Fall 2009     Vol. 4, No. 1

New Faculty

Andrew Bishop

Assistant Professor of Music (saxophone); Department of Jazz and Improvisation

Andrew Bishop (MM ’95, DMA ’01) is a versatile multi-instrumentalist—saxophone, clarinet, flute—plus composer, improviser, educator, and scholar, equally at home in a wide array of musical idioms. As a performer, Bishop leads jazz trio Bishop/Cleaver/Flood, a roots chamber ensemble Andrew Bishop’s Hank Williams Project, a mainstream jazz group called the Andrew Bishop Quartet, and a global blues project Blue Origami. As a sideman, he has performed with Geri Allen, Kenny Burrell, Ray Charles, Robert Hurst, and The Manhattan Transfer, among many others. Bishop has recorded over 30 CDs as a sideman; his two recordings as a leader—Time and Imaginary Time and the Hank Williams Project—received widespread acclaim from such sources as the New York Times, Downbeat Magazine, All About Jazz-New York and Los Angeles, and The Detroit Free Press. In demand as a composer and arranger, he has received some 20 commissions from professional organizations and universities, as well as to a number of residencies. Recognition and awards have come from ASCAP, The Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and include a nomination from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His orchestral composition Crooning was recorded by the Albany Symphony Orchestra on Two American Piano Concertos. Bishop has composed and arranged for percussionists Matt Wilson and Steve Houghton and is currently completing a chamber music project for saxophonist Dave Liebman.

Chad Burrow

Assistant Professor of Music (clarinet); Department of Winds and Percussion

Chad Burrow holds a bachelor’s from Northwestern University, where he studied with Russell Dagon, and a master’s from Yale, where he worked with David Shifrin. He was principal clarinetist of the New Haven Symphony and the Oklahoma City Philharmonic and was recently named principal clarinet of the Quartz Mountain Music Festival. He has won top prizes and competitions, including the Youth Concert Artist International Competition and the prestigious Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, among others. The European press wrote that he performs with “brilliant technique and tonal beauty mixed with an expressive ferocity” and “virtuosity, energy, and power without compromise.” He was singled out as the only American clarinetist invited to participate in the 2003 Munich Competition. Burrow has appeared as a featured soloist with top orchestras around the country and professional and student ensembles throughout the world. He has performed with chamber music ensembles at the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, Chicago’s Symphony Center, and in Boston and other U.S. cities, and in Denmark, Germany, and Austria, where he recently returned to perform at the Alpen Kammer Musik Festival. He has given master classes and lectures throughout Taiwan and around the U.S. and Canada. In 2007 he had the rare honor of being invited to perform at the National Conference of the International Society of Bassists.

Georg Essl

Assistant Professor of Music; Department of Performing Arts Technology; (joint appointment with the College of Engineering)

Georg Essl holds a Ph.D. and master of arts in computer science from Princeton and a diploma from the Music Conservatory in Graz, Austria in piano, music composition, and recorder. He is currently a senior research scientist at Deutsche Telekon Labs in Berlin. Essl’s research has been published by the Cambridge University Press, the MIT Press, and the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. His current research is in mobile phones as musical instruments. He has developed software to access the sound synthesis and playback mechanisms of these portable devices and written and performed compositions for improvisatory mobile phone orchestras controlled by the keypad. His unique blend of technology, the construct of a musical ensemble, and the influence of African performance practice are unique at this time. He recently staged a performance of his mobile phone orchestra in Belfast at the International Computer Music Conference; the performance involved musicians and non-musicians as well as people with disabilities. Dr. Essl’s research is motivated by his belief that the joy of music-making should be accessible to all. While contributing outstanding engineering expertise and musical insight, his appointment at Michigan promises to extend outreach efforts to socially and economically disadvantaged youth.

Christopher Lees

Lecturer of Music and Interim Associate Director of Orchestras; Department of Conducting

Christopher Lees (BM ’04, MM ’06) studied orchestral conducting at SMTD, working with Kenneth Kiesler. As a student, he was music director of the U-M Pops Orchestra, founded Philharmonia 125, an orchestra that contributed to the celebration of the SMTD 125th Anniversary. Lees has been associate conductor with the Akron Symphony Orchestra and music director for the Akron Youth Symphony. He was awarded a conducting fellowship at the Festival Internacional de Inverno de Campos do Jordão in Brazil. In 2008, he won a grant from the Bruno Walter Memorial Foundation to work with the Akron Symphony and in 2006 he was selected for the Zander Fellowship with the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, where he worked with music director Benjamin Zander. Lees has also been a finalist in the American Conducting Fellows Program, sponsored by the American Symphony Orchestra League, the Baltimore Symphony Conducting Fellowship Program, and the London Philharmonic’s International Young Conductors Academy. He has been a participant in conducting workshops led by Lorin Maazel, Gustav Meier, Jorma Panula, Larry Rachleff, and Roberto Minczuk, among others.