Here are some select recent clippings 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.)
Grammy nods for Eastman musicians
(WHAM-TV 12/06/2014)
An Eastman School of Music professor, along with an alumnus of the school, have been nominated for a Grammy award.
Paul O’Dette is professor of lute. He’s a nominee in the Best Opera Recording Category this year.
Robert Ludwig received a total of four nominations, two each in the Album of the Year and in the Best Engineered Album Non-Classical categories. He’s an Eastman alumnus and mastering engineer. (Also reported by WHEC TV, WXXI AM )
Opera & Classical Music Listings for Nov. 28-Dec. 4
(New York Times © 11/27/2014)
Classical Music
Federico Agostini and Enrico Elisi (Thursday): The Morgan Library & Museum’s collection of musical manuscripts is the inspiration for this recital of violin sonatas by Mozart, Brahms and Beethoven featuring two excellent faculty members from the Eastman School of Music, the violinist Federico Agostini and the pianist Enrico Elisi.
#JadeTalks to Mark Powell: A Leading Voice in Arts Leadership | Jade Simmons
(Huffington Post © 12/03/2014)
Even before I interviewed Mark Powell, a Ford Foundation award-winning conductor and popular instructor in the Institute for Music Leadership at the Eastman School of Music, I already knew I would be talking to one of the true luminaries on the national discussion about leadership in the arts. Still yet, I had no idea that I was going to be hearing from a man so dedicated to artist empowerment and so committed to the process of molding a stunningly capable and magnanimous musician; the one capable of impacting far beyond the music on the page and into the hearts of the audience members who come to hear them, as well as the staff that they might one day lead.
Up for discussion on this occasion was the trending and blending of entrepreneurship into arts curriculum on the university level.
14 Historic American Theaters
(Architectural Digest © 12/04/2014)
Few spaces combine visual splendor and colorful history like America’s great old theaters
9. Kodak Hall at Eastman Theater, Rochester, NY
Industrialist George Eastman built his eponymous and opulent theater in 1922 as a fundraising movie palace, its proceeds going to his namesake music conservatory (based at the University of Rochester, New York). The voluminous performance space, designed by McKim, Mead & White, originally contained 3,352 seats, a Maxfield Parrish painting, and a 35-foot-tall chandelier that weighed 5,000 pounds. All students at the Eastman School of Music have the opportunity to perform in the space, renamed Kodak Hall in 2009, and the venue is also the principal hall for the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra.
10. In 2004 the Eastman Theater’s stage was replaced, and its hall acoustics were substantially improved.
Shanghai Symphony features violinist Huang Bin at ‘Forget Me Not’ concert
(The Star Online © 12/03/2014)
Huang Bin was just 14 when she won the Junior Wieniawski International Violin Competition in Lublin, Poland, sharing the first prize with Russian-born Maxim Vengerov. Hailed as one of the most outstanding violinists from China, Huang maintained her prominence by winning the Paganini International Violin Competition in Genoa, Italy and the Munich International Music Competition in Germany.
When did you start playing the violin and when did you turn professional?
I started playing the violin at age four and I entered the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing at age nine. After graduating from the Central Conservatory, I went to the US to study at the Peabody Conservatory of Music, where I earned a Bachelor of Music degree and Artist Diploma. I received my Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees at the Eastman School of Music. And I embarked on a professional career at 23 after winning the Paganini competition.
Matthew Brown prepares for his organ recital at Westminster Abbey
(The Salisbury Post 12/02/2014)
Come this Sunday, at 5:45 p.m. London time, Matthew Michael Brown, organist and director of music at First United Methodist Church in Salisbury, will sit down at the Harrison and Harrison organ of the abbey and begin a 30-minute solo recital within England’s most hallowed ground, the place where folks such as Charles Dickens and Isaac Newton are buried.
Brown’s Gillian Weir connection came after he earned his master’s of music degree in organ performance and literature from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y., and the Sacred Music Diploma from the Institute of Musical Leadership.
Brown moved to New York City after graduate school and served on the musical staff of Grace Church. He also was studio pianist for former Metropolitan Opera soprano Rita Shane. While in New York, he continued his organ studies for two years with Weir, by either traveling to see her during her performance dates in the States or visiting her in England.
The Eastman Studies
(Musicology Now 11/30/2014)
When, in the early 1990s, University of Rochester Press asked me to help them start an Eastman Studies in Music series, I agreed but urged that it be kept broad in regard to chronology, repertory, and scholarly approach. The dozens of books that have resulted range from historical studies of Renaissance-era Christian chant to close analyses of pieces by Bach and Ravel and from primary source material on Debussy and more recent figures (such as Steve Reich, György Kurtág, and conductor Claudio Abbado) to detailed accounts of trends in music and musical life in North America, the Czech lands, or mid twentieth-century China.
By casting its net wide, the Eastman Studies in Music series provides a wide range of critical and nuanced perspectives on musical composition and performance, on close analysis of music’s formal and expressive qualities, on musical performance across the centuries and around the world, and on the many historical and cultural contexts that have shaped music and its meanings for those who make it and love it.
Grammy Award-winner Soloff to perform at Harvey
(Lewisboro Ledger 11/30/2014)
Grammy Award-winning Lew Soloff, former member of Blood, Sweat and Tears, will appear next month the Harvey School as a special guest in the community venture called Harvey Presents. Mr. Soloff, a virtuoso trumpeter, has assembled a band of top jazz musicians. The show is set for Saturday, Dec. 13, at 8 p.m.
A Brooklyn native and former Bedford resident, Mr. Soloff graduated from the Eastman School of Music in 1961 and immersed himself into the New York City jazz scene. Playing in bands led by jazz artists such as Maynard Ferguson, Tito Puente and Gil Evans, he later became known in the pop world during his time with the ground-breaking group Blood, Sweat and Tears from 1968 to 1973. It was his searing horn lines in “Spinning Wheel” (1969) that garnered a Grammy for Blood, Sweat and Tears, a group that produced nine gold records.
Fast Start: Building a community of musical kids
(Rochester Business Journal © 11/21/2014)
At 26, Alexander Pena, a first-generation Mexican American, seeks to make classical music as accessible for others as it was for him.
The Eastman School of Music became a major focus after Pena’s teacher and Dawkins, an alumna, recommended it. He also liked that he could study both performance and music education, an option not available everywhere.
“My teacher spoke so highly of Eastman and how the type of person that comes out of Eastman is actually a wonderful worker and colleague and friend,” he says. “I heard it from numerous people as I was getting older and older that an Eastman musician is a capable musician, somebody who is collaborative. There’s this big stress on creating the well-rounded musician, the entrepreneur—not just the player, not just the technician.
”Company News: David Lee joins Brown & Brown Empire State
(The Post-Standard 12/02/2014)
David Lee joins Brown & Brown Empire State as a producer with the commercial lines team. Previously, he was a P&C agent for the Paychex Insurance Agency.
Lee holds a master’s and bachelor’s degree in music from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester and specialized in classical flute performance.
Former Webster teacher helps produce WXXI documentary
(Rochester Democrat & Chronicle © 12/01/2014)
Peggy, now 80 years old, is an active member of the Rochester New Horizons Music Program at the Eastman School of Music, a program for senior musicians whose skills range anywhere from novice to advanced. For the last five years Peggy has been working on a documentary about how the program was founded, and how it has since grown to include 10,000 musicians in 215 bands all around the world.
When the documentary, called Music For Life, debuts on WXXI-TV this Thursday December 4, Peggy will have her very first TV credit as an associate producer.
New Horizons Band offers Holiday Concert
(Mason City Globe Gazette 12/04/2014)
The New Horizons Band will present its annual Holiday Concert at 4 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 10, at The Music Man Square, 308 S. Pennsylvania Ave.
The first New Horizons Band was founded in 1991, sponsored by Eastman School of Music, Rochester, New York. Today, affiliate bands number more than 208 throughout the United States, Ireland and Canada.
OHS grad Paul Strelau carries his love of music to a thriving business
(Owatonna People’s Press 11/29/2014)
Paul Strelau, a 1979 graduate of Owatonna High School and son of the Otto Strelaus of Owatonna fondly remembers playing in Arnold Krueger’s Owatonna High School orchestra. He turned a love for music into an apprenticeship with a violin maker after receiving an undergraduate degree at the University of Wisconsin. He moved to Rochester, New York to enroll at the Eastman School of Music for his master’s degree in 1985 and remained after meeting his wife, Nancy. He played with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra for 12 years while developing his string repair shop which he founded in 1988. The repair shop named “Stringed Instrument Services” has morphed into a diversified business offering retail and wholesale stringed instruments as well as rentals.