The Eastman School was saddened to learn of the recent death of Warren Benson, Professor Emeritus of Composition, at the age of 81. Born in 1924, and a professional performer by the age of 14, Warren Benson played timpani in the Detroit Symphony orchestra under Ormandy, Reiner, Goossens, Bernstein, and others while an undergraduate at…
Rochester, NY – Martin E. Messinger may not have been a stellar student when he took piano lessons at the Eastman Preparatory Department in the early 1940’s, but that hasn’t stopped him from ensuring the school’s continued success. On October 22, 2005, 10 Gibbs Street will be renamed Messinger Hall in honor of the Rochester…
Rochester, NY — On Friday, September 23, 2005, more than 400 people filled the Eastman School of Music’s Kilbourn Hall to attend the School’s annual Jazz Showcase. This year, however, the students in the concert’s ten ensembles decided to turn the free event into a benefit for a specific group of Hurricane Katrina victims: jazz…
Rochester, NY — After years of painstaking preparation on two continents — including two-and-a-half months in its new home at the Memorial Art Gallery — the only full-sized Italian Baroque organ in North America will make its highly anticipated public debut. On Saturday, October 8, 2005, audiences will finally hear what is “virtually a ‘living…
ROCHESTER, NY — The Eastman School of Music just has announced a new scholarship by multiple Grammy-award winning musician and entertainer Billy Joel, and the worthy recipient is 33-year old Eastman doctoral student Russell Scarbrough. The Billy Joel Endowment Fund has given Eastman a generous gift of $320,000. The majority of that gift ($314,000) will…
Rochester, NY – Students in the Eastman School of Music’s jazz programs responded to the Hurricane Katrina tragedy with a special perspective-after all, New Orleans is known as the Birthplace of Jazz. The Eastman students decided to turn their annual free Eastman Jazz Showcase into a benefit, with a suggested donation of $5. They chose…
ROCHESTER, NY — What a difference a weekend can make. Between midnight on Friday, September 2 and noon on Monday, September 5, hundreds of miles north of the flood-ravaged Gulf Coast, musical voices with big hearts at the University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music transformed grief and frustration into tangible action for three New…
Call this the “connect-the dots” Convocation message. Over the past five months, I encountered three seemingly unrelated items that have oddly come together to form a potent message. One, I served on a panel at the annual conference of the American Symphony Orchestra League (with two other dynamic speakers) on the topic of “Making the…
ROCHESTER, NY — After a week of fierce competition in three rounds of judged performances, first prize in the Eastman School of Music’s Eighth Annual Young Artists International Piano Competition was awarded to 17-year old Song-Yuan Tang from Shenyang, China. Rochester Democrat and Chronicle music critic John Pitcher called Tang a “firebrand” who consistently “stole…