The Eastman Youth Jazz Orchestra, a 23-member ensemble of the Eastman Community Music School (ECMS), won the Big Band Category in the first annual Charles Mingus High School Competition. The competition was part of a three-day festival held at the Manhattan School of Music Friday, Feb. 20, to Sunday, Feb. 22, celebrating Mingus, a renowned…
Acclaimed Norwegian organist Jon Laukvik will present a recital on the Craighead-Saunders Organ in Christ Church (Episcopal) at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 27. In 1977, Laukvik was awarded both the First Prize and the Bach Prize in the International Organ Competition in Nuremberg. The same year, he was also a prize winner in the International…
Eastman School of Music sophomore Nicholas Fitton has been selected as a finalist for the YouTube Symphony Orchestra and the chance to perform under world-renowned conductor Michael Tilson Thomas. Billed as the world’s first collaborative online orchestra, the YouTube Symphony Orchestra Project has two components: the creation of a symphony performance from video submissions, and…
The Eastman School of Music community was shocked and saddened to learn of the untimely death of prominent jazz saxophonist Gerry Niewood in an airplane crash on Thursday, Feb. 12. Mr. Niewood earned his Bachelor of Music degree in music education, with an emphasis in saxophone, at Eastman in 1970. Best known for his association…
The second concert in the new “Eastman at St. Michael’s Series” of monthly vocal and instrumental recitals will be presented at 2:30 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 22. Performing in the historic St. Michael’s Roman Catholic Church will be Eastman School of Music students Erica Washburn, soprano, and Christopher Petit, organ. The concert is free and…
Eleven singing actors who hope to make it to the finals of the 2009 Lotte Lenya Competition, including six Eastman School of Music students, will vie in a preliminary regional round at 1 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 21, in Eastman’s Kilbourn Hall. The Lotte Lenya Competition is an internationally recognized theater singing competition sponsored by the…
Tenor Anthony Dean Griffey, who received his master’s degree at the Eastman School of Music in 2001, won two Grammy Awards February 8 for the Los Angeles Opera’s Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny. The DVD recording of the production won in the categories of Best Opera Recording, which is presented to the…
Soprano Tony Arnold, an internationally acclaimed interpreter of contemporary music, is this year’s Howard Hanson Visiting Professor of Composition at the Eastman School of Music. She will be in residence until April 2, coaching students, participating in symposiums, and singing with several Eastman ensembles. Her appearances will include performances of works by Eastman faculty and…
Eastman School of Music faculty and students are the featured performers in local concerts being recorded for broadcast on the nationally syndicated radio program Pipedreams. The series, which is produced and distributed by American Public Media, airs locally on classical public radio station WXXI-FM 91.5. Professors Hans Davidsson, David Higgs, and William Porter will be…