Updated February 23, 2017 Three Eastman School of Music alumni, Sean D. Connors, Geoff Saunders, and Shane Shanahan, were winners in the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, Inc.’s 59th GRAMMY Awards Sunday, Feb. 12. I Connors (BM 04) is a member of the ensemble Third Coast Percussion, which won the Best Chamber Music…
Opera was a source of national identity and pride in 19th-century Italy. Church organists were even encouraged to bring the sounds of the opera into the sanctuary, where it could be available to all, including those who couldn’t afford an opera ticket. Organists of the period incorporated the musical style and gestures of operas into…
Jazz pianist and Eastman School of Music professor Bill Dobbins was surprised no one had ever talked to legendary composer/arranger Bill Holman about his life and music. So Dobbins traveled to the California home of the National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master, where he recorded Holman’s reflections on his career and his thoughts on…
Rochester, N.Y.— The opening of National Sawdust in 2015 created a new model for classical music venues: a concert and rehearsal space, recording studio, and arts incubator in one facility. Issues around growing this new model’s board, including recruitment and accountability, are traced in Volume II of The Eastman Case Studies. Eastman Case Studies Developed…
ROCHESTER, N.Y.—The University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music has announced the appointments of Chelsea Burns and Orit Hilewicz as faculty members in the Music Theory Department, and of Mara Culp as a faculty member in the Music Teaching and Learning Department. They will begin teaching at Eastman during the 2017-2018 academic year. “I am…
Here are some select recent clippings showing the variety of hits/mentions identifying musicians and scholars as Eastman School of Music alumni, faculty or students. (Note: Some links may have expired.) Retirees return to practicing, playing the music of their youth (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 01/30/2017) The New Horizons International Music Association, a nonprofit program aimed primarily at…
Josephine Gaeffke by Andrea Schuler, Summer@Eastman Program Coordinator Harpsichordist Josephine Gaeffke found her way to Rochester after extensive travel and exploration. She spent the first part of her musical life studying piano, but now plays only harpsichord; she speaks several languages and has studied and performed in many countries around the world. She has also…
By Dan Gross The Danish String Quartet is playing on Sunday at 3 p.m. in Kilbourn Hall, as a part of the Eastman-Ranlet Series, performing modern Northern European music, Nordic folk music, and Beethoven. The members of the DSQ are Frederik Øland, violin; Rune Tonsgaard Sørensen, violin; Asbjørn Nørgaard, viola; Fredrik Schøyen Sjölin, cello. Here’s…
By Erik Elmgren On Sunday, February 5, 2016, at 5 p.m., the Eastman Philharmonia presents its first concert of the spring semester under Neil Varon. The concert features works by Beethoven and Strauss, as well as William Walton’s Concerto for Viola and Orchestra performed by Eastman student Halam Kim. I spoke to Halam to learn…
By Kameron Ghanavati Eastman voice students and opera faculty members are hard at work diving into a subject that seems too surreal to be true. Grief stricken characters in Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer’s newest opera, Out of Darkness, retell their chilling experiences at concentration camps during World War II. What is most fascinating about…