The Faculty Artist Series presents baritone Jonathan Retzlaff, Associate Professor of Voice, along with Russell Miller, Professor of Vocal Coaching and Repertoire, on Tuesday, January 28 at 7:30 p.m. in Kilbourn Hall at the Eastman School of Music. The program, entitled An Elly Ameling Inspiration, will include single works by composers from the Baroque to the 21st century: Scarlatti, Ravel, Sammy Fain, Butterworth, and others.
Dr. Jonathan Retzlaff, lyric baritone, joined the Voice and Opera faculty of the Eastman School of Music in 2015 after serving as Chair of the Voice Department at the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt University, where he was honored as the Distinguished Faculty Member of 2011. For over thirty years, he has performed professionally as a soloist in opera, oratorio, recital, and musical theatre. Following his New York debut recital of French mélodies at Carnegie Recital Hall, Dr. 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 and internationally in Graz, Austria. He has also performed on the Community Concert Series under the auspices of Columbia Artists Management, on National Public Radio, and at colleges and universities spanning the country. Dr. Retzlaff was a semi-finalist in the prestigious Elly Ameling Lied Concours held in The Hague, The Netherlands, and the Walter W. Naumburg Vocal Competition in New York.
Dr. Retzlaff has served as an adjudicator for the National Association of Teachers of Singing Artist Awards, the Music Teachers National Association Collegiate Artist Competition and the Metropolitan Opera Council Auditions and as the Tennessee Governor for the National Association of Teachers of Singing. Dr. Retzlaff is the author of Exploring Art Song Lyrics, published by Oxford University Press in May 2012.
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.
Besides his current appointment at Eastman, Dr. Miller has also held faculty positions at the Cleveland Institute of Music, Bowling Green State University, The Ohio State University and Oberlin College Conservatory, and has given master classes at Ithaca College, the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee and the University of Missouri. 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, Bulgaria and Ukraine.
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 and UR ID holders. Tickets can be purchased at the Eastman Theatre Box Office, 433 Eastman Main Street, 9:30AM – 2:30PM., Monday-Friday; by phone (585) 274-3000; or online at http://eastmantheatre.org
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 J. Rossi, appointed in 2014.
More than 900 students are enrolled in the Collegiate Division of the Eastman School of Music—about 500 undergraduates and 400 graduate students. They come from almost every state, and approximately 23 percent are from other countries. They are taught by a faculty comprised of more than 130 highly regarded performers, composers, conductors, scholars, and educators. They are Pulitzer Prize winners, Grammy winners, Emmy winners, Guggenheim Fellows, ASCAP Award recipients, published authors, recording artists, and acclaimed musicians who have performed in the world’s greatest concert halls. Each year, Eastman’s students, faculty members, and guest artists present more than 900 concerts to the Rochester community.