Composer George Rochberg’s new memoir, Five Lines, Four Spaces published by the University of Illinois Press, comes out at almost the same time as Montclair State University in New Jersey opens the doors to the John J. Cali Music Building. Inside this new building is the George Rochberg Music Room dedicate to their prominent alumnus. John J. Cali and George Rochberg were boyhood friends who played jazz together but drifted apart, going their separate ways. They meet again in this new building after seventy plus years.

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Gene Rochberg met George in 1938 while both were students at what is now Montclair State University. They married in 1941. After they moved to Philadelphia, Gene studied at the Hedgerow Theatre School and the Barnes Foundation and was actively involved in theater and the other arts. She collaborated with her husband on a number of works, including the monodrama Phaedre and the opera The Confidence Man.