The Hartt School Welcomes New Music Faculty

The Hartt School is pleased to welcome two new faculty members who will join the school in the Fall. Sarah Caissie Provost has been hired as an assistant professor of Music History, and Matthew DeChamplain has been hired as an assistant professor of Jazz.

Sarah Caissie Provost comes to Hartt from the University of North Florida where she was an assistant professor of musicology. She received her PhD from Brandeis University, where she wrote a dissertation titled Benny Goodman’s Carnegie Hall Concert, which discussed the racial and musical significance of a landmark jazz performance. Her research interests include the dissemination of jazz history through performance, women’s experiences in jazz and popular music, and the portrayal of swing-era musicians and dancers on film. Her work on Mary Lou Williams is forthcoming in Black Music Research Journal, and her essay on Benny Goodman’s “Sing Sing Sing” and its uses in film will appear in Music, Sound, and the Moving Image. Provost is also a graduate of The Hartt School, where she received her Bachelor of Music in Flute Performance.

Matthew (Matt) DeChamplain is a familiar presence at Hartt, as prior to his new position as assistant professor of Jazz, he was a part-time faculty in the Jackie McLean Institute of Jazz. He also received his bachelor’s degree from Hartt, and he received his master's degree from the University of Toledo in Ohio. DeChamplain has performed at venues in Europe and the United States such as the Monterey Jazz Festival, Greater Hartford Festival of Jazz, Berks Jazz Festival, New York’s JVC Jazz Festival, the Kennedy Center, Jazz at Lincoln Center, and renowned jazz clubs. In 2008, DeChamplain was selected for the Betty Carter Jazz Ahead Program where he engaged in a two-week intensive composition and performance workshop under the instruction of jazz luminaries Billy Taylor, Nathan Davis, and Curtis Fuller culminating in three performances filmed live from the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. That same year, he toured and performed internationally. DeChamplain has also appeared on various jazz albums, including his own, in collaboration with his wife, titled “Pause;’ together they were featured at Dizzy's Club at Jazz at Lincoln Center for a week-long engagement on the same bill with Freddie Cole. In addition to his faculty position at Hartt, DeChamplain has taught at Western Connecticut State University, The Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts, The Artist’s Collective, and others.