October 29, 2007
Eastman festival pays tribute to Alfred Mann
Alfred Mann, pictured above during his tenure as an Eastman School professor, will be honored during an upcoming Baroque music festival.
Concerts, lectures, and a tour of historic St.
Michael’s Church highlight a four-day festival devoted to the life
and work of Alfred Mann, the late Eastman School professor and
world-renowned scholar of Baroque choral music and the history of music
theory.
The Alfred Mann Music Festival—a collaboration
of the Eastman School and Publick Musick —will be held Thursday,
November 15, through Sunday, November 18, and features performances of
Handel’s Messiah and Bach’s Mass in B Minor, two masterpieces
closely associated with Mann and his work.
“Dr. Mann was tremendously respected as a
scholar, but he was also beloved as a teacher by both colleagues and
students,” says William Weinert, professor of conducting and
ensembles and director of choral activities at Eastman. “He was
brilliant, funny, and caring, and his integrity and enthusiasm had a huge
impact on Eastman faculty and students.”
A prolific scholarly author, Mann was noted for his
research on 17th-century Austrian composer Johann Joseph Fux and published
two translations of Fux’s works. He also was a noted choral
conductor; his recordings of Handel’s six Chandos Anthems in the
1960s were acclaimed by critics. In 1997, Mann became only the third
American to be made an honorary member of the International Bach Society.
Mann joined the Eastman faculty in 1980. He was appointed Professor
Emeritus of Musicology in 1987 and remained active at Eastman until he
moved to Indiana, where he died September 21, 2006.
Festival events, all of which are open to the public
and some of which are free, will take place at the Eastman School and St.
Michael’s Roman Catholic Church, a stunning 1888 Gothic Revival
church that was designed by prominent Chicago architect Adolphus Druiding.
Festival and ticket information is available online at
www.esm.rochester.edu/mann or by calling (585) 586-0594.
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