Stony Brook University Music Department

Stony Brook University Music Department Music Scholarship and Performance in an Interdisciplinary University Setting

The character of Stony Brook's music department is largely due to the nature of our faculty. Faculty are chosen not only for their stature as performers, scholars, and composers, but also for their rapport with students, their ability to work cooperatively with their colleagues, and their commitment to the values of the department. The rapid growth and success of the Stony Brook music department i

s due to the vision of some of our founding faculty: Billy Jim Layton, our first chairman (now retired) and the late David Lewin, our first director of graduate studies and principal architect of our graduate program. The character and spirit of the faculty owes a great debt to some gifted teachers who are no longer with us, most notably Bülent Arel, who built our first Electronic Music Studio, and Samuel Baron, whose combination of gentleness and musical vision inspired his flute students and his fellow faculty alike.

Faculty Feature: A shoutout to Erika Supria Honisch who was appointed Associate Director of the Humanities Institute thi...
06/16/2026

Faculty Feature: A shoutout to Erika Supria Honisch who was appointed Associate Director of the Humanities Institute this past year and was part of coordinating a dynamic year of events that blended research, theory, criticism, and forms of art. This is the first time a music faculty member is in a leadership position with the Humanities Institute!

Dr. Honisch also contributed a chapter on Renaissance music to A History of Music in the Czech Lands, edited by Martin Nedbal, Kelly St. Pierre and Hana Vlhová-Wörner (Cambridge University Press, 2025).

More features and a look back at all of the department achievements this past year each week this summer!

This week’s feature! Our Baroque Players performing their final Baroque Sundays at Three concert back in April! Directed...
06/09/2026

This week’s feature! Our Baroque Players performing their final Baroque Sundays at Three concert back in April! Directed by Beth Wenstrom, they performed everything from baroque masterworks to unheard-of gems of the age. The Baroque Sundays at Three series is organized by our esteemed Professor Arthur Haas!

Night Two! Join us at the DiMenna Center’s Benzaquen Hall tonight at 7:30PM in NYC! Free Admission!
05/01/2026

Night Two! Join us at the DiMenna Center’s Benzaquen Hall tonight at 7:30PM in NYC! Free Admission!

04/30/2026

Join us tonight and tomorrow for our 37th Annual Stony Brook Premieres!

Thursday, April 30th, 7:30 PM
Staller Center Recital Hall

Friday, May 1st, 7:30 PM
Benzaquen Hall, DiMenna Center for Classical Music
450 W 37th Street, New York, NY 10018

Free Admission

The Stony Brook Contemporary Chamber Players premiere brand new commissions by Larry Alan Smith, Caroline Mallonee, and Stony Brook’s own faculty member Daniel Weymouth as well as a U.S. premiere by Piers Hellawell. Join us for two performance, one in the Staller Center Recital Hall on April 30th, 7:30PM and at DiMenna Center’s Benzaquen Hall in New York City on May 1st, 7:30PM.

PROGRAM:
Piers Hellawell: Ice Feathers and Narwhal Joust (2021), for horn and piano (U.S. Premiere)

Larry Alan Smith: Sextet (2026), for Oboe, Clarinet in B-flat, Bassoon, Violin, Viola, and Cello
(World Premiere)

Caroline Mallonee: Crabs and a Kettle of Fish (2026), for bass clarinet, cello, piano, and percussion (World Premiere)

Daniel Weymouth: Unfolding (2026), for for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, percussion and piano (World Premiere)

Congratulations to Avery Morris (DMA Candidate, Violin) who is a recipient of a Spring 2026 Edward Guiliano Global Fello...
04/30/2026

Congratulations to Avery Morris (DMA Candidate, Violin) who is a recipient of a Spring 2026 Edward Guiliano Global Fellowship!

Avery will use the funds for her project “Echoes from the Archive: Performance, Transcription, and Musical Recovery in Interwar Prague.” She will be carrying out crucial follow-up research into manuscripts that are held in Prague’s Jewish Museum and which she first scrutinized as a Fulbright Scholar to Prague in 2023–4. The manuscripts Avery is studying come from the pen of Gideon Klein (1919–1945), a composer who took a fascinatingly idiosyncratic approach to musical modernism; Klein was interned at Terezín before being sent to Auschwitz, where he was murdered early in 1945. While Avery is in Prague to carry out this research, she will perform as featured soloist for Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, with the Prague Academy Chamber Orchestra directed by Pavel Hryzák

(https://www.averyviolin.com/upcoming-events/event-five-fknp5-ych4h-wpe34).

Coming up tomorrow, we have the first of our 37th Annual Stony Brook Premieres!Join us in the Recital Hall Thursday, Apr...
04/30/2026

Coming up tomorrow, we have the first of our 37th Annual Stony Brook Premieres!

Join us in the Recital Hall Thursday, April 30th or at The DiMenna Center’s Benzaquen Hall on Friday, May 1st!

Join our friends at this weekend for a special collaboration with our Opera program! Explore everything from art song t...
04/28/2026

Join our friends at this weekend for a special collaboration with our Opera program! Explore everything from art song to a reprise of the opera program’s fantastic hit performance from this past Fall, Haydn’s La Canterina!

Check out ritesmusic.org for more info!

This Thursday and Friday: The Stony Brook Contemporary Chamber Players premiere brand new commissions by Larry Alan Smit...
04/27/2026

This Thursday and Friday: The Stony Brook Contemporary Chamber Players premiere brand new commissions by Larry Alan Smith, Caroline Mallonee, and Stony Brook’s own faculty member Daniel Weymouth as well as a U.S. premiere by Piers Hellawell. Join us for two performance, one in the Staller Center Recital Hall on April 30th, 7:30PM and at DiMenna Center’s Benzaquen Hall in New York City on May 1st, 7:30PM.

PROGRAM:
Piers Hellawell: Ice Feathers and Narwhal Joust (2021), for horn and piano (U.S. Premiere)

Larry Alan Smith: Sextet (2026), for Oboe, Clarinet in B-flat, Bassoon, Violin, Viola, and Cello
(World Premiere)

Caroline Mallonee: Crabs and a Kettle of Fish (2026), for bass clarinet, cello, piano, and percussion (World Premiere)

Daniel Weymouth: Unfolding (2026), for for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, percussion and piano (World Premiere)

Don’t miss either opportunity to see the Main Stage Opera: Christoph Willibald Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice!Saturday, April...
04/24/2026

Don’t miss either opportunity to see the Main Stage Opera: Christoph Willibald Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice!

Saturday, April 25 at 7:30PM & Sunday, April 26 at 3PM
Staller Center Main Stage

Tickets: $30 (adults), $25 (seniors), $10 (students)

The Stony Brook Opera, under the auspices of the Department of Music at Stony Brook University, proudly presents a fully staged production of Orfeo ed Euridice by Christoph Willibald Gluck.

This production will take place at the Staller Center for the Arts Main Stage, featuring graduate voice students in a collaboration that highlights both musical and dramatic excellence.

Premiered in 1762 with a libretto by Ranieri de’ Calzabigi, Orfeo ed Euridice is a landmark of operatic reform. The work tells the mythological story of Orpheus, who descends into the underworld in an attempt to reclaim his beloved Eurydice, exploring themes of love, loss, and redemption.

Performances:
• Saturday, April 25 – 7:30 PM
• Sunday, April 26 – 3:00 PM

Directed by Brenda Harris
Conducted by Daniel Beckwith

https://stallercenter.showare.com/eventperformances.asp?evt=439

Join us TONIGHT for Sonic Spring!Friday, April 24, 2026, 7:30PMStaller Center Recital HallFree AdmissionExperience virtu...
04/24/2026

Join us TONIGHT for Sonic Spring!

Friday, April 24, 2026, 7:30PM
Staller Center Recital Hall
Free Admission

Experience virtuosic electroacoustic performances and “musique concrete” in a cutting-edge performance featuring electronic music sound sculptures, virtuoso instrumentalists, and video art.

Sonic Spring is recognized as one of the longest running concerts series dedicated to new compositions for electronic music. The first concert was presented in 1974 by faculty composer Prof. Daria Semegen, Director of the Electronic Music Studio and electronic music pioneer.

Address

3304 Staller Center
Stony Brook, NY
11794

Opening Hours

Monday 9:30am - 5pm
Tuesday 9:30am - 5pm
Wednesday 9:30am - 5pm
Thursday 9:30am - 5pm
Friday 9:30am - 5pm

Telephone

+16316327330

Website

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