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At the 68th Annual Grammy Awards, “Intelligence”—a contemporary opera by composer Jake Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer—won the Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording. Commissioned by the Houston Grand Opera (HGO), the opera—based on a true story—centers on Civil War-era spies and was praised for its artistic excellence and focus on Black voices.��

Of note,��Heggie and Scheer workshopped “Intelligence” with the innovative CU New Opera Workshop (CU NOW) in 2021, their third CU NOW collaboration, in advance of its HGO premiere in October 2023.��

Congratulations to CU NOW Founder + Director Leigh Holman, former CU NOW Music Director Jeremy Reger (2015-2022), and all involved voice faculty and alumni.

In October 2025, the College of Music’s Eklund Opera Program presented “” with music by Jake Heggie, libretto by Terrence McNally and based on the book by Sister Helen Prejean.��

Said Chancellor Justin Schwartz, who attended one of the performances, “‘Dead Man Walking’ is an incredibly powerful story based on real events and I enjoyed the full Macky Auditorium experience seeing this performance. The Eklund Opera Program in the ��ñ���� College of Music is one of the university’s true gems, and I’m proud of the ways their programs encourage us to think deeply about humanity through the arts.”

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Led by Associate Professor of Conducting + Director of Choral Activities Coreen Duffy, our ���� Chamber Singers performed at the 2026 Southwestern American Choral Directors Association conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico in March 2026.��

The Chamber Singers’ unique hybrid session—“Sh’ma: Global Jewish Choral Music”—showcased underrepresented Jewish repertoire in a lecture-recital context exploring how to thoughtfully program music from Jewish liturgy and culture while avoiding appropriation, tokenization and caricature. Program selections embraced musics from the Sephardic, Ashkenazic and Mizrahi traditions including historic and contemporary diasporic literature.

In 2025, the extraordinary talents of our students and faculty were on full display at the Cal State Fullerton College of the Arts on the occasion of the National Collegiate Choral Organization Biennial Conference (NCCO11). The conference theme—Cultivating Transformation—reflects our own mission at the ��ñ���� College of Music where we seek to inspire artistry and discovery, together; and where we’re committed to developing multiskilled, multifaceted universal musicians who are well-equipped to participate in the 21st century as artists, educators and scholars—and as broadly based professionals with flexible, sustainable career options.��

Under the direction of our Associate Professor of Conducting + Associate Director of Choral Activities Elizabeth Swanson, we were honored that our ��ñ���� University Choir was among 10 choirs—selected through a nationwide competitive application process—that performed at NCCO11. The University Choir comprises ��ñ���� undergraduates—approximately one-third of whom are music majors and two-thirds of whom are pursuing degrees in other disciplines … as well as a handful of graduate students.��

The overarching theme of the University Choir’s powerful program mirrored the conference theme and included four selections by American composers: “Border Lines” by award-winning transgender Mexican-American composer Mari Ésabel Valverde, featuring soprano soloist and ��ñ���� undergraduate student Adriana Cipponeri, as well as Associate Professor of Guitar Nicolò Spera; “Whispers” by the late Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Steven Stucky; “Like a diamond,” composed and performed by ��ñ���� Associate Professor of Composition Annika Socolofsky; and the late Moses Hogan's arrangement of “This Little Light of Mine,” featuring tenor soloist and ��ñ���� DMA student Miguel Ángel Ortega Bañales.��

Additionally, three MM choral students—Blake Clawson, Wyatt Smith and Zachariah Smith—were each selected to present their research as part of the��.��

The ��ñ���� saxophone studio was selected to perform at the�� at The Ohio State University in March 2026, and the��college’s Skyline Quartet advanced to the semifinal round of the NASA Quartet Competition placing it in the top 20 quartets in country.��

The studio presented two octets including the premiere of a new work by undergraduate composer Luka Vezmar. In addition to the ensemble performances, DMA saxophone student Joel Ferst premiered “Erosions” by Aliayta Foon Dancoes. MM saxophone student Catherine Ryan and DMA wind conducting student Eli Gillespie also shared their research in a presentation titled “Internal to External Music Making: Conducting as a Pathway to Strong Performance and Interpretation.”��

Assistant Professor of Saxophone Nathan Mertens performed with Assistant Professor of Trombone Sterling Tanner on his own featured program and also appeared with the North American Tenor Saxophone Collective.��

Gregory Walker (DMA ’92, composition)—son of the late author, pianist and musicologist Helen Walker-Hill and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer George Walker—accepted the 2026 MTNA Advocacy Award for Impact on the Music Teaching Profession on his mother's behalf.��

The award, conferred posthumously, is shared with Judith Anne Still who devoted herself to uplifting the legacy of her composer father, William Grant Still. Explore the American Music Research Center’s�� comprising compositions and recordings by Black women circa 1950-1990.��

Of note, Professor of Piano Pedagogy Alejandro Cremaschi’s��“Hidden Voices” project has helped bring visibility to the collection as does the annual Persevering Legacy event organized by our��Diverse Musicians’ Alliance.

The “Song of Pueblo”—a sweeping oratorio that portrays the history of southern Colorado—is . Renowned composer Daniel Valdez is the creative force behind this compelling composition, orchestrated by alumni Max Wolpert and Ilan Blanck and featuring a collaboration of the ��ñ���� Chamber Orchestra and the El Pueblo Ensemble.��

More:��Relive the American Music Research Center’s now-completed��Soundscapes of the People: A Musical Ethnography of Pueblo, Colorado project.