Alumni Spotlights

Alan E. Hicks (D.M.A., Voice and Opera, 2009) was awarded the Craig Noel Award for Outstanding Special Event by the San Diego Theatre Critics Circle for his production, All is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914. He will also join the faculty of the Music Academy International (Primiero, Italy) this summer as the stage director for La Clemenza Di Tito. Photo by Valerie Durham.

Kim Perlak (D.M.A., Guitar, 2008) discusses performance, pedagogy, the department at Berklee and her doctoral research in American music at the University of Texas at Austin on the Sounds of Berklee podcast. Perlak is Chair of the Guitar department at Berklee College of Music in Boston, and joined Berklee in 2013 as assistant chair. She is the first woman to chair the department since the college added guitar as a principal instrument in 1962. 

Nicolas Maximiliano Emilfork Diaz (D.M.A., Guitar, 2018) is a lecturer at Universidad de Chile, where he teaches chamber music and classical guitar in a new masters program and serves as their chamber music coordinator. He has recently been named artistic director for Fundacion Guitarra Viva Ernest Quezada, a new organization that will provide scholarships, organize national and international master classes and concert series. He will teach "Baroque Music History" at the Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez in fall 2019. Photo by  Adolfo Rodriguez

Altin Sencalar (B.M., Jazz Studies, 2017) has completed a midwest tour with The Temptations and the Four Tops, and will be playing with the two-time Grammy winner Christian McBride Big Band on their first night of their West Coast tour in Mesa, Arizona, in late April. 
 

Sean Reed (B.M., Brass, 1995) recently released an album with John Marcellus titled, "Trombone Songs." 

Jim Friedhofer (B.M., Music Education, 1986) has spring 2019 performances scheduled as a member of the Houston Symphony Chorus (Orff, Carmina Burana; Rachmaninoff, The Bells) and as a member of the La Jolla Symphony Chorus (Bernstein, Symphony No. 3, Kaddish). In June 2019, he will participate in the Longhorn Alumni Band at the 75th D-Day anniversary ceremonies in Normandy, France. He also continues practicing as a civil litigation lawyer in Friedhofer PC in San Diego, California. 

Alan E. Hicks (D.M.A., 2009) has been appointed Director of Opera Theatre at San Diego State University in a newly created joint position with San Diego opera. In addition to his duties at SDSU, Dr. Hicks will also serve on the staff of San Diego Opera.

Steve Parker (D.M.A., Music, 2012) is the recipient of this year’s Tito’s Prize, a $15,000 cash award funded by the Texas vodka company and administered through Austin arts organization Big Medium, who give the winning artist a solo show staged during the East Austin Studio. Initiated last year, the Tito’s Prize is the largest cash prize granted to an Austin visual artist.

Daniel Madrid (M.M., Music, 2013) has been hired as the Executive Assistant to the General Manager of the Metropolitan Opera House.

Jonathan Santore (M.M., Composition, 1987) has been awarded the 2018 Distinguished Teaching Award at Plymouth State University, where he's taught since 1994. He previously received the PSU Award for Distinguished Scholarship in 2011.