The NDSU School of Music announced the appointment of composer Jocelyn Hagen to the faculty as a visiting artist and lecturer. While at NDSU, she will teach composition, 21st Century Choral Music and Music Entrepreneurship.
A Valley City, N.D., native, Hagen composes music that has been described as “dramatic and deeply moving” by the Star Tribune in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn. Since 2003, she has received more than 40 commissions, 50 premieres and 100 performances.
“Jocelyn’s work entitled ‘Swimming into Winter’ was commissioned last year as part of the inauguration of the NDSU School of Music, and performed at the Ordway in St. Paul and at Festival Concert Hall,” said John Miller, director of NDSU Division of Fine Arts. “What a remarkably deft and affecting piece. We are so fortunate to be able to continue to make use of her musical gifts in the coming year.”
In 2010, Hagen was awarded a McKnight Artist Fellowship. She also has received grants and awards from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, the American Composers Forum, Minnesota Music Educators Association, VocelEssence, Yale Glee Club, Lotte Lehman Foundation, Sorel Medallion Competition, Cincinnati Camerata, University of Minnesota and San Francisco Song Festival. Her commissions include the American Choral Directors Association of Minnesota, North Dakota Music Teacher’s Association, Cantus and NDSU Gold Star Band. Graphite Publishing, Santa Barbara Music Publishing, and Boosey and Hawkes publish her work.
Hagen earned bachelor’s degrees in theory, composition and vocal music education from St. Olaf College, as well as a master’s degree in composition from the University of Minnesota. Her training also includes summer study at the European American Musical Alliance in Paris, where she studied with Philip Lasser of the Julliard School of Music. Other former teachers include Judith Lang Zaimont, Peter Hamlin, David Maslanka, Mary Ellen Childs and Timothy Mahr.
NDSU is recognized as one of the nation's top 108 public and private universities by the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education.