David Zerkel, professor of tuba and euphonium at the UGA Hugh Hodgson School of Music, was recently awarded the International Tuba Euphonium Association’s (ITEA) inaugural Teaching Award.

Recognizing exceptional achievement in teaching, the award requires a minimum of ten years of teaching euphonium and/or tuba and letters of support from colleagues, current students and former students. Zerkel was selected by vote of the ITEA Board of Directors.

The UGA Symphony Orchestra (UGASO) performs works from Manuel de Falla, Mendelssohn and Mozart in Hodgson Concert Hall on Thursday, March 31, at 8 p.m.

Conducted by Mark Cedel, director of the UGASO, and assistant conductor Claudine Gamache, doctoral conducting student, the UGA Hugh Hodgson School of Music’s premier orchestral ensemble opens its program with the overture to Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro.”

The Hodgson Wind Ensemble’s (HWE) penultimate spring concert comes to Hodgson Concert Hall on Tuesday, March 29, at 8 p.m.

The ensemble, conducted by Dr. Cynthia Johnston Turner, director of bands at the UGA Hugh Hodgson School of Music, will perform a program pulling from the 20th century works of composers Donald Grantham, Gustav Holst, Serge Lancen, Joseph Schwantner and John Williams.

Downtown Athens, well-known as a cradle of new and daring music, will play host to three music acts with direct lineages stretching as far back as the 19th century, with “A Night at the Morton: Celebrating American Roots Music” at the Morton Theatre on Tuesday, March 29, at 7 p.m.

The McIntosh County Shouters, The Skillet Lickers and Tony Bryant will perform music that laid the foundations for most, if not all, of the musical styles that have emerged in America. The event begins—and began—with a man who is connected to all the performers.

The brass area at the UGA Hugh Hodgson School of Music recently received good news on a few fronts, beginning with the 2016 National Trumpet Competition.

Held at Columbus State University in Columbus, Ga., the event saw two UGA ensembles advance to the semi-finals of their competition: the UGA Trumpet Quintet (Dan Price, Tyler Jones, Victoria Bethel, Yanbin Chen and Deborah Caldwell) and the UGA Trumpet Octet (Michael Meo, Ben Otieno, Lillie Smith, Robert Chambers, Geoff Wood, Tyer Jesko, Emmy Johnston and Joel Garcia).

Many of UGA’s 35,000 students traveled somewhere over spring break, but most didn’t leave the country. Fewer still crossed the Atlantic Ocean. Only six flew to Nairobi, then took a seven-hour van ride to Eldoret, Kenya, to teach music. 

A group of eight from the UGA Hugh Hodgson School of Music’s music education and piano performance areas are in Africa from March 10-21, setting up distance learning and orchestra programs for a fledgling music department in western Kenya.

The final Hugh Hodgson Faculty Series recital of the season brings Shakhida Azimkhodjaeva, violin faculty at the UGA Hugh Hodgson School of Music, to the Ramsey Concert Hall stage on Thursday, March 24, at 8 p.m.

Accompanied by fellow School of Music faculty member Evgeny Rivkin, professor of piano, Azimkhodjaeva will perform works from a number of 19th and 20th century Russian composers.

Martha Thomas, a Hugh Hodgson School of Music professor at the University of Georgia, has been named the second recipient of the Despy Karlas Professorship in Piano, which was established by friends and admirers of the late UGA music professor.

The UGA Hugh Hodgson School of Music will host two Midwestern musical talents when Robert White and Helen Lukan perform in Edge Recital Hall on Tuesday, March 23, at 11:15 a.m.

White, assistant professor of trumpet at Western Michigan University, is a member of the Western Brass Quintet – one of the United States’ oldest established professional brass chamber ensembles. White maintains an active career as an orchestral, chamber, commercial, and solo trumpeter and has played with numerous notable ensembles, including the Detroit, Grand Rapids and Milwaukee Symphonies.

Nach Saxophone Quartet from the UGA Hugh Hodgson School of Music has advanced in two significant, national competitions for saxophone quartet and woodwind chamber music.  

Coached by Connie Frigo, associate professor of saxophone at the School of Music, the quartet members are performance majors Rick Firestone, soprano, a first year master’s student; Caroline Halleck, alto, a junior; Hassan High, tenor, a senior; and Charlie Young, a first year doctoral student.