The Eastman School Symphony Orchestra presents its next concert on Friday, November 18 at 7:30 p.m. in Kodak Hall. Professor Neil Varon and DMA conducting student Matthew Straw will lead works by Grieg and Schumann, but the program also includes a vocal showpiece: Rossini’s short song cycle La Regata Veneziana, to be sung by senior…
The music of the African American composer Florence Price (1887-1955) has recently been the subject of excited attention. Many of her works have been unearthed and rediscovered, and one of her orchestral works, The Oak, has an important Eastman connection. DMA conducting student Austin Chanu will conduct the Eastman Philharmonia in a rare performance of…
This Wednesday evening’s concert by the Eastman Wind Ensemble features many Eastman connections – in performers and in composers. Two Eastman alumni will join forces when guest soloist Nick Weiser ’10E (MM), ’14E (DMA) performs the Concerto for Jazz Piano and Wind Ensemble by Dana Wilson ’82E (PhD), a professor emeritus at Ithaca College. Mason…
On December 5, 2022, the Eastman School of Music will present the world premiere of 2020 Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Anthony Davis’ How Bright the Sunlight, a work for symphony orchestra and narrator, with a libretto curated by the first Native American US Poet Laureate, Joy Harjo. The narration is based on both the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving…
Two of Eastman’s most prestigious orchestras, the Eastman Philharmonia and the Eastman School Symphony Orchestra (ESSO), under the baton of celebrated conductor Neil Varon, present a beautiful series of concerts this fall/winter. With repertoire that ranges from Mendelssohn, Brahms, and Beethoven to the premiere of a very special piece by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Anthony Davis,…
This excerpt from the autobiography of the father of former Eastman School director Robert Freeman was published in Eastman Notes magazine this fall, shortly before Robert Freeman’s death on October 18, 2022, in Austin, Texas. We also offer the story on the Eastman website in tribute to Bob Freeman, who led Eastman from 1973 to…
Confusion, fear, panic, and loneliness are not uncommon emotions in opera. Add to the list aging, family dynamics, manipulation, suffering, madness, foolishness, order, vision, and loyalty, as inspired by the themes and character relationships in Shakespeare’s King Lear, and you have a compelling contemporary opera with a distinctly contemporary voice: Lear on the 2nd Floor,…
Wellness at Eastman is a monthly seminar series from Eastman Performing Arts Medicine (EPAM) featuring artists and clinicians speaking to physical and mental wellness for performing artists, inspired by the Healthy Conservatoires movement in Europe. The next Wellness at Eastman seminar will be on Wednesday, November 2, 2022, at 6 p.m.: Alexander Technique and the Performing Artist, presented…
Tonight and next Friday night you’ll have two chances to hear new music by a talented young Eastman student composition winner, Zihan Wu. Tonight, October 21 at 7:30 p.m., the Eastman School Symphony Orchestra premieres Zihan’s Three Songs after Japanese Haiku; next Friday, October 28 at 7:30 p.m., Musica Nova unveils her Seven Scenes After…