Kate Sheeran, Assistant Dean at the Mannes School of Music at The New School in New York, will become SFCM's new Provost and Dean on July 1. As the Conservatory's top academic officer, Sheeran will play a critical role in pioneering a new standard of Conservatory education at SFCM. Read more.
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Terry Riley, the 80-year-old forefather of minimalism, offered the class of 2015 a prime example of the lasting power of artistic creativity at Commencement on May 22. In anecdotes, comments and a command performance, Riley called on SFCM's newest graduates to let their voices and ideas be heard. Read more and see this month's featured video.
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Podcast Highlights New Focus on Game and Film Scoring
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 The public radio podcast Top Score features SFCM's new program in Technology and Applied Composition in a recent edition. The show describes how the program will help musicians bring their artistry into the digital age by creating music for games, film and new media. Listen here.
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 SFCM Joins Conference on Historical PerformancePresident David H. Stull, faculty member Corey Jamason and four students recently attended a conference at the Smithsonian Chamber Music Society in Washington about historical performance practice, a discipline that is flourishing at American conservatories and colleges. SFCM is at the vanguard of schools broadening the scope of the field to focus on periods beyond the Baroque. Read more. |
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Awards for Pre-College Musicians
 Pre-College student and high school junior Ashwin Krishna won the Gold Medal at the Parkening Young Guitarists Competition. The contest is held in conjunction with the Parkening International Guitar Competition, considered the world's preeminent classical guitar competition. Ashwin studies with Scott Cmiel. Pre-College alumni Stephen Waarts and Kenneth Renshaw were among 12 violinists chosen as finalists at the Queen Elisabeth Competition, one of the world's leading international competitions held last month in Belgium. Waarts won fifth place and an award of 10,000 Euros. |
At a year-end ceremony on May 16, the Pre-College Division honored 24 departing high school seniors who will continue their studies at a remarkable list of top public and Ivy League schools. Speaker Hanson Tam, a Harvard-bound pianist who studied with William Wellborn, said studying music taught him the virtues of continual improvement, self-realization and learning to accept ambiguity. He also suggested that, as musicians, he and his classmates leave SFCM "better equipped than most to communicate with, reach out to, and understand the world around us." |
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Composer Terry Riley performs at this year's Commencement ceremony after receiving an honorary doctorate degree.
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Piano faculty Mack McCray discusses early role models from church musicians to Hollywood soundtracks to Van Cliburn, as well as his personal code of ethics and lessons learned from the late works of Bach, Beethoven and Brahms in a talk with fellow faculty member Corey Jamason. Hear this recent addition to SFCM's Oral History Project.
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 Play Your Part
Our students make countless personal sacrifices to become artists of the highest caliber. They do their part. Now do yours. Make a contribution online, or by calling 415.503.6210.
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Catherine Cook, chair of SFCM's voice department, and noted alumnus John Del Carlo '73 try their best to sabotage Figaro's marriage to Susanna as the conniving, comic couple Marcellina and Bartolo when the San Francisco Opera presents The Marriage of Figaro. Performances run from June 14 through July 5. More information.
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Tenor Daniel Bates '13 performs in the world premiere of Cold Mountain at the Santa Fe Opera this August. A second-year member of the company's apprentice singer program, Bates joins a cast headed by baritone Nathan Gunn and soprano Isabel Leonard in composer Jennifer Higdon's adaptation of the award winning novel. Bates studies with Catherine Cook. Read more about recent achievements of students and alumni of SFCM's voice program.
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Two new SFCM grads and a recent alum, violinists all, have received honors including notable orchestral appointments. Yanghe Yu '15, a student of Wei He, won a spot with New World Symphony, the acclaimed orchestral academy directed by Michael Tilson Thomas. Jing Zheng '13, a former student of Ian Swensen, has joined the Houston Symphony on regular basis after subbing for the past year. And Joshua Peters '15, another Swensen student, won Canada's Eckhardt-Gramatté National Music Competition for contemporary music performance.
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