We are excited to welcome a wide-ranging group of guest artists and lecturers to the Eastman campus in October! Keep reading for information about each event and visit esm.rochester.edu/events for further details.
Any Eastman Presents series artist who is offering a free masterclass will be included in this list, but their corresponding concert is ticketed. All other guest masterclasses and recitals are free and open to the public.
Isabelle Demers, organ
Rochester Celebrity Organ Recital Series: Friday, October 6 at 7:30 PM | St. Anne Church
RCORS Masterclass: Saturday, October 7 at 10:00 AM | St. Anne Church
With playing described as having “bracing virtuosity” (Chicago Classical Review) and being “fearless and extraordinary” (Amarillo-Globe News), Isabelle Demers has enraptured critics, presenters, and audience members around the globe.
Dr. Demers is in continual high demand by her colleagues as witnessed by performances for numerous regional and national conventions of the American Guild of Organists, the Institute of Organ Builders, International Society of Organbuilders, the Royal Canadian College of Organists, and the Organ Historical Society.
A native of Québec and a doctoral graduate of the Juilliard School, Dr. Demers was recently appointed Associate Professor of Organ at McGill University (Montréal, Québec). She was formerly the Joyce Bowden Chair in Organ and Head of the Organ Program at Baylor University (Waco, Texas).
Angela Hewitt, piano
Guest Masterclass: Thursday, October 12 at 2:00 PM | Hatch Recital Hall
Eastman Piano Series (ticketed): Friday, October 13 at 7:30 PM | Kilbourn Hall
One of the world’s leading concert pianists, Angela Hewitt appears in recital and as soloist with major orchestras throughout Europe, the Americas, Australia, and Asia. Her interpretations of the music of J.S. Bach have established her as one of the composer’s foremost interpreters of our time.
Gregory Barnett, musicologist
Musicology Symposium: Thursday, October 12 at 4:30 PM | Sibley Music Library, Conference Room 404
Topic: Pitch aggregates in Italian theory and Barbara Strozzi’s tonal style
Gregory Barnett
is Professor of Musicology at the Shepherd School of Music, Rice University. He is the author of Bolognese Instrumental Music, 1660-1710: Spiritual Comfort, Courtly Delight, and Commercial Triumph (Ashgate) and is a contributor to The Cambridge History of Western Music Theory, The Cambridge History of Seventeenth-Century Music, Geminiani Studies (Ut Orpheus Edizioni), Regole Armoniche (1775) by Vincenzo Manfredini (Brepols), and The Early Keyboard Sonata in Italy (Brepols). He has also published articles in the Journal of the American Musicological Society, Early Music, The Journal of Musicology, Theoria, Oxford Bibliographies Online, and the Basler Jahrbuch für Historische Musikpraxis. His interests include the history of modal theory and tonal organization in seventeenth-century music, Baroque-era instrumental music and instruments, and historical performance practice. His research has been supported by awards from the American Council of Learned Societies, the Bellagio Center of the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Fulbright Program, and the American Musicological Society.
Henry Kelder, piano
IML Workshop: Thursday, October 19 at 12:35 PM | MC-220
Guest Recital: Thursday, October 19 at 4:30 PM | Ciminelli Lounge
Henry Kelder
works as a pianist, composer, conductor, chamber musician, improviser, répétiteur, cultural entrepreneur and teacher. In 2013, three major works of his received their world premiere: Concerto for alto saxophone and orchestra, A Song for Saint Cecilia’s Day for choir and orchestra and VALS for music theater. One of his teachers was Tristan Keuris.
Henry Kelder has been affiliated with VocaalLAB Nederland since 2006 as regular rehearsal director and conductor. He has since worked for De Nederlandse Opera, Ruhrtriennale, Transparant, LOD, Kameroperahuis, Muziekgebouw aan’t IJ, November Music, and others. He has also collaborated with composers such as Steve Reich, Pascal Dusapin, Martijn Padding, directors such as Pierre Audi, Josse De Pauw, conductors such as Reinbert de Leeuw, Etienne Siebens, Lucas Vis, Ed Spanjaard and worked on countless world premieres.
Belcea Quartet
Guest Masterclass: Sunday, October 22 at 11:00 AM | Kilbourn Hall
Eastman Ranlet Series (ticketed): Sunday, October 22 at 3:00 PM | Kilbourn Hall
Founded in 1994, the Belcea Quartet has been the resident quartet of Wigmore Hall and blends its diverse cultural backgrounds and influences into a common musical language. For their Ranlet Series debut, the Quartet presents a program from the staples of the repertoire––Beethoven’s String Quartet in C minor, Bartók’s first quartet, and the sole quartet of Debussy.
Varun Rangaswamy ’20E
Guest Lecture and Performance: Thursday, October 26 at 6:30 PM | Ray Wright Room
Eastman Theory Colloquium: Friday, October 27 at 4:00 PM | ESM-305
OSSIA welcomes Varun Rangaswamy ’20E back to Eastman to present a lecture and demonstration based on his recent album, REINHERITANCE. “By making this album, I want to show how I inherit, as all of us do, forms of music and ways of being multiple times through multiple different iterations of myself. Those ways of being are always changing how they come to me and I am always changing how and what I inherit through the act of inheritance itself.” Click here to stream/download REINHERITANCE.
CANCELED: Eric Owens, bass-baritone
Guest Masterclass: Friday, October 27 at 11:30 AM | Hatch Recital Hall
Bass-baritone Eric Owens has a unique reputation as an esteemed interpreter of classic works and a champion of new music. Equally at home in orchestral, recital, and operatic repertoire, Mr. Owens has brought his powerful poise, expansive voice, and instinctive acting faculties to stages around the world in the 25 years since his graduation from the Curtis Institute of Music.
At the Metropolitan Opera, Mr. Owens has appeared in leading roles in Kaija Saariaho’s L’amour de Loin, Dvorák’s Rusalka, Mozart’s Idomeneo, Strauss’s Elektra, and John Adams’s Doctor Atomic; and as Alberich and Hagen in Wagner’s Ring cycle. He is in the midst of a Ring cycle as Wotan/Wanderer for the Lyric Opera of Chicago, where he has also appeared in Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess and Dvorák’s Rusalka and serves as a Community Ambassador. He appears regularly in leading roles at LA Opera, San Francisco Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Washington National Opera, and the Glimmerglass Festival, where he is artistic advisor.
Pittsburgh Symphony Low Brass Section
Guest Recital: Saturday, October 28 at 12:30 PM | Hatch Recital Hall
Guest Masterclass: Saturday, October 28 at 6:30 PM | Hatch Recital Hall
The low brass section of the Grammy Award-winning Pittsburgh Symphony comes to Eastman to work with and perform for our students and community.
Peter Sullivan, principal trombone
James Nova, trombone
Cooper Cromwell-Whitley, trombone fellow
Jeffrey Dee, principal bass trombone
Craig Knox, principal tuba
Joaquin Valdepeñas, clarinet
Guest Masterclass: Saturday, October 28 at 4:30 p.m. | Howard Hanson Hall
Winner of the 2004 Juno Award for best classical record (Jacques Hétu Concertos), Joaquin Valdepeñas is considered one of the most distinguished clarinetists in the world. He is the principal clarinetist of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO) and makes international appearances as soloist, chamber musician, and conductor. He has also conducted the TSO more than a dozen times, as well as the New Creations Festival at Roy Thompson Hall, and was one of the conductors at the Aspen Music Festival