Class Notes
Eastman School of Music
Reunion News
Eastman School classes celebrating reunions
Fall 2008
70th Reunion: 1937 and 1938
65th Reunion: 1942 and 1943
60th Reunion: 1947 and 1948
55th Reunion: 1952 and 1953
50th Reunion: 1957 and 1958
45th Reunion: 1962 and 1963
40th Reunion: 1967 and 1968
35th Reunion: 1972 and 1973
30th Reunion: 1977 and 1978
25th Reunion: 1982 and 1983
20th Reunion: 1987 and 1988
15th Reunion: 1992 and 1993
10th Reunion: 1997 and 1998
For more about Alumni Weekend, visit the Eastman School’s office of Alumni Relations
1939
H. Owen Reed (PhD) has been selected for inclusion
in Who’s Who in America, 2007. He lives in Green Valley, Ariz.
. . . Robert Ward writes, “Reports from
1939 alumni are rather rare in your reports on our activities for the obvious
reason that the grim reaper is as busy as ever, I suspect. As a survivor, however,
I decided to uphold the glory of our class.” He notes several 2005-06
performances of his operas The Crucible (Opera Boston, University
of Alabama, Utah Festival Opera, Mobile Opera, Opera San Jose, East Carolina
University, the University of Iowa, and others), Claudia Legare (New
York’s DiCapo Opera Theatre and Eastman Opera Theatre), Roman Fever (Knoxville
Opera and the Rossini Festival,) and the world premiere of A Friend of
Napoleon by the Ohio Light Opera. His Seventh Symphony was performed
by the Enid, Okla., Symphony, and his Dialogues, A Triple Concerto for
Violin, Cello and Orchestra was performed by the Western Piedmont Symphony
with the Arman Trio and by the Triangle Chamber Orchestra. His Raleigh
Divertimento for Nonet was featured by the Czech Nonet on its U.S. tour.
He was commissioned to write Quintet for Oboe and String Quartet for
Duke University’s Ciompi Quartet and The Beginnings for the
North Carolina Symphony. And Albany Records released recordings of Dialogues,
A Western Set (from Lady Kate), and Symphonies No. 3 and 6.
1958
Margaret Shelton Meier sends an update: The Ars
Brunensis Chorus and the Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra presented the premiere
of her cantata, A Socsa Quilt, last June in the Czech Republic. The
40-minute work for chorus and orchestra explores the topic of childhood sexual
abuse and recovery. Her God With Us: 2000 Years, a shorter cantata
that was first performed as a millennial celebration by the ecumenical choirs
of La Verne, Calif., was performed last December by combined multicultural
choirs in Rowland Heights, Calif., under the direction of Sunny Lee. Mary
Magdalene, Woman of Devotion from Margaret’s song cycle Three
Marys in Four Songs was performed by Kimball Wheeler in October as part
of a group of songs about Magdalene, and her Mary, Mother of Jesus, a
magnificat, was performed by Eileen Squillo in a recital in December.
1962
Trombonist Gordon (Early) Anderson helped kick
off the 2006-07 Lamarissimo! concert series in southeast Texas. . . . Robert
Stern (PhD) (see ’55 RC undergraduate).
1970
Mezzo-soprano Mary Henderson-Stucky ’72
(MM), a professor of voice at the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory
of Music, was a featured performer in the college’s faculty artist series.
. . . Geary Larrick (MM) writes that he has been
recognized for his publication citations in The Music Index. He has
had 51 items listed in 25 volumes from 1968 to 2005. Geary also has six titles
listed in the subject guide of Books in Print 2006-2007.
1973
John Beall (PhD) (see ’78).
1975
Clarinetist Gary Dranch released his first solo
CD, The 20th-Century Clarinet Concerto featuring works by Bavicchi,
Hindemith, and Wolff. A frequent recitalist, he performs with the
Greenwich Village Orchestra and the American Chamber Opera Orchestra.
1978
Steven Herbert Smith (DMA), a professor of piano
at Penn State, sends an update: In March, he performed Grieg’s Concerto
in A Minor with the Penn State Philharmonic (under the direction of its
conductor Gerardo Edelstein) in four cities in Spain as part of the “Sixth
Cycle of University Orchestras,”
hosted by the University of Zaragoza. In September, he performed a solo recital
at Penn State, then repeated the program at West Virginia University and the
University of Richmond. The program included Beethoven’s “Hammerklavier”
Sonata, Opus 106, and Vandalia Suite, a new work by John
Beall ’73 (PhD), a professor and composer-in-residence at West
Virginia. He also played a recital of 22 songs with tenor Richard Kennedy.
1980
Walter Weiskopf was a featured performer last
fall at the Baltimore Museum of Art, where he and his band played his 10-part
jazz suite that includes movements named for Joan Miro, Pablo Picasso, Camille
Pissarro, Claude Monet, Salvador Dali, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Vincent
Van Gogh.
1981
Randall Fusco (see ’82). . . . Isabelle
Ganz (DMA) is a soloist on the four-CD release The Complete Sequenzas by
Luciano Berio (Mode Records). Isabelle performs Sequenza III for solo
voice. Other performers include Paula Robison, Susan Jolles, Aki Takahashi,
and Irvine Arditti. . . . John Gilbert, a professor
of violin at Texas Tech University, was a guest artist last fall with the Midland-Odessa
Symphony in Texas. . . . Diana Haskell, assistant
principal clarinetist with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, released her first
CD, Clarinet Enchantments, which includes works for clarinet, clarinet
and piano, clarinet and harp, and two clarinets and piano. . . . The Bel Canto
Company of Greensboro, N.C., featured Break Away, a work for chorus
and piano by Dan Locklair (DMA), composer-in-residence
at Wake Forest University, last fall as part of its “Innovation and Convention” series.
Dan’s choral compositions also were featured in Christmas concerts by
the Piedmont Chamber Singers in Winston-Salem, N.C., and by the Choral Arts
Society in Portland, Maine. . . . Barrick Stees (see ’82).
1982
Oboist Margaret Griebling-Haigh sends an update:
Her woodwind quintet, Casse-tete, commissioned by the University of
Akron’s Solaris Quintet, had its premiere last November. Also
last November, her Sinfonia for Choirs of Oboes and English Horns, In Memoriam
John Mack was given its premiere at a memorial concert in the noted oboist’s
honor at Severance Hall in Cleveland. She also sends a photo from the July
International Double Reed Society conference, where her oboe and piano suite, Bocadillos
Floridianos, and her trio for oboe, bassoon, and piano, Trocadillos, were
featured in a concert. Margaret (second from right) joined performers (left
to right) Randall Fusco ’81 (piano), Barrick
Stees ’81 (bassoon), and Cynthia Watson ’86
(oboe) onstage. Margaret and her husband, Scott, also note that their then
13-year-old daughter, Gabrielle, was a featured soprano soloist for Marvin
Hamlisch’s Anatomy of Peace, performed last April by the Canton Symphony.
1984
Saxophonist David Glasser ’86 (MM) released
his fourth CD, Above the Clouds.
1985
John Fedchock (MM), a trombonist and composer,
was a guest artist at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, Calif., where
he had a three-day residency at the Dave Brubeck Institute. In addition to
playing with a quintet made up of elite musicians awarded Brubeck fellowships,
he worked with the Open World Jazz Septet. He sends a photo of him with that
group of handpicked Russian jazz musicians who were selected for a special
two-week collaboration at the institute. The final concert in September featured
John with each group and culminated in a finale with a combined U.S.-Russian
ensemble.
1986
Cynthia Watson (see ’82).
1987
Satanand Sharma has been named head of the Centre
for Creative and Festival Arts at the University of the West Indies in Trinidad
and Tobago.
1990
The Claudia Quintet, an ensemble led by John Hollenbeck ’91
(MM) was a featured group at the 10th annual Edgefest in Ann Arbor, Mich.
1993
Margaret Lynn McMurtry (MM) had the role of Lady
Jane in the Toronto Operetta Theatre’s fall production of Gilbert and
Sullivan’s Patience.
1995
Pianist Angela Jia Kim was a guest artist in
a Belle Fourche, S.D., concert series.
1997
Pianist Eric Fung ’99 (Mas), an assistant
professor at Lebanon Valley College in Pennsylvania, and his wife, cellist Ai-Lin
Hsieh ’00 (MM), an adjunct assistant professor at Lebanon Valley,
performed a concert featuring the works of Ernest Bloch, Johann Sebastian Bach,
and Johannes Brahms at Lebanon Valley last fall. . . . Saxophonist Damon
Zick writes that he has released a new jazz CD, We Are Large, on
the Evander Music Label. The recording features 11 original compositions by
Damon for jazz quintet. The band is based in Los Angeles. The CD features trombonist Tim
Albright ’98 and pianist Adam Benjamin ’99.
1999
Mario Martinez (MM) is director of vocal studies
at Nazareth College in Pittsford, N.Y., where he also serves as cochair of
the Dominican Cultural Society.
2000
Nathaniel Bartlett notes that his debut solo
marimba album, Precipice (Albany Records), was released last August.
He writes, “The disc, a hybrid multichannel SACD, includes music by Eastman
alumnus Greg Wilder ’02 (DMA), Allan Schindler,
a professor of composition at Eastman, and former Eastman professor Augusta
Read Thomas.”
2004
Elizabeth Glennon (MM) married Hana Byun on November
25, 2006, in New York. Elizabeth is a graduate student cello instructor and
a fellow at the University of Michigan.
2005
Pianist Pornphan Banternghansa (MM) was a featured
soloist for the Bangkok Symphony Orchestra’s November concert to celebrate
the 60th anniversary of the king of Thailand’s accession to the throne
and to commemorate the king’s birthday.
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