Previous

||

This Issue

||

Next

AROUND THE QUADS

ALUMNI NEWS

Trustees

Mark Kingdon ’71 has been elected to a seat on the University’s Board of Trustees. Kingdon began his six-year term in October, as did Esta Stecher ’82L and Vikram Pandit ’76E, ’80 Business.

Prior to founding and becoming president of Kingdon Capital Management LLC in 1983, Kingdon worked for the institutional investment management firm Century Capital Associates. In honor of his undergraduate teacher and mentor, he endowed the C. Lowell Harriss Professorship of Economics in 1998. In 2003, Kingdon was awarded the Institutional Investor/Alternative Investment News’ first Lifetime Achievement Award. Kingdon, who was a sports editor and features editor of Spectator, is a member of the College Board of Visitors as well as the boards of the Harlem Children’s Zone, the New York City Police Foundation and the Academy of Political Science.

Stecher is the executive v.p., general counsel and secretary at Goldman Sachs. Pandit is co-president and COO of the Institutional Securities Group at Morgan Stanley as well as a member of the management committee.

Hamilton Dinner

Emanuel Ax ’70 (top) with legendary violinist Isaac Stern. Photo: Steve J. Sherman

On Monday, November 17, esteemed pianist Emanuel Ax ’70 will be presented with the Alexander Hamilton Medal for distinguished service and accomplishment at a black-tie dinner in the Low Library Rotunda. A Polish immigrant from Winnipeg, Canada, Ax studied at The Juilliard School and majored in French at the College. In 1980, the College honored him with a John Jay Award for professional achievement.

Ax won the first Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Competition in Tel Aviv in 1974 at 25. He developed a worldwide reputation for his poetic temperament and unsurpassed virtuosity, and has made numerous recordings on Sony Classical, performed with major symphony orchestras and has been involved in a variety of chamber music collaboration around the world. His professional collaborations led him to work with Young Uck Kim, Cho-Liand Lin, Yo-Yo Ma, Peter Serkin, Jamie Laredo and the late Isaac Stern.

For more information on the Alexander Hamilton dinner, please contact Shelley Grunfeld in the Alumni Office: rg329@columbia.edu or (212) 870-2288.

CCYA Awards

Jodi M. Kantor ’96, editor of the Arts & Leisure section of The New York Times, and Welly C. Yang ’94, founder and artistic director of Second Generation, will be honored by Columbia College Young Alumni on November 12 with the third annual Alumni Achievement Awards. The ceremony will take place at The Duke 42nd Street Theater in New York, and alumni, faculty, students and other members of the Columbia community are invited to attend. For further information, please contact Adlar García ’95: ag80@columbia.edu or (212) 870-2786.

Estrada Withdraws

Miguel A. Estrada ’83 announced in September his withdrawal from consideration for the U.S. Court of Appeals, ending a contentious confirmation process that had stretched for more than two years. In announcing his decision, Estrada said, “The time has come to return my full attention to the practice of law and to regain the ability to make long-term plans for my family.” He held open the prospect of accepting a nomination at another time, as noted in his letter to President Bush.

A Honduran-born immigrant and a graduate of Harvard Law School, Estrada was an assistant U.S. attorney under President George H.W. Bush and in 1992 became an assistant solicitor general under President Bill Clinton. During his time in the solicitor general’s office, he argued 15 cases before the Supreme Court. Estrada is a partner with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Washington, D.C.

Old Friends

Art Garfunkel ’62 has rejoined Paul Simon for a 35-concert tour that began on October 16 and runs through December, their first tour together in 20 years. The reunion tour is titled “Old Friends” after a song on their 1968 Bookends album and perhaps because the singers, who began performing together while schoolboys, are now each 62. The two rekindled their friendship after appearing together at the Grammy Awards in February, where they were honored for lifetime achievement.

The singers first performed together in a doo-wop group, The Peptones, in 1956, and one year later, as a duo, they recorded Hey Schoolgirl under the names Tom & Jerry. They split up shortly thereafter but reunited in 1962 and recorded their first album as Simon & Garfunkel, Wednesday Morning 3 AM, in 1964. They had numerous hits until 1970, when they parted ways, Simon launching a successful recording career and Garfunkel making records and movies. They appeared together several times after that, notably in 1981 when a free concert in Central Park drew a half-million fans, and in 1983, when they went on a world tour.

Rome Prize

Mason Bates ’00 and Jefferson Friedman ’96 each have won a prestigious 2003–04 Rome Prize Fellowship for musical composition. The two, who come from different sides of the musical spectrum, were among 31 new Rome Prize winners chosen in April following an open competition juried by leading artists and scholars at the American Academy in Rome. The prize provides fellowships, which range from six months to two years, for emerging American artists and scholars in the early or middle stages of their careers.

Bates will incorporate his knowledge and experience of progressive electronica, which he gained as a DJ in San Francisco, to compose an electro-acoustic work commissioned in honor of The Julliard School’s 100th anniversary. Friedman is looking to complete a number of large-scale chamber music works, including a song cycle and a string quartet.

Prizes are awarded in the fields of architecture, design, historic preservation and conservation, landscape architecture, literature, musical composition, visual arts, ancient studies, medieval studies, Renaissance and early modern studies, and modern Italian studies. Bates and Freidman are the only prize winners in musical composition.

Previous

||

This Issue

||

Next