Glenn Korff School of Music pleased to announce appointments to endowed professorships

The Glenn Korff School of Music (GKSOM) is pleased to announce the appointment of three new, endowed professors and one endowed chair effective this fall.
The Glenn Korff School of Music (GKSOM) is pleased to announce the appointment of three new, endowed professors and one endowed chair effective this fall.

The Glenn Korff School of Music (GKSOM) is pleased to announce the appointment of three new, endowed professors and one endowed chair effective this fall.

The appointees are:

· Dr. Glenn Nierman as the Glenn Korff Chair of Music

· Dr. Carolyn Barber as the Ron & Carol Cope Professor of Music

· Dr. Robert Woody as the Steinhart Foundation Distinguished Professor of Music

· Dr. William Shomos as the Richard H. Larson Distinguished Professor of Music



These appointments are the product of recommendations from the GKSOM Executive Committee, GKSOM Director Dr. John W. Richmond, Endowed Dean of the Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts Charles O’Connor, Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Ronald Green, Chancellor Harvey Perlman and President Hank Bounds. Dr. Richmond affirmed the celebrated accomplishments of all four appointees, noting that, “Drs. Barber, Nierman, Shomos, and Woody have a consistent record of stellar faculty performance and are perceived as leaders and standard bearers in the Glenn Korff School of Music. They are known nationally and internationally as significant contributors to the peer-reviewed domains of their respective disciplines. They appear in print and at conferences and/or concert venues across North America and beyond regularly.”

Glenn Nierman – Dr. Nierman is regarded as one of the nation’s leading experts on assessment in music teaching and learning. He is widely published and appears annually at national conferences devoted to this, and related, topics. Dr. Nierman is currently serving in his final year as the national President of the 180,000+ member National Association for Music Education. He recently also was inducted as a Lowell Mason Fellow in NAfME (see http://arts.unl.edu/hlfpa/news/nierman-inducted-nafme-lowell-mason-fellow). Dr. Nierman also serves on the International Board of the International Society for Music Education (the music education arm of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization).

Carolyn Barber – Dr. Barber is the Director of Bands here at UNL, and has a tremendous impact in the university band profession. Her chief area of research is conducting practice and pedagogy, with emphasis on group dynamics (flocking and influence), and the development of what she calls “ensembleship” through improvisation, artistic thinking, and a broad, multidisciplinary array of rehearsal techniques. Dr. Barber has presented her work at the Midwest Clinic (27,000 delegates each year), the conferences of the College Band Directors National Association, American String Teachers Association, and the National Association for Music Education, state music educators conventions, district training workshops, and master-class/rehearsal clinics nationwide. Her book-chapter contributions to the 10-volume Teaching Music Through Performance in Band anthologies from GIA (see http://www.teachingmusic.org/band1-5.cfm) have been a much-lauded contribution, as are her many appearances as a guest clinician across the United States and Canada.

Robert Woody – Dr. Woody's research deals primarily with the psychology of music. He is an author of the book, Psychology for Musicians: Understanding and Acquiring the Skills, with Andreas C. Lehmann and John A. Sloboda (Oxford University Press). He is specifically interested in the cognitive mechanisms of expressive performance and the skill-based factors that contribute to participatory music involvement among people. He has published articles in research journals such as the Journal of Research in Music Education, Psychomusicology, and the Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education; other writings have appeared in the Music Educators Journal, General Music Today, and American Music Teacher. Dr. Woody recently completed a term of office on the editorial board of the Journal of Research in Music Education. Recognized as one of the 10 most cited scholars in music education today, Psychology Today has recruited Dr. Woody as the author of its ongoing blog on music psychology topics.

William Shomos – Dr. Shomos is highly regarded as a teacher of professional vocalists, a director of opera in both university and professional settings, a teacher of opera history, and a champion of modern American opera. His productions here have garnered much attention nationally. His UNL Opera production of Jake Haggie’s celebrated opera Dead Man Walking (based on the book by Sister Helen Prejean and the film by Tim Robbins) won the 2009 Best Collegiate Production Award from the National Opera Association. Professionally, Dr. Shomos has staged several works with Pensacola Opera and Nevada Opera. Between 2003 and 2005, he also spent three seasons with the Des Moines Metro Opera as stage director in the company's Apprentice Artist program, while concurrently assistant directing their main-stage productions. Between 2006 and 2009, Dr. Shomos directed productions with La Musica Lirica in Novafeltria, Italy. From 2011-2103, Dr. Shomos returned to the Des Moines Metro Opera to direct in the Apprentice Artist Program. In 2013, he served as Assistant Director for a production of Wagner's Tannhäuser in Tirana, Albania, a production in which he also sang the role of Wolfram.

Complete biosketches and curriculum vitae for these and all other faculty members of UNL’s Glenn Korff School of Music are available online at http://arts.unl.edu/music/alpha-list-faculty-staff.