The Beal Institute for Film Music and Contemporary Media

The Beal Institute for Film Music and Contemporary Media The Beal Institute is the core of the Masters in Contemporary Media and Film Scoring curriculum at the famed, Eastman School of Music.

It is named after renowned composer, Jeff Beal and is directed by Mark Watters.

Attention all Rochester friends and colleagues! I am excited to be conducting TITANIC LIVE at the Eastman School of Musi...
02/16/2025

Attention all Rochester friends and colleagues! I am excited to be conducting TITANIC LIVE at the Eastman School of Music on Friday, February 21st at 7:30 PM in beautiful Kodak Hall at the Eastman Theater. This incredible score by James Horner featuring a full symphony orchestra and chorus and featured Celtic soloists! This will be a very special evening!!

So excited for two of my 2nd-year students in the Media Composition graduate program her at the Eastman School of Music....
03/03/2024

So excited for two of my 2nd-year students in the Media Composition graduate program her at the Eastman School of Music. Austin Keck and Dian Shuai will be presenting their Masters recital this Monday, March 4th in Kilbourn Hall. Austin's is at 6:30 PM and Dian's is at 8:30 PM. These two marvelous talents have worked very hard during the past two years and I'm so very proud of them! This follows my other two graduating students, Sam VanderWoude and Junwen Wu whose wonderful recitals were last month. What a privilege it is to work with such talented and dedicated students!!

A shout out to Eastman/Beal Institute graduate Garret Reynolds on the fabulous work he's doing with composer Ramin Djawa...
01/13/2024

A shout out to Eastman/Beal Institute graduate Garret Reynolds on the fabulous work he's doing with composer Ramin Djawadi for HBO's, "House of Dragon" series!

What a great way to spend an afternoon and close out a great semester! Eastman School of Music media composition student...
12/07/2022

What a great way to spend an afternoon and close out a great semester! Eastman School of Music media composition students in the Beal Institute composed works for piano trio and heard them recorded by three extraordinary Los Angeles musicians, Alyssa Park, Cecilia Tsan and Robert Thies. What a pleasure to experience this!! Many thanks to Eric Astor, owner and operator of The Hideaway studios for such a great experience and, of course, to Eastman for providing the funding! Bravo to my students, Rachel Wu, Karen Goldfeder, Steven Alcon Wyrick, Emma Most and Ethan Toavs for working so diligently on your compositions! So very proud of all of you!

Patrick Doyle's visit to the Eastman School of Music was a tremendous success. The members of the Rochester Philharmonic...
05/29/2022

Patrick Doyle's visit to the Eastman School of Music was a tremendous success. The members of the Rochester Philharmonic, under the leadership of Stephen Mulligan, performed his score to HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE brilliantly. We enjoyed an almost 3-hour lunch with my Beal Institute students. Following a screening of CINDERELLA, he gave a two and a half hour masterclass that was so well attended! What a treat!! Thank you Patrick!! Looking forward to hosting more composers at Eastman in the future!!

The Beal Institute is excited to be hosting the great, Patrick Doyle for two days. The Rochester Philharmonic will be pe...
05/25/2022

The Beal Institute is excited to be hosting the great, Patrick Doyle for two days. The Rochester Philharmonic will be performing his score to HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE live-to-picture conducted by Stephen Mulligan this Friday (5/27) and Saturday (5-28). Patrick, Stephen and myself will give a pre-concert discussion at 6:00 PM both nights. Patrick will present a 2-hour masterclass at Eastman on Saturday, 5-28. This will be preceded by a screening of CINDERELLA! See poster below. Free and open to the public!

Eastman alumni Joe Hagen, Max Berlin and Andrew Tachine tracking strings for "Berlin w/ Strings" at the Eastman West Hou...
12/03/2021

Eastman alumni Joe Hagen, Max Berlin and Andrew Tachine tracking strings for "Berlin w/ Strings" at the Eastman West House in Los Angeles, CA.

10/29/2021

My new mantra...

"I sit at the same cluttered-up desk hour after hour, almost unconscious of the thousands of movements of the pen in my hand. I am not tired. I am exited."

Robert Russel Bennett
from the Forward of his book, "Instrumentally Speaking"

For our final session of our Media Comp Forum, we had the great pleasure of visiting with my good friend, Emmanuel Frati...
04/29/2021

For our final session of our Media Comp Forum, we had the great pleasure of visiting with my good friend, Emmanuel Fratianni, conductor for the immensely successful, Video Games Live. My thanks to Emmanuel for his generosity and expertise! Wishing everyone a healthy, productive and FUN Summer!

The Beal Institute, under the direction of Associate Professor Mark Watters, presents “Visual Music 3.0: An Evening of W...
02/08/2021

The Beal Institute, under the direction of Associate Professor Mark Watters, presents “Visual Music 3.0: An Evening of World-Premiere Film and Music Collaborations,” Thursday, February 11 at 7:30 p.m. EST at the Eastman School of Music. Visual Music will be presented through livestream as a virtual performance.
http://www.esm.rochester.edu/live

Compositions from Eastman’s Contemporary Media and Film Scoring Department will be performed live-to-picture by a 17-piece section of the Empire Film and Media Ensemble. The compositions featured are from five graduating Master’s students: Joseph Hagen, Darren Huang, Philip Millman, Gary Wang, and Ruiqi Zhao.

The program shows off an enormous variety of styles, including the classic Disney short “The Old Mill” from 1937 and an excerpt from a popular “Tom and Jerry” movie, “Shiver Me Whiskers,” from 2006. Excerpts from two popular nature documentary series, “The Blue Planet” and “Veneficus”, will also be featured. Additionally. Eastman student Joe Hagen has created an original film, “Zoom Out” that explores humanity’s place in the Universe, and the program also includes an original film from RIT students, Taotie. Finally, the concert will feature two different scores to the same short film: “Somos Tierra”, an emotional drama about family, home, and the importance of traditions. The audience will have a unique opportunity to view a short, nine-minute film twice, with two different musical scores.

01/25/2021

Visual Music 3.0 is coming!!!! Mark your calendars! Thursday, February 11th at 7:30 PM. 60 minutes of original music conducted live-to-picture by five talented graduating Masters students and performed by the Empire Film and Media Ensemble (EFAME). Streaming the performance from Eastman's Kilbourn Hall. Classic animation, beautiful nature documentary footage and compelling drama will be presented featuring entirely original music. Streaming link will be posted soon! Stay tuned!

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26 Gibbs Street
Rochester, NY
14604

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