Class Notes

1946 Evelyn (Evvie) Meyers Currie (see ’45 College).

1947 Joan Strait Applegate ’66 (PhD) died in May, writes her daughter, Celia Applegate, formerly a professor of history at Rochester. Joan spent most of her adult life in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. “She was professor emeritus at Shippensburg State University and spent her entire professional life teaching and performing music in one form or another. She was devoted to the Eastman School and always very proud to have her degrees from the University of Rochester.” Joan’s husband, Jim, whom she met while he was a lecturer in English on the River Campus, died in 1997. In addition to Celia, Joan is survived by three other children.

1952 Barbara Garvey Jackson (MM) sends an update. She transferred ownership of her music publishing business, ClarNan Editions, to Classical Vocal Reprints, where it is now a division. She founded ClarNan, which is devoted to publishing historic music by women composers, in 1982. Barbara adds that she will continue to edit new volumes from time to time. She was a professor of music at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville for 30 years.

1958 Dominick Argento (PhD) was honored posthumously in June with a memorial concert at the University of Minnesota’s School of Music. The program, curated and conducted by Dominick’s longtime collaborator Philip Brunelle, celebrated the musical legacy of the Pulitzer Prize–winning composer. Dominick joined the Minnesota faculty in 1958 and taught there until 1997, when he was made professor emeritus. He died last February.

1962 John Landis (see ’66 College).

1966 Joan Strait Applegate (PhD) (see ’47).

1969 Max Stern writes that Max Stern: Retrospective, a compilation of his biblical compositions, has been issued by the Israel Music Institute and Ministry of Culture of the State of Israel. Max is professor emeritus of Ariel University. . . . Andrea Podraskie Tolmich (see ’68 Warner).

1970 Arthur Michaels has recently published several scores: “Mythical Royals and Their Heroic Defenders” (Bell Music) and “Euphotrombotonia” (Bell Music), both concert band pieces; as well as “Dance Suite” (Gusthold Music) and “Sara’s Suite” (Gusthold Music), both three-movement works for string orchestra. His composition “St. Thomas Excursion,” a movement in “Dance Suite,” was premiered by the Symphoria Youth String Orchestra of Syracuse, New York.

1973 Michael Sanders retired after 27 years as principal tuba of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. Before joining the orchestra, Michael was principal tuba of the San Antonio Symphony from 1973 to 1991 and also served as interim principal tuba with the Utah Symphony during the 1987–88 and 1989–90 seasons. He was a featured soloist with each of the orchestras. Michael has given master classes in tuba performance at the Manhattan School of Music, the University of Michigan, the University of Missouri, and the University of North Texas and was a featured performer at the International Tuba Euphonium Conferences at the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Minnesota.

1977 Marie Rolf (PhD) translated into English Claude Debussy: A Critical Biography by François Lesure (Boydell & Brewer), which was published in June as part of the Eastman Studies in Music series. Marie is senior associate dean of graduate studies and a professor of music theory at Eastman. Her translation is the first of what is widely recognized by scholars as the most comprehensive and reliable biography of Claude Debussy.

1978 Thomas Crawford conducted the American Classical Orchestra when it concluded its season in Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center in May with Beethoven’s Third Symphony, “Eroica,” and Coriolan Overture performed on period instruments. Thomas is the orchestra’s artistic director and founder.

1981 Madeleine Mitchell (MM) released a CD with her London Chamber Ensemble of world premiere recordings by Welsh composer Grace Williams, Grace Williams: Chamber Music (Naxos), in March. It was selected as the Guardian’s CD of the week. Madeleine has been a violin professor at the Royal College of Music in London since 1994.

1985 Maria Lambros sends an update. She recorded the two Brahms viola quintets with the New Zealand Quartet for Naxos Records. Helene Pohl is the quartet’s first violinist. Maria, a faculty member at the Peabody Conservatory of Music, launched Our Joyful Noise Baltimore, a nonprofit organization that presents a series of concerts featuring professional musicians in a veterans’ shelter, a women’s prison, and a cancer treatment residence as well as for people living with autism in the Baltimore community. Maria’s son, Daniel Kannen ’17, is an audio engineer at Dolby Laboratories in San Francisco.

1992 Gaelen McCormick was named executive director of the Canandaigua LakeMusic Festival. She is the program manager for Eastman Performing Arts Medicine, teaches bass at the Eastman Community Music School, and is a former member of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra.

1996 Helen Pridmore (DMA) writes that she created and premiered a concert-length structured improvisation for solo voice, “Sor Juana and the Silences.” The first performance was in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, and more recent performances have taken place in Mexico City, with a Canada-wide tour in the works.

2000 Nicole Kenley Miller received her DMA in vocal performance and opera directing last December from the University of Houston upon the defense of her dissertation, “Voicing Virginia: Adaptation of Woolf’s Words to Music.” She has accepted the position of production manager for the Moores Opera Center at her new alma mater. . . . Jassen Todorov (MM) writes that he won the American Experience category in the Smithsonian’s 2018 photo contest with his aerial photograph The Painful Aftermath. His image Unreal was a finalist in the same category; and Rochester Review published it in the Winter 2019 issue. Jassen is a professor of violin at San Francisco State University.

2009 Nick Finzer (see ’14).

2014 David Baskeyfield (DMA), released his second CD, Dupré: The American Experience (Acis Productions), featuring the music of Paris Conservatoire professor of organ Marcel Dupré (1886–1971). David is the music director at Christ Episcopal Church in Pittsford, New York, near Rochester. . . . Alexa Tarantino has released a debut solo recording as a leader, Winds of Change (Posi-Tone), with her quartet, including trombonist Nick Finzer ’09. A CD release celebration took place at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Dizzy’s Club in May.