Here are some select recent clippings 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.)
Mary Jo Heath will be New Radio Host for Metropolitan Opera
(New York Times 08/13/2015)
There have been many voices at the Metropolitan Opera, but only a few voices of the Metropolitan Opera. Now the mantle, or microphone, is being passed to Mary Jo Heath: she will become the fourth full-time radio host in the company’s history in September.
She got her first experience working with the Met broadcast more than three decades ago when she got a part-time radio job while earning her Ph.D. in music theory from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester. “I was at the public station in Rochester, at WXXI, and they hired three part-time weekend Eastman students all at the same time,” she recalled. “And I said, ‘You know what? I’ll take the Saturday afternoon shift, because I always listen to the opera anyway — and I might as well be the one person in town that’s getting paid to do it.’ ” (Also reported by WQXR , WXXI )
(SBO School Band & Orchestra August 2015)
The Eastman Wind Ensemble is America’s leading wind ensemble. Its core of about 50 performers includes undergraduate and graduate students of the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester.
Eastman School Violin Professor Lynn Blakeslee Has Died
(The Strad 08/12/2015)
Lynn Blakeslee, Eastman School Professor Emerita of Violin, died this week in Germany. She joined the Eastman faculty – part of the University of Rochester in New York – in 1987, and retired in 2013.
In addition to her role at the Eastman School, she taught at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Bruckner Konservatorium in Linz, Bowdoin Summer Music Festival, Euro Music Academy Leipzig – and gave masterclasses at the Papageno School in Villarrica, Chile. (Also reported by The Violin Channel, Slipped Disc)
Vanessa Rose Named Executive Director of the International Contemporary Ensemble
(Broadway World 08/13/2015)
The International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) announced today that Vanessa Rose has been named its new Executive Director. ICE founder Claire Chase will remain ICE’s Co-Artistic Director and flutist. Rose comes to ICE from the Lark Play Development Center where she served as Director of Development from 2013-2015. She was selected by ICE’s Board of Directors on August 3 and will assume the directorship on September 1, 2015, alongside Chase and Co-Artistic Director and clarinetist Joshua Rubin.
Rose is a violinist and has performed with, among others, the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Harrisburg Symphony, and Spoleto Festivals (Italy and USA). She comes from a musical family and attended the Eastman School of Music, Mannes College of Music and the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, The Netherlands. Rose lives in Riverdale, NY with her musician husband, Patrick Pridemore, and their two children. (Also reported on ICE blog )
The anxiety pulled everybody together, recalls violin maestro
(Singapore Strait-Times 08/09/2015)
Violinist Vivien Goh was 17 and preparing to go to the Eastman School of Music in New York state, when Singapore became independent. “I didn’t know what I would come back to, if anything,” she said, adding she probably found out watching the news on TV at her father Goh Soon Tioe’s music studio.
“I didn’t come back for four years. When I did, Singapore was already a well-established country,” she said, noting she had no trouble getting her Singapore passport in the US.
Hot tickets: Of burgers and a celebration of Son House
(Democrat & Chronicle 08/16/2015)
This is a world-class exploration of Son House: a screening of films of House, workshops, lectures by speakers from Living Blues magazine, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and House’s former manager (and one of the three guys to unearth House in Rochester), Dick Waterman; and musicians such as The Dave Miller Band, The Crawdiddies, Steve Grills & the Roadmasters, Gordon Munding, blues harmonica star Jerry Portnoy (who played with Muddy Waters), a jam session with Genesee Johnny, Lisa Bigwood, The Tabletop Three and the Eastman School of Music‘s Bob Sneider and Billy Petito.
The twin harps of Kathleen Bride and Courtney Hershey Bress open the Eastman School of Music’s Faculty Artist Series with an 8 p.m. Sept. 1 performance in the school’s Hatch Recital Hall. Over the course of the school season, the series presents 31 concerts by Eastman teachers, performers and composers. Following Bride and Hershey Bress, a flurry of performers includes tenor Robert Swensen and pianist Johnandrew Slominski, 8 p.m. Sept. 2 in Hatch Recital Hall; Don Harry on tuba, 8 p.m. Sept. 3 in Kilbourn Hall; Eastman jazz faculty members, 8 p.m. Sept. 4 in Kilbourn Hall; and Eastman Virtuosi, featuring the world premiere of Elisanda Fabregas’s “Goyescas,” 8 p.m. Sept. 5 in Kilbourn Hall.
Music worthy of an inter-continental trip
(Virginia Hometown Focus © 08/07/2015)
A major attraction this year was famed Ukrainian-born violinist Mikhail Kopelman, Professor of Violin at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY. For two decades he was first violinist in one of the most important ensembles in history, the Borodin String Quartet.
Professor Kopelman coached collegiate level musicians from several countries at this summers festival. The students were awestruck to be taught by him. He also performed recitals with other festival faculty members, music usually heard only in huge, hip metropolitan concert halls. Besides giving master classes here on the Iron Range, Professor Kopelman has instructed in Moscow, London, Rome, Turku, Finland and comparable cities.
Our Opinion: Don’t miss this opportunity
(Brainerd Daily Dispatch © 08/13/2015)
For seven summers Brainerd lakes area residents have been given the opportunity to hear world-class musicians without traveling to a metro auditorium or even paying one thin dime.
When Scott Lykins came home to Brainerd with four colleagues from the Eastman School of Music in New York, they were looking for a musical outlet. In 2009, they offered six free concerts. They found an eager audience an idea took hold. This year, the Lakes Area Music Festival combines local talent and musicians from the New York Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestra, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Colorado Symphony and the Orquesta Filarmonica De Santiago, Chile, – as one musician traveled almost 6,000 miles to perform here.
Gathering of Flutes
(Ithaca Times © 08/10/2015)
In Washington the Ithacans will be presenting “Suite Mignonne,” by Jean Sibelius (1921). In the early 1920s Sibelius wrote a set of three suites for string orchestra that explore the miniature, as well as his great love of the Viennese waltz. Each of these compositions exists in two versions: one for string orchestra and one for piano (arranged by the composer himself). Originally written for two flutes and string orchestra in 1921, “Suite Mignonne,” Op. 98a, was arranged by the composer for the piano that same year.
Choosing to preserve the colorful and lyric flute voices from the orchestral version of “Suite Mignonne,” Liisa Ambegaokar Grigorov presents a new arrangement of Op. 98a for two flutes and piano, which was a part of her Eastman School of Music D.M.A. Lecture-Recital. These brief, yet charming, movements “Petite scene,” “Polka,” and “Epilogue,” provide opportunity to program an example of Sibelius’ salon music in a chamber music setting for two flutes and piano.
Music Academy of the West Musicians Selected for NY Philharmonic 2016 Global Academy
(Broadway World 08/11/2015)
Ten outstanding Music Academy of the West musicians have been selected to travel to New York in January 2016 to participate in the second year of the New York Philharmonic Global Academy Fellowship Program, which offers opportunities to train and play with Philharmonic musicians, representing a new approach to training the next generation of world-class musicians for successful careers
Nikolette LaBonte (horn), 20, is currently studying horn performance at the Eastman School of Music under the tutelage of Professor W. Peter Kurau. Ms. LaBonte has performed with orchestras including the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, New World Symphony, Glens Falls Symphony, Syracuse Symphoria, and the National Youth Orchestra of the USA. Additionally, she has collaborated with artists such as Valery Gergiev, Joshua Bell, James Galway, and Audra McDonald. As a chamber musician, Ms. LaBonte is an active member of the Winds of Change Wind Quintet, Klezmerizers ensemble, and the Eastman Horn Choir. Ms. LaBonte is also a horn section coach at the Bak Middle School of the Arts and was the co-creator of “Songs of Sochi.” This was her second summer at the Music Academy of the West.