The album presents four works showcasing Chen Yi's distinctive compositional voice, blending Chinese musical traditions with contemporary Western concert music. Featured works include Spring in Dresden, The Soulful and the Perpetual, Three Bagatelles from China West, and Chinese Folk Dance Suite.

One of today's most influential composers, Chen Yi has received numerous international honors, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Charles Ives Living Award, election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and recognition as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Music.

"This recording reflects years of artistic collaboration with Chen Yi and my ongoing commitment to championing music by living composers," said Yim. "Her music bridges cultures with extraordinary imagination while remaining deeply expressive and accessible. It has been a privilege to bring these remarkable works to a wider audience."

The recording continues Yim's longstanding advocacy for contemporary music and intercultural collaboration. An internationally recognized violinist, he has commissioned and premiered dozens of new works and has performed throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. His recordings have appeared on Albany, Navona, New Focus Recordings, Pentatone, Ravello, Acis, and Naxos.

The album, Chen Yi: Works for Violin, Viola and Piano, is available through Naxos and major digital streaming platforms.

University of Notre Dame alumnus Paul Popiel, D.M.A., will return to his alma mater to lead the oldest continuously operating collegiate band in the country as Kenn and Pamela Ricci Director of Bands. In this role, Popiel will oversee the University’s band program through the Division of Student Affairs, and serve as a faculty member in the Department of Music through the College of Arts & Letters. His appointment begins July 1.

Since 2023, Popiel has served as the dean of the School of Music at the University of Kansas (KU), where he led efforts to better align academic goals with university initiatives and actively pursued the integration of emerging technology into course curricula. Previously, Popiel worked at KU for 13 years as a professor of music and director of bands. He also served as an assistant director of bands and senior lecturer at Indiana University and as an assistant professor and associate director of bands at Oklahoma State University.

“For more than 20 years, Paul has worked to build collegiate music programs that value tradition and excellence, and that encourage innovation and leadership among students,” said Rev. Gerry Olinger, C.S.C., vice president for student affairs. “I look forward to Paul returning to Notre Dame to share his gifts with our students and our historic band program.”

At Notre Dame, Popiel succeeds a legacy of leadership, including longtime band director Ken Dye, Ed.D., who will formally retire at the end of the 2025-26 academic year.

Popiel will direct the entirety of the band program, which includes the Band of the Fighting Irish, athletic bands, concert bands and jazz bands, and features more than 500 students from every academic discipline. The all-volunteer organization provides music for a variety of University events throughout the academic year, including liturgies, sporting events and the annual Commencement Ceremony.

“Paul Popiel will bring a distinguished record of pedagogical excellence, dedicated mentorship and a spirit of artistic collaboration to the growing performance program of the Notre Dame Department of Music,” said John T. McGreevy, the Charles and Jill Fischer Provost. “We are pleased to welcome him back to his alma mater in this important role.”

“Returning to Notre Dame is a profound homecoming to a place that shaped my vocation and values,” Popiel said. “I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to serve an institution with such a rich musical and educational tradition, and I look forward to leading a band program whose legacy continues to inspire through artistic excellence, thoughtful engagement with the world and the formation of students as musicians, leaders and servants of the common good.”

Popiel earned his master’s degree in trumpet performance from the University of Notre Dame and bachelor’s degrees in instrumental music education and trumpet performance from Truman State University. He holds a doctorate in musical arts in wind conducting from Michigan State University and an arts diploma in 20th Century Music from the University of Bristol, where he served as a Rotary International Ambassadorial Scholar. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences and the American Bandmasters Association.

Originally published by Kate Morgan at news.nd.edu on May 12, 2026.

The Program in Sacred Music and the Department of Music are pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Amanda Quist as Professor of Music and Director of Choral Activities at University of Notre Dame. Dr. Quist joins Notre Dame from Western Michigan University, where she served as Director of Choral Activities. Previously, she held appointments at University of Miami's Frost School of Music as Director of Choral Studies, and at Westminster Choir College, where she served as Associate Professor and Chair of the Conducting, Organ, and Sacred Music Department. She is the recipient of Westminster Choir College’s Distinguished Teaching Award and the Joan Mazzotti Award for Women’s Leadership. Dr. Quist earned the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Choral Conducting from University of North Texas, with a doctoral cognate in Voice Pedagogy and Science.

The New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, and New York Classical Review have praised Dr. Quist’s work as “transformative, beautifully prepared, gripping,” “bridging the vocal and instrumental textures with perfect intonation,” and “leaving the audience breathless.” She has collaborated in choral preparations with the Philadelphia Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, New World Symphony, Palm Beach Symphony, Dresden Staatskapelle, Seraphic Fire, and Spoleto Festival USA. Her early music ensemble, Westminster Kantorei, won first place in the 2019 American Prize for Choral Performance and was invited to perform at the American Choral Directors Association Eastern Division Conference, the Boston Early Music Festival, the American Handel Festival, and Interkultur festivals. Under her direction, the ensemble released its first commercial recording, Lumina, in 2017, distributed by Naxos Records. Additional honors include the James Mulholland National Choral Award and the Audrey Davidson Early Music Award. Dr. Quist has received invitations to serve as conductor and adjudicator in Indonesia, Australia, South Korea, and South Africa.

Dr. Quist was recently appointed as Music Director of the Spoleto Festival USA Chorus, and as Conductor of the Adult Choir Camp and Choral Conducting Institute at Interlochen Center for the Arts. A frequent guest conductor and lecturer, she has appeared at national and regional conferences of the American Choral Directors Association and has conducted All-State choirs throughout the United States. A professional member of the Recording Academy, she recently served on the Choral GRAMMY Screening Committee. Members of the Frost Chorale under her direction were also featured on the album DATA by producer Tainy, nominated for Best Música Urbana Album at the 2024 Latin GRAMMY Awards. Her research and writing appear in The Choral Journal, GIA Publications, and Lexington Books. Her compositions and editorial work are published by Walton Music and Gentry Publications, and she serves as editor for choral series with both publishers.

David Bird’s office contains shelves of vintage synthesizers, electronic drum pads, cables, speakers, microphones, and headphones alongside academic books and a clock repurposed from an old VCR that sometimes works.

But the most essential tool in the room is the computer on Bird’s desk — that’s where the magic happens.

An assistant professor in Notre Dame’s Department of Music, Bird specializes in music technology and digital media. So while the equipment in his half-office, half-tech room brings his music into the world, the computer is his real instrument.

With each piece, he pushes the boundaries of musical performance with the aid of digital tools.

“I’m trying to convey a more detailed, personalized, thoughtful engagement with technology,” he said.

Many of Bird’s compositions explore the relationship between humans and technology, often through musicians interacting with novel technological systems on stage.

“To be the ‘electronic music person’ at Notre Dame is a real honor, and it’s always exciting.”

In his piece “Decoder,” three performers play MIDI drum pads, following a musical score written by Bird, while sitting side by side on a dark stage behind holographic projections. At first glance, each performer independently and uniformly creates their part of the music, with the expectation that, if they play their notes perfectly, every performance will present the same polished piece.

But with Bird’s technology in the mix, that couldn’t be further from the truth. He’s coded the setup so that every note is randomized, producing a different sound with each performance. The performers can also influence each other’s music, though that’s also out of their control.

“One person’s impulse might trigger a glitch sound, or it might turn on or off or change the sound of another performer,” Bird said. “And because none of them are ever looking at each other, they never fully know what is happening.”

This illustrates the “strange, sometimes insidious” ways people are connected to each other through technology, he said. Using technology can feel private and individualized, but in reality, everyone is both influencing and being influenced by others, creating a dynamic that is difficult to predict or control.

Like all of his music, “Decoder” is both personal and purposeful: a space for Bird to examine his own thoughts while also pushing listeners to reconsider how they interact with technology.

“I want to encourage people to be creative with technology because so much work with technology is often just rehashing the same stuff,” Bird said. “I also want people to, in a bigger way, be critical about their relationship with technology — to not just accept what’s given to them.”

Finding his niche

Back in grade school, Bird was less into abstract depictions of complex modern issues and more into skateboarding. He just wasn’t very good at it.

So instead of hitting the half-pipe, Bird hit “record” on his camera.

Filming and editing skateboarding videos and other DIY video projects became Bird’s passion — and the place where he first began to appreciate the power of music.

“I found that I really liked putting music to these videos,” he said. “There was so much expressive potential, and I started wanting to compose music for different environments — movie scenes in my head or other audiovisual projects.”

Bird started spending his free time in his parents’ at-home graphic design studio, where he could use their office computers to multitrack his compositions. He moved from skateboard video soundtracks to his own concept albums, with folders full of experimentation in between.

“Every project has pushed my practice further in different ways,” Bird said. “What I’m proud of is the accumulation of skills and practices that has brought me into an area where I’m able to do something that’s really unique.”

An example of this expanded practice is Bird’s integration of light into his music. He treats light as an instrument or as a member of the ensemble. He began with strobe lights in his piece “Drop,” in which lights are timed to flash in the dark alongside the music of a string octet.

Later, he explored the combination of light and sound in “Dark Ethnography” by modifying flashlights to trigger musical sounds. Written for the Switzerland-based Ensemble Vortex, the piece features four performers using flashlights in a semi-improvised, semi-choreographed performance with one cellist.

“To morph that into something that felt really personalized and expressive and poetic in its own way — that felt like a big achievement for me,” he said.

Creating spaces for expression

While he’s always enjoyed creating music, it took Bird a while to find out how much he loves teaching.

Wary of public speaking, Bird did not initially imagine a career in teaching, instead gravitating toward more behind-the-scenes work in film scoring or music production. But helping peers with their creative projects and eventually leading technical workshops transformed his perspective. It was life-changing.

“I got the confidence and fulfillment of seeing students engage with something — seeing the synapses click,” he said.

Now Bird gets to watch students engage with electronic music — often for their first time — while teaching Introduction to Electronic Music and Music Production.

Unlike many music classes, the course covers both composition and production, using electronic instruments while also exploring the history of the medium. Bird has students exercise the skills they learn in class with creative projects, like a remix song using public domain material or sound design for movie scenes he’s stripped of their original soundtracks.

Last year, the class collaborated with the Raclin Murphy Museum of Art for another project that paired each student with a sculpture in the Hayes Family Sculpture Park. The students composed and produced electronic music pieces inspired by their assigned sculptures, and Bird put them into a soundwalk app so visitors could listen to the students’ work while walking through the park.

“It’s really important for me to create environments where the students can challenge themselves and explore different ways of expressing their ideas,” he said.

Last semester, Bird started teaching a more advanced class, Computer Music Programming, that focuses on constructing complex electronic music systems, similar to what he creates for pieces like “Decoder” and “Dark Ethnography.” He teaches students how to build drum machines, algorithmic pitch generators, synthesizers, and other electronic instruments that they can customize to fit their individual creative visions.

As part of the lecture series Sonifying the Body: Embodied Technologies in Electronic Music Performance, supported by a large grant from the Franco Family Institute for Liberal Arts and the Public Good, the Computer Music Programming class had the opportunity to learn from Beyond This Point, a Chicago-based percussion ensemble that integrates electronic music, lighting, and improvisation into their performances.

Beyond This Point led a hands-on workshop revealing the software behind their electronic music systems — from musical bubble wrap and strobe lights triggered by drum pads to lamps that shape and manipulate sound. Students watched and listened to the ensemble perform on these systems, then had the chance to try them out themselves.

For Bird, the workshop was a way to show students the exciting potential of their art and push them to try new techniques. Seeing students chase their curiosity reminds him why he loves his field and why he’s committed to cultivating an electronic music space at Notre Dame.

“The students here are really talented and super smart,” Bird said. “To be the ‘electronic music person’ at Notre Dame is a real honor, and it’s always exciting.”

Originally published by Adah McMillan at al.nd.edu on February 09, 2026.

Recorded with exceptional artistry, this album features two of Onslow’s most compelling string quintets — String Quintet No. 14 in F Major, Op. 37 and String Quintet No. 24 in D Major, Op. 59 — both arranged for string quartet and double bass. The program explores Onslow’s inventive approach to chamber writing, with lyrical warmth, dramatic flair, and intricate ensemble interplay that highlight his unique voice within the Romantic tradition.

Ensemble Telos makes its Naxos debut on this recording, bringing together five distinguished musicians whose performances combine technical mastery with emotional depth. Listeners will discover the graceful themes and heartfelt lyricism of Quintet No. 14, alongside the bold contrasts and theatrical energy of Quintet No. 24.

This release holds special significance for Notre Dame Professor Patrick Yim, who appears on the album alongside colleagues Natalie Lin Douglas (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Matthew Baker (Berklee Valencia), Jamie Clark (University of Iowa), and Eric Wong (Vanderbilt University). The album was recorded in the LaBar Recital Hall at the University of Notre Dame.

Album Details:

• Title: George Onslow: String Quintets, Vol. 5 – Nos. 14 & 24
• Catalogue No.: 8.574709
• Artist: Ensemble Telos
• Composer: George Onslow (1784–1853)
• Total Running Time: Approx. 63 min
  
  

About Naxos Records:
Naxos Records is one of the world’s leading classical music labels, committed to delivering high-quality performances and recordings that enrich the global cultural landscape.

View a trailer for the album and an excerpt of the String Quintet No. 14 performed at the LaBar Recital Hall in December 2024.

Stream the album.

University of Notre Dame faculty members Margot Fassler, Sherif Girgis, Brad Gregory and Prashant Kamat have been inducted into the American Academy of Sciences and Letters in recognition of their outstanding scholarly achievement.

Fassler, the Keough-Hesburgh Professor Emerita of Music History and Liturgy; Girgis, a professor of law; Gregory, a professor of history; and Kamat, the Rev. John A. Zahm Professor of Science; were recognized during an investiture ceremony on November 12 at the historic Decatur House in Washington, D.C.

They join a prestigious list of AASL members including Salman Rushdie, Jonathan Haidt, Steven Koonin, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Steven Pinker, Akhil Reed Amar and Nobel laureate scientists Arieh Warshel, Jennifer Doudna and David W.C. MacMillan.

Fassler is renowned for her work at the intersection of musicology, liturgical studies and theology and is a specialist in sacred music. She is a member of the North American Academy of Liturgy, a former president of the Medieval Academy of America, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and an honorary member of the American Musicological Society. Her 2010 book “The Virgin of Chartres: Making History through Liturgy and the Arts” was awarded both the ACE/Mercers’ Award and the Otto Gründler Prize.

Girgis, who teaches constitutional law, is the author of “Debating Religious Liberty and Discrimination,” among other works. His work in constitutional law and theory has appeared in venues including the Columbia Law Review, the New York University Law Review, the American Journal of Jurisprudence and the Harvard Law Review Forum. Prior to his academic career, he clerked for both U.S. Court of Appeals D.C. Circuit Judge Thomas B. Griffith and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.

A historian of Western Europe in the Reformation era, Gregory has analyzed the effects of early modern religious disagreement and religiopolitical conflict in the 16th and 17th centuries, as well as in the long-term shaping of Western modernity up to the present. His books have been awarded numerous prizes, including the Gustave O. Arlt Award in the Humanities of the Council of Graduate Schools, the John Gilmary Shea Prize of American Catholic Historical Association and the Thomas J. Wilson Prize of Harvard University Press.

Kamat’s research aims to elucidate the mechanistic and kinetic details of charge transfer processes in nanostructured assemblies with an objective to improve energy conversion efficiencies. He is a fellow of numerous societies, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Chemical Society. Among other honors, he has won the Richard E. Smalley Award of The Electrochemical Society and the Henry H. Storch Award in Energy Chemistry of the American Chemical Society.

Four Notre Dame faculty were also invited to join the academy in 2024: Gary A. Anderson, the Hesburgh Professor of Catholic Thought; Paolo Carozza, a professor of law and concurrent professor of political science; Richard Garnett, the Paul J. Schierl Professor of Law and a concurrent professor of political science; and Christian Smith, the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Sociology.

The American Academy of Sciences and Letters promotes scholarship and honors outstanding achievement in the arts, sciences and learned professions. It supports learning by encouraging the exchange of ideas within academia and in society at large, and by sponsoring occasions for scholarly interaction and providing platforms for the presentation and dissemination of scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, mathematics and engineering.

Contact: Carrie Gates, associate director of media relations, c.gates@nd.edu, 574-993-9220

Originally published by Notre Dame News at news.nd.edu on November 19, 2025.

The Work

Composer J. Scott Brubacher and librettist David James Brock created eleven songs that follow the epic's narrative arc, tracing Gilgamesh's transformation from tyrant to seeker through pivotal moments exploring themes of friendship, mortality, love, and grief. Brubacher's setting features a chiastic structure with songs surrounding the central piece forming an arch of mirrored tonal centers and motives.

"This project represents a unique opportunity to bring contemporary Canadian art song to global audiences through an accessible digital format," Lancaster said. "The ancient story of Gilgamesh continues to resonate with universal themes that speak to our present-day experience."

Lancaster performs the title role as baritone, with pianist Susan McDaniel and dancer/choreographer Kyle Marshall as Enkidu. The production was filmed on the University of Notre Dame campus and directed by Four/Ten Media.

Format and Access

The project includes the 40-minute visual song cycle and a companion 10-minute "Behind the Scenes" video featuring conversations with the artists. Both are freely available on YouTube with closed captions; individual songs can be accessed through chapter markers. The album is also available in audio format on all streaming platforms.

Creative Team

Stephen Lancaster (Baritone/Project Director)
J. Scott Brubacher (Composer)
David James Brock (Librettist)
Susan McDaniel (Pianist)
Kyle Marshall (Dancer/Choreographer)
Four/Ten Media (Film Direction & Production)
Edo Tastic (Costume, Hair & Makeup Design)
Daniel Stein (Audio Producer)
Bill Maylone (Audio Engineer)

Support

The project received principal funding from an “Explore and Create” grant from the Canada Council for the Arts as well as grants from the Franco Family Institute for Liberal Arts & the Public Good at the University of Notre Dame.

Lancaster teaches in the Department of Music and Graduate Program in Sacred Music at Notre Dame, where he specializes in vocal performance and pedagogy.

“The department is excited to welcome two accomplished and promising colleagues who will enrich its offerings in musical performance and musicological scholarship,” Berthold Hoecker, chair of the Department of Music, said.

Carlson is an accomplished scholar who has presented his research at national and international conferences, including the American Musicological Society, the Renaissance Society of America, and the Society for Seventeenth-Century Music. He earned his Ph.D. in musicology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Before coming to Notre Dame, he served as a lecturer of musicology at Texas A&M University–Kingsville.

“As a scholar who spends much time considering the connections across sacred and secular experiences in early modernity, it is hard to imagine a place where my work naturally fits more than at Notre Dame,” Carlson said. “I am most excited to be a companion on the way with my students as we learn to listen for hope-filled futures from our engagements with the past.”

Houser has performed on operatic stages across the country, including the Metropolitan Opera, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Madison Opera, Charlottesville Opera, Austin Opera, the Glimmerglass Festival, Virginia Opera, and Fort Worth Opera. Some of her favorite roles include Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos, Olympia in Les contes d’Hoffmann, Johanna in Sweeney Todd, La Charmeuse in Thaïs, Amy in Little Women, Anne Egerman in A Little Night Music, and Susanna in both Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro and Marcos Portugal’s The Marriage of Figaro.

“It is the honor of a lifetime to join the outstanding faculty at Notre Dame,” Houser said. “I look forward to exploring vocal music with the bright and engaged students while helping them discover their unique voices as both artists and scholars.”

As a music major who also studied mechanical engineering in a five-year dual-degree program at Notre Dame, Foley was able to design and 3D print a tube that forces trombone students to engage their diaphragm to increase air flow. The tube, similar to the Inspiron breathing device that respiratory patients might use in hospitals but which is no longer in production, can be adjusted to require more effort as the user improves.

Continue to article.

Technical skill and hours of practice got Bennett into the final round of the Charles Joray Piano Competition, but it was the emotion of his performance that put the University of Notre Dame senior in first place.

The judge later shared that her former piano teacher had played that same Chopin ballade for her. They’d since passed away, but the emotion Bennett put into the piece made the judge feel like her teacher was here again, if only for a few measures.

“Creating those special moments is just so valuable,” Bennett said. “And the fact that I can do it — I should continue doing it.”

The music and economics major has been playing the piano since he was 6 years old. Though he isn’t planning to pursue a full-time career in music, he knew he wanted it to be part of his education.

“I always wanted to stick with music because I have this talent for playing, and I don’t want it to go to waste,” Bennett said.

Through both his music and economics classes, he’s doing more than practicing an instrument or preparing for a career — he’s diving beneath the surface and finding out why things are the way they are, whether that’s a Clementi piece or inflation.

Outside of class, Bennett certainly made the most of his musical gift in his time at Notre Dame, playing for the Notre Dame Symphony Orchestra, Pasquerilla East Musical Co., and campus church choirs. His ability to sight-read new music also makes him a capable accompanist.

As a soloist, Bennett shines with romantic and contemporary pieces by composers such as Claude Debussy, Frédéric Chopin, and Sergei Rachmaninoff. This kind of music allows the musician to be more creative and expressive, something nurtured by Bennett’s piano mentor, Department of Music faculty member John Blacklow.

“He just really goes into the musicality aspect and not so much the worrying about every note and every little thing in the score,” Bennett said. “It allowed me to become a lot less anxious about music.”

Unlikely harmonies

Bennett found his emotional interpretation of music has improved by examining its inner workings.

Music students take music history classes, learning about influential composers and the eras they lived in. Social trends influence music production and the creation of new genres, and this has been the case for as long as people have been making music.

“The history classes help contextualize the time period when these pieces were written, and I feel like that just gives you more room for interpretation,” Bennett said.

Students also take music theory classes, which cover the rules and concepts that are the foundation of musical construction. Bennett said learning theory helped him understand why harmonies sound a certain way and make listeners feel a certain way.

But when he took a course called Chromatic Harmony, he learned how to break every music rule.

“I don’t really like those rules to begin with,” Bennett said. “Music shouldn’t be constrained by theoretical rules.”

He’s always loved improvising, and learning how to both follow and flout music rules turned his practice session experiments into solid compositions.

Although economics doesn’t typically allow that same free-spiritedness, Bennett’s two majors aren’t so dissonant. While economics has him analyzing market data instead of cadences, what matters for him is the chance to go beneath the surface.

Bennett was initially drawn to computer science because of its opportunities for hands-on learning and the way it pulls back the curtain on the technological infrastructure of our world. However, he found there are plenty of theories and models for him to dive into in economics.

He especially enjoyed the class Data Analytics and Economic Evaluation for Social Impact, which taught him how to use statistical analysis software to make viable economic predictions.

“If you can effectively do that, then you’re, you know, telling the future, which I think is pretty cool,” he said.

For his final class project, Bennett used a difference-in-differences analysis to compare drug usage in Oregon and Washington after Oregon decriminalized personal use of small amounts of any drug in 2021. With this change, Oregon also set up help centers for people struggling with addiction, and Bennett wanted to find out if the state’s new policies and programs were effective in preventing fatal drug overdoses.

He found no difference between Washington and Oregon, but the point of the project wasn’t the answer but rather learning how to find it.

“While it was limited in that there are all these different moving variables, I was able to get something,” he said. “Now I have this skill that I can apply and do big things with.”

Cultivating a diverse skill set

While he found economics invigorating, Bennett kept his love for computer science and tried to take as many classes as possible.

“Computer science is my biggest passion because everything is run by technology, and to most people, it’s like magic,” he said. “But if you’re able to decipher that magic, you become a magician.”

“God has a plan for me, and I’ve put so much time into learning all these different things. I know that it’s going to pay off.”

- James Bennett ’25

Considering his drive to decipher, it’s no surprise Bennett’s favorite class was Systems Programming. Beginner computer science courses teach students how to write code, but Systems Programming goes into how code turns into computing — how data is stored, how networks work, how compilers run, etc.

“If you’re going to take any CS class, definitely take that one,” Bennett said.

Though he wishes he could’ve taken more computer science courses, Bennett knows that what he has learned will open many doors.

“Now I have an even broader skill set than what I planned to have,” Bennett said. “With employers now, it’s mostly about if you can show that you can use these skills, and not necessarily just about the degree itself.”

As much as economists may try to predict what’s next, no one can sight-read the future. Bennett plans to pursue a career in data analytics and feels prepared for whatever comes his way.

“God has a plan for me, and I’ve put so much time into learning all these different things,” he said. “I know that it’s going to pay off.”

Originally published by Adah McMillan at al.nd.edu on May 15, 2025.

A century later, the first recording of the melody that helped define the Jazz Age entered the public domain. With its new copyright status, Gershwin’s recording and others from 1924 have the chance to become the building blocks for new works.

To celebrate the public domain class of 2025 and kickstart the creative process of weaving old works into new music, the Hesburgh Libraries held its annual Public Domain Day music contest.

“This contest helps participants to creatively explore the complicated topic of copyright,” Tiffany Gillaspy, music librarian at the Hesburgh Libraries, said. “Making judgment calls on copyright comes up in everyday situations, but we seldom get the opportunity to research the topic.”

In addition to teaching about the public domain, the contest, open to all members of the Notre Dame Community, offers participants an avenue to better understand the history of music sampling while promoting the use of digital archives and library resources in the online sphere.

“This contest invites people from different backgrounds and perspectives to reflect on intellectual property and copyright, and to do something creative with it,” David Bird, assistant professor of music technology and digital media in the Department of Music, said. “Usually, when we think about copyright, it seems like something that restricts creativity. This allows us to think about material as something that changes over time and something that we can contribute to.”

Hoping to encourage more participation in this year’s contest and inspire students to think about the public domain, Gillaspy approached Bird about involving his Introduction to Electronic Music and Music Production class. Seizing an opportunity to introduce students to the public domain, the professor added the contest as an assignment on his spring semester syllabus.

“The electronic music class was a perfect group to coordinate with for this year’s contest,” Gillaspy said. “Back in the 1940s, electronic music began creating new works by manipulating recorded sounds on magnetic tape. Although technology has changed, the same concept is still encouraged with this contest.”

“It's a compelling project,” Bird said. “The idea of exploring copyright and public domain this early in the class is valuable for students who are trying to figure out what material they can use for projects. It allows them to reflect not only on what is in the public domain but the nature of copyright in general.”

According to Bird, the timeline for the contest fit well with his class syllabus and offered his students access to materials they would be able to use throughout the semester.

“We're pretty early into the class, and it's important that the students learn different pathways for finding musical material,” Bird said. “It's really valuable for them to have access to these resources at the Music Library and get hands-on experience of working with them in a musical context.”

On Tuesday, February 19, Gillaspy announced the results of the contest in front of the Introduction to Electronic Music and Music Production class, as all of the winners were sitting in the room.

“We appreciated all the entries this year, and it was a real joy listening to them,” Gillaspy said. “It was difficult narrowing the submissions down to just three winners! The winning pieces all did an amazing job of creating very musically interesting, balanced, and cohesive projects. They took fully constructed musical ideas and recomposed them into their own artistic expressions.”

Congratulations to the 2025 Public Domain Day music contest winners:

Will Hoppe, College of Engineering
Listen to There's a Hole in the Roof of Your House

Lina McKimson, College of Science
Listen to Public Domain Remix

Victor Williams, College of Arts & Letters
Listen to Nocturne in Blue

Honorable Mention:

Julie Vecchio, Hesburgh Libraries
Listen to 2025 Public Domain Day and view the Artist’s Process Document

Four faculty members in the College of Arts & Letters have won National Endowment for the Humanities fellowships, extending the University of Notre Dame’s record success with the federal agency committed to supporting original research and scholarship.

Jon Bullock, an assistant professor in the Department of Music; Therese Cory, the John and Jean Oesterle Associate Professor of Thomistic Studies in the Department of Philosophy; Ulrich Lehner, the William K. Warren Foundation Professor in the Department of Theology; and Marisel Moreno, a professor of Spanish in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, are among the 78 scholars offered the prestigious fellowships, which were announced Jan. 14.

Notre Dame and Johns Hopkins University were the only institutions to have four faculty win individual NEH fellowships this year, and Notre Dame faculty have won more NEH fellowships than any other private university in the country since 2000. Notre Dame’s success has been driven in large part due to faculty research support provided by the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts.

“I am delighted that the NEH has once again recognized the exceptional research projects our faculty are pursuing,” said Sarah Mustillo, the I.A. O’Shaughnessy Dean of the College of Arts & Letters. “These four awards underscore the high caliber of diverse scholarship across our disciplines and invaluable guidance offered by ISLA throughout the fellowship application process.”

Connecting Kurdish music, media, and culture

For the past decade, Bullock has been conducting research on Kurdish music and broadcasting, a long-established but underexplored area of global culture.

Kurds are an ethnic group that predominantly span across Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and Syria and have faced varying degrees of linguistic, cultural, and political oppression. Because of this history, and because they have no nation-state of their own, Bullock said relatively little research has been done on Kurdish art and media.

In his book project, tentatively titled “Kurdish Broadcasting and the Power of Music on Air,” Bullock hopes to provide a historical overview of Kurdish music on the radio and analyze how its impact on Kurdish society helps scholars of music and media think more deeply about the power of music broadcasting as a whole.

“It’s not just trying to piece together a music history over the last 100 years among the Kurds,” Bullock said. “But also showing that music and media are intertwined and how that can lead to new perspectives on the affordances of music broadcasting, maybe in ways that we haven’t heard before.”

As an ethnomusicologist, Bullock was initially interested in the varying styles of Kurdish music that he describes as a “mosaic of related musical practices.” That led to him discovering the importance of radio broadcasting and understanding where and when the music was shared and what messages were being transmitted, especially during times of geopolitical fluctuation.

Through his work, Bullock hopes to show that the history of Kurdish media can ultimately help to contextualize the present moment of political uncertainty.

An essential part of the project, Bullock said, is centering Kurds in global narratives that shape and define the region.

“This is not just about how we paint a picture of Kurdish music as something unique — it’s about how this helps us to understand how Kurds see themselves in relation to the rest of the world at any given moment,” he said.

Over the past several years, Bullock has completed archival and ethnographic research in Kurdistan, reviewed radio programming and station records, and interviewed former employees who worked for Kurdish radio stations. Now, in his second year at Notre Dame and with support from the NEH, he will be able to complete his project fully.

“It’s been a very long journey of trying to just find things,” he said. “So when I heard I received the fellowship, I was shocked, surprised, and, of course, super grateful.”

Contextualizing Aquinas’ philosophical approach

Cory, who studies medieval philosophy, is currently working on a large project that aims to challenge how scholars consider the mind of the great Catholic thinker Thomas Aquinas.

The director of the Jacques Maritain Center and its associated History of Philosophy Forum, Cory focuses her research on mind, self-consciousness, personhood, and the nature of knowing. She is particularly interested in Aquinas’ systematic approach to such topics.

The first portion of her current project is her tentatively titled book “Thinking as Being in Aquinas: Aquinas's Metaphysics of Mind,” which will examine the nature of the mind according to Aquinas. The NEH fellowship will help support a second book and final portion of the project, tentatively titled “Aquinas’ Mind-in-World.” In it, Cory will build off her understanding of Aquinas’ mind and examine how he understands intentionality, or the mind’s ability to enter into relationships with things outside itself.

To do so is intrinsically human, she said, but also something shared with other animals, and Aquinas considered intentionality to be the mind’s way of making itself part of the real world. While watching a football game, for example, a person in the crowd may imagine what it may be like to be a player on the field to better understand the game scenario. In doing so, Aquinas contended, that person also becomes a part of the game.

“We’re part of the world, too — we’re not just spectators,” Cory said. “That’s a really important insight, and it’s something that brings Aquinas closer to non-Western philosophies and Indigenous views that we would often not associate him with at all.”

In her research process, Cory aims to read and understand Aquinas through the historical context in which he lived. She contends that present-day thinkers have often erroneously read Aquinas’ theory of mind through the lens of modern philosophies, whose questions can be very different from his own. In her current project, Cory aims to fundamentally change and correct how scholars interpret his teachings.

“I’m arguing that’s been a huge mistake,” she said. “He really thinks about the mind in a fundamentally different way — he’s not asking those questions. So I’m trying to take the theory off that track and put it on a different track.”

Examining sexualized violence in early modern Catholicism

Lehner, a scholar of religious history and theology of the early modern era, is currently pursuing a project called “Bodies in Court,” which explores how Catholics from 1700 to 1800 confronted marital violence and separation. It highlights the intersections of sexualized violence, power dynamics, legal assessments, and religious values in Catholic regions of central Europe.

Lehner will examine ecclesiastical court records from Austrian, Swiss, German, and Czech archives — areas he is already familiar with from research he did for his previous book, Staged Chastity: Sexual Offenses in the Society of Jesus in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (De Gruyter, 2023), which ultimately led to his current project.

“When I researched the history of sexual abuse among clergymen, I stumbled in the archives upon accounts of marital violence that had been adjudicated before ecclesiastical judges,” he said. “When I decided to read them, I was amazed by how detailed they were. They gave me a glimpse into the intimate lives of people who died centuries ago.”

Lehner was surprised to find accounts of women bravely speaking up about the abuse they suffered and the physical and emotional toll it took on them.

Because sexual violence is a relatively new area of research for historians, Lehner said, there is little known about how Catholics handled this issue. He hopes his project will shed more light on this gap in historical knowledge.

“It will not only provide new insights into the construction of views of body and sexuality, but also analyze the legal and theological background of sexualized violence, thus bringing a new aspect of history to light,” Ulrich wrote in his proposal. “This overlooked area of research promises to overturn many assumptions in standard narratives and contribute to the societal discussion about the abuse of power and its concealment in ecclesiastical contexts.”

Amplifying cultural expression after a disaster

Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico in Sept. 2017, leaving the U.S. territory reeling from its aftermath that can still be felt today.

The following spring, in partnership with the University of Michigan, Moreno, whose area of expertise is U.S. Latinx literature, and Spanish professor Tom Anderson, led and co-produced an online course and created the multimedia project “Listening to Puerto Rico,” in which they interviewed Puerto Ricans about the immediate impact of the Category 4 hurricane’s destruction.

“As a Puerto Rican born and raised in the archipelago but who has been living stateside for decades, I am one of the millions of Puerto Ricans in the diaspora who witnessed, from afar, the destruction of our homeland,” she said. “There were limited ways to help immediately following the hurricane, but in spring 2018 a unique opportunity arose to create awareness about Puerto Rico and the impact of the storm.”

Deriving inspiration from those interviews, Moreno is now focusing on her NEH-supported project, tentatively titled “Eye of the Storm: Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rican Cultural Production.” The book will focus on Puerto Rican literary and cultural expressions post-Maria, and Moreno said those aspects play a “crucial role by providing a counter-narrative to the dehumanizing rhetoric of the local and federal governments.”

“By examining the representation of the hurricane’s impact in literature and other art forms, I aim to untangle the links between colonialism, anti-Blackness, disaster capitalism, climate change, and migration,” she said. “It has been more than seven years since Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, yet much of the archipelago is still experiencing the consequences of the storm — or what I call the ‘afterlives of disaster.’”

Puerto Rican cultural production, Moreno contends in her project, resists the colonial violence that reproduces the afterlives of disaster by being life-affirming and a testament to the survival of the Puerto Rican people.

This project, Moreno said, can also shed light on how cultural creation can uplift resistance to colonial violence and help imagine a decolonial future, especially for communities in the Global South. She also believes this is especially topical as vulnerable communities of color face challenges in light of globalization and climate change.

“I am extremely grateful to everyone who has supported me,” she said. “Winning this fellowship has given me a renewed sense of confidence in this project, which is very close to my heart.”

Originally published by Mary Kinney at al.nd.edu on January 22, 2025.

 New Focus Recordings founder Dan Lippel writes “Patrick Yim’s One adds six beautifully crafted new works to the rich repertoire of music for unaccompanied violin. Standing on the shoulders of the iconic works by Bach, Ysaÿe, Bartok, and Paganini, the six composers represented here explore new approaches to the instrument while integrating time tested techniques in works that would fit naturally within both contemporary music and more general programming. Yim plays with virtuosity and powerful expression throughout, convincingly framing these new pieces within the strong lineage of the music that has come before them.”

 Composer Juri Seo, Associate Professor of Composition at Princeton and Guggenheim Fellow, writes on Instagram: “Patrick is such an excellent and sensitive musician, and this record is the fruit of many years of collaboration. I hope you all will give it a listen.”

 Composer Takuma Itoh, Professor of Composition at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, writes: “Patrick has been on a roll, with multiple album releases recently and countless commissions from composers worldwide in recent years. I can't think of anyone who has commissioned more music than him recently, and he interprets each work with such integrity and care. I'm just extremely honored to be included, especially as he represents Honolulu on the global stage. Be sure to check out this album with a wonderful collection of new violin works and hear Patrick’s beautiful playing!”

 Icelandic composer Páll Ragnar Pálsson writes: “Hermitage for solo violin is out! Patrick Yim commissioned the piece and has since then perfomed it frequently. Patrick and I first met at the New Music for Strings festival in Iceland few years ago and since then this and more collaborations have followed. Patrick has performed the work in various places around the world, for which I am endlessly grateful.”

 The album can be purchased here. More information here.

Praised for his “deeply expressive, finely nuanced playing” (The Strad Magazine), “dazzling technique and passionate interpretations” (The Whole Note), and “vivid imagination” (Fanfare), Honolulu-born violinist Patrick Yim made his solo debut with the Honolulu Symphony, and has performed chamber music with Juilliard, Emerson, St. Lawrence, Pacifica, and Ying Quartet members, and musicians from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Cleveland Orchestra, and New York Philharmonic. He performed with the Cleveland Orchestra on tour in the USA and Europe, and at Carnegie Hall with the Emerson Quartet violinists. His recordings, including numerous world premieres, have been published by Albany, Naxos, Navona, Ravello, and Acis. A strong advocate of contemporary compositions, Yim has commissioned more than 50 works to date, including a substantial body of work for violin with non-Western instruments. In 2024, Yim performed the world premiere of Bamboo Grove, a new unaccompanied violin work by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Zhou Long commissioned for him by the University of Notre Dame, at the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center. One: New Music for Unaccompanied Violin will be released by New Focus Recordings on October 25, 2024. New Waves, which includes premiere recordings of works by Chen Yi, Zhou Long, and Qu Xiao-song, was published by Albany Records on December 23, 2023. He earned his BM and MM from the Cleveland Institute of Music and his DMA from Stony Brook University. His principal teachers were Philip Setzer, William Preucil, David Updegraff, Jennifer Frautschi, and Hagai Shaham. He previously taught at CIM, Hong Kong Baptist University, Interlochen, and Stony Brook. Yim is Assistant Professor of Violin in the Department of Music, Faculty Fellow at the Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies, and Faculty Fellow at the Nanovic Institute for European Studies, University of Notre Dame.

Mansour is a composer, cellist, and jazz pianist. His concert music has been performed by the American Youth Symphony, the Alabama Symphony Orchestra, and the USC Thorton Symphony, among others. He has scored films featured on Netflix, Paramount Plus, and Hulu.

Mansour received a B.A. in music cello performance, and film from the University of Notre Dame followed by a M.A. in composition from the University of Southern California in 2021.

The Sabam Award nomination places Mansour among a select group of young composers poised to make a significant impact on the future of music. The winner will be announced in October 2024.

Art historian and College of Arts and Letters Associate Dean for the Arts Michael Schreffler has been named director of the University of Notre Dame’s new Arts Initiative emerging from “Notre Dame 2033: A Strategic Framework.”

One of several University-wide priorities outlined in the framework, the Arts Initiative, also known as Arts@ND, will spearhead collaborative research projects in the arts, promote strategic curricular innovation and stage high-visibility events with substantial community outreach.

“Scholars at Notre Dame are producing groundbreaking research and innovative creative work in the arts, and Arts@ND will amplify the impact of this work and foster its growth,” Schreffler said. “We will do this by building on existing areas of strength and advancing the successes of early-stage collaborative projects with colleagues from the sciences, engineering and other parts of the University. Our ultimate goal is for the University to be recognized as a beacon in the landscape of research and creative practice in the arts.”

A key part of the initiative is the establishment of a biennial arts festival that engages faculty, students and staff from all parts of the University and opens Notre Dame’s doors to the local community and the world. The Notre Dame Arts Biennale will include a major exhibition, performances, an academic conference, visiting artists and speakers, curricular tie-ins, and substantial campus and community involvement. Each iteration of it will be thematically aligned with the University’s mission and strategic priorities and with the research goals of Arts@ND. The plan is to announce the theme for the first biennial in spring 2025, with the festival to take place across the spring 2027 semester.

The initiative’s leadership structure includes an executive committee, a research and curricular strategy committee and a biennial committee. These teams of faculty and staff campus arts leaders will work closely with the director to plan the inaugural festival and guide strategic investments. Together they will advance the Arts@ND goals of making the arts an integral part of a Notre Dame education and making the University a preeminent locus of arts research and creative practice.

While the Arts Initiative is new, the University’s commitment to the arts is longstanding and deeply rooted in its Catholic identity and its mission to educate the whole person — mind, body and soul, Schreffler said.

“This effort aligns with the Church’s long and distinguished tradition of placing the arts at the center of devotional and intellectual practice,” he said. “The visual and performing arts invite communal experiences that bring us together physically and emotionally, create shared understanding and sense of meaning, and have the potential to cross social and partisan divides. The arts shed light on complex and sometimes difficult issues and at the same time they inspire and bring joy.”

As a professor in the Department of Art, Art History and Design, Schreffler’s scholarly work focuses on Spanish colonial art and architectural history. His most recent book, “Cuzco: Incas, Spaniards, and the Making of a Colonial City,” won the 2023 Spiro Kostof Book Award from the Society of Architectural Historians.

As associate dean for the arts in the College of Arts and Letters, Schreffler oversees the Departments of Art, Art History and Design, Film, Television and Theatre, and Music, as well as the Shakespeare at Notre Dame and Sacred Music at Notre Dame programs. He will continue in that role during his three-year appointment as director of the Arts Initiative. A search is underway for a full-time managing director for the initiative who will begin work this fall.

The Arts Initiative’s launch comes at an exciting time of increased energy and collaboration among Notre Dame’s arts departments and programs, Schreffler said, pointing to the unified Arts@ND website launched last year and the new Raclin Murphy Museum of Art. The museum anchors the Arts Gateway area at the southern edge of campus, along with the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center, Walsh Family Hall of Architecture and O’Neill Hall of Music and Sacred Music. Future plans call for the construction of a new building in the Arts Gateway to house the Department of Art, Art History and Design along with additional space for the museum and an administrative office for the biennial, creating more opportunities for synergy.

“The arts at Notre Dame have never been stronger, with remarkable facilities, superb faculty, talented students, dedicated staff and increasing engagement with South Bend and the region,” said John T. McGreevy, the Charles and Jill Fischer Provost. “The challenge in the next generation is to build on our collective resources to create compelling interdisciplinary programs that provide intellectually rich arts experiences to the Notre Dame community and beyond. Under Michael Schreffler’s leadership, the Arts Initiative will help us work together as an institution to do just that.”

Originally published by Kate Garry at news.nd.edu on August 20, 2024.