Clare Longendyke, pianist

Artist in Residency at the Hugh Hodgson School of Music

The Athens Hip Hop Harmonic (AHHH) will perform in concert on Thursday, Oct. 20, featuring an all-star line up of local Hip Hop artists, UGA composers, and UGA ensembles from the Hodgson School of Music.  This FREE concert begins at 7:30 p.m. in Hodgson Concert Hall of the UGA Performing Arts Center.  There is FREE parking in the surface lots and parking deck next to the UGA Performing Arts Center. 

The evening show features the following artists, composers, and ensemble pairings: 

Launched in August 2021, the Athens Hip Hop Harmonic is a multi-year collaboration between the local Hip Hop community and the UGA Hodgson School of Music, supported by UGA’s Arts Lab under the Willson Center and Ideas for Creative Exploration. 

Featuring works by:

• Rob Bowden
• Michael Flynn
• Mia Hill
• Charlton Hills
• Eric Looney
• Reece Moseley
• Aaron Phillip
• Swathi Ramaswamy
• Michael Solomon
• Jared Bradley Tubbs

Trevor Barroero (DMA, ‘22; MM, ‘19): Winner of the Tucson Symphony Orchestra's Principal Percussion audition in Tucson, Arizona. He is currently on staff with the university as a percussion instructor for the UGA Community Music School and teaches 42 private percussion students from around GA, SC, FL, and AZ.

On October 14, 2023, Philip Smith was awarded the Edwin Franko Goldman Memorial Citation from the American Bandmasters Association during the performance of the UGA Hugh Hodgson School of Music’s British Brass Band. Smith is the ensemble’s Bandmaster as well as the William F. and Pamela P. Prokasy Professor in the Arts (Trumpet) for the School of Music. The award was presented by composer, conductor and educator James Curnow.

May, 2022,  the newest addition to the UGA Opera Theatre faculty, Daniel Ellis, Academic Professional in Opera and Theatre, presented at the Opera America Conference, held this year in Minneapolis, MN. He and his design team presented their concept for “L’elisir d’amore,” which earned them the Robert L.B. Tobin Director Designer Prize in 2021.

Atomic Tunes: The Cold War in American and British Popular Music (Indiana University Press, 2021) by Dr. Joanna Smolko (Instructor, Musicology and Ethnomusicology, HHSOM) and School of Music alumnus Tim Smolko (MA in Musicology 2011) has won a Certificate of Merit in the 2022 Association for Recorded Sound Collections' Award for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research in Rock and Popular Music.

The Athens Hip Hop Harmonic (AHHH) will perform in concert on Thursday, Oct. 20, featuring an all-star line up of local Hip Hop artists, UGA composers, and UGA ensembles from the Hodgson School of Music.  This FREE concert begins at 7:30 p.m. in Hodgson Concert Hall of the UGA Performing Arts Center.  There is FREE parking in the surface lots and parking deck next to the UGA Performing Arts Center. 

The evening show features the following artists, composers, and ensemble pairings: 

• Celest Devine Ngeve + Ayako Pederson-Takeda + Contemporary Chamber Ensemble

Brandon Quarles, musical director

• Ishues + James Weidman + Jazz Combo

Weidman, musical director

• Cassie Chantel + Julien Berger + African American Choral Ensemble

Gregory Broughton, musical director

* Convict Julie + Tom Hiel + Wind Symphony and Chorus

Jackie Hartenberger, musical director

Montu Miller, emcee

Connie Frigo, producer

Now in its second year, the AHHH is a multi-year collaboration between the Hodgson School of Music and the local Hip Hop community, co-founded and directed by saxophone professor Connie Frigo. Support for AHHH comes from the UGA Arts Lab, Willson Center for Humanities & Arts, and Ideas for Creative Exploration. For more information on the Athens Hip Hop Harmonic, go here and see the feature article in the Flagpole Magazine.