CCM Choral Studies

CONGRATULATIONS!

CCM Choirs and UC College-Conservatory of Music are proud to announce that DMA Choral Conducting student Max Trombley is the recipient of the Presser Foundation’s 2025-26 Graduate Music Award.

The Presser Foundation's Graduate Music Award grants $10,000 to each award recipient to create a project that will further their education and/or musical experience. Trombley's project centers on reviving the lost music of Felipe Gutiérrez y Espinosa.

Gutiérrez was a prominent teacher, director, and composer in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and served for decades as music director at the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist. During his tenure, he produced a substantial body of liturgical works. Despite this output, most of his music survives only in manuscript form and has not been performed in over a century.

In March 2025, Trombley traveled to San Juan on a grant-funded research trip, conducting archival work and interviews at the General Archive, the Puerto Rican Conservatory of Music and the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras. A key component of this research included an interview with Dr. Nélida Muñoz de Frontera, whose foundational scholarship on Gutiérrez has been instrumental in shaping current understanding of his life and works.

At the archives, Trombley accessed Gutiérrez’s autograph manuscripts, which he is now transcribing and editing into modern scholarly performance editions.

"The next phase of the project focuses on bringing this music back to life through performance and recording for public release," Trombley adds. "A performance is planned in Cincinnati in spring 2027, featuring professional musicians from the region, with the goal of reintroducing Gutiérrez’s work to contemporary audiences. The project contributes to ongoing efforts to recover and elevate underrepresented voices in 19th-century Latin American music."