• The
Ariel String Quartet (faculty 2012–present) has served as CCM's official string quartet-in-residence since 2012. Formed in Israel in 1998, the Quartet includes violinists Gershon Gerchikov and Alexandra Kazovsky, violist Jan Grüning and cellist Amit Even-Tov. •
Clara Baur was a German-born music teacher who founded the
Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, which eventually merged with the College of Music of Cincinnati and the
University of Cincinnati to form what is now known as the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. The "Baur Room" in CCM's Corbett Center for the Performing Arts is named after Clara and her niece Bertha. •
John Cage was an American composer and music theorist who served as composer-in-residence at CCM from 1967 to 1968. A pioneer of
indeterminacy in music,
electroacoustic music, and
non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war
avant-garde. •
Dorothy Delay was an American
violin instructor who taught at CCM for nearly 30 years. Her former students include many noted violinists of the late 20th century. She also taught many significant orchestral musicians and pedagogues. •
Robin Guarino (faculty 2008–2025) is a theatre, opera and film director based in New York City and Cincinnati. Guarino has directed over 90 original productions and her work has been presented by opera companies, festivals, theaters and symphonies including the BAM Next Wave Festival, Canadian Opera Company, The Cincinnati Opera Avery Fisher and Alice Tully Hall, Seattle Opera, San Francisco Opera, HGOco, the Canadian Opera Company, The Glimmerglass Festival, The Bard Summer Festival, The Opera Theatre of St. Louis and Virginia Opera among others. She has served as co-artistic director of CCM's
Opera Fusion: New Works initiative with
Cincinnati Opera since its inception. •
Mara Helmuth is a composer with special interests in electroacoustic and computer music and research. Her compositions have received numerous performances in the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Asia. She has been on the board of directors of the International Computer Music Association and Society of Electroacoustic Music in the United States, and served as ICMA President. She serves as director of CCM's Center for Computer Music. •
Douglas Knehans (faculty 2008–present) is an
American/
Australian composer. He is the Norman Dinerstein Professor of Composition Scholar at CCM, where he also served as dean from 2008 to 2010. Knehans is also the director of Ablaze Records, a company which records and produces music by living composers. • The
LaSalle Quartet was a string quartet active from 1946 to 1987, which served as CCM's string quartet-in-residence from 1953 to 1987. After making its European debut in 1954, the LaSalle Quartet won international recognition for its masterful interpretations of the major works in the chamber music repertory. The Quartet became particularly well regarded as the leading interpreters of "The Second Viennese School," performing complete cycles of the quartets of Schoenberg, Berg and Webern throughout the United States and Europe. Cellist Lee Fiser continued to teach at CCM until his retirement in 2017. •
Elliot Madore (faculty 2021–present) is a Grammy Award-winning Canadian lyric baritone. Madore has performed throughout Europe, Canada and the US. He was appointed an associate professor of Voice at CCM in August 2021. •
Kevin McCollum is a Broadway producer who served a three-year term as Distinguished Visiting professor at CCM beginning in 2015. A distinguished alumnus of the University of Cincinnati, McCollum (BFA Musical Theatre, 1984; HonDoc, 2005) is the Tony Award-winning producer of
Rent,
Avenue Q,
In the Heights,
Motown the Musical and many other acclaimed Broadway,
Off-Broadway and touring productions. • Nick Photinos (faculty 2023–present) is a four-time Grammy Award-winning cellist and co-founder of
Eighth Blackbird who serves as Professor of Chamber Music and Eminent Scholar at CCM. He has received Musical America's Ensemble of the Year Award, the MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions, the inaugural Chamber Music America Visionary Award, the Naumburg Award and the Concert Artists Guild Grand Prize. •
Awadagin Pratt (faculty 2004–2023) is an American concert pianist who retired from CCM in June 2023. In 1992 he won the Naumburg International Piano Competition and two years later was awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant. In November 2009, Pratt was one of four artists selected to perform at a classical music event at the White House that included student workshops hosted by the First Lady, Michelle Obama, and performing in concert for guests including President Obama. He has performed two other times at the White House, both at the invitation of President and Mrs. Clinton. •
Miguel Roig-Francolí (faculty 2000–2025) is a music theorist, composer, musicologist and pedagogue who serves as CCM's Distinguished Teaching Professor of Music Theory and Composition. At CCM, he regularly teaches history of theory, sixteenth-century counterpoint, post-tonal theory, music theory pedagogy, and a seminar on the analysis of early music. He is the author of
Harmony in Context (McGraw-Hill, 2nd edn., 2011) and
Understanding Post-Tonal Music (McGraw-Hill, 2007; Chinese translation, Beijing: People's Music Publishing House, 2012; Routledge, 2nd edn, 2021). •
Kurt Sassmannshaus (faculty 1983–present) is a violinist, teacher, and conductor. He is CCM's distinguished Dorothy Richard Starling Chair for Classical Violin, a position previously held by the late
Dorothy Delay. Sassmannshaus has taught around the world, including master classes in Europe, the United States, Japan, China, and Australia, and has worked in close association with Dorothy DeLay both in Cincinnati and at the Aspen Music Festival and School. •
Stuart Skelton (faculty 2021–2024) is a tenor and a graduate of CCM (MM Voice, '95). Skelton joined the college's Voice Performance faculty in August 2021 and was named CCM's J. Ralph Corbett Distinguished Chair in Opera in December 2021. •
Italo Tajo was an Italian operatic bass who began teaching at CCM in 1966. He maintained a significant performance career before and during his 19 years as a faculty member at the college. After Tajo's death in 1993, his wife Indela Tajo donated a scholarship to CCM in Italo's name. The Italo Tajo Archive Room in CCM's Dieterle Vocal Arts Center is named after the former faculty member, and is filled with historical items from his career. •
James Tocco (faculty 1991–2021) served for 30 years as Professor of Piano and Eminent Scholar of Chamber Music at CCM. Tocco has a worldwide career as a soloist with orchestra, recitalist, chamber music performer and pedagogue. His repertoire of over 50 works with orchestra includes virtually the entire standard piano concerto repertoire, as well as more rarely performed works such as the
Symphonie Concertante of Szymanowski, the
Kammerkonzert of Alban Berg and
The Age of Anxiety of Leonard Bernstein. Hailed in solo recitals for his interpretations of Beethoven, Chopin and Liszt, as well as composers of the 20th century, Tocco is one of the few pianists in the world to regularly program the keyboard works of Handel. • James Truitte (1923–1995) was a dancer who trained with
Lester Horton and
Alvin Ailey and became known as an authority on Horton's technique and
choreography. He started teaching master classes at the conservatory in 1970, being appointed named associate professor in 1973, and in 1993, professor emeritus. ==Noted alumni==