Please consider downloading the latest version of Internet Explorer
to experience this site as intended.
Skip to content

Alumni Gazette

In the News
in_the_newsNOMINATED: Recordings by Eastman alumni Maria Schneider, Kristian Bezuidenhout, and John Fedchock (from left) are among those nominated for 2016 Grammy Awards. (Photo: Provided)

Eastman Counts Seven Grammy Nominees

One Eastman professor and six Eastman alumni have been nominated for 2016 Grammy Awards, which will be presented on February 15 in Los Angeles:

Kristian Bezuidenhout ’01E, ’04E (MM), fortepianist and pianist: Best Classical Instrumental Solo for Mozart: Keyboard Music, Vol. 7 (Harmonia Mundi); Best Classical Solo Vocal Album for Beethoven: An Die Ferne Geliebte; Haydn: English Songs; Mozart: Masonic Cantata (Harmonia Mundi).

Martha Cluver ’03E, soprano, and Eric Dudley ’01E, tenor, of the ensemble Roomful of Teeth: Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance for Render (New Amsterdam Records).

John Fedchock ’85E (MM), trombonist, bandleader, and arranger: Best Arrangement, Instrumental or A Cappella, for “You and the Night and the Music” from Like It Is (Summit Records).

Bob Ludwig ’66E, ’01E (MM), recording engineer: Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical, for Sound & Color by Alabama Shakes; Sound & Color was also nominated for Album of the Year.

Paul O’Dette, professor of lute and of conducting and ensembles at Eastman: Best Opera Recording for Steffani: Niobe, Regina Di Tebe (Erato) by the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra, with O’Dette conducting.

Maria Schneider ’85E (MM), jazz composer and bandleader: Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album for The Thompson Fields (ArtistShare); Best Arrangement, Instruments and Vocals, for arrangement of “Sue (Or in a Season of Crime),” by David Bowie, from his retrospective album Nothing Has Changed (Columbia/Legacy).

Smithsonian Recognizes Rudolph Tanzi ’80 for Ingenuity

Rudolph Tanzi ’80 is among the best known and most accomplished scientists in the field of Alzheimer’s disease research. In its annual announcement of top American innovators, Smithsonian magazine named Tanzi, the Joseph P. and Rose F. Kennedy Professor of Neurology at Harvard and the director of genetics and aging research at Massachusetts General Hospital, as among 12 winners of its American Ingenuity Award.

Late in 2014, Tanzi and Doo Yeon Kim, also of Harvard, developed a new means of tracking the progress of Alzheimer’s and experimenting with new treatments. According to the citation in Smithsonian, the new technique, a cell culture dubbed “Alzheimer’s in a dish,” “is considered the most persuasive and useful laboratory model yet invented of the neurodegenerative disease. It offers researchers a chance to both track the course of Alzheimer’s in unprecedented biochemical and genetic detail, and to quickly and cheaply test thousands of potential treatments that might block or at least slow its malign progress.”

Earlier in 2015, Time magazine acknowledged the discovery by naming Tanzi one of the world’s 100 Most Influential People.

A National Honor for a Pediatric Pioneer

Robert Brent ’48, ’53M (MD), ’55M (PhD), ’88 (Honorary) is the winner of the 2015 Gustav O. Lienhard Award, a national honor recognizing outstanding achievement in improving health care service. The award is given annually to one person by the National Academy of Medicine.

Early in his career, Brent conducted pathbreaking research on environmental risk factors for birth defects. His research provided groundwork for much modern understanding of the nature and degree of risk to the developing fetus from radiation, as well as from various drugs and chemicals. Brent has also played an educational role, offering free counseling to pregnant women about the risks for most of his 60-plus-year career. Brent is the Louis and Bess Stein Professor of Pediatrics at Sidney Kimmel Medical College in Philadelphia.

in_the_newsBetter Basketball: Former Yellowjacket basketball star John DiBartolomeo ’12 (with the ball) had a chance to post up against one of the professional game’s all-time greats this fall, when his Israeli professional team took on sure-fire Hall of Famer Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers in an exhibition preseason game at Staples Center in Los Angeles. DiBartolomeo and the Maccabi Haifa lost 126–83 in the game, which was part of a U.S. tour for the team. (Photo: Seth Ribnick/Maccabi Haifa Basketball Club)