July 12, 2024 - Marjorie Sheiman

Marjorie Sheiman reflects on her journey to arts administration and launching The Cecilia Collective.

June 18, 2024 - Josiah Sytsma

Josiah Sytsma shares his journey to becoming an instrument tech and offers advice for musicians seeking instrument repairs.

April 15, 2024 - Negar Afazel

Commissioned by and written for Negar Afazel (Violin), "Woman, Life, Freedom" is dedicated to valorous Iranian women for their ineffable resilience and fight for freedom.

February 16, 2024 - Taylor Wang

Taylor Wang reflects on the founding of Peabody at the Shelter, a Launch Grant funded project bringing music to Baltimore’s Helping Up Mission.

October 20, 2023 - Maddalena Ohrbach

Maddalena Ohrbach shares the inspiration and process behind the Prison Pipes Project, a Launch Grant funded workshop and podcast exploring mindful breathing, singing, and their healing effects.

September 15, 2023 - Teresa Deskur

In June 2023, alumni and faculty of the Peabody Institute performed at the Indianapolis Early Music Festival. A reunion of sorts for Peabody's Historical Performance Department, the festival featured music spanning hundreds of years presented by both the Peabody Consort and Musica Spira.

May 1, 2023 - Ui-Seng François

"Be Free: A Journey Back to Self" is an interdisciplinary play that shares the story of my personal experience of being coerced into a spiritual cult and my journey onward toward healing and reclaiming my identity. Embodied in dance, live music, and spoken word, Be Free guides audiences through my odyssey of lost and found and aims to empower and serve as a communal space for healing and liberation.

April 12, 2023 - Clara Kelly

In December 2022, the Metropolitan Opera announced their intention to shift their programming for upcoming seasons to focus more on new works by living composers. This shift in focus by the largest opera company in the United States accompanies a growing interest in new opera—an interest shared by audience members and performers. Here at Peabody, student composers and performers have the opportunity to create new opera and explore this exciting and growing field by participating in the Opera Etudes program.

Feb. 24, 2023 - Jotaro Nakano

On November 2nd, 2022, hundreds of artists, art administrators, healthcare professionals, health administrators, and community leaders from around the nation gathered at the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore for the annual National Organization for Arts in Health Conference. As one of the Peabody Arts in Health Fellows at Johns Hopkins Hospital, I offer my reflections on attending the conference.

Aug. 2, 2022 - by Rush Johnston

What do you do when the world around you is in ruins? Try to rebuild, or contribute to the rubble? . . . Imagine the breaking of a vase, the smell of citrus wafting through the air, a bathtub full of milk, paint being flung on every surface, and the ability to walk through and see it all up close and personal. That is Making a Mess.

July 5, 2022 - by Jacob Wilkinson

The musical history of the Moravian Church comprises one of the most fascinating chapters of the story of music in early America. The German-speaking Moravians of the 18th century established a peaceful, communal society at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in 1741, the town where I took music lessons as a teenager. The musical life of the Moravians continues to be exceptional to this day, as evidenced by the world-class Bach Choir of Bethlehem and the annual Moravian Music Festival in Bethlehem.

April 26, 2022 - by Garrett Eckl

My journey into the world of music technology began with a simple question: how can I make a completely unique sound? I started by creating music with the presets built into my DAW (digital audio workstation). I tweaked those presets to make more personalized sounds, and I eventually began making my own presets from scratch, but in the end, I was still always working within the confines of an instrument that someone else had made...

March 29, 2022 - by Felipe Garibaldi de Almeida Silva

“These pieces are trouble! Too difficult to play!” That’s how I was warned back then, as an undergraduate guitar student, when I considered learning the guitar works of Claudio Santoro (1919-1989). At that moment I had no idea that these pieces would become the very topic of my master’s thesis and that, years later, during my doctorate at the Peabody Conservatory, I would have the opportunity to present their premiere performance in the United States, as well as release their premiere complete recording.

March 2, 2022 - by Kaijeh Johnson

You might not change the world in a day, solve world hunger, or rid the world of all the “-isms” that pervade today’s society, but you can make every interaction count. You can change someone’s world by how you greet them, how you approach every social interaction, how and with whom you chose to collaborate, and how you take advantage of where you stand in the world and use it to make positive interactions...

Oct. 26, 2021 - by Noelle McMurtry

With a mission to approach the women’s suffrage movement from an intersectional perspective, The Pleiades Project team decided to create and produce a new music-theater work, exploring the successes and failures of this milestone event in American history. After being awarded a generous Community Engagement Grant from Lower Manhattan Cultural Council in April of 2020, A Women’s Suffrage Splendiferous Extravaganza! was born. With the addition of November Christine (Co-Creator, Writer, Lyricist, and Composer) to our creative team, we tackled the initial stages of developing a new music-theater work...

July 27, 2021 - by Mira Fu-En Huang

Five students—four undergraduate and one graduate—were awarded up to $5,000 each through the Launch Grant in May. From online resources to a gallery show, the winning project proposals provided an inspirational array of ideas. They also shed light upon the various hurdles that grant proposals face, especially in the hybrid environment of early 2021.

June 8, 2021 - by Carolyn Dzul

This spring at the Peabody Institute, faculty, staff and students worked side by side to create a semester where students could interact beyond the virtual screen. The BFA Dance program overcame this transition by switching from a completely virtual fall semester to a hybrid spring semester. With the return to campus, junior dance students had more resources available to help present a broader range of work for the student showcase...

April 27, 2021 - by Daniel Collins

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a case study in constraint; from local lockdowns to mask mandates, notions of personal freedom have come into conflict with the needs of public safety, and many have been compelled to consider how their individual actions affect society. For composers, this tension strikes a familiar chord: reconciling one’s own artistic impulses with the confines of clear communication is a constant struggle...

March 23, 2021 - by Michael Manganiello

Amid the coronavirus pandemic and the uncertain future of the theatrical experience, six innovative artists joined forces to create Strange Trace, an opera company whose mission is opera for now / opera for everyone. I spoke with Peabody student Joshua Scheid, to find out more about the concept and development of the company, as well as their mission and creative process...

Feb. 23, 2021 - by Arindam Jurakhan

As a composer, I have escaped many of the ways COVID-19 has impacted the world of music. While the ability to lock oneself in their room without distraction could be a blessing for composers, the lack of collaboration has taken a toll on all artists. However, this void was filled by being a part of the Peabody Conservatory’s Junior Bach Program...

Feb. 3, 2021 - by Christina Manceor

Welcome to the Creative Wire, a blog from the Peabody LAUNCHPad office, where we will explore the ways that Peabody’s talented and hardworking community of artists harness their creativity, find inspiration, and support one another to make an impact in the world....