News and Events
Cecil Welch Celebration Concert
On Tuesday, November 15 at 7:30 PM, join the Georgia Tech Symphonic Band and Jazz Ensemble I in celebrating the life and legacy of Cecil Welch.
Cecil Welch joined the Atlanta Pops during his teen years and gained early experience as a freelance trumpeter in Atlanta's emerging musical community. After graduating from Georgia Tech, he pursued a lifelong career as an independent insurance agent, but furthered his skill as a professional musician, joining the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. In 1976, after having guest-conducted the ASO, and having heard Welch’s rousing jazz performance of "Peter Gunn," Henry Mancini invited Welch to join him as his lead trumpeter and soloist. Until Mancini's death in 1994, they traveled the world performing with major orchestras such as the London Symphony and Los Angeles Philharmonic.
EarSketch Reaches Milestone One Million Users
Georgia Institute of Technology’s innovative educational platform EarSketch reached a milestone this month—one million users.
The music/coding platform was created at Georgia Tech by School of Music Chair Jason Freeman and Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts Professor Brian Magerko and is designed to teach students to code in Python or JavaScript through music and creative discovery.
Assistant Professor B.E. Boykin Receives Opera America Award
B.E. Boykin is one of seven composers who received awards from Opera America through its Opera Grants for Women Composers program. Finger Lakes Opera will premiere in downtown Rochester, NY by Finger Lakes Opera in August 2024.
Darren Waller Inspired by Music to Manifest His New Life - Music has always been a big part of Darren Waller’s life. During his time as a Georgia Tech football player and student, Waller learned more about his rich family past in jazz through Assistant Professor Chip Crotts' course. Waller is the great-grandson of Thomas “Fats” Waller, a charismatic pianist, prolific composer, and the first Black man to write the score for a Broadway musical. Music runs through his veins, and even now as an NFL player with the Raiders, music continues to be positive and creative outlet for him.
- FOREST - FOREST is the performative outcome of an NSF-funded project aimed at enhancing trust between humans and robots through sound and gesture. Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology found that embedding emotion-driven sounds and gestures in robotic arms helps to establish trust and likability between humans and their AI counterparts. Read more here.
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Music Heals the Heart - Music and the heart are intertwined. Musical works are influenced by arrhythmias, music listening induces physiological changes, performing music affects heartbeat patterns, and hearing heartbeats elicits empathy. Dr. Grace Leslie, director of the Brain Music Lab, co-authored an article published in Scientific American detailing the connection between music and an individual's cognitive and cardiac states.
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Listen to Five of the World’s Newest, Wildest Instruments - The New York Times highlights five of the 2021 Guthman Musical Instrument Competition finalists in an article that focuses on invention and musical motivation. Get music critic Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim's take on our competitors' inventions.
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LatinX Computer Science Students Focus of New Research - Georgia Tech and the University of Puerto Rico-Rio Piedras recently received a $2.9 million grant to design an informal learning computer science curriculum and broaden access to STEM education for LatinX students.