Lotte Lenya (1898-1981) sang in a voice once described as “an octave below laryngitis”, but she was one of the great musical theatre performers of the 20th century and one of the supreme interpreters of the songs of her husband, composer Kurt Weill (1900-1950). Weill and Lenya are shown in the photograph above; the photograph…
“If Music Be the Food…”, a concert series benefiting Rochester’s Foodlink, will conclude its fifth season with an exciting program of music on Friday, May 9, at 7:30 p.m. at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 25 Westminster Rd., Rochester. The concert will open with Eastman School of Music Professor of Harp, Kathleen Bride, and St. Paul’s…
…for the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra’s presentation this week of Howard Hanson’s rarely performed opera (in fact, his only opera), Merry Mount. This three-act piece was written when Hanson was director of the Eastman School of Music, and premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in 1934. The Rochester Philharmonic’s concert performance, conducted by Michael Christie, previews a…
Dariusz Terefenko, associate professor of jazz studies and contemporary media at the University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music, has published Jazz Theory: From Basic to Advanced Study. Accompanied by a DVD and a companion website, the comprehensive 490-page textbook is designed for use in the classroom or at home by individual musicians. As a…
Works by Jewish composers who died in or survived the atrocities of World War II will be performed by Eastman School of Music faculty and students in a concert to mark Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) on Sunday, April 27. Titled “A Time to Remember . . .”, the concert was spearheaded and organized by…
Eastman musicians provide accompaniment for silent movies not just on DVD soundtracks, like Donald Hunsberger (see the Hunchback of Notre Dame posting before this one), but also live. This Thursday, April 10, Carl Theodor Dreyer’s landmark film The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), considered one of the great works of silent cinema, will be…
A new Blu-Ray DVD release of the 1923 silent movie The Hunchback of Notre Dame, starring Lon Chaney and (literally) a cast of thousands, features a background score by Donald Hunsberger (BM ’54, MM ’59, DMA ’63), Eastman professor emeritus of conducting and longtime director of the Eastman Wind Ensemble. In a New York…
Maria Schneider: Going Her Own Way (All About Jazz © 04/03/2014) Schneider learned from the best. She honed her composing, arranging, and band leading skills at the University of Minnesota, the University of Miami, and The Eastman School of Music, and then worked closely with Gil Evans and studied intensively with Bob Brookmeyer. But she…
