The Faculty Artist Series presents Jonathan Rezlaff, Associate Professor of Voice at the Eastman School of Music, and Russell Miller, Professor of Vocal Coaching and Repertoire at Eastman, Sunday, February 25, at 3 p.m. in Hatch Recital Hall. The concert, titled “Un après-midi de mélodie française”, features works by Caplet, Chausson, Debussy, Duparc, Dutilleux, Kosma, Leguerney, Poulenc, and Trenet.
Following his New York debut recital of French mélodies at Carnegie Recital Hall, the lyric baritone Jonathan Retzlaff has championed the art of the song recital on prestigious concert series including the National Gallery of Art, and Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C.; the A. I. Lack Music Master Series at the University of Houston, Texas; and the Bechstein Recital Series in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Dr. Retzlaff’s extensive recital background is enhanced by a wide range of opera/operetta roles, including Count Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro, Eisenstein in Die Fledermaus, Guglielmo in Cosi fan tutte, Paquillo in La Périchole, Fredrik in A Little Night Music, and the Marquis in Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites, among others.
His students have been performed on the largest of opera stages,are winners of Regional, National and International voice competitions, and have been admitted to graduate programs at The Eastman School of Music, The Juilliard School, Indiana University at Bloomington, Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, New England Conservatory, Manhattan School of Music, and the University of Texas at Austin, among others. Dr. Retzlaff was awarded the Blair School of Music’s 2011 Faculty Excellence Award. He is also the author of Exploring Art Song Lyrics, published by Oxford University Press in May 2012. Dr. Retzlaff holds the Bachelor of Music degree from Millikin University, the Master of Music degree from Wichita State University, and the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Arizona State University.
Pianist Russell Miller has been a coach and teacher of vocal repertoire at Eastman since 1995. He has performed throughout the United States and abroad as soloist and chamber musician, with notable collaborations including Schubert’s Winterreise with tenor Robert Swensen at the Pierpont Morgan Library, as well as recitals with Jan Opalach, Julia Broxholm, Lynn Blakeslee, Zvi Zeitlin, Susan Shafer, Todd Graber, and Marilyn Horne.
Dr. Miller studied at the University of Southern California, the Manhattan School of Music and the Juilliard School, and holds a doctorate from the University of Michigan. He also served as pianist and harpsichordist for several professional opera companies, including the Florentine Opera of Milwaukee (Rossini’s La Cenerentola and Verdi’s Aïda), Mercury Opera of Rochester (Mozart’s Don Giovanni), and several productions for Eastman Opera Theatre.
For twelve years he was the musical director for the vocal quartet “SATB”, which performed a wide variety of repertoire from classical chamber pieces to Broadway. Thanks to the generosity of ReachOut Kansas, Inc., he enjoys an ongoing relationship with the School of Music of the University of Kansas in Lawrence as a visiting vocal coach and teacher of collaborative piano. In recent summers, he has taught and performed at the Pine Mountain Music Festival in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, the Vancouver International Song Institute (VISI) in British Columbia, and at the International Conducting Workshop and Festival (ICWF) in the Czech Republic.
The Faculty Artist Series is generously supported by Patricia Ward-Baker.
Tickets for Eastman’s Faculty Artist Series are $10 for the general public and free to current Season Subscribers. Tickets can be purchased at the Eastman Theatre Box Office, 433 East Main St.; by phone (585) 274-3000; or online at http://eastmantheatre.org
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About Eastman School of Music:
The Eastman School of Music was founded in 1921 by industrialist and philanthropist George Eastman (1854-1932), founder of Eastman Kodak Company. It was the first professional school of the University of Rochester. Mr. Eastman’s dream was that his school would provide a broad education in the liberal arts as well as superb musical training. The current dean is Jamal Rossi, appointed in 2014.
About 900 students are enrolled in Eastman’s Collegiate Division– about 500 undergraduate and 400 graduate students. Students come from almost every state, and approximately 20 percent are from other countries. They are guided by more than 95 full-time faculty members. Six alumni and three faculty members have been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music, as have numerous GRAMMYÒ Awards. Each year, Eastman’s students, faculty members, and guest artists present more than 700 concerts to the Rochester community.