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“While there’s no playbook for the unprecedented and the unknowable, by channeling collective despair into collective creativity, we become artistic entrepreneurs, contributing to society in impactful ways.” In this year-end reflection on triumphs over turmoils, Dean Davis offers his perspective on music as essential to human betterment.

We’re thrilled to welcome a new assistant dean for advancement! Andrew Todd, an alumnus of the ��ñ���� College of Music (DMA ‘05), will join our team on April 1.

In this edition of our monthly Dean’s Downbeat, John Davis reflects on our students’ successes, introduces new violin faculty—welcome, Alex Gonzalez!—and celebrates Susan Thomas’ BFA Excellence Award. Transcending pandemic burnout, “our faculty offer anchorage through their teaching excellence, and their wonderfully consistent artistic achievements as performers, composers and researchers,” he writes.  

“Even as we bear witness to loss and unknowable challenges with compassion and care, I see us rebounding with resilience again and again—undeterred in our shared quest for excellence, dogged in our pursuit to inform and influence what it means to be a successful, fulfilled creative artist in an increasingly diverse and interdisciplinary musical landscape.”

As 2021 comes to a close and I reflect on my first year as Dean, I’m filled with gratitude for our College of Music family and all we’ve accomplished in a new and evolving hybrid learning environment. I’m especially proud of our progress to ensure an increasingly welcoming spirit within our beautifully expanded Imig Music Building.

The newly expanded Imig Music Building strengthens the college’s Musicians’ Wellness Program by better supporting students in navigating the often complex and multifaceted path of being a musician.

MarieFaith Lane, a current graduate student and Holiday Festival 2021 concertmaster, offers a first-person perspective on the spirit of this weekend’s community event.

“We have a strong foundation for DEI work and we’re seeing progress [...] but there’s more work—more positive disruption—ahead of us before we can claim ubiquitous inclusivity in our college’s culture, classrooms and curricula.”

"The way I see it, the College of Music is an innovation lab with endless potential for defining and redefining what it means to be an artist in a dynamic global environment. By developing an interdisciplinary micro credentialing program, my vision is to model an educational experience in which recognized mastery of varied competencies prepares our students for flexible, individualized careers."

In this monthly briefing from Dean Davis, learn his perspective on the future of artistry at the College of Music—thanks, in part, to the features and functionality of the expanded Imig Music Building—as well as his vision for developing the "universal musician."