By Steve Fyffe
A professor who helped put the University of Oregon on the world’s musical map will have his legacy live on thanks to a former student’s $1 million gift establishing a faculty chair in his name.
The Edmund A. Cykler Chair in Music will receive an additional $1 million in matching funds from the Presidential Fund for Excellence, created last year by UO president Michael Schill with a $50 million gift from an anonymous donor.
By Sarah Eddy
Jasper Mountain, a treatment center for children with emotional issues, hoped that Beth Wheeler would come out and teach music once or twice a year. Wheeler, a UO instructor of music education, negotiated. She now volunteers at Jasper twice a week.
“If you can hear my voice, eyes on me,” Wheeler said to a group of 5- to 8-year-olds one Thursday morning. A few students snapped to attention, sitting “crisscross applesauce” on the carpet. Others continued to fidget and chatter.
Wings | Wonkak Kim - The Basset Clarinet on Vimeo.
Assistant professor Wonkak Kim plays a rare "super clarinet" custom designed for a Mozart masterwork as part of the "Wings" UO Presidential Speaker Series in Portland.
By Jim Murez
One key on North Eugene High School’s best piano was completely broken. The others were so worn out they required much effort to simply coax notes from them. The instrument looked just as tired from the outside.
The University of Oregon has selected Sabrina Madison-Cannon as the next dean of the School of Music and Dance.
Currently associate dean of academic and faculty affairs in the Conservatory of Music and Dance at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, she will bring an extensive background in dance and advanced choreographic design to the role.
By Steve Fyffe
Associate professor of dance Brad Garner and his collaborators in Harmonic Laboratory have already established a reputation for staging spectacular shows that combine dance, music, digital media and science in creative and unexpected ways.
The collective of University of Oregon faculty and alumni incorporated seismic recordings from Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano into the soundtrack for a performance called “Tremor.”
They turned an Xbox Kinect gaming sensor and a heart rate monitor into musical instruments for another entitled “Four Corners.”
What do you get when you mix holiday cheer with school spirit? How about this medley of "Sleigh Ride" and "Mighty Oregon" from the UO Tuba-Euphonium Ensemble?
The Eugene Weekly published a cover story on the local jazz scene, featuring interviews with associate professor of saxophone and jazz studies Idit Shner, senior instructor of jazz history Carl Woideck and jazz program alum Torrey Newhart. Read the entire article here.
When is a classroom not a classroom? When it’s a world-class sound studio. At the UO’s School of Music and Dance, undergrads learn music production by actually producing music.
Click here to read the entire story in Around the O.
By Katrina Sarson | OPB Oregon Art Beat
“When people think gospel music, a lot of people think South. You know, or the East Coast,” says Andiel Brown, the director of gospel ensembles at the University of Oregon. “But gospel music is universal.”
When he first arrived at the university as a freshman, Brown wasn’t thinking of a career in music. He was a psychology major who walked onto the football team.
