From many sources we learn that Brandeis University proposes to place its PhD programs in composition and musicology on hiatus “until financial conditions improve,” according to Assistant Professor Emily Frey Giansiracusa’s account in Slipped Disc of Provost Carol Fierke’s pronouncement. Current candidates will be able to complete their work, and no faculty will be let go. Will the University’s bottom line take the slightest notice of this? Will the Lydian Quartet be shrunk to a trio? Is this what the President Liebowitz called “a lean into science”? Will science studies actually benefit? Our correspondents think not. Is this the beginning of an assault on the Arts?

The directors of beloved institutions don’t always make the best decisions. Community hue and cry did not save Boston’s magnificent Opera House from Northeastern University’s wrecking ball, though powerful artistic opinion-makers managed to reverse Emerson College’s intention to morph Clarence Blackall’s stunning and historic Colonial Theater into a college dining hall. In 2009, when Brandeis University president Jehuda Reinharz promulgated plans to close the school’s Rose Museum of Arts and plunder its collection, it took a successful lawsuit to prevent that philistinism. One has to wonder why the arts are the first to be cut and the last to be restored these days. It was not so at the formation of Brandeis. The founders would be very displeased by the announced plans to demolish the Musicology and Composition PhD programs there. Perhaps this is not an impending catastrophe on the level of the aforementioned episodes; the number of injured individuals is small, and at least 50 universities offer similar programs, nevertheless, this proposal indicates diminishing valuation for the liberal arts, and bureaucratic management of cultural institutions. Many aggrieved parties have weighed in; BMInt has not received an official response from the office of provost Carol Fierke or the office of the president. [continued]

The Brandeis Music Department has sent a statement which BMInt reprints here.

Martin Boykan, a world-renowned composer, inspirational teacher, published author and prodigious performer, died peacefully at his home on March 6^th at the age of 89, leaving his wife, Susan Schwalb, and his niece Ina Pour El and her family. His funeral took place in New York City on March 8, 2021.

Born in 1931, Boykan studied composition with Walter Piston, Aaron Copland and Paul Hindemith, and piano with Eduard Steuermann. He received a BA from Harvard University, 1951, and an MM from Yale University, 1953. In 1953–55 he was in Vienna on a Fulbright Fellowship, and upon his return founded the Brandeis Chamber Ensemble whose other members included Robert Koff (Juilliard Quartet), Nancy Cirillo (Wellesley), Eugene Lehner (Kolisch Quartet) and Madeline Foley (Marlborough Festival). This ensemble performed widely with a repertory divided equally between contemporary music and the tradition. At the same time Boykan appeared regularly as a pianist with soloists such as Joseph Silverstein and Jan de Gaetani. In 1964–65, he was the pianist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. [continued]

It’s welcome news when young Bostonian musicians receive national recognition, and especially pleasing to this writer when such musical citizens also have connections with the Intelligencer. While he has been a doctoral student, a freshly minted PhD., sitting on the advisory board of Dinosaur Annex Music Ensemble, on Juventas New Music Ensemble’s board of directors, and a member of Composers in Red Sneakers, Peter Van Zandt Lane also had the dedication to write 51 reviews for this journal. We salute him on winning second prize for his ballet HackPolitik [reviewed here] from the American Prize Competition.

The American Prize competition, 2014, recognized HackPolitik, a ballet in two acts for chamber ensemble and electronics in the professional theater works division from applications reviewed this summer from all across the United States. The American Prize is a series of new, non-profit competitions unique in scope and structure, designed to recognize and reward the best performing artists, ensembles and composers in the United States based on submitted recordings. The American Prize was founded in 2009 and is awarded annually in many areas of the performing arts. Moreon the story is here.

Peter, whose website is here, provided an autobiographical sketch: [continued]

Harold Shapero of Natick, Mass., a classical music composer, pianist and longtime professor of music at Brandeis University, died in his sleep on May 17^th at age 93, following complications from pneumonia. Born in Lynn, Mass., on April 29, 1920, Shapero maintained a bold presence on the music scene in Greater Boston for more than 70 years. [continued]