Here are some select recent clippings showing the variety of hits/mentions identifying musicians and scholars as Eastman School of Music alumni, faculty or students. (Note: Some links may have expired.)
Lew Soloff dies at 71; trumpet player for Blood, Sweat and Tears
(Los Angeles Times 03/08/2015)
Lew Soloff, a trumpet player who was an early member of Blood, Sweat and Tears and whose jazz career included performances with his own ensembles and with Gil Evans, Ornette Coleman, Chuck Mangione, Maynard Ferguson and other giants of the genre, has died. He was 71.
Soloff played with bands at Catskills resorts during summer vacations. In 1961, he entered the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y., and later did graduate work at the Juilliard School in New York City. By the mid-1960s, he was playing with Afro-Cuban bandleader Machito, whose fiery rhythms inspired Soloff’s own Afro-Cuban ensemble decades later. (Also reported by JazzTimes, VNN Music )
Classical music: Bezuidenhout’s Mozart full of energy
(Victoria Times Colonist 03/04/2015)
On Saturday, the brilliant and acclaimed fortepianist Kristian Bezuidenhout will make his Victoria debut, in an all-Mozart program sponsored by the Early Music Society of the Islands.
Born in South Africa in 1979, Bezuidenhout studied in Australia and at the Eastman School of Music, in Rochester, New York (his teachers included the renowned fortepianist Malcolm Bilson). He now lives in London.
Chelsea Tipton: New face of the NHSO Pops
(Connecticut Post 03/04/2015)
As the world has changed, so have music circles, making room (albeit slowly) for men and women of all nationalities, sexual orientation and racial, ethnic and religious backgrounds. And, of course, that’s the way it should be, says Chelsea Tipton II, the New Haven Symphony Orchestra’s new principal pops conductor, who is black.
Music has always been a part of his life, bringing him enormous pleasure and satisfaction. As a fourth-grader, he joined the school band, but it was an eighth-grade summer band camp experience — being around “like-minded individuals” — that convinced him that a career in music might be fascinating. He then progressed to the prestigious Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y., where he received a bachelor’s degree in clarinet performance.
It was late in his years at Eastman, however, that the conducting epiphany struck. “I was playing clarinet in the student orchestra, and one day it occurred to me that the trumpets were playing too loudly. That’s when I realized that if I wanted the music to be played as I heard it in my head, I’d have to be a conductor.”
Community Concert Band Presents Mid-century Modern: A Celebration of Music from the 1950’s
(Des Plaines Patch.com © 03/04/2015)
The Des Plaines Park District Community Concert Band will present their March concert, “Mid-century Modern: A Celebration of Music from the 1950’s”, on Sunday March 8 at 3:00pm in t he Prairie Lakes Theater. The program features music from the 50’s, during a time when band music had a change from a symphonic band sound to the wind ensemble sound. Frederick Fennell started the wind ensemble at the Eastman School of Music in the 1950s, and that set the tone for bands around the world to do the same. The wind ensemble tends to be smaller, has more distinct colors and timbres in each section, and i s sometimes more “soloistic” in nature. Some of the pieces in this concert include Recorded by Sinatra arranged by Warren Barker, Air for Band by Frank Erickson, Pageant by Vincent Persichetti, and Highlights from South Pacific by Rodgers and Hammerstein arranged by Philip J. Lang.
Exceptional recital at St. Louis Cathedral
(Times-Picayune Nola.com blog 03/04/2015)
A star among young classical musicians, concert organist Nathan Laube has quickly earned a place among the organ world’s elite performers. In addition to his busy performing schedule, Mr. Laube serves as Assistant Professor of Organ at The Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. Recent and upcoming performances by Mr. Laube include major venues spanning four continents.
Concert band hits high note in spreading love of music
(Palm Beach Post 02/25/2015)
The all-volunteer Palm Beach Gardens Concert Band doesn’t want its high school students to stop playing once the school year is over, so this talented band that’s performed for the community for 27 years is offering scholarships to eager students that will help pay for summer camps that focus on their instrument of choice. The band also offers money toward college to boot, as long as recipients make music part of their education.
Nikolette LaBonte, 20, of Palm Beach Gardens, has received three scholarships from the concert band. The first two helped her attend the prestigious Kendall Betts Horn Camp in New Hampshire, which was a program that focused on the French horn. The most recent scholarship went towards her tuition at the Eastman School of Music in New York.
St. Mark’s Concert to feature Scaggiari
(The Star-Democrat 03/06/2015)
Stef Scaggiari, a jazz and classical pianist, will perform Sunday, March 15, at St. Mark’s United Methodist Church.
Scaggiari’s name and music are heard by millions every weekend on National Public Radio’s “Weekend Edition Sunday.” He has made more than 30 recordings and has appeared as both jazz and classical pianist in the United States and internationally. Highlights include the Monterey Jazz Festival, Baltimore’s Artscape Festival, Annapolis Chorale and Chamber Orchestra, and Strathmore Hall Mansion Series in Rockville.
A resident of Centreville, Scaggiari graduated from the Eastman School of Music and holds a master’s degree from Peabody Institute.
LECTURE | “Breaking the Sound Barrier”
(Rochester City Newspaper © 03/04/2015)
As part of its ongoing Identities at Eastman series, Eastman School of Music will host Aaron P. Dworkin, the founder of the Sphinx Organization. He will speak on the subjects of race, classical music, and his work with the non-profit organization. The Sphinx Organization works to provide access to music education and competitions to musicians of color, and attempts to increase diversity in classical music culture.
“Breaking the Sound Barrier,” a lecture by Aaron P. Dworkin, will take place on Wednesday, March 4, at Eastman School of Music’s Howard Hanson Hall, 26 Gibbs Street. 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Free. esm.rochester.edu.
Classical Review: Peter Serkin with the Eastman Philharmonia
(Rochester City Newspaper © 03/03/2015)
Peter Serkin’s performance of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 19 at Kodak Hall, Saturday evening, confirmed what we all know about this great artist. His brilliant and intimate attention to the details of the music is only matched by his ability to communicate to the orchestra their role in this collaboration.
With the full Eastman Philharmonia on stage, the Overture to “Die Meistersinger” offered a rousing beginning with thundering brass as the first violins excelled in their rapid passages. Wagner is most often heavy and full throated, and the performance offered that style with gusto. The orchestra’s student exuberance sometimes caused a slight blemish in their tone, but this ensemble pulled out all the stops, and stood out, over all.
The “polished gem” of the evening was Serkin’s Mozart Concerto in A Major, K.439. Having heard Peter Serkin in many performances throughout the years, it is always with great pleasure to listen to Serkin play. The orchestra was paired down to the “chamber” size that is required for this music, unlike the full orchestra for the Wagner. Serkin is not a dazzling performer — he deals with the music’s intimacy, using Mozart like a vehicle by which he can collaborate with the students’ music. This is the entire reason for the Eastman School of Music’s commitment to bring in great artists to work with their students. Special recognition goes to the flute and oboe players in the Mozart’s second movement “Allegretto,” and to Serkin’s ever-lilting trills and ornamentations. These led to a fiery cadenza for solo piano just prior to the work’s conclusion
Chamber Orchestra to perform in Milford
(Milford Cabinet.com © 02/27/2015)
Maestro David Feltner has assembled a collection of works featuring orchestral ‘families’ – trumpets, strings and winds. The featured soloist is clarinetist Joseph Clark, who will perform the Weber Clarinet Concerto. The Orchestra will also perform this concert at 7:30 p.m., Feb. 28, at Nashua Community College in Nashua.
Joseph Clark is known to NCO audiences as a composer for his piece, The Winds of Time, which was premiered by the NCO in February 2013. A student of NCO oboist Deborah Hencke, Clark is now a junior at the Eastman School of Music, where he is pursuing degrees in clarinet performance, music education and mathematics. He returns to the NCO stage to perform Carl Maria von Weber’s Clarinet Concerto No. 1 in F Minor (1811). Often referred to as the “father of the Romantic Period,” Weber (1786-1926) wrote concertos, chamber works, symphonies and operas..
Crane School of Music Hosts Eastman Triana for Concert March 9
(WWNY TV 7 © 03/02/2015)
SUNY Potsdam’s Crane School of Music will present a concert featuring the Eastman Triana on Monday, March 9 at 7:30 p.m. in the Sara M. Snell Music Theater. The performance will include works by Arutiurnian, Menotti, Milhaud and Schoenfeld.
The Eastman Triana was formed by three Eastman School of Music alumnae, clarinetist Julianne Kirk-Doyle (Crane School of Music), pianist Yin Zheng (Virginia Commonwealth University) and violinist Anyango Yarbo-Davenport (Juan N. Corpas University in Bogotá, Colombia).
Renowned pianist Thomas Schumacher to perform at UCM
(Sedalia Democrat 02/26/2015)
The Performing Arts Series at the University of Central Missouri will host pianist Thomas Schumacher in a concert, “Eastman at Central 2015,” at 7:30 p.m. Monday, March 9, in Hart Recital Hall.
Schumacher, professor emeritus of piano in the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester, Md., and visiting professor at the Shenyang Conservatory of Music in China, has toured and lectured throughout the Unites States, Canada, Italy, Sweden, Belgium, China, Taiwan, and Japan.
Benefit recital for Semper Fi
(Ridgefield Press © 03/04/2015)
Shannon Reilly, a 2012 graduate of Ridgefield High School, will give a benefit concert on Monday, March 9, at the Jesse Lee Memorial Church for the Semper Fi Fund, the organization that supports injured veterans.
An accomplished violinist, Ms. Reilly is a performance major at the Eastman School of Music. Her fiance, Thomas Steigerwald, an internationally competitive pianist and also a performance major at Eastman, will accompany her for the recital.
Quintensity Sunday at St. Eustace Church
(Adirondack Daily Enterprise © 03/05/2015)
The Lake Placid Sinfonietta will bring Quintensity, a student wind quintet from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, to the area this weekend with a performance at 4 p.m. Sunday at St. Eustace Church.
The ensemble will work in classrooms, hold master classes, and perform recitals during its visit. They will also visit the Lake Placid Elementary School. This in-school residency program is made possible through the efforts of the Lake Placid Sinfonietta’s Education Committee with additional support from the Glenn and Carol Pearsall Adirondack Foundation.