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.)
Schütz’s ‘Christmas Story’ comes to Boston
(Boston Globe © 11/22/2015)
For a man who was admired by Bach, Heinrich Schütz doesn’t get as much love as he might. Born in 1585, he studied with Giovanni Gabrieli and Claudio Monteverdi and became the most important German composer of the 17th century. His 500-plus works include the first German-language opera (now lost), madrigals, motets, a quartet of Passion narratives, a requiem, and a “Christmas Story.” Emmanuel Music has been a staunch Schütz advocate, but local performances are hardly legion.
When Keil got the idea to do the Schütz oratorio, she realized she would need a 17th-century band — which is where the Weckmann Project comes in. Malamut was a trombone major at Eastman School of Music, but when she found an old sackbut (ancestor to the trombone) in a school closet, she says, “the writing was on the wall.” A participant in Boston Baroque, the Boston Early Music Festival, and the Green Mountain Project, she says that the Weckmann Project came about when “seven of us got together in a room to read the 10 sonatas by Matthias Weckmann, just all in a row — which was crazy, because they’re incredibly difficult.”
New Horizons Band performs Christmas music
(Sioux City Journal 11/27/2015)
New Horizons Band will present a concert of Christmas music at 2:30 p.m. Sunday at the Betty Strong Encounter Center, 900 Larsen Park Road. Admission is free and a reception will follow.
New Horizons Band of Siouxland, sponsored by Ray’s Midbell Music, is one of more than 200 programs that originated in 1991 as the New Horizons International Music Association at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York.
Heida Hermanns Piano Competition Winners
(Westport Now © 11/23/2015)
The finals round of the 2015 Heida Hermanns International Music Competition, this year featuring piano, was held today at First Church Fairfield in Fairfield. Winner of the $5,000 first prize was Wenjie Lu (r), a native of China who began playing piano at age 5. He is a student at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y.
Community Design Center plans Reshaping Rochester awards ceremony
(Rochester Business Journal 11/25/2015)
The awards recognize 23 regional initiatives, projects and individuals that have positively impacted the community, organizers said. Jamal Rossi, dean of the Eastman School of Music, will deliver the keynote address.
PERCUSSION | TIGUE
(Rochester City Newspaper © 11/25/2015)
Fresh off the release of its debut album, “Peaks,” on indie classical label New Amsterdam Records, the innovative Brooklyn-based percussion trio TIGUE makes its way to the Bug Jar for a homecoming of sorts. All Eastman School of Music alumni, Matt Evans, Amy Garapic, and Carson Moody bring an unforced cool to the genre of chamber music — while genre labels don’t easily stick, elements of rock, electronic pop, ambient, and classical are all in the mix with a dash of the avant-garde.
Greenwich Choral Society’s Christmas Concert Christmas Blessings
(Greenwich Free Press 11/16/2015)
Elena Mullins is a soprano with wide-ranging interests in the field of early music. In the 2015 summer issue of Early Music America Magazine she was recognized as one of the country’s most promising early music performers. Elena has sung with The Newberry Consort, Apollo’s Fire, Three Notch’d Road, Generation Harmonique, and Quire Cleveland, and has attended the American Bach Soloists Academy, Urbino Early Music, the Madison Early Music Festival and the Vancouver Early Music Festival. Elena takes a scholarly interest in the performance practices of early repertoires, reaching back as far as the twelfth century. In 2013 she co-founded Alkemie, a medieval ensemble, which will present concerts through Gotham Early Music Scene, Capitol Early Music of D.C. and the Baltimore War Memorial Arts Initiative in the spring of 2016. Elena sings with the Schola Dominicana at The Church of Saint Catherine of Siena under the direction of James Wetzel. A student of Ellen Hargis, she holds a DMA in Historical Performance Practice from Case Western Reserve University and a BA in Musical Arts from the Eastman School of Music. Elena is an avid performer and teacher of baroque dance.
Litchfield Women’s Forum: Harp and Flute Holiday Concert Set
(Voices 11/18/2015)
The Women’s Forum of Litchfield welcomes flutist Jennifer Berman and harpist Susan Knapp Thomas in a special holiday concert at 2:30 p.m. Thursday, December 3, at St. Michael’s Parish, 25 South St.
Ms. Thomas, a harpist, received her bachelor’s degree from the Eastman School of Music She is a well-known chamber, orchestral and solo concert artist and teacher throughout Connecticut and southern New England. As an orchestral harpist, she serves as principal harp for the Hartford Symphony. She has enjoyed a long relationship with the symphony and was the featured soloist in 2008, performing Mozart’s Flute and Harp Concerto with principal flutist, Grieg Shearer.
Free concert will feature organist Brian Schoettler
(Journal Times © 11/23/2015)
The second concert in the Good Samaritan Concert Series will be held at 7 p.m. Friday, Nov. 27, at First Presbyterian Church, 1803 83rd St. There is no admission fee.
The program will feature organ music by Kenosha native Brian Schoettler, performing selections by Bach, Buxtehude, Krebs, Schumann, Vierne and Widor. Oboist Lauren Keating will be a guest soloist. Schoettler, a doctoral student at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y., studies organ with renowned organist David Higgs.
Vocalist George DeMott to perform scholarship benefit concert
(Penfield Post 11/18/2015)
Vocalist George DeMott will perform a benefit concert at 7 p.m. Monday, Dec. 21 in Penfield High School Auditorium, 25 High School Drive. The concert is titled Home for the Holidays and will feature a wide musical variety of seasonal, holiday, Italian, and pop favorites. A four-piece band, as well as members of the Penfield High School Symphony Orchestra, will accompany the performance.
DeMott is both a 1986 Penfield High School graduate and a graduate of the Eastman School of Music. He also went on to receive a master’s degree from UC Santa Barbara. Since then, he has performed with several opera companies across the country including Glimmerglass Opera, Virginia Opera, and Orlando Opera.
Bloody Bloody Angela Lansbury set for Feinstein’s/54 Below in January
(Broadway World 11/23/2015)
FEINSTEIN’S/54 Below, Broadway’s Supper Club, presents Josh Lamon, John Treacy Egan, Kevin Zac, Phillip Taratula and more in BLOODY BLOODY ANGELA LANSBURY: Murder She Wrote Live! On January 25th, 2016 at 9:30PM.
Keith Varney (Music & Lyrics) has written Book, Music and Lyrics in various combinations for I GOT FIRED (Best American Musical – DIMF), ELWAY: THE MUSICAL, THE OTHER SEX, JOSHUA: THE MUSICAL, PIE EATER & SCOOBY DOOSICAL. He has also written songs for Submissions Only, Hot Mess in Manhattan, See You Lighter, My Mother is a Sex Therapist & Dystopia Gardens. As an actor he has performed professionally in musicals including Les Miserables, The Producers, The Full Monty, Titanic and I Got Fired (Best Actor in a Musical – DIMF). He has a degree in classical voice from the Eastman School of Music. He has just released his debut novel “The Dead Circle.”