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.)
Third Coast contributes to ‘youthquake’ in city’s new-music scene
(Chicago Tribune © 02/25/2014)
The players met as students at Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music, where their teacher was the renowned percussionist-pedagogue Michael Burritt, who’s now head of the percussion department of the Eastman School of Music. “Michael was an amazing teacher and a really great mentor for us,” says Skidmore, who doubles as the ensemble’s executive director. “We basically fell in love with the percussion repertory he was teaching us and decided we wanted to make a living doing it as a group.”
Paul O’Dette giving rare local concert
(Democrat & Chronicle 03/02/2014)
Paul O’Dette stands in the midst of this cache of professorial driftwood, talking about how the Swedes “put herring in a can and toss yeast in it and seal it and eat it a year later, and it is basically rotten.”
Yes, this is the lair of Renaissance music at the Eastman School of Music. O’Dette built it. He was 21 years old and finishing up a four-year program of lute study in Switzerland when the Eastman contacted him about establishing an early-music program at the school. That was 1976.
(Kawartha Media Group 02/19?2014)
“It’s a risk-free environment…mistakes are OK,” says Mr. Castiglione, hitting on the basic premise of the New Horizons Bands movement.
The New Horizons Bands program was conceived by Dr. Roy Ernst, then a professor at the Eastman School of Music, Rochester University. He believed that anybody can learn to play a musical instrument. The first New Horizons Band was formed in Rochester New York in 1991.
Sharp Ears: Kenny Grant and the Clarinet
(WXXI 02/28/2014)
Kenny plays with the RPO and teaches at the Eastman School of Music. Kenny told WXXI’s Brenda Tremblay that he’s hearing players doing things he didn’t think were possible few years ago.
2014 Rochester Fringe Festival accepting submissions
(Rochester City Newspaper © 02/26/2014)
Now through Wednesday, April 16, interested artists, performers, and dreamers can submit their proposed Fringe Fest acts at the Fringe website. The following venues will participate in the 2014 festival: Bernunzio Uptown Music, Blackfriars Theatre, Eastman School of Music’s Kilbourn Hall, Eastman School of Music’s Sproull Atrium, George Eastman House, Geva Theatre Center Nextstage, Java’s, MuCCC, RAPA, The TheatreROCS Stage at Xerox Auditorium, and Writers & Books.
Organ Recital to Benefit Brockport’s Foodlink Backpack Program
(Rochester Democrat & Chronicle © 02/28/2014)
“If Music be the Food” is the title of an organ recital for the benefit of the Foodlink Backpack program in the Brockport Central School District. Two graduate students in organ at the Eastman School of Music will present a concert including works by Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann, and César Franck.
(The East Carolinian 02/25/2014)
Friday evening, Fletcher Music Hall featured the musical talents of Andy Harnsberger, from Lee University in Cleveland, Tenn. This was one of 40 recitals at college campuses that Harsnberger will play this year.
Harnsberger is an assistant professor of music at Lee University and has been the Director of Percussion Studies since 1997. Harnsberger received his doctorate in Musical Performance and Literature from Eastman School of Music in Rochester NY.