Music at Yale Fall 2020/Winter 2021
Performance in a pandemic Raymond Plank ’44BA leaves legacy of support for drama, music students Fall 2020/Winter 2021 1
Voice lesson taking place in the Glee Club Room during the performance block. 2 Music at Yale
Fall 2020/Winter 2021 3
LET TER FROM THE DEAN
Dear alumni and friends, More often than not, alumni magazines are time capsules, documents of the recent past that appropriately recognize the accomplishments of graduates, announce new programs and major gifts, introduce new faculty and staff, and in general offer readers a sense of what is happening at the school. In the brief time that has passed since this issue of Music at Yale was completed, recent events in our nation have forced us to examine more thoroughly our most basic values. It was only a year ago that in these pages we continued our celebration of the school’s 125th anniversary and acknowledged some of the remarkable women who helped shape Yale’s history. We looked hopefully and joyfully to the future, preparing to send the Yale Philharmonia on a tour of major East Coast concert venues with the Yale Schola Cantorum and the Bach Choir, London. Plans to welcome composer and violinist Daniel Bernard Roumain to our Norfolk Chamber Music Festival and the prospect of new faculty appointments were among the projects we eagerly anticipated. Then the pandemic arrived. While we transitioned with remarkable speed to an online curriculum, the cancellation of concerts and all in-person activities left us with a palpable sense of disappointment and loss. Soon thereafter, America arrived at yet another crossroad in its deeply troubling and ever-unfolding history of racism. Following the murder of George Floyd, the voices of the silenced and unheard rang loudly in the streets and through our community, perhaps most clearly in the deeds, words, and music of our students who showed us that, even in despair, we must summon the courage to tell the truth and to reach for the ideals we have promised one another. We have made some progress on the goals outlined in our Commitments to Racial Equity, most notably in partnerships with Historically Black Colleges and Universities, specifically Spelman College and Morehouse College, and in our search for a new faculty member who will also serve the school as Director of Equity, Belonging, and Student Life. Still, we realize that the values that animate the Yale School of Music community will only be reflected by our actions, and that there is much work to do. That music was made in YSM facilities during the fall semester is a testament to the determination of the staff and faculty who sought to give our students the rich musical experience they came to Yale to receive. The herculean efforts of these colleagues, undergirded by their imaginations and experience, make it possible for us to return for the 2021 spring semester. You will read in this issue of Music at Yale about the challenges our students, staff, and faculty will continue to face in making and sharing music during a second term in pandemic conditions—conditions that have affected us all. As we begin the spring semester with uncertainty and anxiety, we must carry with us the resolve to move forward with the boundless strength of compassion you have shown me and one another. I believe that now, more than ever, the world desperately needs our voices and our music. Gratefully,
Robert Blocker Henry and Lucy Moses Dean of Music 4 Music at Yale
CONTENTS
4
Letter from the dean
6
Faculty and staff appointments
8
Staffers celebrate 40 years at Yale
10
Commencement production reflects school’s spirit
12
Music in Schools Initiative adapts, rediscovers mission
13
Norfolk Festival goes online, expands partnership with Daniel Bernard Roumain
14
Faculty news
16
Yale well-represented at Pulitzers
17
YSM alumni curate concert broadcasts, playlist for Yale New Haven Health patients, caregivers
18
Postcards from Confinement
20
Wynton Grant ’17mm to serve as Yale Alumni Association delegate, Yale in Hollywood music chair
22
Yale-led effort yields Zoom upgrades
26
Performance in a pandemic
32
Class notes
36
Recordings and publications
38
In memoriam
39
School of Music alumni fund
40
Cultivating the creative spirit: Raymond Plank ’44BA leaves a legacy of support for drama and music students
42
Honor roll of donors
Music at Yale is a publication of the Yale School of Music P.O. Box 208246 New Haven, CT 06520-8246 music.yale.edu musicnews@yale.edu
Editors David Brensilver Katie Kelley Designer Jenny Reed Contributors Katherine Darr Megan Doran Courtney McCarroll Lila Meretzky Donna Yoo Send us your news musicnews@yale.edu Follow us yalemusic @yale.music @yalemusic YaleSchoolofMusicOfficial
Front cover: Miriam Liske-Doorandish ’21MM cello in Yale Philharmonia rehearsal during the fall performance block Fall 2020/Winter 2021 5
FACULT Y APPOINTMENTS
Craig Cramer
Elaina B. McKie
Gerald Martin Moore
Dr. Craig Cramer joined the faculty as visiting professor of organ at the School of Music and the Institute of Sacred Music for the 2020–2021 academic year. One of the most traveled organists of his generation, Cramer maintains an active recital career in North America and Europe and is regularly invited to play some of the most important historic organs in the world. He has made 15 recordings for various labels and has been featured in performance on American Public Radio’s nationally syndicated program Pipedreams. Cramer holds degrees from Westminster Choir College and University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music, where he earned a doctor of musical arts degree in organ performance and was awarded a prestigious performer’s certificate. Cramer retired in June from his position as professor of organ at the University of Notre Dame, where his teaching was recognized with a Kaneb Distinguished Faculty Award.
Elaina B. McKie joined the faculty as a lecturer in musicianship and analysis for the fall 2020 semester. Prof. McKie is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music, where she is completing her dissertation, The Business of Music Theory: Problems of Disciplinarity and Canon as Manifestations of Intersectional Inequity. At the University of Rochester, McKie is the undergraduate coordinator for the Department of Computer Science at the Hajim School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Her previous experience at the University of Rochester includes work as an instructor in the Department of Music and the Writing, Speaking, and Argument Program. In 2019, McKie was the recipient of the University of Rochester’s Edward Peck Curtis Award for Excellence in Teaching by a Graduate Student. McKie earned a master of arts degree in music theory pedagogy from University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music and a bachelor of music degree in piano performance from Furman University.
Gerald Martin Moore joined the faculty as director of Yale Opera, professor in the practice of voice, and coordinator of vocal studies. He previously served as artistic associate at Carnegie Hall’s SongStudio program and has been engaged as a consultant to the conductor for opera productions at the Edinburgh International Festival, English National Opera, La Scala, Opéra National de Paris, and Festival d’Aix-en-Provence. Moore has worked with such acclaimed performers as Renée Fleming, Erin Morley, Sabine Devieilhe, Natalie Dessay, Dame Sarah Connolly, Magdalena Kožená, Elīna Garanča, Isabel Leonard, and Javier Camarena and has extensive experience and credits as a collaborative artist for opera and recital recordings and film and television productions. He has given master classes at the Merola Opera Program, Los Angeles Opera Young Artist Program, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, and Oberlin Conservatory of Music. Moore studied at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and at the National Opera Studio in London.
6 Music at Yale
STAFF APPOINTMENT
André J. Thomas
Adriana Zabala
Benjamin Schwartz
André J. Thomas joined the faculty as visiting professor of choral conducting and interim conductor of the Yale Camerata for the 2020–2021 academic year. He was previously the Owen F. Sellers Professor of Music at Florida State University. Thomas has appeared with such exceptional ensembles as the London Symphony Orchestra and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and served as artistic director of the Tallahassee Community Chorus from 1988 to 2019. He is national vice president of the American Choral Directors Association, and, in 2021, will become the ACDA’s first Afro-American president. Thomas’ original music and arrangements have been widely published and his book, Way Over in Beulah Lan’: Understanding and Performing the Negro Spiritual (Heritage Music Press), is considered an important resource in the subject area. Thomas earned a bachelor of arts degree from Friends University, a master of music degree from Northwestern University, and a doctor of musical arts degree from the University of Illinois.
Mezzo-soprano Adriana Zabala joined the faculty as associate professor of voice. Zabala has performed with such renowned ensembles as the Minnesota Opera, San Diego Opera, and Seattle Opera. A champion of new music, Zabala has appeared in the premieres of Steven Mark Kohn’s The Trial of Susan B. Anthony and Kevin Puts and Mark Campbell’s The Manchurian Candidate, and in the U.S. premiere of Philip Glass’ Waiting for the Barbarians. Prior to joining the YSM faculty, Zabala served as associate professor of voice at the University of Minnesota. She has given master classes at the San Diego Opera’s Young Artist Training Program, the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and the Janiec Opera Company at the Brevard Music Center. Zabala earned a bachelor of music degree from Louisiana State University and a master of music degree from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and was a Fulbright Scholar at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst “Mozarteum.”
Benjamin Schwartz joined the staff in June as a recording engineer on the school’s media-production team. He served in the same capacity, on a part-time basis, in 2017–2018. Prior to returning to YSM, Schwartz worked as a recording engineer for Arts Laureate, in Baltimore, Md., a position in which he engineered recording sessions and provided on-location audio- and videorecording and editing services at such venues as the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Music Center at Strathmore, and Washington National Cathedral. Schwartz has worked as a liveconcert technician for SCL Sound Systems and, as a freelance recording and sound-reinforcement engineer, has served such clients as the Hartford Chorale, Waterbury Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra New England, Yale Whiffenpoofs, and Yale Citations. He has held internships at Forge Recording and the Brevard Music Center Summer Institute and Festival.
Fall 2020/Winter 2021 7
S CHOOL NEWS
Staffers celebrate 40 years at Yale
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wo YSM staffers, Yale Collection of Musical Instruments Curator Susan E. Thompson ’79MM and YSM Director of Student Services Suzanne Stringer, have spent their professional lifetimes at the university. We spoke with Thompson and Stringer about their respective arrivals at Yale and their decadeslong careers at the university and the School of Music.
Susan E. Thompson came to New Haven from Louisville, Kentucky, where she’d studied oboe, music history, and acoustics at the University of Louisville. “I wanted to study with Robert Bloom,” she said, referring to the pedagogue who taught Suzanne Stringer, left, many of the field’s prominent and Susan E. Thompson musicians, including current YSM faculty oboist Stephen Taylor. In New Haven, Thompson also studied with Bloom’s wife, oboist Sara Lambert Bloom ’68MM. Prior to enrolling at the Yale School of Music in 1977, Thompson held positions with the Louisville Orchestra, Louisville Bach Society, and New Haven Symphony Orchestra. Having become interested in early music during her undergraduate years at the Oberlin Conservatory, she studied baroque oboe with James Caldwell and, later, recorder (Blockflöte) with European artists. Thompson’s oboe studies with Robert and Sara Lambert Bloom convinced her that Yale had much to offer. While continuing her oboe training with Ronald Roseman, who succeeded (Robert) Bloom at YSM, Thompson studied with faculty harpsichordist and Yale Collection of Musical Instruments Director Richard Rephann, whom she eventually married. She also took classes in the history of musical instruments and the art of continuo playing and worked as an assistant at the collection. Thompson earned her master of music degree from YSM in 1979. That year, Rephann offered her an opportunity to work at the collection full-time. Thompson’s work at the collection was born of need. Rephann and the collection’s associate curator, Nicholas 8 Music at Yale
Renouf, were keyboard players, the latter a pianist who earned his master of musical arts degree at YSM in 1971. “What was needed was someone who had an expertise in either wind or string instruments,” Thompson said. “I was invited to join the staff as a curatorial assistant in the former category. Since then, my areas of expertise have broadened considerably.” With the exception of a short hiatus in the mid1980s, during which she studied at the University of Chicago, Thompson has herself been an institution at the collection. “I’ve found my niche here,” she said. “The work has always proven to be stimulating, as well as challenging.” Thompson plans to spend the last part of her career at Yale “writing about select objects in the collection, furthering collaborations with colleagues in Yale’s Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage and its Center for Engineering and Innovative
I love the atmosphere of the campus. I like the academic environment.
suzanne stringer
Design, and preparing a book about the history of the collection in anticipation of its 125th anniversary in 2025.” An area native, Suzanne Stringer first started working at Yale during high school. Stringer’s grandmother was a university employee who worked in the Yale Commons Dining Hall, which catered special events on evenings and weekends. “I would waitress those functions with her,” Stringer said. While attending the Stone School of Business in New Haven, Stringer continued working part-time in the Yale Commons, waitressing and checking students in at mealtime. It was there that she met her future husband, Michael, whom she said “came to Yale as a freshman and never left.” (Michael) Stringer was managing the Commons at the time, having earned a bachelor of arts degree in administrative sciences at Yale in 1977. Michael retired from Yale in July, 2020 after 47 years of service.
Susan E. Thompson
(Suzanne) Stringer left the Commons to work as a secretary for the manager of the Yale Law School Dining Hall. After taking some time off from the workplace, she returned as a university temp, working in various offices until she was offered a permanent position, in 1981, in the Student Loan Office. In 1984, she moved to the Yale School of Music, where she worked as a department secretary. Since arriving at YSM, Stringer has held several positions, including administrative specialist and financial-aid director. In 1999, she became the school’s registrar, retaining her role as financial-aid director. Before files were moved online, Stringer “would physically see every student.” “I knew every student’s name and instrument,” she said. Like Thompson, Stringer has been part of the Yale community for more than four decades. “I’ve been doing it so long it’s my life,” she said. “I love the atmosphere of the campus. I like the academic environment.” Still, she said, when retirement is an option, she’ll be ready. q
Suzanne Stringer
S CHOOL NEWS
Commencement production reflects the school’s spirit
O
n the Morse Recital Hall stage, before an empty house, School of Music Dean Robert Blocker said, “the disappointment among and between us all is palpable.” It was the first time the YSM community had not gathered to celebrate the graduating students and the conclusion of another year of music-making. “Despair,” Blocker said, “is a place where hopelessness resides. It is the destination for those who have been completely broken by the world and its relentless disappointments. The artist must summon the courage to take a different, unmapped route, and that detour around the destination of despair enables us to push forward.” The school’s May 18 commencement was held online due to the pandemic, like so many other events in preceding and subsequent weeks. Still, thanks to a program as rich in tradition and performance as its predecessors, the entirely prerecorded event reflected the school’s spirit. Blocker presented prizes to graduating and returning students and recognized soprano Renée Fleming and pioneering keyboardist and composer Herbie Hancock, who received honorary doctor-of-music degrees from the university. The most poignant moments of the ceremony, though, were the performances that had been put together remotely, and the conferral of degrees, during which a photo of each and every graduating student graced the screen. 10 Music at Yale
The ceremony began with a brass fanfare performed by students, faculty, and faculty emeriti. A vocal performance by choral-conducting students and faculty of Ernest Bloch’s Avodath Hakodesh (Sacred Service), and another fanfare, seemed like moments of triumph given the anxiety of the moment. But it was video of a performance from convocation—eight months earlier—of Franz Schubert’s An die Musik that brought the YSM community back into Morse Recital Hall, if only virtually. Associate Professor of Choral Conducting Marguerite Brooks led students, faculty, staff, and friends in the traditional sing-along, which also featured faculty clarinetist David Shifrin and faculty pianist Wei-Yi Yang ’95MM ’96AD ’99MMA ’04DMA. The inclusion of the convocation performance of An die Musik, the school song, served as a thank-you to Brooks, who retired at the end of the academic year, and as a reminder that music itself cannot be broken. “What forms of musicmaking will you imagine for the future, and how will they be delivered?” Blocker asked in his charge to the graduating class. “Can music be sustained as a public art? What are the new collaborative frontiers where music research and practice can help repair and restore civility in the world?” q
YSM Dean Robert Blocker
The artist must summon the courage to take a different, unmapped route, and that detour around the destination of despair enables us to push forward. r o b e rt b lo c k e r
From top: students, faculty, and faculty emeriti perform a brass fanfare; RenĂŠe Fleming; Herbie Hancock
Fall 2020/Winter 2021 11
S CHOOL NEWS
Music in Schools Initiative adapts, rediscovers mission them?” His answers? Adapting to the moment “puts the musicmaking we do into context,” Zimmermann said. “This is what music means in the community, this is what education means in the community.” The students, Zimmermann said, “are there, they’re present, and they’re captivated.”
W
hen the pandemic sent the world online in March, the Music in Schools Initiative’s administrative team scrambled to figure out how to adapt—how to serve young musicians from the New Haven Public Schools at a distance. The initiative’s director, Rubén Rodríguez ’11MM, pointed out in May that young music-makers from the New Haven Public Schools were receiving just a “fraction of the experience” they normally would through the program, in which graduate-student teaching artists from YSM bolster the work of music educators. Soprano Gabriella Xavier, who’s now an 11th-grader at Wilbur Cross High School, is a member of the initiative’s Kayla Pressey Morse Chorale. In the spring, Xavier and her fellow choristers, unable to make music as an ensemble in real time, worked on fundamentals— sight-singing, pitch recognition, and the like. “We’ve all learned how to listen a little better,” Xavier said. Tubist and teaching artist Aidan Zimmermann ’20MM found himself asking bigger questions than those having to do with whatever specific musical lessons he was trying to impart over Zoom. If there’s no concert for which to prepare, “What is this going to do for the student?” he asked, rhetorically. “What does this mean? What can I give 12 Music at Yale
So, too, were students who participated in the initiative’s Morse Summer Music Academy, which, this past July, became MorseOnline, and, despite the limitations of making music online, offered a new course, Creative Music-Making, that was in large part designed by composer and teaching artist Alexis C. Lamb ’20MM and her colleagues in the school’s composition program. Seventh-grader Kayla Pressey was just one student who was introduced, through the new course, to the world of conceiving and writing music. Pressey, Lamb wrote in a blog post, “unlocked a beautiful world of sonic possibilities” through “collages of spoken voice, humming, whistling, singing, virtual instruments, song samples, and even her own recordings of flute.” “My biggest accomplishment with writing music,” Pressey said in Lamb’s blog post, “has been being able to put together music without having to ask for help, and also being able to make music out of things that you would never think could make music.” MorseOnline is a program of YSM’s Music in Schools Initiative, which is made possible by an endowment from the Yale College Class of 1957. Learn more about MorseOnline here and the Music in Schools Initiative here, and read Lamb’s blog post here. q
Norfolk Festival goes online, expands partnership with Daniel Bernard Roumain
Daniel Bernard Roumain
In 2019, the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival/Yale Summer School of Music, with the support of the Desai Family Foundation, commissioned composer and violinist Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR) for a new chamber work, which was to have had its premiere in summer 2020. It will now be premiered at Norfolk in 2021. In the meantime, as part of the festival’s Musical Bridges program, “which commissions new works that place classical chamber music within a broader musical and cultural context,” DBR and the festival launched a series of conversations about the composer’s forthcoming work, Can We Talk About Why the Fires Burn? and the role of art in society. The first of those conversations, between DBR, Festival Director Melvin Chen, and Sphinx Organization President and Artistic Director Afa S. Dworkin, took place in October.
which broadcast concerts from 2018 and 2019, which the festival had started doing online in March, when the pandemic arrived. As it looks to summer 2021, the festival continues to host conversations with DBR about his piece, which he’s said, “will seek to musically respond to the confrontations and conversations that have and are happening between Black men, people of color, law enforcement, and an undefined civic morality,” and the role art can play in exploring the systemic racism and police brutality that afflict Black communities and other communities of color. q Learn more about Musical Bridges and the festival’s partnership with DBR here and read DBR’s May 28, 2020, Declaration & Affirmation of Love for Black People here.
The 2020 festival itself was held online and featured broadcasts of performances from an otherwise empty Music Shed, videos of concerts recorded during previous summers, and conversations about the festival and its programming. The festival also partnered with WMNR, Fall 2020/Winter 2021 13
FACULT Y NEWS
Astrid Baumgardner, director of YSM’s Office of Career Strategies, gave a talk about collaborative creativity at the virtual TEDx Hartford in December. Her talk grew out of her YSM class Creativity, Collaboration, and Entrepreneurship and her recently published book, Creative Success Now: How Creatives Can Thrive in the 21st Century (Indie Books International).
Yale Symphony Orchestra Director William Boughton is doing research for a book about the life and music of Nicholas Maw, who was a visiting professor of composition at YSM in 1984 and 1989. In October, Boughton launched the Yale Symphony Orchestra Endowment Campaign, an effort that seeks to raise $5 million over four years to support touring, free concerts, instruments, recording, and commissions.
Following the release from the French label Palais des Connoisseurs of a double CD of preludes by Debussy and other works—a recording that received the Choc mark from Le Monde de la Musique, Chandos released faculty pianist Boris Berman’s album of piano pieces by Brahms. Berman contributed a chapter about Prokofiev’s piano concertos to Rethinking Prokofiev, which was published by Oxford University Press. Berman also appears, with faculty violist Ettore Causa and Clive Greensmith, on a Palais des Connoisseurs recording of music for viola by Brahms.
In December 2019, the Brentano String Quartet gave the West Coast premiere of faculty composer Martin Bresnick’s String Quartet No. 4, “The Planet on the Table,” at the Samueli Theater at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa, Calif. Bresnick was featured in October on Michael Shapiro’s podcast Interplay: Conversations in Music, on which he discussed his musical influences and teaching philosophy.
14 Music at Yale
Professor of Choral Conducting and Yale Glee Club Director Jeffrey Douma appeared as a presenter for the National Collegiate Choral Organization’s webinar “Strategies for Teaching Gesture Online” this past fall, and as a guest lecturer in the University of Birmingham’s graduate choral-conducting program. Douma, with the Yale Glee Club and colleagues from Harvard and Princeton universities, co-produced “Hand in Hand,” a virtual benefit concert in support of equity and justice in arts education that aired online in October and featured new content from students and ensembles at all three institutions.
The publishing company Doberman-Yppan will publish three new works for guitar by faculty guitarist Benjamin Verdery. The forthcoming publication will include Verdery’s set of three new songs, What God Looks Like.
With support from the North American Saxophone Alliance’s Committee on the Status of Women, YSM Lecturer in Applied Saxophone Carrie Koffman is managing an initiative to commission a new work from composer and YSM alumna Roshanne Etezady ’99MM for saxophone soloist and concert band. The work will be accessible to a range of bands from the middle schoollevel and up and will feature a virtuosic solo part. Only women and gender non-binary NASA members will be eligible to perform the work for the first two years, after which the solo part will become available to everyone.
Faculty mezzo-soprano Adriana Zabala will give a virtual master class for Tennessee State University in February 2021 as part of Nashville Opera’s HBCU Master Class Series. The class will focus on French song and opera repertoire. In May 2021, Zabala will reprise the role of Nadia Boulanger in Mina Fisher’s chamber-music play Nadia. The performance will take place at Lanesboro Arts in Lanesboro, Minn.
Want to see your news featured in the next Music at Yale? Send us your news – awards, appointments, recordings, premieres, important performances and projects, fellowships, and other successes – and keep the YSM community informed about your career. musicnews@yale.edu | music.yale.edu/alumni
Fall 2020/Winter 2021 15
ALUMNI NEWS
Yale well-represented at Pulitzers
Anthony Davis
Michael Torke
Alex Weiser
Composer and Yale alumnus Anthony Davis ’75BA won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in music, and two other Yalies, composers Michael Torke ’86 and Alex Weiser ’11BA, were finalists for the prestigious award.
Davis taught composition and African American studies at Yale as a Lustman Fellow in 1981 and has served as a visiting professor at the School of Music on four occasions, all in the 1990s.
Davis won the Pulitzer for The Central Park Five, which the jury described as “a courageous operatic work, marked by powerful vocal writing and sensitive orchestration, that skillfully transforms a notorious example of contemporary injustice into something empathetic and hopeful.” The piece, whose libretto was written by Richard Wesley, was premiered in 2019 by the Long Beach Opera.
Davis’ father, Charles Davis, who died in 1981, chaired Yale’s Department of African-American Studies and served as head of what is now the university’s Grace Hopper College.
Torke’s Sky: Concerto for Violin was described by the jury as “a composition that merges traditions of bluegrass and classical music through the musical instrument common to both forms, a virtuosic work of astonishing beauty, expert pacing and generous optimism.” Weiser’s and all the days were purple, for singer, piano, percussion, and string trio, was described as “a meditative and deeply spiritual work whose unexpected musical language is arresting and directly emotional.” Torke studied for a year with Jacob Druckman and Martin Bresnick at the Yale School of Music. 16 Music at Yale
Among the jurors for this year’s Pulitzer Prize in music was composer and Yale School of Music alumnus Kevin Puts ’96MM, who won the award in 2012 for his Silent Night: Opera in Two Acts. q
YSM alumni curate concert broadcasts, playlist for Yale New Haven Health patients, caregivers are under. Doernberg curated a second concert, which was broadcast in June in Yale New Haven Health system hospitals. Choral conductor and YSM alumna Stephanie Tubiolo ’14BA ’16MM led the Morse Chorale, an ensemble of the Music in Schools Initiative, in a third concert broadcast, and clarinetist and YSM alumna Seunghee “Sunny” Lee ’92MM ’94AD and fellow alumni created a YouTube playlist as part of the larger effort.
Photo courtesty of Home2Home
Over the summer, Yale School of Music alumni presented a series of recorded performances for patients and staff in six Yale New Haven Health system hospitals. Three performances were broadcast on the hospitals’ closed-circuit system. YSM alumni also created a playlist on YouTube. Interested in doing something for the Yale Day of Service, an annual Yale Alumni Association-led community volunteerism effort that was recently expanded to a yearlong initiative, YSM alumni Felice Doynov ’17MM, Florrie Marshall ’18MM ’25DMA, Jonathan Salamon ’17MM ’23DMA, and Allie Simpson ’17MM ’18MMA—a group that created the online concert series Home2Home when gigs and performance opportunities dried up as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic—curated the first concert, in May, to give back to doctors, nurses, hospital staff, first responders, and those in their care. “If we can offer even an hour of musical service,” Doynov, a flutist, said, “then that is the role we would be honored to play. … We just want them to feel that we have not forgotten them and their work,” Doynov said, explaining that music has a beautiful way of bringing people together and to a part of themselves that “they might have lost through stress or strife. It can take you to a different world”—the very reason many musicians take up the craft in the first place. Cellist and Yale School of Music alumnus Harry Doernberg ’19BS ’20MM, who began studies at the Yale School of Medicine in the fall, understands and appreciates the “tremendous pressure” hospital staff
Donna Yoo ’09MM, the Yale School of Music’s alumni affairs and admissions director, said, we are realizing anew that music can connect people. “Because we’re musicians, we’re able to do that,” she said. Joan Kelly, chief experience officer at Yale New Haven Health, agreed, saying music “moves people out of a space of fear and anxiety.” “You’re not sure what’s next” when facing boredom and isolation in a hospital bed, Kelly said. Through music, patients can “escape and let the melody take you to a different place.” Performances like the concerts YSM alumni organized remind those in the area’s hospitals that “we are in this together,” that patients and caregivers “aren’t alone.” “It’s been very difficult for staff,” Kelly said, emphasizing that music can help affirm that “their work is meaningful.” When a COVID patient is discharged from the hospital, Kelly said, the staff play Andra Day’s “Rise Up,” and “people cheer.” Even as many Yale School of Music alumni face an anxious future, those who quickly launched the Home2Home series and similar projects have shown the kind of adaptability that’s required of today’s artist. “That is something the Yale School of Music brought out of us,” Doynov said. “We created this concert series because there was a need. We will continue as long as there’s a need.” The Yale Alumni Association recognized the Music for Healing project with its Board of Governors Excellence Award. q
Fall 2020/Winter 2021 17
Postcards from confinement
Kate Arndt ’19mm ’20mma ’26dma, violin
In May, the school launched Postcards from Confinement, an online initiative designed to further strengthen YSM’s community through music. In providing a platform through which students, faculty, and alumni could express themselves, the school aimed to share messages of gratitude with those who have confronted the COVID-19 pandemic directly. YSM students, faculty, and alumni were encouraged to submit video of a musical performance, along with a short dedication to someone on the front lines in the fight against COVID or to a friend or loved one. The school edited and delivered each message, or postcard, to the identified recipient by email. The project was coordinated by Thomas C. Duffy, director of the Yale University Bands and YSM’s jazz initiative and artistic director of the school’s Ellington Jazz Series. Dozens of YSM alumni, students, and faculty participated in the project, dedicating performances to people around the world.
Libby Van Cleve ’87mm ’88mma ’92dma, oboe
Chuang-Chuang Fang ’20MMA, piano
Duffy and his colleagues believed that messages sent from personal spaces would reflect the wide range of emotions experienced during the early days of the pandemic— from sadness to anger, and from loneliness to hope. These messages offered the YSM community a way to reach those who were experiencing anxiety and fear, and those who were facing danger. q Watch and listen to Postcards from Confinement on the Yale School of Music’s YouTube channel. Wendy Sharp, violin
18 Music at Yale
Benjamin Verdery, guitar
Steven Lipsitt ’80BA ’81MM ’94AD, conductor
Jack Vees, lecturer
Freddie Bryant ’94MM, guitar
Peng Lin ’20MMA, piano
Kim Perlak ’01MM, guitar
Alfonso Aguirre Dergal ’08MM, guitar
Aaron Jay Kernis ’83, composer
Marion Schaap ’92MM, guitar Peter Constant ’92MM, guitar
Jeanne Golan ’81BA, piano
Van Stiefel ’88BA ’90MM, guitar
Wynton Grant ’17mm to serve as Yale Alumni Association delegate, Yale in Hollywood music chair
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iolinist and Yale School of Music alumnus Wynton Grant ’17MM will serve a two-year term (2020-2022) as the school’s delegate to the Yale Alumni Association. He was also elected music chair of Yale in Hollywood. “Wynton is an artist who has vast experience in both music and fields outside music,” YSM Alumni Affairs Director Donna Yoo ’09MM said. “The pandemic has devastated the music industry and forced many of us to pause and reevaluate our role in society. I have always admired Wynton’s creativity, tenacity, and entrepreneurial spirit, and I believe he will be a great partner in helping alumni navigate through these unprecedented times.” Grant has played on recordings by such popular artists as Miley Cyrus, Alicia Keys, and Shawn Mendes and composers Ramin Djawadi, Alan Menken, and Hans Zimmer. Among the soundtracks on which Grant has played are Disney’s Mulan (2020) and The Lion King (2019). In October, as chair of music for Yale in Hollywood, Grant interviewed composer and producer Stephen Feigenbaum (a.k.a. Johan Lenox) ’12BA ’13MM in an event that was held online. Grant is also involved in real estate and other entrepreneurial ventures. Please join us in thanking him in advance for his contributions to the YAA. q
Wynton Grant. Photo by Hannah Criswell
20 Music at Yale
Yale School of Music
WE’RE ON INSTAGRAM! The School of Music launched an Instagram account, @yale.music, and has been sharing special videos, behindthe-scenes visuals, and concert and event updates that celebrate our students’ music-making even as we all continue to adapt to pandemic conditions. Join us online!
Fall 2020/Winter 2021 21
FEATURE
YALELED EFFORT YIELDS ZOOM UPGRADES
Llewellyn Sanchez-Werner ’20ad 22 Music at Yale
E
ven as a careful return to some in-person learning and teaching got underway at the beginning of the fall semester, much of that experience happened on Zoom. Students and their teachers had been able to see and hear one another since the world went online in March, but their work was disrupted, even with the digital tools of the day. Where the tech world couldn’t make the pandemic go away, it did act quickly to make those tools better, in response to a loud ask from administrators at Yale and their colleagues across academia. In September, Zoom released a new “high fidelity music mode,” which enables users to turn off some features that hinder music-making while taking advantage of a sampling rate that’s much higher than it was previously. The new functionality was created at the request of more than two-dozen music schools in a Yale-led effort. When study and instruction moved online in March, faculty pianist Boris Berman and his colleagues were immediately “concerned about this form of teaching in general.” There are certain things that can’t be done online because of latency (a problem that’s currently without a solution), Berman pointed out, not to mention the loss of human interaction. Above all, he said, “the quality of sound itself was a huge concern.”
“There wasn’t a quality way of actually teaching,” Matthew LeFevre, YSM’s media-production manager, said. Students were recording and sending videos to teachers. “That’s how lessons were working at the beginning,” LeFevre said—the beginning a reference to the arrival of COVID-19.
The audio quality took a huge jump forward. They got rid of the filters that were negatively impacting live music.
LeFevre, Berman, and others at YSM began troubleshooting, experimenting with a combination of Zoom (for video) and Cleanfeed (a recording platform, for audio), seeking a sound “closer to reality,” Berman said. While those coupled technologies did provide a “higher veracity of the sound,” Berman said, using a combination of platforms was a little bit “cumbersome.” Yaffe had started a conversation with John Barden, Yale University’s associate vice president and chief information officer, about the predicament in which music instruction—provided privately, at community music schools, in pre-Kthrough-12 classrooms, and in college and university music programs—had suddenly found itself. “Music schools have a unique problem,” Barden agreed.
Yaffe had also reached out to Scott Metcalfe, whom he’d known since they both worked at the Hartt School at the University of Hartford. Metcalfe, chair of the music engineering and technology/ m at t h e w l e f e v r e recording-arts program at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, had been conducting audio-quality tests with students there and noticed that Zoom’s sound Most music teachers, YSM Associate Dean Michael Yaffe quality in general wasn’t adequate. “Everyone kind of said, “were completely unprepared” for the moment. Music had the same complaint,” Metcalfe said: We can’t use education, he said, was suddenly “a profession in crisis.” this audio. Just as LeFevre and his colleagues at YSM had tried using Cleanfeed in conjunction with Zoom, Metcalfe and his colleagues at Peabody had started troubleshooting using Listento, a product that allows musicians and producers to listen remotely to a recording session. The music community needed something more user-friendly. “To have a one-stop shop for both audio and video adds a lot less friction to the process,” LeFevre pointed out. Zoom needed to upgrade its service.
Ani Kavafian 24 Music at Yale
Barden suggested leveraging the collective power of higher education. Ted Hanss, associate chief information officer for Yale’s medicine and health divisions, previously worked, on
loan from the University of Michigan, for Internet2, a university-led consortium that provides connectivity for the U.S. research and development community. He tapped into that network for more support. On June 26, Barden, having tapped his own connections, sent a letter to Tain Barzso, Zoom’s product lead for education, and Brendan Ittelson, the company’s chief technology officer, that read, in part: “Leaders from a number of music education programs across the country have been in dialog about specific concerns regarding effective online music instruction. … There is a sincere hope by all engaged that we can maintain a singular-provider approach to these issues.” The letter, which was authored by Yaffe with more than two-dozen schools including Peabody, the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University, the San Francisco Conservatory, the University of North Texas College of Music, and the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music, among others, pointed out that “this issue is of immense interest to anyone involved in music instruction and performance”—including “music programs at colleges and universities,” “K-12 music programs in schools,” and “private music programs.” The letter explained that “Zoom’s current audio functionalities are well-suited for human speech but are insufficient to capture the complex harmonic components of singing and instrumental music” and outlined specific technological asks. “We were very careful to ask for reasonable specs,” LeFevre said. The ask, as Hanss explained, sought configuration changes to the existing Opus codec. “It wasn’t a huge lift for them to do what we were asking them to do,” Barden said. Barzso agreed, saying the request was “pretty straightforward.” “Our engineering team is very agile, very flexible,” Walter Anderson, Zoom’s senior product manager, said. Tweaking the product wasn’t a challenge. The advanced setting “already existed,” he said. It’s just that it only turned off part of the noise cancellation and part of the echo cancellation while continuing to apply sound compression.
YSM students rehearse with safety measures in place
Rochester’s Eastman School of Music, and the Bienen School, Zoom’s engineering team reconfigured the codec and redesigned the user interface in the settings menu. Explained in a blog post published on the Zoom website in August, the new functionality allowed users “to disable echo cancellation and post-processing and get rid of compression” and increased the “audio codec quality from 22kHz to 48kHz, 96Kbps mono/192Kbps stereo for professional audio transmission in music education and performance applications.” “The biggest change,” Anderson said, “was to run the Opus codec at a higher bit rate.” “We got pretty close to what we were after,” LeFevre said. “The audio quality took a huge jump forward. They got rid of the filters that were negatively impacting live music.” Using the new functionality, Metcalfe said, was a matter of “clicking a couple of preference settings.” The enhanced functionality “is, of course, a positive step in the right direction,” Berman said, a useful tool in an immeasurably disruptive moment. q
“We actually asked them to take away functionality that was getting in the way of the music,” LeFevre said. After a follow-up phone call with representatives from Yale, Peabody, the Juilliard School, the University of Fall 2020/Winter 2021 25
26 Music at Yale
FEATURE
PERFORMANCE IN A PANDEMIC
YSM faculty horn player William Purvis leads students in an outdoor rehearsal
Brentano String Quartet cellist Nina Lee makes music with students on a sidewalk in Brooklyn. Photo courtesy of Nina Lee
O
n March 6, just a month after the World Health Organization had declared “a public health emergency of international concern,” the Yale School of Music canceled a five-city East Coast tour that was to feature the Yale Philharmonia, Yale Schola Cantorum, and The Bach Choir, London. The latter had arrived from London 48 hours earlier, and a rehearsal had been held in New Haven. But with news that a member of the choir had been exposed to the novel coronavirus in London before arriving in Connecticut, and with an increase in coronavirus cases reported in New York City, where one performance was to take place, the tour was called off. The COVID-19 pandemic had arrived and a mad scramble had begun. With a finger on the pulse of what peer institutions were doing, and with guidance from health experts at Yale and federal agencies, YSM, by mid-March, had gone into lockdown. Everything “in person” was off. Life went online, including the school’s May 18 commencement.
Summer, normally a relatively quiet time at YSM, was busy with preparations for an uncertain future. In a period of intensive pandemic-related planning, the school was also reflecting on the past and the plague of systemic racism. “We must acknowledge and redress injustices to the YSM Black community and indeed all BIPOC who deserve our accountability,” the school’s leadership said in making “commitments to racial equity” in mid-June. “The many communications coming from faculty, staff, students, alumni, and friends have helped inform and enlighten us.” Imposed quiet was in juxtaposition with necessary disquiet, on YSM’s digital-communication channels and in its empty facilities in New Haven and beyond. 28 Music at Yale
The Norfolk Chamber Music Festival/Yale Summer School of Music effectively shed the second half of its name and presented, as its 2020 season, broadcasts of performances from an otherwise empty venue, videos of concerts recorded during previous summers, and conversations about the repertoire. The Morse Summer Music Academy, which is part of YSM’s Music in Schools Initiative, adjusted to remote work, just as the larger program had in the springtime. Young musicians from the New Haven Public Schools were kept at a distance from YSM, where so many in past years had discovered much about themselves. As unanswerable questions about making music in a pandemic rose to the surface of countless conversations, so, too, did frustrations with actually trying to make music online. Recognizing that online music instruction was hindered by inadequate audio, staff and administrators from YSM, with help from the university and more than 20 other schools in the United States and beyond, lobbied Zoom for an audio upgrade. The company, whose use had become ubiquitous, delivered an enhanced product in September, in time for the fall semester, which began with a mix of remote and in-person study and practice. As the semester began, all the planning that had gone into figuring out how to deliver an education to students carried an understood asterisk. The decision had been made to divide the semester into an in-person performance block bookended by two mostly-online academic blocks. The relative simplicity of that plan stood in contrast to the complexity of making it happen and making it work, which couldn’t possibly be guaranteed. Months were spent preparing YSM facilities for students’ return for the performance block in mid-October. Those months were
also spent living with the idea that music-making would now look and sound different for the foreseeable future.
peers were able to do so during the performance block. But “the students are resilient and resourceful and all about finding ways to do what they do and remaining part of a community,” he said. Wind players on opposite sides of the world are collaborating, Shifrin said, and those in New Haven are taking advantage of the school’s reconfigured facilities to safely rehearse for recitals.
At the beginning of the first semester, the school shared on its social-media channels photographs of percussionist Russell Fisher ’20MMA ’26DMA taking a lesson, over Zoom, with faculty percussionist Robert van Sice. Typically, Fisher said, he and van Sice would be face to face, two marimbas between them with no space between the Similarly, students in the Yale Opera program have instruments. Because he’d been at Yale for a few years adapted to a semester without ensemble-performance when the pandemic arrived, Fisher had access to the opportunities. The program’s director, Gerald Martin “sound bank” he’d built up during lessons with van Sice. Moore, and his students have focused on what they can. When he’s looking for the right sound character, Fisher Without the usual fall opera scenes programs to prepare can visit that collection of sonic imprints. Students who for, Yale Opera singers have concentrated on technique began their studies at Yale in 2020, though, were at a loss and prepared arias for performances that were filmed in in that area. In the fall, Fisher and his colleagues in YSM’s Morse Recital Hall and were broadcast online in December. percussion program, led by van Sice, took deep dives into That “gave them all a boost,” Moore said. “The year is not technique: grip, hand position, stick height—the “tiny little a complete write-off,” he said, pointing out that there’s things that go a really long plenty he and his students way,” Fisher said. And that can do and work on, though was all well and good, and the situation is far from necessary, and efficient. But, ideal. “The ones I feel Fisher said, “we do miss most sorry for are the ones The students are resilient the ability to stand behind who (graduated) last year,” him and watch him play Moore said, adding that this and resourceful and all and hear what he hears,” to moment has also been tough about finding ways experience “all the things for singers in the Institute that were made virtually of Sacred Music program, to do what they do impossible in the springtime.” who can’t participate in choral activities. and remaining What Fisher and his part of a community. colleagues missed more School of Music faculty have than in-person lessons was felt the loss, regardless of the opportunity to work as what instrument they play. an ensemble. “At least half Brentano String Quartet the reason any of us come cellist Nina Lee said the to Yale is to be in the Yale ensemble, which is in d av i d s h i f r i n Percussion Group,” Fisher residence at YSM and is said. In early October, YSM among the most respected of percussionists were permitted its time, saw a particularly to occupy the studio four at a time. The moment wasn’t busy year deleted from her Google calendar. On top of lost on Fisher, who asked his colleagues, “Doesn’t it just that, Lee had COVID-19, an antibody test confirmed after feel almost emotional to be here, in the same room?” As the fact. “There’s a certain reckoning when you realize the performance block began in mid-October, and the Yale that things have been erased,” Lee said of the loss of Philharmonia gathered anew as a string ensemble alongside performance opportunities. For the first month and a half smaller groups that had to leave out singers and wind and of the pandemic, Lee didn’t play her instrument. “The brass players, Fisher reflected on the previous six months— kind of hope that I saw was very, very far away,” she said. during half of which school was in session but no one was “The last concert I played was March 8,” faculty violinist making music in person. “The toughest pill to swallow,” he Ani Kavafian said in October. “Everything got canceled.” said, “was not being in a chamber group,” not experiencing Faculty pianist Boris Berman said the same thing: “I the camaraderie that comes with making music together. haven’t given a single concert” or traveled anywhere Faculty clarinetist David Shifrin, who kept his studio since March. Berman, like many of his colleagues on the open through the summer and joined recent grads and school’s faculty, are used to balancing responsibilities current and incoming students online each week to at YSM with performing around the world. Over the listen to one another play and to collaborate, said, “It’s summer—the first he’d spent at home in New Haven painful and difficult and challenging” for students to in as long as he could remember—Berman occasionally be kept from working together in person, even as their looked at his calendar. “Today, I’m actually in Italy,” Fall 2020/Winter 2021 29
he’d notice. “Tomorrow, I’m supposed to move [on] to Portugal.” Asked how it felt to not perform, Berman said “it felt like somebody who, after a serious injury, was bed-ridden. One longs for a normal activity that has been denied to him. I practice my piano daily, but as a concert performer, I feel out of practice, emotionally.”
part by students’ attitudes. Most of the students in the Yale Opera program, for example, have been “very positive and very understanding of the situation,” Moore said. And he is, too, even as the art form itself is largely on hold. “Since I was young, I’ve been hearing that opera is a dying business,” he said. “I do think it will come back,” likely having seen its performance model broadened.
Looking at an empty performance calendar himself, faculty guitarist Benjamin Verdery said he too felt “lucky enough to have a job. I didn’t suffer,” he said. A lot of younger musicians were “hit way harder than me.” Berman echoed that sentiment: “I feel fortunate that I teach, because still, I’m making music—in a different way, but I’m making music. But those of my colleagues who don’t teach, it must be very rough for them.” For YSM faculty, the nature of teaching has begun to look different. “My life now as a teacher has really changed from teaching music to being kind of a philosopher,” Kavafian said.
Composer and YSM alumna Caroline Shaw ’07MM is resistant to the idea of a whole new paradigm. “I’m still basically writing for live performers,” she said, “lessinterested” in adapting her work to the online world. That’s not to say the pandemic hasn’t disrupted Shaw’s process, which she described as one that’s usually “tucked into” her life. She’s used to writing wherever she is, while traveling and on planes, as opposed to sitting down at a desk and getting down to work in discreet moments reserved for creativity. Lately, My life now though, that’s much more what her practice has looked like. She’s as a teacher had to design a new routine and in doing so has noticed that “the has really energy of the writing period is less changed condensed.” While she continues to work with an eye toward a familiar from teaching future, Shaw understands that the pandemic might fundamentally music to change how some artists approach being kind of and think about their practice.
Interviewed by the Yale Daily News in October, pianist Rachel Breen ’22MM expressed some frustration with the limitations imposed by COVID-19. “Being a sonic art, music is particularly difficult to teach and learn over the internet,” Breen told the student newspaper. “Even with teachers making their best effort, musicians simply can’t receive the same quality of education through a philosopher. Zoom.” That doesn’t mean students That exercise reflects a big question: haven’t faced the challenge head-on. “How will our profession change?” Harpsichordist Jonathan Salamon Berman asked rhetorically. “If there ’17MM ’23DMA told the Yale Daily News are no performances in public,” he that “the loss of activity and purpose said, “some other forms of the a n i k ava f i a n has been harrowing—especially creative work for a performer will when the pandemic first began, it have to emerge.” For Berman, it’s was very difficult to practice or too soon to have any meaningful compose and stay motivated […]. But there is hope. answers. That performers can use technology to share So many musicians have started performing online, their work is of course a good thing, he said, but it’s not offering innovative musical experiences to audiences, clear how audiences will settle into that as the new way all the while keeping themselves busy and engaged.” to experience “live” performance. Berman also pointed out that “by and large, all these online performances have Verdery found that moving lessons online yielded some been offered free of charge,” hinting again at the effect the lessons of its own. Beginning last spring, Verdery had pandemic has had on musicians’ abilities to make a living. his students record videos of themselves playing, and What a career as a performer will look like in the future is he and they would analyze those performances during unclear, Berman said. Just as it’ll likely be a while before lessons. “I think some of them made vast improvements audiences can experience performances of big orchestral in their playing,” he said. The tape, as they say, doesn’t works in concert halls, for example, it’ll be a while before lie. Nor does the internet replace the real world. But, soloists can appear with those orchestras. New careerKavafian said, “We have to make the best of it.” Of defining moments will have to emerge, Berman said, “the particular importance, she said, is keeping everyone building of careers will have to be different. I do not know engaged with one another, “because we’re alone right how.” Time, he pointed out, will tell us, as it always has. now.” Kavafian is facing the moment with hopefulness. “A new enthusiasm has sprung among all of us,” she said “Looking back, there have been events in art history which of her faculty colleagues, an enthusiasm fueled in large turned out to be fateful,” Berman said. Paul Berry, a 30 Music at Yale
Students rehearsing for Yale Philharmonia with principal conductor Peter Oundjian
professor of music history at YSM, pointed to the French Lee said, “I refused to say that this catastrophe can separate Revolution as a moment that’s analogous to the current us.” She began organizing outdoor chamber music readings one. “Technological innovation had already made printed on the sidewalks of Brooklyn, gatherings primarily music cheaper and instruments more widely available designed to give students—from Yale, The Juilliard before the Bastille fell,” Berry said, “and middle-class School, the Manhattan School of Music, or wherever—a consumers were already playing music in the home, but chance to play for passersby and to remind the world that the sudden collapse of traditional systems of courtly they exist. “I can get people connected again,” Lee said she patronage in the wake of the Revolution accelerated those realized. “I can’t tell you how healing it was, in a way that trends and made them I’d never imagined.” The message dominant factors in 19thto students: “We won’t forget you.” century composition and Those informal performances performance.” In certain also had plenty to offer the ways, Berman said, the passersby who gathered to listen. pandemic has been a “huge “People were crying,” Lee said. equalizer.” Superstars who could command fees “What all of us are finding of tens of thousands of in our own way, is how our dollars, he said, and young chosen profession speaks to artists who’d perform us,” YSM Dean Robert Blocker for a couple of hundred, said. “The good in this is that were suddenly in the it also allows us to look at same boat. As in 1789, others with different eyes.” Berry said, the question is what that boat looks YSM student practices during the fall semester performance block It’s a heavy moment, to be like, and whether it can sure. “There’s definitely float. Moore thinks the pandemic could dissuade a lot of fear,” Shaw said, pointing not only to the some from pursuing a career in performance. uncertain future of an industry but to a moment of racial reckoning and political turmoil. For Shaw, there are some foundational things about how we experience music together that we’ll have Despite there being “a real sense of loss” in the music to find a way back to—because it’s important. “I’m community, Shifrin said, “everybody does have the writing music now toward that moment,” she sense that this is not forever.” Moore agreed, saying, said. “I really believe in in-person music-making.” “People are aware that this will eventually end.” That resonated with Lee, who found something anew in herself during the pandemic. “My best version of myself is when I’m creating something” or experiencing the creation of something, she said. A few months into the lockdown,
“It’s not the end of music-making,” Verdery pointed out. “It is music-making,” Blocker added, “that the world turns to for reassurance, for hope.” q Fall 2020/Winter 2021 31
CL ASS NOTES
Dante Anzolini
Wayman Chin
Elizabeth Suh Lane
1970
Wayman Chin ’83MM stepped down in July from his position as dean of the Conservatory at the Longy School of Music. Chin was named dean emeritus in recognition of his 12 years of service. Chin continues to serve on the piano and collaborative piano faculty at Longy.
’80MM retired from his position as principal timpanist of the Springfield Symphony in Massachusetts. During the pandemic, Dr. Kluger has organized his performing experience into teaching material for aspiring timpanists and percussionists.
The Paling of the Stars, a Christmas work by Susan Brown ’76MM, was slated to be performed by the St. Andrew’s (Episcopal) Church Choir during two virtual services in December. The composition is a choral setting of the Rossetti poem of the same name and features celeste accompaniment. Prior to the pandemic, Anita MacDonald ’70MM was an active musician in her local church in the Bahamas. Among other roles, she sang soprano solos and played piano and French horn for musical services. Oboist Susan E. Thompson ’79MM, curator of the Yale Collection of Musical Instruments, was elected to the Board of Directors of the Sigal Music Museum (formerly the Carolina Music Museum) in Greenville, S.C.
1980 In July, conductor Dante Anzolini ’89MM ’90mma ’97dma led the Guayaquil Symphony Orchestra of Ecuador in the first live concert by a professional ensemble in South America since the start of the pandemic.
Timpanist Peter Derheimer ’88MM played six concerts in Sevilla, Spain, and was slated to perform Cosí fan tutte at Teatro Maestranza in Sevilla in November. Spectrum Concerts Berlin, the chamber music ensemble founded by cellist Frank Dodge ’81MM, released two new albums on the Naxos label of music by composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold. In January, to celebrate the beginning of its 33rd season, Spectrum Concerts Berlin will release Shall We Dance, a book that chronicles the ensemble’s history. In July, The Rev. Dr. Paul Jacobson ’83MM ’83mar became the rector of Grace Episcopal Church in Muncie, Ind. He departs positions as minister of music and organist at First Church Congregational in Fairfield (Conn.) and priest in charge at Grace Episcopal Church in Trumbull (Conn). Percussionist and former research scientist Martin Kluger ’78ba
32 Music at Yale
Led by founder, artistic director, and violinist Elizabeth Suh Lane ’89MM, the critically acclaimed Bach Aria Soloists celebrates 20 years during the 2020–2021 season. The Missouri Arts Council named the Bach Aria Soloists the Arts Organization of 2020. Conductor Stuart Malina ’87MM recently renewed his contract with the Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra through the 2022–2023 season, extending a distinguished 20-year tenure. Tubist Antonio Underwood ’87MM was featured in a Fulbright “Snapshot.” The feature highlighted Underwood’s work in jazz education in Serbia and with Black Lives Matter. “Lullaby,” an aria from the opera The Magic Hummingbird by Joseph Waters ’82MM, was published in music-video form on YouTube.
1990 In 2019, flutist Christine Gangelhoff ’95ad and composer Carlos Carrillo
Jennifer Litwin
José-Luis Novo
Conor Nelson
’96MM co-organized Puentes Caribeños (Caribbean Bridges), a symposium on Caribbean art music. The symposium focused on strengthening bonds between composers, performers, artists, and scholars throughout the Caribbean and its diaspora.
Entering his 15th season as music director and conductor of the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra, violinist José-Luis Novo ’90MM ’92mma is now the longest-serving music director in the organization’s history. He is also resident conductor at the Eastern Music Festival and recently concluded a 13-year tenure as music director of the Binghamton Philharmonic, in Binghamton, NY.
of Michigan Musical Society.
Paul Cienniwa ’97MM ’98mma ’03dma was appointed executive director of the Binghamton Philharmonic, in Binghamton, NY. He previously served as director of music ministries at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Delray Beach, Fla. Soprano Jennifer Litwin ’94MM, a financial-services executive with decades of experience, is joining The Forem to address growing demand for diversity and inclusion solutions in the professional training sector. Litwin previously served as senior vice president and head of relationship management at Greenwich Associates. Alexander Mandl ’94MM ’96ad, assistant concertmaster and Artistic Board president of the Milwaukee Chamber Orchestra, has assumed duties as conductor of the ensemble. Dr. Mandl was also appointed conductor of the Wisconsin Medical College Orchestra.
Percussionist and University of Vermont Professor of Music D. Thomas Toner ’91MM ’92ad premiered the solo-percussion piece Nails and Dreams at Burlington City Arts, in Burlington, VT. The composition was written to accompany the multimedia exhibit Job Site, which was created by Yale School of Architecture alumni Alisa Dworsky and Bill Ferehawk.
2000 A amnesia de Clío, a new opera by Fernando Buide ‘09MMA ‘13DMA, was premiered in November 2019 in Spain. The work, which is the first Galician opera of the 21st century, was broadcast in May on Galician Public Television (TVG). Horn player Cayenne Harris ’00MM was appointed vice president for education and community engagement at the University
Composer Robinson McClellan ’06MM ’07mma ’11dma joined the Morgan Library & Museum as an assistant curator of music manuscripts and printed music. Violinist Sami Merdinian ’06MM ’07ad is a co-host with tubist Ian Loew ’05MM of Down the Pit, a new podcast that delves into the world of classical music, bringing the world’s leading conductors, composers, and performers into discussion to demystify and promote increased accessibility to the art form. Conor Nelson ’05MM was appointed to the faculty of the Mead Witter School of Music at the University of Wisconsin-Madison as assistant professor of flute. He will also serve as flutist of the Wingra Wind Quintet. Trombonist Cary Porter ’05MM will serve as performing arts chair and director of bands at the newly opened Shanghai Huaer Collegiate School in Kunshan, China, a private boarding and day school that focuses on bringing an American education model to an internationally diverse group of students. Erika Schafer ’01MM, associate professor of trumpet at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, is Fall 2020/Winter 2021 33
Katherine Balch
Lindsay Garritson
Ron Cohen Mann
a founding member of the Fuze Trio with flutist Ronda Benson Ford and pianist Jenny Parker. The trio was an ensemble-in-residence at East Carolina University in January 2020 as part of the North Carolina NewMusic Initiative.
Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. Last year, she made her debut with the Lyric Opera of Kansas City and was a member of LA Opera’s DomingoColburn-Stein Young Artist Program. D’Eramo was also a member of the Santa Fe Opera’s Apprentice Singer Program, where she won the Career Grant Award in 2018 and 2019.
and the Grammy Awards ceremony.
The Jubilation Foundation named tubist Daniel Trahey ’03MM a 2020 Fellowship Recipient. Mingzhe Wang ’03MM ’04ad ’06mma ’12dma was reappointed associate professor of clarinet, with tenure, at the Michigan State University College of Music.
2010 Samuel Adams ’10MM was named composer-in-residence at the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra for the 2020–2021 season. While in Amsterdam, Adams will collaborate with the Alma Quartet, the Asko|Schönberg ensemble, and The John Adams Institute and will have a new work performed by conductor Karina Canellakis and the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic. Composer Katherine Balch ’16MM won a 2020–2021 Rome Prize. During her residency, Balch will compose a series of chamber and solo compositions that focus on the double bass. Soprano Sylvia D’Eramo ’18MM is currently a member of the 34 Music at Yale
In April, pianist Jeannette Fang ’09MM ’11ad premiered a new work for solo piano by Polina Nazaykinskaya ’10MM ’13ad in a new music video directed by actor and filmographer Tracy Fisher. The work immerses one in a cathartic journey of struggle and victory. In November 2019, pianist Lindsay Garritson ’10MM ’11ad made her Carnegie Hall debut in a recital that featured a performance of Carl Vine’s Piano Sonata No. 4. Garritson also gave premieres and workshops in January 2020 at the Royal College of Music in London and the Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya in Barcelona. Over the past year, violinist Wynton Grant ’17MM has recorded film scores by Hans Zimmer, Harry Gregson-Williams, Alan Menken, Terence Blanchard, and many other composers. Grant has also performed with such artists as Alicia Keys, Ms. Lauryn Hill, and Shawn Mendes, at venues and events including the Hollywood Bowl, Staples Center,
Composer Molly Joyce ’17MM was interviewed for an article published by NewMusicBox in February. The article, titled “Molly Joyce: Strength in Vulnerability,” features discussion of disability, virtuosity, and interdisciplinary collaborations. As the winner of the 2020 Garth Newel Music Center’s International Composition Competition, Jordan Kuspa ’10MM ’12mma ’17dma had his work Collideoscope premiered by the Garth Newel Piano Quartet in August as part of the ensemble’s Virtual Summer Concert Series. Kuspa was also awarded the Glovie and Dick Lynn New Music Prize for a future short-term residency at the Garth Newel Music Center. Mysterious Butterflies by composer Ryan Lindveit ’19MM ’20mma was the winner of the Wind Bands Association of Singapore’s Band Composition Contest. The U.S. Navy Concert Band plans to perform the piece in the United States once concerts have resumed. Oboist Ron Cohen Mann ’16ad has been named one of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s “Hot 30 Under 30 Classical Musicians” of 2020. Guitarist Alexander Milovanov ’13ad won a Silver Medal at the Vienna International Music
Hillary Simms
Lucas Wong
Competition. Milovanov competed with a variety of string players in the professional category.
and violinist Yurie Mitsuhashi ’16MM. The concert benefited the Columbia County Sanctuary Movement’s “Mano A Mano Mutual Aid Fund,” which provides legal and financial assistance to undocumented immigrants during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Baritone Dean Murphy ’17MM competed in the finals of the 2020 Tenor Viñas Competition in Barcelona. Frances Pollock ’19MM ’24dma was the 2020 composer in residence at the Chautauqua Opera Company. Composer Hilary Purrington ’17mma received a Toulmin Commission through the Women Composers Readings and Commissions program, an initiative of the League of the American Orchestras, in partnership with American Composers Orchestra and supported by the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation. Pianist Melody Quah ’13ad joined the Penn State School of Music as assistant professor of music. Dr. Quah will teach graduate and undergraduate piano students and piano-literature courses. Trombonist Hillary Simms ’18mm was named one of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s “Hot 30 Under 30 Classical Musicians” of 2020. Double-bassist Luke Stence ’16MM ’17mma produced a livestreamed fundraising event titled “The Sanctuary Concert Project” with bassoonist Carl Gardner ’16MM
Pianist Lucas Wong ’06MM ’07mma ’12dma recently launched the new startup 4D Piano, the world’s first fully equipped browserapp piano that enables highquality self-, peer-, and remoteaccompanying with low-latency. In February, Chengcheng Yao ’17mma was the featured soloist in a performance, with Marin Alsop ’77 ’17DMH and the Peabody Symphony Orchestra, of Bartók’s Piano Concerto No. 2.
2020 The Elm Street Brass—trumpeters Kenny Chauby ’20MM and Melissa Muñoz ’20MM, horn player Olivia Martinez ’21MM, trombonist Lyman McBride ’20MM, and tubist Aidan Zimmermann ’20MM—were semifinalists at the 2020 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. They also received the American Brass Quintet Prize for the highest scoring brass ensemble in the competition. Harpsichordist Jonathan Salamon ’17MM ’23dma was
Jonathan Salamon
awarded a Fulbright grant to study in the Netherlands next year to research 18th century Sephardic music at the Ets Haim library in Amsterdam and to work with historical keyboard professors at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam. Choral conductor Daniel Tucker ’20MM accepted a full-time position as director of sacred music and liturgy at St. Thérèse Little Flower Catholic Church in South Bend, Ind.
In January, pianist Mihae Lee celebrated 10 years as artistic director of the Essex Winter Series, in Essex, Conn., with a concert that featured YSM faculty violinist Ani Kavafian and eight Yale School of Music alumni in a performance of Copland’s Appalachian Spring (1944) and Schubert’s “Trout” Quintet, D. 667. Participating YSM alumni had previously been featured through the series’ Fenton Brown Emerging Artists program. They are: Yoobin Son ’09MM, flute Romie de Guise-Langlois ’06MM ’07AD, clarinet Adrian Morejon ’05MM ’06AD, bassoon Katie Hyun ’09AD, violin Edson Scheid ’11MM ’12AD, violin Joann Whang ’09MM, cello Mihai Marica ’04CERT ’07MM ’08AD, cello Joe Magar ’05MM ’06MM, double bass
RECORDINGS AND PUBLIC ATIONS
Composer Jeremy Beck ’92MMA ’95DMA released his sixth album on the Innova label. The recording, by moonlight, features a variety of chamber, orchestral, and vocal music and includes performances by the Brno Philharmonic Orchestra and the Sofia Session Orchestra.
In July, New Amsterdam Records released Terrain, an album of music by composer Jacob Cooper ’06MM ’07AD ‘10MMA ’14DMA. A Pitchfork. com review read, “In a collaboration with the stunning singers Theo Bleckmann and Jodie Landau, the sharp young composer processes poems and strings into surprisingly magnetic meditations on time.”
Violinist Gerald Elias ’75BM/MM was commissioned by Centaur Records to make the first recording of the complete Op. 1 Sonatas for Violin and Cembalo by Pietro Castrucci. Elias performed from the only extant edition—the original 1718 publication by Jeanne Roger (Amsterdam).
In March, composer Ethan Braun ’21DMA released his debut album of original compositions, READ ME, on the Brooklynbased label figureight records.
Goldberg Hallucination Remix by composer Sidney Corbett ’84MM ’85MMA ’89DMA appears on a new CD, Goldberg Reflections, which was released this year by Sony. The album also includes arrangements by Andreas Tarkman and other new compositions.
Recordings by violinist and composer Ralph Evans ’74BA ’76mm ’77MMA ’80dma, first violinist of the Fine Arts Quartet and professor of violin and chamber music at the Mannes School of Music at The New School, will be released by Naxos in early 2021. The albums will feature compositions by Dvořák and Mozart.
36 Music at Yale
Composer Michael Finegold, ’68MM ’69MMA artistic director of the Essex Chamber Music Players, supervised the release in spring 2020 of the group’s album Local Cultural History Through Music: The Merrimack Valley (Volume 1).
Bassoonist Linda Kaastra ’93MM recently authored a book for Routledge/Taylor Francis titled Grounding the Analysis of Cognitive Processes in Music Performance: Distributed Cognition in Musical Activity. The book is part of a series called Explorations in Cognitive Psychology.
Guitarist An Tran ’16MM released Stay, My Beloved, an album of Vietnamese guitar music, on Frameworks Records.
A recording of When There is Peace, an oratorio by Zachary Wadsworth ’07MM, was nominated for a JUNO Award for Best Classical Album of the Year: Vocal or Choral. Guitarist Sharon Isbin ’78Ba ’79MM, a Grammy Award-winning artist and Musical America Worldwide’s 2020 Instrumentalist of the Year, released two new bestselling albums in summer 2020: Affinity: World Premiere Recordings and Strings for Peace: Premieres for Guitar & Sarod with Amjad Ali Khan.
Sheridan Music Studio released American Melting Pot, an album by pianist Susan Merdinger ’84BA ’85MM. The recording, which reflects musical influences from China, Eastern and Western Europe, South America, and American classical music, was nominated for Grammy Awards in the Best Classical Solo Instrumental, Best Classical Contemporary Compositions, and Best Arrangement— Instrumental categories.
Kotekan Records released a recording of And Here We Are, a new opera by composer Matthew Welch ’13MMA ’17DMA and librettist/ singer Daniel Neer. A timeless story of isolation, the work is based on the memoir of Welch’s greatuncle, who was a prisoner during World War II of the Santo Tomas Internment Camp in Manila. Fall 2020/Winter 2021 37
IN MEMORIAM
The Yale School of Music recognizes the passing of these faculty, alumni, colleagues, and friends: William A. Dresden ’51BM ’52MM Seymour M. Fink ’52BA ’53MM Horace A. Fitzpatrick ’57BM ’58MM Rhea K. Kish ’42BM ’43MM Alice K. Kugelman ’59BM Mary S. Mazzacane ’47BM 38 Music at Yale
Donald G. Miller Jr. ’55BA ’60MM Franklin E. Morris ’49BM ’51MM Robert W. Parker ’82BA ’85MM Krzysztof Penderecki ’03DMH Philip A. Prince ’52BA ’58BM ’59MM Herbert Richardson ’56BM ’59MM
Ronald D. Simone ’57BM ’58MM Richard L. Teitelbaum ’64MM Steven L. Thomas ’95MM ’98MMA ’03DMA Arthur Welwood Jr. ’62MM
School of Music Alumni Fund
Year after year, support from alumni enables the School of Music to attract world-class students and faculty. Gifts to the Alumni Fund are directed to the school’s most urgent priorities, such as offsetting the financial burden of professional study at Yale through living stipends, acquiring and preserving instruments for practice and performance, and maintaining state-of-the-art facilities. The Alumni Fund touches nearly every corner of the School of Music, and gifts to the Fund help the school address its most pressing needs. No matter the gift amount, your participation is vital to advancing the school’s mission. Alumni Fund gifts of $1,000 or more are recognized in the following giving categories: Nathan Hale Leaders Circle Fourth Century Associates $100,000 and above Elihu Yale Associates $50,000–$99,999 Woodbridge Associates $25,000–$49,999 Hillhouse Associates $15,000–$24,999 Sterling Associates $10,000–$14,999 Harkness Associates $5,000–$9,999 Woolsey Associates $1,000–$4,999
For more information about the School of Music Alumni Fund or other areas of giving, please contact Katherine Darr, director of development, at (203) 432-2208 or katherine.darr@yale.edu.
Photo by Matt Fried Fall/Winter 2020 39
Cultivating the creative spirit: Raymond Plank ’44BA leaves a legacy of support for drama and music students By Courtney McCarroll
I
t was March when Wyoming began to thaw. The trumpeting of thousands of sandhill cranes, making their way north, filled the sky outside the cabin of Samuel Adams ’10mm, a composer. “They became a soundtrack to my work,” remarks Adams, fondly recalling his 2018 residency through the Ucross Foundation. The annual migration is among the many marvels that encourage artists at Ucross’s 20,000-acre ranch to seek inspiration in nature.
“Ucross’s natural surroundings appealed to me,” adds Adams. “The residency gives you the gift of undisturbed time and space. Meeting other artists and learning about their work also helped me find new ways to express myself through music. It was an unforgettable experience.”
Human Potential In 1964, Raymond Plank ’44ba expressed an idea that would follow him throughout his life as a business leader and philanthropist: “The capacity of the individual is infinite.” His desire to nurture that capacity led him to establish Ucross Foundation. Its home is a working ranch where artists can explore both creativity and responsible stewardship of the land. Since Ucross’s residency program opened in 1983, the foundation has welcomed nearly 2,200 writers, visual artists, and composers for periods of focused work and camaraderie in an extraordinary setting. Many Yale alumni and faculty members have participated in the program, including Pulitzer Prizewinning playwright Doug Wright ’85Ba and Tony Award-winning composer-lyricist Adam Guettel ’87BA. Plank died in 2018. Carrying his legacy forward, Deborah Koehler, executive director of the Raymond Plank Philanthropy Fund, directed a gift from the Plank Fund to support Ucross residencies and student scholarships at Yale School of Music (YSM) and Yale School of Drama (YSD). “It was my honor to continue Raymond’s commitment to Yale, Ucross, the arts, and nature conservancy by establishing these endowed programs that will forge additional long-term bonds between two of his loves: Yale and Ucross,” notes Koehler.
Creating Opportunity The road to success in the creative professions is steep. As artists devote hours to their craft, they may find themselves having to work in unrelated fields or take 40 Music at Yale
on odd jobs to help make ends meet. For those with educational loans, the demands of paying down debt can become an obstacle to the fulltime practice of their discipline.
The capacity of the individual is infinite.
Students of YSD and YSM can graduate with tens of thousands of dollars in debt. As they leave Yale, they enter highly competitive and often unstable job markets where compensation varies greatly. The Plank scholarships counteract these r ay m o n d p l a n k challenges by providing students with the resources to immerse themselves in their education and pursue fulfilling work after graduation. This support further ensures that both schools can continue attracting and nurturing promising young artists and leaders from around the world, regardless of financial need. “Providing access to the school for the most talented and diverse theater makers is our highest priority,” notes James Bundy ’95MFA, dean of Yale School of Drama.
“The Raymond Plank Scholarship represents an extraordinary investment in lowering financial barriers to training. We are honored to be the recipient of this visionary gift, and also to inaugurate the Raymond Plank Residency, which offers YSD students and faculty time to develop their creative work at Ucross, one of the nation’s premier artist retreats.”
Robert Blocker, Henry and Lucy Moses Dean of Music, Yale University, joins Bundy in gratitude: “The commitment of the Plank estate to artists assures us that their voices will not be silenced, and we at the School of Music are profoundly grateful to be the beneficiaries of Mr. Plank’s ideals. The opportunities created by this gift will assist our talented students in the discovery of their distinctive musical voices that will speak to humanity through music.” q
Photos from UCross website. Fall 2020/Winter 2021 41
HONOR ROLL The School of Music is grateful for the generous support of its alumni and friends. The following individuals made a contribution between January 1 and October 31, 2020. To make your gift, please visit yale.edu/givemusic.
Alumni Fund Marita Abner ’78MM Judith R. Alstadter ’66MM ’72MMA ’75DMA Gregory N. Anderson ’08MMA ’13DMA Anita M. Ashur-Wakim Laura Catherine Atkinson ’09MM Halina D. Avery ’96MM William Il-Hwan Bai ’90MM Eliot T. Bailen ’80MM ’82MMA ’89DMA Amanda Dawn Baker ’00MM Howard N. Bakken ’67MM Elena G. Bambach ’55BM ’56MM Sun Kyung Ban ’12MM ’13AD Cecylia B. Barczyk ’79MM Monifa D. Barrow-Wass ’97MM Alexander Sylvain Bauhart ’99MMA Gerald D. Baum ’73MMA David A. Behnke ’77MM Mark E. Bergman ’97MM Boris Berman Amy Feldman Bernon ’91MM Gerda E. Bielitz ’56BM Serena and Robert Blocker ’95MAH Ryan J. Brandau ’06MM ’07MMA ’11DMA Anthony Carlisle Brooks ’03MM M. Susan Brown ’76MM K. Butler-Hopkins ’78MMA ’82DMA Robert Carpenter ’65BA ’68MM Jesus Castro-Balbi ’99MM Violeta N. Chan-Scott ’84MM Heejin Chang ’13MM Jaewon Choi ’08AD Gloria Poon Chu ’82MM Miri Chung ’98MM Mélanie Clapiès ’14MM ’15AD Rosemary Colson ’65MM Charlotte M. Corbridge Noah J. Cotler ’14MM Maryly L.F. Culpepper ’88MM Edward H. Cumming, III ’84MM ’85MMA ’92DMA Steven F. Darsey ’85MM ’86MMA ’90DMA Daniel Dawson Preethi I. de Silva ’71MMA ’76DMA 42 Music at Yale
Galen H. Deibler ’54BM ’55MM Matthew Edward Dickson ’01MM Michael John Diorio III ’02MM Patrick J. Durbin ’15MM Robert A. Elhai ’86MM ’88MMA ’95DMA Joan Osborn Epstein ’76MM Reena Maria Esmail ’11MM ’14MMA ’18DMA Ethel H. Farny ’66MM Richard J. Gard ’02MM ’04MMA ’07DMA Alexander Glantz ’93BA Linda W. Glasgal ’56BM ’57MM Hall N. Goff ’75MM Daniel M. Graham ’63MM Wynton Grant ’17MM Richard F. Green ’68MM ’69MMA ’75DMA Steven F. Greene ’86MM William H. Greer, Jr. ’51BA David L. Hagy ’84MM ’86MMA ’92DMA Yejin Han ’15MM Robert L. Hart ’74MM Eiji Hashimoto ’62MM Susan and Paul Hawkshaw Andrew Elliot Henderson ’01MM Richard Kazuhiko Henebry ’09MM Leonardo Hiertz ’00PF ’05MM Ella A. Holding ’57BM ’58MM Jee-Youn Hong ’05MM ’06AD William Lee Hudson ’61MM Mary Wannamaker Huff ’01MM Maureen L. Hurd Hause ’96MM ’97MMA ’02DMA Inyoung Hwang ’15MM ’16MMA Paul Abraham Jacobs ’02MM ’03AD Paul A. Jacobson ’83MM ’83MAR David B. Johnson ’72MMA Thomas F. Johnson ’61BA ’67MM Lawrence Jones ’59MM Yeonju Joo ’03MM Jang Soo Jun ’10MM Marie Jureit-Beamish ’81MM ’83MMA ’85DMA Igor Kalnin ’10AD Roderic M. Keating ’65MM Aaron Jay Kernis Lea Kibler ’83MM Barbara Peterson Kieffer ’81MM Ji Hyun Kim ’13AD Jane Kim ’09MM ’10AD Youyoung Kim
Naria Kim ’10MM ’11AD Nayeon Kim ’12MM ’13AD Ginger Chinchieh Lai ’02MM Richard A. Konzen ’76MM ’77MMA ’84DMA Bonjiu Koo ’94MM ’95AD Edna Koren ’93MMA Sheng-Yuan Kuan ’05MM So Young Kwon ’08MM ’09AD Min Jung Lee ’91MMA ’96DMA Seunghee Lee ’92MM ’94AD Kangho Lee ’96MM Min-Young Lee ’96MM ’97AD Christopher Matthew Lee ’02MM Eunjung Lee ’03MM Hyun-Joo Lee ’08AD Hyun-Jung Lee ’10MM ’11AD Kyung Mi A. Lee ’10MM Seok Jung Lee ’12MM ’13AD Susan Bell Leon ’79MM William B. Lepler ’80MM Stephane Levesque ’95MM Carol Lieberman ’67MM ’70MMA ’74DMA and Mark Kroll ’71MM Jessica K. Liebowitz ’87BA Linda T. Lienhard ’62MM Alan K. Lighty ’83MM Stephanie Yu Lim ’00BA Jesse R. Limbacher ’15MM Donald Glenn Loach ’53bm ’54MM Jo Ann B. Locke ’54bm Vincent F. Luti ’67MM ’70MMA ’78DMA Xinhua Ma ’87MM Anita La Fiandra MacDonald ’70MM Joan M. Mallory ’59bm Robert M. Manthey ’01MM Sheila A. Marks ’60MM Peter M. Marshall ’80MMA ’85DMA Marjorie J. McClelland Charles M. McKnight ’73MM Mallory Miller Edmund J. Milly ’15MM Robert W. Molison ’60MM Joanna C. Mongiardo ’98MM John-Michael Muller ’05MM Theresa Nedry-Molinaro ’83MM Jieun Kim Newland ’07MM Tian Hui Ng ’10MM Stephanie M. Northington ’74MM Patricia Grignet Nott ’66MM ’69MMA ’76DMA Alan M. Ohkubo ’14MM ’15AD Marissa S. Olegario ’15MM John C. Orfe ’01MM ’02MMA ’09DMA Eun Young Park ’06MM Julian V. Pellicano ’07MM ’09MM
Sarah Marie Perkins ’07MM Kimberley Shelley Perlak ’01MM Steven M. Perrett ’76BA ’77MM David T. Perry ’13AD Kirsten Peterson ’90MM Susan Poliacik ’74MM Joseph W. Polisi ’73MM ’75MMA ’80DMA ’14dmh Frances Pollock ’19MM James H. Pyle ’78MM Richard L. Riccardi ’71MMA Mark J. Richards ’81MM Eckhart Richter ’49BA ’52bm ’53MM Gerald M. Rizzer ’65MM Hildred E. Roach ’62MM Kay George Roberts ’75MM ’76MMA ’86DMA John Noel Roberts ’77MMA ’81DMA Rubén Rodríguez-Ferreira ’11MM Linda L. Rosdeitcher ’59BM Werner G. Rose ’61MM Melissa Kay Rose ’85MM Jason Arthur Rubinstein ’88PF ’91MM Permelia S. Sears ’74MM Inbal Segev Brener ’93PF ’98MM Frank Shaffer, Jr. ’73MM ’75MMA ’80DMA Jill Shires ’70MMA Alvin Shulman ’65MM Bryan R. Simms ’66BA ’69MM ’70MPhil ’71PhD Rheta R. Smith ’65MM Timothy Charles Snyder ’99MM Changwoo Sohn ’96MM Frank A. Spaccarotella ’73MM Tram Ngoc Sparks ’98MMA ’03DMA Timothy Dale Spelbring ’05MM Philip D. Spencer ’77MM Andrew M. Stadler ’17MM Richard S. Steen ’72MMA ’78DMA Caesar T. Storlazzi ’75BA ’84MM Cynthia T. Stuck ’52bm Ah-Young Sung ’04MM ’05AD Derek Saiho Tam ’11BA Jonathan Harold Taylor ’04MM Raymond Vun Kannon ’53BA ’54bm ’55MM Christopher R. Wall ’74BA Mingzhe Wang ’03MM ’04AD ’06MMA ’12DMA Marvin Warshaw ’79MM ’80MMA Abby N. Wells ’67MM Gregory Christopher Wrenn ’92MM Xiaopei Xu ’16MM Wei-Yi Yang ’95MM ’96AD ’99MMA ’04DMA Anne Yarrow ’57bm ’58MM Fall 2020/Winter 2021 43
Sohyang Yoo ’14MM ’15AD Meejung Yoo ’95AD Donna Yoo ’09MM Kyung Hak Yu ’87MM Leonardo T. M. Ziporyn ’19MMA
collection of musical instruments Lorraine Anderson Chace Anderson Caroline S. Bacon ’04MAR Ronald G. Bell F. Vining Bigelow Walter B. Cahn ’76MAH Shulamith S. Chernoff Juliet T. Chon ’85BS Adela Collins ’00MAH and John Collins ’00MAH Philip J. Conforti Michael G. Curtis ’66BA ’70MArch Ignace M. De Keyser Peter K. Dickinson ’60BE Joyce V. Goldberg Stephen S. Herseth ’69BA and Christine Herseth Hoefer Claude January Susan Rees Jones Kerry K. Keane Gayle and John Kirkwood ’73MD Alice C. Linder Barbara Dunphy Loucks Ann H. Marlowe Elizabeth D. C. Meyer Marie-Suzanne Niedzielska Kathryn and Peter Patrikis Gary L. Robison Beatrix K. Roeller Lynda E. Rosenfeld ’16MAH Koichi Shinohara Tracy L. Smith Damon B. Smith ’56BA James N. Spencer Alan Steinert, Jr. John R. Stieper Shepard B. Stone Robert M. Webster ’76PhD Sarah J. Whitson Nick Wolf Gail and Michael Yaffe
Endowed Scholarship, Support, and Resource Funds Denise and Stephen Adams ’59BA Richard S. Auchincloss, Jr. ’64BA Serena and Robert Blocker ’95MAH Helen Chung-Halpern and 44 Music at Yale
Abel Halpern ’88BA William A. D’Amato Louis DiLeone Yolanda DiLeone Syoko Aki Erle Glady’s Turk Foundation Beth Wade Glynn Susan and Edward Greenberg ’59BA Elinor L. Hoover ’89BA Frederick J. Iseman ’75BA Lori Laitman ’75BA ’76MM and Bruce Rosenblum ’75BA Elizabeth Sawyer Parisot ’66MM ’70MMA ’73DMA Eugene A. Pinover The Presser Foundation Mary Louise Spencer Yale Club of New Haven
music in schools initiative James M. Banner, Jr. ’57BA Serena and Robert Blocker ’95MAH Barbara Cadolino Kimberly A. Crose William F. Eaton ’57BA Jamie Meier Sun-Ly Pierce Caesar T. Storlazzi ’75BA ’84MM C. Nicholas Tingley ’57BE
norfolk chamber music festival Mary M. Ackerly, Esq. Joyce Ahrens The AKC Fund, Inc. Julia Anstey Joanna Aversa Carolyn and Ivan Backer Sharon Baran Christine T. Bartlett Alice and David Belgray Joanne and Warren Bender Bruce J. Benedetto Gayle Blakeslee Serena and Robert Blocker ’95MAH Carole and Edward Boehner D. Weston Boyd Cynthia and Burton Budick Jason Clark Cahill ’89BA Fiorella Canin Jennifer Catto Susan L. Caughman ’83MBA Hope S. Childs Peter Coffeen and Stephen Getz Joan M. Coppolo Judi and Michael Crowley
Perry T. DeAngelis† Marcos Delgado and C.D. Turnipseed Robert Dinnean Judith and Paul Dorphley Jane S. Edwards Clifford R. Eisler Cornelia Ellner Rosalee and Nicholas Fanelli Claudia and Eliot Feldman Mary and William Flowers William Fuller Margaret Gardner Marilee Garlanda Elisabeth C. Gill Danielle Greenberg The William & Mary Greve Foundation Shelley Harms and David Torrey Dorothy Hatch Margaret Hathaway Mary N. Hawkes Susan and Paul Hawkshaw Suzanne M. Hertel Gerald Hess Neil P. Hoffmann ’64BA Terrell Kent Holmes ’83BA Philippa Ivain Philip C. Jessup Eric Johnson Joseph G. Kelly Doreen and Michael Kelly Richard H. Kessin ’66BA Barbara K. Kinder ’71MD Elizabeth Kitridge and Christopher Little ’71BA Myron L. Kwast Gena Lai ’95BA Sandra Landau and Richard Rippe Kathryn and Robert Lapkin Starling Lawrence Tom Levine Cheryl and Allen Lipson Maija M. Lutz ’63MM Albert J. Macchioni ’71BA ’75JD Ernest Malecki Florrie A. Marshall ’18MM Thomas G. Masse ’91MM ’92AD Kim Maxwell Zdenek S. Meistrick David E. Moore Barbara and Richard Moore Michael B. Morley Lester S. Morse, Jr. ’51BA Grant Mudge Christian Murck ’65BA Jacqueline Muschiano and Andrew Ricci Elizabeth Neuse †
Perry T. DeAngelis is deceased.
Michael D. Nicastro R. Kim Nicholas ’82MAR Nichols & Pratt, LLP Susan ’77BA and Edward O’Connell ’77BA Patricia O’Leary Treat E. Devere Oakes Eric G. Olsen ’84MS Thomas Quimet Donna and Dennis Randall Belle K. Ribicoff Evelyn Rogoff Philida Rosnick Anita and Alain Saman Cassie Sauer Phyllis Saunders Elizabeth Schorr and Eric Grossman Justine and Harvey Schussler Michael K. Selleck Leigh Winters Shemitz ’92MFS ’03PhD Julia Shin Jonathan J. Silbermann Cornelia and Jonathan Small Anne-Marie Soulliere and Lindsey Chao-Yun Kiang ’64BA ’68LLB Marcia and Robert Sparrow Patricia and Kurt Steele Peter Steinglass J. W. Streett Frederick Talcott Jean Thompson Alyson Thomson Beverly and Robert Vail Herbert A. Vance, Jr. ’65BA Sally and William Vaun Nancy H. Wadelton Susan Wagner Mary-Jo Warren Abby N. Wells ’67MM Jean Witz Elizabeth and Werner Wolf ’65MAH Henry M. Zachs
patron programs Bonita M. Albanese Mary Alsop Linda Andres Christopher Avallone Alphonse J. Camera Mary Cannata Elena Chidllowsky Joao G. De Oliveira Gregorio A. Diaz Marianna Dmitrieva Thomas P. Duffy ’81MAH Fall 2020/Winter 2021 45
Ella Fan Kumo Fernando Jefferson Freeman ’57BA Joseph Gordon ’72MA ’75MPhil ’79PhD Patricia Helm Nelson Johnson Samuel Jungeblut Heidi E. Katter ’20BA Sally Katter Gary R. Koch Galina Kramarenko Maria Lamberto Daniel Li Hyunsung Lim Dorothy C Lucas John Merriman Stephen M. Mims James Moran Gianantonio Pezzullo Roula Sharqawe ’20BS ’20MS Vivien S. Teitelbaum Bettina Thiel Kosuke Uetake Mary-Jo Warren Mai-Tse Wu ’91BA ’96MArch John Wyatt
yale opera Christopher Arterton David Isaac Astrachan ’80BA ’84MD Paul B. Bailey ’72MArch Russell C. Barbour ’02DFES Elisabeth Bohlen Linda M. Briggs Carole and Arthur Broadus ’87MAH Anne Tyler Calabresi and Guido Calabresi ’53BS ’58LLB ’62MAH Douglas J. Crowley ’63BA Anne Curtis ’70MD Priscilla ’90MAH and Robert Dannies Susan Duffy Anne M. Fitzgerald Brin R. Ford Gary W. Gara Christopher Getman ’64BA William Goldberg Carolyn P. Gould Ann Haberman, Jr. Susan and Paul Hawkshaw Erica Herzog ’05PhD and Raimund Herzog ’12MHS Cheryl Hewitt Richard G. Kibbey Joan and Alan Kliger Penelope Laurans Fitzgerald 46 Music at Yale
Linda K. Lorimer ’77JD and Charles D. Ellis ’59BA ’97MAH Maurice J. Mahoney ’82MAH George L. Priest ’69BA ’82MAH Alexander Purves ’58BA ’65MArch Anne Ryan Fiona M. Scott Morton ’89BA ’02MAH Lalitha Shivawamy Lorraine D. Siggins Dennis D. Spencer ’85MAH Richard S. Steen ’72MMA ’78DMA
Fall 2020/Winter 2021 47
P.O. Box 208246 New Haven, CT 06520-8246
Back cover: Conductor Ryan Tani ’21MMA leading a Yale Philharmonia rehearsal during the fall performance block 48 Music at Yale
