Music

The UMBC Jazz Ensemble under the direction of Matt Belzer performs with guest artist Nicole Mitchell for a fabulous evening of jazz. An award-winning creative flutist, conceptualist and composer, Mitchell emerged from Chicago’s creative music community in the 90s, and was the former first woman president of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). With an impressive 15 year run (2010–2024) as “Top Flutist of the Year” by both Downbeat Magazine Critics Poll and the Jazz Journalists Association, she is celebrated for her development of a unique improvisational language on the flute. 

The Department of Music presents the second UMBC Create Music Festival, an event that reimagines music education festivals for equity and 21st century music learning, with the collaboration of the BSO OrchKids program and several Maryland school large ensembles. Students will work with teaching artists, including Emmy-nominated composer and genre-bending violinist Daniel Bernard Roumain, Chicago-based vocal theater ensemble Artemisia Trio, multi-instrumentalist Russell Kirk, and UMBC music faculty and alumnus James Dorsey ’05.

The Baltimore Classical Guitar Society presents Made in Baltimore, featuring new works for classical guitar written by local composers commissioned by BCGS. For the 2024–2025 season, the awardees are Zhishu Chang, Zac Fick-Cambria, Antonio Sanz Escallón, and UMBC student Jack McGrath, who will write ensemble works inspired by Charm City.

The Department of Music presents Pianorama, a keyboard spectacular featuring pianists Audrey Andrist, Teodora Adzharova, Hui-Chuan Chen, and Hsiao-Ying Lin, who will perform works by Ravel, Debussy, and Stravinsky.

The Department of Music presents renowned percussionist Aiyun Huang in a solo recital utilizing video and live electronics. Huang enjoys a musical life as soloist, chamber musician, researcher, teacher and producer, and has been globally recognized since winning the 2002 First Prize and Audience Prize of the Geneva International Music Competition. 

The Department of Music presents the INTERFERENCE: new music collective (William Brent, computer, visiting artist and dancer Miřenka Čechová, and Nancy Jo Snider, cello). Their concert will feature a group of three new works in a lecture demonstration format that will describe the artistic processes involved in the technological interplay that exists between the performers in each of the selected works. The discussion will invite questions and input from the audience.

The Shriver Hall Concert Series presents charismatic rising stars the Ivalas Quartet in a program of three works traversing the musical heavens. Osvaldo Golijov took inspiration for his poignant Tenebrae from a planetarium visit with his son. Sparked by a lecture on physics, Eleanor Alberga’s rich and spellbinding quartet explores the ideas of swirling particles and stargazing from outer space. Finally, the group infuses one of Beethoven’s final works with “tremendous heart and beauty” (The Strad).

Join us for the grand finale of UMBC’s 2025 Guitar Fest, a one-of-a-kind concert presenting guitar artistry across eras, geographies, and traditions. Featuring works ranging from J. S. Bach to Pat Metheny, this concert brings guitarist Felipe Garibaldi performing highlights of the classical and popular repertoires, along with original compositions. He is later joined by jazz guitarist Tom Lagana and classical guitarist Andres Palacios, creating an extraordinary fusion of guitar worlds, promising an unforgettable evening of music.