Musical Links to the Community

This Sunday Eastman presents a recital by this year’s winner of the annual scholarship awarded by the Rochester, New York Chapter, The Links, Incorporated. The Links Scholarship celebrates the talents and achievements of an African-American scholar musician. This year’s recipient is sophomore Carmen Livada Johnson-Pajaro (pictured), an Alabama native and a violin student of Ayano…

A Lotte Great Performances

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…

Merriment is mounting …

…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…

Old Film, Brand-New Sounds

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…