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Double alumna Annie Booth (BM ’11, jazz piano performance and MM ’20, jazz performance + pedagogy) won the 2024 Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble Prize through the International Alliance for Women in Music for her piece for large jazz ensemble, “Cactus Blossom.”

Alumnus Kedrick Armstrong (MM ’23, orchestral conducting) received the Trailblazer Black Excellence Award from 100 Black Men of the Bay Area.

Emilie Bertram (DMA ’20, choral conducting + literature) was approved for tenure and promotion at Waldorf University.

(BME ’16 + Certificate in Music Technology) manages and directs the award-winning brass band Guerrilla Fanfare and the jazz trio Speak the Future; his compositions and arrangements are performed regularly with these ensembles. In December 2024, Brake was commissioned by Colorado Mesa University to write a piece that premiered at the 2024 Best of the West Festival in Grand Junction, Colorado, with Guerrilla Fanfare as guest artists. Brake’s original composition, “Collisions,” premiered in December 2024 at the Asteria Theater. Additionally, Brake is a member of the Mapleton Public Schools District Performing Arts Program teaching staff.

Top post-bop pianist Jeff Colella (’78) released Love Music (And It Will Love You Back)—a book about how we learn and understand music that turns some of the most sophisticated ideas in jazz philosophy into practical, accessible advice. In this collection of essays on a variety of musical topics—from improvisation and harmonic analysis to comping, time concepts, piano technique, phrasing and more—“it’s my hope that the book will prove helpful to musicians and teachers in general, regardless of instrument or stylistic preferences. I talk about how we learn, teach and perform the music we love,” Colella says.��

Sam Conner (BME ’22) is a recipient of the 2025 CMEA Outstanding Young Music Educator Award. Conner—who��plays cello and double bass—teaches orchestra��at six Green Mountain area schools within Jeffco Public Schools.����

Anoushka Divekar (BM, BME��’20)—a featured guest in the 2025 Colorado Clarinet Day this January, hosted by our College of Music—is assistant professor of music at Luther College, Iowa. The first-generation Indian-American clarinetist and educator is driven by a deep passion for music and a commitment to social justice.

In his Carnegie Hall debut, Raul Dominguez (DMA ’22, choral conducting + literature) conducted the world premiere of “Climate Mass” by Loretta K. Notareschi with text by Alyse Knorr. This spring, his arrangement of "Guadalajara"—set for TTBB chorus to be performed with a Mariachi ensemble or piano—was released by La Voz Music Publishing.

On Nov. 10, 2024, the Boulder Phil presented the world premiere of John Heins’ (MM ’82, composition + performance) “Moons of the Giants” at our Macky Auditorium. His composition—inspired by the moons of Saturn, Jupiter and Neptune—was complemented by Gustav Holst’s symphonic masterpiece “The Planets.”��

Gavin Kitchen (MM ’24, percussion) was awarded second place at the Vibraphone Project’s 2025 Spring VibeFest + Competition held at the Wells-Rapp Center for Mallet Percussion Research at Kutztown University.

In fall 2025, Er-Hsuan Li (DMA ’24, piano performance) will join the Montana State University faculty as assistant teaching professor of piano.

Sophie Mok (MM ’12, oboe performance) was named assistant conductor of the North Carolina Symphony.

Douglas T. Owens (BME ’83, MM ’86, trumpet performance) is professor of music at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia; as well as the Diehn Endowed Chair in Music, and the graduate program director and past chairperson of the F. Ludwig Diehn School of Music. Owens previously served as music department chair at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and on the music education faculty at the University of Southern Maine School of Music. Owens’ latest publication is “Interactive Composing in School Jazz Ensembles” in The Oxford Handbook of Music Composition Pedagogy.

On May 2, the Plein Air Sound Collective released “Weathering Steel.” The debut album of site-specific music recorded at the Tank Center for Sonic Arts comprises compositions and improvisations that explore the unique sonic properties of the steel tank using acoustic instruments, electronics, voices and other sounding objects. The ensemble is comprised entirely of CU Boulder College of Music alumni including Abby Kellems (MM ’24, composition), Gavin Kitchen (MM ’24, percussion), Veda Hingert-McDonald (MM ’23, violin), Jessie Lausé (MM ’23, composition), Nelson Walker (BM ’22, composition) and Jonathan Galle (BM ’19, violin).

Ashraf Sewailam (BM ’94, MM ’96, DMA ’08, vocal performance + pedagogy) joined Stanford University’s Department of Music as lecturer.

Max Stern (DMA ’89, composition) released “.” His 21st CD features works evoking biblical imagination, medieval Jewish poetic inspiration, contemporary realities, educational pieces, and Jewish and Latin-American folksongs.��