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RIGHT: Fabio Witkowski conducts the Hotchkiss Orchestra. BELOW RIGHT: Gisele Nacif Witkowski on the Fazioli, a gift of alumni BELOW: Acclaimed musician John Hammond performed at the 100th anniversary celebration.
Archives’ exhibit, Headmaster Buehler asked the School’s music faculty to do “whatever can be done to improve the school singing as a whole and in every way possible to encourage and stimulate the musical atmosphere of the place.” Between 1914 and the 1950’s, all Preps were required to take Music Appreciation. Instrumental students took private lessons from the music faculty or visiting teachers while Hotchkiss vocal students took part in interscholastic glee club competitions in New York and Hartford. By 1940, however, the School’s musical groups that had once numbered a dozen had shrunk to one: the Glee Club.
RESURGENCE In 1950 two new music teachers, Albert Sly and Charles Demarest, arrived, inspiring renewed interest in all types of music. Alumni often express appreciation for Al Sly’s magnificent organ music, especially as it sometimes coincided in Chapel with the welcome announcement of a School holiday. In the late 1960s musician and composer David Sermersheim joined the faculty to head the music department, for what turned out to be a 33-year tenure. In 1978 he was joined by Roger Claiborne, teaching piano, organ, music history and theory, and directing the choirs. In the year 2000, Hotchkiss had a 45-member orchestra and 15-piece stage band as well as string quartets and trios. After Sermersheim’s retirement, Fabio and Gisele Nacif Witkowski joined the faculty. Fabio heads the music department and co-chairs the arts department; both
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also instruct students in piano. Students can now take private lessons for academic credit as well as an extracurricular activity; as a result Music’s adjunct faculty numbers 20, including 18 instrumental instructors in strings, brass, wind, guitar, and percussion. Music is one of the offerings in the Arts portion of the Humanities Program, and currently about 50 students are taking music in this program.
TRANSFORMATION In 2005 the Esther Eastman Music Center opened to great fanfare and appreciative audiences. Built from sustainable materials and resources, it achieved a LEED-certified rating from the U.S. Green Building Council, the first Hotchkiss building to receive this distinction. The 715-seat Katherine M. Elfers Hall, a glass-walled music pavilion with a flat floor orchestra modeled on Boston’s Symphony Hall, offers
amazing acoustical quality and provides a welcome venue for performers and audiences at many School events. The Esther Eastman Music Center offers beautiful, quiet practice rooms for music students and performance and rehearsal spaces for music students, faculty, and visiting artists. Also housed here are the WKIS radio station, a Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) lab, and visual arts faculty offices. At the building’s dedication, Head of School Skip Mattoon said that the Esther Eastman Music Center was a “transformative” gift that would change music instruction at Hotchkiss. Its impact has been all that, and more. In fact, the Esther Eastman Music Center has changed not only music teaching, but the entire school.