Undergraduate Student News | Notes from the Hill

Abigail Benzinger, class of 2026, spent the summer at Domaine Forget de Charlevoix solo strings program in Quebec, Canada honing her viola skills.

Cameron Davis, class of 2025, qualified for the National level of NATS in three different categories, and was also selected for an extremely competitive professional summer a cappella group, Hyannis Sound.

Annie Flanagan, class of 2024, spent the month of July completing her senior honors thesis fieldwork at local non-profit Girls Rock NC (GRNC). GRNC provides girls and gender diverse youth a space to express themselves via music making guided by social justice principles. Under the advisory of Dr. Jocelyn Neal, Annie’s thesis examines how body positive messaging is conveyed to adolescent, female audiences through contemporary popular music (Lizzo, Meghan Trainor, Jax, etc.). Annie conducted focus groups and took observations at GRNC summer camp in Durham to gain insight from young musicians. She will use this ethnographic data to complete her thesis in Fall 2023 with the guidance of Drs. Jocelyn Neal, Andrea Bohlman, and Dorothy Espelage (School of Education).

Isabelle Kosempa, class of 2024, spent the summer at the Brevard Music Festival where she was a member of the Janiec Opera Company.

Carrina Macaluso, class of 2024, performed the role of Isdrape in Cavalli’s L’Erismena in the Baroque Academy Opera Project at the Amherst Early Music Festival.

Ryan Phillips, class of 2024, worked as an intern with Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts in Vienna, VA over the summer of 2023. Interest in a career in arts administration, he worked in the education department and assisted their Institute for Early Learning Through the Arts.

Katherine Ropp, class of 2024, spent her summer studying bass at the Eastern Music Festival at Guilford College in Greensboro, NC after studying abroad in Paris during the Spring 2023 semester.

The UNC Symphony Orchestra’s Annual Concerto Competition Winners this year were Taylor Loyd, soprano, John Kees, piano, and Siana Wong, violin. The three winners performed with orchestra on their February 2023 concert, featuring repertoire by Carlisle Floyd, Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Prokofiev, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Engelbert Humperdinck, and Johannes Brahms.

Watch their performances with the UNC Symphony Orchestra in February 2023.