Southeastern NEWS

                                                       Southeastern Louisiana University
                                           Public Information Office
                                           publicinfo@selu.edu
                                           SLU 880, Hammond, LA 70402
                                           504/549-2341/fax 504-549-2061
    Date: 11/11/99
      Contact:                           Christina Chapple   96

Editors: Photo accompanies release
SLU CHAMBER ORCHESTRA CONCERT TO HONOR STRINGS PROFESSOR
     HAMMOND -- The Southeastern Louisiana University Chamber Orchestra's Nov. 22
concert will honor the memory of Michael Galasso, a professor of violin who helped build the
university's string program in the 1940s and 1950s.
     The free concert, scheduled for 7:30 p.m. in Pottle Music Building Auditorium, also will
announce the establishment of the Michael Galasso Endowed Scholarship to benefit Southeastern
Chamber Orchestra students. The orchestra is directed by Southeastern music professor and
violinist Yakov Voldman.
     The Nov. 22 concert will feature works by Mozart, Bellini and Stamitz and will feature
solo performances by Southeastern music faculty David Johansen, trombone; Lisa Lalev, oboe,
and Emily Truckenbrod, soprano, and graduate student Miroslav Hristov, violin.
     Hristov, a native of Stara Zagova, Bulgaria, is one of ten string students who have been
recruited by Voldman, who is following in Galasso's footsteps by developing the Southeastern
string program and actively recruiting musicians from Europe and Latin America. Voldman also is
nurturing a new generation of young string players by founding and directing the Louisiana String
Academy, an arm of the  Southeastern Music Department's Community Music School. His
students have won state and regional collegiate artist competitions and actively perform with
orchestras and other ensembles in Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Lafayette and Jackson, Miss.
Recent string program graduates have been employed with the New Orleans Philharmonic
Orchestra, the symphony in Jackson, Miss., and in teaching positions in the Georgia public school
system.
     Galasso, who joined Southeastern's music faculty in 1948 as a professor of strings and
director of the university's orchestra, is fondly remembered by former Southeastern music
colleagues and students. The Tulsa, Ok., native was a graduate of the Eastman School of Music, 
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CONCERT HONORS GALASSO -- Add One
where he earned his bachelor's and master's degrees and, later, his doctoral degree. He 
performed and conducted throughout the area for musical organizations such as the Lake Charles
and Jackson, Miss., symphonies and the New Orleans Opera and for the State Youth Orchestra.
He also was an associate professor of music at Louisiana State University, where he headed the
strings program and founded the Festival Arts Trio.
     "I did not play the violin, but as a music education major, I had to take strings and other
courses," Robert Priez, a 1962 Southeastern graduate and Professor Emeritus of Music, said. "I
remember that he was a very fine teacher." 
     "He built up a wonderful strings program" that included outreach to Southeastern Lab
School students and the community," remembered James Wilcox, former head of the
Southeastern Music Department and Dean Emeritus of the College of Humanities.
     Dr. Galasso and his wife, Michaela (Mrs. Hulen Williams), a fellow Eastman graduate and
Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra oboist, reared their five children, Michael John, Paul,
Marianne, David, and Mark, in Hammond, where they attended the Southeastern Lab School. All
have continued their parents' musical legacy. 
     For additional information about supporting the Michael Galasso Endowment, contact the
Southeastern Development Foundation, 504-549-2239.
                            - SLU -
     This press release is available on the World Wide Web:
      www.selu.edu/NewsEvents/PublicInfoOffice/newsf99.htm