Welcome from the Director

We’ve had a fantastic winter and spring at the WSU School of Music with visits by world-renowned musicians, including Portland Opera to Go, who also performed for K-12 students and community members across the Palouse; trumpeter Scotty Barnhart, who worked with our ensembles and headlined Jazz Week this spring; and several nationally-recognized horn players and pedagogues at the NW Horn Symposium.

May brought the opportunity to acknowledge many accomplishments with Top Ten Seniors Logan Terry and Thomas Wieland; master’s student awards for Anthony Kandilaroff and Anna Somerville; as well as national-level awards for accomplishments by Anthony who won third place at the national round of the Music Educator’s National Association (MTNA) conference; and Patrick Donoghue who was selected to receive the American Indian Musician’s Scholarship. In April, Zach Simmons was named the 2024 Presser Award recipient. This spring, we celebrated career-defining and graduate school acceptances for students in the class of 2024. We are so proud of our new alumni, wish them great success, and are eager to hear about their achievements in the coming months and years.

Music faculty were highly visible in award ceremonies at the college level (Sarah Miller, CAS Mid-Career Achievement), university level (Chris Dickey, Sahlin Faculty Excellence Award for Instruction), and national level (Danh Pham, American Bandmasters Association induction). Our faculty continues to earn grants for projects with significant positive impact for musicians and communities across international, national, and local settings. Check in with future newsletters for updates on current projects.

School of Music alumni Demitrius Lewis II, Frances Dalton, and Donna Weller have built influential lives in music. Demitrius’ post-graduation success in the recording industry is remarkable, as is his passion to educate future School of Music alumni. Frances’s work in conducting and specifically founding both the Olympia and Bellevue Youth Symphonies is inspiring, as is her continued music-making at age 95. Donna’s dedication to teaching generations of string players, including School of Music Professor Emerita Meredith Arksey, illustrates the power of our graduates to enrich the lives of musicians and music lovers across the state and region.

As I write this, we have completed our third annual Cougar Summer Music Camp (CSMC), welcoming over 100 participants to a week full of music and memory-making. I am immensely grateful to the CSMC counselors—our current WSU students—who dedicated themselves to making camp a safe and memorable event for our campers, and our faculty, whose teaching and performances inspired campers, and me, throughout the week.

Our School of Music has rapidly grown these past few years with larger enrollments, particularly in music education and music business programs. Every facet of our school—from classrooms to ensembles—reflects that growth with accomplishments and strength in performance, recordings, teaching, and community building. I am exceedingly proud of our students, staff, faculty, and alumni, and I am excited to create anew with them when fall semester starts in August.

If you have the opportunity to visit Pullman for a football game, festival, campus tour, or the fall Music Major for a Day event, please come visit us in Kimbrough Hall, or reach out in advance for a building tour and conversations with our faculty and current students. Folks here are eager to share more about upcoming performances, events, and opportunities, and to learn more about your experiences and interests.

I wish you great personal and professional success as we look to the fall—Go Cougs!

Sincerely,
Dr. Keri McCarthy
Director of the School of Music