“Why would Florencia open her arms?” asks director Octavio Cardenas in a recent rehearsal of Daniel Catán’s Florencia en el Amazonas, the first Spanish language opera to be performed by the Eastman Opera Theatre. The opera will run Thursday through Sunday, March 30 to April 2, in Kodak Hall at Eastman Theatre. He instructs the…
Saxophonist Matthias Roth first came to Eastman as a Summer student. In 2018, he participated in Eastman Experience: Summer Classical Studies, and the following two summers he enrolled in the Eastman Summer Saxophone Institute for 2019 and 2020. Matthias went on to enroll at Eastman and is currently a sophomore in the studio of Chien-Kwan…
Any fool can play the tuba. That’s a phrase Associate Professor of Tuba Don Harry has been known to tout. “He means that anyone can approach the tuba, but also, anyone can play it, so what makes you special,” says Michael Witt, one of the senior tuba players in Harry’s studio, who conducts the Tuba…
Eastman School of Music faculty members, students and alumni will join the worldwide observance of Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) by presenting a concert titled “A Time to Remember” on Sunday, April 16, 2023, at 7:30 p.m. in Kilbourn Hall. The concert features music written by those who perished or survived the World War II…
A kid from Buffalo, Malcolm J. Merriweather ‘10E (MM) never believed he could make it big as a singer and conductor in New York City. But Rita Shane, his vocal professor at Eastman, did. “She emphasized over and over, ‘Malcolm, you have to come to New York, you’re made for New York. You are going…
Alexander Laing (photo: Jared Platt) & Lee Koonce (photo: Olubode Brown) Today, in association with Eastman School of Music, Gateways Music Festival – a national organization dedicated to connecting and supporting professional classical musicians of African descent – announced succession plans for its new leadership. The changes are set to begin in July 2023, when…
Regina Carter, a recipient of the 2023 National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters Fellowship, a MacArthur “Genius Grant” Fellowship and a Doris Duke Artist Award, is widely hailed for her prowess as a jazz violinist. On Monday, April 10, 2023 at 4:00 p.m. in Hatch Recital Hall at the Eastman School of Music, Carter…
“There’s almost a degree of magical thinking that goes along with ‘Can I make a career in composition,’” says Han Lash ‘04E, the Eastman graduate, lauded composer, and current associate professor of composition at Indiana University who returns next week as this year’s Howard Hanson Visiting Professor for a week-long residency. Their works will be…
Nearly half a century ago, Eastman pioneered a summer program for jazz musicians. Generations of students from around the nation spent their summers on Gibbs Street making music, making friends, and learning from each other and from Eastman’s faculty. In this blog, we hear from three leaders who significantly contributed to this thriving program and…