Quin Robinson (BM '26) was awarded the 2025 Samuel Page Duke Award (university-wide scholastic achievement, JMU) and had works featured at the 2024 Virginia Music Educators Association Conference.

David Kang (BM '26) was the 2025 winner of the First Annual JMU Spring String Thing Composition Competition.

Riley Koch (MM '25) had works featured at the 2024 Virginia Music Educators Association Conference.

Lanie Niide (BM '24) was the 2025 winnter of the Wind Ensemble Consortium Commission and the 2025 Honorable Mention for the Queer Urban Orchestra Vanguard Competition.

Ben Fuller (BM '24) had his piece "The Tortoise and the Hare" published by Wright & Round, had his piece "Concertino" performed at the North American Brass Band Association Championships in 2023, where the ensemble won the 2023 Small Brass Ensemble category, and was the 2022 Royal Welsh College of Music Cory Band Composition Prize Winner.

Nick Gomez-Colon (MM '23) had a piece nominated for the 2024 Best Arrangement in the Contemporary A Cappella Recording Awards.

Jonah Barnett (BM '22) was the recipient of the 2023 ASCAP Foundation Fran Morgenstern Scholarship.

Joe Jaxson's (BM '22) piece Fanfare and Overture was selected as a winner of the University of Southern California Student Symphony Orchestra's 2020 Call for Scores. His piece Persevering was selected as the winner of the JMNew Music Ensemble 2021 Call for Scores and received honorable mention in the ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young Composer Awards and the newEar 2020-2021 Composition Contest. Joe was admitted to the 2020 NYU Film Scoring Workshop and was a finalist in the Press Start Inaugural Composer Competition, a selected composer of the FivebyFive Modern Chamber Music Call for Scores and Ideas 2020, a selected composer for the Summer 2021 SPLICE Institute, and was elected president of the JMU Club Composition for 2021-2022.

Joe had four pieces premiered: Overture for the 21st Century for brass and percussion, Well with My Soul for horn and tenor saxophone, Cautiously Optimistic for solo euphonium, and Fanfare and Overture for full orchestra. He also composed original music for the Donald Heiter Community Center's 2021 Radio Dramas Natalie and the Chocolate Factory, streamed through their Sweeten Your Spirit podcast during their annual Chocolate Festival, and Tarrstown Tales: Kris's Time-Traveling Lewisburg Adventure for their annual Celebration of the Arts.

Hefang Ma's (MM '22) chamber sextet Nishang was featured on the new music YouTube channel incipitsify. Hefang also collaborated with DMA percussionists Will Alderman (DMA '23) and Reese Maultsby (MM '21) to compose Akezora for percussion duo, which was premiered online in April 2021. 

Joshua Villa (BM '22) arranged, orchestrated, and directed a brand-new musical song cycle with theatre major Anna DeNoia. The project received a College of Visual and Performing Arts Undergraduate Research Grant to fund the studio time to release a cast album. Joshua and Anna's work was also featured in The Breeze, JMU’s newspaper.

Jack Yagerline (BM '22) was admitted to the 2020 Sō Percussion Summer Institute. 

Mason Moy (BM '21) was admitted to California Institute of the Arts. Mason's senior recital included premieres of his Honors Capstone Project Now > Ever Suite and I’m Your Only Friend for saxophone. Additional premieres included Magnificat for saxophone quartet and Mothman's Delight performed by the JMU Jazz Ensemble.

Mason developed the Learning Sounds Method Book with colleagues from JMU's MUS 450 Theory Seminar and composed the music for the short film Hot Potato.

Mason also was awarded a 2020 Undergraduate Research Grant from the JMU College of Visual and Performing Arts. Mason was also selected to participate in the Longy School of Music's Divergent Studio for summer 2020. 

Kendall Water's (BM '21) paper "When I Wore a Younger Man’s Clothes': The Nostalgia Topic in the Music of Billy Joel" was published in the James Madison Undergraduate Research Journal (JMURJ). Kendall also worked with Joe Jaxson, Amy Millesen, and Camila Maric to create the Journal of Undergraduate Research in Music (JURM), the first undergraduate journal totally dedicated to the research and study of music.

Kendall's senior composition recital featured her pieces Find Me at 3 AM, Sketches of Pianists, and Madison Miniatures. Kendall was also invited to spend the summer interning with the Smithsonian Jazz Program at the National Museum of American History.

Kt Allenbaugh (BM '20) was awarded Third Place in The Choral Project's 2020 Rachel Moore Composition Contest for her work “Love is a Bright Light." 

Brian Junttila (BM '19) was given honorable mention in the Civitasolis Reed Quintet's 2019 Composition Competition. 

Douglas Byler (BM '17) was awarded Second Place in The Choral Project's 2016 Rachel Moore Composition Contest for his work “Paris in Spring."

Ryan Stees (BM '16) was given honorable mention by the New York Youth Symphony 2020-21 First Music Commissioning program.

• Mihir Borah (BM '25), Syracuse University, MM (Teaching Assistantship)
• Nick Gomez-Colon (MM '23), University of Maryland, DMA (Teaching Assistantship)
• Joe Jaxon (BM '22), University of Texas at Austin, DMA
• Brian Junttila (BM '19), Florida State University, DMA (Teaching Assistantship)
• Hefang Ma (MM '22), University of Cincinnati, DMA (Teaching Assistantship)
• Joe Jaxon (BM '22), University of Texas at Austin, MM ($80,000 Fellowship)
• Jack Yagerline (BM '22) University of North Carolina Greensboro, MM (Teaching Assistantship)
• Hefang Ma (MM '22), Manhattan School of Music, Professional Studies (Large Scholarship)
• Jonah Barnett (BM '22), Manhattan School of Music, MM (Large Scholarship)
• Michael Kahle (MM '21), West Virginia University, DMA (Teaching Assistantship)
• Mason Moy (BM '21), California Institute for the Arts, MM (Large Scholarship)
• Kendall Waters (BM '21), Catholic University of America, MA Musicology
• Kt Allenbaugh (BM '20), Stony Brook University, MM (Teaching Assistantship)
• Brian Junttila (BM '19), Florida State University, MM (Teaching Assistantship)
• Michael Tyree (BM '17), University of Nebraska, MM Conducting
• Ryan Stees (BM '16), Indiana University, MA and Ph.D. Mathematics
• Anne McAninch (MM '15), University of Wisconsin Madison, DMA