The Faculty Artist Series presents Eastman Virtuosi on Saturday, September 7, at 7:30 p.m., in Kilbourn Hall, at the Eastman School of Music. The program will include Eastman alumna Maria Newman (BM ‘84), violist and guest composer, assisted by Wendy Prober, piano, performing Newman’s The Ninth Hour of Divine Office. Also included in the program will be Glinka’s Trio Pathétique, with pianist Marina Lomazov, bassoonist George Sakakeeny, and Michael Wayne, clarinet; and Brahms’s Piano Quartet in G Minor, Op. 25, with Eastman faculty members Alexander Kobrin, piano; Renée Jolles, violin; Masumi Per Rostad, viola; and Steven Doane, cellist.
Maria Newman has been commended and recognized by the U.S. Congress for her work in the field of music composition, performance, and recording. As composer and performer, Newman’s original concert works and scores for historic silent films are presented around the globe. Newman is featured regularly on radio and television worldwide in live recorded concert performances and spotlight interviews on broadcasts such as CBS Sunday Morning, and National Public Radio’s From the Top with Christopher O’Riley. A George Wellington Miles Scholar of Yale University, Newman is an elected member of the American Academic Music Honor Society, Pi Kappa Lambda.
Newman’s work has earned her accolades as an Annenberg Foundation Composition Fellow, a Mary Pickford Library & Foundation Composition Fellow, and as a Variety Music Legend. Newman is Composer-in-Residence, soloist, and concertmaster with the Malibu Coast Chamber Orchestra, and Viklarbo Chamber Ensemble, and is Music Director and Conductor of the Malibu Coast Silent Film Orchestra. Maria Newman is the acclaimed soloist in Miklos Rozsa’s Viola Concerto with the Nuremburg Symphony (Germany) on the GRAMMY Award-winning Symphonic Hollywood CD, (Varese Sarabande label), and served as solo violinist and physical animation inspiration for the character of “The Grasshopper” in the 1996 Walt Disney release of Tim Burton’s James and the Giant Peach.
Maria Newman is a part of what is often referred to as the “Musical Newman Family Dynasty,” as the daughter of nine-time Academy Award-winning composer, Alfred Newman, the sister of film composers and conductors Thomas Newman and David Newman, and the cousin of Randy Newman. Maria Newman’s recording studio is based in Malibu, California, in a California craftsman venue designed by renowned architect, Eric Lloyd Wright, of the Frank Lloyd Wright Family of architects.
Renée Jolles, violinist, enjoys an eclectic career as soloist and chamber artist specializing in a wide variety of styles from the Baroque to the contemporary. Hailed as a “real star” by The New York Times for her New York Concerto debut in Alice Tully Hall, she has premiered hundreds of works, including the American premiere of Schnittke’s Violin Concerto No. 2. Her concerto engagements have included orchestras such as Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, The Philharmonic Orchestra of New Jersey, The Cape May Festival Orchestra, and The Salisbury Symphony. Jolles is a member of the Jolles Duo (harp and violin), Continuum, Intimate Voices, The New York Chamber Ensemble, and is a concertmaster of the world-renowned, Grammy Award winning, conductorless Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Honored to be a featured soloist in three world premieres as part of the Orpheus “New Brandenburg” commissions, she can be heard as soloist on the WQXR website in live performances from Carnegie Hall performing the music of Paul Moravec, Melinda Wagner, and Peter Maxwell Davies. Jolles received her BM and MM degrees from Juilliard, where, upon graduation, she was presented with the school’s highest award, the William Schuman Prize. Before accepting the position of Associate Professor of Violin at Eastman, Jolles was on the faculty of The Juilliard School, Pre-College Division, The Mannes School of Music, Preparatory Division, Hoff-Barthelson Music School, and The Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College.
Masumi Per Rostad, a faculty member in Eastman’s Strings, Harp and Guitar Department, has forged a career as a soloist and as a member of the Pacifica Quartet, which has received a GRAMMY® for Best Chamber Music Performance and was named Musical America’s Ensemble of the Year. Rostad has received praise for his rich and expressive tone, energy, and commanding presence, and has been described by critics as an “electrifying, poetic and sensitive musician.” In addition to performing, Rostad teaches, and has contributed to online and print publications. Along with his position at Eastman, Rostad has served on the faculties of the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the University of Chicago, and Northwestern University. Rostad has also been a contributing writer to such publications as Strings, Gramophone, The Huffington Post, and The Guardian. Rostad received Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from The Juilliard School, where he studied with legendary violist and pedagogue Karen Tuttle from the age of 17. Just three years later, when he was 20, she selected him as her teaching assistant and he received the Lillian Fuchs Award for outstanding graduating violist.
Called the “Van Cliburn of today” by the BBC, pianist Alexander Kobrin is at the forefront of today’s performing musicians. Kobrin has won top prizes in international piano competitions, including the Nancy Lee and Perry R. Bass Gold Medal at the 2005 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, First Prize in the Busoni and Scottish competitions, and Top Prize at the Hamamatsu competition. His prize-winning performances have been praised for their brilliant technique, musicality, and emotional engagement with the audience. Kobrin has appeared with many of the world’s great orchestras, including the New York, Tokyo, Warsaw, Royal Liverpool, and Moscow Philharmonics; the Dallas, Birmingham, Swedish Radio, Berliner, and BBC Symphonies; and the Russian National Orchestra, British Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra Verdi, Orchestre de las Suisse Romande, and Chicago Sinfonietta. He has released recordings on the Harmonia Mundi, Quartz, and Centaur labels, and his recording of Robert Schumann’s Carnaval, Waldszenen, and Arabesque was named a Top 5 Album of the year by Fanfare Magazine in 2015. Kobrin joined Eastman faculty in the fall of 2017.
Internationally known soloist, recitalist, chamber musician, recording artist, and pedagogue Steven Doane appears at festivals and on concert series throughout the United States and overseas. Doane received his BM from Oberlin Conservatory and his MM from SUNY Stony Brook. He received a Watson Foundation Grant for overseas study in 1975, and had further studies with Richard Kapuscinski, Bernard Greenhouse, Jane Cowan, and Janos Starker. Steven Doane received Eastman’s Eisenhart Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1993, and the Piatigorsky Prize in teaching at the New England Conservatory in 1986. As a member of the New Arts Trio, Doane was awarded the Naumburg Chamber Music Award in 1980. He made his Carnegie Hall and Kennedy Center debuts in Don Quixote with David Zinman and the Rochester Philharmonic in 1983. Steven Doane currently holds the title of “visiting professor” at the Royal Academy of Music, London, where he has done several residencies.
Marina Lomazov, an internationally renowned concert pianist whose New York debut performance was called “dazzling” by the New York Times chief music critic, Anthony Tommasini, joined the Eastman School of Music as Professor of Piano in the fall of 2018. After winning prizes in numerous competitions, including the Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition, the William Kapell International Competition, the Cleveland International, and several others, Ms. Lomazov has given debut performances in North and South America, China, England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Austria, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Russia, Japan and throughout the United States. She came to Eastman from the University of South Carolina, where she was the Ira McKissick Koger Professor of Piano and Founder and Artistic Director of the Southeastern Piano Festival. Lomazov is a graduate of Eastman (BM ’93, DMA ’00), where she won the highly coveted Artist’s Certificate.
George Sakakeeny (BM ’78), has appeared as a soloist with orchestras throughout North and South America, Europe, and the Far East, including engagements in Vienna at the historic Musikverein, at Severance Hall with members of the Cleveland Orchestra, and a nationally televised concert in Japan under the baton of Seiji Ozawa. Professor Sakakeeny served on the faculty of the Oberlin Conservatory for 28 years. Each summer he serves as principal bassoonist and faculty of the Eastern Music Festival, and as a faculty member at the Round Top Festival Institute. Sakakeeny has given numerous solo recitals and taught master classes at leading institutions such as the Paris Conservatory, the Juilliard School, Tchaikovsky National Music Academy in Kiev, Rice University, and the Tokyo University of the Fine Arts. He has served in longer-term teaching residencies at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, Shanghai Conservatory of Music, Seoul National University, the Conservatoire National Supérieur Musique et Danse in Lyon, France, and the New World Symphony.
Associate Professor of clarinet, Michael Wayne was a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Boston Pops clarinet section since 2008. Prior to joining the BSO, Wayne was Principal Clarinet of the Kansas City Symphony and a member of the Grand Teton Festival Orchestra. He has been on the faculty of the New England Conservatory of Music, Tanglewood Music Center, and a visiting professor at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. Wayne made his Carnegie Hall solo debut with the world premiere of Michael Daugherty’s clarinet concerto, Brooklyn Bridge, and subsequently recorded it for Equilibrium Records. Other recording projects include the multi-Grammy Award-winning Shostakovich symphony cycle with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, recorded on Deutsche Grammophon. Mr. Wayne holds degrees from the Interlochen Arts Academy and the University of Michigan, where his principal teachers were Richard Hawkins and Fred Ormand.
The Faculty Artist Series is generously supported by Patricia Ward-Baker.
Tickets for Eastman’s Faculty Artist Series are $10 for the general public and free to current Season Subscribers and UR ID holders. Tickets can be purchased at the Eastman Theatre Box Office, 26 Gibbs Street, 10 a.m.- 3 p.m., Monday-Friday; by phone (585) 274-3000; or online at http://eastmantheatre.org
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About Eastman School of Music:
The Eastman School of Music was founded in 1921 by industrialist and philanthropist George Eastman (1854-1932), founder of Eastman Kodak Company. It was the first professional school of the University of Rochester. Mr. Eastman’s dream was that his school would provide a broad education in the liberal arts as well as superb musical training. The current dean is Jamal Rossi, appointed in 2014.
More than 900 students are enrolled in the Collegiate Division of the Eastman School of Music—about 500 undergraduates and 400 graduate students. They come from almost every state, and approximately 23 percent are from other countries. They are taught by a faculty comprised of more than 130 highly regarded performers, composers, conductors, scholars, and educators. They are Pulitzer Prize winners, Grammy winners, Guggenheim Fellows, ASCAP Award recipients, published authors, recording artists, and acclaimed musicians who have performed in the world’s greatest concert halls. Each year, Eastman’s students, faculty members, and guest artists present more than 900 concerts to the Rochester community.