Music for All Seasons Features Four CCM Students and Alumni on Feb. 10

This weekend, Cincinnati’s Music for All Seasons presents a concert featuring the talents of four former and current CCM students. Organized by Cincinnati arts patrons Rafael de Acha and Kimberly Daniel de Acha, the concert features works by Debussy, Glière, Massenet, Turina and Rimsky-Korsakov at 2 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 10, 2019, at Indian Hill’s historic Peterloon Estate.

Cincinnati’s historic Peterloon Estate.

Artists include recent CCM graduates soprano Fotina Naumenko (MM 2012 and DMA 2018) and cellist Phillip Goist (BM 2016 and MM 2018), as well as violinist Kanako Shimasaki (BM 2015 and MM 2017) and pianist Eben Wagenstroom, who are each in their second year of doctoral studies at CCM.

In addition to the concert, audience members will enjoy tea, coffee and pastries in Indian Hill’s historic Peterloon Estate, as well as a tour of the home.

Proceeds from ticket sales and donations at the event will be presented to CCM for scholarships. Tickets are $35 and may be purchased at the event with cash or check; to reserve tickets in advance, email musicseasons@zoomtown.com. Student tickets will also be available at the door for $10.

Learn more about the concert at musicseasonsincincinnati.com.
____

Story by CCM graduate student Alexandra Doyle

Thank You: CCM Celebrates Faculty and Staff Retirements

As the academic year comes to a close, we celebrate the careers of nine retiring faculty and staff members who have given nearly 250 years of combined service to UC’s College-Conservatory of Music. These members of the CCM family have dedicated themselves to continuing the college’s legacy as a leading training center for the performing and media arts.

• Yvonne Becknell, Performance Management Program Manager, 1969-2016
• Lee Fiser, Professor of Violincello and former member of the LaSalle Quartet, 1975-2017
• Allen Otte, Professor of Percussion and member of Percussion Group Cincinnati, 1977-2017
• Mary Stucky, Professor of Voice, 1990-2017
• Sandra Vanlandingham, Theatre Arts, Production and Arts Administration Program Manager, 1990-2005 and 2007-2016
• Piotr Milewski, Professor of Violin, 1995-2017
• Patti James, Professor of Dance, 1999-2017
• Ben Terry Lusk, Professor of Opera/Vocal Coaching, 1999-2017
• Kimberly Daniel de Acha, Professor of Voice, 2010-2017

View photos of their time at CCM:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Retiring Faculty Members Share Memories:

This year marks my 48th year of continuous work — 21 years as a singer/actress, and another 20 years as a college professor and theatre producer. In 2009 my husband and I retired to Cincinnati, where I received an unexpected invitation to return to CCM — my alma mater — to teach musical theatre voice as an adjunct professor. These past seven years have been a total joy. I call it simply “the gift I gave myself.” As an older professional, it means so much to continue to contribute and feel appreciated. I’ve been truly honored to work with wonderful colleagues, and to have been given the opportunity to teach and mentor my talented and remarkable students. A number of my students surprised me in New York with a champagne brunch on April 2 to celebrate my retirement. I have no words to express what that meant to me, and the joy I feel, seeing them claim their places on Broadway and other stages, following their dreams. I would like to thank UC for recognizing and honoring the work of adjunct faculty. It is rare for a university to recognize adjunct contributions, and I salute UC for doing so. I’ll be forever grateful that I have been able to come full circle, and share the training I received at CCM with another generation of students. CCM is about to celebrate its 150th anniversary. I look forward to continuing to serve on the CCMPower board, raising money for scholarships, and helping to ensure that CCM will be here for another 150 years, training and graduating outstanding music professionals. – Kimberly Daniel de Acha
____

Some of my favorite times at CCM revolve around hearing and interacting with such a wonderful faculty, be it at their concerts, at committee meetings, or in day by day interaction. I feel honored to have worked with such stellar teachers and artists! – Mary Stucky
____

When I started fall 1975, DVAC was the Schmidlapp Gymnasium, Memorial was a women’s dorm, the main way to the garage was from Calhoun down to CCM garage — the connector tunnel didn’t exist. Werner Hall and Starbucks weren’t here and CCM had about half of the students it does now. It was an exciting time for me, as I was starting in LaSalle Quartet. We did four concerts a year in Corbett and two to four international tours a year. I worked with so many wonderful colleagues over all these years, some are sadly no longer with us. Almost my whole professional life has been at CCM, more than four decades worth of experiences. – Lee Fiser
____

In 1999, I received a call asking me to teach at CCM. Who would have thought that almost two decades later my passion for teaching has only increased because of the talented students and faculty that I have had the pleasure of working with! Thank you all so much! – Patti James
____

There’s something a touch poetic for me about retiring along with Lee Fiser — the final retirement from the LaSalle String Quartet. I came to the CCM faculty as a quite young person. It was the Quartet who were instrumental in getting Percussion Group Cincinnati the appointment to CCM. Some of my strongest memories of that first decade here are the Quartet’s concerts on Corbett stage, and I endeavored to live up to the beautiful standards that they had set. I wanted a percussion group in the late 20th century to be able to function just as the greatest string quartets always had, and I am grateful to CCM for giving me and my colleagues that opportunity and support. – Allen Otte

Two CCM professors honored in UC Faculty Awards

Sixteen distinguished faculty members were awarded in UC’s university-wide Faculty Awards Celebration on Tuesday, April 19. Each year, the university pays tribute to outstanding faculty members who go above and beyond for their students. They were each nominated by students, staff or other faculty members in December and given awards during Tuesday’s ceremony in Tangeman University Center’s Great Hall.

Along with the other award winners, two CCM professors were saluted in this year’s celebration: Kimberly Daniel de Acha, adjunct associate professor of Musical Theatre/Voice, and Jonathan Kregor,  professor within the Department of Composition, Musicology & Theory.

Visit the UC Magazine website to read profiles on each of the 16 awarded faculty members.

Kimberly Daniel de Acha – Outstanding Adjunct Faculty Award

Kimberly Daniel de Acha, adjunct associate professor of musical theater and voice, in studio at CCM. Photo by Andrew Higley.

The extraordinary success of Kimberly Daniel de Acha, CCM’s accomplished adjunct associate professor of musical theatre voice, is exemplified in her former students by their leading and supporting roles on Broadway and touring Broadway shows, as Tony Award nominees and as working professionals in theaters nationally.

In addition to her own success as an award-winning performer and theater professional,
de Acha’s outstanding musical theatre voice pedagogy successfully edifies the significance of developing a positive self-image, which her students say is key for rising to one’s full potential in the theater.

According to student testimony, de Acha’s tough-love teaching style is really not so tough. Instead, it is wrapped in a nurturing understanding of each of her student’s unique talents, encouraging them to carve a niche for their own success.

De Acha’s “claim what is yours” teaching mantra has fueled the passion in each of her students to build on their unique abilities, and to claim their place on the professional stage. By exemplifying this herself, she inspires this in her students.

De Acha sits on the CCM Power Board and co-directs and underwrites the costs of “Music for All Seasons at Historic Peterloon,” an annual four-concert music series that features CCM students, faculty and area professionals, and helps to bring community awareness to CCM. All proceeds are donated for student scholarships.

In de Acha’s 46th year as a performer and teacher, she refers to teaching at CCM as “the gift she gives herself.” And, her students and colleagues are unanimous in their praise for her unwavering commitment to community outreach and charitable efforts, but especially for her keen ability to recognize and enhance the distinctive best in each one of her students — which changes their lives forever.

Jonathan Kregor – George Rieveschl Jr. Award for Creative and/or Scholarly Works

Jonathan Kregor, professor of the department of composition, musicology and theory at CCM, leads an in-class discussion. Photo by Andrew Higley.

In moving from assistant to full professor of musicology in only eight short years, Jonathan Kregor’s career has followed a trajectory that might be referred to in musical terms as prestissimo.

Since coming to the College-Conservatory of Music in 2007, he has produced extensive publications and given numerous invited talks in North America and Europe that have brilliantly opened visual and acoustic windows into the lives, politics and musical activities and works of 19th-century classical composers — most particularly into the complex and fascinating life of the Hungarian composer-pianist Franz Liszt.

While Liszt’s own compositions form a central — albeit still controversial — part of today’s musical canon, Kregor has focused in depth on an overlooked part of Liszt’s musical activities: his transcriptions of other composers’ works. By detailing the significance of Liszt’s reproductions for the piano of orchestral and large-scale vocal compositions by Wagner, Mozart, Berlioz, Beethoven and others, Kregor’s scholarship sheds a unique light on the impact that Liszt and his contemporaries all had on the broader intellectual context of 19th-century Europe. And Dr. Kregor’s expertise as the leading Liszt scholar of his generation has also evolved into him becoming an equally respected authority on 19th-century program music.

Through his vast array of scholarly publications that include monographs, articles and essays and critically edited music, Kregor has helped shape the understanding of 19th-century music by skillfully inviting everyone to reconsider assumptions about classical creativity and the compositional process.

Owing to frequent testimony, Jonathan Kregor continues to enrich the lives of his students, collaborators and colleagues as a beacon in the field of historical musicology: not only through his distinguished scholarship, but also — as a student of a student of a student of Liszt himself — by transforming its results into musical practice.

 

Acclaim Awards Smile Upon CCM’s “A Little Night Music”

The Acclaim Awards smiled twice upon the CCM’s studio production of A Little Night Music, recommending the show and rewarding it with nominations for its musical director Anthony De Angelis and supporting actress Michelle Berkowitz.

CCM Musical Theatre Students Showcase Sondheim Classic, ‘A Little Night Music’

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Following up on their acclaimed production of Evita last fall, College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) musical theatre students continue to showcase the work of musical theatre’s greatest composers with Stephen Sondheim’s Tony Award-winning A Little Night Music. The show runs from February 3-5 in the intimate setting of the Cohen Family Studio Theatre in CCM Village. Guest artist Kimberly Daniel de Acha, who joined CCM in 2010 as an adjunct associate professor of voice, will perform in the show directed by Steven Goldstein. Anthony DeAngelis serves as musical director. Admission is free, but reservations are required. Tickets will become available on Monday, January 31 at noon – please contact the CCM Box Office at 513-556-4183 to reserve. Limit two tickets per order. Learn more about the production after the jump!

CCM Theaters Liven With Two Tony-Award Winning Musicals This Winter

Love, passion, humor and intrigue will abound in the College-Conservatory of Music’s (CCM) winter drama and musical theatre productions, which include two Tony Award-winning musicals – Stephen Sondheim’s witty A Little Night Music and Jonathan Larson’s groundbreaking Rent. Audiences will also enjoy a sampling of new works created and performed by CCM Drama students during the celebrated annual TRANSMIGRATION festival.

For more information on CCM’s drama and musical theatre performances or to purchase tickets call the CCM Box Office at 513-556-4183 or visit ccm.uc.edu.