The Eastman School of Music welcomes a wide-ranging group of guest artists and lecturers to the Eastman campus this April! 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.
Musicology Symposium: “Encounters with the Schumanns”
Listening: Wednesday April 3 at 9:30 a.m. | Howard Hanson Hall
Interpreting: Wednesday April 3 at 3:30 p.m. | Howard Hanson Hall
Drawing on multiple constituencies across Eastman, “Encounters with the Schumanns” focuses on the music of Robert and Clara Schumann and includes two public events: a listening session featuring pieces by Robert and Clara along with responses by Eastman faculty and invited scholars from the US and abroad; and an afternoon concert showcasing songs and chamber pieces by Robert and Clara performed by Eastman DMA students on both modern and historical instruments.
This special day is made possible by a gift from Peter Helmers in support of research and performance dedicated to the music of Robert Schumann and his contemporaries and is being co-sponsored by the Music Theory Department and the Piano Department.
Participating scholars include Benedict Taylor (University of Edinburgh), Roger Moseley (Cornell University), Michael Gallope (University of Minnesota), Seth Brodsky ‘07E (PhD) (University of Chicago), Loretta Terrigno (ESM Theory), Sarah Marlowe (ESM Theory), and Holly Watkins (ESM Musicology).
Itamar Zorman, violin
Guest Recital: Thursday April 4 at 8:30 p.m. | Hatch Recital Hall
Itamar Zorman is one of the most soulful, evocative artists of his generation, distinguished by his emotionally gripping performances and gift for musical storytelling. Since his emergence with the top prize at the 2011 International Tchaikovsky Competition, he has wowed audiences all over the world with breathtaking style, causing one critic to declare him a “young badass who’s not afraid of anything.” His “youthful intensity” and “achingly beautiful” sound shine through in every performance, earning him the title of the “virtuoso of emotions.
Awarded the Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award for 2014, violinist Itamar Zorman is the winner of the 2013 Avery Fisher Career Grant, and the 2011 International Tchaikovsky Competition in Russia.
David Russell, guitar
Kilbourn Concert Series: Thursday, April 4 at 7:30 p.m. | Kilbourn Hall [ticketed]
Guest Masterclass: Friday, April 5 | 10:30 a.m. | Hatch Recital Hall
Classical guitarist David Russell is world renowned for his superb musicianship and inspired artistry, having earned the highest praise from audiences and critics alike. He is a GRAMMY award winner for his CD, Aire Latino, in the category of Best Instrumental Soloist in Classical Music. In recognition of his great talent and his international career, he was named a Fellow of The Royal Academy of Music in London in 1997 and was inducted into the Guitar Foundation of America’s Hall of Fame in 2018.
WindSync
Clark Residency: Wednesday, April 9 | 2:30 p.m. | Hatch Recital Hall
Versatile and vibrant, the musicians of WindSync “play many idioms authoritatively, elegantly, with adroit technique, and with great fun” (All About the Arts). WindSync launched an international touring career after winning the 2012 Concert Artists Guild Victor Elmaleh Competition and the 2016 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. The ensemble has since appeared on legendary stages including Ravinia, the Met Museum, Shanghai Oriental Arts Center, the Library of Congress, and Carnegie Hall. In demand for their ability to embed in communities, WindSync has served in residencies with the Grand Teton Music Festival, Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival, and the Lied Center. Winner of the 2022 Fischoff Ann Divine Educator Award, the ensemble regularly coaches at training programs nationwide, collaborates with youth orchestras, and performs for thousands of young people each year. The group also produces events year-round in their artistic home base of Houston, Texas.
EVENT CANCELLED (will be rescheduled for next academic year)
Daphne Brooks, Yale University
Musicology Symposium: Thursday, April 11 | 4:00 p.m. | Sibley Music Library – Room 404
Rhapsody in Ruin: Porgy & Bess and the Story of America
Daphne A. Brooks is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of African American Studies, American Studies, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and Music at Yale University. She is the author of Bodies in Dissent: Spectacular Performances of Race and Freedom, 1850-1910 (Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2006), winner of The Errol Hill Award for Outstanding Scholarship on African American Performance from ASTR; Jeff Buckley’s Grace (New York: Continuum, 2005) and Liner Notes for the Revolution: The Intellectual Life of Black Feminist Sound (Harvard University, February 2021). The latter is the winner of an astounding 11 book awards and prizes. Brooks has authored numerous articles on race, gender, performance and popular music culture and wrote liner notes for The Complete Tammi Terrell (Universal A&R, 2010) and Take a Look: Aretha Franklin Complete on Columbia (Sony, 2011), each of which has won the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for outstanding music writing. This event is made possible with support from the Eastman Departmental Inclusion Initiative.
Anssi Karttunen, cello
Guest Lecture: Thursday, April 11 at 4:00 p.m. | Howard Hanson Hall
The Finnish cellist Anssi Karttunen discusses Kaija Saariaho’s cello repertoire. Karttunen leads a busy career as a soloist and chamber-music player, performing extensively with many of the leading orchestras and musicians. He is a passionate advocate of contemporary music and his collaboration with composers has led him to give over 210 world premieres of works by diverse composers.
Rachel Lumsden, Florida State University
Eastman Theory Colloquium: Friday, April 12 at 4:00 p.m. | Howard Hanson Hall
Rachel Lumsden
is Associate Professor of Music Theory at Florida State University’s College of Music. Her research interests include experimental music, music by women composers, and issues of gender, race, and sexuality in contemporary British and American concert music and musicals. Her peer-reviewed articles have been published in American Music, Black Music Research Journal, Feminist Studies, Music Theory Online (2017 and 2020), and Studies in American Humor. Her article “Music Theory for the ‘Weaker Sex’: Oliveria Prescott’s Columns for The Girl’s Own Paper” won an Outstanding Publication award from the Society for Music Theory.
James O’Donnell, Organ
Rochester Celebrity Organ Recital Series: Friday, April 12 at 7:30 p.m. | Christ Church, 141 East Ave. [ticketed]
One of the most celebrated concert organists, choral conductors, and liturgical musicians of our time, James O’Donnell served for more than a decade as Master of Music at Westminster Cathedral and for more than two decades as Organist and Master of the Choristers (Director of Music) at Westminster Abbey. During his tenure at Westminster, O’Donnell directed the music for many nationally and internationally significant occasions, including the historic 2010 service attended by Pope Benedict XVI and the 2011 wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton (Duke and Duchess of Cambridge) and conducted the Choir of Westminster Abbey in many broadcasts, concerts, and tours.
The Rochester Celebrity Organ Recital Series (RCORS) is administered by the Rochester chapter of the American Guild of Organists (AGO), collaborating with the Eastman School of Music, WXXI, and several local churches to invite some of today’s leading concert organists to perform on Rochester’s rich array of pipe organs.
Music Cognition Symposium
Quarterly Meeting: Saturday, April 13 at 1:30 p.m. | Ciminelli Formal Lounge
The Eastman/UR/Cornell/Buffalo Music Cognition Symposium is an informal gathering of people interested in music cognition. The symposium meets four times a year (twice in the fall and twice in the spring) on Saturday afternoons, usually at Eastman. The symposium receives funding from the University of Rochester’s Committee for Interdisciplinary Studies (UCIS).
Often, the symposium features invited guests—leading researchers in music cognition from around the United States and beyond. Symposia may also feature presentations of ongoing work by members of the community, and discussions of readings and topics in music cognition. Recent topics have included performance expression, probabilistic modeling, melodic expectation, and music-language connections. Symposia are open to the public, and all are welcome.
Maria Sonevytsky, Bard College
Musicology Symposium: Thursday, April 18 at 4:00 p.m. | Sibley Music Library – Room 404
Indigenous Resurgence or Criminal Pop? – Mapping the Music of Jamala’s QIRIM
Maria Sonevytsky is Associate Professor of Anthropology and Music at Bard College. She has published two books: Wild Music: Sound and Sovereignty in Ukraine (2019, winner of the 2020 American Musicological Society’s Lockwood First Book Prize) and Vopli Vidopliassova’s Tantsi (2023), accompanied by the first formal release of the band’s cult 1989 cassette album Tantsi on the California-based label Org Music. Prof. Sonevytsky is writing a new book titled Singing for Lenin in Soviet Ukraine: Children, Music, and the Communist Future, for which she was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities grant in 2022. Earlier, she produced and sang on The Chornobyl Songs Project: Living Songs from a Lost World (released in 2015 on Smithsonian Folkways). In the late 2000s, she developed a multi-media exhibition on Crimean Tatar repatriates called “No Other Home” with the photographer Alison Cartwright Ketz which was shown at museums in Bucharest, Kyiv, New York, and online in the journal Triple Canopy. She has written multiple articles and essays on Ukrainian music, culture, and history, including, recently, public-facing pieces on the ethics of performing Russian Imperial musical works during the Russian war on Ukraine. In addition to her scholarly work, she performs as a singer and accordionist.
Aristea Mellos ’12E (MM), ’17E (DMA), composer
Guest Recital: Thursday, April 18 | 7:30 p.m. | Howard Hanson Hall
Aristea Mellos ’12E (MM), ’17E (DMA) is a Greek-Australian composer of contemporary classical music whose compositional voice has been described as “unnerving and awe-inspiring” (Limelight Magazine, 2020). Born on the island of Crete, she received her formative musical training in Sydney, where she was an avid chorister and also studied classical piano.
In 2023, her Preludes were awarded the Albert H. Maggs Composition Award. A winner of ABC Classic’s Gallipoli Songs Competition, Aristea is a recipient of grants from Creative Australia (‘23, ‘14), Create NSW (‘20, ‘21) the Presser Foundation (‘15), the Earle Brown Foundation (‘16), the American Australian Association (‘13, ‘14) and the Eastman School of Music (Professional Development Award ‘14). Aristea is a represented artist of The Australian Music Centre. Her music has been published by the Capilano Review, and Soundboard Magazine, and has been released and broadcast by Hyperion Records, ABC Classic, NPR, Tall Poppies, Artist Share, Xenofone, WAYO 104.3FM, and Fine Music.
Janet Schmalfeldt, Tufts University
Eastman Theory Colloquium: Friday, April 19 at 4:00 p.m. | Howard Hanson Hall
Janet Schmalfeldt joined the Department of Music at Tufts University in 1995, where she is now Professor Emerita; she previously taught at McGill University and at Yale. In recent years, she has offered graduate courses as a visiting professor in the music departments at the University of Chicago (2014), Harvard (2015), Boston University (2016), and the University of Pavia, in Cremona (October 2017). She is the author of a book on Alban Berg’s opera Wozzeck and has published widely on eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century music. Her book In the Process of Becoming: Analytic and Philosophical Perspectives on Form in Early Nineteenth-Century Music (2011) received a 2012 ASCAP – Deems Taylor Award and the 2012 Wallace Berry Award from the Society for Music Theory. She has served as President of the New England Conference of Music Theorists and of the Society for Music Theory. As an invited speaker, she has held seminars and workshops on musical form, performance, and analysis in Brazil, Italy, and the Netherlands and has given papers in Estonia, Germany, Poland, Ireland, Belgium, and England. Her performances as pianist have included solo, concerto, and chamber music.