The UGA Hugh Hodgson School of Music filled eight faculty positions over the spring and summer semesters of 2016, with all eight educators set to begin teaching this fall.

Including new and familiar faces across numerous disciplines, the group brings a wealth of experience to the School.

UGA Hugh Hodgson School of Music faculty and students will form the UGA Golden Age Band in Hodgson Concert Hall on August 25 at 7:30 p.m., taking the audience on a journey through American band music of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The concert, which is the joint kickoff to the School of Music’s Thursday Scholarship Series and the UGA Performing Arts Center’s (PAC) season, assembles a rare group under the baton of George Foreman, director of the PAC.

Luca Lombardi, a recent DMA graduate from the UGA Hugh Hodgson School of Music, will join the music faculty of the University of North Georgia (UNG) this semester.

Lombardi will become the Double Bass Instructor for UNG, and he will also teach String Methods, Music Appreciation and Music Fundamentals.

“I am excited to share ideas and experiences, collaborate with and learn from the esteemed faculty of the University of North Georgia,” said Lombardi

A native of Cremona, Italy, Lombardi’s young career is already decorated and expansive. 

Three students from the UGA Hugh Hodgson School of Music’s horn studio received numerous honors from the International Horn Society (IHS) in mid-June.

Duncan Robertson, Andrew Sehmann and Addison Whitney won all of the organization’s student awards, and at the 2016 IHS Symposium at Ithaca College in Ithaca, N.Y., they competed and placed in several competitions, received a private lesson from a featured artist and played in two master classes. The symposium was held from June 13-18.

Lillie Smith, a rising senior music education major at the UGA Hugh Hodgson School of Music, is in Anaheim, Calif., this summer as part of the Disneyland All-American College Band program. 

A Disneyland Resort tradition since 1971, the program gives top college musicians from across the United States the opportunity to perform and learn about the entertainment industry through performances at a Disney Theme Park, clinics with world-renowned artists and experiences in nearby Hollywood.

The UGA Hugh Hodgson School of Music is preparing a series of concerts for 2016-2017 that will offer audiences new, interesting ways to engage with the world-class music they’ve come to expect from the School: the Thursday Scholarship Series.

Formerly the Second Thursday Scholarship Series, the revamped concert series promises to make each concert into an event, with opportunities in and around the concert to deepen and enhance the experience of listening to the School of Music’s unparalleled talent in the world-class UGA Performing Arts Center.

Adam Frey (BMus ’97) was recently named Assistant Professor of Low Brass at the University of North Georgia.

Frey, who also studied at the Royal Northern College of Music and Salford University, becomes the director of UNG’s brass area in August and will teach trombone, euphonium, tuba, chamber music and brass choir.

John Hennecken, instructor at the UGA Hugh Hodgson School of Music, won a Harvey G. Phillips Award for Excellence in Composition at the International Tuba Euphonium Conference in Knoxville, Tenn., on June 2.

Hennecken’s work, “Sonata for Euphonium and Piano,” won in the “euphonium in a solo role” category. Hennecken described the piece as “an abstract drama in three movements.”

“I set out to write the best work I could imagine for the euphonium, and I feel vindicated and honored to receive this award from the tuba-euphonium community,” said Hennecken.

Talented young musicians from far and wide will converge on the UGA Hugh Hodgson School of Music from June 20-24 when the school hosts Flutissimo, an advanced, intensive workshop for flutists.

Now in its third year of operation, Flutissimo is hosted and organized by Angela Jones-Reus, professor of flute at the School of Music, and Katherine Isbill Emeneth, an alumna of the School of Music (B.Mus. ’07, M.M. ’10).

Yoonsook Song, DMA student at the UGA Hugh Hodgson School of Music, won second prize in the 2016 Salzburg Grand Prize Virtuoso International Music Competition’s piano competition, the Austrian competition’s organizational committee announced on May 24.

Song, who studies under Martha Thomas, UGA’s Despy Karlas Professor of Piano, submitted a recording earlier in the spring to the competition, and her second-place finish earned her an invitation to play with other winners in Salzburg this summer.