The School of Music is thrilled to welcome Dr. Lauren McCall as assistant research professor in composition and music technology. Dr. McCall will join our school on Jan. 1, 2025.

A composer and music educator from Atlanta, Georgia, McCall received her PhD in Music Technology from the Georgia Institute of Technology and her MFA in Music Composition from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her compositions have been performed around North America and Europe, including her piece for chamber ensemble and mobile phone orchestra, Contour Unveiled, and her composition Rain Musicfor baritone and piano. Along with composing, McCall plays classical music and jazz on woodwind instruments and piano.

With specializations in music and computer science education platforms, extended reality interactive systems for music, as well as graphic and digital music notation, McCall will bring exciting new and creative energy to the School, with the skills to make pedagogical and research contributions across disciplines. “Dr. McCall will enrich our programming with her creative compositional work, her research in virtual and augmented reality, her inclusive approaches to pedagogy, as well as her commitment to making music technology more accessible,” says UVic Music Director Alexis Luko. “Lauren is an exciting addition to our faculty.”

McCall is looking forward to working with students in UVic’s community and fostering new collaborative relationships with colleagues. With her diverse background, she hopes to help “spur on new forms of creativity within each discipline for the students and UVic’s program.” In her practice and teachings of how these different areas connect in interesting ways, McCall strives to “encourage exploration of the research, methods, and interconnectivity between these areas and how we can continue growing in knowledge and creativity with them.”

Current projects include a short opera with collaborator, Catherine Yu. The opera adapts Cate’s play Lizard for a variety of formats, from two vocalists and one pianist to two vocalists and a small chamber ensemble, so that it can be promoted to opera organizations with varying instrumentations.

We look forward to welcoming Dr. McCall in 2025!