MA Top 30 Professional: Joan Beal

Musician
University of Rochester Trustee

Joan Beal, along with her husband, composer Jeff Beal, recently made headlines when they gave their alma mater, the Eastman School of Music, the largest individual gift since George Eastman established it in 1921. Their multi-million-dollar contribution supports the expansion of the school’s Institute for Film Composition and Contemporary Media, which the couple established in 2016 to support the intersection of music, visuals, and technology. “We saw that this is the time we need to step up and tell our students they matter,” said Joan Beal in a recent conversation, “that academia matters, that we believe in them—that the arts matter, music matters, and that what they’re pursuing at this level of excellence is important.”

After a 30-year career as a singer and recording-studio contractor for film and television, what Beal feels she needs to do now is “help other people find their way.” That she is doing, with her recent  largesse, by serving as an Eastman trustee, and by mentoring students. Conservatory Dean Kate Sheeran notes that Beal has been a particular advocate for composers and has made possible commissions and the formation of new ensembles.

When she’s not supporting other musicians, Beal says she tries to write every day, viewing it as an outgrowth of her own artistry. “I became a singer to communicate, and I write to communicate,” she said. She created the libretto for a new score (written by Jeff Beal) to the 1927 silent movie Sunrise, premiered by the Los Angeles Master Chorale in 2020; and she and Jeff are hard at work on a new opera. She also advises singers in the creation of their own one-act operas.

 If Beal ever tires of her many activities, it doesn’t show. “We’ve just got to keep going,” she says. “We can’t be daunted, and we can’t stop doing what we think is important. That’s my advice to our  tudents: just get the work done. Keep going.”