Convocation 2020

Join us as we welcome new and returning students and commemorate the opening of the school year!

Convocation will last approximately 35 minutes and will include:

• Poem: “Conditioned Compassion” poem and performance by Michael Mayo '14

• Welcome: Nick Tatar, Dean of Students
• Opening remarks: Juliette Kaoudji ’20, ’22 MM, Voice | Recipient of Tourjee Award

• Performance: Delfina Cheb-Terrab ’21 MM Contemporary Improvisation | Original composition: “Diez mil gorriones”

• Health Protocols Reminder | Leah McKinnon-Howe

• Presidential Scholarships & Presidential Distinction Awards, presented by President Andrea Kalyn

• Presser Foundation Awards, presented by Tom Novak, Vice President and Provost

• New faculty introductions: Allison Garner, Dean of Academic Affairs and Administration

  • Gabe Alfieri (Music History)

  • Jung-A Bang (Music Theory)

  • Dang Thai Son (Piano)

  • Christina Dioguardi (Music History)

  • Guy Klucevsek (CI)

  • Greg Liszt (CI)

  • Lautaro Mantilla (CI)

  • Sid Richardson (Composition)

  • Nasheet Waits (Jazz)

  • Hui Weng (CI)

• Performance: Ziang Xu ’18 MM, ’21 DMA Piano Performance | “Nimble Feet” from Florence Price’s Dances in the Canebrakes 

• President’s message: Andrea Kalyn, President 
• Performance: Angela Yam ’21 GD, soprano & Hanzheng Li ’14 MM, ’17 GD, ’18 MM, ’21 DMA, piano | Depuis le jour, from Gustave Charpentier’s opera Louise
• Closing message | Tom Novak, Vice President and Provost

• Performance: New Student Ensemble, J. Rosamond Johnson's “Lift Every Voice & Sing”

• Trained at the New England Conservatory (1890s), J. Rosamond Johnson was a well-known vaudeville, ragtime and Broadway composer and music director, as well as educator and music editor. He wrote “Lift Every Voice and Sing” to a poem by his brother, James Weldon Johnson for a 1900 Lincoln’s Birthday commemoration, and sung by a children’s choir in Jacksonville, FL. James Weldon Johnson was a Harlem Renaissance writer, educator, activist, diplomat and NAACP leader in the 1920s, and the first African-American professor hired by New York University in 1934.

• Reception | After convocation, students, faculty, and staff are invited to an interactive online reception via Zoom, with opportunity to meet and greet other community members! Hosted by Tanya Maggi, Dean of Community Engagement and Professional Studies, Grace Allendorf, Associate Director of Community Performances and Partnerships, and Annie Phillips, Associate Dean of Entrepreneurial Musicianship.
  
  Click here to go to the Reception