Pablo Hopenhayn, a graduate student pursuing an interdisciplinary in the School of the Arts and Architecture, has shared news of his required final project, which is the creation of a company which brings together all of the things he learned in my major: classical and jazz composition, violin performance, sound engineering and music industry. [...]

Most of you will remember from former years the Music Department’s cello professor Antonio Lysy (winner of this year’s Latin Grammy for his CD Antonio Lysy at the Broad–Music from Argentina); Link to a recent review can be found at: http://www.antoniolysy.com/2011/?page_id=27.
He is continuing his ongoing sponsorship of a very special music festival in Siena, Italy, [...]

Kevork Andonian, Music graduate student in composition (whom we have blogged about several times) sent us the following email about his summer activities–glad you are keeping busy, Kevork!
“Kevork Andonian, UCLA PhD Candidate in Music Composition, had his composition for flute and marimba entitled A Longing For Joy performed at this year’s “Piccolo Spoleto Festival” in [...]

Professor Juliana Gondek has shared some news about some of her students’ activities (and alumni) this summer:
“Here’s some summer news about some of my students:
UCLA Voice alumna Khori Dastoor is singing the role of “Mabel” in Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Pirates of Penzance” at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, OR.
This production is being conducted [...]

Here’s some information from Music Department Composistion Chair David Lefkowitz on a recently-released CD:
David S. Lefkowitz: Music of Contradictions
For much of my career as a composer, I have enjoyed creating music with different-often contradictory-faces: atonal yet tonal, dissonant yet consonant, fast yet slow, granular and intricate yet long-lined and melodic, repeating basic patterns [...]

Peter Yates, professor of guitar in the Music Department, sent in this short note about his summer activities:
“My summer begins with performances on bowed guitar (arpeggione) at the Los Angeles Guitar Festival, and then moves on to various recording projects. These include “Four Bagatelles” for two guitars by UCLA MFA alumnus Buzz Gravelle, “Five Hobo [...]

We have received an interesting update from Tamir Hendelman, who also appears to have an exciting summer planned. After another exciting year at UCLA, this June he will be recording his fourth CD with the Jeff Hamilton Trio, a follow-up to last fall’s Symbiosis, which topped the Jazzweek charts.
Also on the summer schedule:
A 4th [...]

We have heard from Musicologh Ph.D. Student Jeremy Mikush about his fun and wide-ranging summer activities. Here is a quick blog about what he is doing this summer:
Jeremy Mikush, a Ph.D. candidate in the Musicology Department, has been in France since early June practicing his French and doing research in Paris for an article [...]

All Photographs by Hand Creative Media
Bryce Nicastro has sent in this update on his recent activities and has shared the fun posters created for this production:
I’ve spent this summer doing what I love and saving up money by utilizing my musical abilities in the real world. For the past year I’ve been director of music [...]

Today we received this news from Prof. Douglas Masek about an upcoming summer activity:

I have a very cool summer concert coming up Sunday, July 3 at LACMA (Los Angles County Museum of Art). I will be performing with pianist, Bryan Pezzone, and with my saxophone quartet ( Encore Saxophone Quartet). We’ll be playing [...]