Dear Friends,
Thank you for your
interest in the Department of Music at Utah State University! We’ve had an exciting Fall semester,
and are excited about the possibilities we envision for Utah State’s new Caine
College of the Arts.
As spring approaches, our
focus now turns to working with potential incoming students. If you think USU
may be the place for you to continue your music education, I encourage you to set
up an audition. You can find all the audition application information you need
under the “future students” section of this website, including audition
requirements and audition dates. If you're not sure that USU is the place for
you, I hope you'll accept my invitation to attend one of our concerts. Whether
you hear one of our flagship student ensembles such as the Symphony Orchestra,
Chamber Singers or Wind Orchestra, a concert of our new American Festival
Chorus and Orchestra, or a faculty recital or chamber concert, you will soon
make the decision to move Utah State very high on your list of schools. A complete
list of the department's performances appears at the “upcoming events” link at
left. If you cannot make it to Logan for a concert, you can get a glimpse of
Utah State's music department by watching this video.
With the new semester has also come 3 new faculty and
staff members. We are happy to
welcome Bradley Ottesen, lecturer and violist for the Fry Street Quartet,
Deborah Heckert, Visiting Assistant Professor of Music History, and Elaine
Olson, Staff Assistant Lead.
Bradley Ottesen, viola, comes to Logan from Canada, following four
seasons as Assistant Principal Viola with the Calgary Phi\lharmonic
Orchestra. Previously he has been
based in Boston, Massachusetts, and enjoyed a career as performer and teacher
throughout New England. Mr. Ottesen has appeared with the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, New World Symphony,
Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, New England String Ensemble, Hartford
Symphony, Portland Symphony, and the Rhode Island Philharmonic. He has performed under the direction of
conductors Daniel Barenboim, Pierre Boulez, Michael Tilson-Thomas, Seiji Ozawa,
and the late Mistlav Rostropovich.
Mr. Ottesen holds a Master’s degree from the New England Conservatory
and a Bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University. His primary teachers have been James Dunham, Peter Slowik,
and William Preucil, Sr. During
his time at NEC he studied chamber music with renowned pedagogue Eric
Rosenblith and has worked with members of the Cleveland, Julliard, and Muir
string quartets.
Deborah Heckert was awarded a Ph.D. in musicology from
Stony Brook University, where her dissertation explored the British revival of
the masque in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. She has been a
visiting professor of music history at the University of Virginia and Stony
Brook University. She has contributed essays to the recent volume Elgar and His World and the
forthcomingBritish Music and
Modernism, 1901-1939. She has presented papers at the Annual Meeting of the
American Musicological Society, the Biennial Conference on Music in
Nineteenth-Century Britain, and the biennial NABMSA Conference. A recipient of
the Ralph Vaughan Williams Fellowship and of a fellowship at the Yale Center
for British Art, her current research interests focus on the intersections
between British music and the visual arts, British modernism in the early
decades of the twentieth century, and the role of history in the identity
politics of the English Musical Renaissance.
I hope that these simple web pages serve to provide you
with a glimpse of our department and, particularly if you are considering
joining our community as a student, with helpful information as you consider
opportunities to continue your education. If there is any information that you
cannot find, simply email music@usu.edu, and one of my staff will assist you.
I hope you will decide to
visit us very soon!
Sincerely,
Craig Jessop, DMA
Department Head