New incoming faculty for fall 2023

We are thrilled to announce more new additions to our Department of Music faculty.

Su Lian Tan.

Our Slee Visiting Professor for the 2023-24 academic year will be Su Lian Tan. A longtime professor at Middlebury College in Vermont, Prof. Tan has written a broad range of instrumental and operatic music for a long list of ensembles and solo performers including the Takacs and Jupiter String Quartets, Meridian Arts Ensemble, Dinosaur Annex, the Albany Symphony, cellist Sophie Shao, flutist Carol Wincenc, Da Capo Chamber Players and more. During the upcoming year she will provide students in our graduate composition program with instruction in advanced orchestration and composition. SuLianTan.com

Producer, guitarist and ethnomusicologist Colter Harper has been appointed Assistant Teaching Professor beginning in fall 2023. Prof. Harper’s research focuses on jazz, popular music, and the musical traditions of Africa.  He has also worked as a record producer with artists including Osei Korankye (Akwaaba Music, 2016), Bridget Kearney & Ben Davis (Signature Sounds, 2015) and Dark Suburb (Dark Suburb Music, 2015) and has produced four recordings of original compositions: Under a Quiet Sun (2003), Once Upon a Mind (2007), Fool's Resolution (2013), and Songs from the War Streets (2012).  Prof. Harper will teach several large UB Pathways courses, including Mus 364 World Music, Mus 301/302 Music Recording and Production, and Mus 365 Rock Music. ColterHarper.com

Musicologist Nicholas Emmanuel has been appointed Visiting Assistant Professor for 2023-24. A recent PhD graduate from UB in Historical Musicology, Prof. Emmanuel also holds an M.M. in Piano Performance. He recently completed a year of study at the Liszt Academy of Music and Institute for Musicology in Budapest sponsored by a Fulbright Scholarship. His teaching during the upcoming academic year will include Mus 408 Special Topics in Music and Mus 500 Colloquium. The title of his Mus 408 course is Listening - Theories, Practices, and Contexts and focuses on the pervasiveness of background music and how it has affected the way we listen.