Tag: School of Music
NIU School of Music ensemble-in-residence Cor Cantiamo and founding Artistic Director Eric A. Johnson will celebrate their first commercial CD with Centaur Records with an official release this month in the United States and Canada. The album will be available internationally Tuesday, Aug. 12, on all major download and stream sites as well as on...
Rich Holly, dean of the NIU College of Visual and Performing Arts, has received a $2,500 grant from the DeKalb County Community Foundation for the second consecutive year. The funds from the grant will help in the partnership created with Arts Midwest to bring the Arts Midwest World Fest to DeKalb County during the upcoming school year....
Gordon Bird, professor of music and director of bands at NIU from 1960 until his retirement in 1983, died June 16 at Oak Crest DeKalb Area Retirement Center. He was 99. Bird held a bachelor’s degree from Drake University, a master of music degree from Northwestern University and a doctorate of education from Columbia University...
Summit Records has released the first-ever compact disc by Northern Illinois University’s band director, titled “Concertos for Brass: The Music of Thomas Bough.” The CD includes three original concerti for solo brass and wind bands in addition to two arrangements by Bough. The concertos are performed by Bough and the NIU Wind Symphony in addition...
Liam Teague, head of steelpan studies and an associate professor in the NIU School of Music, was named the 2014 Laureate in Arts and Letters by the Anthony N Sabga Caribbean Awards For Excellence. Here is the speech Teague gave May 10 at the Trinidad & Tobago’s National Academy of the Performing Arts. It has...
A retirement party for Paul Bauer, longtime director of the NIU School of Music, is planned for 3 to 5 p.m. Monday, May 19, in the Boutell Memorial Concert Hall lobby. Bauer, who joined NIU in 1986, holds a D. M. in trombone performance from Northwestern University. He has taught applied trombone, euphonium and tuba,...
NIU School of Music alum Roosevelt Griffin, band director at Gwendolyn Brooks Middle School in Harvey, Ill., is the recipient of a 2014 Golden Apple Award for Excellence in Teaching. The 2014 honorees, selected from a pool of 620 nominations and 272 applicants, represent fourth- through eighth-grade teachers throughout the Chicago metropolitan area. According to...
The Kishwaukee Symphony Orchestra presents its spring concert, “Shostakovich and Steel,” at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, May 3, in the Boutell Memorial Concert Hall of the NIU Music Building. At its 37th season finale, the KSO will perform “Festive Overture in A Major, Op. 96,” and “Symphony No. 10 in E minor, Op. 93,” by Dmitri...
The NIU Percussion Ensemble will take the stage in the Boutell Memorial Concert Hall at 8 p.m. Monday, April 28, to showcase the beauty and versatility of the keyboard percussion instrument family. The marimba, vibraphone and glockenspiel are central instruments in percussion solo and chamber repertoire. NIU Percussion Ensemble directors Gregory Beyer and Michael Mixtacki...
Reginald “Reggie” Thomas has accepted the position as coordinator of the internationally recognized Northern Illinois University School of Music‘s internationally renowned Jazz Studies program. Thomas succeeds the esteemed jazz educator Ronald Carter, who is retiring after 20 years at NIU. Thomas comes to NIU from the Michigan State University College of Music, where he has...
NIU honors students were captivated Wednesday as they listened to alum Yao Lin play the piano and share her love of music, which she described as the universal language. Lin, known as Lina on campus, came to NIU in 2009 from Beijing to study piano performance with William Goldenberg, a distinguished professor in the NIU...
Marc Johnson, cellist of NIU’s world renowned Vermeer String Quartet, died April 8 in Cushing, Maine. He was 67. Johnson performed with the Vermeer from 1973 to 2007, when the four musicians ended their professional time together after four decades of circling the globe and playing an average of 70 concerts each year. “It’s probably...
