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.)
Eastman School Gets $2M for Contemporary Media Institute
(Musical America 009/02/2015)
The Eastman School of Music has received $2 million from alumni Jeff and Joan Beal to establish the Beal Institute for Film Music and Contemporary Media. Jeff Beal is a hugely successful TV and film composer (House of Cards, Ugly Betty, to name a few of the shows he’s scored); his wife is a studio and jingle singer and chorus contractor. (Also reported by Philanthropy News Digest, Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, Time Warner, WXXI, Rochester Business Journal, 13WHAM-TV, City , The Daily News )
Southeast Iowa Symphony Orchestra to host POPS concert
(Ottumwa Courier 08/30/2015)
Under the baton of Maestro Robert McConnell, Southeast Iowa Symphony Orchestra will begin its 65th season with two concerts of pops and light classical music.
Mezzo-soprano Hannah Kurth will be the guest artist singing songs of George Gershwin. Originally from Bettendorf, Iowa, mezzo-soprano Hannah Kurth is delighted to be performing back in her home state. This past May, she graduated with her Master’s in Vocal Performance & Literature from the Eastman School of Music, where she studied with acclaimed mezzo-soprano Katherine Ciesinski. While at Eastman, she performed as a soloist with the Bach Cantata series, the Repertory Singers, the Women’s Chorus, and the Eastman-Rochester Chorus. She also performed as a soloist in the Bach B Minor Mass with the professional chorus Voices. With Eastman Opera Theater, she performed the role of Florence Pike in Britten’s “Albert Herring” and covered the role of Mother Marie in Poulenc’s “Dialogues of the Carmelites.”
Andrea Burns and Joshua Henry to Join Jason Robert Brown at SubCulture Next Week
(Broadway World 09/02/2015)
The new concert series curated by the renowned Tony Award-winning composer, lyricist, conductor, and director, Jason Robert Brown, continues this month at SubCulture. Just announced for Brown’s upcoming concert on September 11, 2015 are stage vets Andréa Burns and Joshua Henry.
Jason Robert Brown is the ultimate multi-hyphenate — an equally skilled composer, lyricist, conductor, arranger, orchestrator, director and performer — best known for his dazzling scores to several of the most renowned musicals of his generation, including THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY, for which Jason received the 2014 Tony Awards for Best Score and Best Orchestrations, the recently revived THE LAST FIVE YEARS, his debut song cycle SONGS FOR A NEW WORLD, and the seminal PARADE, winner of the 1999 Best Score Tony.
Jason studied composition at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y., with Samuel Adler, Christopher Rouse, and Joseph Schwantner. He lives with his wife, composer Georgia Stitt, and their daughters in New York City.
JAZZ | Eastman Jazz Faculty
(Rochester City Newspaper © 09/02/2015)
Picture pianist Harold Danko, trumpeter Clay Jenkins, saxophonist Charles Pillow, guitarist Bob Sneider, bassist Jeff Campbell, and drummer Rich Thompson on stage together. That group could be called one of the finest sextets in jazz today. Or it could be just part of the line-up of excellent musicians teaching Jazz Studies at the Eastman School of Music. All of the above and several others will be on hand at Kilbourn Hall as the jazz faculty struts its stuff.
Dave Karr Quartet at Crooners Lounge, September 8
(Jazz Police 09/03/2015)
Crooners Lounge in Fridley recently launched a Tuesday Night Instrumental Jazz series, focusing on established performers and generally featuring a pianist as part of the ensemble. The series continues September 8 with the Dave Karr Quartet, with local legend Karr on saxophone, Chris Lomheim on piano, Gordy Johnson on bass and Phil Hey on drums.
Gordy Johnson graduated from the Eastman School of Music where he majored in flute. As a bassist, he toured with Maynard Ferguson, Doc Severinsen, and the Paul Winter Consort, has appeared on over 50 recordings, and has kept time for most local and many visiting artists.
KRS-One is walking, talking, breathing hip-hop history
(Tallahassee Democrat 09/03/2015)
IT’S A STRING THING: Classical guitarist Adam Larison, who was recently handed a full scholarship to study in the doctoral program at the prestigious Eastman School of Music in upstate New York, will perform as part of the Seven Hills Guitar Series at 3 p.m. Sunday at St. John’s Episcopal Church, 211 N. Monroe St. It’s free and open to the public
The Wings of Song
(ArtVoice 09/03/2015)
Soprano Emily Helenbrook just started her senior year at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, but she will make a welcome return to the Friends of Vienna to open their 40th Anniversary Season on Sunday, September 13 at 3:30pm in the Unity Church, 1243 Delaware Avenue in Buffalo. Emily, who will be accompanied by Eastman pianist Kurt Galván in a program of arias and songs by Mozart, Erik Satie, Hugo Wolf and Poulenc, has enjoyed an increasingly high profile on the local classical music scene. She was a featured singer in a rare performance of Beethoven’s complete incidental music to Goethe’s Egmont on the BPO Classical series at Kleinhans under JoAnn Falletta last March, and in July she sang in an all-Mozart program in the Mary Seaton Room under the baton of BPO associate conductor Stefan Sanders.
Obituary: Pianist Thelma Hunter was a major figure in Twin Cities’ music scene
Star-Tribune 08/29/2015)
Thelma Hunter knew what it was like to play on the big stage. At age 5, the pianist performed at Carnegie Hall as one of the “talented youth of New York.” In 1939, she played the Grieg Piano Concerto for Norway Day at the World’s Fair.
From her arrival in the Twin Cities in 1947 until her death Aug. 18, Hunter was a major figure in the Twin Cities music scene, playing solo and chamber performances with many local ensembles.
She was born in New York City; her father was a Norwegian immigrant choir director and composer and her mother a pianist and organist. Hunter was a child prodigy. She earned several scholarships while studying at Cornell University in New York. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in 1945, then earned a master’s degree from the Eastman School of Music. She was among the first women to be awarded an “Artist’s Diploma,” an honor given to Eastman students who demonstrate exceptionally outstanding performance ability.