Faculty 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).

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. 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.

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.

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.

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. 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.

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.