Friday, May 26, 2000
Search ends for CCM dean
n
By Janelle Gelfand
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Lowry
|
Nearly six months after dedicating its $93.2 million campus village, the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music has a new dean.
Douglas Lowry, 49, associate dean of the Flora L. Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California, will succeed Robert J. Werner, who is retiring. The UC school was ranked by U.S. News and World Report in 1997, its most recent rankings, as the country's sixth top university program for pursuing graduate studies in music, third in voice and fifth in conducting.
UC Provost Anthony J. Perzigian announced the appointment Thursday. Mr. Lowry will likely begin his tenure in late summer, he said.
|
LOWRY FILE
|
• Age: 49.
• Title: Associate dean of the Flora L. Thornton School of Music, University of Southern California.
• Work history: USC faculty member since 1983; associate dean since 1993. He is chairman of the conducting studies department, director of the Thornton Wind Symphony and associate professor of conducting and winds and percussion. Acting dean at USC 1996-97.
• Other activities: Co-host of The Xerox Corporation's Music from USC on KUSC Radio, gives preconcert lectures for the Pacific Symphony Orchestra and is music director of the International Music Day in Chiba, Japan.
A composer, his Fanfare for Flora was premiered for the naming of USC's Flora L. Thornton School of Music in September.
• Education: Bachelor's degree in theory and composition, University of Arizona (1974); master's degrees in orchestral conducting (1978) and trombone performance (1976), USC.
• Family: Wife, Marcia, (who will leave her post as an assistant to the deputy director and chief curator of the J. Paul Getty Museum) and three children: Jennifer, 19; Melanie, 16; and Timothy, 13.
|
“CCM is, in many respects, the prototype for the future,” said Mr. Lowry, reached at his USC office. “To have the opportunity to nurture the traditional disciplines and legacy not only in music, drama, musical theater and dance, but also to build upon CCM's ground-breaking e-media division, will be a challenge that I look forward to embracing.”
“He was one of our candidates who early on was highly recommended,” said Dr. John Hutton, dean of UC's College of Medicine and head of the 10-person search committee of students, faculty and community members.
Because CCM, a school of 1,360 students, was one of several major music schools searching for new leadership, committee members are calling his appointment a coup.
“This is a person destined to have a leadership role in conservatory education in the next decade, and we got him,” said Karen Faaborg, committee member and professor and co-director of CCM's arts administration department. “To lure (Mr. Lowry) away from USC's Thornton School of Music, which is a highly regarded West Coast school, is an indication of the strength of CCM.”
Mr. Lowry was acting dean at USC's School of Music in 1996-97, during the sabbatical of Dean Larry Livingston.
“Doug is a superb administra tor, an exceptional musician and, most important, a first-class human being,” said Dean Livingston. “There is a small handful of people who are really of the first rank. Although he is one of the younger and newer people in that group, he belongs in that group.”
Mr. Lowry was attracted to CCM by its faculty “and an excellent tradition of producing graduates in each of the disciplines at the very highest level,” he said.
Among the conservatory's famous graduates are opera diva Kathleen Battle; Faith Prince, Tony Award-winning Broadway star; and Lee Roy Reams, musical theater star and director.
The dean was also attracted by CCM's rapidly growing electronic media department, a field of enormous potential to both musicians and scholars, he said.
“Coming from California, I think he'll have new ideas to bring to conservative Cincinnati,” said Laura Strawbridge, 20, a ballet student who served on the search committee. In a meeting with students, she was impressed with his “truthful nature.”
“He doesn't beat around the bush,” she said. “Basically, he was listening to students' concerns. He didn't have solutions, but he was willing to look into it and talk about it.”
In CCM's future, Mr. Lowry hopes for “an institution that is acknowledged on a national and international scale for the great work it is doing, and is viewed as an institution of the future,” he said.
“I'm very pleased,” said Patricia Corbett, the arts philanthro pist who has supported the school with her husband, the late J. Ralph Corbett, starting in 1967. “We can only hope that the new dean will follow the great record that our present dean has had, who brought the school to the first-class condition that it is in now.”
Dean Werner will step down after a 15-year tenure on June 30.
Study: Festivals worth millions
Termites ready to stop swarming, start eating
Americana to reopen under new owner
Park buyer no stranger in Butler
Port authority asked for Banks
Sentinels: Don't let chief's slur slide
'Son of Beast' cleared to reopen
Ambulance firm owes $861K, Ohio says
Basilica altar will be moved
Miss America helps veteran, family go home
Bank robberies up this year
Clerk wings would-be bandit
Deal lets Bengals manage stadium
Hillary Clinton comes back to Cincinnati for more money
List of Memorial Day observances
Butler County
Clermont County
Hamilton County
Northern Kentucky
Warren County
ADHD.com pays attention to parents
GET TO IT
Grandmother tries heal old hatreds
Brichto's projects build understanding
Leis defends views on Mapplethorpe
Pig Parade: Marbleized (Pig)ment
Retiree spreads his success to others
Search ends for CCM dean
Send us your cyber-speak
5 named to board of MRDD
Carjackings begin with holdup at ATM
Central State reduces student loan defaults
Crisis Card offers hope in palm of hand
Four honored for civic service
Ky. tobacco farmers get $140 million
Newport wary of gambling plan
Officer sues two Ludlow councilmen
Phone tax to finally die
Queen City's moments to shine reflected in book
Tristate Digest
Visit helps cheer ailing classmate
