Eastman School of Music Posts and Musings

Wellness at Eastman: Sleep – Our Superpower

Wellness at Eastman is a monthly seminar series from Eastman Performing Arts Medicine (EPAM) featuring artists and clinicians speaking to physical and mental wellness for performing artists, inspired by the Healthy Conservatoires movement in Europe.    The next Wellness at Eastman seminar will be on Wednesday, January 11, 2023, at 6 p.m.: Sleep – Our Superpower, presented by…

Going the Extra Mile: Summer@Eastman Marketing Intern Joyce Tseng

In this Summer@Eastman 2023 blog post, you can meet the S@E Marketing Intern: Violist and DMA Candidate Joyce Tseng, who, as you’ll read, is enjoying her many performing, educational, and professional development opportunities at Eastman and the University of Rochester.   My name is Joyce Tseng, and I’m a third-year DMA student at the Eastman…

Eastman Opens the Doors: Five Festive Days Saluting One Hundred Years

This feature article originally appeared in the Summer 2022 issue of Eastman Notes. Eastman invited the Rochester community to its celebration of the 100th anniversary of the official opening of its doors to the public on March 3, 1922. This date marked the beginning of a long relationship between Rochesterians and the burgeoning new music…

Dreaming and Doing: An Outstanding Student Trombone Choir Visits Eastman

The motto of Atlanta’s Stephenson High School is “If you can dream it, you can do it.” This weekend, a longtime dream of the members of the school’s trombone choir and an Eastman trombone professor will come true. The Morris Trombone Institute, made up of students from different schools in the Metro Atlanta area (including…

“Innocence, pride, and overwhelming joy”: ESSO Concert Features a Rossini Rarity

The Eastman School Symphony Orchestra presents its next concert on Friday, November 18 at 7:30 p.m. in Kodak Hall. Professor Neil Varon and DMA conducting student Matthew Straw will lead works by Grieg and Schumann, but the program also includes a vocal showpiece: Rossini’s short song cycle La Regata Veneziana, to be sung by senior…

Conductor Austin Chanu, Composer Florence Price, and an Eastman Premiere

The music of the African American composer Florence Price (1887-1955) has recently been the subject of excited attention. Many of her works have been unearthed and rediscovered, and one of her orchestral works, The Oak, has an important Eastman connection. DMA conducting student Austin Chanu will conduct the Eastman Philharmonia in a rare performance of…

EWE Presents an “Absolutely Unique” Concert with Eastman Connections

This Wednesday evening’s concert by the Eastman Wind Ensemble features many Eastman connections – in performers and in composers. Two Eastman alumni will join forces when guest soloist Nick Weiser ’10E (MM), ’14E (DMA) performs the Concerto for Jazz Piano and Wind Ensemble by Dana Wilson ’82E (PhD), a professor emeritus at Ithaca College. Mason…

An American Dream Comes True: One Man’s Life in Music, at Eastman and After

This excerpt from the autobiography of the father of former Eastman School director Robert Freeman was published in Eastman Notes magazine this fall, shortly before Robert Freeman’s death on October 18, 2022, in Austin, Texas. We also offer the story on the Eastman website in tribute to Bob Freeman, who led Eastman from 1973 to…

Opera as Theatre: Anthony Davis on “Lear on the 2nd Floor”

Confusion, fear, panic, and loneliness are not uncommon emotions in opera. Add to the list aging, family dynamics, manipulation, suffering, madness, foolishness, order, vision, and loyalty, as inspired by the themes and character relationships in Shakespeare’s King Lear, and you have a compelling contemporary opera with a distinctly contemporary voice: Lear on the 2nd Floor,…

Wellness at Eastman: Alexander Technique and the Performing Artist

Wellness at Eastman is a monthly seminar series from Eastman Performing Arts Medicine (EPAM) featuring artists and clinicians speaking to physical and mental wellness for performing artists, inspired by the Healthy Conservatoires movement in Europe.  The next Wellness at Eastman seminar will be on Wednesday, November 2, 2022, at 6 p.m.: Alexander Technique and the Performing Artist, presented…