Music News

Out On a Great Note

Legendary jazz pianist Kei Akagi to retire After more than two and a half decades of service to the University of California, Irvine, Claire Trevor School of the Arts, UCI Chancellor’s Professor Kei Akagi will retire in the spring of 2023. His retirement marks the end of an era for the...

Building Roads with Music

Musician and professor Kojiro Umezaki builds connections between communities By Christine Byrd Kojiro Umezaki plays a traditional Japanese bamboo flute called shakuhachi, which has been around for centuries. But he also uses artificial intelligence to analyze and layer recordings of himself...

Forging the Path Ahead

The ICIT Ph.D. program’s embrace of diverse forms of music hit the right notes for percussionist, sound artist and educator JoVia Armstrong By Greg Hardesty JoVia Armstrong, a 2022 graduate of the Department of Music's Integrated Composition, Improvisation, and Technology (ICIT) Ph....

The Pursuit of Artistic Inquiry

Research and innovation are at the core of the mission at the Claire Trevor School of the Arts by Greg Hardesty | UCI Magazine, Winter 2023 | March 1, 2023 Annie Loui, professor of acting in the Claire Trevor School of the Arts, remembers being recruited to UCI from her cozy, full-time...

UCI Academic Senate Honors Music Professor Michael Dessen

The UCI Academic Senate recently presented the 2022-23 Distinguished Faculty Awards, the Senate's highest honors, to recognize the achievements of its members in research, teaching, mentorship, and service. The recipients were selected by the Committee on Scholarly Honors and Awards. Among the...

Two CTSA Graduate Students Made It to the Finals for UCI Grad Slam

Grad Students from Dance and Music Pitched Their Research in Annual UCI Grad Student Competition By Sammy Merabet | Posted March 6, 2023 | Updated on March 12 On March 9, 2023, scholars from the Claire Trevor School of the Arts competed against students across the UCI campus to pitch their...

Highlights from the African American Art Song Alliance conference

Last October, UCI’s Department of Music hosted the 25th anniversary African American Art Song Alliance conference. The four-day event took place at the Claire Trevor School of the Arts and was presented by the African American Art Song Alliance, an advocacy organization representing Black composers...

New Recording: Lorna Griffitt and Haroutune Bedelian, Romantic Music of Robert, Clara and Johannes

The Claire Trevor School of the Arts Department of Music is pleased to announce the release of a new recording of compositions for solo piano, and for piano and violin, by Robert Schumann, Clara Schumann, and Johannes Brahms performed by pianist Lorna Griffitt and violinist Haroutune Bedelian. This...

Music’s Hidden Figures: Women at the Piano

Visiting scholar Joe Davies sheds new light on female musicians throughout history By Christine Byrd Clara Schumann was a 19th century piano virtuoso – a performer, composer, teacher and arranger. Yet for nearly a century after her death, she was recognized as little more than the wife of...

UCI Music alumna Jennifer dos Santos joins School of Social Ecology

UCI Claire Trevor School of the Arts Department of Music alumna Jennifer dos Santos recently joined the UCI School of Social Ecology’s administrative team as the senior assistant dean. She began her role on Jan. 9, 2023. dos Santos joined the campus staff in 2007, serving in positions at the...

UCI's Creative Engine

Through art, dance, music and drama, UCI artists push boundaries and fuel innovation By Christine Byrd This winter, the Claire Trevor School of the Arts will treat audiences to riveting performances and thought-provoking exhibitions, all of which are the result of a thriving creative engine...

The Highly Collective Work of ICIT’s “Circadian Etudes”

And the pursuit of ‘remote interconnectedness’ Inherent to UCI’s Integrated Composition, Improvisation, and Technology (ICIT) Ph.D. program is collaboration; all projects to emerge from the ICIT program suggest a degree of collectivity and interactivity. Rather—the entire music-making process...

ICIT Alumnus Omar Costa Hamido publishes groundbreaking dissertation work on quantum computing and music.

When considering music and technology, most people probably do not think of the intersection between creative expression through music and new directions in quantum computing. The work of Omar Costa Hamido–a recent recipient of a doctoral degree from the Claire Trevor School of the Arts (Ph.D. in...

New Book: Rethinking Brahms, edited by Nicole Grimes and Reuben Phillips

The Department of Music is pleased to announce the publication of a new book, Rethinking Brahms, edited by Nicole Grimes and Reuben Phillips, and published by Oxford University Press. The book features chapters by two core faculty members in the Ph.D. in the History and Theory of Music Program: Dr...

Ph.D. Candidate Joao Martins wins prestigious musicology award

Joao Martins, a candidate in the Ph.D. in the History and Theory of Music program at the UCI Claire Trevor School of the Arts Department of Music, has won the 2022 Ingolf Dahl Award in Musicology. This award was established by the Pacific Southwest Chapter of the American Musicological Society in...

Flutist is flying high

UCI Symphony Orchestra member Savanna Nygard has found inspiration in nature – and an act of generosity by Dhanika Pineda, UCI | October 17, 2022 Savanna Nygard started playing the flute when she was 10 years old. An avid “birder,” she associates the sound of her craft with birdsong, which...

Marlaina Owens Is An Operatic Force to Reckon With

The Fulbright scholar on privilege, Paris and the paired criticisms of being ‘too much’ By Mia Hammett A classical singer, actress and performer, Marlaina Owens has the pleasure of adding “2022-23 Fulbright Scholar” to an already extensive set of professional arts experiences. Owens...

Amplifying a classic Black music genre

UCI to host 25th anniversary African American Art Song Alliance conference By Nick Schou, UCI | October 9, 2022 If early African American classical music composers such as Scott Joplin, who went bankrupt trying to promote his 1911 opera “Treemonisha,” had been better received by white...