From the New York Times
Phyllis Chen
Assistant Professor Phyllis Chen was featured prominently in the Feb. 4, 2024 issue of the New York Times for her groundbreaking, innovative work as a toy piano composer and performer.
"I was very excited to be able to explore without all of the traditional boundaries being tied to it,” she told the Times. “No one was going to tell me: 'This is the canon of works. This is how it needs to be played.'"
Read the full article on The New York Times website.
Peh and Meeker in Paris / From @alexleepeh on Instagram
Alex Peh
Associate Professor and Director of Piano Studies Alex Peh's film, “Intermittent Attunement,” was selected by the Paris Ethnografilm festival for a March 2024 screening at the Club D’etoile. Peh traveled to Paris to attend the screening with Associate Professor of Anthropology Lauren Meeker, who collaborated with Peh on the film.
The film follows Peh "as he reattunes his relationship with the piano through oral lessons in piano traditions found throughout the world: Burmese sandaya, Greek rebetiko, Persian-tuned classical piano, and American Jazz," according to Peh's website. "Working closely with U Thet Oo (Myanmar), Ne Myo Aung (Myanmar), Nikos Ordoulidis (Greece), Hafez Modirzadeh (Iran/America), and Pooyan Azadeh (Iran), Alex reaches out into unfamiliar piano soundscapes to unsettle (Western) definitional boundaries of the piano and its music."
Meeker, along with New Paltz alumni Alyson Hummer ’20 (Music) and Madelyn Colonna ’23 (Art History/Anthropology), directed the film.
Jingwen Zhang
Assistant Professor of Music Therapy Jingwen Zhang presented "The Role of Microanalysis in Developing an Improvised Generative Speech Protocol for People with Aphasia: Music Enriched Verb Network Strengthening Treatment" at the International Conference on Improvisation in Music Therapy in Leuven, Belgium this past April.
Photo provided
John Wilson
John Wilson was recently hired as the new director of choral activities for the Department of Music.
Prior to this appointment, Wilson served as the choral director at Bridgewater-Raritan High School for 17 years. His ensembles developed a reputation for excellence through innovative collaborative performances, premieres, and were notably featured at the 2020 ACDA Eastern Division Conference in Rochester, NY.
From Kathleen Murphy on Facebook
Karyn Stuart-Röhm
The Music Therapy program welcomes its newest faculty member, Karyn Stuart-Röhm, who will serve as an assistant professor.
According to Music Therapy program head Kathleen Murphy, Stuart-Röhm initially worked as an occupational therapist before completing her master’s degree in music therapy at the University of Pretoria in 2007. She worked as a music therapist and project manager at MusicWorks, an NGO providing music therapy services to children and youth in under-resourced areas in Cape Town, South Africa. In 2013, she opened her own music therapy practice focusing on the fields of aged care, dementia care and children with special needs. Karyn recently completed her PhD in Music Therapy through the University of Melbourne in Australia.
Kathleen Murphy
Assistant Professor Kathleen Murphy, director of music therapy, join esteemed colleagues as a co-presenter at the Community Music Therapy UN-Conference. She presented "Adapting CoMT across contexts: Guided Discussion" with Viggo Krüger.
