Carnegie Mellon University

The Piper

CMU Community News

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September 08, 2011

Personal Mention

Noel Zahler, head of the School of Music, will premiere his original composition, “Le miroir de l'ombre,” for piano quartet at the New Works Chamber Music Festival, Sept. 11-16 at Symphony Space in New York City. For more information or to purchase tickets visit http://www.symphonyspace.org or call 212-864-5400.

Robotics Ph.D. student Heather Knight and her comedian robot, “Data,” appeared on CNN with Fareed Zakaria this past Sunday. They discussed how “Data” uses his sensors to influence his performance, such as what type of jokes to tell and what kind of gestures to use. Watch the video and read the interview at http://bit.ly/mPbQfF

Opera expert Rudolph Fellner, associate professor of music, emeritus, died Sept. 2 of leukemia. He was 98. A graduate of the famed Vienna Academy of Music, Fellner was a conductor, chorus master and coach, and worked regularly at the Kansas City Opera, San Francisco Opera and Lyric Opera of Chicago. He joined the pioneering television efforts of NBC Opera in the early 1950s, and came to CMU in 1964 to teach and direct the school’s opera programs. He retired from his full-time faculty position in 1979. Fellner is author of the book "Opera Themes and Plots," a guide to operas that interlaces musical examples into the story summaries. For more, go to http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11248/1172276-122-0.stm