Festival Events

More information coming soon

Keynote Lecture

Matt BaileyShea

Matt BaileyShea is a Professor of Music Theory and Chair of the Arthur Satz Department of Music at the University of Rochester, where he also holds a secondary appointment at the Eastman School of Music. He received his Ph.D. in Music Theory from Yale University in 2003 with a dissertation on the music of Wagner. He has published on a variety of topics including form, gesture, agency, chromatic harmony, and recomposition. He recently published the book Lines and Lyrics: An Introduction to Poetry and Song with Yale University Press, which won the 2022 Wallace Berry Award from The Society for Music Theory, and he is currently working on a book called Troubled Sleep: The Dark Side of Lullabies in Rock, Broadway, and Beyond.

Recital and Masterclass with

Louise Toppin with John O’Brien

Louise Toppin has received critical acclaim for her operatic, orchestral, oratorio and recital performances world-wide. Represented by Joanne Rile Management, she toured “Gershwin on Broadway” with pianist Leon Bates. She has recorded more than ninteen commercial CDs including on Albany Records Ah love, but a day, La Saison des fleurs and Dear Friends and Gentle Hears with Darryl Taylor released February 7, 2025. Since 2021 she has published 13 scores with Classical Vocal Reprints, Carl Fischer and Hal Leonard (soon for release) including An Anthology of Undine Moore Songs, An Anthology of African and African Diaspora Songs, Songs of Harry Burleigh, Songs of Adolphus Hailstork, and Rediscovering Margaret Bonds. She is the publisher of the unpublished works of Julia Perry (distributed by Boosey and Hawkes).

Recent performances include: world premiere of Julia Perry’s Frammenti dalla sua lettere di Santa Caterina with the Akron Symphony Orchestra, performances with Julia Bullock and the New World Symphony, co-curated and sang festival of Black Music in Hamburg with the Bremer Philharmoniker in Germany with Thomas Hampson and Larry Brownlee, performance at the U.S. Capitol for Congress and President Obama, and for the opening of the Smithsonian’s African American Heritage Museum.

She has appeared on NPR’s All Things Considered; co-hosts the Minnesota Orchestra “Listening Project”concerts, and hosts her own radio show entitled Conversations in African American music. She has been a guest on college campuses including Harvard, Yale, Duke, and many others. Co-founder and Director of the George Shirley Vocal Competition on repertoire by African American composers, and Director of Videmus (non-profit organization that promotes the concert repertoire of African American composers), she also founded the Africandiasporamusicproject.org research tool.

Previously, Toppin was the Distinguished University Professor of Music and Chair of the Department of Music at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She is currently University Distinguished Professor of Diversity and Social Transformation and Professor of Music (Voice), at The University of Michigan. For more www.louisetoppin.com.

John O’Brien was born into a musical family and studied piano with his father through high school. He began his undergraduate studies as a double major in violin and piano performance studying violin with Robert Gerle and piano with William Masselos. He continued his college piano studies with John Perry completing the BM and MM in piano performance at the University of Southern California. In 1989 O’Brien was awarded the DMA in accompanying from the University of Southern California studying with Gwendolyn Koldofsy and Jean Barr.

He served on the faculty of East Carolina University from 1985-2022. During his tenure at ECU he served as Chairperson of Vocal Studies for 15 years, Chairperson of Keyboard Studies for 5 years, Music Director of the ECU Opera Theatre for 10 years and for 22 years he was the Professor of Accompanying. O’Brien has collaborated with such artists as Metropolitan Opera stars Hilda Harris and Victoria Livengood, violinist Eliot Chapo, tenor Bill Brown, flautist Carol Wincenc and clarinetist Deborah Chodacki. He has performed in New York’s Merkin Recital Hall, and Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. As harpsichordist he performed regularly with Clarino Consort and Baroque dance soloist Paige Whitley-Bauguess and he has performed recitals with soprano Julianne Baird, baroque violinist Julie Andrijeski and has been a regular keyboardist with Atlanta Baroque. He is a founding member of the North Carolina Baroque Orchestra with which he regularly performs on keyboard, violin/viola and baroque flute. He was a featured artist at the Magnolia Baroque Festival in Winston-Salem NC and he has performed at the Piccolo Spoleto Festival with Chatham Baroque.