University of Rochester

Rochester Review
March-April 2009
Vol. 71, No. 4

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Class Notes

Eastman School of Music

1939

The Florida Times-Union celebrated the 90th birthday of Willis Page in a profile that acknowledged his contributions to the Jacksonville symphonic music scene. Conductor of the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra for 12 years in the 1970s and 1980s, Willis also was the founding conductor of the St. Johns River City Band and more recently, arranged a series of benefit concerts by symphony musicians during a labor dispute with the symphony management that resulted in a two-month lockout between November 2007 and January 2008.

1949

Art Frackenpohl (MM) wrote in November that “Last weekend I had a unique experience: Seeing and hearing my French Suite for Piano, written as a composition assignment in 1947, danced by eight dancers during a dance weekend at SUNY–Potsdam. It was choreographed by a member of the dance department and performed by a Crane School of Music colleague.” Art also pointed out an error on page 42 of the November-December issue in which we reported that Tom Stacy ’60 appeared for a “performance, discussion, and singing” of his new CD. Art quipped, “I didn’t know that Tom was a gifted singer as well as a double-reed soloist.” Indeed, Tom was signing, not singing, his new recording. We apologize for the error.

1957

Sydney Hodkinson ’58 (MM) writes that since retiring from the Eastman faculty in 1999, he has taught at Oberlin College, Indiana University, and Duke University. He now holds the Almand Chair of Composition at Stetson University in DeLand, Fla., leads the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, and teaches composition at the Aspen Music Festival and School during the summer session.

1958

Sydney Hodkinson (MM) (see ’57).

1959

Katherine Hoover (see ’59 River Campus undergraduate).

1960

Tom Stacy (see ’49).

1968

Bill Cahn, Bob Becker ’69, ’71 (MM), and the three other members of the percussion quintet Nexus performed the world premiere of The Eternal Dance of Life—a composition written by Eric Ewazen especially for the group—at Southern Methodist University in Dallas last November.

1969

Bob Becker ’71 (MM) (see ’68).

1970

Dennis Herrick was a featured soloist for the Montgomery Symphony Orchestra performance of Edward Gregson’s Trumpet Concerto in Montgomery, Ala., last November. . . . Geary Larrick (MM) reports that he has five books listed in the new Books in Print, 2008–2009. Geary wrote all five titles in Stevens Point, Wis., and published all five in western New York. In addition his article “The Concerto on Percussion: Discussion and Bibliography,” appears in the winter 2008–09 Journal of the National Association of College Wind and Percussion Instructors. He continues to write reviews for Central Wisconsin Sunday, MultiCultural Review, and the Music Educators Journal.

1971

Bob Becker (MM) (see ’68).

1975

Gary Dranch was the featured clarinet soloist for a recording of the June 7, 2008, concert A Tribute to John Bavicchi (BKJ Publications) a celebration of the composer’s 85th birthday. The concert included the world premiere of Bavicchi’s double concerto for clarinet, soprano, chamber chorus, and chamber ensemble, Tomorrow Will Be Today, which the composer wrote especially for Gary. Also on the CD is Peter Hazzard’s Three Scenic Moods for clarinet and piano, also written for Gary.

1990

Linda Chatterton sends an update: She has released her fifth CD, Diverse Voices, which includes music of Lowell Liebermann, Paul Schoenfield, and Aaron Copland and the recording premieres of works by Edie Hill and Roberto Sierra. She also was awarded her second McKnight Foundation award, a $25,000 artist fellowship based on performance excellence. Other grants she received in 2008 were from the American Composers Forum and the Minnesota State Arts Board. Performances include appearances at the National Flute Association’s annual convention, a series of community concerts with cellist Sally Gibson Dorer and harpist Min Kim ’91, and presentations of her performance anxiety workshops, “It Sounded Better at Home!”

1991

Jane Solose (DMA), an associate professor of piano and chair of the keyboard division at the Conservatory of Music and Dance at the University of Missouri–Kansas City, and her sister Kathleen Solose, an associate professor of piano at the University of Saskatchewan, were invited to perform in October 2008 in St. Petersburg, Russia, at the Rimsky-Korsakov State Conservatoire’s eighth annual festival. They performed at Sheremetev Palace and in Glazunov Hall, where Rachmaninov and other prominent composers were once students. Their repertoire included Rachmaninov’s Fantasy (Suite No. 1), Stravinsky’s Petrushka for one piano, four hands, and the Capriccio for Two Pianos by Canadian composer Michael Conway Baker. . . . Min Kim (see ’90).

1992

Pia Terndrup Liptak (DMA) writes that she has released a new CD of contemporary music for violin and Japanese koto (Centaur Records).

1994

Bret Dorhout (MM) has been named vice president for artistic administration for the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. Bret previously was the director and interim vice president of artistic planning for the Philadelphia Orchestra.

1998

Shizuo (Z) Kuwahara won first place in the fourth annual Georg Solti International Conductors’ Competition, in which a record 540 applicants from over 70 countries were vying for a grand prize of 15,000 euros and engagements with Frankfurt orchestras. Shizuo will also be conducting with orchestras in Japan, Germany, and Ukraine, as well as with the Augusta Symphony Orchestra and the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra.

2002

Jocelyn Swigger (DMA), coordinator of keyboard studies at the Sunderman Conservatory of Music at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania, spent the summer of 2008 in Paraguay on a Fulbright scholar teaching grant, teaching and performing piano and chamber music. She also released her debut CD of piano music, Piano Recital (Con Brio Recordings).

2003

Lee Wright has been named director of Madrigalia, an 18-member chamber choir in Rochester. Lee has served as director of music ministry at Rochester’s Downtown United Presbyterian Church, artistic director for the city’s Gay Men’s Chorus, and was a charter member of the Christ Church Schola Cantorum. . . . Irina Mueller ’04 (MM) received her soloist’s diploma from the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Trossingen, Germany, in January 2008. In the past year she has performed Brahms’s Violin Concerto with the Hochschulorchester Trossingen, a recital tour along the U.S. East Coast with German concert organist Thomas Strauss, and an orchestral concert in Amsterdam.

2004

Irina Mueller (MM) (see ’03).