Music in Rochester: ALWAYS in Tune!
Music in Rochester:
ALWAYS in Tune!
Music is in our DNA...
and we can't wait to share it with you!
Music lives in Rochester, N.Y., and you won't have any trouble finding it! You can hear the music calling behind club walls and whispering from high-tech recording studios. The beat pulses through city sidewalks in summer and throbs between your toes at the beach. It may suddenly grab you to get up and dance or shyly wrap soothing chords around you like a blanket in the winter. Talented students, established professionals, organized groups of "hobby" performers-all add to Rochester's astonishing musical tapestry. And cities three times larger in size can't match its claim to a 24-hour, classical-music radio station all its own!
Eastman School of Music: Top of the Class
What is the history behind so much harmony? Kodak founder George Eastman certainly had a role. His love of music included hosting musical events in his mansion home and eating breakfast every day while listening to his pipe organ being played. In 1921, he established the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester, now acclaimed among the best in the world and attracting top musicians from every corner of the globe. Recently named "the hottest music school in America" by Newsweek magazine, the Eastman School is at the hub of Rochester's vibrant music scene. Its majestic Eastman Theatre, in the heart of downtown, is also one of the finest concert halls in America: home to an exciting array of performances from concerts by the acclaimed Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra to international guest artists and large-scale opera productions. Chamber ensembles of every description plus solo performers and other musical programs regularly take the stage at Eastman School's acoustically perfect Kilbourn Hall, too. Visitors will find a performance featuring this school's excellent faculty, students or ensembles on one of these two stages nearly every day and, best of all, many of their concerts are free!
Given the Eastman School of Music's reputation for outstanding programs in composition, scholarship and ensemble performance, it is no surprise that former students have performed in every principal orchestra in the United States, been nominated for Emmy awards, won Grammy awards, and produced recordings that reached #1 on Billboard's charts. The Eastman Jazz Ensemble has won major awards from Down Beat magazine, while the internationally celebrated Eastman Wind Ensemble, the first of its kind in America, celebrated its 50th year in 2002 after producing numerous recordings and giving more than 100 world premieres. The Eastman School has also nurtured six Pulitzer Prize-winning composers; and its Sibley Music Library is the largest academic, music-research collection in North America. After visiting in the late 1920s, George Gershwin declared it to be "...the most wonderful music school in America."
An International Jazz Festival & Even More!
In June, the Rochester International Jazz Festival claims a large swath of downtown with shows in the Eastman Theatre, Kilbourn Hall and a variety of local clubs and other nearby venues. Surrounding streets also pulsate as huge crowds of people come to enjoy the free jazz, blues and reggae concerts on several outdoor stages. The New York Times has placed Rochester's event as one of the top four jazz festivals in the U.S., on a par with San Francisco, New York City and Newport. More than 120,000 people attended performances in 2007; and the seventh year of the festival in 2008 brought 125,000 jazz aficionados and other music lovers to town for 150 shows spanning nine days of both jazz and rock performances. In past years, big-name stars like Wynton Marsalis and George Benson have been known to unwind at the festival's hottest late-night jam sessions, too.
The annual Rochester MusicFest is another summer celebration, while the Gateways Music Festival is a biennial event featuring African-American classical instrumentalists that comes around again on August 13-16, 2009. But even when music is not the sole purpose of an event, it seems to be almost a "requirement" since nearly every festival throughout the area offers live music as part of the fun, even when the major focus is arts and crafts, local waterways, ethnic celebrations, history, harvests, etc.
Music, Music Everywhere!
When Rochester's jazz festival is over, jazz-world luminaries can still be found jamming every weekend at the Strathallan Hotel and Venu Resto-Lounge; while more adventurous jazz fans gravitate toward the avant-garde music that rules in a cavernous Bop Shop atrium. For those craving cutting-edge sounds, top alternative bands regularly rock the Water Street Music Hall, and emerging artists keep the Bug Jar hopping. The Dinosaur Bar-B-Que and Beale Street Café generally sing the blues, while folk and jazz acts are right at home at Java's, a bohemian-style sidewalk café. Acoustic music is easily found as well at local cafés and quirky neighborhood bars-adding to the tuneful mosaic that is music in Rochester. Top national acts frequently touch down at the Blue Cross Arena at the Community War Memorial and Main Street Armory, too, while the excitement of drum and bulge corps competitions is yet another favorite attraction.
But that's not all! There is no shortage of concerts showcasing early instruments and music dating from the Renaissance. Rochester is home to Madrigalia, an outstanding, 18-voice ensemble specializing in16th- and 17th-century madrigal. In fact, the Rochester Early Music Festival held in 2001 was reported to be the only one of its kind in the country with enough local talent to provide as many as 12 groups giving performances of medieval, Renaissance and Baroque music.
Not-to-be missed by those who love organ harmonies is the only full-size Baroque Italian organ in North America: originally constructed in the 1680s, it now resides in the Fountain Court of the Memorial Art Gallery on University Avenue. The Eastman Rochester Organ Initiative has even formed a collaboration of the greatest organ builders and performers in the world, making Rochester the center for building, teaching and playing this impressive instrument.
With local clubs and cafés featuring music all year, part of the fun in Rochester is never knowing who might drop by to play. Visiting musicians of every stripe make pilgrimages to the House of Guitars, a legendary music store in Rochester. They also seek out Bernunzio Uptown Music shop, where vintage instruments are sold and repaired. Lehmann's Stringed Instruments has been bringing musicians to Rochester for its custom-designed, hand-made guitars and other stringed instruments since 1977; while Sullivan Violins specializes in creating, repairing and restoring violins and other stringed instruments, including violas that have won several "tone" awards from the Violin Society of America.
Musical Name Dropping!
Famous Eastman School of Music graduates are as diverse as sing-along king and record executive Mitch Miller; Rochester native and flugelhorn master Chuck Mangione, Metropolitan Opera star Renée Fleming; and William Warfield, whose rich bass-baritone made "Old Man River" a classic. Guitarist Gene Cornish emerged from the city in the 1960s to make rock ‘n roll history with the Rascals, and Rochester-born Lou Gramm ruled pop charts in the late-1970s and 1980s as lead singer of Foreigner before launching a successful solo career. Bluesman Edward "Son" House and entertainer Cab Calloway are still others who once lived and performed in this musical gem of a city.
Equally impressive with its claim to people achieving musical fame, however, is Rochester's rich tradition of reaching anyone who wants to sing or play an instrument. The Eastman Community Music School serves students of all ages-preschoolers to senior citizens, and music-education programs at area high schools are frequently recognized nationally by the American Music Conference for their excellence. Hochstein School of Music was founded by musicians to honor violin protégé David Hochstein, who was killed in World War I. Providing lessons and performance opportunities for children and adults for more than 75 years, Hochstein is also known for its popular lunchtime concert series and innovative music-therapy program. Rochester has even become a center of music-therapy expertise with several area clinics plus a top-notch training program at Nazareth College.
Representative of this community's many excellent, all-volunteer singing groups is the Rochester Oratorio Society, a 170-member chorus achieving distinction as the first non-Chinese choir to perform in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing as part of China's pre-Olympics International Cultural Festival. ROS was also selected to perform at both the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games, a rare honor!
If music usually makes your heart sing,
don't be surprised when you fall in love with Rochester, New York:
a city with an absolutely amazing sound track!
