Class Notes
Eastman School of Music
1939
H. Owen Reed (PhD) writes that he was awarded the medal of honor last December from the Midwest Clinic. 鈥淎t 103 years old, I am still walking and going out to eat, and I still like to tell my jokes.鈥�
1949
Composer Emma Lou Diemer (MM), 鈥�60 (PhD) has released Pacific Ridge (Navona/Parma). The recording features three of her major orchestral works: Santa Barbara Overture, Concerto in One Movement for Marimba, and Concerto in One Movement for Piano. 鈥淭he marimba concerto was written in 1991 for the Women鈥檚 Philharmonic of San Francisco,鈥� Emma Lou writes. 鈥淭he piano concerto was written in 1991 for the Santa Barbara Symphony, for which I was composer-in-residence at the time, and the overture was written for the same orchestra.鈥�
1960
Emma Lou Diemer (PhD) (see 鈥�49).
1979
Diane Abrahamian 鈥�86 (MM) was selected as a quarter finalist for the inaugural Grammy Music Educator Award. The Recording Academy and the Grammy Foundation, sponsors of the contest, selected 217 quarterfinalists last May from among music educators across the country. Diane teaches vocal music at Penfield High School near Rochester, and is the vocal coordinator for the Penfield Central School District.
1984
Patricia Zweibel has been promoted to counsel in the Washington, D.C., office of the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. She鈥檚 been an attorney in the firm鈥檚 political law group since 2008.
1986
Diane Abrahamian (MM) (see 鈥�79).
2004
Elizabeth Wells (PhD), professor in the music department at Mount Allison University in New Brunswick, Canada, writes that her 2011 book, West Side Story: Cultural Perspectives on an American Musical (Scarecrow Press), won the American Musicological Society鈥檚 Music in American Culture Award in 2012.
2011
Amy Garapic (MM) works in New York City for Make Music New York. She was featured in the New York Times in June for the project she organized and directed, Rhythm on Rikers. The project provided hand drum and music theory lessons to 10 inmates with little or no musical experience. Amy writes: 鈥淛oined by five colleagues, I entered the prison each Tuesday morning for two hours to teach about music, creativity, community, confidence, and learned even more about all of these things myself along the way.鈥� At the end of the 10 weeks, the participants performed two concerts to an audience of almost 300 fellow inmates. . . . Erin Gonzalez (MM), a mezzo-soprano, has been selected as one of four artists-in-residence for the 2013鈥�14 season by the Florentine Opera Company. Close to 200 singers auditioned for the program, designated for promising singers just starting their careers.
2012
Shawn Dawson (MM) has been named director of music ministry and principal organist at Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church in Springfield, Ohio.
2013
Composer Jennifer Bellor (PhD) wrote Crystal Skies for Orchestra, which was premiered by the American Composers Orchestra at the 2013 Jazz Composers Orchestra Institute New Music Readings.