Faculty

Award-winning composer, violinist, and educator Jessie Montgomery was warmly welcomed back to Blair School of Music September 18-22 for a residency that included classroom instruction, a masterclass session, and lecture during Friday’s Student Recital Class. Five student chamber groups were personally coached as they performed works composed by Montgomery; those… Read More

Blair School of Music Associate Professor of Voice Tyler Nelson was in Sydney, Australia this month, where he conducted a voice masterclass at the Academy for Music and the Performing Arts (AMPA). Nelson also participated in several Vanderbilt student recruitment activities. We thank him for sharing these personal photos from… Read More

Two of Blair School of Music’s premier large ensembles will take the stage this week. The Vanderbilt Wind Symphony, conducted by Thomas Verrier, associate professor of conducting, will open its fall performance season on Friday, September 22, with Symphonic Songs. The program will feature a guest appearance by… Read More

International Jazz Composers’ Symposium   Blair School of Music will host the sixth International Jazz Composers’ Symposium, May 16-18, 2024. Presented by the International Society of Jazz Arrangers and Composers (ISJAC), the conference provides a forum that unites jazz composers of all ages and nationalities in an informal exchange of… Read More

Raheleh Filsoofi has been named one of 15 recipients of the prestigious 2023 Joan Mitchell Fellowship, awarded to artists working in the fields of painting, sculpture, installation and land art. She will receive an unrestricted $60,000 grant, to be disbursed over five years. Filsoofi is assistant professor in ceramics at… Read More

Florence Price: A Celebration Florence Price: A Celebration, a multi-event music festival, will pay tribute to the life, music, and enduring legacy of a woman who broke barriers of race and gender in classical music. Taking place at venues across Nashville October 3 through November 14, the series is produced… Read More

Students, faculty, and deans gathered recently with Malcolm Matthews, adjunct artist teacher of organ and harpsichord, to celebrate the installation of Blair’s new practice organ, a 10-rank mechanical instrument built by Austrian builder Gregor Hradetzky. Originally constructed for a home in Arizona, the organ was later used as a liturgical… Read More

Raheleh Filsoofi Raheleh Filsoofi has been awarded a Tennessee Art Commission Grant for her project, “The Resonance of the Lands: Finding Identity and Place in Tennessee Through Clay, Music, and Community.” The program involves mapping and extracting clay from various locations across the city to create 25 clay instruments, taking… Read More

We’re excited to share photos from the groundbreaking Banding Together United States / Cuba collaborative orchestra festival in Cuba. Directed by Blair’s Thomas Verrier, the finale performance in Havana on July 21 featured a concert band comprised of 40 Cuban musicians from the Centro Nacional de la Musica de Concierto,… Read More

Molly Herron Molly Herron will be in New York next week for the July 25 premiere of her new orchestral work, “Spin, Span, Spun,” which will be performed by Orchestra of St. Luke’s at The DiMenna Center for Classical Music, conducted by Brad Lubman. Herron is one of three composers… Read More