Each spring, the Department of Music faculty vote on and bestow academic and performance awards to outstanding undergraduate students at Brown University. The awards are presented in person at the Honors & Awards Ceremony. This year's ceremony was presided by Professor Eric Nathan, Director of Undergraduate Studies. The 2026 awardees are listed below. Congratulations to all recipients of awards this year!

For Alexaner Hardan, a doctoral candidate in Musicology and Ethnomusicology, the true heart of education isn't found in a cinematic lecture hall, but in the quiet, "invisible" hours of preparation: the meticulous selection of a reading, the shaping of a question, or a transformative comment left in the margins of a student’s draft.

It is this dedication to the hidden architecture of learning that has earned Hardan the 2026 Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching.

After a rigorous nationwide search, the Yale School of Music announced that Erica Haskell, Ph.D., has been appointed Managing Director, effective early summer 2026. Congratulations, Dr. Haskell!

Last Friday, acclaimed clarinetist and composer Kinan Azmeh joined the Brown Jazz Band for a poignant eight-song performance at the 38th Eric Adam Brudner ’84 Memorial Concert in the Lindemann Performing Arts Center. The concert was directed by Timo Vollbrecht — an associate teaching professor of music and Azmeh’s longtime friend.

David Fossum (PhD '17, Ethnomusicology) is an Assistant Professor in the School of Music, Dance and Theatre at Arizona State University. His project discipline tied to this NHC grant is "Remembered Innovation: A History of Creativity in Turkmen Music." Congratulations, Professor Fossum!

Erickson's article is part of Ethnomusicology Vol. 70, Issue 1.

Annie Kim, Brown University PhD candidate in Musicology & Ethnomusicology, authors article for Opera Quarterly

Ruby Erickson's "Kriolu voices sounding: Tending to epistemic justice and conflict in collaboration" published in the February 2026 issue of Anthropology Today

Known for his relentless creativity and boundary-defying artistry, saxophonist Timo Vollbrecht has built a reputation as a true phenomenon in the jazz world. Originally from Berlin, Timo made the bold move to New York 15 years ago, immersing himself in the city’s vibrant scene and honing his distinctive musical voice. Today, he leads the Jazz Program at Brown University, balancing a thriving academic career with an impressive array of genre-spanning projects. For his latest venture, Timo Vollbrecht – Bremen New York, he brings together a stellar international lineup—Ralph Alessi (trumpet), Chris Tordini (bass), Thomas Strønen (drums), and Elias Stemeseder (piano)—bridging the musical worlds of Bremen and New York. We caught up with Timo to talk about this exciting project, his journey, and what drives his continued evolution as an artist.

The Brown University music scholar embraces cultures, storytelling and soundscapes to advance “fierce expression” through composition and her dedication to her work with students.

Brown University PhD Candidate in Music & Multimedia Composition Han geul Lee Earned a Special Prize in the 5th Ise-Shima International Composition Competition

Brown University Professor of Music Emily Dolan co-edited Sonic Circulations: Music, Modernism, and the Politics of Knowledge (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press 2025)

In Intro to Rap Songwriting, students learn to listen deeply, engage with a complex art form, and share their hearts.

In this Q&A, Jodry reflects on a musical journey at Brown that spanned 33 years and culminated in a monumental farewell concert that drew alumni from around the world.

Brown University PhD Candidate Annie Kim Earns Fellowship from the American Musicological Society

Each May, the Department of Music faculty vote on and bestow academic and performance awards to outstanding undergraduate students at Brown University. The awards are presented in person at the Honors & Awards Ceremony. This year's ceremony was presided by Professor Eric Nathan, Director of Undergraduate Studies. The 2025 awardees are listed below. Congratulations to all recipients of awards this year!

Before becoming a producer on the show, Nathan Winoto ’25 — a senior studying music, sociology and economics — was involved in theater at Brown. Since joining his first year, he has directed various productions at Brown, including Ensemble’s “Tick, Tick… Boom!” and Brown Opera Productions’s “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.” In an interview with The Herald, Winoto said that joining his first Broadway show has been “very exciting.”

Achondo is a newly hired Assistant Professor, Ethnomusicology and Musicology, at Memorial University

Under the flashing lights of Providence clubs and at bustling campus orientation events, a community of Brown students thrive behind speakers instead of on the dance floor. Whether engaging a crowd, highlighting sounds from their home countries or finding fun in their passion for music, each student DJ at Brown approaches their art in a unique way.

Jones starts her appointment at SAIC in fall 2025

The Telegraph Quartet delivered a beautiful performance at the Grant Recital Hall Monday night, playing with measured passion and undeniable control. It was a colorful, yet erratic experience that left the audience slightly disoriented but appreciative of the composers’ technical mastery.

Brown University Associate Professor of Music Anthony Cheung was recognized by the American Academy of Arts and Letters and The Yvar Mikhashoff Trust for New Music in 2024

In this new body of work, Carter continues his investigation of systems of power in the US by utilizing the flag — across several mediums — as a conceptual lever to spur reflections on how the history and promise contained within its imagery corresponds to the realities of American culture and society.

Composer and Brown University Music & Multimedia Composition PhD candidate Inga Chinilina was awarded a 2024 Fromm Music Foundation Commission.
The Fromm Music Foundation was created by the late Paul Fromm in 1952. Since 1972, it has been located at Harvard University, where it has operated in partnership with the Harvard University Music Department. Over the course of its existence, the Fromm Foundation has commissioned over 400 new compositions and their performances. Congratulations, Inga!

Over the past three years, Brown’s Sayles Organ has undergone major restoration in an effort to maintain the musicality and integrity of the century-old instrument. The 1903 Hutchings-Votey pipe organ was gifted to Brown University by Lucian Sharpe, a member of the Class of 1893. Today, the 121-year-old instrument stars in 10 annual concert series, including the Halloween recital, Reunion Weekend and the E.J. Lownes Memorial Recital, according to Mark Steinbach, a distinguished senior lecturer in music and the University’s organist.

The award is for his piece "I Felt a Funeral in my Brain" which he completed in 2024.

While at Brown, I took Marc Perlman’s Music & Modern Culture class, which I found fascinating and extremely illuminating. I was just coming off a two-year world tour when I took Marc’s class. It was the perfect place to process all that I had done and to understand it contextually. It was particularly fascinating to study the concept of capital as it relates to popular music. For the first time, I understood what I had been through in three dimensions. The takeaways from that course still inform my job on a daily basis.

Over the weekend, the Brown Arts Institute hosted “The 21st Century Orchestra,” a three-day contemporary music festival highlighting innovative orchestral music... Associate Professors of Music Eric Nathan, Anthony Cheung and Wang Lu joined Rovan to curate the event. The festival looks “at how the orchestra can innovate but also create change in the years to come,” Nathan said

Musicology & Ethnomusicology PhD candidate Ruby Erickson earns honor from the Society for Ethnomusicology

Will Johnson Takes Part in Several Events in Fall 2024 at Mount Holyoke College, Massachusetts College of Art and Design, and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture

Mohammad Geldi Geldi Nejad, aka "Oghlan Bakhshi," is a Brown University PhD candidate in Musicology & Ethnomusicology. He will be joined by Zyyada Jumayeva.

Voting will help determine whether Professor Rovan's interface, FRUDI, advances to the final stage of the Innovation@Brown award selection process

PhD candidate in Music & Multimedia Composition to compose new work for saxophone and viola in 2024-25

Assistant Professor of Music Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo was one of three musicians awarded $30,000 grants from the Robert and Margaret MacColl Johnson Fellowship Fund at the Rhode Island Foundation.

Musicians from the New York Classical Players provided expert insights and performed Brown students’ original works as part of a Seminar in Composition course.

Take in the sounds and histories of Peru.

Genevieve Allotey-Pappoe begins her appointment at Brown on July 1, 2024.

PhD candidate in Musicology & Ethnomusicology Jake Blount is part of the new band New Dangerfield. The group's debut single is available at https://lnk.to/new-dangerfield, and they perform several concerts this spring and summer.

"New Dangerfield is the highly anticipated Black string band supergroup that brings together Afrofuturist fiddler Jake Blount with composer, songwriter, and old-time banjo player Kaia Kater, bluegrass banjo iconoclast Tray Wellington, and powerfully versatile bassist Nelson Williams."

We are happy to share the news that two members of our department -- Srinivas Reddy and Hamsa Shanmugam were awarded Fulbright fellowships for 2024-25

Byrd McDaniel, PhD '19 Musicology & Ethnomusicology and current Assistant Director of Student Development in the Graduate School, is the author of the new book "Spectacular Listening: Music and Disability in the Digital Age" published by Oxford University Press.

In a review of Mark Steinbach's recently published Aeolus recording of Olivier Messiaen's La Nativité du Seigneur, critic Stephen Greenbank writes that Steinbach "captures the drama, intensity and raw power... offers a wealth of lofty insights and a tremendous variety of colour and shadings to this maginificent score."

Cellist Tyler J. Borden is the recipient of the first New Music Performance Grant @ Brown

Composer and Associate Professor of Music Wang Lu featured in Brown's Impact Magazine

Jazz at Lincoln Center presents Marcus Grant's "Nina Simone & Abby Lincoln: How it Feels to be Free" on February 8, 2024.

University Organist Mark Steinbach's latest recording is a performance of Olivier Messiaen's La Nativité du Seigneur.

A story about PhD candidate Devanney Haruta's Piano (de)composition project. “I think there’s something beautiful about a very simple idea that gains complexity over time,” Haruta said. “The idea to put something outside, that in itself isn’t a very complex idea, but then the complexities emerge from watching and observing and playing and interacting,” she said.

Starting with the question of what happens when a piano is placed outside, now she has more questions about how a piano is made. She has questions about the environmental impact of pianos and how materials are used. She has questions about the attachments people form with their instruments and why a piano outside elicits such an emotional reaction from so many people.

The Brown University Department of Music remembers Lutz Rath.