Albin J. Zak III
Department Chair
Associate Professor

Dr. Albin J. Zak, III is Associate Professor of Musicology, Chair, and Undergraduate Director for the Department of Music. Prior to coming to the University at Albany, he served for seven years on the faculty of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. His scholarly interests include jazz, rock, and concert music of the twentieth century, history and practice of sound recording, and twentieth-century U.S. cultural history. He earned dual Bachelor of Music degrees at the New England Conservatory in Composition and Contemporary Improvisation, and a Master of Music in Composition. He earned the Ph.D. in Musicology from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. His publications include The Velvet Underground Companion (Schirmer Books), The Poetics of Rock: Cutting Tracks, Making Records (University of California Press), "Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix: Juxtaposition and Transformation 'All along the Watchtower'” (Journal of the American Musicological Society), and the forthcoming “I Don’t Sound Like Nobody”: Remaking Music in 1950s America (University of Michigan Press). Professor Zak is also a songwriter, performer, and record producer. His records include In the Hurricane, Across the Brazos, By the Side of the Road, An Average Day, and the forthcoming Waywardness and Inspiration.

David M. Janower
Professor
Director of Choral Studies

David Griggs-Janower, conductor, is Director of Choral Music and Professor at the University at Albany, State University of New York, where he has taught since 1981.

Griggs-Janower was also the Music Director of the Berkshire Bach Society in Great Barrington, Massachusetts from 1992-1994, the first conductor and a frequent guest conductor of the St. Cecilia Orchestra, the guest conductor of Albany's Mendelssohn Club in the spring of 1985, the Choir Director at First Presbyterian Church of Albany from 1981-1996, Guest Conductor of the Guilderland High School District Choral Festival in 2000, and Guest Conductor at First Reformed Church of Schenectady for a brief time in 2000-2001, and most recently the Invited Guest Conductor of the NYACDA/NYSSMA Directors Chorus, summer 2008. He has conducted several New York State area All-State Choral Festivals.

Griggs-Janower did undergraduate and masters work in music theory and music history at Cornell University. He holds the Master of Music and Doctor of Music degrees in conducting from the Indiana University School of Music, where he studied with Dr. Julius Herford, Fiora Contino, and Margaret Hillis. He has been on the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and Visiting Artist/Guest Conductor at Williams College and Skidmore College (twice). Griggs-Janower served on the staff of the Aspen Music Festival Choral Institute for ten seasons and on the staff of the Oregon Bach Festival under Helmuth Rilling for seven summers.

In August 2003, Griggs-Janower was named Outstanding Conductor of the Year by the New York State American Choral Directors Association. He also received two awards in the spring of 2002. The University at Albany established a new faculty award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activity, and he was the first recipient. Several weeks later he was given the award of the same title from the State University of New York, chosen from among the faculty of all 64 campuses. Griggs-Janower was honored in 1999 with the Albany-Schenectady League of Arts Award for his outstanding contribution to the Capital Region community through the creation, presentation, and support of the arts.

Active in the professional organizations in his field, Griggs-Janower served for two years as the American Choral Directors Association's Eastern Division Chair of the Repertory and Standards Committee for College and University Choirs, and he continues to serve on the ACDA's National Research and Publications Committee and the Research Monographs Subcommittee. He is currently the Chair of the Committee on Repertory and Standards for Community Choruses for NYS ACDA. He is a frequent contributor to The Choral Journal, writing on a diverse group of composers, including Bach, Bruckner, Mendelssohn, and American composers William Grant Still and George F. Bristow. Griggs-Janower has appeared as conductor or clinician at seven ACDA conventions and two NYSSMA (New York State School Music Association) summer conferences, as well as at the NCCO (National Collegiate Choral Organization) Conference, October 2008. With Albany Pro Musica and with the University Chamber Singers, Griggs-Janower has produced nine CDs and has led nine concert tours to Europe and Central America. He also leads the UAlbany University-Community Chorale.

Working meticulously over several years, David Griggs-Janower undertook the massive task of editing the manuscript of Bristow's Oratorio of Daniel from microfilm, which was tucked away in the New York Public Library, making a modern performing edition. Part I of The Oratorio of Daniel was performed in 1995 at the University at Albany as part of its tricentennial celebrations. Daniel was performed in its entirety for the first time since 1878 by Albany Pro Musica under the direction of Griggs-Janower in 1997. His critical and performing edition of Bristow's 1866 oratorio was published in 1999 by A-R Editions in its prestigious Recent Researches in American Music series. The work received two performances in 2004-2005, one in Germany, and Albany Pro Musica’s CD of the work was aired on Raleigh, North Carolina public radio in February, 2004.

Max Lifchitz
Professor

Max Lifchitz is active as a composer, performer, arts administrator, and educator. A graduate of The Juilliard School and Harvard University, he was invited to join the University at Albany faculty in 1986. Previously, he held teaching appointments at the Manhattan School of Music and Columbia University. In addition to teaching a variety of music courses and general education offerings, Lifchitz has served as Chair of both the University's Music Department and the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Department, where he holds a joint appointment. In the spring of 2005, he was honored with an Excellence in Research Award.

His creative endeavors have been supported by grants and fellowships from the ASCAP Foundation; the Ford Foundation; the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation; Meet the Composer, Inc.; The University of Michigan Society of Fellows; the CAPS Program of New York State; and the National Endowment for the Arts. As a pianist, Lifchitz was awarded the first prize in the 1976 Gaudeamus Competition for Performers of Contemporary Music held in Holland. His concert appearances throughout Latin America have been underwritten by the Fund for US Artists at International Festivals.

Lifchitz is the founder and artistic director of North/South Consonance, Inc., a non-profit 501(c)3 organization based in New York City devoted to the promotion and performance of music by composers from the Americas. Active since 1980, the North/South Consonance Ensemble has received grants from, among others, the Aaron Copland Fund, the Yvar Mikhashoff Fund for New Music, the Cary Trust, the New York State Council for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts. It has also received contributions from several corporations and numerous individual donors. North/South Consonance, Inc. sponsors an annual concert series in New York City featuring new chamber music from the Americas and has issued thirty-five compact discs on the North/South Recordings label.

Lifchitz is represented as composer, pianist, and conductor on several CD and LP albums issued by the Classic Masters, CRI, Finnadar, New World, North/South, Opus One, Philips, RCA Victor, and Vienna Modern Masters labels.

Reed J. Hoyt
Associate Professor

Reed Hoyt studied composition, theory, and piano with Brazilian composer Burle Marx and composition with Richard Hoffman, George Rochberg, and Richard Wernick. After graduating from the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music, he received the Ph.D. in Theory and Composition from the University of Pennsylvania, where his advisor was Eugene Narmour. He studied viola with Leonard Mogill and William Berman and conducting with Richard Wernick. He previously coordinated the theory programs at Olivet College and Tulane University, where he also served as the conductor of the orchestra and later as Acting Chair. His articles have been published in such journals as The Musical Quarterly, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, In Theory Only, and Indiana Theory Review. He is completing a book on Beethoven's symphonies.

Robert J. Gluck
Associate Professor
Director of Electronic Music Studio

Nancy Newman
Assistant Professor

Musicologist Nancy Newman joined our faculty in 2005 after teaching appointments at Tufts and Wesleyan. Dr. Newman specializes in European and American musical practices since 1800, with an emphasis on the relationship between art music and popular culture. Her primary research is on the nineteenth-century immigrant orchestra, The Germania Musical Society. Articles on the ensemble have appeared in the Yearbook of German American Studies (1999) and the Institute for Studies in American Music Newsletter (2003). Her book, Good Music for a Free People: The Germania Musical Society’s Transatlantic Journey is under consideration for the University of Rochester Press series, Eastman Studies in Music.

Dr. Newman's other areas of interest include film music and gender studies. An affiliate of the Department of Women’s Studies, she has given conference papers on Bjork's contribution to Dancer in the Dark , the composer-performer Clara Wieck Schumann, and the role of women in 19-th–century American concert life. Her article on the 1950s musical, The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T , “’We’ll Make a Paderewski of You Yet!’” appears in Lowering the Boom: New Essays on the History, Theory and Practice of Film Sound (University of Illinois Press, 2008).

Fellowships and awards for Dr. Newman’s research have been granted by the American Antiquarian Society, the Music Library Association, American Musicological Society-New England, and the John Nicholas Brown Center at Brown University. Her educational background includes degrees from the University of Chicago and Brown University, where she worked with Rose Subotnik, a leading expert on the critical theorist Theodor Adorno. An active performer of electro-acoustic music for piano and other keyboards, Dr. Newman has been a member of several West African drumming and Indonesian gamelan ensembles. She is currently working on repertory for the toy piano.

Duncan J. Cumming
Assistant Professor

Duncan J. Cumming , now in his fourth year on the faculty of the University at Albany, has performed concertos, recitals, and chamber music concerts in cities across the United States as well as in Europe. The Kennedy Center in Washington, DC; Merkin Hall and Carnegie Recital Hall in New York City; and the Wallenstein Palace in Prague, Czech Republic are among the concert halls in which he has appeared. This past season he traveled to New England, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia for solo recitals, outreach concerts for children, and Capital Trio performances. In November, he hosted and performed in "Youth Movements," a festival he organized at the University at Albany; and in March, he organized the "Piano Roles Festival." In 2009, he received a grant to record music of Mozart and Weber on Weber’s own 1812 Brodmann fortepiano, in the possession of Christopher Hogwood in Cambridge, England. And in addition to preparing for this recording, he will have a concert tour of the United Kingdom this fall as well. A recent review describes his playing as “technically flawless…thoughtful, deliberate and balanced, without a wasted gesture or any histrionics, rather like Rachmaninoff.” His new book, The Fountain of Youth: The Artistry of Frank Glazer, came out in 2009.

Born near the Canadian border in Presque Isle, Maine, Cumming graduated Phi Beta Kappa with highest honors from Bates College in 1993, where he studied with Frank Glazer. In 1994, he received a full scholarship from the European Mozart Foundation and participated in intense chamber music study and performance at the European Mozart Academy in Prague. Upon his return to America, he studied with Patricia Zander at the New England Conservatory where he received his Master of Music degree in 1996. In May of 2003, he graduated with the Doctor of Music degree from Boston University.

In 2002, Cumming joined the faculty of the Boston University Tanglewood Institute where he continues to teach, coach chamber music, and perform as Assistant Director of the Young Artists Piano Program. This past summer, he took over as the director when an illness forced the director to leave just days into the program. Before accepting the position at the University at Albany, he was a member of the faculty at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. He has lectured, given master classes, and served on juries for competitions in addition to his performing and teaching. Known for his innovative and carefully constructed programs, Cumming often presents informal commentary to the audience on the music he plays. He has commissioned, premiered, and recorded new works for solo piano, violin and piano, and piano trio. He performs frequently with his wife Hilary, violinist and adjunct professor of violin at the University at Albany. With the cellist Şölen Dikener, they make up the Capital Piano Trio, the new ensemble in residence at the University at Albany. Duncan and Hilary have two daughters, Lucy Rose and Mairi Sky, and a son, William Bear.

Victoria von Arx
Assistant Professor

Victoria von Arx is assistant professor of music at the University at Albany where she teaches music history, music theory, piano and chamber music. She is currently working on a book for publication on the teaching of Claudio Arrau. Her article on the history of the Third Street Music School Settlement is forthcoming. She was recently invited to perform in Weill Recital Hall in New York City in the Annual Recital of the Adamant Music School. Brought up in southeastern Minnesota, she received the B. Mus. Ed. from Viterbo University (LaCrosse Wl), a M. Mus. Performance from Syracuse University and Ph. D. Musicology from City University of New York. Her major teachers have included Frederick Marvin, Oxana Yablonskaya, Sascha Gorodnitzki, German Diez, and Menahem Pressler. A long-time resident of New York State and New York City, she served on the faculties of Syracuse University, the Metropolitan School for the Arts in Syracuse, the Third Street Music School Settlement in New York City and the Adamant Music School in Vermont. She now serves on the Executive Committee for the Adamant Music School. During a seven-year stint in Michigan, she taught at the Flint School of Performing Arts and the University of Michigan-Flint. She was also Assistant Editor at MUSA (Music in the United States of America), a project of the American Musicological Society in cooperation with the Society for American Music, A-R Editions, and the University of Michigan, and dedicated to the publication of American music. She has been a contributing author to the International Dictionary of Black Composers published by the Center for Black Music Studies at Columbia College in Chicago.

Click links for bios.

Richard Albagli is the Director of the University Percussion Ensemble.

Ellen J. Burns is our Music Librarian. When not shelving books or cataloging CDs and scores, Dr. Burns is actively engaged in research and teaching.

Kevin Champagne is the Director of the University-Community Symphonic Band and the UAlbany Pep Band.

David Hosley is the Director of the University Jazz Ensemble.

Christopher David Neubert is the Director of the University-Community Symphony Orchestra.

Mezzo-soprano Frances Pallozzi Wittmann is our vocal instructor.

Nicholas Conway was born and raised in Albany, NY. He has been teaching Hip Hop Music and Culture, a course he and a colleague devised, since the fall of 2003 at both Trinity College and Yale University. He currently DJs at Noche Lounge in Albany and writes hip hop reviews for undergroundhiphop.com.

Piano accompanist Gordon Hibberd, a native of Ohio, received an undergraduate degree from the Eastman School of Music, going on to post-graduate study in New York City at the Manhattan School of Music.

Kent Shultz is our piano tuner.

Bernadette Socha is our Department Secretary. Prior to her appointment to the Music Department, Ms. Socha worked in the Bursar's Office at UAlbany. She earned a B.A. in Music Theory from UAlbany in 2003 and an A.A.S. in Human Services from Schenectady County Community College in 1992. Ms. Socha is also our WEBMASTER.