Here are some select clippings from the past week showing the variety of hits/mentions identifying musicians and scholars as Eastman School of Music alumni, faculty or students. Note: Some links may have expired.)
Third Thursday concert series features two Eastman professors
(WHEC News – 10NBC 09/21/2017)
Two Eastman School of Music greats amazed Thursday night at the Memorial Art Gallery in a performance called Orpheus’s Journey.
The performers were both professors and musicians. Edoardo Bellotti played a Baroque organ from Italy installed in the MAG – and Paul O’dette played the lute.
The music was entirely from 17th century Italy!
The program is part of Third Thursday concert series that runs September through May at the MAG.
Notable names
(Monroe County Post 09/20/2017)
Eastman hires showcase holistic approach to community engagement
Eastman School of Music recently hired Petar Kodzas as associate dean of Eastman Community Music School and Michael Stefiuk as director of concert activities.
Both are dedicated to engagement within the Rochester community and showcasing opportunities for learning, performing and experiencing some of the world’s musicians. With their new appointments comes a holistic approach to community engagement through the two offices.
Kodzas has taught at ECMS since 1998. He launched and became director Eastman Immersion, a gap-year program that gives high school graduates an in-depth experience in a collegiate music school setting before they continue their college studies, in 2013.
Stefiuk will direct all aspects of the concert office, and will provide artistic and programming direction for its presentation series. He will manage the operations of the school’s performance venues, box office, theater shop and concessions.
Foundation to host 2017 Philanthropy Awards
(Monroe County Post 09/19/2017)
Rochester Area Community Foundation will hosts its 2017 Philanthropy Awards and Annual Report to the Community Luncheon by honoring six local philanthropists who make a difference in the eight-county region.
Mimi Hwang. An accomplished cellist, Hwang is an assistant professor of chamber music at Eastman School of Music and music lecturer at Nazareth College. She has played with orchestras and participated in chamber music performances locally and across the country and is a founding member of her current musical group, the Amenda String Quartet. In addition to being on the boards of Hochstein and the national Chamber Music of America, she took over as director of a concert series fundraiser for Foodlink called “If Music Be The Food.” A couple of times each year, she and friends offer a dinner concert in her home for local organizations’ fundraisers — she performs and her friend does the cooking. A former Community Foundation board member and longtime volunteer, Hwang lives in Brighton. Looking ahead to the future, her estate plan includes establishing a fund at the foundation to support music education and performance.
Ridgefield Arts Council’s The Generator to be held September 25 at Whip Salon
(HamletHub 09/24/2017)
During the event, artists, writers and performers gather with the goal of learning, sharing, and networking with others to enhance both their creative process and their careers. The events are managed via the website Meetup.com and feature innovative speakers, arts demonstrations and presentations geared toward the creative community.
Alexa Donaldson, owner and director of Sharps and Flats Conservatory in Ridgefield, will be discussing how music crosses cultural boundaries and its ability to bring humanity into focus. Alexa studied cello and opera at the University of Rochester, the Eastman School of Music and Historical Musicology at Hartt School of Music, where she has taught courses in Opera and Music History. Alexa is a member of the Ridgefield Symphony Orchestra’s Board of Directors.
Dave Mancini Trio with Friends to Take Stage for SBU’s Martine Performing Arts Series
(TAPinto.net 09/21/2017)
Mancini is a Rochester-based composer and percussionist whose career reads like a Who’s Who of the music industry. He has toured and performed around the world with many of the premier artists in the business, including ….
Mancini, a graduate of the Eastman School of Music, is an artist/clinician for Yamaha Drums, Zildjian Cymbals, and Vic Firth drumsticks and mallets.
Finger Lakes Trio kicks off Civic Morning Musicals season on Sunday, Sept. 24
(Syracuse.com 09/21/2017)
CMM (Civic Morning Musicals) presents its first CMM in Recital Live! concert of the new season, the organization’s 127th, …
The Finger Lakes Trio – Sonya Stith Williams, violin; Heidi Hoffmann, ‘cello; and Robert Auler, piano – will play a program entitled “Affairs of the Heart.”
Sonya Stith Williams is currently the Assistant Concertmaster of Symphoria. Sonya holds a B.M. in violin performance and a M.M. in performance and literature from the Eastman School of Music where she studied with the esteemed teachers and performers, Zvi Zeitlin and Ilya Kaler.
Pianist debuts Beethoven concerto to open new TSO director’s tenure
(Arizona Daily Star 09/15/2017)
The critically acclaimed pianist Zhang Zuo has performed all of Beethoven’s concertos except one: His No. 2. …
“After this I will have all five concertos ready and I will know all five (Beethoven) concertos,” said Zhang, who goes by the nickname Zee Zee, given to her when the China native came to the United States in her late teens to study at Rochester’s Eastman School of Music. Her American classmates and teachers called her by her initials because they couldn’t pronounce her name, she said.
ACO presents Premiere of Mozart’s Mass in C Minor
(Broadway World 9/18/2017)
The American Classical Orchestra, “the nation’s premier orchestra dedicated to period instrument performance (Vulture),” presents its first performance of Mozart’s choral masterpiece, Mass in C Minor (Robert Levin edition), … and the ACO Chorus, led by Music Director and ACO founder Thomas Crawford
About Thomas Crawford … He holds a Bachelor of Music in composition and organ performance from Eastman School of Music, where he studied choral and orchestral conducting under Samuel Adler. …
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