Blair Crescendo 2020

Photo by Joe Howell by John Pitcher It’s the end of an era at Blair. Mark Wait, the Martha Rivers Ingram Dean and professor of music, retired June 30. Blair was a relatively small institution when Wait took the helm in 1993. It had 19 full-time faculty who taught and… Read More

Kirsten Agresta Copely, adjunct associate professor of harp, released Around The Sun, an all-original new age harp album in January. It takes listeners on a journey through a 365-day cycle from “Daybreak” to “Winter’s Bone” with introspective melodies and ambient soundscapes. This marks her third solo album and first as… Read More

Undergraduate competition winners Max Randal, a rising senior piano performance major and computer science minor, was named the Tennessee Music Teachers Association Young Artist Collegiate Competition state winner in November 2019. Kaila Geisinger, a rising senior harp performance major, took second prize representing the Southeastern Region in the Advanced Division… Read More

Senior Sarah Clements sings—accompanied by sophomore Calendula Cheng at the keyboards—during the dress rehearsal for January’s concert A Humming Under My Feet. Photo by Joe Howell Many women encounter glass ceilings during their careers. For women composers, those ceilings are seemingly laminated and bulletproof. That’s especially true for women who… Read More

Photo by Elena Cherkashnya Look no further than Tom Mulder to sing the praises of ArtSmart, a nonprofit begun three years ago in which classical musicians provide free individualized music lessons to high school students in underserved communities. “There’s a power in that one-on-one relationship between a teacher and a… Read More

The opera The Ghosts of Gatsby, by Joshua McGuire, left, andEvan Mack, was staged in October at the Blair School. Photo by David Pike Many of history’s greatest musical collaborators have pursued a creative approach perhaps best described as “you wash, I’ll dry.” Mozart was more than happy to… Read More