NIU Today

Jui-Ching Wang, an associate professor of world music and music education in the NIU School of Music, has been awarded a U.S. Fulbright Senior Scholar Award for 2016-17 to Indonesia. This award will enable her to carry out a research project in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Wang will spend 10 months studying traditional Javanese children’s singing games,...

NIU’s 2016 World Music Festival is approaching. The NIU Middle Eastern Music Ensemble, directed by Omar al Musfi and guest artist Issa Bolous, will kick off this year’s festival at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, April 7, in the NIU School of Music’s Recital Hall. Musicians will perform a wide array of traditional and contemporary Arabic and...

Founders Memorial Library presents “Sounds of Austronesia: Boat lutes, Zithers, and Bamboo Nose Flutes of Maritime Southeast Asia, Madagascar, and Oceania” through April 30. Austronesia is a region of the world based predominately on a linguistic and cultural framework. Encompassing much of maritime Southeast Asia and the Indian and Pacific oceans, the Austronesian diaspora is...

The NIU Music Building will resonate with the sounds from around the world this week when the “2015 World Music Symposium: From the Exotic to the Global” takes place today through Saturday, April 11. Nearly 100 music educators, ethnomusicologists, composers, performers and interdisciplinary scholars from around the world will converge at the School of Music...

The NIU School of Music will host its fourth annual World Music Festival, Musical Encounters, from Tuesday, April 9, through Sunday, April 14. As usual, this week-long event will consist of concerts and lectures featuring various world music styles and cultural dialogues in music. Essam Rafea, an artist-in-residence, renowned Middle Eastern oudist, composer and music...

NIU’s Jack Olson Gallery is hosting “The Arts Converge: Contemporary Art and Asian Musical Traditions,” a special exhibition that celebrates the creativity of contemporary artists who are working with traditional Asian music, sounds or cultural soundscapes. “The Arts Converge” offers an arena where visual arts media, musical creativity and theatrical performance can merge, the past...

As a part of the NIU Art Museum’s upcoming Southeast Asian Exhibition Suite, “Music for the Divine” showcases Burmese traditions and musical instruments ranging from those used in Buddhist rituals, traditional royal court ceremonies and contemporary multi-ethnic expressions. This exhibition will run in the South Galleries, and will feature the Burma Art Collection at NIU...

Students in the NIU School of Music’s frame drumming class will perform at noon Wednesday, July 25, to showcase what they have learned in a short, six-week period this summer. Omar Al-Musfi will direct the concert, which takes place in the Music Building’s Recital Hall. In addition to the drums played by the participants of...

The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) has nominated “Hammer on Steel,” a two-program documentary created by The University of Akron, for eight Emmy awards for the 2011 broadcast year. NIU’s Cliff Alexis, steel drum builder and tuner and co-director of the world-renowned NIU Steel Band, was nominated for Emmy Awards in two...

The NIU Steel Band, under the direction of Liam Teague and Cliff Alexis, will present its spring 2012 concert at 3 p.m. Sunday, April 22, in the Boutell Memorial Concert Hall of the Music Building. Promising an eclectic blend of music from across the globe, the concert will be streamed live. Joining NIU’s musicians are...

The NIU School of Music will host its third annual World Music Festival from Wednesday, April 11, through Sunday, April 15. As usual, this week-long event will consist of concerts and lectures featuring various world music styles and cultural dialogues in music. NIU’s own Middle Eastern Music Ensemble, a student group led by two Syrian-born...

The NIU Percussion Ensemble, directed by Robert Chappell and Greg Beyer, with graduate conductors Amanda Duncan and Angela Kepley, will present its spring concert at 8 p.m. Monday, April 2, in the Boutell Memorial Concert Hall. The concert is free and open to the public, the the auditorium is accessible to all. The concert will...