UNC Department of Music

06/06/2025

🤩Appreciation Post Alert!🤩

We’re so proud to have incredible graduate students in musicology! These phenomenal scholars help teach undergraduate music courses, assist with faculty research, and conduct their own innovative and exciting research. This year, music grad students presented papers at conferences across the nation and globe, earned awards and scholarships for their research, published articles, theses, and dissertations, and earned their Masters and Doctoral degrees. In May, we celebrated four M.A. graduates and seven Ph.D. graduates at the department commencement ceremony.🥹

Use the link below to read all about the “Graduate student greatness” from this past academic year!

Music graduate students presented papers, earned awards and scholarships for their research, published papers, and earned degrees.

06/04/2025

This month on Bookmark This, alumna Christa Bentley ’16 discusses the essay collection "Taylor Swift: The Star, The Songs, The Fans."

Bentley earned her Ph.D. in musicology from the UNC Department of Music and co-edited the book. She said the essays "comment on many pressing issues" from social media to material culture to copyright and ownership.

https://go.unc.edu/q7Q9K

UNC-Chapel Hill Graduate School

06/03/2025

This week the department is pleased to host the Chapel Hill Chamber Music Workshop in our buildings! Founded by Professor Donald Oehler, this week-long summer workshop for chamber musicians from across the globe has been hosted at UNC for over 30 years.

The workshop offers numerous free concerts throughout the week, including tomorrow evening’s performance by the Melete Trio, seen above. Melete Trio is an exciting new local piano trio, featuring violinist Leah Peroutka, cellist Lauren Dunseath, and pianist Bridget O’Leary. Don’t miss their free performance in Moeser Auditorium tomorrow, June 4 at 7:30 pm, featuring the music of Zwilich, O’Leary, and Arensky.

Learn more about this performance and the workshop at https://music.unc.edu/event/melete-trio-25chcmw/.

05/30/2025

“It was wonderful to work with John on this video to tell my story of how music has had a major impact on my experience as a first-generation immigrant.” -Dr. Clara Yang

Congratulations to UNC-Chapel Hill videographer John Roberts and Associate Professor Dr. Clara Yang on their Bronze Award win at the 46th Telly Awards! As stated on their website, “The Telly Awards annually showcases the best work created within television and across video, for all screens. Receiving over 13,000 entries globally from 6 continents and all 50 states, Telly Award winners represent work from some of the most respected advertising agencies, television stations, production companies and publishers from around the world.”

Roberts’ feature video about Yang, titled “Clara Yang: Inspiring Creativity,” was awarded Bronze in the General – Biography category for Non-Broadcast productions depicting an account or accounts of a person’s life. “It was an inspiration to be a part of sharing Clara’s story through video, and I am deeply honored that it was recognized," remarked Roberts.
Piano Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill UNC College of Arts and Sciences

Congratulations to UNC videographer John Roberts and Associate Professor Dr. Clara Yang on their Bronze Award win at the 46th Telly Awards!

05/28/2025

There are so many gorgeous spaces on campus for some outdoor practicing.🤩 Where’s your favorite summer practice location? Let us know in the comments!

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05/22/2025

“I’m so grateful to have been a part of this project. Fuzz Huzzi and I go way back. This recognition is well-deserved!”

Congratulations to Jay Harper, who mastered Fuzz Huzzi’s, Waiting on the Sun, which won Best Rock Album at the 34th Annual San Diego Music Awards earlier this month! The album was recorded and mixed by David Dominguez (Staind, Papa Roach, Weezer, Guns n’ Roses) in his LA-based studio before being shared with Harper for mastering and released on Bandcamp July 5, 2024.
Jay Harper UNC College of Arts and Sciences

“I’m so grateful to have been a part of this project. Fuzz Huzzi and I go way back. This recognition is well-deserved!” Jay Harper, multimedia technician for the department, mastered Fuzz Huzzi’s, Waiting on the Sun released on Bandcamp July … Read more

05/20/2025

Last week, the department hosted the 2025 Luby Symposium! The week was full of coachings, classes, lessons, performances, good food, and great fun. The symposium hosted 17 students from schools including Eastman, Vanderbilt, UNC, and UNCG, as well as the Durham Fellows String Quartet who were sponsored by the Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle. Faculty artists included UNC faculty and symposium director Nicholas DiEugenio (violin) and Mimi Solomon (piano), as well as violinist Aaron Berofsky (UMich), violist Jordan Bak (UNCSA), cellist Caroline Stinson (Duke), and violinst Rubina Lee Bak, and two guest artists! Over the course of five days, four student chamber groups learned and performed works by Beethoven, Singleton, Frances-Hoad, Mahler, and Felix Mendelssohn.

Swipe through to see snapshots from the symposium. And check out the performance livestreams at https://www.youtube.com//streams.

05/16/2025

We're delighted to announce that we have invited Dr. David Falterman to be a Teaching Assistant Professor Music with a concentration music theory beginning in July 2025!

Dr. Falterman holds a B.A. in piano performance and an M.A. in music theory from the University of North Texas, and earned his Ph.D. in music theory from the Eastman School of Music in 2024. His research synthesizes lines of inquiry from narrative and persona theory with theories of musical form to propose new ways of attending to musical middles in popular music, especially bridges and prechoruses. His classrooms are likewise broad-ranging and interdisciplinary, helping students trace lines of both connection and disjunction between theories of common-practice music, popular music, and hip-hop.

In his free time, Dr. Falterman enjoys rock climbing and long-distance canoeing.

05/14/2025

We are thrilled to announce that we have invited Dr. Kelariz Keshavarz to be an Assistant Professor of Music and the new flute studio teacher beginning in July 2025!

Dr. Kashavarz is a flutist, curator, and educator whose work encompasses contemporary music, interdisciplinary collaboration, and historical performance. She is the founder and artistic director of Iranian New Waves, a landmark project featuring over sixty newly commissioned and evolving works for solo flute by contemporary Iranian composers. Dr. Keshavarz’s creative research also includes Minimpronics, a project dedicated to electroacoustic composition and improvisation.

Equally fluent on modern and Baroque flutes, her work demonstrates a commitment to both artistic excellence and innovation. She collaborates regularly with artists across disciplines—including dance, visual art, and theater—to explore new performance formats and expand the expressive possibilities of the flute in contemporary cultural contexts.

05/12/2025

“Even though we’re leaving the department, the department isn’t leaving us. We take these people and this education with us to all these far corners that we’re traveling to. … The thing I’ll treasure above all else, aren’t these skills, it’s you - all my finest friends, all my most valiant mentors. I will treasure them always, and no matter where we go we take each other with us. That, I think, is the great victory of this department and that’s why I’m going to miss you all so very much.” -Marvin Koonce, Class of 2025 Music Commencement Student Speaker

You did it, Class of 2025! We’re still reliving Saturday’s celebration on repeat. The music, community, and all the hard and soft skills learned in your time here at UNC were on full display. As keynote speaker Margo Drakos reminded you, “These [skills you learned here] are very rare capabilities. Remember and trust in your toolbox. … There’s a tendency to think of the arts broadly as the thing that comes after. It is the thing that comes after the peace, after the law, after the politics, after the “real” education. When in reality, the arts stand in the middle of it all. In the glory and the gratitude and the churn of human existence. In the conflict, the pain, and the joy. They are not extra. They are the essence of our humanity. How fortunate we are to have each one of you, the class of 2025.”

Congratulations, Class of 2025! We are so proud of each of you. 👏🎶🩵🐏🎉

05/09/2025

🎉Congratulations, Class of 2025! You did it!🎉 Now let the festivities begin. Swipe through to see some of the incredible achievements of this year’s music graduates! 🎶🐏🩵

And we hope to see you on Saturday at 2:00 pm for the department commencement ceremony in Hill Hall! Join us via live stream at https://www.youtube.com/live/NuGZ4Icbo0E?si=CO-12_Y8rV6n7NiZ if you can’t make it in person.

05/07/2025

“This history is alive, and the things we can learn from it are vital to us and our flourishing, especially right now. A clearer grasp on the history of freedom singing and the politics it represents can help us deconstruct the faulty memory many Americans rely on when it comes to contemporary struggles for freedom.”

Dr. Stephen Stacks, Ph.D. 2019, will publish his first book, _The Resounding Revolution: Freedom Song after 1968_, on May 13! This book explores both the legacy of and the continued importance and practice of freedom song. As stated in the publisher’s synopsis, “Stacks’s analysis shifts the focus of attention from genre–freedom song–to process and practice–freedom singing. As he shows, freedom singing after 1968 generates multilayered meanings. It can reinforce, or resist, consensus memories or dominant narratives.”

Ph.D. Alumnus Stephen Stacks will publish his first book, The Resounding Revolution: Freedom Song after 1968, on May 14.