The Eastman TheatreF U L F I L L I N G G E O R G E E A S T M A N ’S D R E A M

INTRODUCTION

2 The Eastman Theatre: Fulfilling George Eastman’s Dream

PART ONE

MUSIC IN EVERY DIRECTION: The Founding of a theatre, school, and orchestra

6 A Spiritual Necessity: George Eastman and Music

26 Frozen Music: George Eastman and his Architects

40 The Marriage of Music and Film

68 A Community of Listeners

PART TWO

THE MAGIC ENDURES: The Eastman Theatre after Eastman

90 Pageantry from a Giant Gazebo

118 Eastman School of Music: Howard Hanson and Beyond

128 Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra: Directors, Players, and Guest Artists

PART THREE

THE MAJESTY GROWS: Renovation and Expansion

140 Community Momentum, 1985-2007

150 A New Hall, 2004-2009

164 A New Wing, 2008-2010

188 Index

19 1 Acknowledgements

CO N T E N T S

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Painted during the full flush of early twentieth century romanticism, Ezra Winter’s four colorful paintings (below) on the left wall of theEastman Theatre looking toward the stage represent festival, lyric, martial, and sylvan music.

On the opposite wall, paintings by Barry Faulkner (below) symbolize sacred, hunting, pastoral, and dramatic music. Faulkner, who studiedwith Abbott Thayer and George De Forest Brush, would specialize in historical murals—he is perhaps best known for his murals forRockefeller Center and of the Declaration of Independence and The Constitution for the National Archives.

PART ONE

Music in Every Direction

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A SPIRITUAL NECESSITY: GEORGE EASTMAN AND MUSIC

mercial booking of films: “Here indeed is the epic of the manwho needed music, a man for whom music was a spiritual ne-cessity, a man who believed that the entire community mightbe enriched by the art which had brought so much to him.Here, then, is his monument, the beautiful Eastman School ofMusic and Theatre, for the enrichment of community life.Long may they endure.”

The other half of Eastman’s “great music project” for Rochesterwhich would “afford this community all of the benefits ofmusic in every direction” stemmed from his belief that “thetrouble with this country is that it has too few listeners. Thereare probably enough performers already,” he said shortly afterthe Eastman School opened and began adding to the ranks ofperformers. The schooling of listeners “must start with schoolchildren,” he vowed. And so when the “Director of Music inthe public schools came [in 1918]...and said: ‘Mr. Eastman, theCity is willing to furnish all the teachers that are required butit is difficult, if not impossible, in the present state of the cityfinances, to get appropriations for band and orchestra instru-ments...Will you help out?’” he was ready with a check for$15,000 that provided 250 band and orchestra instruments.The instruments would be owned by “the School of Music,which is about to be affiliated with the Rochester University.”Eastman realized that “these bands and orchestras in the pub-lic schools are primarily to produce performers but they alsoare powerful influences in training and interesting listeners.”

Two questions continue to intrigue. First, just how tone deafwas Eastman? He loved to foster that impression and gener-ally, everyone agreed with him. Once the Eastman School wasopened he bragged to have flunked the tests used as part of theentrance examination. And when invited to join a “company of music sharks” in New York City, he declared he“should not dare to mix up with them.”

At age thirteen, George Eastman bought a flute for three dollars and spent

the next two years learning to play “Annie Laurie”—badly. A second flute was

purchased three years later in 1871, this one for fourteen dollars as Eastman’s

neat and carefully executed ledger for 1871 shows. But his performing abil-

ities did not improve and forty-

eight years later he decided to con-

centrate his fortune and hands-on

efforts on training listeners as well

as performers.

Years later, Eastman’s neigh-

bor, George D. B. Bonbright,

grumbled, “The trouble with

you George is that you should

have learned to play the

banjo. No girl would marry a

man who plays the flute as

badly as you do.”

hat we do during our working hours determineswhat we have; what we do in our leisurehours determines what we are.” —George Eastman

George Eastman’s famous dictum became evenmore his own formula for living during the1920s. He phrased it as a rhetorical questionwhen discussing with a reporter his grandnew music scheme and its connection to thegradual shortening of the work day: “What isgoing to be done with the leisure thus obtained? Do not imagine that I am a reformer—far from that. I am interested inmusic personally and I am led thereby, merelyto want to share my pleasure with others.” Ata time when the five-day week was only aworking-man’s dream, Eastman saw it coming.He felt precious leisure would be wasted un-less new forms of recreation were provided.

Those who shared in his pleasure could findthe experience fatiguing. “GE is absolutely alcoholic about music,” an exhausted LillianNorton declared upon returning from awhirlwind visit to New York. Twelve timesin six days the trio of host plus “Parson and

Parsonette,” as Eastman called the rector of St.Paul’s Church and his wife, had trotted off tothe opera and theater as well as to the Morgan Library and The Frick Collection. Twice theyhad trekked to the movies, and once they en-joyed a midnight supper at the Roosevelt Hotel.“The rest of the time we loafed,” Eastman joked.

Eastman reinforced Lillian Norton’s metaphorwhen he said that same year:

I am not a musician. I come pretty close tobeing a musical moron because I am unableto whistle a tune, to carry a tune, or re-member a tune. But I love to listen to musicand in listening I’ve come to think of it as anecessary part of life... There are no draw-backs to music: you can’t have too much ofit. There is no residual bad effect likeoverindulgence in other things.

Later his young music school director,Howard Hanson, would describe in morelofty tones Eastman’s latest project, that ofcombining a collegiate institution for talentedmusicians with a community school dedi-cated to musical training from childhood on,both supported by proceeds from the com-

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Lillian Norton, “parsonette” ofSt. Paul’s Church, was a frequentwitness to Eastman’s need tohear music.

The Failed Flutist

An 1889 portraitphotograph of GeorgeEastman taken by thefamous photographer knownas Nadar

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PART TWO

The Magic Remains

For circular niches above and guarding the main emer-gency exits on the orchestra level near each side of thestage, youthful sculptor Leo Friedlander created heroicdouble life-sized gilded busts of Ludwig van Beethovenand Johann Sebastian Bach. Bach was not a favorite ofGeorge Eastman, who compared his music to “sawingwood.” Portrait medallions set into the balcony rail andceiling honor seventeen celebrated composers. Mozart isfifth from the left. The proscenium arch generously or-namented with masks of tragedy and comedy features ashield with the legend “U of R” supported on either sideby an unusual winged classical figure holding a torch.Interestingly, the most expensive seats in the house, theorchestra seats, did not get the benefit of all of this dec-

oration and had the worstacoustics to boot. Theacoustical failures havebeen corrected by the2004 to 2010 renovationsbut the murals, chande-lier, and glorious ceilingare still most visible fromthe balcony level.

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Bas reliefs (below) above the murals in the form of children and musical instruments were created by the German-born American art decosculptor Carl Paul Jennewein. Jennewein won a Prix de Rome and studied at the American Academy in Rome with Howard Hanson, BarryFaulkner, and Ezra Winter.

Portrait medallions set into the balcony rail and ceiling honor seventeencelebrated composers. Pictured at left is Franz Schubert.

(above) Ludwig van Beethoven has short tousled hair.

(left) Johann Sebastian Bach wears a curly long haired wig.

(below) Arabesque patterns of harps and shields, scrolls, griffins,and winged sea-horses decorate the cornices of the theater.

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PART THREE

The Magic Grows

Andre Watts performs with the

Rochester Philharmonic

Orchestra in October 2008

his is going to be a new hall,” said Christopher

Blair, principal of the a �ku stiks firm in Norwalk

CT, in describing the acoustical renovation of ven-

erable Eastman Theatre itself during the summers

of 2008 and 2009 in preparation for the RPO’s

grand opening on 8 October 2009. New in sound,

for both the orchestras that play on its stage and

the audience that sits in its reconfigured audito-

rium, Blair continued. He has been on the job since

2002 and worked on the stage renovation of 2004

designed by architect Robert Macon.

The Eastman Theatre renovation was done in

phases, said architect Craig Jensen, who became

the partner in charge after Macon’s death in 200x.

The work was phased because the architects were

working for a school and for the Rochester Phil-

harmonic Orchestra whose season corresponds to

the school year. “We had a four-month window”

during the summer months of 2008, Jensen said,

then had to wait for the summer of 2009 to con-

tinue.

The first phase completed in 2004 replaced the

failed shell of the 1970s designed by George C.

Izenour, prominent professor of theater design

and technology and director of the electro-me-

chanical laboratory of Yale University. There was

very uneven response on that stage: certain play-

ers couldn’t hear anything because there was noth-

ing over their heads and the sound was all

deflected out into the room. The ultra-heavy shell

was awkward for stage crews to manipulate and

the huge towers took up platform space.

The new 2004 shell solved these problems and re-

flected the architecture of the room. It is easy to

remove and completely automated. The rear wall

flies up, the side walls fly up and out—all in about

four minutes. The design of this shell is more

closely aligned to the closure at Boston Symphony

Hall in terms of the shaping and height of the ceil-

ing but it has some additional diffusive elements to

bring energy down. Acoustical ports (windows)

can be adjusted to vent some energy from louder

instruments such as the tuba.

“The RPO people are constantly complaining

about the acoustics,” Donald Hunsberger of the

Eastman School remarks. “It’s as hot a topic as po-

litical elections. The present stage with its new

shell is much livelier; it’s almost loud when you’re

on stage. It used to be that the best sound was in

the balcony because the sound sort of transferred

itself over the orchestra seats. Now, it seems, de-

pending on the group that’s on stage, it’s reversed.

It’s gotten better just from that Roman Forum

shell.”

During the summer of 2008 air conditioning and

infrastructure work was done and during the sum-

mer of 2009 the reconfiguration of the hall was

completed to further improve the acoustics. The

pit lift system was overhauled with adjusted levels

to make it more functional.

The theater’s interiors walls of Zenitherm—a ther-

mal material that insulates exterior walls but also

absorbs sound—were coated with polyurethane

in 2004 to benefit acoustics. (Since he’d always

P A R T T H R E E : T H E M U S I C G R O W S

Yoyo Ma performs at the

Eastman Theatre with the

Rochester Philharmonic

Orchestra in May 2008

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A NEW WING: 2008-2010

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