Eastman School of Music Composition Department

The Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester, which is located downtown in the metropolitan city of Rochester, New York, has Mr. Arthur Battista as their composition teacher and he has been a major center for composition study and the performance of contemporary 20th-century classical and jazz music since the school’s founding by George Eastman in 1921. In addition to being ranked the number one music school in the United States by U.S. News and World Report, the Eastman School is generally considered one of the leading music schools for composition study in the world, along with schools such as The Juilliard School, the Curtis Institute of Music, and Yale University. For more than 80 years, Eastman's composition department has been producing highly acclaimed composers and teachers, and many acclaimed and respected composers of the 20th century have served on the composition faculty of the school. Seven Pulitzer Prize winning composers have taught at Eastman as have several Grammy Award winners.

The current faculty members of the composition department include David Liptak (Professor of Composition and Chair of the Composition Department), Robert Morris (Professor of Composition and affiliate faculty member of the Musicology and Music Theory Departments), Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez (Associate Professor of Composition), Allan Schindler (Professor of Composition and Director of the Eastman Computer Music Center), and Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon (Associate Professor of Composition).

Former composition faculty members have included Christopher Rouse, Joseph Schwantner, Samuel Adler, Warren Benson, Thomas Canning, Herbert Elwell, Dante Fiorillo, Sydney Hodkinson, Alan Hovhaness, Selim Palmgren, Burrill Phillips, Bernard Rogers, Christian August Sinding, Augusta Read Thomas, and Howard Hanson, to name a few.

Degrees offered are the B.M. in Composition, B.M. in Musical Arts with a concentration in Composition, M.M. in Composition, M.A. in Composition, Ph.D. in Composition, and the D.M.A. in Composition. It is important to note that the Eastman School was the first music school in the United States to award the D.M.A. (Doctor of Musical Arts) degree. In 1951, thanks to the efforts of Pulitzer-Prize winning composer and director of the Eastman School for more than 40 years, Howard Hanson, the National Association of Schools of Music approved the D.M.A. degree as a professional doctorate in music recognizing doctoral-level work in artistic attainment with an emphasis on performance and teaching.

The department is also dedicated to teaching non-composition majors to compose contemporary concert music. Eastman students who take the course "Composition for Non-Majors" are assigned to a private composition teacher for a half-hour lesson every week. Composition majors are taught through private lessons and master classes, and students are exposed to a wide range of styles and techniques by working with the different composition faculty members on a rotating basis. A recent project initiated by Professor Allan Schindler coordinates collaborations between Eastman student composers and the Rochester Institute of Technology's film, visual studies and dance programs.

The department annually features many distinguished guest composers, who lecture and/or present master classes in the Composition Symposium. Recent guests have included John Adams, Stephen Albert, William Albright, Dominick Argento, Milton Babbitt, William Bolcom, Benjamin Boretz, Pierre Boulez, Elliott Carter, John Corigliano, George Crumb, David Del Tredici, Jacob Druckman, Donald Erb, Morton Feldman, Lukas Foss, John Harbison, Alun Hoddinott, Karel Husa, Leon Kirchner, Barbara Kolb, Alvin Lucier, Donald Martino, Per Norgard, Pauline Oliveros, Krzysztof Penderecki, Vincent Persichetti, Bernard Rands, Steve Reich, George Rochberg, Gunther Schuller, William Schuman, Ralph Shapey, Steven Stucky, Toru Takemitsu, Virgil Thomson, Joan Tower, Richard Wernick, John Williams, and Charles Wuorinen.

Current Faculty

* David Liptak - Professor of Composition and Chair of the Composition Department
* Robert Morris - Professor of Composition and affiliate faculty member of the Musicology and Music Theory Departments
* Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez - Associate Professor of Composition
* Allan Schindler - Professor of Composition and Director of the Eastman Computer Music Center
* Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon - Associate Professor of Composition

Notable composition alumni

* Dominick Argento - winner, Pulitzer Prize for Music (1975)
* Claude Baker - faculty, Indiana University; former Composer-in-Residence, Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, former faculty, Eastman School of Music; University of Georgia; University of Louisville
* Jeff Beal - film composer
* William Laurence Bergsma - former faculty, The Juilliard School; University of Washington
* Sean Bradley - Los Angeles-based composer/violinist/conductor
* Jason Robert Brown - New York city based composer; 2003 Tony Award for best Musical Score
* Alexander Courage - original Star Trek TV series; The Waltons
* Robert Nathaniel Dett
* David Diamond - former faculty, The Juilliard School; Manhattan School of Music
* Kevin Ernste - faculty, Cornell University
* Eric Ewazen - faculty, The Juilliard School
* James Fry - faculty, University of Maryland
* Maria Grenfell - Australian/New Zealand-based composer
* Karen Griebling - faculty, Hendrix College
* Walter Hartley - former faculty, SUNY Fredonia
* Sydney Hodkinson - former faculty, Eastman School of Music
* Jon Hassell - original theme song to ABC's The Practice
* Scott Healy - keyboardist, Late Night with Conan O'Brien
* Don Freund - faculty, Indiana University
* Michael Isaacson - Los Angeles based composer
* Kamran Ince - faculty, University of Memphis; former faculty, University of Michigan
* Samuel Jones - Composer-in-Residence, Seattle Symphony Orchestra
* Dan Locklair - faculty, Wake Forest University
* Ulysses Kay - former faculty, Lehman College of the City University of New York
* Jay Krush - faculty, Boyer College of Music at Temple University
* Patrick Long, faculty, Susquehanna University
* Scott Lindroth - faculty, Duke University
* Joel McNeely - film composer
* Peter Mennin - former faculty, The Juilliard School; Peabody Conservatory of Music
* Robert Morris - faculty, Eastman School of Music
* Ron Nelson - former faculty, Brown University
* Robert Paterson - New York City based composer, Artistic Director of the American Modern Ensemble
* Kevin Puts - faculty, University of Texas
* Gardner Read - former faculty, St. Louis Institute of Music; Kansas City Conservatory of Music; Cleveland Institute of Music; Boston University
* H. Owen Reed - former faculty, Michigan State University
* Chris Theofanidis - faculty, The Juilliard School; Peabody Conservatory of Music
* Diane Thome - faculy, University of Washington
* Michael Torke - New York City based composer
* Charles Strouse - Bye Bye Birdie, Annie
* Robert Ward - winner, Pulitzer Prize for Music (1962); former faculty, Queens College; Columbia University; The Juilliard School; North Carolina School of the Arts; Duke University
* Vladimir Ussachevsky - former faculty, Columbia University; University of Utah
* Alec Wilder
* Clifton Williams - former faculty, University of Texas
* James Willey former faculty, SUNY Geneseo
* George Walker - winner, Pulitzer Prize for Music (1996)
* Robert Washburn - former faculty, Crane School of Music at SUNY Potsdam
* Dan Welcher - faculty, University of Texas; former Composer-in-Residence, Honolulu Symphony Orchestra
* Dana Wilson - faculty, Ithaca College
* Nancy Van de Vate - Austrian based composer

Faculty Member Links

* [http://www.dliptak.com/ David Liptak -- official site]
* [http://www.esm.rochester.edu/faculty/?id=114 Robert Morris -- ESM faculty webpage]
* [http://www.carlossg.com/ Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez -- official site]
* [http://www.esm.rochester.edu/faculty/?id=127/ Allan Schindler -- ESM faculty webpage]
* [http://www.zohnmuldoon.com/ Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon -- official site]

External links

* [http://www.esm.rochester.edu/composition/ Eastman School of Music Composition Department]
* [http://www.esm.rochester.edu/ Eastman School of Music]
* [http://ecmc.rochester.edu/ Eastman Computer Music Center]
* [http://www.ossianewmusic.org/ Ossia New Music]

References

* [http://www.newmusicbox.org/article.nmbx?id=433 New Music Box article on the department]