We have just received an email from Professor Juliana Gondek about her activities during Spring Quarter and the early part of the summer. Here is what she shared with us:
“During my Spring Quarter sabbatical leave, I traveled to Italy to give a series of talks on Handel opera and teach master classes to voice [...]

On May 29, 2009, in the city of Wavre just outside of Brussels, Belgium, Kevork Andonian’s piece for flute and marimba entitled ‘A Longing For Joy’ was recorded by flutist Marc Grauwels and marimbist Sarah Mouradoglou for the Naxos record label. This Naxos CD project will be completed by July of 2009 and the [...]

Mrs. Carol Block, music-loving wife of our Chancellor Gene Block, has been hosting a series of recitals for the last two years at the Chancellor’s residence featuring artists from different departments. Another such recital took place May 27th, and featured Music Department DMA violin student Ji Young An and DMA piano student Young Ah [...]

On June 3rd the art song class of Judith Hansen presented an outstanding and extraordinary concert of all-Russian art songs, by such great Russian composers as Tchaikovsky, Borodin, Glinka, Rachmaninoff, Rimsky-Korsakov, and Voloshin. Most of these songs are seldom performed in this country, but with the able coaching of Professor Vladimir Chernov, who assisted [...]

Christina, who graduated from UCLA with an MM in Voice, has won a prestigious award–she is the first participant in the Deborah Voigt/Vero Beach Opera Foundation’s Protegee Mentoring program. Please read the artcle by Peter Pringle in its entirety in the TC Palm news at: http://tcpalm.com/news/2009/may/28/voigt-selects-protegee-to-mentor-for-program/.
Congratulations, Christina!

As many of you know, Professor Guillaume Sutre of the UCLA Department of Music is also the first violin of the renowned Ysaye Quartet.
He writes:
“A few weeks ago, the Guarneri quartet was canceling its farewell tour in Europe because of health issues of one of the members. Their manager asked us [...]

Just another reminder–Woodwind World is almost upon us. Prof. Gary Gray has provided the attached photo of participants:

Back row, left to right: Professors Jonathan Davis, Gary Gray, John Steinmetz, and Brian O’Connor
Front row, left to right: Justin Takamine, bassoon, Theodosia Roussos, oboe, Jackie Hancock, horn, and Virginia Figuereido, clarinet
“It’s a Woodwind World III”
Wednesday [...]

We thought you might be interested in reading a couple of the recent reviews of Opera UCLA’s production of Le Nozze de Figaro. Photos are courtesy of Mona Lands.
From reviewer Carrie Delmar for Opera Online:
Opera UCLA scores big with Mozart’s
‘Le Nozze di Figaro.’ WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART
THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO
OPERA UCLA
FEBRUARY 6, 2009 By: Carie J. [...]

We received this news from Ethnomusicology student Nolan Warden about an exciting performance in which he participated this month in the Canary Islands. He has also shared some photos of the experience.
Nolan says:
“In the first week of February, I traveled to the Canary Islands to perform in “La Pasion Segun San Marcos” by Osvaldo [...]

We have just received the following review, written by Richard Scheinin of the Mercury News,mentioning UCLA voice major Khori Dhastoor with much enthusiasm.
Opera San Jose’s new production of “Cosi fan tutte” is a winner. It’s about love, lust and sexual manipulation: Mozart’s opera is a modern opera, and the new production gets that. It’s classy [...]