Success Stories

Contemporary Performance Program alumna Nicole Brancato (MM ’22) recently became a Yamaha Piano Artist. This year, she has also received awards from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, the Puffin Foundation, and Flushing Town Hall.

In partnership with a team of Georgia Tech engineers, her recent interdisciplinary project bringing together music, STEM, and interactive creativity, received an IPaT Research and Engagement Grant award.

Nicole Brancato currently serves as a 2024–25 Artist in Residence with the New York City Department of Education. She also served as an artist-in-residence for the Pure.Art Circle program in Italy, which commissioned her to compose a new chamber opera (titled Infinitesimal).

Click here to learn more about Nicole.

Contemporary Performance Program alumna Laura Bibbs (MM ’21) has been performing with Harry Styles and is currently playing trumpet on his international Love On Tour. On the North American leg of the tour, she performed 15 nights at Madison Square Garden.

Laura currently resides in New York City but actively teaches and performs all over the East Coast. She is a member of Soul of Boston (Boston), Big Stuff Band (Astoria), and Patriot Brass Ensemble. She has also shared the stage with a variety of artists including Harry Styles, Jon Faddis, Chris Jaudes, and many others. In New York she primarily works as a studio and session musician, recording and performing with artists in person as well as remotely.

Learn more about Laura in an interview here.

Visit Laura’s website here.

Chromic Duo, comprised of MSM Piano alumni Lucy Yao (MM ’18) and Dorothy Chan (MM ’12), were featured in NIGHTCAP, the New York Philharmonic’s cabaret-style series of music and conversation in the new Kenneth C. Griffin Sidewalk Studio. From Lucy and Dorothy: “Blending toy piano, electronics, and multimedia into genre-fluid performances and installations, we [Chromic Duo] cultivate spaces to share stories inspired by our experiences as third-culture kids within the Asian-American diaspora.”

Chromic Duo’s featured work FROM ROOTS WE CARRY was dedicated to the AAPI community and is a monument and ritual that explores the complex intergenerational legacies that live inside us. The performance also featured MSM Contemporary Performance Program alumna Madeline Hocking (MM ’22, Contemporary Violin).

Learn more about The Chromic Duo and FROM ROOTS WE CARRY here

Learn more about the New York Philharmonic’s NIGHTCAP here

MSM alumna Teagan Faran (MM ’22), who studied Contemporary Performance at MSM, joins the faculty at DePauw University as Assistant Professor of Violin. She leads the violin studio and is launching an electronics experimentation studio for the department. 

A native of Buffalo, NY, Teagan Faran is a multidisciplinary musician focused on enacting social change through the arts. Faran has collaborated with the International Contemporary Ensemble, Alarm Will Sound, Palaver Strings, and the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra. Recent recording features include albums with Carlos Simon, La Martino Orquesta Típica, and loadbang. Also active in the world of tango music, she has performed with Victor Lavallén and the Orquesta Escuela de Emilio Balcarce, as well as at festivals across the United States. 

Learn more here.

American Dream, Bearthoven’s sophomore release (Cantaloupe Music), “is a reflection of the contemporary American state of mind. Rather than making a political statement, this album reflects the paradoxical nature of the ‘American Dream’ in our current era,” says the group. Consisting of three monumental new works by MSM composition graduate Scott Wollschleger, American Dream will be available on on FEB 8, 2019, with an album release performance at the Tenri Cultural Institute in NYC at 8 PM.

More about the album here
Tickets to the release concert here

The respected on-line publication New York Classical Week reviewed the first of three 10th anniversary concerts this month by the loadbang ensemble comprised of baritone Jeffrey Gavett (MM ’09), trumpeter Andy Kozar (MM’09), clarinetist Carlos Cordeiro (MM ’12), and trombonist William Lang (MM ’09). The four met as students while attending MSM’s Contemporary Performance Program.
The DEC 5 concert at the Church of the Intercession in NYC included a work by MSM composition faculty member and alum Reiko Fueting (DMA ’00), who is on the artistic advisory board of loadbang. Also on their advisory board are MSM Faculty members Todd Reynolds and Mike Lowenstein. loadbang is also performing DEC 6 at the Jerome Robbins Theatre at the Baryshnikov Arts Center at 7:30 PM.

Read the review here

After earning his MM in Contemporary Performance at MSM, Alejandro pursued his MFA at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His new position is a cross-departmental position split between Vanderbilt’s Cinema and Media Arts Program, and its Department of Art.

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The Library of Congress Kussevitzky Foundation commissioning program awards well-established composers and groups with a record of excellence in contemporary music performance.

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