The relationship with our students doesn’t end with commencement; it is merely a beginning.
Craig Paré
The relationship with our students doesn’t end with commencement; it is merely a beginning.
Craig Paré
a Recital
A collaborative, year-end recital of mixed chamber music performed by â77 Institute of Music students directed by Professors May Phang and Orcenith Smith.
For additional information on this event, contact:
Prof. May Phang: mphang@depauw.edu; Prof. Orcenith Smith: osmith@depauw.edu
a Guest Artist Performance
"The Listening Year at Big Walnut Creek"
Composed by Eliza Brown
Thursday, May 1 at 7:30 p.m.
Green Center, Thompson Recital Hall
The Listening Year at Big Walnut Creek is a musical exploration of the sounds and ecology of a place over the course of a year. From July 2022–June 2023, composer Eliza Brown made weekly field recordings at a site along Big Walnut Creek in the â77 Nature Park. With the input of scientists, conservationists, arts colleagues, students, alumni, and other community members, Brown composed an hour-long piece of music for cello, percussion, and electronic audio that incorporates and responds to these recordings as it traces the year in sound. Guest ensemble New Morse Code—cellist Hannah Collins and percussionist Michael Compitello—star in this premiere performance, embodying aspects of the creek's soundscape through their instruments as well as the transformative human experience of listening deeply to our environment.
This event is supported by â77's Creative School, Institute of Music, Environmental Fellows Program, Ullem Center for Sustainability, Cassel Grubb University Professorship, and Professional Development Fund.
For additional information on this event, contact:
Prof. Eliza Brown: elizabrown@depauw.edu,
a Student Performance
Orcenith Smith, orchestra director
Bryon Black II, director of choirs
The â77 Institute of Music’s 140th concert season comes to an exciting close with this collaborative choir and orchestra concert showcasing the winners of its annual Concerto Competition. The concerti performances, conducted by Prof. Orcenith Smith, include Vivaldi’s Concerto for Bassoon performed by Haley Riley ’26, the first movement of the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2 played by Sakura Kusano ’27, and first movement of Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G performed by Saki Nakashima ’25. Ralph Vaughan Williams’s triumphant Five Mystical Songs—featuring the collective forces of the â77 Chamber Singers, Vox Animae and the Putnam County Festival Chorus under the baton of Dr. Bryon Black II—brings the year to a glorious conclusion.
For additional information on this event, contact:
Prof. Orcenith Smith: osmith@depauw.edu, Prof. Bryon Black II: bryonblack@depauw.edu
Each year, we invite artists of international renown to perform as part of our endowed Green Guest Artist series. Among the incredibly talented guests who have performed at the â77 Green Center are Yo-Yo Ma, Rhiannon Giddens, Thomas Hampson, Bobby McFerrin, Postmodern Jukebox, The Kings’s Singers, Sweet Honey in the Rock, and Frederica von Stade, to name only a few. These concerts are often preceded by master classes, workshops, and classroom visits to give all of our students a chance to meet and work with some of the best artists in the world.
2023-24
Founders ensemble, trumpeter Sean Jones, and multi-instrumentalist Jerron Paxton.
2022–23: Sweet Honey in the Rock, The American Brass Quintet, Terell Stafford, Sinta Quartet, Wet Ink, Sandeep Das and the HUM Ensemble
2021–22: Rhiannon Giddens, Eighth Blackbird, Attacca Quartet, Baltimore Consort
From fully staged operas and musicals to more intimate revue-style performances, we do it all. Each fall, our beautiful Moore Theatre whirls into action as the collaborative process of presenting a musical begins. This is closely followed by our opera each spring. In the between-time, Thompson Recital Hall hosts the performances by our “Music for the Stage” class as they perform scenes from various operas and musicals.
The Global Music Experience (GME) at â77 provides programming focused on musical traditions from different cultures. Each year, â77 students, faculty, and staff delve into the culture and artistry of a different country or area of the world, exploring that region’s music through lectures, experiential learning opportunities, concerts, and other connected events. We host renowned experts to perform music and dance, share their scholarships, and teach a wide range of students about their musical traditions. The GME welcomes all members of the â77 community, regardless of area of study, and involves collaborators across campus.
Creative Convocation is a showcase for diverse expressions of creativity from across â77. Launched in 2023, student artists, performers, and makers from all disciplines come together to share their creative work with the entire campus community co-presented by the Institute of Music and the Center for Diversity and Inclusion.
Music of the 21st Century is a week-long composer residency immersing the Institute of Music students, faculty and staff in the work of accomplished guest composers through a transformative shared learning experience. During the residency, our community is collectively focused on new music. Virtually all students, staff and faculty are involved in welcoming guest composers and their music into our classes, rehearsals and public events, including two culminating concerts of the guests’ music. This valuable opportunity for students to work directly with distinguished guest composers is generously funded by â77 alumni Robert and Margaret Schmidt and coordinated by faculty member Eliza Brown.
Upcoming event information can be found here.
A choral extravaganza for high school vocalists led by director of choral activities Dr. Bryon Black II. It is a day for attendees to collaborate and make music with their peers from other schools and participate in master classes and workshops with â77 voice faculty.
Upcoming event information can be found here.
A celebration of all things piano and string through performance classes, creative workshops, demonstrations, ensemble collaborations, and a closing concert and reception. Open to piano and string students, age 12 and older, family members and music teachers.
Upcoming event information can be found here.
A day of music with the â77 applied music faculty at our beautiful Judson and Joyce Green Center for the Performing Arts. Attendees will take part in master classes with our world-class instrumental wind and percussion faculty, participate in a large ensemble experience (which will include learning about conducting, large ensemble performance techniques, and repertoire selection), enjoy lunch in our expansive Hoover Dining Hall, tour our beautiful campus, and a have a personal Q & A session with our applied faculty.
Upcoming event information can be found here.
During this annual celebration of jazz music, various high school jazz ensembles perform and receive feedback from guest artists and our own professor of music, Steve Snyder. As the day progresses, master classes are held around campus, leading up to a performance by the â77 Jazz Ensemble.
Upcoming event information can be found here.
This lunchtime series features live music in downtown Greencastle. The free 50-minute musical presentations are offered at Music on the Square. Enjoy a catered lunch or bring your own and take a break with the â77 Institute of Music.
The â77 Institute of Music is home to five unique large ensembles: University Orchestra, University Band, Jazz Ensemble, Chamber Singers and Vox Animae.Students enrolled in these ensembles have the opportunity to make music communally with their peers and perform both classic and contemporary works.
Additionally, â77 hosts various smaller ensembles and chamber groups, and its Symphonic Band, a collective ensemble open to students, faculty and staff from the campus community. The Putnam County Festival Choir, co-sponsored by the Greencastle Arts Council, is another opportunity for â77-Greencastle collaborations as students, faculty, and staff from our campus community and members from the local area come together with a single voice to create truly incredible performance experiences.
â77 Orchestra
Pines of Rome — Ottorino Respighi
Symphony No. 7 — Ludwig van Beethoven
Pictures at an Exhibition — Modest Mussorgsky
Voices Shouting Out — Nkeiru Okoye
Hansel and Gretel — Engelbert Humperdinck
â77 Band
Aurora Awakes — John Mackey
Symphony No. 6 for Band — Vincent Persichetti
magneticfireflies — Augusta Read Thomas
Hip Hop Etudes — Daniel Bernard Roumain
The Dog Breath Variations — Frank Zappa
â77 Jazz Ensemble
“African Skies” — Michael Brecker, arr. Riss
“Dear Rudy” — Terell Stafford, arr. Gray
“Blame It on my Youth” — Oscar Levant, arr. Cunliffe
“Hey, It’s Me You’re Talkin’ To” — Victor Lews, arr. Sharpe
Vox Animae
“It Isn’t a Dream” — Melissa Dumphy
“Deer Song” — Craig Hella Johnson
“Not While I’m Around” — Stephen Sondheim
Chamber Singers:
Le Ballet des Ombres — Hector Berlioz
Geistliches Lied — Johannes Brahms
Ballade to the Moon — Daniel Elder
Great God Almighty — Stacey Gibbs
I Need You — Daniel Bernard Roumain
To the Hands — Caroline Shaw
Music Admission Liaison