Here are some select clippings from the past week showing the variety of hits/mentions identifying musicians and scholars as Eastman School of Music alumni, faculty or students. Note: Some links may have expired.)
Young Students Love of Classical Music is On Display at Recital
(Buffalo News 02/16/2014)
Lots of kids today like to jam to rap, hip-hop, rock or pop music. But the children of the Henri L. Muhammad School of Music prefer to rock out to Beethoven, Brahms and Back.
Anyango Yarbo-Davenport was the guest violinist during the event. A professional musician, Yarbo-Davenport has been playing the piano since she was 2 years old. She is finishing up her doctorate degree at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, where she also teaches all ages at the Eastman Community Music School.
Renowned musician Paul O’Dette traded his electric guitar and rock band for the lute
(Syracuse Post Standard 02/21/2014
Paul O’Dette made the leap from being a teen in a rock band playing Cream, Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin to being today a renowned player of an Early Music instrument. O’Dette plays the lute. He will be soloist, performing works by Johann Sebastian Bach and Sylvius Leopold Weiss on Saturday and Sunday. First he performs at 8 p.m. Saturday at Setnor Auditorium in Crouse College at Syracuse University. O’Dette is professor of lute at Eastman School of Music in Rochester.
Skaneateles Festival conducts national search for artistic director
(Syracuse Post Standard © 02/17/2014)
The Freer and Ying resignation followed Ying’s appointment as artistic director of the Bowdoin International Musical Festival in Brunswick, Maine, in December. David Ying and his brother Phillip have been named the fest’s artistic directors. The brothers, sister Janet and Ayano Ninomiya are string players who perform as the Ying Quartet. The ensemble has performed at the festival in the past. Elinor Freer, a pianist, and her husband, cellist David Ying, are on the faculty of the Eastman School of Music in Rochester.
The Eastman Saxophone Project
(Backstage Pass: WXXI © 02/14/2014)
The Eastman Saxophone Project (ESP) and director Chien-Kwan Lin join host Julia Figueras for Backstage Pass, Friday, February 28 at 1 p.m. on Classical 91.5. ESP is the country’s first “conductor-less” saxophone ensemble. Made up of students from the saxophone studio at the Eastman School of Music, the ensemble performs entire programs from memory, dramatically enhancing the level of interaction with its audiences. Director Chien-Kwan Lin is Associate Professor of Saxophone at the Eastman School of Music and has appeared as soloist and guest artist with the United States Navy Band, the Eastman Wind Ensemble, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, the Tanglewood Festival Orchestra, the New World Symphony, and the Portland (ME) Symphony.
ARTS: RPO announces 2014-15 season
(Rochester City Newspaper © 02/16/2014)
This morning Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra announced the concert line-up for its 2014-15 season.
Involvement by the Eastman School of Music continues, with Piano Professor Douglas Humpherys featured in Brahms Rachmaninoff, and former Eastman conductor Donald Hunsberger leading Phantom of the Opera Silent Film.
Jazz at Bucknell Feb. 26: The Eastman Jazz Quartet
(WYOU © 02/15/2014)
The Eastman Jazz Quartet will perform in concert Wednesday, Feb. 26, at 7:30 p.m. in Bucknell Hall at Bucknell University. The performance, which is free and open to the public, is part of the University’s ongoing Jazz at Bucknell series. The Quartet — Clay Jenkins, trumpet, Harold Danko, piano, Jeff Campbell, bass, and Rich Thompson, drums — are members of the jazz faculty at the Eastman School of Music in addition to leading active performing careers.
CLASSICAL | Edoardo Bellotti
(Rochester City Newspaper © 02/19/2014)
Playing as part of the Rochester Celebrity Organ Recital Series, organist Edoardo Bellotti will put on a program of works by J.S. Bach, Pachelbel, Buxtehude, and others. Pieces will be performed at Christ Church, using both the Craighead-Saunders Baroque organ and the Hook Hastings Romantic organ. Bellotti is an associate professor of organ, harpsichord, and improvisation at the Eastman School of Music.
Gimme the Lute: O’Dette Plays Bach
(Ithaca Times © 02/19/2014)
Paul O’Dette is recognized worldwide as the foremost and most influential performer on this fretted stringed instrument—hugely popular during the Renaissance and Baroque periods. This Sunday, Feb. 23, in Barnes Hall at 3 p.m., he will offer “J. S. Bach and the Lute” in a concert presented by NYS Baroque and Cornell University.
Today O’Dette is professor of lute and director of early music at the Eastman School of Music, where he teaches the period ensemble, courses on early historical performance practice, and lute majors.
Itzhak Perlman To Receive Honorary Degree In Rochester
(WXXI © 02/19/2014)
Violinist Itzhak Perlman will be awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Music by the University of Rochester when he performs in a sold-out concert in Rochester this weekend.
Organist Jonathan Ortloff at the Phipps
(Stillwater Gazette 02/21/2014)
Award-winning organist Jonathan Ortloff will perform classics from Cole Porter and Duke Ellington to famous later compositions, including selections by Stephen Sondheim and the Muppets on Saturday, March 8 at 2 p.m. at The Phipps Center for the Arts in Hudson, Wisconsin. An organ builder, scholar, and classical as well as theater organist, Ortloff holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music and the University of Rochester in organ performance and interdisciplinary engineering. While at Eastman, he was a student of David Higgs and studied improvisation under William Porter.