The Department of Music is very pleased to announce that Frank Hammond, our intrepid Jazz Studies Program Assistant, has won the Orosz Award for Excellence in Emerging Leadership. The Orosz Award recognizes Dietrich School and College of General Studies staff members in the early stages of their careers who have exhibited excellence in their performance and displayed leadership qualities among their peers.

Faculty members Adriana Helbig (Ethnomusicology) and Michael Heller (Jazz Studies) are among 78 recipients selected nationally as 2018 American Council of Learned Society Fellows. Peer reviewers selected the fellows from a pool of nearly 1,150 applicants. Awards range from $40,000 to $70,000, depending on the scholar’s career stage, and support scholars for six to twelve months of full-time research and writing.

Dr. Nathan Davis, founder and director of the Jazz Studies Program and a Pitt faculty member from 1969 to 2013, passed away April 9, 2018, in Palm Beach, Florida, at age 81.  In 2017, he was named to the International Academy Jazz Hall of Fame, which he created to honor the great musicians with whom he had performed and many of whom he brought to campus in the Annual Pitt Jazz Seminar and Concert.

The Department of Music is pleased to announce three upcoming doctoral dissertation defenses. Graduate Faculty of the University may attend and participate in the examination. All Music graduate students are invited. All defenses will take place in 114 Music Building.