Grammy Nominations

The 67th Annual Grammy Awards take place February 2, 2025, and Peabody alumni and faculty are well represented among the nominees. The Metropolitan Opera’s recording of faculty artist Kevin Puts’ The Hours (Erato), featuring a libretto by Greg Pierce, was nominated for Best Opera Recording. The ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, led by Director of Graduate Conducting Marin Alsop, is up for Best Orchestral Performance for John Adams: City Noir, Fearful Symmetries and Lola Montez Does the Spider Dance (Naxos). Casarrubios: Seven For Solo Cello (Odradek) by Spanish cellist/composer Andrea Casarrubios (BM ’11, Cello) is nominated for Best Contemporary Classical Composition.

In the Best Musical Theatre Album category, Lawrence Manchester (BM ’94, Percussion; BM ’95, Recording Arts and Sciences) co-produced The Wiz (2024 Broadway cast recording), which features conductor and keyboardist Paul Byssainthe Jr. (GPD ’19, Organ). Manchester also co-produced The Outsiders (original Broadway cast) nominated album, which features associate conductor and keyboardist Mark G. Meadows (BM ’11, GPD ’13, Jazz Piano; KSAS BA ’11, Psychology).

Composer Jake Runestad’s (MM ’11, Composition) A Dream So Bright—Choral Music of Jake Runestad (Reference Recordings) was nominated for Best Choral Performance, featuring the True Concord Orchestra and Voices, which includes Ross Tamaccio (MM ’18, Voice) and Julie Bosworth (MM ’14, Early Music Voice). Baroque orchestra Apollo’s Fire, featuring concertmaster Alan Choo (MM ’14, Violin, Early Music; GPD ’16, Violin), was also nominated in the Best Choral Performance category for its Handel: Israel in Egypt (Avie) recording, which also features Yael Senamaud-Cohen (GPD ’95, Viola) and countertenor Daniel Moody (BM ’14, Voice). Handel: Israel in Egypt was also nominated in the Producer of the Year, Classical category for veteran producer Erica Brenner, whose nomination also includes Apollo’s Fire Biber: Mystery Sonatas (Avie) featuring soloist Choo, as well as Brian Kay (BM ’13, MM ’15, Lute) and William Simms (MM ’91, Guitar).

And the nominees for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance include Cerrone: Beaufort Scales (Cold Blue) performed by the Lorelei Ensemble under the direction of Director of Choral Studies Beth Willer, the Miró Quartet’s Home (Pentatone) that includes Kevin Puts’ titular work, and composer Caroline Shaw’s Rectangles and Circumstance (Nonesuch) performed by Sō Percussion, which includes Eric Cha-Beach (BM ’04, GPD ’05, Percussion). Congratulations, all.

I was pleased to recently announce the good news that beginning in fall 2025, the Peabody Conservatory will offer all admitted Doctor of Musical Arts students full tuition scholarships during the two years of full-time residency, including current DMA students continuing in their second year. This new commitment to graduate financial aid at Peabody further strengthens our ability to support students in pursuit of their highest artistic and scholarly ambitions and, in turn, further raises the stature of Peabody.

With this new financial aid in place, and as we move into the fall 2025 admissions process, we fully expect that the Doctor of Musical Arts program will grow increasingly competitive, attracting the very best students and preparing them to lead the next generation of artists and educators. Taken together with our commitment made last year to meet 100% of demonstrated financial need for all domestic undergraduate students without loans, this investment marks a bold leap forward in Peabody’s commitment to enrolling and supporting the finest talent without regard to financial means.

These significant additions to our financial aid program position Peabody as a leader in reducing barriers to higher education for all student artists and empowering them to make an impact in the world and their communities. I hope you will join me in celebrating the progress we are making towards a brighter future for the performing arts and healthier launch for our artists of tomorrow.

Sincerely,

Through December 13

The debut one-woman show by composer/comedian Francesca D’Uva (BM ’16, Composition), named among Vulture’s 2024 list of “The Comedians You Should and Will Know,” explores the death of her father from Covid-19 in June 2020 in a genre-defying series of original songs and stand-up. D’Uva’s This Is My Favorite Song debuted at the off-Broadway Playwrights Horizons theater this month and was the subject of a New York Times Style section profile. Performances run through December 13 and tickets can be purchased online.

Saturday, December 7, through Friday, December 13

Since 2020, the electroacoustic duo Beam Splitter—vocalist Audrey Chen (BM ’00, Voice) and Norwegian trombonist Henrik Munkeby Nørstebø—has organized its Dedicated Play series of concerts in Berlin, bringing artists from diasporic backgrounds together for interplay and improvisation. This month, the duo collaborates with the art-rock band Xiu Xiu for a pair of Dedicated Play festivals in Berlin and London featuring a globe-spanning lineup. Dedicated Play takes place at KM28 in Berlin December 7 to 9 and Cafe Oto in London December 11 to 13.

Sunday, December 8, 4:00 pm EST

Harpist Jacqueline Pollauf (MM ’07, Harp) is featured in Benjamin Britten’s Ceremony of Carols at a holiday concert performed by the Emmanuel Choir, which contains a number of Peabody alumni and current graduate students. The concert also features the North American premiere of composer Piers Connor Kennedy’s Nowel-el-el!, a companion piece to Ceremony of Carols, along with works by Morten Lauridsen, Francis Poulenc, and Eric Whitacre at the Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Baltimore; tickets are available online.

Monday, December 16, and Tuesday, December 17, 7:00 pm EST

Talmi Entertainment has toured a production of composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and choreographer Marius Petipa’s The Nutcracker ballet around North America since 1991. For its 2024 tour, the Nutcracker! Magical Christmas Ballet features principal dancers from Ukrainian opera houses, scenes reimagined by Polish choreographer Victor Davydiuk, and, for the two stops at Baltimore's Hippodrome at France-Merrick Performing Arts Center December 16 and 17, conductor Michael Repper (DMA ’22, Conducting) in the pit leading the orchestra.

Thursday, December 26, 7:00 pm EST

Saxophonist and educator Brent Brickhead is joined by faculty artist Warren Wolf (vibraphone) and the recently-signed-to-Blue-Note-Records Tuned-In alumnus Brandon Woody (trumpet) for the December installment of Brickhead’s three-month residency at Keystone Korner that spotlight’s Baltimore’s jazz talent. Each concert is being recorded, and previous guests include Noble Jolley (BM ’09, Jazz Piano), jazz undergraduate Devron Dennis, and Richard and Elizabeth Case Chair of Jazz Studies Sean Jones. Both in-person and livestream tickets available online.

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Peabody Notes highlights select off-campus performances featuring Peabody performers. For other events, please visit our Peabody events page.

Josh Fishbein

Preparatory alumnus Joshua Fishbein won both the 2026 American Guild of Organists/Marilyn Mason Award in Organ Composition and the 2026 AGO/ECS Publishing Award in Choral Composition. In addition to $5,000 prizes, Fishbein’s works will receive their world premieres at the 2026 AGO National Convention and be published by ECS Publishing and H.T. FitzSimons Co.

Zoë Johnstone Stewart

Preparatory faculty artist Zoë Johnstone Stewart (MM ’05, Guitar Performance) was elected Chair of the Guitar Foundation of America’s Board of Trustees, the first woman to hold the position in the organization's history.

Meng Su

Tatler Asia’s annual “Gen.T Leaders of Tomorrow” list recognizes the “trailblazing entrepreneurs, creatives, and changemakers who are making a positive impact” in Asia and included guitarist Meng Su (PC ’09, GPD ’11, MM ’16, AD ’18, Guitar) in its latest cohort. Her Beijing Guitar Duo’s current season includes a 12-city U.S. concert tour in February 2025.

Joel Weszka

Since enlisting in the U.S. Navy in 2016, Joel Weszka (BM ’11, MM ’12, GPD ’13, Clarinet) has been stationed with the Naval Forces Europe and Africa Band in Italy and the Navy Band Northwest in Washington. This fall, he won the audition for the U.S. Naval Academy Band in Annapolis, Md., where he will perform with the marching band, ceremonial units, and chamber winds.

Julien Xuereb

Julien Xuereb (GPD ’17, Guitar) was Peabody’s initial Musician-in-Residence at Springwell Senior Living, witnessing firsthand the holistic power of arts in the community. For the third year in a row, Xuereb has received a District of Columbia Commission for the Arts and Humanities grant to provide healing through live music at the George Washington Cancer Center in Foggy Bottom, starting in January 2025.

Joy: Christmas with The Tabernacle Choir

PBS has broadcast the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square’s annual holiday program for two decades, and this year’s 21st special Joy: Christmas With the Tabernacle Choir includes special guests Lesley Nicol, the British actor from Downton Abbey, and Broadway star Michael Maliakel (BM ’12, Voice), who headlined Aladdin when it returned to the New Amsterdam Theatre in 2021. Joy debuts on PBS December 17 and is available to stream online.

Kopytman — Kaddish

Israeli arranger/orchestrator Guy Eylon created a six-cello arrangement of late composer Mark Kopytman’s Kaddish, originally written for viola and string orchestra, that faculty artist Amit Peled and the Mount Vernon Virtuosi Cello Gang recorded featuring Mairead Flory, current undergraduate Shawn Hsu, Mafalda Santos (BM ’21, MM ’22, Cello), Joseph Staten (BM ’18, GPD ’22, Cello), and DMA candidate Natalia Vilchis (MM ’21, GPD ’22, Cello). Centaur Records recently released the world premiere of this arrangement to streaming services including Apple Music, Spotify, and YouTube.

Schubert: Schwanengesang and Schumann: Dichterliebe

Celebrated American pianist Gilbert Kalish has enjoyed a number of long-standing, rich collaborations with other artists over his distinguished career, and in recent years his work with baritone faculty artist Randall Scarlata has yielded rewarding recording and concert partnerships exploring song cycles, such as their Grammy-nominated 2019 recording of Franz Schubert’s Winterreise. Kalish and Scarlata return to the Austrian composer on their latest Bridge album, Schubert: Schwanengesang and Schumann: Dichterliebe, a scintillating recording of one of Schubert’s later works and Schuman’s best-known song cycle. The album is available to purchase online.

One: New Music for Unaccompanied Violin

Violinist Patrick Yim’s latest album, One: New Music for Unaccompanied Violin (New West Recordings), adds to the already rich solo violin repertoire with six works by contemporary composers Takuma Itoh, Ilari Kaila, John Liberatore, Páll Ragnar Pálsson, Juri Seo, and faculty artist Matthew Schreibeis, whose "Fragile Remembrance," a meditation on how memories fade over time, Kim debuted in 2023 and has performed throughout the US and China. One is available to purchase or stream online.

Venom: The Last Dance

Baltimore composer Dan Deacon scored director Kelly Marcel’s Venom: The Last Dance. The original soundtrack, released by Sony Classical, is a 28-track album of scene-setting electronics, dramatic strings, percussive action stretches, and an array of mood- and tone-setting melodies and sequences, and features the playing of Preparatory violin alumnus Gracie Carney, Peter Kibbe (BM ’12, Cello), Sarah Manley (BA ’17, Trombone), and James David Young (DMA ’14, Composition). The soundtrack is available to purchase and stream on Apple Music and Spotify.

What I Saw in the Water: 21st- Century Works for Guitar Duo

The ChromaDuo of Tracy Anne Smith (DMA ’12, Guitar) and Rob MacDonald (GPD ’03, MM ’04, Guitar) self-released its debut album of new works by living composers before Naxos picked it up for reissue. The label recently released the celebrated guitar duo’s latest album, What I Saw in the Water: 21st-Century Works for Guitar Duo, which features new works by guitarist-composers Sergio Assad, Dušan Bogdanović, Leo Brouwer, Dale Kavanagh, and Simone Iannarelli. What I Saw in the Water is available to buy or stream online.