Department of Music

November 4, 2024

In 2023, Alexandra Burkot’s research journey took her to Athens, Greece. There, the Musicology PhD student spent nine months researching the composer Dimitrios Levidis, particularly his 1943 composition setting a passage from the "Iliad;" the piece was composed when Greece was under occupation during World War II and was presumed lost for decades. Burkot conducted her research in the Gennadius Library at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, where she received a Schwarz Fellowship for Research on Music.

September 8, 2024

On Sunday, September 8, 2024 at 3 p.m., the Brandeis Department of Music invites those who knew and loved Professor Allan Keiler (1938-2024) to gather at Slosberg Music Center in celebration of his life. Reception to follow.

September 1, 2024

Violinist Clara Lyon will join the Lydian String Quartet in September 2024 and begin her appointment to the music faculty at Brandeis. She joins current members Julia Glenn, violin; Mark Berger, viola; and Joshua Gordon, cello for her debut concert with the quartet on October 19, 2024, in Brandeis’ Slosberg Music Center.

"Clara is one of the most dynamic musicians out there right now," says Mark Berger, violist in the quartet and a member of the music faculty. "She brings energy, personality, and finesse to the Lyds, as well as the incredible opportunity for our Brandeis students to learn and grow under her mentorship."

Well known as an accomplished soloist, chamber musician, improviser, and curator, three-time Grammy nominated artist Clara Lyon brings a wealth of musical experience as current co-artistic director of Decoda, Carnegie Hall’s affiliate ensemble, and former violinist and director of programs for the Chicago-based Spektral Quartet.

The Lydian String Quartet, faculty members at Brandeis, has been acclaimed by audiences and critics across the United States and abroad for over four decades. With Clara Lyon as their newest member, the quartet is thrilled to continue their important work of commissioning new works, bringing new life to the established canon of string quartet literature, and mentoring the next generation of performers and composers.

September 1, 2024

A panel of judges has selected composer Amy Williams as the winner of the Henri Lazarof International Commission Prize. Now in its fifth year, the prize is awarded by Brandeis University and honors the late classical composer Henri Lazarof, MFA’59. Williams' commissioned work, for string trio, will receive a world premiere at Brandeis University's Slosberg Recital Hall on May 4, 2025.

February 13, 2024

Composer and Composition & Theory PhD candidate Luke Blackburn will receive the prestigious Charles Ives Scholarship Award in Music ($7,500) from the American Academy of Arts and Letter in February.

January 22, 2024

A new portrait album “Mind Like Water” is released by New Focus Recordings on January 19, 2024. Composer Yu-Hui Chang's Mind Like Water presents three ensemble works and one solo cello piece that all feature a dialogue between musical elements. Sometimes this dialogue unfolds between contrasting energies, such as the percolating rhythms of the opening movement of In Thin Air versus the dramatic gestures in its second movement. Other times the conversation is between smaller musical elements, like the cells in Germinate or the flowing, through composed unfolding of the title work. The recording features performances by the Lydian String Quartet, Dinosaur Annex Music Ensemble, Composers Conference Ensemble, and cellist Rhonda Rider. See New Focus website for more information.

May 22, 2023

Brandeis Musicology PhD students Marie Comuzzo and Anna Valcour and Anthropology PhD student Kalie Jamieson will present a panel at the annual Society for Ethnomusicology meeting this fall in Ottawa, Canada, sponsored by the SEM Section on the Status of Women. The panel is titled "Surviving Dreams, Living Trauma: The Invisible Barriers That Stand Between Performers and Their Success," and will explore the multifaceted layers of trauma that artists endure in the early stages of their careers in classical music and dance.

May 22, 2023

Brandeis Musicology PhD student Anna Valcour was recently awarded the Hollace Anne Schafer Memorial Award from the AMS New England Chapter for her paper "Operatic Institutional Responsibility for Sexual Misconduct" presented in February 2023. The Schafer Award is awarded for the best scholarly paper presented by a graduate student. 

Erin Gee was recently selected for the prestigious 29th Annual Herb Alpert Award. Erin Gee is known for her Mouthpiece Series, which combines non-semantic vocal sounds with a wide variety of instrumental timbres.

“In selecting Erin Gee as a winner of the 2023 Herb Alpert Award in Music, we celebrate her groundbreaking explorations of the human voice. Virtuosic as both composer and vocalist, she has—through a focused and sublime aural imagination—traversed and expanded vast realms of vocal sound, creating micro-worlds brimming with nuanced and fresh colors.”

The award is given to risk-taking artists in mid-career and is an unrestricted prize of $75,000 and a residency at CalArts. Recipients are awarded in the fields of film, music, dance, theater, and visual arts. The panel in music was Nicole Mitchell, Pamela Z, and Derek Bermel.

Winners in all categories: Film, Christopher Harris and Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich; Dance, Ayodele Casel and Makini [jumata m. poe] and Jermone Donte Beacham; theater, Whitney White and Tania El Khoury; visual arts, American Artist and Park McArthur.

March 20, 2023

Alexandra Burkot has been awarded the Schwarz Fellowship for Research on Music at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, in Athens, Greece. The Schwarz Fellowship for Research on Music supports research that focuses on the cultural history of music in the Mediterranean world broadly defined. The fellowship aims to promote the study of interactions among Western European, Byzantine, Islamic and Jewish cultures from the medieval to the modern period. She will be studying the life and works of 20th-century composer Dimitrios Levidis, focusing on his oratorio, "L'Iliade," based on the ancient epic poem.

March 13, 2023

James Heazlewood-Dale has met several successes of late in his ludomusicological career. In the past month, he won the "Best Graduate Research Paper" award for the North-East Chapter of the College Music Society conference, presented research at the North American Conference for Video Game Music, was hired by Universal Music to write the liner notes for the OST CD release of "The Calistto Protocol" (Striking Distance, 2023), and began a new position serving as chair of the strings department at BC High in addition to teaching courses in music technology, music theory, music composition, and, a historical landmark for the school, a fully-fledged course in ludomusicology. James also appears as a scholarly guest in Adam Nealy's most recent video essay, "The Nintendo-fication of Jazz," which currently has over half a million views.

February 27, 2023

Composer and PhD candidate Ali Can Puskulcu received a prestigious Charles Ives Scholarship Award in Music from the American Academy of Arts and Letter in February.

May 23, 2022

Conductor Robert Duff will lead Brandeis University's premier choral ensemble, the Brandeis Chamber Singers, in their next European tour. This time, the singers will be performing throughout Paris and Normandy.

April 8, 2022

PhD alumnus David Dominique, assistant professor of music at William & Mary, has been awarded the 2022 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in Music Composition. Dominique’s fellowship is one of 13 awards given this year in the area of music composition.

April 1, 2022

Associate Professor of Music and Department Chair Karen Desmond gave the Sacred Music at Notre Dame Spring 2022 Calvin M. Bower Lecture: "In Pieces: Composing and Analyzing the Late Medieval Alleluya" on April 1, 2022.

March 26, 2022

Walter W. Naumburg Professor of Composition David Rakowski's contribution to Anthony de Mare’s "Liaisons" project was performed at New York's Merkin Hall, in a program that also featured six premieres of new Sondheim reimaginings. After the performance, Rakowski led a panel discussion with the composers in attendance.

February 27, 2022

Professor Hampton served as guest conductor for the Merrimack Valley Philharmonic Orchestra's Feb. 27 concert of some of the world's most memorable movie themes include "Star Wars," "Lord of the Rings" and more.

February 24, 2022

Associate Professor of Composition Erin Gee is one of four composers who will receive the $10,000 Arts and Letters Awards in Music from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.