CCM Student Marie Bucoy-Calavan Named As Inaugural May Festival Choral Conducting Fellow

Marie Bucoy-Calavan has been named the inaugural recipient of the May Festival Choral Conducting Fellowship. She will enter her third year of studies in CCM’s DMA in Choral Conducting program this fall.

We are delighted to report that DMA candidate Marie Bucoy-Calavan has been named the inaugural recipient of the May Festival Choral Conducting Fellowship. This new position was established thanks to the incredible foresight and generosity of Ginger Warner and was created as part of an ongoing collaboration between the May Festival and CCM’s Department of Choral Studies. Each year, a May Festival Fellow will be selected from CCM’s pool of Doctor of Musical Arts in Choral Conducting students and will serve as the Assistant Conductor of the May Festival Chorus.

“The new May Festival Choral Conducting Fellowship provides unique professional training for CCM’s doctoral choral conducting students,” explains Director of Choral Studies Earl Rivers, “providing them opportunities to conduct rehearsals, as well as to attend May Festival Board and Artistic Planning meetings to learn how a world-renowned Choral Festival is successfully produced.”

Bucoy-Calavan will begin her duties with the May Festival Chorus next fall. As Assistant Director she will be responsible for running select rehearsals and smaller sectional rehearsals. In addition Bucoy-Calavan will conduct some concerts within the community. Commenting on her appointment, Bucoy-Calavan says, “I am very excited and honored at the chance to have a mentorship with [May Festival Director of Choruses] Robert Porco. I attended the Conducting Masterclass that the May Festival held a year ago, and was inspired by his musical insights and skill for teaching conducting. I look forward to the fall and to the prospect of working with the May Festival Chorus.”

Learn more about the May Festival Choral Conducting Fellowship.

Price Hill String Quartet Presents FREE All-Mendelssohn Concert on May 2

The Price Hill String Quartet.

CCM’s new Community Partner the Price Hill String Quartet will present a FREE all-Mendelssohn program beginning at 7:30 p.m. this Thursday, May 2, at the LISH Art Gallery in Price Hill. This concert is open to the general public and will conclude with the first and last movements of the Mendelssohn Octet performed by the Quartet and four members of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra!

The Price Hill Quartet is the string quartet of Music for Youth in Cincinnati (MYCincinnati). The Quartet is comprised of two MYCincinnati directors and two current CCM students, and is funded in part by CCM and CCM’s ArtsWave Community Partnership grant.

Learn more about CCM’s New Community Engagement Initiatives here.

CCM Prep’s Spring Event Series Showcases Young Artists

CCM’s Preparatory Department will present a number of end-of-season performances between April 24 and May 19. Tickets for these events are available now (and admission to several of these events is FREE).

Date, time, venue and admission information is below.

CCM’s Promethean Saxophone Quartet Competes in Coleman Chamber Ensemble Competition Finals This Weekend

Comprised of CCM graduate saxophone students, the Promethean Saxophone Quartet competes in the Coleman Chamber Music Ensemble Competition Finals on April 27, 2013.

We are excited to share that CCM’s own Promethean Saxophone Quartet will compete in the finals of the 67th annual Coleman Chamber Ensemble Competition in Pasadena, California!

The competition will take place this Saturday, April 27, in the Ramo Auditorium at the California Institute of Technology, and winners will be presented in a public concert the following day.

The Promethean Quartet is comprised of CCM graduate saxophone students:

• Alex Magg, soprano saxophone
• Jeremy Castañeda, alto saxophone
• Om Srivistava, tenor saxophone
• Ryan Van Scoyk, baritone saxophone

CCM Faculty Honored During UC’s 2013 Faculty Award Ceremony

The University of Cincinnati has announced its 2013 All-University Faculty Award Winners and we are delighted to report that this year’s honorees include three CCM faculty members! Congratulations to Douglas Knehans, bruce d. mcclung and Miguel A. Roig-Francolí.

Learn more about their respective awards below:

CCM Prep Presents Disney’s ‘Little Mermaid, Jr.’ April 26-27

The Preparatory Department of the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM Prep) proudly presents Disney’s Little Mermaid Jr. at 8 p.m. on both Friday, April 26, and Saturday, April 27, in UC’s Patricia Corbett Theater. Karie-Lee Sutherland directs, with musical direction by Rebecca Childs and choreography by Elaine Eckstein.

CCM Alumnus David Daniels Profiled in April 2013 issue of ‘Opera News’

Photographed by Michal Daniel as Orfeo in the Minnesota Opera production of Orfeo ed Euridice, 2010
© Michal Daniel 2013

CCM alumnus David Daniels (BM, 1990) is profiled in the April issue of Opera News, which is on newsstands now. As previously reported, the acclaimed countertenor is a 2012 Opera News Award-winner.

In the lengthy profile, Opera News editor Adam Wasserman writes, “Daniels has the uncanny ability to bridge the gap and make us believe that the composer’s note barely had time to dry on the page before it came forth from his mouth. It seems to me that the highest compliment one can pay Daniels — now in the third decade of an unprecedented career in opera — is that the music he sings sounds both strikingly contemporary and as though it were written precisely for his voice.”

Read the entire profile here.

Daniels will be singing the title role in the Metropolitan Opera’s new production of Giulio Cesare this month. The production is scheduled to be broadcast as a part of the Met’s “Live in HD” Series on April 27, 2013.

CityBeat’s Annual ‘Best of Cincinnati’ Issue Spotlights CCM

We are delighted to be named “Best Place to Catch a Rising Star” in CityBeat‘s annual Best of Cincinnati issue, which is on newsstands (and available online) now! CityBeat‘s editors write:

UC’s College-Conservatory of Music is one of the top three musical theater programs in the nation. Every year hundreds of aspiring high school kids audition for one of 20 or so slots in the freshman class. (That’s more selective than most Division I sports teams.) Following graduation, they head straight for Broadway where multiple productions typically feature CCM alumni. It’s not unusual for one or two to be nominated for Tony Awards, such as Karen Olivo as Anita in the recent revival of West Side Story.

We are equally thrilled to report that CCM student Kris Rucinski was recognized for performing the year’s “Best Piano Concerto” during last November’s American Voices XV concert. Again, CityBeat‘s editors write:

At a November American Voices concert honoring great American Modernist composers, UC College-Conservatory of Music first-year graduate student Kris Rucinski wowed and thrilled an audience with his performance of Lou Harrison’s challenging, complicated Piano Concerto. The late Harrison wrote it for Keith Jarrett, an indication of just how demanding a work it is. By turns fiery and meditative, developing through four challenging movements, it is as much Cecil Taylor-ish eruptive Jazz as it is calm Classical, but Rucinski showed himself more than up for the task and ready to be Jarrett’s successor – or anyone’s. One only hopes there are more chances to see him while he is a student here and before he becomes an in-demand concert soloist.

We would like to congratulate all of our friends and partners also featured in this special issue of CityBeat, too!

CCM Announces 2013 Opera Scholarship Competition Winners

Five voice students were named winners of CCM’s 2013 Opera Scholarship Competition, which was held Saturday, March 16, in UC’s Corbett Auditorium. The annual competition welcomes current and incoming CCM voice students to compete for scholarships and cash prizes, and a panel of judges composed of opera industry professionals selects each year’s class of prizewinners.

The 2013 CCM Opera Scholarship Competition winners are:

CCM Student Among 10 Finalists in Met Opera National Council Auditions

We are pleased to report that bass-baritone Thomas Richards, a student of William McGraw at CCM, will be singing onstage at the Metropolitan Opera in the Grand Finals Concert of the Metropolitan Opera District Council Auditions this Sunday!

The public concert will be accompanied by the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and will be broadcast nationwide on the Metropolitan Opera Radio Network.

Learn more courtesy of Janelle Gelfand and the Cincinnati Enquirer.