The Faculty Artist Series presents Alison d’Amato, Assistant Professor of Vocal Coaching, on Tuesday, February 11th at 7:30 p.m. in Hatch Recital Hall at the Eastman School of Music. Professor d’Amato will be joined by members of the Eastman Voice Department in performing German lieder by Marcel Tyberg.
Marcel Tyberg (1893–1944) was an accomplished composer, conductor and pianist. His eclectic compositional style embraced popular dance music as well as enormous symphonies on the scale of Mahler. Unfortunately, due to the conditions of World War II, Tyberg was sent to his death because of his Jewish ancestry and his musical career was prematurely extinguished. As World War II intensified, Tyberg feared persecution and delivered his classical scores to the Mihich family; Henry Mihich was a supporter of Tyberg’s and his son, Enrico, was his music student. Shortly afterwards, Tyberg’s worst fears were realized. He was taken to Auschwitz, where he died in 1944. The Mihich family left Italy for America several years later, bringing the bag of scores with them. They settled in Buffalo, and Enrico Mihich became a respected doctor at Roswell Park Cancer Institute. In the Summer of 2005, Dr. Mihich aligned with The Foundation for Jewish Philanthropies and JoAnn Falletta of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra to release Tyberg’s music to the public. In 2010, Alison d’Amato was the pianist for the world premiere of Tyberg’s Heine Liederzyklus, which was presented in collaboration with the Marcel Tyberg Musical Legacy Fund/Foundation for Jewish Philanthropies in Buffalo, NY.
Alison d’Amato is passionately engaged as performer and teacher in the full spectrum of collaborative musical genres, particularly skilled in song and text-based genres. A valued colleague and innovative mentor, she is Artistic Co-Director of Florestan Recital Project, Assistant Professor of Vocal Coaching at Eastman School of Music, Program Co-Director of Art song Lab, and Lecturer in Voice at University at Buffalo. In all these activities, Dr. d’Amato is dedicated to energizing the relationships and communication inherent in music and bringing students’ love for their music to the forefront of their projects.
Alison has developed several projects that explore interdisciplinary collaborations and new approaches to the performer-audience relationship. Since 2003, her work with Florestan Recital Project has engaged audiences and artists in a broad spectrum of art song collaborations through performances, recordings, and mentoring. This includes several programs in Florestan’s series “Composers in Words and Song,” audio-biographical programs with songs and read correspondence from the composer’s life.
In 2011, she co-created the Art Song Lab (www.artsonglab.com), a program that facilitates creative interaction between writers, composers, and performers from around the world to advance the genre of contemporary art song. From 2007-2015, she was a Founding Faculty member of Vancouver International Song Institute (VISI), a summer program for innovative performance and interdisciplinary study.
Alison is a frequent guest artist and mentor. In 2017, she joined the faculty of ArtsBridge’s ArtSong summer intensive, which prepares rising high school seniors for college/conservatory voice performance programs. In 2020, Alison begins touring a unique mentoring residency project, using Robert Schumann’s Myrthen as an intensive German Lied ensemble project for undergraduates. Alison has been a guest artist at The AmBul Festival (Sofia, Bulgaria), SOURCE Song Festival, Boston Conservatory, Royal Conservatory of Music (Toronto), Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, SUNY Fredonia, and Dickinson College. In addition to traditional masterclasses in collaborative repertoire, Alison has shared classes with colleagues in Humanities, musicology, poetry, composition, and performance disciplines. Recent recording projects include The Complete Songs of Virgil Thomson (New World Records), David Liptak’s Dove Songs with soprano Tony Arnold (New Focus Recordings), and Music for Violin and Piano by Joseph Achron with violinist Michael Ludwig (Naxos).
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
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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.
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.