President Barack Obama has nominated Emil J. Kang, executive director for the arts and professor of the practice of music at Carolina, to become a member of the National Council on the Arts.

The music department is upgrading Hill Hall Auditorium with LED stage lights that both improve performance and reduce energy costs, thanks to a generous grant from UNC-Chapel Hill's Renewable Energy Special Projects Committee of Student Government.

A spirit of discovery and an infusion of new faculty are building the Music Department's reputation as a center for musical innovation.

Jim Ketch: A Distant View

Whispers

Billy Stewart, guitarist and composer

Release Date: January 27, 2011 |  BlueGreenInk Music [ASCAP] | forthcoming on Itunes

World premiere recordings of six new works by five young composers.  [Anderson's, "Quest,"] is the most innovative work on the CD, and is really quite striking in its originality -- David DeBoor Canfield, Fanfare Magazine.

When music professor Mark Katz says he wants his students to have a hands-on learning experience, he means it.

UNC Opera performs a wide range of opera, operetta, and musical theater repertory, including both standard and new works.  Under the direction of Dr. Terry Ellen Rhodes, the company not only serves the educational and artistic needs of the University, but also provides affordable and accessible performances for the community.

A strong tradition of jazz at UNC.  Each year students perform with guest artists who have included: Marcus Roberts Trio, Wycliffe Gordon, Jamey Aebersold, Terri Lyne Carrington, Joel Frahm, Tim Armacost, Don Braden, Greg Gisbert, the Lynn Seaton Trio, Harry Waters, and many others.

A feature concert last year that combined the UNC Symphony Orchestra with Carolina Choirs.  Read about it further in the Daily Tar Heel article.

"My time at UNC has been an amazing growing and learning experience.  I've met Wynton [Marsalis], Sonny Rollins, Tim Armacost, and Terrence Blanchard.  It's really unreal the people I've gotten to meet since I've been here."  

Ryan Raven (class of 2012)
Bachelor of Music, Music Education
and Jazz Studies emphasis 

For Terry Rhodes, music is more than a way to make a living. It is a way of life. Somehow, she finds a way to make music an integral part of almost every thing she does. She really has no choice – music is in her blood.

Winner, ASCAP Deems Taylor Award
Certificate of Merit, ARSC Best Research in Recorded Country Music

In this cultural and historical study, Jocelyn R. Neal discusses three of Rodgers' most influential songs—"Muleskinner Blues," "In the Jailhouse Now," and "T for Texas." She offers a radically new perspective on the role of Rodgers and his music in the making of country music, and on the ways in which individual songs take on special significance in American cultural life (Indiana University Press).

In the early fourteenth century, musicians in France and later Italy established new traditions of secular and sacred polyphony. This ars nova, or "new art," popularized by theorists such as Philippe de Vitry and Johannes de Muris was the among the first of many later movements to establish the music of the present as a clean break from the past. The rich music of this period, by composers such as Guillaume de Machaut and Francesco Landini, is not only beautiful, but also rewards deep study and analysis.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Department of Music are proud of a long tradition of excellence and leadership in choral music in the state and region, exploring the finest in choral literature from all periods.

Fauser and co-editor Mark Everist of the University of Southampton in England received the Ruth A. Solie Award for the book, “Music, Theater and Cultural Transfer: Paris, 1830-1914” (University of Chicago Press, 2009). Each year the Solie Award honors a collection of musicological essays of exceptional merit.

"There is more to sound recording than just recording sound. Not just a tool for the preservation of music, the technology is a catalyst for change. In 'Capturing Sound,' Katz writes a wide-ranging, informative and entertaining history of recording's profound impact on the musical life of the past century, from Edison to the Internet" (News from the Library of Congress, Oct. 18 2005)

Annegret Fauser of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has received the Dent Medal of the Royal Musical Association (RMA). It is one of the highest international honors a musicologist can receive.

It’s gospel music day in professor Louise Toppin’s class, “Music as Culture: The Music of African-Americans.” The course is a survey of the music of African-Americans from its roots in Africa to hip-hop, through the lens of the classical composer.