Eastman School of Music

1954

Robert Palmieri (MM) writes that the three-volume series Encyclopedia of Keyboard Instruments (Routledge) that he oversaw as series editor has been completed with the 2007 publication of The Harpsichord and Clavichord. He and his wife, Margaret Walsh Palmieri ’53 (MM), teamed up on the first volume in the series, The Piano (1994, 1996, 2003), with Robert as editor and Margaret as associate editor.

1958

Dean Blair (MM) writes that he was commissioned to compose music for the 40th anniversary celebration in April of the founding of the University of Lethbridge in Lethbridge, Alberta. He spent the final 25 years of his professorial career on the music faculty there, and served 10 years as department chair. Dean writes, “In 1992 I had written choral work to celebrate the institution’s 25th year, and I suppose that even though retired for over 10 years, they thought that I still might have some compositional mileage left.” The work for choir, piano, and small instrumental ensemble premiered on April 3 to a standing ovation and will be repeated as part of the “official” 40th celebration at this fall’s convocation on October 13.

1963

Joel Kuznik (MM) writes that he has been named to the Music Critics Association of North America, having written more than 40 published articles and reviews on concert halls, music festivals, church music, and organs. His writings have appeared in The American Organist, The Diapason, and the Eastman Organ Department’s Resonance.

1970

Geary Larrick (MM) writes that in April 2007 he premiered his own composition, Poem IV: Xylophone, at the Gesell Institute at the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point.

1981

The world premiere of In Memory—H.H.L. by Dan Locklair (DMA) was performed by the Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra in April. The string orchestra work was written in 2005 in memory of Dan’s mother.

1983

Ragna Moe (MM) sends greetings with a note that she is working on an international 100-year commemoration of the death of Norwegian composer and pianist Edvard Grieg. For more information, go to www.grieg07.com. Ragna lives in Bergen, Norway.

1992

Ingrid Gordon recently played drums, tambourine, finger cymbals, and triangle in an ensemble performance of a Peruvian-inspired composition in July. She is the artistic director of New York City–based Percussia, a contemporary chamber music ensemble with percussion as its driving force.

2000

Danan Healy (MM) writes to announce that with musicians from the U.S. Army Field Band and the Navy Band, she has released her first full-length solo album of original rock and ska tunes.

2002

Evan Jones (DMA/PhD) writes that he has been awarded tenure and promoted to associate professor of music theory at Florida State University’s College of Music, where he has been on the faculty since 2001. Evan received a university teaching award in April, is contributing editor of Intimate Voices: Aspects of Construction and Character in the Twentieth-Century Quartet (forthcoming from the University of Rochester Press in 2008), and was one of 37 scholars invited to participate in the 2006 Mannes Institute for Advanced Studies in Music Theory at Yale University.