First Prize at Choral Composition
November 2008
Composition graduate student Steven Danyew won first prize at the 2008 Ithaca College Choral Composition Competition for his Goodnight, Goodnight. The competition is designed to encourage the creation and performance of new choral music. Winners received cash prizes and six high school choirs performed the top two compositions at Ithaca College.
The Refuge
September 2008
Last November, Houston Grand Opera (HGO) presented The Refuge, an opera with music by Christopher Theofanidis (MM ‘92) and libretto by Leah Lax that brings together the stories of the many different immigrant populations in Houston. The Refuge also brought together many members of those different communities and performing groups in the city to create a remarkable multi-media presentation. In a long article about the opera, and about HGO’s commitment to community involvement in the September issue of Symphony magazine, Henry Fogel called The Refuge “a remarkable musical-dramatic work … astonishingly communicative and powerful. The Refuge goes beyond explicating the emotions and thoughts of these people. It amplifies them, gives them a resonance that only music can.”
You can hear video and music excerpts from The Refuge on the Houston Grand Opera website, and the entire opera was recently released on CD by Albany Records (TROY 1024-1025).
A Good Initial Impression
August 2008
The members of a new string quartet – every man JACK of them, you might say – are starting to make a splash in the contemporary music world. Violist John Pickford Richards (BM ’02, MM ’04), violinists Ari Streisfeld (BM ’05) and Christopher Otto (BM ’06) and, and cellist Kevin McFarland (BM ’04) all met at Eastman and formed a string quartet, using the first letters of their names to create its title, JACK. John lives in New York, Ari in Boston, Christopher in San Diego, and Kevin in Pennsylvania, but they frequently come together for concerts of contemporary music that have earned them admiring comments from such composers as Helmut Lachenmann and Matthias Pinscher. JACK’s 2008 schedule includes concerts in Mexico, Boston, and Minneapolis. You can hear some of JACK’s playing in works by Xenakis, John Cage, and many other composers at www.jackquartet.com.
Rhythm Ambassadors
July 2008
In January 2008, John Beck, who recently retired as Eastman’s professor of percussion, and six Eastman students – seniors Kyle Acuncius, Christopher Slagle, Brian Heveron-Smith, and Richard Williams, and graduate students Robert Sanderl and Jacob Thieben – traveled to Bjelovar, Croatia, to participate in International Percussion Ensemble Week (IPEW). The Eastman Percussion Ensemble was invited by Igor Lesnik, professor of percussion at the Music Conservatory and a frequent guest at Eastman. The group’s concert program included music by alumni Phillip Mikula (BM ’97), Tom Nazziola (BM ’88), and Bob Becker (BM ’69, MM ’71).
Ensembles participating in IPEW were from the USA, Italy, Sweden, Belgium, France, and Croatia, and offered concerts and master classes. All the students joined in a mass ensemble for the last event of the festival. While in Eastern Europe, Beck and his students traveled to Zalec, Slovenia, to participate for one day in a similar percussion event, the Bumfest Festival. (Photo credit: Jozo Lovric)
This is Eastman Singing
June 2008
Eastman Opera Theatre is featured on a new CD from Albany Records, which also features first recordings of a pair of one-act operas by the distinguished American composer Lee Hoiby. Bon Appétit! and This Is the Rill Speaking are conducted by Eastman Opera Theatre music director Benton Hess.
Bon Appétit! is a witty “musical monologue” inspired by an episode of Julia Child’s French Chef TV show from the 1970s showing the creation of a Gateau au Chocolat l’Éminence Brune —a “very special, very chocolatey, bittersweet, lovely cake,” in Julia’s words. Originally written in 1989 as a tour de force for the actress Jean Stapleton, it is performed by mezzo-soprano Kathryn Cowdrick, Eastman assistant professor of voice.
This is the Rill Speaking, written in 1991, adapted from a Lanford Wilson play, is an amusing and touching slice of small-town life. Eastman Opera Theatre gave the premiere performance of Hoiby’s orchestrated version of the opera as recently as last January, directed by Johnathon Pape, and this recording soon followed. After This is the Rill Speaking’s New York premiere in April 2008, the New York Times described Hoiby’s music as “unfailingly gracious.” The Eastman students performing multiple roles in Hoiby’s opera are Kate Hannigan, Jordan Wilson, Julia Cramer, Lauren Iezzi, Joey Wilgenbusch, and Brent Arnold.
The CD number is TROY 1028. For ordering information, visit www.albanyrecords.com.
Teaching Talent Honored
May 2008
Eastman not only produces the world’s best musicians, it also produces some of the world’s best music teachers. Every year, several outstanding teachers-in-training are chosen for the Teaching Assistant Prize for Excellence in Teaching. The 2007-2008 winners have just been announced! They are:
Academic Class and Ensemble Instruction – Naomi Gregory, music history
Small Group Skills Instruction – Sarah Marlowe, theory aural skills; Steven Marx, music education trumpet class; Angela Occhionero, music education clarinet class; Douglas O’Connor, saxophone chamber coaching
Private Applied instruction – Michael Unger, applied organ
The photo shows (left to right) Naomi, Angela, and Doug in the top row, and Sarah, Steven, and Michael in the bottom row.
13 teaching assistants were nominated by their departments for the TA Prize. Members of the TA Prize Committee visited these 13 TAs several times during the spring, then submitted written evaluations of their observations. These six students appeared consistently on the top of the evaluations.
Donna Brink Fox, Eastman’s Associate dean of Academic and Student Affairs, said, “On behalf of the entire Eastman community … please join me in congratulating the prize recipients and in expressing our collective appreciation to all of our teaching and department assistants for their vital contribution to the musical and intellectual environment of the Eastman School of Music.”
Putting on a Happy Face
March 2008
One of Broadway’s great “Golden Age” composers is also an Eastman grad – Charles Strouse (BM ‘47). Strouse celebrates his 80th birthday on June 7, 2008, but his home town of New York has already begun celebrating his fruitful composing career, which includes such successful musicals as Bye Bye Birdie (1960), Golden Boy (1965), Applause (1970) — which was revived at New York’s City center last month – and the unstoppable Annie (1977). On February 6, Strouse was honored in Lincoln Center’s American Songbook Series, with a concert featuring jazz pianist and singer Eric Comstock, performing four decades of Strouse’s theater music. The evening was capped by Strouse himself at the piano, giving lively performances of two of his signature tunes: “Tomorrow” from Annie; and the theme song from TV’s All in the Family. You can read about all the above in Strouse’s upcoming autobiography, Put on a Happy Face: A Broadway Memoir, to be published by Union Square Press in July 2008.
New Music in the House
February 2008
The Fifth House Ensemble has presented performances and educational concerts in the Chicago area since 2005. Its charter members include its executive director, flutist Melissa Ngan Snoza (BM ’02), and her husband, double bassist Eric Snoza (BM ’01). (Melissa is front and center in the photo, in white; Eric is directly behind her, in black, with a beard.) Fifth House recently launched its first subscription series at the Joy Faith Knapp Music Center in Chicago, and has performed all over the city: at the Shedd Aquarium, at Danny’s Tavern, and in a MusiCare series at nursing homes and hospitals. Fifth House just booked two dates in future seasons at New York’s Miller Theatre, and just received a $10,000 donation in support of its work with a fundraising and audience development consultant over the next months.
Melissa says, “We have given master classes, performances, and career development seminars at colleges throughout the Midwest, and I also have been a panelist at the University of Illinois Urbana/Champaign and at the Brevard Conference on Music Entrepreneurship, speaking about programming at non-traditional venues.” She adds, “I really think my experience with [Eastman’s] Arts Leadership Program has so much to do with what I’m doing now!”
For more information, visit www.fifth-house.com.
A Splendid Series
January 2008
A Viennese reviewer of 1798 found Ludwig’s van Beethoven’s earliest violin sonatas (Opus 12) “strange…overladen with difficulties.” But he also admitted that Beethoven was “a man of genius, possessed of originality, and goes his own way.” The man of genius eventually wrote ten sonatas for violin and piano between 1798 and 1812; they are a bridge between the Classical and Romantic styles of composition, and one of the great tests of a violinist’s artistry.
While it is common to hear one Beethoven violin sonata on a recital program, it is quite rare to hear all ten played by one violinist in a series – but all ten Beethoven sonatas will be offered by Eastman School Professor of Violin Oleh Krysa and Assistant Professor of Chamber Music and Accompanying Tatiana Tchekina in three recitals this month and next. The duo (who are also husband and wife) presented all ten last November at Florida’s Shepherd Institute of Music, and will perform them in Eastman’s Kilbourn Hall as part of the Faculty Artist Series on January 23, January 29, and February 3, 2008.
For information about the Beethoven sonata series, and about all the recitals, see Eastman’s Faculty Artists Series.