Our Remembrance

Veda Zuponcic, professor of piano in the Department of Music, died on June 3, 2026. She was 79.

Zuponcic joined Rowan University in 1971 and served as a professor in the Department of Music until her recent passing. Over more than 50 years of teaching, Zuponcic trained countless students, many of whom won prestigious national and international competitions under her tutelage.

She was the founding executive director of the Hollybush Festival, which ran from 1983 to 1990. In 1987, Zuponcic programmed the festival as an “Artistic Summit” to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Hollybush Summit Conference attended by President Lyndon Johnson and Russian Premier Alexei Kosygin in 1967. Her efforts brought together American and Soviet artists who shared a variety of performances and exhibitions across visual art, opera and ballet, attracting national attention. The connections forged through her partnership with the Soviet Cultural Attaché in Washington, D.C., led to many years of students from the former USSR finding their way to Rowan to study music.

As a pianist, Zuponcic toured extensively across four continents and performed frequently on campus. She was a sought-after performer in the concert halls of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, playing more than 100 concerts and recitals in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Zagreb, Dubrovnik, Tbilisi, Arkhangelsk, Tashkent, Kyiv, Chișinău and Kharkiv, among others. In 1992, she was an Exchange Professor at the Moscow State Conservatory, where she taught a class and gave a series of lectures on American piano music.

In 2003, Zuponcic became the Founding Artistic Director of the Northern Lights Music Festival in Aurora, Minnesota, where she brought world-class classical music and opera to her hometown for more than two decades.

Veda Zuponcic is remembered by her colleagues as a fierce advocate for musical excellence who always operated in the best interest of her students. She was endlessly energetic, elegant in her manner, and brimming with determination and skill in bringing her goals to fruition. She worked in Wilson Hall for every moment of its existence, and it is difficult to picture the building without her. She will be dearly missed.

Event forthcoming: This academic school year, the College of the Arts will host a memorial concert for Veda featuring some of her current and former students and colleagues—stay tuned for details.