© University of Rochester 1996-2012
1954
Frank Butler ’59 (MM) writes that he and Janis Rollow Butler ’60 (MM) celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in August. “We met as graduate students in the fall of 1958, and were married the following year on August 23, 1959. I have attached a photo taken in Ithaca, N.Y., on our 47th wedding anniversary. We have two adult married children: James Franklin Butler and Laurel Butler Lawshae.”
1958
Bernard Rubinstein has extended his contract as music director of the Fargo-Moorhead Symphony Orchestra in Minnesota. He will continue in the music director’s role through the 2011–12 season.
1959
Frank Butler (MM) (see ’54).
1960
John White, a professor emeritus at the University of Florida, was awarded first prize in choral composition at the 2008 Choral Festival of Segorbe, Spain, for this three-movement Credo Trifarium. The prize came with a premiere performance at the 2009 festival and a contract for publication by the Jamie Piles Music Publishers of Valencia, Spain. . . . Janis Rollow Butler (MM) (see ’54).
1964
David Greenhoe retired in May after 30 years as professor of trumpet at the University of Iowa. He continues to perform as principal trumpet with the Quad City Symphony, first trumpet with the Iowa Brass Quintet, and solo trumpet with the Lake Placid, N.Y., Sinfonietta during the summer season.
1968
Bill Cahn sends news that he, Keith Aleo ’85, Michael Burritt ’84, ’86 (MM), Patricia Dash ’83, and Michael Kozakis ’98 joined an expanded percussion section of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for four performances of Edgard Varese’s Ionisation and Amériques in Chicago, and a final performance at Carnegie Hall in New York. Bill added that he, Bob Becker ’69, and other percussionists in the quintet Nexus, premiered three works in April: Prelude–Winter Song, by Gordon Stout; Sililoquy and Rondo, by Eric Ewazen; and Spiegel im Spiegel, by Arvo Pärt.
1969
Bob Becker (see ’68).
1970
In April, Geary Larrick (MM) celebrated 20 years since his first book was published in New York City. In the interim, he has written 10 books that are in research libraries worldwide in such places as Cambridge, Oxford, Melbourne, Singapore, Hong Kong, Toronto, and the Sibley Music Library at the Eastman School. In June, he reviewed the book Musical Exoticism: Images and Reflections, by Eastman School musicologist Ralph Locke, for the Wisconsin Rapids Tribune.
1973
Christine Ranck, who combines a career as a trauma therapist and psychoanalyst with a career as a vocalist in the female pop/jazz trio Jukebox Jane, has written Ignite the Genius Within (Penguin Books). The book offers advice on living a more creative life, based on the creative transformations she observed while helping trauma victims in her psychoanalytic practice.
1975
John Serry ’91 (MM) writes: “I finished a concert tour of Italy in the area from Bologna to Ravenna —18 concerts, including some with my jazz quartet of Italian players, and several concerts that I did on solo piano. I returned from London where I recorded a solo piano album at Steinway. Finally, my CD The Shift, recorded with my London quartet, has been released on Green Peacock Records, a new label formed by my manager in the UK, and will be distributed worldwide on iTunes.”
1979
Pam Fleming toured in the summer with the New York City group Hazmat Modine. She is featured on the title track of the group’s debut CD, Bahamut. In October, she will travel to France with the Black Rock Coalition’s “Daughters of Nina” project, a tribute to the music of Nina Simone. She performs original music with her group, Fearless Dreamer. . . . Diane Abrahamian ’87 (MM) was the guest conductor for the 2009 Wayne Senior All-County Choir and the 2009 Onondaga All-County Vocal Jazz Ensemble. Diane has been a choral director and voice teacher at Penfield High School near Rochester since 1981.
1981
Karen Hindenlang (MA) has been named the coordinator of music and organist at the First Presbyterian Church of Skaneateles, N.Y., home to the Skaneateles Festival summer concert series. She is also the director of music at St. Joseph School in nearby Auburn, where she established a new choral and general music program for children in grades one through eight. . . . In April, the Wake Forest University Concert Choir performed the world premiere of the choral triptych The Lilacs Bloomed by Dan Locklair (DMA). Dan is composer-in-residence and a professor of music at the university, which is located in Winston-Salem, N.C. . . . Paul Sturm (MM) writes that he has completed recording his second CD at SRA Studios in Scotch Plains, N.J. The CD includes four standards and three original compositions.
1983
Patricia Dash (see ’68).
1984
Michael Burritt ’86 (MM) (see ’68).
1985
Keith Aleo (see ’68).
1986
Chelsea Tipton II, who has been the resident conductor of the Toledo Symphony since 2003, has been named the music director of the Symphony of Southeast Texas. He begins his new position in October. . . . Terry Ellen Rhodes (DMA) has been appointed chair of the Department of Music at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. . . . Michael Burritt (MM) (see ’68).
1991
John Serry (MM) (see ’75).
1994
David Ware (MM) published Interviews with 16 Band Directors at Historically Black Colleges: Their Attitudes, Opinions, and Methods (Edwin Mellen Press). David is an associate professor of music at Jackson State University in Mississippi.
1998
Shizuo (Z) Kuwahara has been appointed music director of the Augusta Symphony Orchestra in Augusta, Ga. . . . Juliet White-Smith (DMA), a professor of viola at the University of Northern Colorado, has produced her solo debut, Fashionably Late (Centaur Records), featuring works by contemporary American composers George Walker ’56 (DMA), Michael Colgrass, and Maurice Gardner. . . . Michael Kozakis (see ’68).
2000
Jenny Kim has been appointed fourth horn in the Los Angeles Opera Orchestra. . . . Noel Painter, an associate dean at the school of music and director of music theory at Stetson University in Florida, won the university’s highest teaching honor, the McEniry Award for Excellence in Teaching.
2002
Tom Trenney has been named the minister of music at First-Plymouth Church in Lincoln, Neb. . . Jeffrey Campbell (DMA) has released A Declaration of Optimism (Musique Cambeaux), on which he performs a collection of melodies, borrowed from disparate genres, and inspired by his parental hopes for his children.
2005
Jayoung Kim (MM), the violoncellist for the chamber music ensemble Enhake, writes that the ensemble won the Grand Prize at the 2009 Yellow Springs Chamber Music Competition in Yellow Springs, Ohio.
2007
Shirantha Beddage (DMA) writes: “In the fall of 2009, I’ll be taking a position as the director of theory and harmony at Toronto’s Humber College, the school where I did my undergraduate studies. I will be teaching jazz theory, improvisation, and ensembles. I’m very excited to return to this eclectic, dynamic school, in the city that I’ve always called ‘home’!”
© University of Rochester 1996-2012