Long-time music instructor Gary Hall retires

After 10 years at Laramie County Community College, instrumental music instructor Gary Hall is calling it a career. Hall's passion for his profession was seen in the classroom with his interaction with his students and the events he brought to campus including Bump in the Night, holiday galas and others.

This fall, Bryan Christian will teach the instrumental classes at LCCC. Christian is a composer whose works have received numerous performances throughout the United States and abroad. He was among the youngest ever recipients of the Fromm Commission from Harvard University in 2009 and has fulfilled commissions for the Festival Les Musicales and the Juventus Festival, among others. He is writing his first piece inspired by the Front Range for Colorado’s own Playground Ensemble as the recipient of their Colorado Composer’s Commission in 2014. Other honors include a Fulbright Fellowship, which took Christian to Estonia in 2008-2009. He continues to return to Estonia and Europe for performances of his music, workshops, lectures and composition masterclasses.

As a teacher, Christian is passionate about educating young musicians and professionals and sharing his interests in music history, theory and composition. In addition to being the interim instrumental music instructor at LCCC, he serves as special assistant professor of Music Theory at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. He is defending his Ph.D. dissertation at Duke University in fall 2014. Christian also holds composition degrees from Indiana University and Master of Arts from The Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre, The University of California at San Diego and Duke University. His work as a theorist has been published by Music Theory Online and he has another article coming in TEMPO.