Rochester Music Hall of Fame adds Eastman School to 2022 class 

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Two years of pandemic-generated postponements have prompted the Rochester Music Hall of Fame to freshen up its incoming ninth class with two additional inductees.

The Hall announced last month that the Class of 2022 will now include The Eastman School of Music — which is celebrating its 100 anniversary this year — and the Eastman Theatre. Kodak Hall at Eastman Theatre will be the site of the May 1 ceremony, held at 7 p.m.

The additions bolster a lineup previously announced as the Class of 2020 that includes The Dady Brothers, perhaps the area’s most popular performers for decades. John Dady will be on hand; his brother Joe died the year before the announcement of their induction.

Two other inductees are behind-the-scenes knob twiddlers Mick Guzauski and Michael Laiacona.

Guzauski is a Grammy-winning sound engineer and producer who has worked with Michael Jackson, Prince, and Eric Clapton. After helping establish MXR guitar effects pedals as the leading product of its kind, in 1975, Laiacona founded the Rochester-based Whirlwind Music Distributors, which provides technology for virtually every concert venue and tour today.

Also joining the Hall of Fame is jazz singer Nancy Kelly, a Rochester native with six albums and who was named “Best Female Jazz Vocalist” twice by DownBeat magazine readers.

Jazz drummer and percussionist Roy McCurdy, who was born in Rochester and studied at the Eastman School, rounds out the class. By age 17, he was playing with Roy Eldridge and Eddie Vinson, and went on to work with Sonny Rollins, Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, and Sarah Vaughan.

Tickets for the 2022 ceremony and performances start at $31 and are available at the Eastman Theatre box office and online at eastmantheatre.org or rochestermusic.org.

Jeff Spevak is WXXI’s Arts & Life editor and reporter. He can be reached at [email protected].