Related Debussy Events

Four Debussy Festival Lectures – Register Now!

Federico Agostini and Barry Snyder kick off the school year with a performance of Debussy’s Violin Sonata at the opening convocation on Thursday, 6 September, at 2:30pm in Hatch Recital Hall.

Greentopia at the High Falls on Sunday, 16 September, from 1 to 2 pm – The Ying Quartet performs the first movement from Debussy’s String Quartet, Barry Snyder performs selected preludes and L’Isle joyeuse, and the Eastman Saxophone Project performs transcriptions of preludes, accompanied by a talk on Debussy and nature given by Matthew Morrow.
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Chien-Kwan Lin and his wife, Pi-Lin Ni, will be performing Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, transcribed for saxophone and piano, on his faculty recital in Hatch Recital Hall on Sunday, 16 September, at 3pm.

Lynn Blakeslee performs an all-French violin recital with pianist Russell Miller on 20 October, 11 am, Hatch Recital Hall, including 4 transcriptions of Debussy (“La Fille aux cheveux de lin,” “Beau soir,” “2^e Arabesque,” and “En bateau”).

An interdepartmental master class, organized by Chien-Kwan Lin, will be held on Thursday, 11 October, from 7 pm-9 pm in ESM 305. Coaching will be provided by Professors Thomas Schumacher, Jean Barr, Barry Snyder, and Marie Rolf.

Students from the studio of Nelita True will perform all 24 of Debussy’s Preludes for piano as well as the 12 Etudes on Tuesday, 16 October, from 7 pm to 9 pm in Hatch Recital Hall.

The Eastman School Symphony Orchestra under Neil Varon will perform Debussy’s Danses sacrée et profane with student harp soloist Molly O’Roark in Kodak Hall on Friday, 19 October, at 8pm.

Members of the innovative ensemble Sound ExChange will present musical selections which highlight connections between Debussy and the visual arts in the Memorial Art Gallery’s permanent collection. This experience of musical “pictures at an exhibition” will occur from 6 to 7pm, prior to artist P. Craig Russell’s talk at the Memorial Art Gallery, on 25 October.

Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra on 25 and 27 October – Matthias Bamert conducts Debussy’s Petite Suite and his Fantaisie for piano and orchestra (Stefan Arnold, piano).

Mark Powell from the Eastman Community Music School teaches a Festival Introduction, a four session series of talks that will take us through the life, music, and extra musical influences that shaped the world of Claude-Achille Debussy. Special performances, mixed media presentations, guests, and pre-concert refreshments are all part of the mix. Classes are 90 minutes long, beginning two hours before the events on Oct. 13, Oct. 17, Oct. 20, Oct. 26. Dates and registration.

Holly Watkins teaches a doctoral seminar (MUY 590) on Debussy.

Matthew Morrow teaches an undergraduate course (MHS 281/481) on Debussy and Paris.

Mylène Dubiau-Feuillerac and Marie Rolf teach a seminar on French Poetry into Song (Th 431/531).

Professor Jean Pedersen is devoting her two Fall sections of the Humanities Department’s required First-year Writing Seminar to the topic of Art and Politics, and will be including a unit that explores Debussy’s musical responses to the traumatic events of the First World War.

Professor Abra Bush is devoting a session in her First-year Colloquium class to the music of Debussy and Eastman’s festival.

Guest professor Susan Uselmann (Humanities) teaches a course on that will focus on ancient heros in the modern age, and will work with P. Craig Russell’s comic-book rendition of Pelléas et Mélisande.

Throughout the month of October, the students in Dr. Ann Marie Stanley’s MUE212/412 course, Elementary General Music Methods, are planning and teaching lessons on Debussy’s music to first-grade students at Helendale Road Primary School, East Irondequoit. These lessons, which incorporate active music making, listening, and creative movement, will be filmed and edited into a short video at the end of the semester.

The Eastman Saxophone Project will perform Debussy’s Première Rhapsody with Clarinetist Kenneth Grant on November 26, 7pm and 9pm in Hatch Recital Hall.