October 2024

We are now well into this semester, and at the end of this month we will begin to hear from many of our student groups. This is always a treat, and I hope you will be able to attend some of these performances and experience the excellence of our students! All of the events detailed below are free, and only one (the EUSO concert) requires tickets. The reason that the EUSO concert requires tickets, although free, is that attendance is expected to be large and no one wants to be turned away from a performance because there is no room. So, get your tickets in advance, as this should be a great performance!

The entire mission of the Friends of Music is to support music at Emory, and a primary means of this support is to provide grant support to students and faculty. It is a real pleasure to see how many of the events below are made possible with the help of our grant support. This includes the performances by Victor Rosenbaum, piano; Jason Calloway, cello; Nikola Peković with FRL; and Bojana and Nikola Peković with other member of their band. One important feature of the visit of all of these artists is that they are also working with students in addition to the concert performances. A slightly different example of our support is the Vocal Symposium with James Haffner. In this case, Haffner’s visit is entirely to work with students (although FOM members are welcome to attend these coaching sessions) as there is no public performance. Friends of Music also plays an important role, although less visible, in many of the student performances you will hear. Students who are not music majors, but perform in various student ensembles, have to pay for any music lessons they take. Those charges can be a burden for many students, and so Friends of Music is very pleased to be able to help subsidize those charges for students who need help in pay for them. 

There is also a save-the-date notice for the Tango Conference and Festival in late November (more information in the next newsletter) and an announcement of The Merian Ensemble’s new CD and how you can hear it on YouTube (if you know any Grammy voters, let them know!).

With best wishes,

Gray Crouse

A note about the event entries below. You can click on most of the headings of the events and be taken directly to the Music Calendar listing for that event for additional details. At the time of publication, the programs for many of these events are not yet available but will typically be added to the Calendar entry close to the performance date. You can also click on most of the names of the groups and performers and will be taken to more information about them. There is not enough room in the newsletter to include their bios, but it is well worth reading about them.

The Emory Wind Ensemble (EWE) is a nationally recognized organization dedicated to performing wind literature of the highest caliber while nurturing individual artistic excellence within an ensemble setting. Membership is determined by audition each fall. Concert programming comprises a wide variety of styles, forms, and genres from several centuries of compositional practice, designed to provide comprehensive exposure to the masterpieces for winds and percussion from the Renaissance period through the modern era. A flexible instrumentation is employed with predominantly one player per part, giving students the opportunity to experience true wind ensemble performance practice.

Click here to see the program for this concert.

Emory Friends of Music is very pleased to sponsor a visit to Emory by Victor Rosenbaum. He will be giving a recital and in addition will participate in Elena Cholakova's Freshman Seminar.

Internationally known American pianist Victor Rosenbaum has concertized widely as soloist and chamber music performer in the United States, Europe, Israel, Brazil, Russia, and Asia in such prestigious halls as Tully Hall in New York and the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia. He has collaborated with such artists as Leonard Rose, Paul Katz, Arnold Steinhardt, Robert Mann, Joseph Silverstein, James Buswell, Malcolm Lowe, and the Brentano, Borromeo, and Cleveland String Quartets. A musician of diverse talents, Rosenbaum is also a composer and conductor.

Click here to see the program for the recital.

Guest artist Jason Calloway is an associate teaching professor at FIU (Miami). He is a member of the Amernet String Quartet, an artist-in-residence ensemble at FIU. Jason Calloway will perform a solo concert recital for cello and live electronics, featuring a performance of music written by composition faculty Adam Mirza. The piece he is playing is titled wood and he will also be meeting composition and performance students earlier in the week. Calloway’s visit is sponsored by the Friends of Music, and so members would be welcome to attend the coaching sessions (that have not yet been scheduled at this time).

EUSO performances are always special. This one is special for two reasons. First of all, it is family weekend. The second is that one of the pieces will feature the winner of the 2024 Concerto and Aria Competition, Julia Nagel, and it is a treat to hear the exceptional talent of the winners. The program will also be a real crowd-pleaser!

The orchestra performs two iconic dance scores including both Copland’s Appalachian Spring and Stravinsky’s The Firebird Suite as well as Reinecke’s Flute Concerto with 2024 Concerto and Aria Competition Winner, Julia Nagel.

Tickets are required for this performance. The tickets are free and can be ordered by clicking here. Note that if you order from the website, there is a $6 fee per order. I think you can get tickets without charge at the Schwartz Center box office.

The program for this concert can be seen by clicking here.

The Concert Choir is Emory’s select chamber choir. The singers in the ensemble come from across the country and around the world. All are students at the University with a wide variety of academic majors. The choir sings sacred and secular repertoire from the Middle Ages to the present, from chant to new commissions. The choir has sung at both the southern and national conventions of the American Choral Directors Association, an honor reserved for the nation’s finest choral ensembles. It has toured internationally and has sung at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, the Vatican in Rome, and the Alhambra in Seville.

Open to all Emory students as well as to members of the Emory community, the University Chorus holds a unique place in Emory life. Music majors and nonmajors, undergraduate and graduate students, faculty and staff, parents and their children, workers and retirees, alumni and neighbors, all come together to rehearse each Monday evening, united by their common love of singing. The chorus regularly collaborates with the Emory University Symphony Orchestra to present major works, including the 2024 performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s Requiem.

From the Director: Join us on October 27th to hear Emory’s Concert Choir and University Chorus perform for Homecoming weekend. University chorus will be singing classics like Brahm’s Waldesnacht and Beethoven’s Hallelujah, from the Mount of Olives. The Vega String Quartet will join Concert Choir to perform Ola Gjeilo’s Dark Night of the Soul.

The program can be seen by clicking here.

This will be an evening of experimental vocal music by local and international artists. Visiting artists, BEAM SPLITTER create close-miked mouthful and breath driven antics for two voices and trombone. They join together their individual voices into a distinct language that delves beyond the borders of the corporeal elements of un-processed voice and trombone, while utilizing analog electronics to offset their hyper extended physical play.

This international trio has separately toured the globe extensively, each carving out a unique approach to music making. As a group or in extended projects, they have performed together in the UK, US, Portugal, Ukraine, Germany, Argentina and Brazil. 

"Slow in motion, yet quick in phrasing, BEAM SPLITTER swings precariously from trapeze bars, spinning wingless above the ground, taunting Mother Earth to claim gravity’s fugitives." — Todd Gruel, A closer listen

Opening tonight's concert will be the Atlanta Improvisers Orchestra Choir performing original works for multiple voices.

Beam Splitter will be meeting voice and composition students on Thursday 11/1 at 2:30-3:45 in PAS. Friends of Music members are welcome to attend this teaching session! 

This is a great opportunity to hear a variety of different student ensembles. Mentored by Emory’s artist faculty, student musicians perform chamber works for strings, brass, winds, percussion, and guitar.

If listening to one pianist perform is good, is listening to two at one time twice as good? You can judge for yourself at this program given by some of our amazing piano students who perform some of the best-known pieces in four-hand and two-hand piano repertoire. Certainly the opportunity to hear this literature live is much rarer than for the single repertoire. 

Music Composition faculty Adam Mirza, and featured guest Akiva Zamcheck present a live-improvised "anti-podcast" performance combining voice, electronics, and a variety of acoustic instruments. They'll be joined by Nikola Peković (Serbia), a leading proponent of new music for the accordion. Friends of Music is pleased to be a sponsor of this event!

The brother-sister duo - Bojana, a vocalist and one of the world's only female expert players of the Serbian gusle, and Nikola, a leading accordionist in traditional and contemporary styles - joined by a few other members of their ensemble in Belgrade, Serbia will present a concert of a unique international music style that combines Eastern European folk with Western popular genres and modern American jazz.

Friends of Music is a sponsor of the visit of Bojana and Nikola Peković, and in addition to their performance at this concert they will be visiting several music classes while they are here.

In addition to our own faculty and artist affiliates, we are fortunate at Emory to be able to host talented musicians from around the world. Our students not only get to hear these musicians, but also frequently are able to study with them in masterclasses. ECMSA for example hosts a series of masterclasses for our students through the year, and students have masterclass opportunities with many of the Candler Concert artists. Emory Friends of Music is also very pleased to host artists who give masterclasses. These masterclasses are open not only to students, but frequently to the public so you can observe the first-rate instruction that our students can receive. Below are examples of upcoming opportunities.

Acclaimed violinist, Emil Altschuler, maintains an active career as a soloist, chamber musician and orchestral musician. Extensively involved in music education, he has served at New England Conservatory as Head of Strings for the Festival Youth Orchestra, chamber music coach at the School of Continuing Education and Preparatory School, and instructor at Northeastern University.

Emory Friends of Music is very pleased to be funding this symposium. James Haffner will work with the students both one on one and in a large group setting on their acting techniques for the singing stage and you are welcome to watch this process. James Haffner is a Professor of Opera at the University of the Pacific Conservatory of Music in Stockton, CA. He is a certified teacher of the Michael Chekhov technique and an Associate Teacher with the Great Lakes Michael Chekhov Consortium. He is the Producing Stage Director for Stockton Opera and has worked with the Bay View and Bear Valley Music Festivals. James is also a Fulbright Scholar (Komische Oper, Berlin) and has taught at the Technische Universität, Berlin as well as Webster University and California State University, Fullerton. He is a frequent guest artist, having led master classes at Stanford University, Oberlin Conservatory, National Opera Association Conference, Directors’ Lab—West (Pasadena Playhouse) and the American Choral Directors Association—Western Division Conference. James is a graduate of the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in Directing and an Artist’s Diploma in Opera Stage Directing.

Awarded both the “P. Schidlof Prize” and the “J. Barbirolli Prize” for “the most beautiful sound” at the prestigious Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition in 2000, Italian-born violist Ettore Causa has been praised for his exceptional artistry, passionate intelligence and complete musicianship. He has made solo and recital appearances in major venues around the world, and has performed at prestigious festivals. A devoted chamber musician, Causa has collaborated extensively with internationally renowned musicians.

At the Yale School of Music, Causa teaches graduate-level viola students and coaches chamber ensembles. He has performed on the School’s Faculty Artist Series and Oneppo Chamber Music Series and at the Yale Summer School of Music/Norfolk Chamber Music Festival. Before Causa joined the faculty of the School of Music in 2009, he taught both viola and chamber music at the International Menuhin Music Academy. He attended the International Menuhin Music Academy, where he studied with Alberto Lysy and Johannes Eskar, and the Manhattan School of Music, where he studied with Michael Tree.

This Tango Conference and Festival is made possible by an NEH grant awarded to Kristin Wendland in the Music Department and Kacey Link in Los Angeles, CA. Full Details about the Conference may be seen by clicking here. All events are absolutely free and open to the public, only requiring registration at the conference website. The event most likely to be of interest to everyone is the grand concert by the Emory University Symphony Orchestra and the Emory Wind Ensemble, alongside the Donna and Marvin Schwartz Artists-in-Residence: Argentine pianist and composer Sonia Possetti and Argentine violinist and composer Damián Bolotin, and special guest bandoneonist Nicolás Enrich, that will be on Saturday, November 23 at 8pm in the Schwartz Center. More details on the Conference and Tangofest will be in the next issue of the newsletter.

The Merian Ensemble, consisting of five members, four of whom are Emory Artist Affiliates, have produced their first chamber music album, The Book of Spells, and are offering it for Grammy consideration. The good news about that for us is that the music is currently available to be heard on YouTube. You can hear the album by clicking here.

EUSO is building a YouTube page with selected videos of some recent performances. You can go to their YouTube page and see everything that is available. There is hope that it will be possible to expand the student video performances available, but it is a large amount of work to make and edit the videos. Thanks to Paul Bhasin for the great videos that are posted!

A big Thank You to those who have contributed during this year, and especially to those of you who have contributed in the past few months and have even increased your level of support or are new or returning supporters! There is no way to thank you enough. It was the strong level of giving last year that enabled us to substantially increase our grants to music students and faculty for this year.

Much of our support for students and faculty is through grants to provide scholarships for students to help pay for required music fees, to help fund undergraduate research projects, and to provide enhancements for classes. You can see the grants for this year by clicking here.

A special thanks to those of you who are sustaining members, either through payroll deduction, or a continuing contribution on your credit card. On the donations page you can choose to give a one-time gift or a monthly gift. You can click here to donate or visit our FOM page for other ways to give.

The list of members can be seen by clicking here.

Please Note: It is surprisingly difficult to generate a list of members who are current in their giving. We measure our giving year from the start of our annual campaign, which is usually in July of each year. Some members give through payroll deduction or give more than one gift per year (thank you to both!) and we want to make sure we correctly acknowledge the level of giving. We don't have a set format for how names are listed and depend on member's preference. Sometimes we make mistakes. Please let us know if you find any errors in the list of members above. You can just reply to this newsletter and we will be glad to correct any mistakes. The date that the list was updated is given at the bottom. Among other problems, we are finding that it can take several weeks for us to get news of gifts.

This newsletter focuses on Emory music students and faculty. There is clearly much additional music being performed in Atlanta, including many performances at Emory. There is no space in this newsletter to give specific information about those many performances, and most of them are separately well advertised. All music performances on the Emory campus are listed in the Emory Arts Calendar (linked to in the top left of our newsletters). Below is information about the separate music organizations with strong Emory ties.

The Schwartz Center is the hub of music at Emory, with the Performing Arts Studio being a major secondary location for many recitals and concerts. In addition to the Box Office that sells tickets for all ticketed events, the Schwartz Center hosts two major concert series, the Candler Concerts and the Schwartz Artists in Residence.

I assume that all of our readers are familiar with ECMSA, whose Artistic Director is Professor William Ransom. All of their concerts are free, which is certainly remarkable given the extremely high quality of their performances with professional musicians. ECMSA has a variety of music series, most of which are at the Schwartz Center. The full array of their concerts can be seen on the ECMSA website.

Of particular note is the Masterclass Series which is an incredible gift for our students. These masterclasses feature outstanding musicians who will teach Emory students in these classes. Moreover, our members are invited to attend these masterclasses. There are ten masterclasses planned for this year, with an impressive array of artists involved.

The Artistic Director of the Atlanta Master Chorale is Professor of Music Eric Nelson, and the chorale is one of the finest in the country. All of their local performances are in the Schwartz Center, and there is a livestream option for concert tickets, available through the Schwartz Center Box Office. In addition, all purchased tickets include a link to the livestream recording for one week after the concert. I usually view the recording at least once after attending the concert, surely a form of having one's cake and eating it too! For those of you who can't attend their concerts live, viewing the livestream is a great option.

Not only is the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra a great orchestra, but our students benefit greatly from the ASO, as many of the Music Department Artist Affiliates are ASO musicians.

The entire ASO concert series is detailed on the ASO website. There continues to be a lot of excitement about the ASO’s new (as of two years ago) Music Director Nathalie Stutzmann. An indication of her “rock star” status is this from her ASO biography:

Named "Best Conductor of the Year" at the 2024 Oper! Awards, Nathalie Stutzmann has been the Music Director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra since 2022 and is the second woman in history to lead a major American orchestra. She is also the Principal Guest Conductor of The Philadelphia Orchestra.

Nathalie made big news in the opera pit in 2023 with her debut in Wagner’s Tannhäuser at the Bayreuth Festival. She also made "a splashy debut" and "the coup of the year" (The New York Times) with her unanimously acclaimed double debuts at the Metropolitan Opera.

The ASO responded to the pandemic in a very creative way, beginning a series of "Behind the Curtain" performances featuring musicians playing without an audience. The "Behind the Curtain" series has continued, with a very modest yearly charge, featuring a selection of recorded performances from previous weeks.  Even if you can attend the live ASO performances, viewing the Behind the Curtain programs gives an entirely different perspective than you can get from the audience. Unless you are a player, it is rare to get close enough to a player to see the strings vibrate!