Dr. Hedy Law
Acting Director and Associate Professor, Dr. Hedy Law was appointed as Director of the UBC School of Music effective July 1, 2025. Over the past year, Dr. Law has served as Acting Director while continuing her appointment as Associate Professor of Musicology in the UBC School of Music.
Dr. Keith Hamel, Chair and Professor of Composition at the UBC School of Music retired after 38 years of service. Below we found out how Progressive Rock ignited his passion for computer music, and what continues to excite him about the evolving world of music technology.
Dr. Keith Hamel, along with Professor Emeritus Dr. Bob Pritchard, have shaped generations of artists at UBC through their ground-breaking work in music technology. To carry their legacy forward they have created a new award in music technology and new media. This new award in music technology and new media will provide students with the incentive to explore bold ideas, take creative risks, and shape the future of music and performance.
Jose Franch-Ballester
Associate Professor and clarinettist Jose Franch-Ballester’s latest recordings are now available as part of the complete Music@Menlo LIVE collection. These project is “probably the most ambitious recording project of any classical music festival in the world” (San Jose Mercury News) and captures the elegance, passion, and innovation of French musical traditions, recorded by world-renowned musicians. Music@Menlo LIVE was produced by Grammy-winning producer Da-Hong Seetoo as part of the Music@Menlo Festival. This collection is streaming on all major platforms.
Meijun Chen
Conductor of UBC Concert Winds Meijun Chen has been selected to present at The Midwest Clinic International Band and Orchestra Conference in December 2025, in Chicago. Chen’s presentation is titled, “Beyond the Notes, Bridging Cultures: Interpretation Tips for Conductors Navigating Chinese-Inspired Repertoire.”
“The Midwest Clinic is the world’s largest instrumental music education conference. It is a privilege to contribute to this prestigious event and to engage with fellow educators, conductors, musicians, and students at an international level,” Chen remarked.
Associate Professor and Director of Orchestral Activities Jonathan Girard joined the Vancouver Youth Orchestra as its Artistic Director and Senior Orchestra Conductor. Girard led the Vancouver Youth Orchestra for their triumphant 95th Anniversary Celebration concert in May at the Orpheum. David Gordon Duke reviewed the performance for the Vancouver Sun.
Girard also conducted the UBC Symphony Orchestra and UBC Choirs in a sold-out performance of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts on December 6. This was the same weekend as the 3-concert Taylor Swift residency in Vancouver. Read further below for Dr. David Metzer’s take on the “Taylor Swift effect” on music.
Dr. Graeme Langager and the University Singers welcomed the Oregon Repertory Singers (ORS) in April with performances of music by Ešenvalds, Esmail, Penderecki, a Whitacre deep cut, and more. The ORS observed a rehearsal exploring the depth of understanding of poetry, musicianship, and the emotion we can evoke through music. Dr. Hyejung Jun also worked with the ORS on teaching new musical ideas for their repertoire.
On January 25, Dr. Jun guest-conducted the Vancouver Chamber Choir for their East/West 동과서 program that featured music from Dr. Jun’s Korean heritage side by side with Western compositions.
Professor of Musicology Dr. David Metzer spoke to the CBC about the 5 songs Vancouver streamed the most. Taylor Swift may be the global top artist by multiple streaming services, but didn’t make Vancouver’s top 5 list. Dr. Metzer also spoke to the Ubyssey about the “Taylor Swift effect” and how Swift creates a different “sonic world” with each album.
Krisztina Szabó
Assistant Professor of Voice and Opera Krisztina Szabó was busy performing this year with highlights in April for Wozzeck in the role of Margret, and in May for Eugene Onegin as Madame Larina, both with the Canadian Opera Company. Szabó will also perform Mahler’s Second Symphony with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra on June 25 and Händel’s Messiah with the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra from December 18-21.
Last March a live performance of Raven Chacon’s work Horse Notations for chamber ensemble featured many musicians from the UBC School of Music: Jasper Wood violin, Jae-Won Bang violin, Ryan Davis viola, Eric Wilson cello, Paolo Bortolussi flute, and Sacha Levin percussion.
UBC School of Public Policy and Global Affairs and the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts presented the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, performer and installation artist as part of the Phil Lind Initiative series.
Watch this performance and a conversation with Raven Chacon and moderator Jarrett Martineau, reflecting on the on-going legacies of colonialism and how they challenge and unsettle notions of “American” identity.
On February 9, we presented new Assistant Professor of Viola, Ryan Davis in a performance in Barnett Hall with faculty Jasper Wood violin, Dr. David Fung piano, Dr. Lucas Wong piano and with Jae-Won Bang violin, Samuel Milner violin, and Jonathan Lo cello from the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. Davis performs and composes under the moniker “Radia” and recently spoke to UBC Arts about how he blends classical roots with the pulse of folk, electronic, and hip-hop.
Below from this concert, Radia performs Blood Orange for viola and electronics.
Associate Professor of Piano and Chamber Music Dr. David Fung performed Grażyna Bacewicz’s Piano Concerto with the California Symphony under the baton of Donato Cabrera on March 22 and 23, marking one of the first major performances of this rarely heard piece in North America.
“Words can’t capture the exhilaration of performing a piano concerto for the first time. I bought the score long before any recordings of this piece existed, and after all these years of imagining how it would sound, experiencing it come to life is absolutely incredible!”
Dr. Fung was appointed as Associate Director, Graduate at the School of Music in July 2024; recently curated the Spirio Piano Series at the Chan Center for Performing Arts; and is on College Faculty at the Manhattan School of Music.
Acting Associate Dean, Equity and Associate Professor Dr. Dylan Robinson was appointed a member of the Royal Society of Canada in November 2024. Dr. Robinson is a xwélmexw (Stó:lō/Skwah First Nation) artist, curator, and writer and a world-recognized authority on Indigenous music, public art, and performance and their engagements with settler colonial politics of reconciliation and redress.
Below he shares his work on addressing the appropriation of Indigenous song and culture in classical music and opera.
UBC Assistant Professor Dr. Anabel Maler and UBC Lecturer Dr. Robert Komaniecki have received the Emerging Scholar Article Award for their coauthored article, “Rhythmic Techniques in Deaf Hip Hop” from the Society for Music Theory on November 14, 2024. Their research looks at the rhythmic techniques of ‘dip hop’. A subgenre of hip hop that involves a Deaf or hard-of-hearing artists simultaneously performing vocalized and signed rapping over a looped background beat.
UBC Music faculty and alumni collaborated with local artists in Floating Island presented by Opera Unbound. Floating Island explored themes of gender, beauty, and feminist history through music, electroacoustic soundscape, and movement and was composed by Kara Gibbs (BMus’04). The program also included music from UBC Professor Dorothy Chang and Katerina Gimon (MMus’17).
In September, Professor Dr. Alex Fisher was awarded an SSHRC Insight Grant. Insight Grants support research excellence in social sciences and humanities. Funding is available to both emerging scholars and established scholars for research initiatives of two to five years.
Lecturer of Music Theory Dr. Robert Komaniecki went viral after ranking every song in the Disney animated film library. He spoke with CBC’s Gloria Macarenko about his ranking and the reaction he’s been getting to his trending list. The Guardian also picked up the story with Dr. Komaniecki explaining how he used a complex objective criteria (and some ‘vibes’) to achieve the ranking. What song do you think made number one? Check it out at @komaniecki_r (Instagram).
In July 2024, Associate Professor of Voice J. Patrick Raftery presented his production of A Spanish Hour? at the Telus Theatre (Chan Centre for the Performing Arts). This Queer reimagining of Maurice Ravel’s L’heure Espagnole, a one-act comédie musicale from 1911, is also a rare all 2SLGBTQIA+ production set in 21st century Toronto as a situation comedy exploring the realities of sexual freedom in committed relationships. Directed by Raftery, the cast included UBC alumni Madison Craig (MMus’19), Spencer Britten (BMus’15, MMus ’17) and Simran Claire (BMus‘18, MMus‘20) with musical direction by Gordon Gerrard.
The Vancouver Chamber Choir premiered Professor T. Patrick Carrabré’s Histoires des Métis in the First Nations Longhouse at UBC. A member of the Manitoba Métis Federation from Treaty 1, Dr. T. Patrick Carrabré is a Professor of Composition at the School of Music and Director of the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts. The performance also featured premieres by UBC PhD student Sherryl Sewepagaham, and UBC alumni Alex Vollant (BMus’24) and writer Russell Wallace.
Histoires des Métis is based on the book, “The North-West Is Our Mother” by Jean Teillet, commissioned by Kari Turunen and the Vancouver Chamber Choir. Included are five of poems by Teillet, and texts from two traditional Métis songs (La Montagne Tortue and Pierre Falcon’s Chanson de la Gornouillèr).
New Faces and Appointments
In September 2024, we announced the faculty appointments of Paolo Bortolussi as Lecturer, Flute & Contemporary Chamber Music; and Jennifer Butler as Lecturer, Composition.
UBC Bands welcomed Meijun Chen as the new Director of Concert Winds and Dr. Scott MacLennan as the new Director of the Symphonic Wind Ensemble after Robert Taylor accepted a position of professor and director of bands with Northwestern University, Bienen School of Music.
The Keyboard Division welcomed Dr. Wayne Weng and UBC Alumnus Dr. Lucas Wong (BMus’04) both as Lecturers in Piano.
