School of Music

Q&A with Mason alumnus turned composer, Vinny Oppido

Los Angeles-based composer Vinny Oppido has a lot to boast since graduating from George Mason University in 2010. This past weekend, Oppido returned to Mason to perform with the American Festival Pops Orchestra alongside its conductor and Mason professor, Anthony Maiello.

Oppido recently worked on composing the music fo this year's Academy Awards and has had original works performed by the likes of Broadway legend Brian Stokes Mitchell. 

Grammy-winning soprano Leona Mitchelll visits Mason

As someone who has had a rather shaky introduction to opera, I have since fallen in love with it.  Not because I know how difficult it is to hit that C sharp in the middle of an aria, but because the stories wrapped within the music are reflective of the feelings humans go through each day. Instead of telling the audience through a monologue of a character’s emotions, they are sung with such empathy that  literally makes one quake in their seat. Without realizing it, you are swept up and all language barriers are forgotten.

"Into the Woods" brings Mason's music and theater departments together

The College of Visual and Performing Arts is embarking on a new journey; that is a magical journey into the land of fairy tales. In a collaboration between George Mason University’s School of Music and the Department of Theater, the CVPA is presenting Stephen Sondheim’s 1987 musical “Into the Woods.”

Two-time Tony award winner Sutton Foster comes to the Center for the Arts

Two-time Tony Award winner Sutton Foster will be coming to George Mason University as part of the annual ARTS by George! fundraising event. Acclaimed by the New York Times as “the voice of a trumpet and a big, gleaming presence that floods the house,” Foster should draw in the crowd that the School of Music is looking for to get scholarships for its students.