James Forger
Dean, MSU College of Music

An intense and productive academic year concluded with the graduation where we celebrated 108 music majors: 44 undergraduates, 40 master’s and 22 doctoral students. Dr. Robert Stroker, dean of the Boyer College of Music and vice provost for the arts at Temple University and recipient of the College’s 2014 Distinguished Alumni Award, was the College of Music commencement speaker.

This newsletter brings but a fraction of the achievement, new initiatives, and learning experiences that were made possible this year by a stellar faculty and talented student body.

Winning performances included those from Carnegie Hall to Trinidad and Tobago, from East Lansing to Texas. Our alumni and students continue to earn acclaim – from academia, to performance, and the recording industry – with Mary Ellen Poole’s, ’83, appointment as director of the University of Texas Butler School of Music and Anad Sukumaran, ’06, who received Illinois’s Golden Apple teaching award, two recent Grammy Award winners from our jazz studies area, Chris Bullock, ’05, and Curtis Taylor, ’07, and the silver medal to MSU’s Echo Saxophone Quartet at the 2014 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition.

The Music Education area continues to provide national leadership with the launch of the New Directions in Music Education Journal, an open-access journal that will use a multimedia platform to disseminate scholarly articles and policy briefings. The journal will engage the broader community though interactive discussions concerning music teaching and learning and seeks to reduce the gulf between theory and practice. The New Directions in Music Education Conference brought scholars and practitioners from across the United States and abroad with a focus on contemporary music and technology in addition to composing, songwriting, and improvising.

The college is pleased to participate with university partners as we develop the intersection of scholarship and performance through the Latin IS America Festival and through Project 60/50, MSU’s yearlong conversation about civil and human rights. The 60/50 concerts and lecture series took place on campus, on tour, and most recently in Detroit through a collaboration between the MSU Community Music School-Detroit and the Detroit School for Arts. 

We hope many of you will join us in the upcoming academic year to experience the excitement that is Music at MSU!