Eastman Trip

Paul and I traveled to Rochester, N.Y., this weekend to visit the Eastman School of Music where Paul auditioned for a graduate assistantship in jazz trumpet. The weather and scenery was not quite like Oregon - in fact it snowed every second we were there. Here is the view from our balcony:

When we checked into the hotel, they gave us a room with one king bed instead of the two queen beds which I had reserved online. When I went to the desk to discuss this with the staff, I was told that all of those rooms were full. When I showed them my confirmation print-out, they apologized and said that they would give us a suite for the same price. As a result, we ended up in a two bedroom, two bathroom, full kitchen, 1400 square foot suite for $89 a night.

On Friday morning, we went downtown to the school for the orientation meetings and the auditions. This is the main hall of the school of music - which is huge.

The main hall is in the oldest building which takes up an entire city block and is five stories high. It contains the theater, as well as rehearsal rooms, classroooms, faculty studios, and some other smaller recital halls. Across an alley, connected by skywalks to the main building, is the nine story Annex, which contains more faculty offices and the majority of the practice rooms. Across the street is another, newer building which holds the library, bookstore, classrooms, and administrative offices, as well as a couple of cafes and a restaurant. Down the street is the living center, a 16 story dormitory which is only used by Eastman School of Music students. The school has 900 students, 400 of whom are graduate students. 20% are from foreign countries - in fact, Paul auditioned in between students from California and Sweden.

When Paul wasn't auditioning, we listened to some of their student ensembles rehearse in the 3700 seat Eastman theater. This building is one of the finer concert halls in the U.S., with excellent acoustics and insteresting architecture. Here are some pics from inside the theater.

Friday evening, we attended a concert by the Eastman Wind Ensemble, one of the finest musical ensembles in the world. Here they are in rehearsal:

Afterwards, we went back to the hotel, where the director of jazz studies, Bill Dobbins, was playing with a group in the restaurant in the hotel.

Aside from the weather and the fact that Rochester didn't seem to be that cool of a town, it was a good trip. Paul has teaching assistantship offers from U. of Maryland and U. of Oregon, and is likely to get one from UN-L, so now we wait and see if Eastman comes through with an offer and we'll go from there.