Alumni Spotlights

Hyeyoung Song (D.M.A., Piano Performance, 2006) performed Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23 in A major with the Fort Worth Symphony Chamber Orchestra at the Marjorie Black Alkek Performing Arts Center on April 21. Dr. Song is a concert pianist and artist-in-residence at Weatherford College.

Nicole Christine Haywood (B.M., Music Performance, 2014) won the audition for the Assistant Principal and Second Bassoon position of the Grant Park Orchestra in Chicago.

Matt Hightower (D.M.A., Music, 2014) was appointed Assistant Professor of Tuba/Euphonium at the University of Kentucky and will begin in the fall of 2018.

Eddie Lopez's  (B.A., Music Studies, 2008) company, Perform America–TX, is sponsoring the Butler School of Music alumni gathering at the 2018 Texas Music Educators Association (TMEA) conference in San Antonio. Lopez also pledged the Edward R. Lopez Endowed Scholarship in Music in 2017 for undergraduate UT music majors. 

Dr. Mary Ellen Cavitt (Ph.D., Music Education, 1998) was recently promoted from her position as Professor of Music Education and Associate Dean of the College of Fine Arts and Communication to Assistant Vice President for Academic Services at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas.

Brandon Hendrix (D.M.A., Composition, 2010) serves as director of instrumental and choral ensembles and department chair at Eastern Oklahoma State College in Wilburton, Oklahoma, where he resides with his wife and two children. In addition to teaching private lessons and conducting the college's Concert Choir and Concert Band, Hendrix is actively involved in the school's Performing Arts Series.

Altin Sencalar (B.M., Jazz Performance, 2017) was chosen for the inaugural class of Geri Allen Fellows through the Carr Center in Detroit.

James Sclater's (D.M.A., Composition, 1970) music was recently featured at the Music in the City series at the Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson. 

Joseph Kingma (D.M.A., Piano Performance, 2017), assistant professor of Music at Louisiana College, took first prize at the 2017 Franz Liszt Festival and International Competition held at Ohio State University.

Andrew Parker (D.M.A., Applied Music/Performance, 2013) was recently named principal oboe of the Hendersonville Symphony Orchestra and Brevard Philharmonic Orchestra, second oboe of the Spartanburg Symphony Orchestra and instructor of oboe and music technology at Brevard College. He is also a regular substitute musician with the Asheville and Greenville Symphony Orchestras in South Carolina, and he’s has been appointed artistic administrator at the Brevard Music Center Festival and Institute.