Enduring Masters

We are excited to be hosting some of the most prominent performers, composers and educators for the Enduring Masters Series.

• Dick Hyman is famous for embracing so many styles of music, so enthusiastically, that he is sometimes known as a “musical chameleon.” But, he has always maintained a strong devotion to classic forms of jazz. Hyman has researched and recorded the piano music of Scott Joplin, Jelly Roll Morton, James P. Johnson, Eubie Blake and Fats Waller among others. 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.- Riverwalk Jazz, http://www.riverwalkjazz.org/site/PageServer?pagename=jazznotes_hymanseasons, 2007
• Sydney Hodkinson -In addition to his activities as conductor, Mr. Hodkinson is one of the most prolific and widely performed contemporary composers. His most recent compositions include an opera "SAINT CARMENT OF THE MAIN", a commission from the Banff Centre for the Arts and the world premiere by the Guelph Spring Festival May 19-24, 1988, BUMBERBOOM, Commissioned and premiered by the Montreal Symphony, D.R. Davies conducting, EDGE OF THE OLDE ONE for the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, premiered with Pierre Boulez conducting, CHANSONS DE JADIS - six songs of loneliness for soprano and orchestra, premiered by the National Arts Centre Orchestra of Ottawa, Mario Bernardi conducting with Gwenlynn Little as soloist.
      Awards include the Farnsley Prize by the Louisville Orchestra, Guggenheim Foundation, National Institute of Arts and Letters, Canada Council, The National Endowment for the Arts and the International Congress of Jeunesses Musicales Competition. Compositions by Dr. Hodkinson appear in the catalogs of American Composers Alliance, Associated Music Publishers, Theodore Presser, Music for Percussion, Editions Jobert, Ricordi, Columbia University Music Press, and Transcontinental. Activities as composer/conductor are recorded on CRI, Grenadilla, Louisville, Advance, Nonesuch, CBC, and Pantheon labels.
• The Verdehr 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 clarinettist, of stunning technical quality and great power of expression, as well as absolute concentration. (Tribuna Musical, Pablo Bardin)

• Daniel Binelli has returned to Ithaca College for the Tango Festival on January 30th, 2009 after an initial residency in 2008. Daniel Binelli is one of the world’s greatest virtuosos of the bandoneon. 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.

• Pianist and composer, William Bolcom and mezzo-soprano Joan Morris visited the Ithaca College Campus for a Concert performance at Ford Hall, Whalen Center for Music on October 13 of 2008 and a week long residency. "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)

• 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. [full bio] 
• 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.  [full bio and alumni bios] 
• 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. The bandoneon is a unique and sensuous keyboard instrument associated with the tango. A prolific composer, Binelli is also widely acclaimed as the foremost exponent and torchbearer of the music of Astor Piazzolla. [full bio]
• 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.  [full bio]
• 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. [full bio] 
• 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. [full bio]  
• 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 also 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.  [full bio]

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