Faculty News

Professor Haroutune Bedelian Retires

In 1997, Haroutune Bedelian told a reporter from the Los Angeles Times, “I don’t know what it means not to be a musician. It goes with breathing, with living, everything.” That sentiment embodies the tenure of our beloved violin professor. Bedelian was born in 1945 on the island of Cyprus located...

Faculty

UC Instructors Build Bridges Via Telematics

Excerpt from DownBeat.com By Bobby Reed During the pandemic, educators have wrestled with a pragmatic and philosophical question: How can music students effectively play together when they cannot be together? During the past few months, as DownBeat has spoken with collegiate educators in formal...

Faculty

Dr Joe Davies joins the Department of Music as a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Global Fellow

Dr. Joe Davies will join the Department of Music, in conjunction with the new Ph.D. program in History and Theory of Music, as a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Global Fellow. The funding is provided by the European Commission and jointly affiliated with Maynooth University, Ireland (2021–2024). Currently,...

Faculty, Connect

UCI Music Professor Uses Technology to Build Bridges

By Richard Chang Michael Dessen, a music professor at UC Irvine, specializes in telematics, or networked music performance. He knew his field was important and growing, but he didn’t expect the entire world of musicians to be calling him nonstop during the coronavirus pandemic. It turns out that...

Faculty

How the Pandemic Made UCI Composer Michael Dessen’s World Go Zoom

By Peter Lefevre September 11, 2020 "If you’ve ever been in a video meeting, you’ve had this experience: Someone’s lips move, and a fraction of a second later, you hear the sound of their voice. That millisecond of being out of sync, that delay between when a sound enters a system and when it...

Faculty

Playing Music Together Online Is Not As Simple As It Seems

Article shared from Jazz Night In America Playing Music Together Online Is Not As Simple As It Seems by Nickolai Hammar and Colin Marshal Here's a seemingly simple question: Can musicians in quarantine play music together over an Internet connection? We've migrated birthday parties, happy hours...

Faculty

LIFT EVERY VOICE AND SING: Black Opera Singers Raise Their Voices in Remembrance and Triumph

Prof. Darryl Taylor, countertenor, recently participated in soprano Nicole Heaston’s Purple Robe Song Series. The Juneteenth tribute features 65 of the nation’s top operatic talents, singing “Lift Every Voice and Sing!” arranged by Roland Carter. The song was written by James Weldon Johnson and...

Faculty

Chiisana Omatsuri by Kei Akagi

Jazz pianist and head of the Jazz Studies program at UCI, Prof. Kei Akagi, was recently invited by Bay Area artists Brenda Wong Aoki and Marl Izu to be part of Earth Dance 2020: First Voice Earth Day, Offerings to Mother Earth. "Many traditions believe everything and everyone is part of a living,...

Faculty, Student

Saints and Anteaters together in Music during COVID-19

2020 was going to be the year that the annual combined concert, comprised of the UCI Symphony Orchestra and the Santa Ana High School (SAHS) Symphony Orchestra, "went bigger" and became the "Triple Jubilee." The ensembles were poised to perform in the Downtown Santa Ana Arts District on the 2nd...

Faculty

Changing Tides II - A Telematic Translocational Concert

Changing Tides II A Telematic Translocational Concert A simultaneous performance, different time zones. Stream Now In February 2020, Prof. Michael Dessen, along with a group of intercultural artists, presented Changing Tides II – an intercultural music collaboration responding to the climate...

Faculty, Student

Triple Jubilee Brings UCI Music to Downtown Santa Ana This Spring

Triple Jubilee Brings Longstanding Partnership between UC Irvine Department of Music and Santa Ana High School Music Program to Downtown Santa Ana This Spring Having developed a partnership spanning seven years, and serving hundreds of high school and college students, the team of educators behind...

Faculty

‘Changing Tides II’ Has Musicians Respond To Climate Change

Prof. Michael Dessen collaborates with Prof. Mark Dresser (UC San Diego) for a "Telematic Translocational Concert" with musicians from South Korea’s Seoul Institute of the Arts in the Experimental Theatre at UC San Diego. Read the article from KPBS to learn more.

Faculty

Professor Mari Kimura inducted into UCI Beall Faculty Innovation Fellows

UCI Music Professor Mari Kimura was inducted into the first cohort of UCI Beall Faculty Innovation Fellows. The program was established to acknowledge UCI faculty members who have a record of translating their society-impacting research as well as to make them ambassadors for UCI’s innovation...

Faculty

H. Colin Slim (April 9, 1929 – October 22, 2019)

H. Colin Slim (1929–2019), music historian, conductor and pianist, founded the Department of Music at UC Irvine in 1965 and served as its chair until 1978, and several times thereafter. He had previously taught as an Assistant Professor at The University of Chicago. In 1968–69 he was a Fellow at...

Faculty

11 Jazz Songs That Spoke Truth To Power In 2019

Mark Dresser Seven "Let Them Eat Paper Towels" Remember the paper towel incident? Two years ago, in Puerto Rico, during the grave aftermath of Hurricane Maria? It may have been many news cycles and nearly as many scandals ago, but bassist and composer Mark Dresser hasn't forgotten the raw anger it...

Faculty

Master Drummer Jason Harnell's Total Harnage

UCI drumset instructor Jason Harnell's new multi-media recording received a rave review on All About Jazz, among other music blogs. Total Harnage is available via Jason’s website in two different formats—LP and as a USB flash drive shaped like a cassette, or at Amazon, iTunes and other online...

Faculty

Dr. Stephen Tucker: UCI Chair of Music & Conductor of the UCI Symphony Orchestra

By Terry Schilling | September 19, 2019 Over the past several years, the UCI Symphony Orchestra has delighted me with many exhilarating performances. Maestro Dr. Stephen Tucker is the newly appointed chair of the music department at UCI (Marjorie Rawlins Chair of Music). This comes on top of...

Faculty

UCI Faculty Member Jason Harnell Released Solo Album “Total Harnage”

On Sunday, May 12th,there was a release party at The Baked Potato --- a jazz club housing talented, upcoming musical artists since 1970 (thebakedpotato.com) --- for UCI Music Department Faculty Member Jason Harnell who debuted his first solo album entitled “TOTAL HARNAGE.” Harnell is a world-...