Last Sunday, April 19, the Eastman community was treated to an incredible performance given by the Empire Film Music Ensemble. EFME, as it’s colloquially known, has pushed the envelope before, putting on different types of audience-friendly shows, including music from superhero movies, and music from horror films, but this time they outdid themselves.
I have played in the ensemble for every concert except this one and, as cool as it would have been to sit on stage, I have never been happier to be in the audience. This year the famed Eastman alumnus Jeff Beal (BM ’85), and conductor emeritus of the Eastman Wind Ensemble, Donald Hunsberger, joined EFME to play a varied selection from movies and TV shows that included The Phantom of the Opera, The General, The Dovekeepers, and the extremely popular House of Cards.
It was an incredible event, complete with a screen over the orchestra on which scenes from the movies and shows were projected to the live music on stage. For an orchestra of student volunteers, on the eve of Jury Week, it was an astounding performance!
Jeff Beal, whom I met the first day of rehearsals, couldn’t have been more helpful to the students. His schedule was packed while he was here: he gave master classes, sat in on Jazz Performance Workshops, talked about writing, about performing, and about the trumpet, and looked all the while like he was having so much fun doing it. It is not very often we get to ask endless questions of such a famed composer, especially one with as high a cred as House of Cards. As a trumpet player and House of Cards lover, it was an honor for me to listen to Jeff’s music and hear him play the flugelhorn.
On behalf of the entire student body (most of whom attended the concert), I can’t thank Michael Staffeldt, Dylan Price, Donald Hunsberger, and especially Jeff Beal enough for this wonderful concert. Amid the whirlwind of Jury Week, and the cacophony of daily life at Eastman, working with Jeff, and for that matter Professor Hunsberger, was a powerful reminder of what hard work and a little planning can bring about!
Andrew Psarris ‘15
Photographs by Kurt Brownell
