Boston University Music Education

08/05/2026

School of Music in the News! Featured in The Boston Globe, BU is highlighted as doubling down on art. Even as other colleges pivot to more career-oriented programs, BU is betting on galleries, performance venues, and other arts programming. Read the article linked below!

Even as other colleges pivot to more career-oriented programs, the university is betting on galleries, performance venues, and other arts programming.

07/29/2026

Boston University Tanglewood Institute Celebrates its 60th Anniversary! As a premier summer program of BU College of Fine Arts, BUTI has spent six decades nurturing talented young musicians through exceptional music education, mentorship, and performance opportunities. The anniversary not only celebrates its remarkable legacy but also looks ahead with expanded scholarships and campus improvements to ensure future generations of musicians can thrive. Read more here: https://www.bu.edu/articles/2026/tanglewood-institutes-60th-anniversary/!

Celebration this weekend will include concerts and a gala

06/23/2026

CREATIVES IN PRACTICE: Musician, writer, teacher, scholar, and podcaster Dan DiPiero specializes in cultural studies and popular music. This past spring, DiPiero, assistant professor of music in musicology & ethnomusicology at Boston University School of Music, presented new research at highly respected conferences and at ✨the✨ Rock & Roll Hall of Fame! 🤘

At the Rock Hall in Cleveland, Ohio, DiPiero spoke about research conducted for his second book, "Big Feelings: Q***r and Feminist Indie Rock After Riot Grrrl." 📖

“The talk centered on the wave of contemporary q***r and feminist indie rock bands who have been remaking the genre in the past decade, including groups like Soccer Mommy, Indigo De Souza, and the Ophelias,” explained DiPiero, whose book situates these musicians in essential socio-cultural contexts, and shows how indie rock feminisms have shifted since the 1990s, rejecting overt political messages in favor of sonic catharsis, and reflecting the complex, ambivalent feeling of being young while the world burns.

In CFA’s Creatives in Practice series, DiPiero shares forthcoming projects he’s working on, including his third book, tentatively called Crush: Essays on Love and Music, and how he applies what he learns on the road and as a musician to the courses he teaches at Boston University. Fairly new to the New England region, DiPiero also highlights how exciting it has been to live in an arts-rich city like Boston. 🎶 🌆

Read Q&A in CFA News ➡️ http://spr.ly/6180BDjexA

06/17/2026

Are you a K-12 Music Educator with an Initial License? Do you want to go back to school with your students in the Fall and begin earning your Masters in Music Education online? There is still plenty of time to get your application in. Start here and reach out and we will help you through it!

At the Boston University School of Music, we proudly offer three online music education programs designed for working educators. Whether you’re local, living in Boston, or across the world, we promise you an online degree from BU will be a valuable asset to your scholarly toolkit, providing you wi...

05/28/2026

NEWS: Join CFA in congratulating Boston University Professor Lynne Allen for her appointment as interim dean of the College! 👏 As Dean Harvey Young prepares to conclude his service on June 30, internationally recognized artist and scholar Lynne Allen steps back into the role effective July 1.

Allen, professor of art, printmaking, chair of print media and photography; former director of BU School of Visual Arts; and a 2025 Guggenheim Fellow, also served as CFA interim dean in 2015–2017, when she was Young’s immediate predecessor.

“Serving as interim dean nearly 10 years ago was a responsibility I took very seriously, and I approach this opportunity with the same commitment,” Allen says. “I’m humbled and honored by the confidence placed in me and by the opportunity to work alongside the many talented people at CFA. I really believe in the faculty and the staff at the College of Fine Arts." ❤️

As interim dean, Allen plans to maintain and grow Dean Young's programs, while paving the way for the next dean. At the same time, Allen will continue to teach in the Print Media & Photography program, a firm believer that "you can’t really be a good leader if you don’t know what the students are thinking.”

Read more about Allen's appointment in BU Today ➡️ http://spr.ly/6186B8Hwbj

05/06/2026

NEWS: Disney producer, master storyteller, Academy Award winner, and now CFA Convocation speaker 🎞️🏆🎓 CFA is thrilled to welcome Boston University alum Roy Conli (CFA'87)—Oscar-winning producer and fearless creative champion—as the 2026 CFA Convocation speaker! 👏

Long-time producer at Walt Disney Animation Studios, Conli is behind some of Disney's most adventurous and heartfelt movies including The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Treasure Planet, Tangled, Big Hero 6, and Disney’s upcoming Hexed, with Hailee Steinfeld and Rashida Jones among the cast. 🎬

In 2015, Conli joined the Disneynature team, sharing his talents to help support the brand’s narrative style. Since 2022, Conli has produced the yearly Disneynature releases of Polar Bear, Tiger, The Sealions of Galapagos, and Orangutan. 🍃

A California native, Conli is a graduate of Boston University CFA School of Theatre, where he earned his MFA degree. 🎭

On Saturday, May 16, Conli returns to Terrier Town to address the Class of 2026 graduates at the 2026 CFA Convocation ceremony. To our graduates, families, and friends joining us that day, get ready for an afternoon of inspiring stories from Conli and what it takes to create magic. ✨

More in CFA News ➡️ http://spr.ly/6184BBMaHs

04/29/2026

BU Assistant Professor of Music Education recently published "Entangled Voicings: Rethinking Voice, Reflexivity, and Discomfort in Qualitative Inquiry" in the journal Qualitative Inquiry. Congratulations Dr. Bylica!

Qualitative inquiry often positions voice as something that can be clarified or protected through reflexive practice. Feminist and post-structural critiques have challenged these assumptions, yet methodological discourse frequently returns to reflexivity as ethical reassurance. This article offers an alternative by conceptualizing voice as relational, structurally conditioned, and unsettled. Drawing on arts-based and educational research encounters, I introduce entangled voicings as a feminist methodological orientation that frames expression and silence as co-produced through shifting positionalities, institutional authority, and affective conditions beyond researcher control. The article offers methodological provocations that position discomfort, silence, and vulnerability as necessary epistemic conditions.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/10778004261440857

04/23/2026

IMPACT: “I experienced firsthand what it’s like to grow up in a rural area with little access to music education and the arts, and how that can really impact someone. Going forward, I just want to be able to give back.” Those are the words of pianist, Boston University School of Music BM piano performance major, and most recently Kahn Award winner, Carlo Balmoria (CFA'26). 👏 🎹 🎶

Carlo will use the $20,000 he received last week as the winner of the 2026 CFA Esther B. and Albert S. Kahn Career Entry Award to change the lives of young musicians in rural Willard, Ohio, a town with a population of 6,100, and where his mother grew up. Carlo plans to open a teaching studio and start a series of lectures and recitals.

The Esther B. and Albert S. Kahn Career Entry Award Fund was established in 1985 with an endowed contribution of $1 million from Esther Kahn (Wheelock’55, Hon.’86). Finalists are chosen based on proposals they submit detailing how they would use the award to launch their careers and make an impact. 🚀 Carlo was the grand prize winner, and the five finalists, who each received $2,500, were Aija Reke (CFA’15,’26), Sydney Jackson (CFA’26), Nichole Man (CFA’26), Tyler Best (CFA’26), and Kal Lee (CFA’26).

“These are six really interesting individual stories, six people with goals that I know I didn’t have as well-formed as they do, when I was 21 or 22,” said Boston Pops conductor Keith Lockhart, who was one of the three award judges, at the event. "These are amazing plans, which does my heart good. They have to do with putting good things back into the world, and not just your own personal accomplishment. We need more people like you.” ❤️

Read more about the 2026 Kahn Award recipients ➡️ http://spr.ly/6185BB1Bq7

04/15/2026

Music Educators! Would you like to take an intensive week long summer course at Boston University? Online and in-person options available.
https://www.bu.edu/summer/courses/music/?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=257236971&gbraid=0AAAAAD9VUtFfw9IBUkOnhar7DXYkwE5FV&gclid=CjwKCAjw7vzOBhBxEiwAc7WNrwxHrW68D6g1tib7tn6vkaW_k8qAcQo5EQUzPPQ4eXuu2MtrDDR3QhoCcSoQAvD_BwE

04/08/2026

Carnegie Hall Shines a Spotlight on BU School of Music Students

Carnegie Hall is to classical music what LaScala and the Metropolitan Opera are to opera singers and what Radio City Music Hall is to the Rockettes. Since its opening in 1891, such luminaries as Pablo Casals, Richard Strauss, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Marian Anderson, and Duke Ellington have graced its stages.

And now nine College of Fine Arts School of Music students can add their names to that storied roster. On March 24, the BU singers and musicians performed on the stage of Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall as this year’s Boston University Spotlight featured artists. The annual showcase drew a crowd of students, faculty, alumni, and local concert goers.

The musicians—violinist Jisoo Kim (CFA’30), tubaist Grayson Hinrichs (CFA’27), violist Freya Downey (CFA’26), tenor ShuangXiang Shan (CFA’26), pianist Yifang Xu (CFA’29), flutist Ying Jin (CFA’27), violinist Andy OuYang (CFA’29), tenor Heming Cao (CFA’27), and pianist Ethan McGrath (CFA’29)—performed an exciting program of works by contemporary composers, including Joan Tower, Claire Sievers, and Young Jo Lee. (Franz Liszt was the one 19th-century composer included). Each of this year’s selected performers had participated in a multistage competition run by the School of Music. Finalists selected from each department (voice, keyboards, strings, and woodwinds/brass/percussion) then competed before a panel of outside judges, all renowned musicians. Michelle LaCourse, a CFA associate professor of music and chair of strings, served as Spotlight Concert artistic director.

Photographer Tom Tranfaglia was on hand to capture the students’ virtuosic performances. Take a look here:

Photos capture a dazzling evening of solos performed by competition winners