News Stories

Soprano Leah Crocetto is joining the Butler School next fall as a Lecturer in Vocal Arts. Described by The New York Times as possessing an “agile coloratura technique and a feeling for the Italianate style… with warmth, full penetrating sound and tenderness,” Ms. Crocetto continues to astonish audiences with her moving portrayals of opera’s greatest heroines.

Butler Ethnomusicology Professor Robin Moore was recently awarded $10,000 as part of a Faculty Research Seed Grant, one of 17 new grants distributed from Texas Global. Launched in November 2020, Texas Global’s Faculty Research Seed Grants provide financial backing to faculty across all disciplines to develop and strengthen new or existing partnerships with leading higher education institutions and organizations around the world. The initiative supports UT Austin faculty and their international counterparts in collaborating on research to address some of the world’s most pressing challenges.

"I’m thrilled to have received this award from Texas Global. The funds will let us extend teaching and research collaborations internationally and to establish ongoing ties between the University of Texas and the University of Guadalajara," Moore said.

The ISJAC International Jazz Composers’ Symposium is a bi-annual conference that brings hundreds of jazz composers, arrangers, educators, and industry executives together for three days of concerts, lectures, panel discussions, and the presentation and honoring of new jazz compositions and arrangements. The Symposium is known as a robust, yet intimate gathering of the world’s finest jazz writers. As a central tenet of the ISJAC mission, the Symposium seeks to unite, develop, and electrify the our global community of jazz arrangers and composers.

The Butler School welcomes new Lecturer in Opera Studies and Stage Director for Butler Opera Center Garnett Bruce, who will join the school in Fall, 2022.

“We’re thrilled that Garnett will be joining us; his talent, experience, and vast knowledge will be a tremendous asset to the Butler School of Music community,” said Butler Opera Center’s Director Tamara Sanikidze.

In our latest episode of BSoMBODY, we share the history surrounding the creation of Der Kaiser Von Atlantis, Butler Opera Center's first production of 2022, and take listeners inside rehearsal as our students prepare for opening night.

Nick Hammel, a Butler School senior specializing in violin performance, recently won first place in the Ann and Charles Eisemann International Young Artists Competition, capturing a $5,000 prize along with the chance to perform the Brahms Violin Concerto with the Richardson Symphony Orchestra on March 5, 2022.

Two Butler School Students recently earned prestigious positions with military bands. Chance Stine, a master’s student in the Butler School’s Saxophone Studio, will be joining Army Band "Pershing’s Own," and Megan Elks, also a master's student and teaching assistant in the school’s Saxophone Studio, will play in the United States Air Force Band, both in Washington D.C.

The University of Texas Trombone Choir is heading to Switzerland this spring thanks to a Texas Global Career Launch Grant. Ten students along with the studio’s director and Professor of Trombone, Nathaniel Brickens, will visit the country for a six-week residency beginning in May. The group will work closely with members of the Zurich Opera and the Zurich Ton Halle Orchestras, including the highly acclaimed Zurich Opera Orchestra’s Solo Trombonist David Garcia and the Ton Halle Orchestra’s Bass Trombonist Bill Thomas.

Associate Professor Of Oboe Andrew Parker was featured recently by a local news outlet in Davenport Iowa for his ties with the Quad City Symphony Orchestra. Parker makes the trip several times each year to play with the orchestra, and performed his first solo recital recently with Pianist Marian Lee. 

Parker, who began piano lessons at age five before picking up the oboe in fourth grade, said he was drawn to the instrument because his music teacher said it was the hardest to play.

“I’ve just always had a personality that’s drawn to a challenge,” Parker told Quad City News. “To this day, I believe something sort of providential happened because the oboe just fits me so perfectly. I didn’t know that when I was in fourth grade — I didn’t know what it would entail, anything about it, really. It was a purely instinctual thing, but now looking back, it’s like, yeah, I was called back to that instrument in a way.” 

An exit interview with Butler School's Beloved Outgoing Director