Dear UChicago Department of Music Community,
As we reflect on a year marked by global uncertainty, the University of Chicago Department of Music continues to thrive. The spring of 2025 brought an exciting milestone for the University with the relaunch of the Division of the Humanities as the Division of the Arts and Humanities—a new identity that our department is uniquely positioned to embody through the integration of scholarship, performance, and creative practice.
Nothing captures that spirit more than Opus 50, our yearlong celebration of Barbara Schubert's remarkable fifty years as conductor of the University Symphony Orchestra. Organized by our Performance Program staff in collaboration with Arts & Humanities Development, the series culminated in a moving performance of Mahler's Symphony No. 2 and Brahms’s Academic Festival Overture, which brought 100 alumni back to campus to perform at Mandel Hall. The extraordinary generosity of alumni and friends also enabled us to reach our fundraising goal of growing the USO endowment to $500,000, ensuring the orchestra's continued vitality in years to come.
We were also delighted to welcome Trio Mediæval as the Don Michael Randel Ensemble-in-Residence. Across three quarters, the ensemble worked with student singers and choirs, visited classes, engaged the wider community, and presented concerts that connected early music, Scandinavian traditions, and contemporary composition.
Our faculty continued to grow and flourish. We welcomed Alexander Cowan in Musicology while new faculty Hans Thomalla and Senem Pirler are remaking the program in Composition and Sound Practices. Cowan has been enriching the curriculum with new courses like Cultural Histories of the Blues: From the Chicago Renaissance to Sinners and has become an active participant in the department's intellectual life. Thomalla was introduced through stunning performances of Air and Harmoniemusik by Alarm Will Sound, while Pirler reimagined CHIMEFest as Critical Sounds, bringing artists like Victoria Shen and DJ Lady D together with our own students and faculty. The Grossman Ensemble, helmed by Professor August Read Thomas (University Professor, Arts and Humanities Division), was invited to perform at the Library of Congress.
This year also marked the retirement of Thomas Christensen, whom we celebrated with deep gratitude for his decades of scholarship, mentorship, and service to the department and the university.
Our faculty's research continues to thrive. Steven Rings published What Did You Hear? The Music of Bob Dylan, Martha Feldman published Castrato Phantoms: Moreschi, Fellini, and the Sacred Vernacular in Rome, and Anna Schultz published Echoes of Translation: Audibility and Relationality in Indian Jewish Women’s Song, while Jessica Baker's Island Time: Speed and the Archipelago from St. Kitts and Nevis received three major book prizes: the Society for Ethnomusicology’s Ruth Stone Prize and Portia K. Maultsby Prize and the Royal Music Association/Cambridge University Press Outstanding Monograph Book Prize. Jennifer Iverson was awarded a summer residency at the National Humanities Center, and Philip V. Bohlman received the Research Ireland–Harrison Medal from the Society for Musicology in Ireland in recognition of his distinguished contributions to the field.
As a hub of intellectual exchange, the department hosted a wide range of symposia. Among them were Philip V. Bohlman's continuing Balzan Prize initiatives on sonic borderlands (with Tomal Hossain, Vicky Mogollón Montagne, and others), Jessica Baker's Caribbean Intensities symposium (co-organized with Vicky Mogollón Montagne and Ayanna Williams), and Martha Feldman's international workshop on music and love (co-organized with Dafni Tragaki and Martin Stokes).
We could not do any of this without the steady engagement of students, alumni, friends, and faculty. Thank you for your continued support of the Department of Music.
Wishing you a musical summer,
Anna Schultz
Chair