Among our graduate degree recipients before 2004 are the composers Eric Sawyer, Martha Horst, and Anne Guzzo; and musicologists Donna M. DiGrazia, Carol Hess, Don Meyer, John Palmer, Matthew Daines, Suzanne Jubenville, Mark Brill, and Paul Christiansen.
In summer 2017, Jonathan Spatola-Knoll took up residence at the Salzburg Festival as an awardee of the Vienna Philharmonic’s Ansbacher Fellowship for Young Conductors. He holds a master’s degree in conducting from UC Davis, where he has acted as the assistant conductor for both the symphony orchestra and chorus, and will soon complete his doctorate. He has also served on the faculty at Whitman College as director of orchestras.
Hendel Almétus received a Ph.D. in composition from UC Davis in 2012. He was born in Haiti where he began his musical training at the age of 12. He earned a bachelor’s in music composition from the Houston Baptist University and an master’s in composition from the Eastman School of Music.
Gabriel José Bolaños (b. 1984 Bogotá, Colombia) is a Nicaraguan-American composer of solo, chamber, orchestral and electronic music. He holds a PhD in composition from UC Davis and a BA from Columbia University. His principal composition teachers include Mika Pelo, Pablo Ortiz, Laurie San martin, Fabien Lévy and Sebastian Currier, and he studied orchestration with Tristan Murail. He likes to write music that explores unusual timbres and structures, and is interested in computer-assisted-composition, auditory perception and linguistics.
Chris Castro graduated in 2018 with a doctoral degree in composition from UC Davis. He holds a bachelor’s degree in composition and double bass from the Juilliard School.
Composer and Chinese flutist Yu-Hsin Chang is currently a Ph.D. candidate in music composition and theory at UC Davis. She received her previous degrees (MFA, BFA) from Taiwan. Her works include solo, chamber, and orchestral pieces for both Western and Chinese music instruments, and have been performed by soprano Tony Arnold, the Empyrean Ensemble, the Daedalus Quartet, the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, the Chai Found Music Workshop, and the Little Giant Chinese Chamber Orchestra.
Luis Chavez graduated with a Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology in 2018 from UC Davis. He holds the bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music from California State University, East Bay.
He currently lectures at Sacramento State University.
An alumnus of the Juilliard School, William David Cooper has enjoyed a diverse career as composer, conductor, and keyboardist.His music has been championed by Augustin Hadelich, the Juilliard Orchestra, Trio 180, the JACK Quartet, and the Lysander Trio, and has been performed at the Radio France Festival and the Wellesley Composers Conference. He has recently been commissioned by Soli Deo Gloria, and is currently writing Hagar and Ishmael, a two-act opera, that will premiere with members of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. In addition to positions on faculty at Purdue
David Dennen is assistant professor of Applied English at Chihlee University of Technology in Taipei, Taiwan. He received his Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from the University of California, Davis. He received his bachelor’s from the Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA, where he concentrated on ethnomusicology, cultural studies, and performance.
Anthony (Tony) Dumas is a Visiting Assistant Professor at the State University of New York, The College at Brockport where he teaches courses in both the Department of Theatre and Music Studies and the Delta College Program. Previously, Dr. Dumas has taught at UC Davis, Woodland Community College, St. Lawrence University, and SUNY Potsdam.
Ben Irwin holds master’s degrees in composition and clarinet performance from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and a bachelor’s degree in music from Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota.
Sarah Lappas received her Ph.D. in 2013 in Ethnomusicology with research interests in African American and African popular music, music and violence, multispatial criminalization, indexicality, and musico-racial signification.
Sarah Messbauer has been a graduate student at UC Davis since the fall of 2011. She graduated from Muhlenberg College in the spring of 2011, receiving a Bachelor’s degree with honors in anthropology and music. While at Muhlenberg, she received the Louise M. Cafouros Award for distinguished scholarship in the field of anthropology, as well as the Class of 1969 Award for Promising Work in the Field of Music.
David Möschler is an award-winning San Francisco Bay Area-based musical director and conductor. He has music-directed over one hundred musical theater, opera, and theater productions, and conducted over eightypieces for orchestra, including over two dozen first performances.
Garrett Rigsby is a conductor based in Kansas City, Missouri. He is currently the Assistant Conductor of the Conservatory Orchestra and Chamber Orchestra at the University of Missouri–Kansas City’s Conservatory of Music and Dance. He has conducted fully staged productions with the UMKC Opera Theatre. He recently was the Barbara K. Jackson Fellow in Conducting at the University of California, Davis where he served as the Assistant Conductor of the UC Davis Symphony Orchestra and UC Davis University Chorus and Alumni Chorus.
