Live Stream

Bienen School of Music Convocation

June 8, 2024, at 12 p.m. CDT
Pick-Staiger Concert Hall

Note: If you are still experiencing issues with the stream, please try the alternate stream.

The video stream can be viewed with English, Spanish, and Mandarin translations.

 

Program

Processional
On the Spot Brass
Troy Colin Archer and Fiona Thyme Shonik, trumpets
Emmett Tae-San Conway, horn  
Griffin Alexander Rupp, trombone
Noah Nicolas Xavier Vincent, tuba

Welcome
Linda Jacobs, Assistant Dean for Student Affairs

Opening Remarks
Jonathan Bailey Holland, Dean

Keynote Address
George Lewis

Musical Interlude 
Repair the World, composed by Stacy Garrop
Desirée Ruhstrat, violin

Student Speaker Address
Olivia Moyana Pierce

Announcement of Honors
Drew Edward Davies, Chair, Department of Music Studies

Presentation of Graduates
Thomas Crespo, Assistant Dean for Admissions, Financial Aid, and Graduate Services
Linda Jacobs

Closing Remarks
Jonathan Bailey Holland

Northwestern University Alma Mater
Mallory Thompson, Director of Bands, conductor

Recessional
On the Spot Brass

Northwestern University Alma Mater
Mallory Thompson, Director of Bands, conductor

Recessional

Download the Full Convocation Program

George Lewis

Keynote Speaker

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George Lewis

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Keynote Speaker

George Lewis is an American composer, musicologist, and trombonist. He is the  Edwin H. Case Professor of American Music and area chair in composition at Columbia University and is artistic director of the International Contemporary Ensemble.

Lewis is widely regarded as a pioneer in creating computer programs that improvise in concert with human musicians. A fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a corresponding fellow of the British Academy, and a member of the Akademie der Künste Berlin, Lewis has also received the Doris Duke Artist Award (2019), a MacArthur Fellowship (2002), and a Guggenheim Fellowship (2015). In 2020–21 he was a fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (Institute for Advanced Study), and he has been a member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) since 1971. Lewis’s work is presented by ensembles worldwide and published by Edition Peters.

Lewis’s central areas of scholarship include the history and criticism of experimental music, computer music, interactive media, and improvisation, particularly as these areas become entangled with the dynamics of race, gender, and decolonization. His most frequently cited articles on these topics include “New Music Decolonization in Eight Difficult Steps” (VAN Outernational) and “Improvised Music after 1950: Afrological and Eurological Perspectives” (Black Music Research Journal). His widely acclaimed book  A Power Stronger than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music (2008) received the American Book Award and the American Musicological Society’s Music in American Culture Award. He is coeditor with Harald Kisiedu of the bilingual volume Composing While Black: Afrodiasporic New Music Today/Afrodiasporische Neue Musik Heute (2023) and with Benjamin Piekut of the two-volume Oxford Handbook of Critical Improvisation Studies (2016). His many publications on technology include “Too Many Notes: Computers, Complexity and Culture in Voyager” (Leonardo Music Journal) and “Why Do We Want Our Computers to Improvise?” (Oxford Handbook of Algorithmic Music). 

Lewis holds honorary doctorates from the University of Edinburgh, Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, Oberlin College, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, New England Conservatory, New College of Florida, and Birmingham City University, among others.

Olivia Moyana Pierce

Student Speaker

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Olivia Moyana Pierce

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Student Speaker

Olivia Moyana Pierce is a musicology major at Northwestern with a minor in performance studies. Her primary focus centers on the avenues through which Black artists engender social change and transformation through music. She has conducted more than two years of award-winning research on addressing the cultural appropriation of Black music in education.

Outside of the classroom, Olivia has been releasing music independently for seven years under the name Moyana Olivia, with proficiency in voice, piano, guitar, and bass. She became certified as Moyana Music, LLC in 2023. Highlights of her career include being recognized as one of These Days Magazine’s 2024 Artists to Watch, performing at the 50th and 51st annual Dillo Day, and working as an intern with the Recording Academy, which allowed her to attend the 66th annual GRAMMY Awards in Los Angeles.

Originally from Minnesota, Olivia is a member of the Royal Family Music Group Collective in Minneapolis, an alum of the 2022 Johnny Mercer Songwriters Project, and an intern at Studio Shapes, where she is recording her first full-length album set to release in fall 2024. Her work has been recognized by the Best Buy Corporation, the ACLU, CITIBank, GLAAD, Harvard Art Museums, and The View. You can find her music on all platforms.

On the Spot Brass

Brass Quintet

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On the Spot Brass

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Brass Quintet

On the Spot Brass was founded in 2020 at Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music. The group is composed of trumpeters Troy Archer and Fiona Shonik, hornist Emmett Conway, trombonist Griffin Rupp, and tubist Noah Vincent, all upperclassmen at Northwestern. As emerging professionals, between them they have been named fellows at such institutions as the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, and Aspen Music Festival, and have subbed professionally with orchestras such as The New World Symphony. On the Spot Brass regularly performs around Northwestern University and the greater Chicago area. They have played in masterclasses for Gail Williams, David Bilger, Stephen Burns, and other esteemed musicians. On the Spot Brass is the Fellowship Quintet for the Summer 2024 American Brass Quintet Seminar @ Aspen, where the five musicians will spend a month participating in masterclasses, coachings and other performances around Aspen, Colorado. The brass quintet can be found hanging out by the lakefill after rehearsals (when it isn’t sub-zero!), or playing board games together during their free time.

Desirée Ruhstrat

Musical Interlude

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Desirée Ruhstrat

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Musical Interlude

Desirée Ruhstrat is lecturer of violin at the Bienen School of Music. She made her professional debut at the age of twelve with Lukas Foss and the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and at age 16, she was invited by Sir George Solti to perform Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto in Chicago's Orchestra Hall. Ms. Ruhstrat has appeared as a soloist with orchestras throughout the world, including the Berlin Radio Symphony, Radio Suisse Romande, Gottingen Symphony, Philharmonia Da Camera, Orchestra Symphonica Auguescalientes, Colorado Symphony, Oregon Symphony, Concerto Soloists Of Philadelphia, Utah Symphony, Chicago Civic Orchestra, Debut Orchestra of Los Angeles, and National Repertory Orchestra. She has worked with such renowned conductors as Eric Kunzel, Max Rudolph, William Smith, Rico Saccani, Brian Priestman, Mats Liljefors among others. Ms. Ruhstrat has won numerous awards including first prize at the National Young Musicians Debut Competition in Los Angeles, where she was also lauded a special award for a young performer with extraordinary talent. She became the youngest prizewinner at Switzerland's Tibor Varga International Competition and also won the award for best interpretation of the commissioned contemporary composition. She went on to earn top prizes at the Carl Flesch, Julius Stulberg, and the Mozart Festival Violin Competitions. Ms. Ruhstrat's distinguished career as a chamber musician includes performances throughout the US, South America, Europe and Asia and multiple recordings on the Cedille label as a member of the 2016 GRAMMY nominated Lincoln Trio.

George Lewis

Close

Keynote Speaker

George Lewis is an American composer, musicologist, and trombonist. He is the  Edwin H. Case Professor of American Music and area chair in composition at Columbia University and is artistic director of the International Contemporary Ensemble.

Lewis is widely regarded as a pioneer in creating computer programs that improvise in concert with human musicians. A fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a corresponding fellow of the British Academy, and a member of the Akademie der Künste Berlin, Lewis has also received the Doris Duke Artist Award (2019), a MacArthur Fellowship (2002), and a Guggenheim Fellowship (2015). In 2020–21 he was a fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (Institute for Advanced Study), and he has been a member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) since 1971. Lewis’s work is presented by ensembles worldwide and published by Edition Peters.

Lewis’s central areas of scholarship include the history and criticism of experimental music, computer music, interactive media, and improvisation, particularly as these areas become entangled with the dynamics of race, gender, and decolonization. His most frequently cited articles on these topics include “New Music Decolonization in Eight Difficult Steps” (VAN Outernational) and “Improvised Music after 1950: Afrological and Eurological Perspectives” (Black Music Research Journal). His widely acclaimed book  A Power Stronger than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music (2008) received the American Book Award and the American Musicological Society’s Music in American Culture Award. He is coeditor with Harald Kisiedu of the bilingual volume Composing While Black: Afrodiasporic New Music Today/Afrodiasporische Neue Musik Heute (2023) and with Benjamin Piekut of the two-volume Oxford Handbook of Critical Improvisation Studies (2016). His many publications on technology include “Too Many Notes: Computers, Complexity and Culture in Voyager” (Leonardo Music Journal) and “Why Do We Want Our Computers to Improvise?” (Oxford Handbook of Algorithmic Music). 

Lewis holds honorary doctorates from the University of Edinburgh, Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, Oberlin College, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, New England Conservatory, New College of Florida, and Birmingham City University, among others.

Olivia Moyana Pierce

Close

Student Speaker

Olivia Moyana Pierce is a musicology major at Northwestern with a minor in performance studies. Her primary focus centers on the avenues through which Black artists engender social change and transformation through music. She has conducted more than two years of award-winning research on addressing the cultural appropriation of Black music in education.

Outside of the classroom, Olivia has been releasing music independently for seven years under the name Moyana Olivia, with proficiency in voice, piano, guitar, and bass. She became certified as Moyana Music, LLC in 2023. Highlights of her career include being recognized as one of These Days Magazine’s 2024 Artists to Watch, performing at the 50th and 51st annual Dillo Day, and working as an intern with the Recording Academy, which allowed her to attend the 66th annual GRAMMY Awards in Los Angeles.

Originally from Minnesota, Olivia is a member of the Royal Family Music Group Collective in Minneapolis, an alum of the 2022 Johnny Mercer Songwriters Project, and an intern at Studio Shapes, where she is recording her first full-length album set to release in fall 2024. Her work has been recognized by the Best Buy Corporation, the ACLU, CITIBank, GLAAD, Harvard Art Museums, and The View. You can find her music on all platforms.

On the Spot Brass

Close

Brass Quintet

On the Spot Brass was founded in 2020 at Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music. The group is composed of trumpeters Troy Archer and Fiona Shonik, hornist Emmett Conway, trombonist Griffin Rupp, and tubist Noah Vincent, all upperclassmen at Northwestern. As emerging professionals, between them they have been named fellows at such institutions as the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, and Aspen Music Festival, and have subbed professionally with orchestras such as The New World Symphony. On the Spot Brass regularly performs around Northwestern University and the greater Chicago area. They have played in masterclasses for Gail Williams, David Bilger, Stephen Burns, and other esteemed musicians. On the Spot Brass is the Fellowship Quintet for the Summer 2024 American Brass Quintet Seminar @ Aspen, where the five musicians will spend a month participating in masterclasses, coachings and other performances around Aspen, Colorado. The brass quintet can be found hanging out by the lakefill after rehearsals (when it isn’t sub-zero!), or playing board games together during their free time.

Desirée Ruhstrat

Close

Musical Interlude

Desirée Ruhstrat is lecturer of violin at the Bienen School of Music. She made her professional debut at the age of twelve with Lukas Foss and the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and at age 16, she was invited by Sir George Solti to perform Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto in Chicago's Orchestra Hall. Ms. Ruhstrat has appeared as a soloist with orchestras throughout the world, including the Berlin Radio Symphony, Radio Suisse Romande, Gottingen Symphony, Philharmonia Da Camera, Orchestra Symphonica Auguescalientes, Colorado Symphony, Oregon Symphony, Concerto Soloists Of Philadelphia, Utah Symphony, Chicago Civic Orchestra, Debut Orchestra of Los Angeles, and National Repertory Orchestra. She has worked with such renowned conductors as Eric Kunzel, Max Rudolph, William Smith, Rico Saccani, Brian Priestman, Mats Liljefors among others. Ms. Ruhstrat has won numerous awards including first prize at the National Young Musicians Debut Competition in Los Angeles, where she was also lauded a special award for a young performer with extraordinary talent. She became the youngest prizewinner at Switzerland's Tibor Varga International Competition and also won the award for best interpretation of the commissioned contemporary composition. She went on to earn top prizes at the Carl Flesch, Julius Stulberg, and the Mozart Festival Violin Competitions. Ms. Ruhstrat's distinguished career as a chamber musician includes performances throughout the US, South America, Europe and Asia and multiple recordings on the Cedille label as a member of the 2016 GRAMMY nominated Lincoln Trio.

Northwestern University Commencement

Learn about the June 9 event