The Mannes Opera: Hitting the High Notes - The New School

Summer 2007
As another academic year begins, we relish
memories of all the successes of the past
year (described in many articles in this newsletter) and anticipate all
that we have planned for 2007-08.
Looking backward, we recall the moving concerts during 2006-07
by The Mannes Orchestra in Alice Tully Hall, The Mannes Opera
(the subject of a wonderful feature article by Anne Midgette in The
New York Times) receiving a most supportive review by Andrew
Tommasini in The New York Times for its production of Le nozze di
Figaro, the 2007 Beethoven festival, and so, so many chamber-music
concerts, master classes, student recitals, and other events. We are
proud of our students and alumni who won major recognition in the
world at large. And we relish memories of all the summer institutes
which received so much good ink in the press.
Looking forward, we are excited about The Mannes Orchestra
performing twice in Carnegie Hall. The November 8th concert will
include Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms (with the Riverside Choral
Society) and Bruckner’s 9th Symphony. For the February 19th
concert, Vladimir Feltsman will join the orchestra for a performance
of Bach’s D Minor Keyboard Concerto (which he will conduct from
the keyboard) and Schnittke’s Piano Concerto; after intermission will
be the first Carnegie Hall performance of Concerto for Orchestra by
2
In Memoriam
JOEL LESTER
Notes from the Dean
Jennifer Higdon (the Composer in Residence at Mannes for 2007-
08). There will be previews of portions of both concerts in the
dramatic Frank Gehry hall at the Fisher Center of Bard College in
Dutchess County the previous Saturday evenings. Do join us!
We also anticipate The Mannes Opera’s season (culminating in a
fully staged opera at the Kaye Playhouse on May 3rd and 4th), the
resumption of the Beethoven festival (including the complete cycle of
Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas performed by Mannes students), the
Ernst C. Stiefel Chamber Music series (MannesDowntown at The
New School, and Mannes UpperWest in the Mannes Concert Hall),
another “Mannes at the Morgan” concert on March 27th, and many
other events, including master classes by Misha Amory, Yefim
Bronfman (the Alexis Gregory Master Artist in Residence at
Mannes), Vladimir Feltsman, Pamela Frank, Richard Goode,
Menahem Pressler, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, and others (with all master
classes supported by the Peter M. Gross Fund).
And, of course, we know we will be pleasantly surprised by
students and alumni receiving major honors recognizing their
accomplishments – we just don’t yet know which students and
alumni will win which citations (!).
Thank you, friends of Mannes, for making all this possible!
EUGENE BECKER, devoted member of the viola faculty at Mannes since 1998, passed away on June 25, 2006. In addition to his
success as a solo and chamber music performer, he had a long career with the New York Philharmonic, joining in 1957 and serving
as Principal Assistant Violist from 1981 until his retirement in 1989.
NANNETTE LEVI HARRY, who taught violin and chamber music in the Preparatory and Extension Divisions at Mannes for several
decades, passed away on May 25, 2007. During her career, she served as concertmaster for the San Antonio Symphony and was
hailed by Time magazine as the first woman to hold such a prestigious position with a major U.S. orchestra.
JEAN P. MILANI, biochemist and friend of Mannes, died on November 17, 2006. Her love for Mannes and its students will live
on in the N.T. Milani Memorial Conducting Fellowship she established in 1997 in memory of her husband, an engineer and
devoted music lover. The fellowship provides annual support for a worthy conducting student who would not otherwise have the
opportunity to study.
JOY RUANE, devoted friend of Mannes, passed away on October 12, 2006. Her passion for Mannes and her extraordinary generosity
made an enormous impact on the school and its students. Mannes dedicated the February 27, 2007 concert of The Mannes Orchestra in
Alice Tully Hall to her memory. And a permanent plaque in the Mannes Concert Hall remembers her invaluable assistance in its revovation.