Enduring Masters

The Enduring Masters Series at Ithaca College 2007 through 2009-

Ithaca College has been pleased to present the Enduring Masters- a concert series featuring musicians performing and reflecting on aging and their art. The Enduring Masters Series was a partnership of the Ithaca College School of Music and the Gerontology Institute, Linden Center for Creativity and Aging, a member of the Division of Interdisciplinary and International Studies.

After a very successful project presenting world renowned musicians to Ithaca College and its environs and supporting performances of local musicians and Ithaca College students in venues serving older adults living in Tompkins county,  the funding for the Enduring Masters through the NY Music fund has ended.

However, work on the digital archive of Enduring Masters performances continues and the college will be incorporating the Enduring Masters theme under the auspices of the Linden Center for Creativity and Aging (www.ithaca.edu/lindencenter). We plan to continue to present artists as Enduring Masters as funding allows and to support student performances in the community.

We will continue to maintain this website  until further notice.

Through the New York Music Fund, the Enduring Masters Series has hosted some of the most prominent performers, composers and educators in music; including the following:
  Marian McPartland - Interview for Enduring Masters Series, conducted at her Long Island home. April 2009.
  Billy Taylor - September 15, 2007.  Billy Taylor encompasses that rare combination of creativity, intelligence, vision, commitment and leadership, qualities that make him one of our most cherished national treasures.  The distinguished ambassador of the jazz community to the world-at-large, Dr. Billy Taylor's recording career spans nearly six decades. He has composed over three hundred and fifty songs, including "I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free," as well as works for theatre, dance and symphony orchestras.
  François Rabbath - September 20-21, 2007 Masterclasses String Bass, Ford Hall and Hockett Family Recital Hall. Interviewed for archival recording.The importance of François Rabbath to the development of double bass playing can be compared with that of Paganini to the violin. The great and popular 19th century composers did not consider the bass worth their attention and in turn the bass repertoire did not attract potential virtuoso performers with enough genius to change the situation. It demanded an artist with the unique qualities of François Rabbath to break this impasse.Whether performing his own fascinating compositions, the music of others or the classical repertoire, one is always moved by his profound musicianship and dazzling virtuosity. François Rabbath's uniqueness stems from his refusal to accept any traditional limitations.
    Karel Husa - October 14-16, 2007.  Karel Husa, winner of the 1993 Grawemeyer Award and the 1969 Pulitzer Prize for Music, is an internationally known composer and conductor. An American citizen since 1959, Husa was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, on 7 August 1921. After completing studies at the Prague Conservatory and, later, the Academy of Music, he went to Paris where he received diplomas from the Paris National Conservatory and the Ecole normale de musique. Among his teachers were Arthur Honegger, Nadia Boulanger, Jaroslav Ridky, and conductor Andre Cluytens.
    Joan Tower - February 4, 2008.  Even as she prepares for her 70th birthday in 2008, Joan Tower is looking forward as much as she is looking back on a career that already spans over five decades.  Hailed as "one of the most successful woman composers of all time" in The New Yorker magazine, Joan Tower was the first woman ever to receive the Grawemeyer Award in Composition in 1990. She was inducted in 1998 into the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Letters, and into the Academy of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University in the fall of 2004. She was the first composer chosen for a Ford Made in America consortium commission, its top-selling recording won three 2008 Grammy awards, including Best Classical Contemporary Composition.
   George Tsontakis - March 3, 2008.  Mr. Tsontakis's catalogue continues to grow dramatically as prominent orchestras and musicians commission and record new works. In recent seasons, his works have been heard with great frequency in concerts throughout the world (including dozens in Europe), with over 100 performances of his major works in the 2006-2007 season alone.  In December 2006, George Tsontakis was named the next recipient of the Charles Ives Living by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. The prestigious award is in the form of a cash allowance spread over 3 years (2007-2010).  Thus, in the space of two years, Tsontakis has been awarded two of composition’s richest prizes, since his Violin Concerto No. 2 also won the 2005 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award. This celebrated international composition award gives deserved recognition to a composer who already enjoys a global career.
   Daniel Binelli - April 2, 2008.  Daniel Binelli (FLEFF Distinguished Composer in Residence) is an internationally renowned bandoneon virtuoso from Argentina who performs across the world. Daniel Binelli returned to Ithaca College for the Tango Festival on January 30th, 2009. Daniel Binelli is one of the world’s greatest virtuosos of the bandoneon. The bandoneon is a unique and sensuous keyboard instrument associated with the tango. A prolific composer, he has  played bandoneon with major orchestras in Latin America, Europe and the United States. With over fifty CDs, countless compositions, and many film scores, Binelli is also widely acclaimed as the foremost exponent and torchbearer of the music of tango legend Astor Piazzolla, who forged the nuevo tango style.
   Steve Brown and the Alumni Big Band - April 26, 2008.  Steve Brown has been the Director of Jazz Studies at Ithaca College for the past 40 years.  In addition to teaching, Steve has had the pleasure of performing with many of the jazz greats of our time, including Chuck Israels, Billy Hart, Gerry Niewood, Ben Riley, Claudio Roditi, Bill Goodwin, Marian McPartland, Jimmy Smith, and Barry Harris.  A prolific composer and arranger, Steve has hundreds of compositions that have been performed around the world.
    Chico Hamilton and Euphoria - September 21 2008. Saluted by the Kennedy Center as a “Living Jazz Legend”, and recently appointed to the National Council on the Arts, NEA Jazz Master Chico Hamilton is considered one of the most important living jazz artists and composers. Bandleader Foreststorn Chico Hamilton, born September 21st, 1921 in Los Angeles, had a fast track musical education in a band with his schoolmates Charles Mingus, Illinois Jacquet, Ernie Royal, Dexter Gordon, Buddy Collette and Jack Kelso. Engagements with Lionel Hampton, Slim & Slam, T-Bone Walker, Lester Young, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Charlie Barnett, Billy Eckstine, Nat King Cole, Sammy Davis Jr., Billie Holiday, Gerry Mulligan and six years with Lena Horne established this young West Coast prodigy as a jazz drummer on the rise, before striking out on his own as a bandleader in 1955. 
   William Bolcom  pianist, Pulitzer Prize recipient, and composer, and mezzo-soprano Joan Morris - Oct.12-13 2008, conducted masterclasses and lectured; with a concert performance October 13 at Ford Hall, Whalen Center for Music. In their recorded anthologies of American popular song, the husband-wife team of William Bolcom and Joan Morris have winningly presented vernacular music as light classical concert music distinguished from its European counterpart by the absorption of Afro-American influences.Through the eyes of Mr. Bolcom and Ms. Morris, American pop history is very different in spirit from the past as interpreted by Frank Sinatra or Billie Holiday, since the pair admits no saloon melancholy into its sunny parlor. Even in a wistful mode, Ms. Morris's winsome mezzo-soprano communicates a sweet-natured playfulness. Mr. Bolcom's spare, barreling pianism, which establishes brisk tempos, keeps strict rhythms and features powerful bass lines, convincingly portrays ragtime - an essentially happy style - as the pivotal ingredient in American pop.(Stephen Holden; New York Times, Published: January 20, 1987)
   Elliott Schwartz - Oct. 12 to 15, 2008. Eminent composer, pianist and teacher Elliott Schwartz visited the campus for three days as the Ithaca College School of Music’s Karel Husa Visiting Professor of Composition. A highlight was two public events- Tuesday, Oct. 14, in the Iger Lecture Hall in the James J Whalen Center for Music, Schwartz gave a free talk on his music. In Ford Hall at Whalen Center, the Ithaca College Wind Ensemble performed one of Schwartz’s compositions. Conducted by Steven Peterson, the program also featured works by Hindemith, Holst and Hass.
    Sydney Hodkinson lectured and spoke as the Ithaca College Karel Husa Visiting Professor of Composition on March 22- 24th, 2009. In addition to his activities as conductor, Mr. Hodkinson is one of the most prolific and widely performed contemporary composers. Though he has taught at several American and Canadian universities, he is perhaps best known for his trend-setting work at the Eastman School of Music. Joining the Eastman faculty in 1973, he became the director of the renowned Eastman Musica
Nova. Under Dr. Hodkinson's direction, this ensemble performed and/or premiered numerous 20th-century compositions to great
acclaim. Upon his retirement from Eastman in 1998, Sydney Hodkinson was appointed to the composition faculty at Aspen.
 The Verdehr Trio - March 4th 2009, performed innovative programming and lead masterclasses in violin, clarinet and piano. The Trio is comprised of Walter Verdehr (violin, Yugoslav), his wife Elsa Ludewig-Verdehr (clarinet, apparently USA-born) and the much younger Argentinian pianist Elsa Roederer, the only one that isn't a founder of this chamber group with more than thirty years of activity. They have commissioned an astonishing 200 scores from composers all over the world, singularly expanding a not overlarge repertoire for this very attractive combination.Both the smooth and musical violinist and the precise and sensitive pianist are very likable but for me the real star is the lady clarinetist, of stunning technical quality and great power of expression, as well as absolute concentration. (Tribuna Musical, Pablo Bardin) 
   Dick Hyman performed in concert at Ithaca College on April 5, 2009. He spoke on film scoring in symposium and gave an informal talk for career orientation. He is famous for embracing so many styles of music, so enthusiastically, that he is sometimes known as a “musical chameleon.” As he puts it "when I was lucky enough to become a studio player, I was known for versatility." He has been known to replicate piano giants like Jelly Roll Morton, Fats Waller, James P. Johnson, Teddy Wilson, and Art Tatum. He has performed with, as house pianist at Birdland, Lester Young and Charlie Parker. He has lived life in the company of legends of jazz, swinging with Benny Goodman, Roy Elbridge and Zoot Sims.
   He has been invited to perform at the White house by Clinton, Bush, and Carter.  He has seven "Most Valuable Player Awards" from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. His versatility is evident by the diversity of the performers with whom he has recorded: Tony Bennet, Perry Como, La Vern Baker, Marvin Rainwater, and many more; and in his diverse musical skills: as nightclub player, a session man, musical director for television, soundtrack pianist for film (The Godfather, the Wiz, The Night They Raided Minsky's), conductor, arranger, and composer of scores for film ( Moonstruck, Billy Bathgate, Scott Joplin King of Ragtime), organist, and in 1968, on the Billboard top 40 for a single, "The Minotaur"  from an album featuring him on Moog Synthesizer ...
He took piano lessons from Swing Era legend Teddy Wilson, sat in with James P. Johnson and Willie “The Lion” Smith at Manhattan night clubs when he was still at student at Columbia University, and dropped in to hear Eddie Condon at Jimmy Ryan’s on 52nd Street even before he graduated from high school.-excerpted from Riverwalk Jazz, http://www.riverwalkjazz.org

In addition to the Enduring Masters series, Ithaca College coordinates the "Voices for Creative Aging" program, which organizes outreach between Ithaca College student ensembles and aging communities as well as sponsoring concerts featuring elder community musicians and underrepresented music. Voices for Creative Aging will continue to sponsor programs until March 2009.

All concerts were free and open to the public and took place at the Ithaca College School of Music. Special transportation was provided to accommodate elderly community members for the Enduring Masters concerts. Please contact Susan Harris for additional information.