Eastman Showcase 2003
Bringing Copland to China
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Bringing Copland to China
Clarinetist Jun Qian, a DMA candidate, went home for the summer – to Shanghai, China, where he introduced an American classic to Chinese audiences: the original version of Aaron Copland’s Clarinet Concerto.
“After more than nine years of studying in the United States … I have come to love American culture and its music while still enjoying my Chinese heritage,” says Jun, who is in fifth year of study at Eastman. “I thought it was time for me to become an ambassador of friendship by introducing the Chinese people to American classical music with their favorite local orchestras.”
Jun, a student of Kenneth Grant, performed the Copland Concerto in an all-American program with one of China’s top orchestras, the Shanghai Symphony. He spent most of June and July performing, conducting, and giving master classes throughout China.
“I wanted to meet the new generation of Chinese music students and musicians,” says Jun, “and to encourage them to study at Eastman by introducing my American learning experience at that school. Also, I wanted to meet music teachers and help them build a new relationship with the Eastman School.”
Assistant professor of Musicology Roger Freitas is spending the 2003-04 academic year as a fellow at the American Academy in Rome. Freitas was one of 31 fellowship winners announced on April 24. He’ll spend a full year in Italy, researching and writing his current project, “Style and Meaning in the Mid-Seicento [17th-century] Italian Cantata.”
The American Academy in Rome, established in 1913, has a distinguished history of supporting artists, composers, writers, and historians in their research. The composers include Howard Hanson, ESM director from 1924-1964, a Rome Prize winner in 1921.
The Rome Prize provides fellowships ranging from six months to two years for American artists and scholars to live and work at the Academy’s eighteen-building, eleven-acre site atop Rome’s highest hill, the Janiculum. (For more information visit www.aarome.org.)