NIU Today

Cheng-Hou Lee, cellist with NIU’s Avalon Quartet, waited inside the Recital Hall of the Music Building. Meanwhile, his eventual audience listened to speeches in an auditorium some 825 miles away. Among those speakers at the 2012 Internet2 Fall Member Meeting in Philadelphia was Dan Nichols, Lee’s colleague in the NIU School of Music and the...

This summer has seen several changes to the piano inventory at the NIU School of Music. Piano faculty have added Grotrian and Hamburg Steinway semi-concert grand pianos to the Recital Hall. They also retired a well-worn Yamaha upright and replaced it with a new Schimmel upright. The Schimmel and Grotrian both hail from Braunsweig, Germany....

Nearly 24 years had passed since NIU trumpet professor Mark Ponzo played alongside the New World Symphony’s Bill Williams. That changed Monday, March 5, when the duo took to the stage for a unique performance. The quirk – Ponzo was located at the NIU School of Music, while Williams performed from Miami Beach, Fla. The...

NIU’s School of Music continues to provide a unique learning opportunity for its students. Third-year tuba performance major Kurt Bonamer recently had the opportunity to receive a private lesson from Dennis Askew, a professor in the School of Music, Theatre and Dance at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Bonamer took the lesson in...

Paul Bauer, director of NIU’s School of Music, has been elected by his peers as chair of the National Association of Schools of Music (NASM) Region 4. He will serve on the NASM Board of Directors for three years. Region 4 includes Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin. “My 18 years of experience as a director...

Members of the NIU Philharmonic will have a rare opportunity on Saturday, Oct. 15, to combine their orchestral talents with rock when they perform with the band Kansas at the Convocation Center. During the 8 p.m. Homecoming weekend concert, guitars, drums and violins will share the same stage for a one-of-a-kind sound, said Paul Bauer,...

Rock legends Kansas will join the NIU Philharmonic for one spectacular Homecoming 2011 concert. This unforgettable Homecoming concert begins at 8 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 15, at the NIU Convocation Center. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Tickets range from $37.50 to $22.50 and can be purchased at the NIU Convocation Center box office, all Ticketmaster outlets,...

Violin and bow in hand, Katelyn Kozinski stood quietly and patiently Wednesday morning among microphones, video cameras and computer monitors inside the darkened Recital Hall. Promptly at 10 a.m., the May graduate of the NIU School of Music was bathed in light. The blurry images on the movie screen behind her sharpened into a clear,...

NIU’s School of Music has been invited by Internet2 to provide a high-quality demonstration of an interactive video technology for an international conference in Barcelona, Spain. The  demonstration will take place from 10 to 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, June 15, from the Music Building Recital Hall. All are welcome for a first-hand experience with technology that will play a...