Learning from Virtuosos

Each year, Athens music lovers can delight in dozens of performances by world-class musicians and University of Georgia student ensembles through the Performing Arts Center. Occasionally, UGA students also get to glean a few tricks of the trade from these virtuosos.

This February, students in the Hugh Hodgson School of Music learned from and performed with two such acts: Grammy-winning ensemble Eighth Blackbird and MacArthur Fellowship-winning jazz pianist Jason Moran and his wife, mezzo soprano Alicia Hall Moran.

“These opportunities for students to perform alongside musicians who are the leaders in their fields are highly impactful for everyone involved,” said Jeffrey Martin, director of the Performing Arts Center. “The students achieve great insights and reinforce key principles taught in classrooms and studios by UGA professors as they work side by side with our visiting professionals.”

Sounds of Artistic Mastery

Eighth Blackbird, a contemporary music sextet and winner of four Grammys, performed with the UGA Wind Ensemble at the Hodgson Concert Hall on Feb. 20. While on campus, Eighth Blackbird members rehearsed with students and led several master classes. 

For Addison Aycock, a spring 2025 bachelor’s of music graduate, the experience offered a taste of artistic perfection.

That perfection, he said, was like the right amount of salt in a gourmet dish. 

“Its effect brings more life and color to the dish and highlights flavors that get lost in the background,” he said. “Now I want to perform my classical and notated music more perfectly to bring out more flavors of the music.”

In one master class, pianist and doctoral candidate Jacob Skiles played a challenging new piece of music for Lisa Kaplan, Eighth Blackbird’s pianist and co-artistic director. The piece mimics bird calls from the American South. After listening to Skiles perform, Kaplan provided thoughtful feedback, encouraging Skiles to “take more liberties.”

“Birds are wild animals,” she told him. “There should be the element of unpredictability.”

For Skiles, it was a different kind of experience for a master class.

“It was also really good to hear from somebody with great musical intuition for new music,” he said. “Her knowledge of what the audience needs to hear on first listen was really valuable. I performed the piece at a conference the next day.”

Finding the Heart of Jazz

The following week, contemporary music shifted to century-old jazz tunes when Jason and Alicia Hall Moran brought the program, Duke Ellington: My Heart Sings, to Hodgson Concert Hall with the UGA Jazz Ensemble I on Feb. 27. 

The Morans have performed together at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and concert halls worldwide. However, the excitement for students to perform with such accomplished musicians came with the challenge of playing the music of legendary jazz musician Duke Ellington. The opportunity made jazz music more approachable for Aycock, who got to perform a solo in an ensemble piece with Jason Moran.

“I never really felt the conversational aspect of jazz until performing with Moran,” Aycock said. “He asked me to leave more space in the music to listen. When I did this during the performance, I could hear the band responding to what I was playing.”

Moran was pleased with the results.

“It takes a lot of courage for these students to play this music,” he told the concert audience. “It’s from another era. To have them summon up these songs is quite a treat, and I think they’ve done an incredible job.”

With a job well done, the students get to take these experiences with them throughout their studies at UGA and beyond.

“Opportunities to regularly engage with these amazing performers in master classes, question and answer sessions, and even in performances are an incredible opportunity for our students,” said Daniel Bara, interim director of the School of Music. “It’s part of what makes studying music at UGA so transformative.”