Outside of George Eastman, Howard Hanson is the most visible historical presence on the campus (and inside of George Eastman, it’s too dark to see anyway). Rightly so: hired by Eastman himself, Hanson served as director for 40 years and, as school historian Vincent Lenti in a video produced by James Goodman of the Democrat…
This Sunday at 7:30 p.m., Eastman doctoral candidate Cahill Smith and colleagues present a recital in Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall of music by Nicolas Medtner. It’s a program that spans the composer’s career, from Op. 1 to his posthumous Piano Quintet, and the first survey of Medtner’s compositions at Carnegie Hall since the…
Professor of Music Education Christopher Azzara reflects on his classes in Mannheim as part of a trip to Germany. On Saturday, I started a two-day class at the Musikhochschule in Mannheim. This group of undergraduates, graduate students, and in-service teachers had excellent musicianship skills, but didn’t have too much experience improvising. We sang and played…
Professor of Music Education Christopher Azzara traveled last week to Germany to teach as a guest faculty member at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hamburg and the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Mannheim. He writes below on his time in Hamburg. On Wednesday, I taught an improvisation class at the…
As an occasional feature of the Eastman Blog, I’ll ask various Eastman musicians or other guests about their first encounter with a particular piece or genre of music. (Yes, this is blatant theft of the New York Times’ “First Crush” feature.) In slightly late observance of the centenary of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, I asked…