Eastman School of Music, of the University of Rochester, is excited to welcome Leonard Slatkin, Kelly Hall-Tompkins ’93E and the Eastman Philharmonia to Kodak Hall at Eastman Theatre on Wednesday, March 19, 2025, at 7:30 p.m. The esteemed Leonard Slatkin takes to the podium as one of several talented guest orchestral conductors this academic year.
“I am thrilled to be returning to Eastman for a wonderful program that includes the astonishing Eleventh Symphony by Shostakovich,” exclaims Slatkin. “This highly dramatic work follows the violin concerto by Jeff Beal ’85E, written for his fellow alum Kelly Hall-Tompkins, who will perform it on this occasion. I will also be doing some teaching, as well as enjoying the atmosphere that is the Eastman School of Music.”
The concert begins with Charles Ives’ Variations on “America,” a piece that presents familiar American melodies in lively and reimagined ways, and concludes with Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 11, The Year 1905, a powerful reflection on struggle, loss and the resilience of those fighting for social change. Fitting bookends for the current times.
Continuing the program is a special performance of Beal’s Body in Motion, featuring Hall-Tompkins who is elated to perform this piece in Rochester. “Eastman is the place where my collaboration with Jeff began, both thanks to the extraordinary education that we received there as students, and by way of the Meliora Weekend in Fall 2022 where we met as Centennial Celebration Honorees,” Hall-Tompkins shares. “I was delighted that we were able to realize our collaboration so quickly as to premiere the concerto with Leonard Slatkin and the St. Louis Symphony in January 2024. It was an honor to also give the European premiere with Leonard, and I could not be more thrilled to return with Jeff to our beloved alma mater, alongside Maestro Slatkin, to perform this incredible piece at the landmark Eastman Theatre.”
All performances by the Eastman Philharmonia are free and open to the public. Visit our website to learn more about this concert and other upcoming events at Eastman.
Media only: Lauren Sageer, Assistant Director of Public Relations and Digital Content,
(585) 451-8492, lsageer@esm.rochester.edu
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About Leonard Slatkin:
Internationally acclaimed conductor Leonard Slatkin is Music Director Laureate of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO), Directeur Musical Honoraire of the Orchestre National de Lyon (ONL), Conductor Laureate of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (SLSO), Principal Guest Conductor of the Orquesta Filarmónica de Gran Canaria, and Artistic Consultant to the Las Vegas Philharmonic. He maintains a rigorous schedule of guest conducting and is active as a composer, author, and educator.
Slatkin has received six Grammy awards and 35 nominations. Naxos recently reissued Vox audiophile editions of his SLSO recordings featuring the works of Gershwin, Rachmaninov, and Prokofiev. Other Naxos recordings include Slatkin Conducts Slatkin—a compilation of pieces written by generations of his family—as well as works by Saint-Saëns, Ravel, Berlioz, Copland, Borzova, McTee, and Williams.
A recipient of the National Medal of Arts, Slatkin also holds the rank of Chevalier in the French Legion of Honor. He has been awarded the Prix Charbonnier from the Federation of Alliances Françaises, Austria’s Decoration of Honor in Silver, and the League of American Orchestras’ Gold Baton. He received the ASCAP Deems Taylor Special Recognition Award for his debut book, Conducting Business (2012), which was followed by Leading Tones (2017) and Classical Crossroads: The Path Forward for Music in the 21st Century (2021). His latest books are Eight Symphonic Masterworks of the Twentieth Century (Rowman & Littlefield, spring 2024) and Eight Symphonic Masterworks of the Nineteenth Century (fall 2024), comprising essays that supplement the score-study process.
About Kelly Hall-Tompkins:
Winner of a Naumburg International Violin Competition Honorarium Prize, featured in the Smithsonian Museum for African American History, and a featured soloist for a commission by the Library of Congress, Kelly Hall-Tompkins ’93E is an acclaimed violin soloist and entrepreneur. A widely acclaimed soloist and recitalist, she has appeared with the Symphonies of Baltimore, Shanghai, Dallas, Madison, Oakland, Rhode Island, Greensboro, Gateways Music Festival, Chineke! and Artist in Residence with Cincinnati, with conductors such as Leonard Slatkin, Keith Lockhart, Dmitry Sitkovetsky, Michael Morgan and Bright Sheng. At home with genres beyond classical music, Ms. Hall-Tompkins is the first soloist to perform the Wynton Marsalis Violin Concerto after the original dedicatée, with over nearly 20 performances to date, including the recent Lucerne Festival Premiere of the work this past summer, upcoming Netherlands Premiere and opening nights with numerous orchestras. Inspired by her experience as the “Fiddler”/violin soloist in a recent Broadway revival of Fiddler on the Roof, she commissioned and developed The Fiddler: Expanding Tradition, her fourth solo album. During the pandemic, she premiered four pieces written for her, and participated in unique collaborations with Tony-nominated actor Daniel Watts, aerial dancer Alexandra Peter, Frisson Films, Gil Shaham’s Gilharmonic, Routledge Press as contributing author for a new book on Music and Human Rights and with WQXR as part of the inaugural Artist Propulsion Lab.
As founder of Music Kitchen: Food for the Soul, Kelly Hall-Tompkins is a pioneer of social justice in classical music. She has brought top artists in over 100 concerts in homeless shelters coast to coast from New York to Los Angeles, and in Paris. (Music Kitchen commissioned Forgotten Voices, a song cycle comprised of comments written by shelter clients set to music by 15 award-winning composers and premiered in Association with Carnegie Hall in March 2022.)
About Jeff Beal:
Jeff Beal ’85E is a composer with a genre-defying musical fluidity. His film scores have received critical acclaim, while he remains a respected composer in the concert, theater and dance worlds.
Beal’s evocative score and theme for the Netflix drama House of Cards received four Emmy Award nominations, and recently won for outstanding score, bringing Beal’s Emmy tally to fifteen nominations and four statues. Other lauded series include HBO’s Carnivale and Rome. Film scores feature the documentaries Blackfish and Queen of Versailles and dramas Pollock and Appaloosa.
Beal’s orchestral works have been performed by the St. Louis, Rochester, Pacific, Munich, and Detroit symphony orchestras. Commissions include works for the Metropole Orchestra, The Ying Quartet, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Henry Mancini Institute, Prism Brass Quintet, Smuin Ballet, and grammy winner Jason Vieaux. His first choral commission, The Salvage Men, was written for the Los Angeles Master Chorale and the Eric Whitacre Singers. Music for theater includes 2015 the World Science Festival production, Light Falls.
Born and raised in the San Fransisco Bay Area, Beal’s grandmother was a pianist who performed on the radio and as accompanist for silent movies. Beal graduated from the Eastman School of Music where he and his wife, Joan, recently donated $2 million to the creation of The Beal Institute for Film Music and Contemporary Media.
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.
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 comprising more than 170 highly regarded performers, composers, conductors, scholars and educators. They are Pulitzer Prize winners, GRAMMY winners, Emmy 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. Additionally, more than 1,700 members of the Rochester community, from young children through senior citizens, are enrolled in the Eastman Community Music School.
About the University of Rochester:
The University of Rochester is one of the nation’s leading private research universities, one of only 62-member institutions in the Association of American Universities. Located in Rochester, N.Y., the University gives undergraduates exceptional opportunities for interdisciplinary study and close collaboration with faculty through its unique cluster-based curriculum. Its College, School of Arts and Sciences, and Hajim School of Engineering and Applied Sciences are complemented by the Eastman School of Music, Simon School of Business, Warner School of Education, Laboratory for Laser Energetics, School of Medicine and Dentistry, School of Nursing, Eastman Institute for Oral Health, and the Memorial Art Gallery.