ESM acquires photographer Ouzer's work

Ouzer

With the help of anonymous friends, ESM has acquired the noted Rochester photographer's life work: thousands of black-and-white images made over the past seven decades of music legends and long-ago students, of local landmarks and landscapes, of historic events and everyday activities. ESM's Sibley Music Library will house the Ouzer collection.

Hundreds of the world's most famous musicians as well as countless luminaries in other fields have passed in front of Ouzer's lens. Composer Igor Stravinsky, jazz legend Duke Ellington, violinists Itzhak Perlman and Isaac Stern, contralto Marian Anderson, entertainer Jack Benny, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, photographer Ansel Adams, and President Richard Nixon are just some of the celebrities he has captured on film.

"Lou's photographs are not only historically important," said ESM Director James Undercofler, "they're unbelievably artistic."

Music, photography, and ESM became intertwining themes in Ouzer's life when he was growing up on Merrimac Street in Rochester. A neighbor, Joseph Schiff, played viola with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and had a photography business on the side. Ouzer took music lessons from him and also began accompanying him on photo assignments at ESM. As a teenager, Ouzer became Schiff's assistant.

Ouzer continued working with him until Schiff's death in 1947. Since the 1950s, Ouzer and his wife, Helen, have operated an independent photography business, always within a stone's throw of ESM. Although he was hired regularly for free-lance assignments, Ouzer never took a job as staff photographer. But he did become a student--the school's oldest.

At age 75, he began piano lessons--a lifelong dream--and started composing. He continues his studies through the Community Education Division. ESM faculty members have performed his works on several occasions, and his piece Trio is scheduled to be featured in a Kilbourn Concert Series program on Tuesday, March 21.

"I'm always busy," Ouzer said, "and I'm constantly learning. It keeps me alive."

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