of them as polar opposites, reflecting, by their very intransigent extremity, the empty spaces in between.
The first movement moves in an almost frozen, dazed, autistic world of isolated fragments, partial, disconnected repetitions and sudden, unmotivated outbursts. The more than twenty basic textural elements are constantly being mutated, erased and recombined in a fashion which practically eliminate the possibility of establishing a singled underlying continuity. At the same time, the overall form reflects closely the self-preoccupied nature of its materials in a dual mirroring strategy: on the one hand, the individual sections are interlocked in a complex pattern of subsurface symmetries, on the other, the final third of the movement reflects the patterns and texture-types of the first two thirds by replacing each element with its 'complementary' element from the opposite end of the spectrum.
The second and final movement explodes into an iridescent flood of irate images, almost cadence-like in its constantly changing instrumental combinations of wildly fluctuating superpositions of texture and tempo. The complexity of this movement resides largely in the fact that a number of movements have been, in effect, compacted together, each of them having been 'damaged' in greater or lesser degree by the impact. Whilst the attentive listener may well discover residual features of a rondo structure, this should be understood less as a consciously imposed dictate than as a reflection of the fact that at least three distinct processual strata are running concurrently, albeit surfacing into the domain of the audible only at certain precalculated moments.
String Quartet No 3 is dedicated to the members of the Arditti Quartet, and was commissioned with funds provided by the Arts Council of Great Britain -- B. Ferneyhough.

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Biographies

The Arditti Quartet enjoys a world-wide reputation for their spirited and technically refined interpretations of contemporary and earlier 20th century music. Many hundreds of string quartets and other chamber works have been written for the ensemble since its foundation by first violinist Irvine Arditti in 1974. Many of these works have left a permanent mark on 20th century repertoire and have given the Arditti Quartet a firm place in music history. World premieres of quartets by composers such as Abrahamsen, Ades, Andriessen, Aperghis, Birtwistle, Britten, Cage, Carter, Denisov, Dillon, Dufourt, Dusapin, Fedele, Ferneyhough, Francesconi, Gubaidulina, Guerrero, Harvey, Hosokawa, Kagel, Kurtag, Lachenmann, Ligeti, Maderna, Manoury, Nancarrow, Reynolds, Rihm, Scelsi, Sciarrino, Stockhausen and Xenakis and hundreds more show the wide range of music in the Arditti Quartet’s repertoire.

The ensemble believes that close collaboration with composers is vital to the process of interpreting modern music and therefore attempts to work with every composer it plays.
The players’ commitment to educational work is indicated by their masterclasses and workshops for young performers and composers all over the world.

The Arditti Quartet’s extensive discography now features over 200 CDs.

42 CD’s were released as part of the ensemble’s series on Naive Montaigne. This series set the trend, by presenting numerous contemporary composer features, recorded in their presence as well as the first digital recordings of the complete Second Viennese School’s chamber music for strings. The quartet has recorded for more than 20 other CD labels and together this CD collection is the most extensive available of quartet literature in the last 40 years. To name just a few, Berio, Cage, Carter, Lachenmann, Ligeti, Nono, Rihm, the complete chamber music of Xenakis and Stockhausen’s infamous Helicopter Quartet. Some of the most recent releases with the French company Aeon include profiles of Birtwistle, Gerhard, Ferneyhough Paredes and Dusapin, and with Winter and Winter Abrahamsen.

Over the past 30 years, the ensemble has received many prizes for its work. They have won the Deutsche Schallplatten Preis several times and the Gramophone Award for the best recording of contemporary music in 1999 (Elliott Carter) in 2002 (Harrison Birtwistle) and in 2018 (Pascal Dusapin). In 2004 they were awarded the ‘Coup de Coeur’ prize by the Academie Charles Cros in France for their exceptional contribution to the dissemination of contemporary music. The prestigious Ernst von Siemens Music Prize was awarded to them in 1999 for ‘lifetime achievement’ in music. They remain to this day, the only ensemble ever to receive it.

The complete archive of the Arditti quartet is housed in the Sacher Foundation in Basle, Switzerland.

Members of the UW Wind Ensemble (Christopher Vongvithaymathakul, director) perform music by W.A. Mozart, Claude Arrieu, Joan Tower and others. With Yuman Wu and Joshua Michael Smith, assistant conductors. 

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Biographies

The UW School of Music encourages prospective freshmen, transfer students, and current UW undergraduates to attend a School of Music information session. These sessions provide a great opportunity to learn more about what the School of Music has to offer as well as ask questions about admissions, auditions, or life as a UW music student.

 Topics covered include:

• An overview of the School of Music and its resources
• Degree programs offered
• The application and audition process
• Scholarships
• Opportunities for non-music majors

Time and location: Information sessions are held from 12:00-1:00 PM over Zoom. 

Register

Registration is required. To ask a question, please email SoMadmit@uw.edu.

Dr. Stephen Price is joined by students, colleagues, and friends of the UW Organ Studies program in this concert of spooky organ classics and Halloween fun.

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Biography

David Alexander Rahbee and the UW Symphony present 'Hungarian Connections,' a program of music by Leó Weiner, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Bela Bartók. With faculty artist Pala Garcia, violin. 

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Program

“Hungarian Connections” 

Leó Weiner: Prince Csongor and the Goblins: Introduction & Scherzo

Ludwig van Beethoven: Romance No.2 in F major for violin and orchestra, op.50 

Bela Bartók: Rhapsody No.2 for violin and orchestra 

Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No.7 in A major, op.92

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Biographies

The UW School of Music encourages prospective freshmen, transfer students, and current UW undergraduates to attend a School of Music information session. These sessions provide a great opportunity to learn more about what the School of Music has to offer as well as ask questions about admissions, auditions, or life as a UW music student.

 Topics covered include:

• An overview of the School of Music and its resources
• Degree programs offered
• The application and audition process
• Scholarships
• Opportunities for non-music majors

Time and location: Information sessions are held from 12:00-1:00 PM over Zoom. 

Register

Registration is required. To ask a question, please email SoMadmit@uw.edu.

Note: This event has been canceled.

Pianist Joanne Polk, faculty member at the Manhattan School of Music, performs a recital of solo piano works by distinguished American composer Amy Beach. 

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Biography

Pianist Joanne Polk was catapulted into the public eye with her recordings of the complete piano works of American composer Amy Beach (1867-1944) on the Arabesque Recordings label.  Ms. Polk celebrated the centennial of Beach’s Piano Concerto by giving the work its London premiere with the English Chamber Orchestra at the Barbican Center under the baton of Paul Goodwin.  A few days later, Ms. Polk performed the Piano Concerto with the Women’s Philharmonic in San Francisco with conductor Apo Hsu in a performance described as “brilliant” by critic Joshua Kosman of the San Francisco Chronicle.  

The first recording in the Beach series, by the still waters, received the 1998 INDIE award for best solo recording.  Empress of Night, the fifth volume of Ms. Polk’s survey of Beach’s piano works, includes the Piano Concerto with the English Chamber Orchestra, Paul Goodwin conducting.  The sixth volume of the series, Morning Glories, joins Ms. Polk with the Lark Quartet in three outstanding chamber music works by Amy Beach.  Two all-Beach performances at Merkin Concert Hall in New York City, which featured Joanne Polk and the Lark Quartet, were applauded by the New York Times, as they deemed Polk’s performances “polished and assured.”  American Record Guide reported, “Polk and the Larks played their hearts out.  We in the audience shouted ourselves hoarse with gratitude.”

Prior to recording the complete piano music of Amy Beach, Ms. Polk recorded Completely Clara: Lieder by Clara Wieck Schumann, her debut CD for Arabesque Recording, featuring Metropolitan Opera soprano Korliss Uecker.  This CD was selected as a “Best of the Year” recording by The Seattle Times and was featured on Performance Today on New York Public Radio.  Ms. Polk’s CD for Albany Records, Callisto, features the solo piano music of Judith Lang Zaimont.  Her CD titled Songs of Amy Beach, recorded with baritone Patrick Mason for Bridge Records, was nominated for a Grammy Award.  Ms. Polk’s two-CD set of solo piano music by Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, Songs for Pianoforte, was released on the Newport Classic label.  Ms. Polk’s solo piano CD, titled Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn, was released on the Bridge Records label.

In 2014, Ms. Polk’s CD titled The Flatterer, solo piano music of French Romantic composer Cécile Chaminade, was released on the Steinway & Sons Label.  The CD was a “Pick of the Week” on New York’s classical radio station WQXR and debuted at #1 on the Classical Billboard Chart.  In 2017, Joanne Polk’s CD, Gershwin & Wild, was released on the Steinway & Sons Label and features Earl Wild’s transcriptions of Gershwin songs, as well as Wild’s Piano Sonata.  American Record Guide called Ms. Polk’s playing on this CD, “plush and dreamily attractive…”

In 2014, Joanne Polk was named one of Musical America’s Top 30 Professionals of the Year in an article titled, “Profiles in Courage.”  Ms. Polk’s profile focused on her work promoting the music of women composers.

Ms. Polk received her Bachelor of Music and Master of Music Degrees from The Juilliard School, and her Doctor of Musical Arts Degree from Manhattan School of Music.  She has given master classes at many summer festivals and universities across the country, and in 2018 completed a five-city, three-week concert and master class tour of Taiwan and China.  

In 2019, two of Ms. Polk’s CDs, Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn and The Flatterer: Solo Piano Music by Cécile Chaminade, were included on New York City’s classical radio station WQXR’s Essential Piano Recordings.

In February 2020, Ms. Polk’s CD Louise Farrenc Etudes and Variations for Solo Piano, was released on the Steinway & Sons Label.  In December 2020, Ms. Polk’s Farrenc CD was on The New York Times “Best Classical Music of 2020” list:  

'The music of Louise Farrenc, professor of piano at the Paris Conservatory for three decades after 1842, has been taped before, but never quite so well as in Joanne Polk’s sample of her solo piano music...' -- New York Times [Best Classical Music of 2020]

Ms. Polk’s 2023 recording titled The Silence Between the Notes: Louise Farrenc Solo Piano Music Volume 2, was released on September 1, 2023, on the Steinway & Sons Label.

In December 2023 and January 2024, Ms. Polk traveled to China on an 8-city concert and master class tour.  In July 2024, Ms. Polk performed recitals and masterclasses at the University of Guadalajara in Mexico.  

In September 2024, Ms. Polk’s second volume of solo piano music by Cécile Chaminade, titled Nostalgia, was released on the Steinway & Sons Label.

American Record Guide January/February 2025 review of Nostalgia:

“Polk has championed female composers all through her admirable discography. She has brought a wealth of great and enjoyable music to our attention, most of which has lived in relative obscurity since it was written. It would all be for naught if not for the exceptional musical insight and flawless piano technique she brings to these works.
It is so good to hear world-class pianists like Polk choose a recital of Chaminade music and play it with all of the seriousness one would expect if the program were music by European male composers of the time.”
Polk’s third CD of solo piano music by Cécile Chaminade will be released later in 2026.  Upcoming performances include solo and chamber music concerts featuring the music Amy Beach (1867-1944), in celebration of the 250th anniversary of America and the first successful female American composer.

To find out more about Ms. Polk, please visit her website at

Students of the UW School of Music perform in this lunchtime concert series co-hosted by UW Music and UW Libraries. 

Featured Performers

  Program details coming soon!

Note: This event has been canceled.

Guest pianist Joanne Polk, faculty member at the Manhattan School of Music, leads a master class with UW piano students. 

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Biography

Pianist Joanne Polk was catapulted into the public eye with her recordings of the complete piano works of American composer Amy Beach (1867-1944) on the Arabesque Recordings label.  Ms. Polk celebrated the centennial of Beach’s Piano Concerto by giving the work its London premiere with the English Chamber Orchestra at the Barbican Center under the baton of Paul Goodwin.  A few days later, Ms. Polk performed the Piano Concerto with the Women’s Philharmonic in San Francisco with conductor Apo Hsu in a performance described as “brilliant” by critic Joshua Kosman of the San Francisco Chronicle.  

The first recording in the Beach series, by the still waters, received the 1998 INDIE award for best solo recording.  Empress of Night, the fifth volume of Ms. Polk’s survey of Beach’s piano works, includes the Piano Concerto with the English Chamber Orchestra, Paul Goodwin conducting.  The sixth volume of the series, Morning Glories, joins Ms. Polk with the Lark Quartet in three outstanding chamber music works by Amy Beach.  Two all-Beach performances at Merkin Concert Hall in New York City, which featured Joanne Polk and the Lark Quartet, were applauded by the New York Times, as they deemed Polk’s performances “polished and assured.”  American Record Guide reported, “Polk and the Larks played their hearts out.  We in the audience shouted ourselves hoarse with gratitude.”

Prior to recording the complete piano music of Amy Beach, Ms. Polk recorded Completely Clara: Lieder by Clara Wieck Schumann, her debut CD for Arabesque Recording, featuring Metropolitan Opera soprano Korliss Uecker.  This CD was selected as a “Best of the Year” recording by The Seattle Times and was featured on Performance Today on New York Public Radio.  Ms. Polk’s CD for Albany Records, Callisto, features the solo piano music of Judith Lang Zaimont.  Her CD titled Songs of Amy Beach, recorded with baritone Patrick Mason for Bridge Records, was nominated for a Grammy Award.  Ms. Polk’s two-CD set of solo piano music by Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, Songs for Pianoforte, was released on the Newport Classic label.  Ms. Polk’s solo piano CD, titled Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn, was released on the Bridge Records label.

In 2014, Ms. Polk’s CD titled The Flatterer, solo piano music of French Romantic composer Cécile Chaminade, was released on the Steinway & Sons Label.  The CD was a “Pick of the Week” on New York’s classical radio station WQXR and debuted at #1 on the Classical Billboard Chart.  In 2017, Joanne Polk’s CD, Gershwin & Wild, was released on the Steinway & Sons Label and features Earl Wild’s transcriptions of Gershwin songs, as well as Wild’s Piano Sonata.  American Record Guide called Ms. Polk’s playing on this CD, “plush and dreamily attractive…”

In 2014, Joanne Polk was named one of Musical America’s Top 30 Professionals of the Year in an article titled, “Profiles in Courage.”  Ms. Polk’s profile focused on her work promoting the music of women composers.

Ms. Polk received her Bachelor of Music and Master of Music Degrees from The Juilliard School, and her Doctor of Musical Arts Degree from Manhattan School of Music.  She has given master classes at many summer festivals and universities across the country, and in 2018 completed a five-city, three-week concert and master class tour of Taiwan and China.  

In 2019, two of Ms. Polk’s CDs, Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn and The Flatterer: Solo Piano Music by Cécile Chaminade, were included on New York City’s classical radio station WQXR’s Essential Piano Recordings.

In February 2020, Ms. Polk’s CD Louise Farrenc Etudes and Variations for Solo Piano, was released on the Steinway & Sons Label.  In December 2020, Ms. Polk’s Farrenc CD was on The New York Times “Best Classical Music of 2020” list:  

'The music of Louise Farrenc, professor of piano at the Paris Conservatory for three decades after 1842, has been taped before, but never quite so well as in Joanne Polk’s sample of her solo piano music...' -- New York Times [Best Classical Music of 2020]

Ms. Polk’s 2023 recording titled The Silence Between the Notes: Louise Farrenc Solo Piano Music Volume 2, was released on September 1, 2023, on the Steinway & Sons Label.

In December 2023 and January 2024, Ms. Polk traveled to China on an 8-city concert and master class tour.  In July 2024, Ms. Polk performed recitals and masterclasses at the University of Guadalajara in Mexico.  

In September 2024, Ms. Polk’s second volume of solo piano music by Cécile Chaminade, titled Nostalgia, was released on the Steinway & Sons Label.

American Record Guide January/February 2025 review of Nostalgia:

“Polk has championed female composers all through her admirable discography. She has brought a wealth of great and enjoyable music to our attention, most of which has lived in relative obscurity since it was written. It would all be for naught if not for the exceptional musical insight and flawless piano technique she brings to these works.
It is so good to hear world-class pianists like Polk choose a recital of Chaminade music and play it with all of the seriousness one would expect if the program were music by European male composers of the time.”
Polk’s third CD of solo piano music by Cécile Chaminade will be released later in 2026.  Upcoming performances include solo and chamber music concerts featuring the music Amy Beach (1867-1944), in celebration of the 250th anniversary of America and the first successful female American composer.

To find out more about Ms. Polk, please visit her website at

Seattle Modern Orchestra’s (SMO's) University of Washington residency celebrates the legacies of longtime former School of Music professors and West Coast luminaries Stuart Dempster (b. 1936) and William O. Smith (1926-2020) with '90/100, Celebrating Stuart Dempster, William O. Smith, and West Coast Experimentalism.' Curated by longtime SMO clarinetist Rachel Yoder, the evening integrates elements of improvisation, deep listening, and playfully creative movement while rebooting elements of the composer/performer duo’s historic antics. 

SMO is joined by all-star guests C. Neil Parsons (Boston) on bass trombone and movement and Yoder on clarinets. Expect movement throughout the space and embodied, theatrical music-making, as well as the sonic high of Smith’s wild and wonderful extended clarinet techniques.

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Program

Pauline Oliveros: The Well and the Gentle (1985)
William O. Smith: Encounter (1970)
Rachel Yoder: Double Void (WORLD PREMIERE)
Curtis K. Hughes: chewing gum tornado (2026)
William O. Smith: Explorations for clarinet and chamber orchestra (1998)
Stuart Dempster: S.M.O.R.E.S (2017)* SMO Commission 

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Program Note

“Ten years ago, in the fall of 2016, there was an '80 and 90' concert at Meany Hall in celebration of the 80th birthday of Stuart Dempster and the 90th birthday of William O. “Bill” Smith. It was a tradition that apparently began with a 40/50 concert in 1976, and though Bill passed away in 2020, it brings me great joy that we can now celebrate Stuart’s 90th birthday, and what would have been Bill’s 100th!

Stuart and Bill are names well-known to the Seattle experimental music scene and beyond, as composers and performers of course, but also due to their three decades as co-leaders of the UW Contemporary Group (1968-1997). As I researched for this concert, looking through Contemporary Group papers and programs in the UW library, I was struck by the staggering number of performances they put on over the years, often involving dozens of faculty and students. Many of these people are still playing and creating music in Seattle (including in our own SMO!), and we must give thanks in part to Stuart and Bill for the thriving, multifaceted contemporary music community we enjoy today.

So what, in 2026, is the musical legacy of Stuart and Bill? For me, it’s very personal: Bill was my inspiration to begin to consider myself a “composer” at the age of 40. From the time we met in 2015 until he passed away in 2020, I had the amazing opportunity to get to know Bill – improvising with him, getting advice on playing his music, then working on a couple new solo pieces he wrote for me. He showed me (through his always kind and curious example) a different route to composition that I had never considered, ultimately helping me find my way to myself.

The musical spirit of Stuart Dempster and William O. Smith lives on, here on campus, in the Seattle new music community, and well beyond.”
—Rachel Yoder, curator

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UW Jazz Studies students perform in small combos over two consecutive nights of original tunes, homage to the greats of jazz, and experiments in composing and arranging.

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Director Biographies

The UW School of Music encourages prospective freshmen, transfer students, and current UW undergraduates to attend a School of Music information session. These sessions provide a great opportunity to learn more about what the School of Music has to offer as well as ask questions about admissions, auditions, or life as a UW music student.

 Topics covered include:

• An overview of the School of Music and its resources
• Degree programs offered
• The application and audition process
• Scholarships
• Opportunities for non-music majors

Time and location: Information sessions are held from 12:00-1:00 PM over Zoom. 

Register

Registration is required. To ask a question, please email SoMadmit@uw.edu.

Celebrated Russian pianist Mikhail Voskresensky leads a master class with UW piano students.

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Artist Biography

The last celebrated pianist representing the old Russian school in the 20th century, Mikhail Voskresensky “proved an imposing, magnetic presence” as noted by Los Angeles Times. He has given hundreds of recitals on stages of Salzburg Mozarteum, St. Petersburg Grand Philharmonic Hall, Prague Rudolfinum, Tokyo Bunka Kaikan Hall, Beijing Forbidden City Hall, Moscow Conservatory Grand Hall, Mexico City Palacio de Bellas Artes, Budapest Franz Liszt Academy, Rio de Janeiro Theatro Municipal, just to name a few.

Mr. Voskresensky has soloed with some finest orchestras like Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchester, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, China Philharmonic, Bolshoi Theater Orchestra, Warsaw National Philharmonic, Russian National Orchestra, Shanghai Philharmonic, Moscow Philharmonic, Hungarian Radio Symphony, Mariinsky Orchestra, Christchurch Symphony and many others.

He enjoyed performing with more than 100 conductors including extraordinary Franz Konwitschny, Yevgeny Svetlanov, Kurt Mazur, Kirill Kondrashin, Charles Dutoit, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, John Pritchard, Arvīds Jansons and Yury Temirkanov.

The memorable moment of Mr. Voskresensky’s artistic life was a study with Dmitry Shostakovich on his Second Piano Concerto which received its European Premiere at the Prague Spring Festival in the presence of the composer. He also championed contemporary works dedicated to him by Edison Denisov and Yuri Butsko, and presented World Premieres of newly discovered Sonata E flat minor by Scriabin and Piano Concerto by Taneev. He distinguished himself with the feats like All Chopin in 9 recitals, All Beethoven’s Sonatas in 7 recitals, All 27 Mozart Concertos in 4 seasons and recordings, All Scriabin Sonatas in recordings. His other numerous discs were released by labels Melodia, Triton, Victor, Classical Records, Aquarius and Supraphon.

Mr. Voskresensky has graduated from Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory and since his early successes at competitions including top prizes at the First Schumann International Competition and First Van Cliburn International Competition, he has reached the artistic heights and earned accolades like the title of National Artist of Russia, Order of the Rising Sun by The Emperor of Japan and Nikolai Rubinstein Gold Medal. Following the steps of his teacher Lev Oborin, he rose to become one of the most influential professors in the history of his alma mater. His preeminent teaching is in demand in many world’s major conservatories and universities. This success can be measured by the fact that his students have won 120 top prizes at world’s major international competitions.

Born in Berdiansk, Ukraine, Mr. Voskresensky protested the unjust war waged by Russia in 2022 and left the country. Upon the arrival in the USA he has seen an overwhelming support and interest in the media and the music community. The Atlantic welcomed him with the article and CNN featured him in Amanpour show. His recent and future engagements include concerts and masterclasses at Aspen, PianoTexas and Northern Lights Festivals, Eastman School of Music, Oberlin Conservatory, Bard College, Georgia University, Rowan University, John Perry Academy of Music, The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia.

UW Jazz Studies students perform in small combos over two consecutive nights of original tunes, homage to the greats of jazz, and experiments in composing and arranging.

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Director Biographies

 

UW music students perform music from the Baroque era under the direction of Tekla Cunningham.

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Director Biography

UW voice students of Thomas Harper and Carrie Shaw perform works from the vocal repertoire. 

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Director Biographies

The UW School of Music encourages prospective freshmen, transfer students, and current UW undergraduates to attend a School of Music information session. These sessions provide a great opportunity to learn more about what the School of Music has to offer as well as ask questions about admissions, auditions, or life as a UW music student.

 Topics covered include:

• An overview of the School of Music and its resources
• Degree programs offered
• The application and audition process
• Scholarships
• Opportunities for non-music majors

Time and location: Information sessions are held from 12:00-1:00 PM over Zoom. 

Register

Registration is required. To ask a question, please email SoMadmit@uw.edu.

 

The UW Percussion Ensemble (Bonnie Whiting, director) performs  contemporary music arranged for percussion ensembles

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Director Biography

Students of the UW School of Music perform in this lunchtime concert series co-hosted by UW Music and UW Libraries. 

Featured Performers

  Program details coming soon!

 

The Studio Jazz Ensemble (Jacob Zimmerman, director) performs big band arrangements and repertory selections. The Modern Band (Cuong Vu, director) performs innovative arrangements of jazz standards, selections from the outer limits of the genre, and new original compositions.

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Biographies

UW keyboard students perform from the piano repertoire in the quarterly Brechemin Piano Series concerts. 

 

The Campus Band (Joshua Michael Smith, conductor) and Concert Band (Yuman Wu, conductor) present 'Song and Dance,' performing music by Leonard Bernstein, James Barnes, Frank Ticheli and others. 

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Director Biographies

The UW’s top auditioned choirs present modern vocal works, music from around the globe, and great works from the sacred repertoire in shared quarterly concerts showcasing each group’s most recent work.

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Director Biographies

 

 

The Modern Music Ensemble (Cristina Valdés, director) presents works of our time in several concerts each year. Including repertoire from the early to mid-20th century and beyond, the group focuses on small ensemble and chamber orchestra works, performed by both undergraduate and graduate students.

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Director Biography

 

Phyllis Byrdwell leads the UW Gospel Choir, featuring singers from throughout the UW's degree programs,  in songs from the Gospel tradition. 

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Director Biography

Indian Classical vocalist, educator, and composer Srivani Jade identifies deeply with the Khayal and Thumri traditions of North India, and devotional repertoire from the Bhakti movement. She performs with her UW students and special guests in this concert concluding her Winter Quarter residency aat the School of Music.

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Biography

Indian Classical Vocalist, composer and educator Srivani Jade was introduced to music at the age of four by her father Bhavani Prasad Jade and uncle Raghavendra Tilwalli. She has studied Khayal with Dr. Sharad Gadre in the Gwalior style and with Pandit Parameshwar Hegde in the Kirana style. She identifies deeply with the Bhakti tradition, and enjoys singing light classical music (Thumri-Dadra) and Devotional repertoire (Bhajans, Abhangs, Devaranama). 

Srivani grew up performing on the stage and radio, and winning competitions around India. She debuted as a Khayal singer in Ragamala's Utsav festival (Seattle, 2008) and Devanandan Ubhayaker Yuva Sangeet Utsav for emerging artists (Bengaluru, 2009). She has performed in venues in North America and India, such as Kalakendra (Portland), Ragamala (Seattle), Chhandayan (New York), Anindo Chatterjee Institute of Tabla (Seattle), Indian Music Society (Houston), Suburban Music Circle (Mumbai), and major music festivals such as the Sawai Gandharv Bhimsen Mahotsav (2014). As a soloist for Seattle-based B'shnorkestra's Global Concerto series (Tagore's Prarthona), her performance received critical acclaim in the 2016 Earshot Jazz Festival.

​Srivani is a composer of both classical (bandish, tarana) and devotional/sacred music (bhajans). She is deeply inspired by the poetry of Meera and Kabir, and frequently composes and sings them. Srivani's compositions inspired by Annette Solyst's miniature 'Peacock' paintings was featured as a month-long installation at Jack Straw New Media Gallery (Raag-rang) in 2014. Her work Soul Raga, featuring One-on-One dialogues between Indian Vocals and other World Music Traditions received grant support from 4Culture and Jack Straw Productions.

She has to her credit a growing number of solo albums of original music. She received an NEA grant for her musical composition work on the existential love poetry of Meera Bai (Astitva, 2011). She has composed and recorded theme vocals for independent films such as Tapasya (2003), Siddhanto (2014) and stage productions such as Indian Ink (Sound Theater Company, 2014).

Srivani is a sought after teacher/Guru in the Greater Seattle area. She serves as Visiting Artist with the University of Washington School of Music's Ethnomusicology program. She has also served residencies at UW Bothell, University of Puget Sound, Western Washington University, SMU Dallas, University of British Columbia (Canada), and arts non-profits such as Icicle Creek Center for the Arts and Jack Straw Productions. As a three-times Washington State Master grant recipient, she has worked as a Master Artist and trained apprentices in the traditions of Khayal, Thumri-Dadra, and Bhakti. As a Master Teaching Artist at ArtsWA's Center for Washington Cultural Traditions, she received two consecutive grants to teach and continue the tradition of Chaiti and Kajri from N/NE India (2021-22), and Marathi Abhangs (2022-23).

Students of John Popham present a chamber music showcase. 

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Director Biography

The UW's graduate-student-led choral ensembles—the University Singers, UW Glee, and Treble Choirs—present an eclectic end-of-quarter concert. 

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Director Biographies

 

The Wind Ensemble and Symphonic Band (Christopher Vongvithaymathakul, director) present 'Rhythms and Rhymes,' featuring music by Gustav Holst, David Maslanka, Chen Yi and others.

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Biographies

 

David Alexander Rahbee and the UW Symphony present 'Rhine Journey,' a program of music by Hans Pfitzner, Richard Wagner, and Robert Schumann. 

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Program 

'Rhine Journey' 

Hans Pfitzner: Palestrina: Prelude to act 1 
Richard Wagner: Siegfried’s Rhine Journey from Götterdämmerung (arr. Humperdinck) 
Robert Schumann: Symphony No.3 in E-flat major, op.97 Rhenish

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Biography

Emerging and established composers explore unconventional sonic landscapes in quarterly concerts of music by students, faculty, alumni, and guests of the UW Composition program.

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Director Biographies

The faculty colleagues perform the complete Beethoven sonatas for piano and violin over two evening performances, the first on the composer’s birthday. 

Wed. Dec. 16: Beethoven Sonatas, Part I: Sonatas #1-#5 
Fri. Feb. 19: Beethoven Sonatas, Part II: Sonatas #6-#10

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Biographies

The UW School of Music encourages prospective freshmen, transfer students, and current UW undergraduates to attend a School of Music information session. These sessions provide a great opportunity to learn more about what the School of Music has to offer as well as ask questions about admissions, auditions, or life as a UW music student.

 Topics covered include:

• An overview of the School of Music and its resources
• Degree programs offered
• The application and audition process
• Scholarships
• Opportunities for non-music majors

Time and location: Information sessions are held from 12:00-1:00 PM over Zoom. 

Register

Registration is required. To ask a question, please email SoMadmit@uw.edu.

Students of the UW School of Music perform in this lunchtime concert series co-hosted by UW Music and UW Libraries. 

Featured Performers

  Program details coming soon!

Cellist John Popham curates a program inspired by musical strings, their roots in ancient cordage, and their cultural and conceptual power as artistic tools, sounding objects, and symbols of social connection. The program features works by Giovanni Gabrieli, Giacinto Scelsi, Alvin Lucier, Isabel Mundry, and Liza Lim.

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Biography

UW instrumental performance students perform for outside judges, competing for a chance to perform with the UW Symphony. 

Students from the UW strings studios compete for outside judges for a chance to perform with the UW Symphony. 

 

Students from the UW keyboard program compete for outside judges for a chance to perform with the UW Symphony. 

Students of the UW School of Music perform in this lunchtime concert series co-hosted by UW Music and UW Libraries. 

Featured Performers

  Program details coming soon!

New York City-based pianist Lisa Moore has performed hundreds of commissioned works and world premieres – having worked with more than two hundred living composers while residing and collaborating in the vibrant new music scene of New York City since 1985. The New York Times has described her as “brilliant and searching… beautiful and impassioned…lustrous at the keyboard.”

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Note: Lisa Moore also leads a master class with UW piano students
Master Class: Thursday, Feb. 4, 4:30 pm, HUB Lyceum 

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Biography

New York-based Australian musician Lisa Moore is a multifaceted pianist, recording artist, and avid collaborator. Named “la leggenda” by La Repubblica (Italy) her playing combines lyricism and virtuosity with expressive and emotional power – whether in the delivery of the simplest song, a solo recital, a concerto, or a fiendish chamber score. Given a special passion for the music of our time, Moore won the silver medal in the 1981 Carnegie Hall International American Music Competition. She has performed hundreds of commissioned works and world premieres – having worked with more than two hundred living composers while residing and collaborating in the vibrant new music scene of New York City since 1985. The New Yorker describes her as both “visionary” and “New York’s queen of the avant-garde piano”. Her playing has been singled out by The New York Times for its “life and freshness” and “fragility and tenderness”.

Moore has performed throughout Europe, the UK, USA, and Asia on some of the world’s great stages – Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Sydney Opera House, Melbourne Hamer Hall and Recital Center, Milan’s La Scala, Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw, London’s Royal Albert Hall, and Vienna’s Musikverein. She has released twelve solo albums, and more than thirty collaborative ensemble discs. Gramophone writes about her 2015 Mad Rush Philip Glass disc: “what becomes abundantly clear is Moore’s highly developed, intuitive and nuanced approach to this music”. Moore’s 2016 album The Stone People was selected as one of The New York Times Top Classical Albums 2016 and as a Naxos Critics’ Choice 2017. In June 2022, Moore released no place to go but around – her second album of music by Frederic Rzewski – to compelling notice. The New York Times remarked that the album is “meticulous…clever…hits the gas with controlled force”  and has “a greater range of emotion than other interpreters”.

For sixteen years (1992–2008) Moore was the founding pianist for the award-winning electro-acoustic sextet Bang On A Can All-Stars. She has collaborated with leading artists, composers, ensembles and dance companies – The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Philip Glass, Meredith Monk, Ornette Coleman, Thurston Moore, Iva Bittova, Bryce Dessner, London Sinfonietta, Steve Reich Ensemble, New York City Ballet, American Composers Orchestra, and Cherylyn Lavagnino Dance.

As a concerto soloist, Moore has performed with the London Sinfonietta, Australian Chamber Orchestra, Albany Symphony, Farifax Symphony, Fargo-Moorhead Symphony, La Jolla Symphony, Sydney Symphony, Tasmania Symphony, Thai National, Monash Academy Orchestra, Canberra Symphony, Philharmonia Virtuosi, Wesleyan University Orchestra-Sumarsam Gamelan, Clocked Out, and the Queensland Philharmonic. She has worked under the batons of Leonard Bernstein, David Robertson, Brett Dean, Bradley Lubman, Steven Schick, Christopher Zimmerman, Benjamin Northey, Richard Mills, Roger Benedict, Reinbert de Leeuw, Jorge Mester, Leonard Dommett, Dobbs Franks, and Angel Gil-Ordonez.

Moore’s festival guest appearances include Lincoln Center, BAM Next Wave, Banff, Tanglewood, Aspen, Chautauqua, Gilmore, Piano Spheres, Chamber Music Northwest, Huddersfield, Vale of Glamorgan (Wales), Liquid Music, Holland, Graz, Hamburg, Taormina, Paris d’Automne, Rome, Bari Piano Festival, Milan, Turin, Hong Kong, BBC Proms, Southbank, Adelaide, Perth, Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne Metropolis, Israel, and Warsaw.

Lisa Moore is a Steinway artist. Please visit  

New York City-based pianist Lisa Moore leads a master class with UW piano students. Moore has worked with more than two hundred living composers while residing and collaborating in the vibrant new music scene of New York City since 1985. The New York Times has described her as “brilliant and searching… beautiful and impassioned…lustrous at the keyboard.”

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Note: Lisa Moore performs a solo recital on Wednesday, Feb. 3, 7:30 pm, at the HUB Lyceum 

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Biography

New York-based Australian musician Lisa Moore is a multifaceted pianist, recording artist, and avid collaborator. Named “la leggenda” by La Repubblica (Italy) her playing combines lyricism and virtuosity with expressive and emotional power – whether in the delivery of the simplest song, a solo recital, a concerto, or a fiendish chamber score. Given a special passion for the music of our time, Moore won the silver medal in the 1981 Carnegie Hall International American Music Competition. She has performed hundreds of commissioned works and world premieres – having worked with more than two hundred living composers while residing and collaborating in the vibrant new music scene of New York City since 1985. The New Yorker describes her as both “visionary” and “New York’s queen of the avant-garde piano”. Her playing has been singled out by The New York Times for its “life and freshness” and “fragility and tenderness”.

Moore has performed throughout Europe, the UK, USA, and Asia on some of the world’s great stages – Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Sydney Opera House, Melbourne Hamer Hall and Recital Center, Milan’s La Scala, Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw, London’s Royal Albert Hall, and Vienna’s Musikverein. She has released twelve solo albums, and more than thirty collaborative ensemble discs. Gramophone writes about her 2015 Mad Rush Philip Glass disc: “what becomes abundantly clear is Moore’s highly developed, intuitive and nuanced approach to this music”. Moore’s 2016 album The Stone People was selected as one of The New York Times Top Classical Albums 2016 and as a Naxos Critics’ Choice 2017. In June 2022, Moore released no place to go but around – her second album of music by Frederic Rzewski – to compelling notice. The New York Times remarked that the album is “meticulous…clever…hits the gas with controlled force”  and has “a greater range of emotion than other interpreters”.

For sixteen years (1992–2008) Moore was the founding pianist for the award-winning electro-acoustic sextet Bang On A Can All-Stars. She has collaborated with leading artists, composers, ensembles and dance companies – The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Philip Glass, Meredith Monk, Ornette Coleman, Thurston Moore, Iva Bittova, Bryce Dessner, London Sinfonietta, Steve Reich Ensemble, New York City Ballet, American Composers Orchestra, and Cherylyn Lavagnino Dance.

As a concerto soloist, Moore has performed with the London Sinfonietta, Australian Chamber Orchestra, Albany Symphony, Farifax Symphony, Fargo-Moorhead Symphony, La Jolla Symphony, Sydney Symphony, Tasmania Symphony, Thai National, Monash Academy Orchestra, Canberra Symphony, Philharmonia Virtuosi, Wesleyan University Orchestra-Sumarsam Gamelan, Clocked Out, and the Queensland Philharmonic. She has worked under the batons of Leonard Bernstein, David Robertson, Brett Dean, Bradley Lubman, Steven Schick, Christopher Zimmerman, Benjamin Northey, Richard Mills, Roger Benedict, Reinbert de Leeuw, Jorge Mester, Leonard Dommett, Dobbs Franks, and Angel Gil-Ordonez.

Moore’s festival guest appearances include Lincoln Center, BAM Next Wave, Banff, Tanglewood, Aspen, Chautauqua, Gilmore, Piano Spheres, Chamber Music Northwest, Huddersfield, Vale of Glamorgan (Wales), Liquid Music, Holland, Graz, Hamburg, Taormina, Paris d’Automne, Rome, Bari Piano Festival, Milan, Turin, Hong Kong, BBC Proms, Southbank, Adelaide, Perth, Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne Metropolis, Israel, and Warsaw.

Lisa Moore is a Steinway artist. Please visit  

David Alexander Rahbee and the UW Symphony present 'Fate Now Conquers,' a program of music by Carlos Simon, Charles Villiers Stanford, and Pyotr Tchaikovsky. With faculty artist Benjamin Lulich, clarinet.

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Program 

'Fate Now Conquers' 

Carlos Simon: Fate Now Conquers 
Charles Villiers Stanford: Clarinet Concerto in A minor, op.80 
Pyotr Tchaikovsky: Symphony No.5 in E minor, op.64

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Biography

Guitar students of Michael Partington perform guitar works for solo, duo, and group arrangements.

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Director Biography

 

UW music students perform music from the Baroque era under the direction of Tekla Cunningham.

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Director Biography

UW voice students of Thomas Harper and Carrie Shaw perform works from the vocal repertoire. 

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Director Biographies

UW Jazz Studies students perform in small combos over two consecutive nights of original tunes, homage to the greats of jazz, and experiments in composing and arranging.

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Director Biographies

UW Jazz Studies students perform in small combos over two consecutive nights of original tunes, homage to the greats of jazz, and experiments in composing and arranging.

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Director Biographies

The faculty colleagues perform the complete Beethoven sonatas for piano and violin over two evening performances. Part II features Sonatas #6-#10.

Wed. Dec. 16: Beethoven Sonatas, Part I: Sonatas #1-#5 
Fri. Feb. 26: Beethoven Sonatas, Part II: Sonatas #6-#10

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Biographies

 

The Campus Band (Joshua Michael Smith, conductor), Concert Band (Yuman Wu, conductor), and University Band (Corey Jahlas and Christopher Seay, conductors) present 'Fateful Encounters,' performing music by Julie Giroux, Rossano Galante, Jack Stamp and others.

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Director Biographies

 

The Modern Music Ensemble (Cristina Valdés, director) presents works of our time in several concerts each year. Including repertoire from the early to mid-20th century and beyond, the group focuses on small ensemble and chamber orchestra works, performed by both undergraduate and graduate students.

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Director Biography

Students of the UW School of Music perform in this lunchtime concert series co-hosted by UW Music and UW Libraries. 

Featured Performers

  Program details coming soon!

A master of the Afro-Puerto Rican dance and drumming tradition called bomba, Autumn Quarter Ethnomusicology Visiting Artist Otoqui Reyes is joined by special guests and his UW students in Dance and Music in this end-of-quarter performance. 

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Biography

Otoqui Reyes is a master of the Afro-Puerto Rican dance and drumming tradition called bomba. Reyes was raised in Loiza Aldea, a community with an influential bomba tradition, and also learned other regional styles of bomba. He performed for several years with the Cepeda family, one of bomba’s foremost culture bearers, in the community of Santurce. He also performed in his father’s pioneering group, Agüeybaná, who helped popularize participatory “bombazos” in the 1990s.

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Bomba

Bomba is a centuries old tradition in Puerto Rico, practiced both in slave plantations and free Black communities. It is related to several other Caribbean dance drumming traditions, including gwoka in Guadeloupe, tumba francesa in Cuba, and Bele in Martinique, all of which have roots in Haiti. These traditions all involve a dynamic relationship between sound and movement. In the case of bomba, as it is practiced today, a single dancer improvises while a lead drummer, or subidor, sounds the dancer’s movements. This improvised duet between dancer and drummer is accompanied by percussion and singing in the batey, a native Taino word for a circle in which people conduct play or ritual.
The bomba ensemble includes two drumming roles: a single subidor (also called primo), which sounds the dancer’s movements, and one or more buleador drums that accompany the subidor with a steady rhythm. The drums are accompanied by call and response singing, by the cuá (a barrell struck with sticks) and by a single maraca, usually played by the lead singer.

The UW’s top auditioned choirs present modern vocal works, music from around the globe, and great works from the sacred repertoire in shared quarterly concerts showcasing each group’s most recent work.

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Director Biographies

 

Emerging and established composers explore unconventional sonic landscapes in this concert of music by students, faculty, alumni, and guests of the UW Composition program.

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Director Biographies

 

The Wind Ensemble and Symphonic Band (Christopher Vongvithaymathakul, director) present 'Voyages,' featuring music by John Mackey, Samuel Hazo and others.

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Biographies

 

Students of John Popham present a chamber music showcase. 

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Director Biography

UW keyboard students perform from the piano repertoire in the quarterly Brechemin Piano Series concerts. 

 

The Studio Jazz Ensemble (Jacob Zimmerman, director) performs big band arrangements and repertory selections. The Modern Band (Greg Sinibaldi, director) performs innovative arrangements of jazz standards, selections from the outer limits of the genre, and new original compositions.

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Biographies

David Alexander Rahbee and the UW Symphony present 'Symphonic Dances,' a program of music by Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy, Gabriel Pierné, and Sergei Rachmaninov. With faculty artist Valerie Muzzolini, harp. 

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Program 

'Symphonic Dances' 

Maurice Ravel: Menuet antique 

Claude Debussy: Danses sacrée et profane for harp & strings 

Gabriel Pierné: Concert Piece for Harp & orchestra, op.39 

Sergei Rachmaninov: Symphonic Dances, op.45

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Biographies

Students of the UW School of Music perform in this lunchtime concert series co-hosted by UW Music and UW Libraries. 

Featured Performers

  Program details coming soon!

Pianists Robin McCabe and Rachelle McCabe perform four movements of Gustav Holst’s symphonic cycle The Planets, arranged by Holst himself for two pianos, while astral eye and ear candy converge in a slideshow created by UW Astronomy professor emeritus Bruce Balick. Weather permitting, attendees may view planetary wonders in the night sky via a telescope provided by the Department of Astronomy. 

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Biographies

Rachelle McCabe

Rachelle McCabe, professor emerita of music at Oregon State University, enjoys an international career as a concert pianist and artist teacher. She has performed as soloist and chamber musician throughout the United States and the United Kingdom, as well as in China, Canada, Southeast Asia, and France. She has held teaching residencies in Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, and British Columbia. 

Rachelle McCabe is the artistic director of Corvallis-OSU Piano International with its prestigious Steinway Piano Series, workshops, and educational outreach programs. In lieu of live concerts during the pandemic lockdown, Rachelle directed an exciting virtual piano festival presenting more than 20 world-renowned pianists in exclusive performances. The festival is available at Corvallispiano.org.  Rachelle also directs the OSU Chamber Music Workshop and the OSU Piano Institute, both summer programs.

Believing in the power of collaborative arts to help bring about change, Rachelle has created innovative programs and videos with writer/philosopher Kathleen Dean Moore and various other poets, artists, and scientists to address the global crisis of climate change and extinction. McCabe and Moore have performed their compelling program, Variations on a Theme of Extinction, in many cities across the USA, Canada, and Scotland, and a film version which weaves Rachelle’s studio performance of Rachmaninoff’s Variations on a Theme of Corelli with Kathleen’s spoken narrative in various Oregon locations is found on YouTube.

Rachelle McCabe is a highly respected teacher and since completing her 35-year professorship at Oregon State in 2021, she keeps an independent studio of highly motivated students. In demand as a guest artist teacher and adjudicator, her current schedule includes master classes and festivals as well as concerts in Hong Kong, Atlanta, Portland, Eugene, and Seattle.

Rachelle holds a doctorate (DMA) from The University of Michigan, a master's degree from The Juilliard School, and a bachelor’s degree from The University of Washington. Her teachers were Willard Schultz, Bela Siki, Ania Dorfmann, Gyorgy Sandor, and Theodore Lettvin. 

Students from the University of Washington Voice Program take the stage—and the screen— in stunning high definition in an evening of filmed opera scenes, a groundbreaking first for the program. Direction by Kelly Kitchens; music direction by Andrew Romanick.

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Biographies

The School of Music and the student-run Improvised Music Project (IMP) present IMPFest, featuring UW Jazz Studies students and faculty performing with guest artists of international renown. 

The School of Music and the student-run Improvised Music Project (IMP) present IMPFest, featuring UW Jazz Studies students and faculty performing with guest artists of international renown. 

 

The Wind Ensemble and Symphonic Band (Christopher Vongvithaymathakul, director) present 'Concerto Competition Winners.' Program TBA.

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Biographies

 

David Alexander Rahbee and the UW Symphony perform concerto excerpts with winners of the School of Music's 2026-27 divisional concerto competitions.

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Biography

UW viola professor Melia Watras presents Alto glow, featuring world premieres of works by Ha-Yang Kim, UW student Tia-Jane Fowler, and Watras; and performances of pieces by Amy Beach, Lili Boulanger, Rebecca Clarke and Florence Price. Watras is joined on stage by her UW colleagues Pala Garcia (violin), Alexander Kostadinov (piano), John Popham (cello) and Pacific Northwest Ballet concertmaster Michael Jinsoo Lim (violin).

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Biographies

Students of the UW School of Music perform in this lunchtime concert series co-hosted by UW Music and UW Libraries. 

Featured Performers

  Program details coming soon!

Pianist Craig Sheppard performs a concert of Beethoven variations in this solo performance commemorating the 200th anniversary of the composer’s death. 

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Program

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Opus 34 in F Major
Opus 35 in E flat, ‘Eroica’
Opus 120 in C, ‘Diabelli

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Biography

The School of Music welcomes Seattle’s Lake Union Civic Orchestra (LUCO) to the UW’s Meany Hall for a performance of concerto excerpts with UW piano students. The group’s music director, Daren Weissfisch, is a doctoral student in orchestral conducting at the School of Music who formerly led the UW’s Campus Philarmonia Orchestras and developed conducting acumen in his work with the University of Washington Symphony, Opera Orchestra and Modern Music Ensemble, among other ensembles.

This performance is made possible with support from the Willard Schultz Piano Fund in the School of Music,

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UW Jazz Studies students perform in small combos over two consecutive nights of original tunes, homage to the greats of jazz, and experiments in composing and arranging.

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Director Biographies

UW Jazz Studies students perform in small combos over two consecutive nights of original tunes, homage to the greats of jazz, and experiments in composing and arranging.

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Director Biographies

 

UW music students perform music from the Baroque era under the direction of Tekla Cunningham.

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Director Biography

UW voice students of Thomas Harper and Carrie Shaw perform works from the vocal repertoire. 

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Director Biographies

Spring Quarter Ethnomusicology Visiting Artist Iris Viveros is joined by UW students in Music and Dance and special guests, including musicians from the Seattle Fandango Project, in this concert celebrating Son Jarocho music and dance traditions of Vera Cruz, Mexico. The performance marks the conclusion of her spring quarter UW course, co-taught with Dance professor Monica Rojas, focused on zapateado (foot percussion) traditions in Mexico and Peru, with a special focus on women’s roles and perspectives.

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Biography

Iris C. Viveros Avendaño, PhD.  was born and raised in Mexico. Her academic interests emphasize the integration of third-world feminist approaches to analyzing colonial legacies in present-day systems of violence. She focuses on the role of state-mediated technologies of power in perpetuating violence against Afro indigenous [descent] women and communities at large. In addition,Iris’ scholarly work focuses on the connection between polyrhythmic collective music-making as a decolonial temporality and a practice of resistance, recovery, and healing from trauma. A central focus in her scholarly work is the analysis of the feminized body in fandango–In its collective and individual manifestation– as a decolonial space where knowledge is produced, negotiated, and transmitted.

 

The Modern Music Ensemble (Cristina Valdés, director) presents works of our time in several concerts each year. Including repertoire from the early to mid-20th century and beyond, the group focuses on small ensemble and chamber orchestra works, performed by both undergraduate and graduate students.

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Director Biography

 

Phyllis Byrdwell leads the UW Gospel Choir, featuring singers from throughout the UW's degree programs,  in songs from the Gospel tradition. 

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Director Biography

 

The UW Percussion Ensemble (Bonnie Whiting, director) and UW Steelband (Shannon Dudley, director) present a shared year-end program. 

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Director Biographies

Students of John Popham present a chamber music showcase. 

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Director Biography

The UW's graduate-student-led choral ensembles—the University Singers, UW Glee, and Treble Choirs—present an eclectic end-of-quarter concert. 

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Director Biographies

UW keyboard students perform from the piano repertoire in the quarterly Brechemin Piano Series concerts. 

Guitar students of Michael Partington perform guitar works for solo, duo, and group arrangements.

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Director Biography

The UW’s top auditioned choirs present modern vocal works, music from around the globe, and great works from the sacred repertoire in shared quarterly concerts showcasing each group’s most recent work.

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Director Biographies

 

 

The Wind Ensemble and Symphonic Band (Christopher Vongvithaymathakul, director) present 'Music for Peace,' featuring music by Karel Husa and others.

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Biographies

 

Students of the UW School of Music perform in this lunchtime concert series co-hosted by UW Music and UW Libraries. 

Featured Performers

  Program details coming soon!

 

The Studio Jazz Ensemble (Jacob Zimmerman, director) performs big band arrangements and repertory selections. The Modern Band (Greg Sinibaldi, director) performs innovative arrangements of jazz standards, selections from the outer limits of the genre, and new original compositions.

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Biographies

UW student composers debut new works in quarterly concerts hosted by the UW Composition program. 

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Director Biographies

David Alexander Rahbee and the UW Symphony are joined by the Combined UW Chamber Singers and University Chorale in presenting “Promise of Peace & Ode to Joy,' performing works by Sonny Moussa and Ludwig van Beethoven.

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Program

“Promise of Peace and Ode to Joy'

Samy Moussa: Elysium

Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No.9 in D minor, op.125

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Biography