Music faculty named 2026–27 Rutgers–NB Laureate
Min Kwon, head of piano and professor in the Music Department, has been named Rutgers–New Brunswick Laureate. Kwon will hold the Laureate position through the 2026–27 academic year.
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Saxophone student named a “Rising Star” by Jersey Jazz magazine
Jazz Studies student Kristin Field received the designation in the magazine’s March 2026 issue.
Brandon Williams prepares Glee Club for performances abroad
Faculty Brandon Williams says he realized early on that “music takes work.”
Alum’s album translates bioelectrical signals from plants into music
Music alum Brent Chancellor (MM’21) speaks to NPR about his latest album, featuring music rooted in data collected from plants at a Lewiston, NY, park.
Nancy Yunhwa Rao named Board of Governors Professor of Music
The Rutgers Board of Governors acknowledged Rao’s “award-winning scholarship on a wide array of topics, including gender and music, sketch studies, musical modernism, cultural fusion and racial representation.”
Watch the Chamber Jazz 1 Ensemble perform on WBGO
Jazz radio station WBGO 88.3/Newark Public Radio invited several students to New York City to record selections that aired in April, as part of the station’s Jazz Appreciation Month celebration.
Jazz student named 2025 Quilting Water Undergraduate Prize winner
Undergrad Brandon Mejia will be part of Quilting Water, an international public art initiative that seeks to prompt artists and scholars to consider the relationship between ecological justice and racial justice.
Alum composes funeral march performed at ceremonies honoring former President Carter
Andrew Kosinski (BM’20) composed a hymn that has been performed by military bands in the nation’s capital at least four times this week as the country has honored and mourned the 39th president.
Nancy Yunhwa Rao: Honorary member of American Musicological Society
Rao has been honored “for her contributions to musicology, in particular her achievements in fostering cross-cultural dialogue between Anglophone music studies and music research in Chinese-speaking lands, as well as her efforts to bridge the divide between musicology and her home discipline of music theory.”
Jazz student to be inducted into national first-generation honor society
Brandon Mejia, who is on track to graduate in May 2025 with majors in jazz performance and information technology, will serve as one of the speakers at an induction ceremony for Tri-Alpha, the national first-generation honor society.