News and Stories

Matt Ulery Named Recipient of a 2024 Walder Foundation Platform Award

Matt Ulery, Instructor of Bass and Composition at Loyola, is a 2024 recipient of a Walder Foundation Platform Award. This unrestricted award of $200,000 supports and recognize accomplished Chicagoland mid-career music, theatre, dance, and interdisciplinary performance artists who enrich the City's creative and civic landscape through a commitment to honing their craft and meaningful community engagement.

Recent "Mass Reimagined" Concert Reviewed by Chicago Classical Review

"Devised and led by conductor Kirsten Hedegaard, co-founder and artistic director of the EcoVoice Project, the program consisted of two works that leveraged the traditional Catholic mass form to comment on global extinction at the hands of humanity. Both pieces were harmonically and contextually modern but assumed differing rhetorical and aesthetic stances to deliver their urgent warning."

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Kaoru Watanabe Named Spring 2023 Artist-In-Residence in the Department of Fine and Performing Arts Music Program at Loyola University Chicago

During his residence, New York-based musician and North America’s leading practitioner of the shinobue (Japanese transverse flute), Kaoru Watanabe will engage with music students and faculty through teaching, working with the Percussion and Wind Ensembles, and will present a public recital in the Skowronski Music Hall on Loyola’s Lake Shore Campus.

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Christopher Madsen Joins the Loyola Music Faculty

Christopher Madsen, DMA joins the Department of Fine and Performing Arts at Loyola University Chicago as Lecturer in Music, Jazz Studies. Madsen is a Jazz saxophonist, composer, and pedagogue who brings 14 years of experience teaching at the college level (Northwestern U. 2008-2014 and University of Illinois at Chicago, 2014-2022) and is excited to join the faculty at Loyola.

Music alum Kabir Dalawari featured in the <i>Chicago Tribune</i>

Jazz Studies grad Kabir Dalawari's debut album "Awareness" is featured in an article that discusses his academic trajectory at Loyola and the important role that Professor Mat Ulery's mentorship played in Kabir's musical growth. Awareness features Kabir on drums, Ulery on Bass, and recent Loyola graduate Eric Arroyo on piano.

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Sacred and Secular: An Exploration of Art and Music in the 11th-17th Century Italy

Recently, students from the DFPA presented “Sacred and Secular: An Exploration of Art and Music in the 11th-17th Century Italy” at Loyola University’s Museum of Art (LUMA). The LUC Chamber Choir prepared works by Landini, Dufay, Josquin, Palestrina, Monteverdi, Strozzi, and Gabrieli, accompanied on theorbo and Baroque guitar by guest artist, Brandon Acker.

Music Major Megan DelSignore conducts the Loyola Wind Ensemble

Megan DelSignore debuts her first compositional work at the Loyola Instrumental Showcase.

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Elements presented by music faculty Kirsten Hedegaard at the Climate Change Conference

ELEMENTS is a sound exploration of four states of matter in the form of earth, fire, air, and water. Ruminating on Thale’s philosophy that “all is water,” ELEMENTS is also a meditation on water’s singular importance and relationship to the other three elements. Most of the audio was recorded virtually with chorus members from Loyola University and the University of Illinois campuses. Several pieces were recorded live, masked and safely distanced, with a vocal octet from the New Earth Ensemble.

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Bill Cernota receives the 2019 CYSO Alumni Award

Loyola Music alum Bill Cernota, cellist for the Chicago Lyric Opera Orchestra, receives the 2019 CYSO Alumni Award. The Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra (CYSO) Community Partnership Programs support music training and access for more than 8,500 young musicians ages 6-18 each year. Click to read the CYSC blog post.

Sebastian Agignoae Founds Organization To Serve Displaced Musicians

Alumnus Sebastian Agigneae activates the transformational power of music for social change by founding the International Orchestra of Refugees.

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Music Students and Faculty Collaborate Remotely to Create Online Soundscapes

Celebrate Earth 1 is the first part in an ongoing YouTube virtual project designed by students and faculty from the DFPA. This online soundscape is based on variations of the medieval chant, "Adoro te devote," culminating in the hymn "For the Beauty of the Earth." The singers and instrumentalists recorded their parts individually, then were compiled into a cohesive work. This first installment features over one hundred choristers from the LUC Women's Chorus (conducted by Jennifer Budziak), University Chorale, and Chamber Choir (conducted by Kirsten Hedegaard), as well as guest musicians: Rich Leasure, organ, Jim Gailloreto, soprano saxophone, and Jill Kaeding, cello. Sound production was done by Sam Mason, and video production was completed by Alec Loftus, both students in the music program. Part 2 will feature music from Paul Winter's Missa Gaia, which was set to be performed by the choirs and dance division in late March. Future installments will be completed over the summer.

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