An Analytical and Educational Survey of Howard Hanson's Dies ...

Sweden. He visited the studio of Nadia Boulanger while in France, where he met AaronCopland (Cohen, 2004).Hanson returned to the United States in 1924 to conduct the premiere of his workNorth and West with the New York Philharmonic. Subsequently, he conducted thepremiere of his Nordic Symphony with the Rochester Philharmonic. These twoexperiences brought Hanson to the attention of the president of the University ofRochester, Rush Rhees, and the generous patron and founder of the new Eastman Schoolof Music, George Eastman. Rhees and Eastman saw talent, passion, and great potentialfor leadership in Hanson, and appointed the 27-year-old as the new director of theEastman School of Music, a position he would hold for forty years.As director at Eastman, Hanson broadened curriculum, improved ensembles, andattracted new faculty. Previously, American schools of music were generally structuredon the European model of private studios focused only on one specialty, such asperformance or composition (Cohen, 2004). Hanson essentially established the Americanmodel of music conservatory in which performance is one aspect of a broad musiceducation program. Within the first decade of Hanson's work as director of the school,the student body diversified greatly. The number of in-state students dropped from 90 to30 percent, and the school witnessed a substantial increase in foreign and out-of-statestudents (Cohen, 2004).Hanson founded several new ensembles at the school, including the Eastman-Rochester Orchestra, consisting of the best musicians from both the Eastman andRochester orchestras. This ensemble performed on multiple recordings, many of whichwere of music from the Festivals of American Music that Hanson established. Most of