November 2023

There are two reasons for sending this newsletter out at this time. The first is to make sure that you know that the recital by Bethany Mamola, scheduled for Sunday, November 5, has had to be canceled due to illness. We hope that it will be given later. The second reason is to alert you to a special opportunity to hear a demonstration of the large Schwartz Center organ by our new University Organist on Monday, November 6. Details about this demonstration are given below. You will learn about the organ and hear it in a way that is quite different than in a standard recital.

This month represents a conclusion for student and faculty music for this semester. As you look at the offerings below, you will find a wealth of opportunities to hear music ranging from the orchestra to the gamelan ensemble, with a variety of different ensembles in between including ensembles of clarinets, guitars, trombones, and nine cellos just to name a few of the possibilities! There will also be a program featuring our student composers. No matter what types of music you enjoy, there should be something that will bring you pleasure. The programs for some of these performances are not yet available, but links to the programs will likely be posted later on the Arts Calendar, and can be accessed by the links at the heading of each article.

In closing, I want to note the passing of longtime member Regine Reynolds-Cornell. It was only belatedly that we learned of her death, due to a generous legacy gift she left for the Friends of Music. You can read about her life below. We are so grateful for her many years of support for the Friends of Music and in particular for her legacy gift that will be a source of continuing support for music at Emory.

With best wishes,

Gray Crouse

Unfortunately, this concert has been canceled due to illness. The artists hope to reschedule this concert in the future.

Ever wonder how the grand organ in Emerson Concert Hall works? Come to the Schwartz Center on Monday, November 6th at 12 Noon to hear University Organist Jack Mitchener give a demonstration of the magnificent Jaeckel organ. You'll learn something about how an organ works, what the history of the instrument is, and hear pieces that will show what an organ can do. From very soft to quite loud, the dynamic range is extraordinary. It's like a symphony orchestra played by one person! As Mozart said, the organ is the "King of Instruments!"

Note: For this demonstration, you should go to the choral balcony in the Schwartz Center. If this is your first opportunity to visit the choral balcony, you can ask someone in the Schwartz Center for directions.

You can click on the following links to get more information about the organ:

A general description of the organ and its donor.

The specifications of the organ, from its builder Dan Jaeckel.

This is a great opportunity to hear a variety of different student ensembles. The program includes a percussion ensemble, a trombone ensemble, a guitar ensemble, a clarinet ensemble, a piano trio, and string ensembles including a violin quartet, a viola quartet, music for two violins, a string quartet, a string sextet, a piano quintet, and ends with a cello ensemble of 9 cellos! The entire program may be seen by clicking here.

If listening to one pianist perform is good, is listening to two at one time twice as good? You can judge for yourself at this program given by some of our amazing piano students who perform some of the best-known pieces in four-hand and two-hand piano repertoire. Certainly the opportunity to hear this literature live is much rarer than for the single repertoire. 

You can see the program for this concert by clicking here.

The Emory Gamelan Ensemble gives their annual fall concert in the Performing Arts Studio. This will be the first opportunity to hear the Gamelan ensemble under its new Director, Darsono. As far as I know, it is also the only opportunity to hear a Gamelan Ensemble in the Atlanta area!

Aritro Ray, winner of the 2023 Emory Concerto and Aria Competition, will perform Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 1 with the EUSO in this shared concert also featuring the EWE. It is always a special treat to hear the winner of the Emory Concerto and Aria Competition: our music students are amazingly talented.

Composition Showcase features music by students enrolled in MUS 349 Composition. Works can include chamber, large ensemble, electronic, multimedia, and other collaborative projects. The showcase is produced by the student composers themselves, who work during the semester to plan and organize the event according to their collective creative vision.

Heralding the beginning of the Christmas season, this candlelit choral concert at Emory has been a warm and welcoming Atlanta tradition for decades. The tradition continues this year with choral music from the Emory Concert Choir and University Chorus and scripture readings by special guests from the Emory community. 

There are three services: Friday at 8 pm and Saturday at 4 pm and 8 pm. Tickets are required and may be purchased at the link above.

There is an upcoming ECMSA Masterclass for our students to which the public is invited.

Ying Huang, piano Saturday, December 2, 2023, 10am – 12pm, Tharp Rehearsal Hall

Dr. Ying Huang is the 1st Prize Winner of the Premio Brasil International Piano Competition, the Boca Symphonic Scholarship Competition, and the National Society of Arts and Letters Competition among many other awards. She will be performing in the ECMSA: Cooke Noontime Series on Friday (for which prior registration is required) and remains on campus to give this masterclass for our students.

We have just learned of the death of longtime member Regine Reynolds-Cornell. We were notified in October that she had made a legacy gift to the Emory Friends of Music. As we announced three years ago, Elnora Ruth Smith left a legacy gift that enabled us to establish a Friends of Music Endowment. That makes it possible for us to add Regine's legacy gift to our endowment and ensure that her gift will continue her support for the Friends of Music in perpetuity. We are so grateful for Regine's past support of the Friends of Music and for her legacy gift that will continue her support.

Many of you may not be familiar with her remarkable background and it is worth repeating her obituary so that you can all appreciate her life:

Regine Reynolds-Cornell, née Régine Pierette Alexandrine Gardivaud, was born in Paris on the 2nd of July 1929, and grew up during the occupation and the second world war, under the kind care of her pharmacist father Achille Gardivaud and her mother Pierette Miré. After her father's passing in the early fifties, she traveled to New York City to fulfill her civil service duty with a French bank, and was soon thereafter engaged as an interpreter and transcriber on the floor of the security council of the United Nations. She was subsequently assigned to diplomatic missions in east Africa and lived in Mogadishu, when it was still a paradise. There she met Bennie Reynolds, a pipeline engineer from central Texas, to whom she would soon marry in Nairobi and thereafter have two sons, Dennis Wade and Eric Lee. His career took them through Italy, Malta, Chile, and Spain in the sixties, but their marriage ended in 1970, by which time she had attained her undergraduate and master's degrees from the University of Texas at Austin. She was then hired by Southwestern University in Georgetown, where she was head of the Foreign Language Department while she completed and was awarded her doctorate from U.T. in renaissance history. During her tenure at S.U. she was revered and beloved for her caring and understanding nature, and was known by all on campus to have an open door and heart to anyone in need of confidence.

In the early eighties she met John B. Cornell, a modern cultural anthropologist at the University of Texas. They married not long before she accepted a position at Agnes Scott College in Decatur, where they moved in the mid eighties and lived very happily together during her tenure there as a very caring and respected professor in the foreign language department, until his unfortunate passing in 1994. Tragically, after having moved to Decatur in 1990, her son Dennis passed away in 1998. Despite her grief and losses, Régine gracefully carried on in her pursuit of renaissance studies and the arts. Upon retiring from teaching, renowned worldwide for her studies and publications in French renaissance history, and her vast research and knowledge of Margeurite de Navarre, she published a novel about la Reine de Navarre which was entirely based upon historical fact but recounted by a fictional lady in waiting, ''In the Shadow of a Queen''.

Madame Reynolds-Cornell carried on to be on the board of the Alliance Française of Atlanta and a docent at the High Museum for many years, and was an enthusiastic patron of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.

Her ultimate recognition was to be awarded The Order of Academic Palms (Ordre des Palmes Académiques) by the French Ministry of Culture, a national order bestowed by the French Republic upon distinguished academics and figures in the world of culture and education.

Madame Régine passed away from natural causes at the age of 92 on the 8th of February 2022... après une vie exemplaire et remarquable.

A big Thank You to those who have contributed in the past year, and especially to those of you who have contributed in the past few months and have even increased your level of support or are new supporters! There is no way to thank you enough. It was the strong level of giving last year that enabled us to substantially increase our grants to music students and faculty for this year.

Much of our support for students and faculty is through grants to provide scholarships for students to help pay for required music fees, to help fund undergraduate research projects, and to provide enhancements for classes. You can see the grants for this year by clicking here.

A special thanks to those of you who are sustaining members, either through payroll deduction, or a continuing contribution on your credit card. After two years of asking, our donations page is finally updated to make it easy to choose to give a one-time gift or a monthly gift. You can click here to donate or visit our FOM page for other ways to give.

If you have not yet contributed in this academic year, we of course would greatly appreciate your continued support!

The list of members can be seen by clicking here.

Please Note: It is surprisingly difficult to generate a list of members who are current in their giving. We measure our giving year from the start of our annual campaign, which is usually in July of each year. Some members give through payroll deduction or give more than one gift per year (thank you to both!) and we want to make sure we correctly acknowledge the level of giving. We don't have a set format for how names are listed and depend on member's preference. Sometimes we make mistakes. Please let us know if you find any errors in the list of members above. You can just reply to this newsletter and we will be glad to correct any mistakes. The date that the list was updated is given at the bottom. Among other problems, we are finding that it can take several weeks for us to get news of gifts.

This newsletter focuses on Emory music students and faculty. There is clearly much additional music being performed in Atlanta, including many performances at Emory. There is no space in this newsletter to give specific information about those many performances, and most of them are separately well advertised. All music performances on the Emory campus are listed in the Emory Arts Calendar (linked to in the top left of our newsletters). Below is information about the separate music organizations with strong Emory ties.

I assume that all of our readers are familiar with ECMSA, whose Artistic Director is Professor William Ransom. All of their concerts are free, which is certainly remarkable given the extremely high quality of their performances with professional musicians. ECMSA has a variety of music series, most of which are at the Schwartz Center. The full array of their concerts can be seen on the ECMSA website.

Of particular note is the Masterclass Series which is an incredible gift for our students. These masterclasses feature outstanding musicians who will teach Emory students in these classes. Moreover, our members are invited to attend these masterclasses. There are ten masterclasses planned for this year, with an impressive array of artists involved.

The Artistic Director of the Atlanta Master Chorale is Professor of Music Eric Nelson, and the chorale is one of the finest in the country. All of their local performances are in the Schwartz Center, and there is a livestream option for concert tickets.  In addition, all purchased tickets include a link to the livestream recording for one week after the concert. I usually view the recording at least once after attending the concert, surely a form of having one's cake and eating it too! For those of you who can't attend their concerts live, viewing the livestream is a great option.

Not only is the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra a great orchestra, but our students benefit greatly from the ASO, as many of the Music Department Artist Affiliates are ASO musicians.

The entire ASO concert series is detailed on the ASO website. There continues to be a lot of excitement about the ASO’s new (as of a year ago) Music Director Nathalie Stutzmann. An indication of her “rock star” status is this paragraph from her ASO biography:

Nathalie made her spectacular debut at the 2023 Bayreuth Festival with Wagner's Tannhäuser, BR Klassik observed having "never experienced such a standing ovation at a pit debut in Bayreuth," with Oper Magazin describing her as a true possessor of "the Bayreuth gene." The 22-23 season also saw her acclaimed debut at the Metropolitan Opera with productions of both Die Zauberflöte and Don Giovanni; the New York Times declaring it "the coup of the year."

The ASO responded to the pandemic in a very creative way, beginning a series of "Behind the Curtain" performances featuring musicians playing without an audience. The "Behind the Curtain" series has continued, with a very modest yearly charge, featuring a selection of recorded performances from previous weeks.  Even if you can attend the live ASO performances, viewing the Behind the Curtain programs gives an entirely different perspective than you can get from the audience. Unless you are a player, it is rare to get close enough to a player to see the strings vibrate!