Congratulations to Professors Pete Shungu, Adam Kruse, and Donna Gallo (L to R) on their “Hip-Hop and the Schulwerk” presentations this weekend for the American Orff-Schulwerk Association conference in Kansas City. What a joy to witness crowds of music teachers analyzing rap lyrics, freestyling, and writing original rhymes - many for the first time!

The School of Music at the University of Illinois is pleased to announce that six accomplished performers, teachers, and music educators will join its distinguished faculty in fall 2022. Each of these faculty members was hired after national or international searches led by faculty committees.

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign School of Music celebrates its evolution with a new tradition and an infectious hip-hop sound, successfully bridging the cultural divide while showing people how to have a good time. The Marching Illini’s Low Brass Cheer is a blues riff that has been played during Illini Football games for decades. Professor Lamont Holden took the instrumentation and added some Drumline-like snares, following the Atlantic sequencing formula to create the Illini Anthem.

Released October 15 on the Centaur label, this new double CD contains several original compositions representing the compositional output of the last nine years of Professor of Piano Pedagogy Christos Tsitsaros. Marking a new creative phase, the works of this period are characterized by an idiomatic musical language abounding Greek and Middle Eastern references, and are deeply inspired by the Mediterranean landscape and rich imagery found in ancient Greek and Cypriot mythology.

Will compose new work for Third Coast Percussion ensemble.

Illinois Saxophone Professor Debra Richtmeyer has released The Richtmeyer Method for Saxophone Mastery. Published in two volumes by Theodore Presser, Richtmeyer's method is the culmination of five years of work, and draws on a notable career as a pedogogue of the saxophone. 

The 3-disc recording includes the complete English Suites by Johann Sebastian Bach, as well as six suites by five Black composers