Music at Yale (2010)

at

YALE

• The first year of alumniVentures

2010

• MET: Live in HD comes to campus • Music in Schools Initiative grows

contents

features

The first year of alumniVentures

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The School of Music’s bold and innovative alumniVentures program launched in June 2008, when Dean Blocker announced the plan to give grants to projects that advance the cause of music.

The Iseman Broadcasts of The Met: Live in HD

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A gift from Frederick Iseman brings the Metropolitan Opera’s Live in HD broadcasts to the Yale community free of charge.

Music in Schools Initiative grows

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From new book projects to the first all-city band, the Music in Schools Initiative continues to thrive.

The initiative focuses both on dedicated student musicians and on music-and-literacy programs.

On the cover: Frederick Iseman Metroplitan Opera screening at Sprague Hall. Photo by James Frost

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2009-10 Concert Season

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Appointments and Retirements

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Faculty News

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alumniVentures

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The Met: Live in HD

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Music in Schools

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Music Briefs

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Student & Alumni News

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In Memoriam

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Notes Across Campus

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Contributors

2009-10 Concert Season

Yale celebrates Benny Goodman’s 100th birthday Yale enjoyed a longtime connection with the great clarinetist Benny Goodman.

He performed chamber music with Aldo Parisot in the 1950s and 1960s, became friends with Keith Wilson and Frank Tirro, and performed classical and jazz concerts in the 1980s in Woolsey Hall. Yale awarded him an honorary Doctorate of Music in 1982, and Goodman chose the University as the custodian of his extensive archive.

In honor of this warm relationship, the School of Music celebrated the hundredth birthday of Benny Goodman with three concerts in Sprague Hall and one at Zankel Hall in Carnegie Hall beginning September 22.

The mini-festival opened with The Classical Legacy of Benny Goodman, a concert of music commissioned and/or premiered by the legendary clarinetist, performed in Sprague Hall as part of the Chamber Music Society series, and later in Zankel Hall in Carnegie Hall as part of the Yale in New York Series, directed by David Shifrin. The performers included The Atria Ensemble (Romie de Guise- Langlois, clarinet; Sun-Mi Chang, violin; and Hye-Yeon Park, piano); pianist Amy I-Lin Cheng ’99AD, and clarinetists Chad Burrow ’01, Paul Cho ’10, Justin O’Dell, and Mingzhe Wang ’06MMA. David Shifrin with an orchestra of faculty and students led by concertmaster Ani Kavafian performed Copland’s Clarinet Concerto. Goodman scholar Maureen Hurd gave a lecture on the Classical Legacy of Benny Goodman before the Sprague Hall concert, and throughout the week the Gilmore Music Library displayed items from the Goodman archives.

The other two Goodman programs were dedicated to jazz and swing. The renowned jazz clarinetist Don Byron and his quartet performed a Goodman tribute on the Ellington Jazz Series, and the Yale Jazz Ensemble under Thomas C. Duffy, with clarinetist Vincent Oneppo, gave a sold-out concert of Goodman’s swing favorites.

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Yale in New York In addition to the Classical Legacy of Benny Goodman, there were three other concerts on the Yale in New York Series. In February, the School of Music, in conjunction with the Prokofiev Society of America, presented Prokofiev Rediscovered, a program of premieres and rarely-heard music by the Russian composer at Zankel Hall in Carnegie Hall. Premieres included a significant fragment from the unfinished opera Distant Seas, performed by alumni singers with faculty pianist Boris Berman, and music for the ballet Trapeze. The latter is largely the same music as the Quintet, Op. 39 for oboe, clarinet, violin, viola, and double bass, but includes two additional movements.

Music for Athletic Exercises, another recently uncovered work, was performed with dance choreographed by Adam Hendrickson of the New York City Ballet.

The concert also presented a rarelyperformed suite of Schubert waltzes for two pianos, an arrangement that Prokofiev created for the same ballet company that performed Trapeze.

Krzysztof Penderecki leads concerts during week in residence The groundbreaking Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki, who served on the YSM faculty from 1973 to 1979, returned to the School of Music for a weeklong residency in April. Penderecki worked with students and faculty artists in preparation for performances of chamber and orchestral works.

The first concert featured chamber and solo works performed by both faculty and students: the Cadenza for solo viola, with faculty artist Ettore Causa; Serenata for three cellos; Capriccio for solo tuba, with Jerome Stover; and the String Quartet No. 2. The evening began with an open conversation between Penderecki and Dean Robert Blocker, with topics ranging from compositional styles to Penderecki’s vast gardens at his home in Poland.

He also conducted the Yale Philharmonia in two performances, one in Woolsey Hall and one in Carnegie Hall, as the concluding event of the 2009-10 Yale in New York series. The Philharmonia program opened with his landmark work from 1960, Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima, in what the New York Times called “a suitably chilling and visceral performance.”

Violin professor Syoko Aki performed the early (1967) Capriccio for Violin and Orchestra, a work that she performed with Penderecki at Yale in 1974, and faculty artist William Purvis was the soloist in the New Haven and New York premieres of the “Winterreise” horn concerto from 2008. The program concluded with the Grawemeyer Prize-winning Symphony No. 4, “Adagio”; the Times praised the “tightly wrought, polished and dramatic interpretation.”

Voices of American Music Presented on April 6 in Sprague Hall and on April 8 in Zankel Hall, Voices of American Music was a concert tribute to the legendary Oral History of American Music (OHAM) project at Yale. The works of some of America’s most important composers were heard in an unusual and ambitious program that joined music with footage from OHAM’s archives. Founded by Vivian Perlis, OHAM is dedicated to collecting and preserving audio and video memoirs of notable figures in American music.

Historic video and audio interviews and photographs relating to each composer on the program were presented as entr’actes between performances. In the opening segment, Vivian Perlis recalls her first interview forty years ago with Charles Ives’ business partner, Julian Myrick. This interview was her inspiration for the Ives oral history project, which was the cornerstone of the magnificent collection of interviews that would later become the Oral History of American Music project. After Ives, the concert continued with words, images, and music of eight other prominent composers from the archive. Selections by Aaron Copland, Duke Ellington, Eubie Blake, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, Steve Reich, Jacob Druckman, and John Cage reflected the breadth of the archives. Among the performers were The Yale Percussion Group; alumni Richard Stoltzman, clarinet, and Lachezar Kostov ’08MM, cello; and faculty artists Willie Ruff, double bass, Wei-Yi Yang, piano, Allan Dean, trumpet, William Purvis, horn, and Scott Hartman, trombone. At the Sprague Hall performance, Vivian Perlis was awarded the prestigious Sanford Medal by Dean Robert Blocker.

The final concert in the Yale in New York series was Penderecki conducts Penderecki on April 30 in Stern Auditiorium in Carnegie Hall. The concert was the culmination of a week-long residency.

Ostroff and lighting design by William Warfel.

Christowph Campestrini ’92MM conducted the Yale Philharmonia, and Douglas Dickson ’89MMA and Timothy Shaindlin prepared the singers, all students in the Yale Opera program.

East Coast premiere of new symphony

by Aaron Jay Kernis The Yale School of Music, Institute of Sacred Music, and Glee Club presented the East Coast premiere of Aaron Jay Kernis’s Symphony of Meditations, a major new work in the repertoire for orchestra and chorus, on Friday, November 6 at 8 pm in Woolsey Hall.

Kernis himself conducted the performance, which featured the Yale Philharmonia, Yale Camerata, Yale Schola Cantorum, and the Yale Glee Club. The vocal soloists were Amanda Hall ’10MM, soprano; Joseph Mikolaj ’10MM, tenor; and David Pershall ’10MM, baritone.

The hour-long, three-movement work was commissioned by the Seattle Symphony Orchestra. After its first performance in June under the baton of Gerard Schwartz, The Examiner called it “a complex, ambitious and, overall, brilliant undertaking… [a] multi -textured, profoundly spiritual composition.”

Symphony of Meditations is inspired by and incorporates Hebrew texts by the 11th- century Spanish poet Solomon Ibn Gabirol, translated

by Peter Cole. The text is a lyrical meditation that deals with the universal themes of life, death, and one’s relationship to God. Cole gave a pre-concert talk on Ibn Gabirol’s texts.

Complete Brandenburg Concertos The Chamber Music Society also presented all six of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos in one evening. The December concert was performed by a conductor-less chamber orchestra led by faculty artists, including violinists Ani Kavafian, Syoko Aki, Robert Mealy, and Wendy Sharp; violist Ettore Cansa, flutist Ransom Wilson, clarinetist David Shifrin (playing the piccolo trumpet part on E-flat clarinet), oboist Stephen Taylor, bassoonist Frank Morelli, hornist William Purvis, and harpsichordists Avi Stein and Ilya Poletaev. The fifth concerto was performed on period instruments with baroque bows, featuring performers from the Yale Baroque Ensemble.

Alfred Brendel lecture and master class Though he recently retired from concert performances, Alfred Brendel is not done sharing his legendary knowledge with the public. In a unique program on November 11, the erudite pianist offered a lecture illustrated with musical examples. The next day, he conducted a public master class with three YSM piano students. The lecture, titled “On Character in Music,” argued that atmosphere is no less important in music than elements such as form and structure, and focused on the music of Beethoven as seen through the comments of Czerny.

Brendel compares the pianist’s task to that of a character actor identifying with different roles, with an ever-widening awareness of the staggering emotional and psychological variety great music has to offer.

Saxophone Summit ranges from soprano to contrabass The Duke Ellington Fellowship presented a Saxophone Summit featuring six great performers on the entire family of instruments, from the soprano sax to the rare contrabass.

The stellar lineup included Jimmy Heath, Frank Wess, Antonio Hart, Todd Bashore, Frank Basile, and Scott Robinson, as well as a superb rhythm section of drummer Tootie Heath, bassist David Wong, and pianist Michael Weiss. The event began with a presentation by the performers about the evolution of the saxophone in jazz and the various kinds of saxophones to be featured in the evening’s program. According to Willie Ruff, director of the Duke Ellington Fellowship, “Though it had an important role among the French and the Belgians in their military bands, the saxophone was treated as a stepchild in the early years of its existence.

It took the coming of age of a small cadre of jazz musicians in the United States to really give the saxophone its voice.”

Imani Winds performs with Jasper String Quartet The Grammy-nominated Imani Winds joined with the Jasper String Quartet for a concert on Tuesday, November 17 as part of the Chamber Music Society. The wind quintet performed a colorful variety of music by Bozza, Ligeti, and Villa-Lobos. The Jasper Quartet, the graduate quartet-in-residence at the Yale School of Music, played a Haydn quartet. The concert culminated in a piece featuring all the performers: Roberto Sierra’s Concierto de Camara, a nonet for winds and strings written in 2008.

Yale Opera’s Le Nozze di Figaro at the Shubert Theater Yale Opera, under the artistic direction of Doris Yarick-Cross, presented Mozart’s ever-popular Le Nozze di Figaro on February 12-14 in New Haven’s historic Shubert Theater.

Vera Lúcia Calábria, a veteran of numerous Yale Opera productions, directed the production. The opera was performed in the original Italian with projected English translations. This colorful production by Robert Driver featured set design by Boyd

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Appointments and Retirements

Robert Blocker reappointed as Dean of the School of Music On August 16, 2010, President Richard C. Levin announced the reappointment of Robert Blocker as Dean of the School of Music for a term of five years, effective July 1, 2011. In his announcement to the University, President Levin wrote: Dean Blocker received enthusiastic support from those who wrote and those with whom I spoke.

He is praised as a superb and visionary leader with a tremendous commitment to students, faculty, and staff at the School. Robert is compassionate and approachable and is, as one faculty member said, “the most effective and dynamic administrator with whom I have ever served.” Many said that Robert’s fundraising skills are without equal, and that he has dealt exceptionally well with financial challenges: the School has emerged “more invigorated than ever” from the retrenching and budget cuts.

Another said that Robert has “guided the School to a new level of excellence and international recognition.” And, finally, ” Robert Blocker is a great asset not only for the School of Music, but also for the entire University.

Martin Jean reappointed as Director of ISM University President Richard C. Levin announced in November 2009 that Professor Martin Jean has been reappointed as the Director of the Institute of Sacred Music for a second five-year term, beginning January 1, 2010. Levin noted that faculty and staff alike expressed enthusiastic support for Professor Jean’s reappointment. One commentator noted, “His four years show him to have a passion for the work of the Institute, and the ability not only to administer its programs but to lead it toward a fuller realization of its mission.” Another stated, “Martin has helped to shift the Institute’s focus to further enhance the students’ academic and performance lives, and their lives in the greater ISM community.” Many praised his efforts to develop a strategic plan for the Institute’s future.

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Masaaki Suzuki teaches choral conducting and leads the Schola Cantorum Upon the retirement of Simon Carrington, Bach scholar and conductor Masaaki Suzuki was appointed Visiting Professor of Choral Conducting and conductor of Yale Schola Cantorum, beginning on July 1, 2009.

“Suzuki’s exquisite artistry, insightful interpretations of Baroque music, and his deep spiritual connections to sacred music make him an ideal colleague,” commented Martin D. Jean, director of the ISM. Dean Robert Blocker noted, “Masaaki Suzuki’s artistry as conductor, organist, and harpsichordist can be measured only in superlatives... Suzuki’s international stature and his commitment to teaching ideally suit him for the joint Visiting Professorship in the Institute and School.”

Since founding Bach Collegium Japan in1990, Masaaki Suzuki has established himself as a leading authority on the works of J.S. Bach.

He has remained the Collegium’s music director ever since, taking the group regularly to major venues and festivals in Europe and the United States. In addition to conducting, Suzuki is also acclaimed as an organist and harpsichordist. His commitment to sacred music is demonstrated both by his deep reflection on theological meanings in the music he conducts, and also in his interest in music used by worshippers of any faith, in or out of a liturgy.

In the 2009-10 concert season, Masaaki Suzuki conducted the Yale Schola Cantorum in two programs of music by Bach and Monteverdi, and performed an organ recital in Marquand Chapel. Simon Carrington returned to guest-conduct Schola in a program called “Sing Ye Birds.”

Simon Carrington retires Carrington joined the Yale faculty in 2003, when he founded the Yale Schola Cantorum.

In his farewell letter, Carrington wrote: If my friends had suggested during The King’s Singers’ silver jubilee year (and my last with that group, now celebrating its 41st year), that I would one day be conducting a professionalcaliber performance of Bach’s great masterpiece with singers and instrumentalists from Yale University, not only on home ground but also in Korea and China on tour, I would have considered them deluded. Had they added that my successor was to be the great Bach scholar and conductor Masaaki Suzuki from Bach Collegium Japan, I would have dismissed their predictions as quite beyond the pale.

But that is how it has turned out. Our performances and those that followed in Seoul, Beijing, and Shanghai were a resounding success and, I hope, a tribute to Margot Fassler’s original vision for Schola Cantorum, to the refinements of that vision by her successor Martin Jean, and to the mission of the ISM. My thanks go out to all the many students and colleagues who have made our time in New Haven so special, along with my good wishes to all at the Institute and the School who foster and combine the exceptional talents of these students to produce such fine sacred music to such an extraordinarily high standard.

Frank Tirro and Lili Chookasian retire from YSM faculty Frank Tirro, professor of music and Dean of the Yale School of Music from 1980 to 1989, and Lili Chookasian, professor of voice, retired from the School’s faculty at the end of the 2009-2010 academic year.

Frank Tirro is a specialist in both the music of the Renaissance and the history of jazz.

His most recent publication, The Birth of the Cool of Miles Davis and His Associates, was published by College Music Society and Pendragon Press. Tirro is also the

author of Jazz: A History (W. W. Norton), Renaissance Musical Sources in the Archive of San Petronio in Bologna (Haenssler-Verlag), and Living With Jazz (Harcourt Brace).

In addition he co-authored The Humanities (Houghton Mifflin) and edited a volume of Medieval and Renaissance Studies (Duke University Press). He served as associate editor for the new American National Biography, a multi-volume publication sponsored jointly by Oxford University Press and the American Council of Learned Societies. Professor Tirro received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Nebraska, his master’s degree from Northwestern University, and his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.

He has been a Fellow of Villa I Tatti, the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies in Florence, Italy.

Lili Chookasian retires Lili Chookasian, contralto, made her Metropolitan Opera debut in 1962 as La Cieca in La Gioconda, the first of her 290 performances at the Met. She has also appeared in this country with the Lyric Opera of Chicago, New York City Opera, and San Francisco Opera, among others. Internationally, she has performed in Bayreuth, Salzburg, Hamburg, Florence, Buenos Aires, Montreal, and Barcelona. In concert she has sung with all of the major symphony orchestras in the United States, as well as the Berlin Philharmonic, under the world’s most distinguished conductors. Ms. Chookasian has recorded for CBS Masterworks, RCA, Columbia, Decca, MGM, and Deutsche Grammophone. In March 1985 she was selected by the American Vocal Academy to be in the newly initiated Hall of Fame of American Opera Singers. She previously taught voice at the Northwestern University School of Music, and joined the faculty of the Yale School of Music in 1986. She was awarded the School’s prestigious Samuel Simons Sanford Medal in 2002.

Ettore Causa appointed to teach viola Dean Robert Blocker announced the appointment of Ettore Causa as Associate Professor (Adjunct) of Viola in the fall of 2009. The announcement followed an international search conducted by members of the School of Music faculty that also involved students in the viola studio who participated in the master classes with the candidates. Ettore Causa previously served as professor of viola and chamber music at the International Menuhin Music Academy in Switzerland, and he regularly presents master classes throughout Europe and South America. Additionally, he is a member of the Aria Quartet, with whom he performs throughout the world. Mr. Causa studied at the International Menuhin Academy with Sir Yehudi Menuhin, Johannes Eskar,

and Alberto Lysy. His advanced studies were with Michael Tree at the Manhattan School of Music. Immediately following his studies, Mr. Causa was appointed as the solo viola of the Carl Nielsen Philharmonic in Denmark and was also leader of the Copenhagen Chamber Soloists. In 2000, he was awarded both the Schidlof Prize and the J. Barbirolli Prize at the prestigious Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition in England. He has concertized in major artistic capitals of the world and has performed in notable venues such as Victoria Hall (Geneva), Salle Cortot (Paris), Teatro Colon (Buenos Aires), Tokyo and Osaka Symphony Halls, and the Zürich Tonhalle. He regularly performs at major festivals, such as Salzburg, Tivolli, Perth, and Festival de Estorial (Portugal).

Betsy Carr and Vincent Oneppo retire from YSM staff On June 2, 2010, Dean Blocker announced the retirement of Betsy Carr as Director of Development. “Since coming to the School of Music in 2008, Betsy has provided leadership for the Music Tomorrow campaign.

She made many contributions to the School and University, and her reorganization of the School’s development office has been especially effective with the Philharmonia Patrons and the YSM Alumni Fund.”

Before her appointment at the School of Music. Ms. Carr was a senior development officer in the Office of Advancement at Connecticut College, and prior to that, she was a development officer at Brown University and at Yale.

Professor Causa’s first performance as part of the Yale community was of Schubert’s “An die Musik” at the Academic Convocation in September 2009. He later performed in recital with pianist Ryo Yanagitani and participated in a recital of chamber music

by Krzysztof Penderecki during a visit by the composer in April.

Also retiring, effective December 1, 2010, is director of the Concert and Media Office, and editor of Music at Yale, Vincent Oneppo ’73MM, who served the School over a period of thirty-five years. Following graduation, he served for a brief period as Manager of the Yale Symphony Orchestra before becoming the School’s concert manager in 1974.

During the 1980’s he served as Manager of the Philharmonia and director of the concert office. He was appointed assistant to the dean by Frank Tirro, continuing under Ezra Laderman until 1990. In 1998 he rejoined the School’s staff as director of concerts and media. “Since that time his service to the School and University has been exemplary,” said Dean Blocker. “Under his leadership the School has been represented in the most positive light in our community, in New York, and indeed throughout the world.“

Thomas Masse becomes Associate Provost for the Arts; Paul Hawkshaw assumes role of Deputy Dean On July 27, 2009, Dean Blocker announced that Thomas Masse ’91DMA, Deputy Dean, was appointed Associate Provost for the Arts.

In 2000 he began his service in the School of Music as Assistant, and later Associate, Dean of Admissions and Student Affairs. In 2005, he was appointed Deputy Dean of the School of Music. “For almost a decade Tom Masse has made significant and lasting contributions to our School. It is fortunate that Tom’s passion for artistic and academic excellence will now extend to the entire University community, though we will miss the daily contact and the warm support he constantly gives each of us.” With the departure of Thomas Masse, Dean Blocker announced on August 26, 2009, the appointment of Paul Hawkshaw as Deputy Dean of the School of Music. Hawkshaw has served the School and University with distinction for over twenty-five years, a tenure that has included eleven years as Associate Dean and two years as Acting Dean. He will continue his responsibilities as Director of the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival and Yale Summer School of Music, a position he has held since 2003. “We are indeed fortunate to have a colleague of Paul’s stature assume these responsibilities, and I look forward to his leadershipand to our work together,” said Blocker in his announcement.

“His experience and institutional memory will be instrumental in the discussions and implementation of Beyond Boundaries, the School’s strategic plan.”

Laura Chilton is new Assistant to the Dean Laura Chilton, who has served as Executive Assistant to the Director of the Institute of Sacred Music, was appointed Assistant to the Dean in July 2010. Laura is a native of the Twin Cities, Minnesota, and moved to Connecticut eleven years ago. She has been at Yale since 2003. Her experiences in Career Development at the School of Management and External Relations in the Divinity School before joining the Institute of Sacred Music bring to her position and the School an unusual administrative breadth. She is a graduate of the University of Minnesota (Minneapolis campus) with a B.S. in Business Administration. Laura has always loved music, and is thrilled to be in the midst of it here in her new position.

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Faculty News Grammy Award for David Lang ’83MM This January, the Grammy for Best Small Ensemble Performance was awarded to David Lang’s the little match girl passion, in a Harmonia Mundi recording by Ars Nova Copenhagen & Theatre Of Voices, conducted

by Paul Hillier. The work won Lang the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in Music. At the Grammy Awards ceremony, pop star Roberta Flack presented the classical awards.

Spanish edition of Boris Berman’s book released, translated by Héctor Sánchez The Spanish translation of Professor Boris Berman’s book Notes from the Pianist’s Bench has been released. Héctor Sánchez ‘04DMA, a pianist who studied with Berman at YSM, is the translator. The book has already been published in Chinese (traditional characters), Korean, and Japanese.

New biography of oboist Robert Bloom Robert Bloom (1908-1994), one of the foremost oboists of his time and a former member of the Yale School of Music faculty, is the subject of a new biography. Robert Bloom: The Story of a Working Musician brings together essays, correspondence, reviews, anecdotes and more. It also incorporates Bloom’s book on pedagogy dictated in 1975-1976: The Oboe, A Musical Instrument, as well as a disc of two chapters, one on reed-making and one a discography.

Jeffrey Douma, Yale Glee Club, Dean Blocker perform in Havana In June, Jeffrey Douma led the Yale Glee Club in a joint performance with the Coro Nacional of the Dominican Republic in Santo Domingo’s Palacio de Bellas Artes. Local critics hailed the performance as “exquisite” and praised the Glee Club’s “fresh, coordinated, perfectly blended and tuned voices.” Later in July, Douma led the Yale Alumni Chorus on a historic tour of Cuba, collaborating with the Coro Nacional de Cuba, Entrevoces, and the Coro de Camera de Matanzas, and conducting the Orquesta Solistas de la Habana in a performance that included Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy with Dean Robert Blocker as piano soloist.

Photo: taken at a rehearsal of the Beethoven Choral Fantasy in Havana, Cuba with the Orquesta Solistas de la Habana, the Yale Alumni Chorus, and Dean Blocker as pianist.

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Thomas Duffy and Stephanie Hubbard honored for “Rap for Justice” On October 23, 2009, Thomas C. Duffy, director of Yale Bands, and Stephanie Hubbard, business manager of the bands, received special recognition from the United States Attorney’s Office, District of Connecticut for their role in presenting “Rap for Justice” the previous May. The “Rap for Justice” concert attracted around 1,000 high school students from seven Connecticut cities to Woolsey Hall to hear the concert’s message of non-violence and respect – and to hear raps from Duffy and YSM Dean Robert Blocker. The concert featured performances by the Yale Concert Band, the rap group 4PEACE, and three winners of a statewide rap contest, as well as a screening of a film on teen crime. Sponsored by Yale, the concert was an innovative collaboration among Yale Bands, the U.S Department of Justice, and 4PEACE founders Twice Thou and Edo G. A slideshow of the “Rap for Justice” concert is available at http://opa.yale.edu/images/ slideshow/Slideshow-Rap-for-Peace/slidshow.html Albany Records releases disc of string quartets by Ezra Laderman The Alianza String Quartet, former fellowship quartet-in-residence, recorded Ezra Laderman’s ninth, eleventh, and twelfth quartets.

The disc, released at the end of 2009, is the ninth volume in Albany Records’ series The Music of Ezra Laderman. Laderman’s twelfth (and, according to the composer, last) quartet was written for the Alianza. The members of the quartet appearing on the recording are Sarita Kwok ’09DMA and Lauren Basney ’05MM, ’06AD, violins; Ahyoung Sung ’04MM, ’05AD, viola; and Dmitri Atapine ’10DMA, cello. Eugene Kimball, the director of the Fred Plaut Recording Studio at YSM, was the engineer for the CD.

New CD from visiting lecturer Ingram Marshall Ingram Marshall, visiting lecturer in composition at the School of Music, has released a new CD. Titled Ingram Marshall: September Canons, the album features the Yale Philharmonia and conductor Julian Pellicano ‘07MM, among other performers. Tracks include Peaceable Kingdom, which was performed and recorded in Sprague Hall by the Yale Philharmonia under the baton of Pellicano.

The program notes are by Libby Van Cleve of the Yale Oral History of American Music project. In addition, the Martin Scorsese film Shutter Island featured two of Marshall’s compositions: Fog Tropes — written in 1980 and often considered his signature work — and Alcatraz.

Molly Sheridan has written about the CD at NewMusicBox: http://newmusicbox.org/ article.nmbx?id=6237.

Markus Rathey publishes new book, is named Class of 1960 Fellow at Williams College Professor Markus Rathey’s most recent book, Kommunikation und Diskurs: Die Bürgerkapitänsmusiken Carl Philipp Emanuel Bachs (Olms 2009), was published

by Olms in late 2009. The book explores the relationship between music, philosophy, and patriotism in Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s compositions for the militia in Hamburg in the second half of the 18th century. The study explores a wide spectrum of sources and paints a vivid image of music and culture during the German Enlightenment.

Rathey was named Class of 1960 Fellow at Williams College, Massachusetts. He will spend several days in the music department, talk to classes, and deliver a public lecture to the college community. Rathey visited Williams College in late February 2010 to lecture on “Defeminizing Virtue: Johann Sebastian Bach’s Hercules-Cantata and the Christmas Oratorio.”

Faculty appointments for 2010-2011

Toshi Shimada appointed music director of Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestra The Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestra in New London, Conn., announced last year the appointment of Toshiyuki Shimada as its new music director. Shimada is the fifth music director in the ECSO’s 63-year history.

Shimada has been music director of the Yale Symphony Orchestra of Yale University since 2005. He is music director laureate of the Portland (Maine) Symphony Orchestra, where he served as music director from 1986 to 2006; principal conductor of the Vienna Modern Masters record label in Austria; music director and chief creative officer of the Trinity Music Partners, LLC, which holds the worldwide rights to the Vatican Library Music Collection; and artistic adviser of the Tulare County (California) Symphony Orchestra.

Tirro’s The Birth of the Cool nominated for award Frank Tirro’s newest book, The Birth of the Cool: Miles Davis and His Associates, was nominated for a 2009 Association for Recorded Sound Collections Award. Published by the College Music Society and Pendragon Press, The Birth of the Cool considers systematically the celebrated recordings made between 1949 and 1951 by the Miles Davis Nonet, performances that, after the fact, became known as the “Birth of the Cool.” The book is accompanied by an audio CD of related music. The ARSC award recognizes excellence in historical recorded sound research.

Paul Berry, music history Paul Berry has been appointed assistant professor of music history, beginning with the 2010-11 academic year.

Professor Berry completed both his B.A. in humanities and music (summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa) and his Ph.D. in musicology at Yale University. His dissertation situates Johannes Brahms’s compositional process and musical memory within the context of several of the composer’s close personal friendships.

His scholarly interests range from chamber music and song in nineteenthcentury Germany to sacred music in sixteenth century Italy; he recently published an article on Brahms and Clara Schumann in the Journal of Musicology. He has received a Mrs. Giles M. Whiting Fellowship in the Humanities, the American Musicological Society’s Paul A. Pisk Prize for best paper delivered by a graduate student at a national meeting of the Society, and the American Brahms’s Society’s Karl Geiringer Scholarship. While at Yale, he was appointed a graduate affiliate of the Whitney Humanities Center. Dr. Berry is also active as a professional tenor specializing in early music, German Lieder, and 20th-century compositions.

He has appeared in Connecticut as the Evangelist in Bach’s Saint John Passion as well as in numerous cantatas and oratorios; recent solo recitals have included Britten’s Winter Words, Schubert’s Winterreise, and Schumann’s Dichterliebe, for which he was accompanied by the noted pianist and critic Charles Rosen.

Pianist Hung-Kuan Chen Renowned pianist Hung-Kuan Chen joined the faculty as visiting professor of piano for the 2010-11 academic year. Born in Taipei and raised in Germany, Mr. Chen won top prizes in the Arthur Rubinstein, Busoni, and Geza Anda International Piano Competitions and is a recipient of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant.

He has collaborated with major orchestras including Houston, Baltimore, Israel, Montréal, the Tonhalle, San Francisco, and Shanghai. He has performed with such esteemed conductors as Hans Graf, Christoph Eschenbach, and Andrew Parrett, and with colleagues including Yo-Yo Ma, Cho-Liang Lin, and David Shifrin. Mr. Chen has served as chair of the piano department of the Shanghai Conservatory, and is the director of the International Piano Academy in Shanghai.

He is a member of the piano faculty of the New England Conservatory.

Ivo Kaltchev ’92MM Ivo Kaltchev served as visiting lecturer in piano in the fall of 2010. As a recitalist, soloist with orchestras, chamber musician, and recording artist, he has performed in musical centers throughout the world, including Alice Tully Hall, Kennedy Center, Moscow Conservatory, Beijing Conservatory, and many others. A recipient of awards for teaching excellence, he has presented workshops and master classes in Europe, Russia, Asia, and the United States. Dr. Kaltchev has served as adjudicator for numerous piano competitions and is the founder of the Bulgarian Music Society Concert Series in Washington, D.C. He holds degrees and diplomas from Yale and Rutgers Universities, Sofia Academy of Music, and the Franz Liszt Hochschule für Musik. He is the chair of the piano division at the Catholic University of America.

Brian Lewis, Class of ’57 Brian Lewis, a violinist and a leader in music education was visiting professor of music education at the Yale School of Music for the 2010-2011 academic year. By teaching a course in community engagement, and through his work with students participating in Yale’s extensive Music in Schools Initiative, Mr. Lewis helps graduate students in the School of Music develop their skills as educators and communicators. Known for his imaginative programming, Lewis is highly regarded for his ability to communicate with audiences of all ages. He is dedicated to promoting the value of music in education.

“Wherever I go to perform, I try to schedule some sort of teaching or school concert through the local sponsor,” he says.

“Performance should be fused with music education, and I try to show how music study is relevant to other disciplines.”

The Yale College Class of ’57 visiting professorship is one of three components of the Music in Schools Initiative. Lewis holds the David and Mary Winton Green Chair in String Performance and Pedagogy at the University of Texas, where he is a professor of violin. He is the artistic director of the Starling-DeLay Symposium on Violin Studies at Juilliard, the Brian Lewis Young Artists Program in Kansas, and the Starling Distinguished Violinist Series at the Butler School of Music.

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Photo: Jane Doe © 2010

The first year of alumniVentures

Feedback from the first year has been overwhelmingly positive. “The grant I received from alumniVentures,” wrote Pedro de Alcantara ’83MM (cello), has made a world of difference to my project The Integrated Musician, a book series at the Oxford University Press.”

Terri Sundberg ’86MM received a grant for Peace Through Music Uganda, which facilitates “sustainable, locally-run school and shelterbased musical education programs for wartraumatized children and former child soldiers.”

She wrote: “If you had any question about the importance of these grants and power to change lives, I will share that truly the work we have accomplished in Uganda during these past several months would not have occurred at all without Yale’s help.”

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As an example, she cited the GUSCO (Gulu Support the Children Organization) Shropshire Music program for former child soldiers.

One former child soldier in the class said, When I was seven to eight years old I was abducted by rebels... we were forced to go and kill people.... This program actually helped me a lot since I came back from the bush [escaped from being a child soldier]. You know those kind of bad dreams I’m now not getting, because when I start thinking about the past, I just pick up the ukulele or the pennywhistle and start to play, and those kinds of bad dreams or bad thinking just disappear.

Harpist Julia Cunningham ’97MM received a grant to purchase therapy harps to bring into hospitals, veterans’ associations, and nursing homes. Cunningham plays not only for patients but also their families and hospital staff. The lightweight therapy harps are small enough that they can be played over a patient’s bed or wheelchair, or even placed in a patient’s bed.

One veteran wrote: “I’ve never seen a harp up close before, let alone had the chance to play one. I never thought I’d ever be able to play an instrument from my wheelchair.

You really inspired me.” Another patient said: “While I was in the hospital… your music was the most amazing, wonderful and healing gift I received.”

Lars Frandsen ’93MM received a grant for the Prison Concert Project, which involved sixteen concerts and five workshops in various prisons. Sarah Jacques, an administrator for the project, wrote: “We received numerous letters thanking both Dobbs [Hartshorne] and Lars for the gift of music they received….

Many of the inmates wrote of finding new joy and peace in listening to clasical music in their cells.”

Inmates wrote: “Hearing and seeing your talents, my ears and heart have been blessed.

Your concert has inspired me to continue my heart’s desire” (playing guitar). “I’ve never listened to music of that type…. It is the first time I realized music has emotion.”

Photo: Jane Doe © 2010

The School of Music’s bold and innovative alumniVentures program launched in June 2008, when Dean Blocker announced the plan to give grants to projects that advance the cause of music. In the program’s first year, over three hundred alumni sent in proposals, and the committee awarded $100,000 in grants.

“You guys put on a show that was entertaining by any standard, and even more so considering our unique environment. That you so generously shared your talent with us is appreciated more than you can know.”

“I truly felt free inside myself, to let my imagination soar.

It opened my ears to a whole new sound that I feel I needed. I look forward to one day hearing more, or buy[ing] some tickets to a concert when I get free.”

One postscript read simply: “Better than chocolate!”

Musicorps, a program working with war veterans started by Arthur Bloom ’86BA, ’93MM with help from an alumniVentures grant and other funding sources, was spotlighted in a Wall Street Journal article last July.

Despite the keenly-felt effects of the economy at Yale, the program has continued into its second and third year.

2009-10 Award Winners $7,500 Grant Richard Rosenberg ’77MM Conducting To support Mr. Rosenberg’s research into the works of 19th-century American composer and pianist Louis Moreau Gottschalk, including recovery and editing of two unpublished,neverperformed operas and numerous other works for military band and orchestra, with the final aim of publishing, performing and recording them. $5,000 Grants Adrian Anantawan ’06MM Violin To support the Virtual Chamber Music Initiative, a unique collaborative project at Bloorview Kids Rehab (Toronto) between a composer, musicians, researchers, music therapists, and a musically talented young person with disabilities. Funds will go towards the creation and performance of a new chamber work using the ‘Virtual Musical Instrument’ (VMI). The first of its kind in the world, the VMI allows children with special needs to translate physical gestures and movements into musical notes.

Theresa Calpotura ’06MM Guitar Yuri Liberzon ’07MM Guitar Steve Lin ’05MM Guitar (joint proposal) To support the establishment of residencies in seven public schools located in the San Francisco Bay area. The funding will allow the presentation of 36 educational performances in classrooms, make free and discounted tickets available for students to attend classical music concerts, and help start a new non-profit organization that will offer music performances and education to students and their families.

Dean Corey ’71MM Horn To support bringing ‘Musical Me,’ a non directed approach to music listening for use in the classroom (kindergarten to eighth grade), to ten more classrooms in Orange County, CA. ‘Musical Me’ is a five year program that includes selections from the early Renaissance to 21st-century music and can be used to enrich an existing program or fulfill a need where no music program exists.

Sarah Beth May ’98MM Composition Support for ‘Community College Composers – National Call for Scores,’ a nationwide composition competition specifically for community college students, encouraging the creation and performance of new music by students traditionally not afforded these opportunities. The three finalists will have their chamber works performed and the event will be hosted at Northwest Vista Community College, San Antonio, TX.

John-Michael Muller ’05MM Violin To support ‘Lantern Music,’ a project in Nanjing, China, for college-aged musicians to receive chamber music coaching and also give outreach performances in local rural schools and migrant worker villages.

The project will include 20 concerts, involve 20 college-aged musicians, and present free, live classical music to over a thousand audience members.

Carsten Schmidt ’99DMA Piano Chester Biscardi ’80DMA Composition (joint proposal) To support three educational projects of the Staunton Music Festival, VA: the SMF Emerging Composers Program for young composers with a gift for writing art song; the SMF Young Artist Fellowship program for pre-formed voice and piano duos in conjunction with a Schubert and Brahms Festival; and the SMF Music-Story project, aimed at engaging primary and middle school children of Staunton in active listening to classical music.

Karisa Werdon ’05MM Oboe To support a new model of music education in the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) in New York City college preparatory schools. Funding will be used to introduce students to instruments they would otherwise not have the opportunity to study, sustaining lessons and band sectionals, allowing students to take field trips to concerts, and helping KIPP NYC host their end-of-year concert.

View the complete list of 2009 alumniVentures grants here: http://music.yale.edu/alumni/winners09

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Metropolitan Opera’s Live in HD broadcasts come to Yale thanks to a gift from Frederick Iseman ’74 Starting last fall, the Yale University community can view the Metropolitan Opera’s Live in HD broadcasts on campus free of charge through a gift from Frederick Iseman, a Yale College alumnus of the Class of 1974. Iseman’s gift funds Yale’s access to the twelve operas scheduled for live transmission during 2010–2011, as well as the installation of new sound and projection technology in Sprague Hall, where the performances are shown.

Additionally, Mr. Iseman’s gift enables area high school students to experience the Met’s performances by providing 200 tickets for the Live in HD series presented at the Branford 12 movie theater. Tickets are distributed to the high schools through the Music in Schools program.

The Met @ Yale: the Iseman Broadcasts of The Met Live in HD season began on October 9 with Richard Wagner’s Das Rheingold, the first production in the Met’s widely anticipated new Ring Cycle. The broadcasts will continue in the 2011-12 season.

Nine former students of the Yale School of Music are among the singers performing in the twelve operas being simulcast this year.

Das Rheingold, the first broadcast, included Tamara Mumford (Flosshilde) and Adam Diegel (Froh). Other alumni appearing this season include Matthew Polenzani ’94MM; Tyler Simpson ’10MM; Edward Parks ’08MM; Matthew Plenk ’07MM, ’10AD; and Mary Phillips ’93MM. The Met launched its high-definition broadcasts of select Saturday afternoon performances in movie theaters nationwide in 2006 through the vision of general manager Peter Gelb.

The Peabody and Emmy Award-winning series has grown steadily and is currently seen in more than 1,500 theaters in 46 countries across six continents. “The Met’s live HD transmissions have significantly changed the way people think about opera,” Gelb said.

“The Metropolitan Opera is a living cultural treasure and nothing can compare with the excitement of seeing its performances in real time,” said Dean Robert Blocker.

“We are truly fortunate to have Frederick Iseman’s support of this new venture and the additional learning opportunities, even beyond these broadcasts, that the new technology will make possible.”

“Yale counts Frederick Iseman as one of its most generous benefactors and we are deeply grateful for his unflagging commitment

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From left to right: Frederick Iseman, Doris Yarick Cross, Ezra Laderman and Dean Robert Blocker.

to the University,” said Yale President Richard C. Levin. “The Iseman Broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera will be a wonderful addition to the rich tapestry of performances in our theaters and concert halls.”

Mr. Iseman is chair and CEO of CI Capital Partners, LLC, which he co-founded in 1993.

He is a member of numerous organizations that reflect his interests in the arts and globalization, and serves as a trustee of the Metropolitan Opera, the Municipal Art Society, Carnegie Hall, and the White Nights Foundation of the Mariinsky Opera Theatre of St. Petersburg, Russia. Mr. Iseman’s previous gifts to Yale include support for the Genocide Studies Program in the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies, and endowment of the directorship of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, a position held since 2002 by Ernesto Zedillo ’81 Ph.D., former president of Mexico.

In May 2009, Yale renamed its premier black box theater as the Frederick Iseman Theater.

Mr. Iseman was recently honored by the School of Music with a Cultural Leadership Citation recognizing his extraordinary contributions to opera and to the artistic life of Yale University.

Mr. Iseman first conceived of the idea to present The Met: Live in HD on the Yale campus for students and faculty two years ago, and he worked closely with staff at both institutions to make it possible. He commented: “My seduction by opera began at Yale.

The Met graciously gave this uncredentialed student reviewer from the now defunct Yale Revue critic’s seats on the aisle. Don Giovanni, Rosenkavalier, Cavalleria Rusticana,

Frederick Iseman ‘74 receiving the Cultural Leadership Citation from Dean Robert Blocker at Convocation.

Manon Lescaut, Pavarotti, and Birgit Nilsson all ignited my interest in an art form that, at its best, is overwhelming and takes one out of oneself.

“Sitting in a Met Opera board meeting watching a preview of the HD-TV season, I decided that I wanted every Yale student to experience what I had had and that the technology now permitted.”

The ideas keep coming: “With the audiovisual renovation we are putting in place at the Music School, Sprague Hall can now do an entire recorded Wagner Ring cycle run overnight, a complete series of Orpheus, Don Juan, and Faust-based operas, or an opera film festival. The fun has just begun.”

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Photo by Vincent Oneppo

Music in Schools From new book projects to the first allcity band, the Music in Schools Initiative continues to thrive. The initiative focuses both on dedicated student musicians and on music-and-literacy programs.

The literacy efforts focus on music’s ability to further learning in the general classroom. Three book-writing projects exemplify this goal. In each project, a Yale School of Music student provides music (either pre-existing music or specially composed) to a classroom. The class collaborates on writing stories, and sometimes art classes add illustrations. At the project’s conclusion, YSM musicians perform the piece with the students’ story narrated live.

This year, the book writing projects expand into North Haven and Norwalk.

The program has also strengthened its New Haven-based offerings. As the citywide choir enters its second year, it will be joined

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by a new citywide band. The band, which is for middle-schoolers, will aim to keep the students engaged in music at an age that is often a turning point. Said associate dean Michael Yaffe, “We’re trying to focus on the educational reform movement, with its priority of keeping kids in school. Our goal is to keep them involved in music to keep them in school.”

Thomas C. Duffy will direct the band, offering his expertise from serving as the director of bands at Yale and president of the College Band Directors National Association.

The citywide solo competition, held annually in Sprague Hall, will expand. Originally for middle school students, the competition will now offer three divisions. The competition’s new high school category demonstrates the success of the Music in Schools Initiative in keeping students engaged in music through the high school grades.

All the programs exemplify the initiative’s goal of close collaboration with the New Haven Public Schools’ (NHPS) music program, complementing the work of the NHPS music teachers.

Similar to the book projects is the Music and Film effort that will tie into the 2011 Symposium on Music in Schools. The project will be based at New Haven’s Cooperative Arts and Humanities Magnet High School (known colloquially as Co-Op).

The beginning will be filmed in New Haven

by Co-Op students; the next two segments will be filmed at two additional schools, under teachers who are alumni of the Yale Symposium on Music in Schools.

At each of those schools, the actors will be matched as best as possible to the actors in previous segments. The film will be completed in New Haven, and the final creation will be presented at the 2011 Symposium on Music in Schools.

Third Symposium on Music in Schools June 9-12, 2011 The biennial Symposium on Music in Schools, another component of the Music in Schools Initiative, will be held June 8-10 on the Yale campus. As in previous years, the symposium will bring together fifty music educators from around the country who have been nominated and selected for their accomplishments in the classroom. The educators will participate in discussions, skill-building worshops, and other events. Music teachers in the New Haven Public Schools will join in the workshops. The symposium will culminate in an awards banquet recognizing the fifty Distinguished Music Educators.

The two themes of the 2011 Symposium run parallel to the tracks of the Music in Schools Initiative: integrating music into the general classroom; and the relationship between visiting teaching artists and public school music teachers.

This year’s event will introduce some changes. The 2011 symposium will be a day longer than in previous years, offering three days of activities. Visiting educators will be more immersed in campus life, staying in Yale housing and eating in Yale dining halls.

School superintendents and others from across the country nominate music educators to apply for the Yale Distinguished Music Educator Award and attend the symposium. Fifty educators will be selected to receive the award and attend the Symposium in New Haven. music.yale.edu/community/symposium

An NHPS teacher works with a student.

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Music Briefs

Community Engagement Think Tanks The School of Music began a series of Community Engagement Think Tanks, in which students explore how to become involved in the cultural life of their communities. In a series of Saturday Seminars, students attend lectures by distinguished guests and then hold smallgroup discussions relevant topics. In the spirit of community engagement, the discussions are recorded and posted online as webcasts. More broadly, the series aims to develop a series of principles and shape policy statements. Participating School of Music students will be able to apply for Community Engagement grants to help develop projects of their own. The guest speakers in 2009-10 included Robert Capanna, Alan Fletcher, Mitchell Korn, Tina Lee Hadari ’04MM, and Greg Sandow ’74MM. http://music.yale.edu/media

Online Profiles for YSM Students The School of Music now provides an online service for students to showcase their music, performances, press kits, résumés, and research. It is powered by a company called Digication and allows students to create their own web pages without the need for any web programming experience. Pages are customizable so that in addition to essential materials such as biographies and photographs, students can post recordings, samples of compositions, and feeds from social networking sites such as Twitter. http://musicians.yale.edu

Dean Blocker honored in China Last fall, the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, China honored Dean Robert Blocker at a ceremony celebrating the 70th anniversary of its founding.

On November 1 the Conservatory held a ceremony with hundreds of alumni and guests, including composer Tan Dun, pianist Lang Lang, and the heads of numerous Chinese universities, conservatories, orchestras, and opera companies.

The Yale School of Music enjoys a close collaboration with the Central Conservatory (CCOM). Over the years, several students have come to Yale from CCOM, and in 2008, CCOM and the Yale School of Music jointly hosted Musicathlon: the Conservatory Music Festival, presenting performances and master classes with musicians from eleven conservatories across the globe.

The Philharmonia Orchestra of Yale performed at Beijing’s Forbidden City Concert Hall, and the ensemble joined with the CCOM orchestra and chorus in a performance of Mahler’s Second Symphony.

In the November ceremony, Dean Robert Blocker was honored with a Certificate of Honorary Academician. The distinction was also given to Yu Long, the artistic director of the China Philharmonic Orchestra. Other awards included the Excellent Artistic Achievements Award, given to pianist Lang Lang.

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School of Music in the lead in Internet2 technology The Yale School of Music is rapidly developing its capabilities in Internet2 distance learning, including a computer-based system and a Codec transmission system. These systems will allow the school to partake in master classes, lectures, workshops, and performances in conjunction with music schools and concert venues all around the world.

As a result of these developments, the School was invited to serve as the testing site for a series of demonstrations of the various transmission products available to present distance learning through the Internet2 system. A workshop in Miami, co-sponsored by Internet2 and the New World Symphony, brought together practitioners of music distance learning from throughout the country. Jack Vees, Director of the Yale Center for Studies in Music Technology, took the lead in Yale’s presentation on February 11. From the stage of Sprague Hall, a performance by YSM viola student Anne Lanzilotti ’08MM was transmitted to the workshop. The session, “Video Codecs — What’s tried and true; what’s new,” was a demonstration of five different transmission systems, allowing participants in the workshop to determine the best transmission method.

Yale in New York, Sleeping Giant The Yale in New York series expanded into another venue: the music club (Le) Poisson Rouge in Greenwich Village. A concert on October 11 featured music from the composers collective Sleeping Giant, made up of Timothy Andres ’07BA, ’09MM; Christopher Cerrone ’09MM, ’10MMA; Jacob Cooper ’06MM, ’10MMA; Ted Hearne ’08MM, ’09MMA; and Robert Honstein ’04BA, ’10MMA. Cerrone describes Sleeping Giant as “a network of interrelated and interconnected styles more than one united by a single aesthetic. Jacob and I write music influenced by the translation of electronic music into acoustic music; Jacob and Ted have a strong interest in rock instrumentation. Ted and Timo have a strong interest in pulsation; Timo and Robert write music of extreme gentleness.

So while there’s not one interconnecting thread, each of us have common interests that draw us together.”

Visiting Musicians Coach Philharmonia Five members of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra led the Yale Philharmonia in sectional coachings in November 2009.

The visiting musicians also took part in a side-by-side reading of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5.

David Halen, concertmaster of Saint Louis Symphony, visited three different times to lead the sectional and mock audition for Yale Philharmonia.

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Student & Alumni News

Emma Lou Diemer ’49MusB, ’50MM, Philip Ficsor ’01MM A recent CD, Summer Day, features the complete works for violin and piano by Emma Lou Diemer and has been released on Amazon.

The violinist is Philip Ficsor; Diemer is the pianist. Emma Lou Diemer was a guest composer at the Women in Music Festival 2010 at Eastman in March, 2010.

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Gwen Stevens ’55MM, Andrius Zlabys ’08MM Gwen Stevens is the music director of the Howland Chamber Music Circle in Beacon, NY. Pianist Andrius Zlabys was one of three pianists performing in the Piano Festival this past winter. In March, the Biava String Quartet (violinists Austin Hartman ‘06AD and Hyunsu Ko ’06AD, violist Mary Persin ‘06AD, and cellist Gwendolyn Krosnick) appeared on the series. www.howlandmusic.org

Denis Mickiewicz ’57MusB, ’67PhD Khoristoria, a film chronicling the history and achievements of the 57-year old Yale Russian Chorus, was shown in Moscow in November 2009 as part of the eight-day Third International Russkoye Zarubezh’e Film Festival.

The festival was organized by the Moscow Ruskii Mir Kino Film Studio in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Diaghilev Seasons in Paris. Denis Mickiewicz and two Chorus alumni were present at the showing and answered questions about why this group, founded in the early 1950s at Yale during the Cold War, keeps flourishing and growing. In November, a hundred Russian Chorus alumni made a new recording and gave a formal concert at Duke University.

Arthur B. Rubinstein ’58MusB In October 2009, Arthur B. Rubinstein, the music director and founder of Symphony in the Glen, conducted the first-ever concert at Los Angeles’ Griffith Observatory. The concert — performed under the full moon — was part of the world-wide “Year of the Astronomer” celebration, honoring the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s cosmic discoveries. Included in the program was the premiere of Rubinstein’s Observations for orchestra and narrator.

The text was by Dr. Edwin Krupp, Griffith Observatory director, and was narrated by Leonard Nimoy. A recording of Observations will be available in the Spring.

Roderic M. Keating ’65MM Roderic M. Keating finds that, three years into retirement, he has almost more to do than ever. In 2009-10 he sang the part of the Doctor (Chebutykin) in a new production at the Koblenz Opera House, Germany (which he sang ten years ago, but in Russian – this is a German translation). Then he sang Spoletta in Stuttgart in June, as in every “Tosca” revival since the premiere fifteen years ago (over 100 performances now!), while across the road in Stuttgart he has a full book of promising vocal students.

On Sunday mornings, he can usually be found at the U.S. base in Stuttgart, singing in the choir or deputizing at the organ.

Maury Yeston ’67BA, ’74PhD Maury Yeston was nominated for an Oscar for Best Song for Take it All from Nine.

The song was also nominated for a Critics Choice Award, a Golden Globe, and a Satellite Award. Yeston wrote the music and lyrics to the Broadway musical Nine in 1982 and worked with director Rob Marshall to adapt the show for film.

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Student & Alumni News Bernard Rubenstein ’61MM, Moni Simeonov ’06MM, ’07AD An article that Bernard Rubenstein wrote about music in Cuba was published by Symphony Magazine in the November/ December 2009 issue. He continues to conduct in Cuba and will return during the 2011 season for concerts with the Cuban National Orchestra and Orquesta Sinfónica de Oriente. His orchestra, the Fargo-Moorhead Symphony Orchestra, was selected for a residency and performances by Midori in February of 2009. Her doctoral student Moni Simeonov ’06MM, ’07AD assisted her during the week’s active schedule. Rubenstein conducted two weeks of Nutcrackers with the San Antonio Symphony and Metropolitan Classical Ballet in San Antonio, featuring soloists from the Bolshoi. www.fmsymphony.org Tom Johnson ’61BA, ’67MM Tom Johnson was a featured guest composer on YSM’s New Music New Haven series in April 2010. The concert featured his piece Four Note Chords, dedicated to professor emeritus Allen Forte, as well as the popular 1989 work Narayana’s Cows. Johnson also gave a lecture to composition students on campus.

Jan Baty ’68MM After receiving her degree in violin performance in 1968, Jan Baty went on to study with Dorothy Delay at Juilliard, and also worked extensively with Robert Mann. She played with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra and then became a member of the Delos String Quartet at the University of Delaware. After twelve years, the quartet dissolved; Baty began teaching the Alexander Technique, which she had become passionate about over the years. She continues to teach this study to those in the expressive arts, as well as anyone else who is interested in learning more about their natural design for ease and well-being. www.thevillagegreen.net Jeff Fuller ’69MM New Haven composer and jazz bassist Jeff Fuller had two new works premiered in April 2010 at the ACES Educational Center for the Arts, during the school’s fourth New Music Festival. Fuller’s String Quartet (2001) was performed by the Haven Quartet, an outstanding group of players known for their school residencies, educational programs and top-notch professionalism. Also being presented on the same concert was a new jazz big band arrangement of Fuller’s Rumberos del Irazú (1991), performed by the ECA Large Jazz Ensemble. www.jefffuller.net

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Harpsichordist Mark Kroll ’71MM Mark Kroll had a three-day residency in April 2009 at EAFIT University in Medellín, Colombia. At a week-long Hummel festival in Bordeaux, France in May 2009, Kroll gave the keynote address, performed on two concerts, and lectured. He returned there in May 2010.

Kroll published two editions for A-R Editions of music recently discovered in 18th-century workbooks of Charles Avison. The first is an edition of concerti grossi by Francesco Scarlatti; the second edition consists of Avison’s concerto-grosso arrangements of Geminiani violin sonatas. The proceedings of the International Conference on Johann Nepomuk Hummel, in which Kroll was the keynote speaker, have just been published

by Divis/Slovakia.

Nina Deutsch ’73MMA Bob Dylan licensed Nina Deutsch to record his songs for solo piano. Her new CD, The Music of Bob Dylan, has been played on WNYC 820 AM, Danny Stiles Music Museum Show, and global radio. Fanfare magazine has given it an excellent review.

Alvin Singleton ‘71MMA Alvin Singleton enjoyed a two-day residency at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music and Dance and appeared as guest composer for a Musica Nova concert. The Walden Chamber Players commissioned a work from Singleton and premiered it in March 2010 in Brookline, Mass. In April, American Opera Projects and the MacDowell Colony celebrated Singleton’s seventieth birthday with a special event held in Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall. The program featured the world premiere of Shreve’s Triptych -Trio - Oratorio: Portraits of the Twentieth Century and the Carnegie Hall premiere of Singleton’s Brooklyn Bones: Requiem for the Revolutionary War Prison Ship Martyrs.

Sheila Barnes ’74MM, ’75MMA Last year Sheila Barnes was invited to coach a new early music group, La Nuova Musica, led by David Bates, at the Aldeburgh Music Britten-Pears School. The two previous years she has lectured at the Jerwood Opera Writing project at Aldeburgh. Barnes recently qualified as a Licensed Practitioner of Neuro-linguistic Programming, which she combines with person-centered counseling training. Recently she was invited to teach at the Opera House in Kiel, Germany. In September 2010 sang with the London Mozart Players conducted by Elgar Howarth. She recently bought and learned to tune a copy of a Flemish harpsichord, and plans to start her own early music group, Sprezzatura.

Max Stern ’71MM Max Stern has been researching the relation between the Bible and music for the past few years and is completing a book on the subject. As part of this project he also composed and contextualized his own original compositions. He composed a choral-orchestral work entitled Prophet or King (based on texts from 1 Sam 8) for an academic conference (“Spiritual Authority: Struggles over Cultural Power in Jewish Thought”) held at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in May 2007. It was written for his students in a course called Choir for NonMusicians. A CD of this performance entitled “Prophet or King” is available through the Israel Music Institute, Tel-Aviv.

Gerald Elias ’75BA, ’75MM Gerald Elias’s first novel, Devil’s Trill, was published by St. Martin’s Press in 2009 and was selected by Barnes and Noble for its Discover Great New Writers program.

The next in the series, Danse Macabre, was released this past summer. The first commercial recording of his orchestration of the Copland Violin Sonata, published

by Boosey and Hawkes, has recently been released by Albany Records. His composition The Raven was performed at the annual Poe conference in Philadelphia last October.

In December 2009, Elias conducted the 27th annual Vivaldi By Candlelight concert in Salt Lake City. He has been music director of that series since 2004. www.geraldelias.com

The William F. Buckley correspondence at Yale University Library includes Ten Years of Letters to Nina Deutsch. www.myspace.com/ninadeutsch Sharon Ruchman ’73MM Sharon Ruchman is pleased to announce her new website, where she will sell her latest CD of chamber music. www.sharonruchman.com

Rob Kapilow ’75BA Rob Kapilow and his innovative work are part of a documentary, Summer Sun Winter Moon.

The thought-provoking film exposes viewers to the reality of the American Indian perspective of Lewis and Clark’s legendary “Corps of Discovery” mission. Darrell Kipp, a writer and educator from the Blackfeet Tribe of Montana, collaborated with Kapilow as librettist. The film aired on Thirteen’s SundayArts show on January 31 and February 6. Philippe de Montebello, former director of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, gave a special introduction about Mr. Kapilow and the film on the January SundayArts show.

Kapilow was a guest conductor with the Yale Symphony Orchestra in February 2011. summersunwintermoon.com www.robkapilow.com

Pianist William Westney ’76DMA William Westney was the Hans Christian Andersen Guest Professor at the University of Southern Denmark (Odense) for the 2009-10 academic year. He also performed as guest artist at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. In June 2009 he was the principal guest artist/ presenter at the Singapore Piano Teachers’ Association Pedagogy Symposium. While in Asia he returned to Tonghai University in Taiwan as guest clinician. Earlier in the year, Dr. Westney, who holds two endowed positions at Texas Tech University, was given the university’s highest teaching honor, the Chancellor’s Council Distinguished Teaching Award. An interview with Westney comprised the cover article of the May/June 2009 magazine Clavier Companion. www.williamwestney.com

Lori Laitman ’75BA, ’76MM Lori Laitman was the featured composer on Thomas Hampson’s new “Song of America” website, songofamerica.net, in February. Her music was showcased at the New Triad for Collaboriate Arts at Songfest 2010 in Malibu, CA. Opera America’s Salon Series: Exploring American Voices presented a recital of her music in September. Her most recent solo CD, Within These Spaces, was released by Albany Records in 2009 to critical acclaim.

The Cosmos Club in Washington, DC presented a recital of her compositions, including the premiere of The Blood Jet. The same month saw the premiere of Vedem in Seattle. The work tells the story of the secret magazine of the boys of Terezin.

Laitman spoke about Vedem on September 29 at the Institute of Sacred Music.

Chester Biscardi ’76MMA, ’80DMA Chester Biscardi was invited to China last May. He presented a lecture and a master class at the famed Shanghai Conservatory of Music, the oldest conservatory in mainland China. He was also a featured composer at the 2010 Beijing Modern Music Festival, where he gave lectures and a master class.

A number of his chamber works were performed on two concerts, one event devoted exclusively to his chamber music.

Ralph Evans ’74BA, ’76MM, ’80DMA In 2011, the distinguished Fine Arts Quartet was celebrating its 65th birthday, the last 29 of those years with Ralph Evans as leader.

The Quartet’s recent Franck CD was an Editor’s Choice in Gramophone Magazine, and its Glazunov, Mendelssohn, and Fauré CDs were each named a Recording of the Year by Musicweb International. Their “Four American Quartets” album (including Evans’s own Quartet No. 1) was a BBC Music Magazine Choice, and their Fauré CD with pianist Cristina Ortiz was among the recordings for which Steven Epstein won a 2009 Grammy Award (Producer of the Year, Classical). Releases for 2010-11 include works by Beethoven, Saint-Saëns, Zimbalist, Kreisler, and Ysaÿe. fineartsquartet.org

Daniel Asia ’77MM The American Academy of Arts and Letters announced in February that Daniel Asia was the recipient of a 2010 Academy Award in Music. Each year, the Academy honors four composers “of exceptional accomplishment.”

The award was conferred at a ceremony in May. In addition, a recording of Daniel Asia’s choral works from 1972 to 2009, featuring the BBC Singers, was released in the Fall of 2010.

Richard Rosenberg ’77MM This season, Hot Springs Music Festival artistic director Richard Rosenberg guestconducted the Symphonischen Akademie Patentorchester München in Germany, the Orquesta Sinfónica Municipal de Caracas in Venezuela, and the Festival Música nas Montanhas in Brazil. He was awarded a Yale School of Music alumniVentures Grant to support his research into the Cuban works of Louis Moreau Gottschalk, including recovery and editing of two unpublished, never-performed operas and numerous other works for military band and orchestra.

His sixth Naxos recording, Jazz Nocturne: American Concerti of the Jazz Age, was released in March 2010. He also produced a Naxos recording of Mozart concerti for piano with soloist Dean Robert Blocker. www.richardrosenberg.net

Cindy McTee ’78MM Leonard Slatkin conducted the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in the premiere of Double Play by Cindy McTee in June 2010.

The piece was commissioned by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in honor of Elaine Lebenbom, as part of the third annual Lebenbom Award. The Detroit News praised the “ambitious, imaginative and altogether irresistible essay for large orchestra in two movements of head-turning brilliance.” www.cindymctee.com Sharon Isbin ’78BA, ’79MA Guitarist Sharon Isbin won a Grammy Award for her CD Journey to the New World, featuring guest artists Joan Baez and Mark O’Connor.

The recording won the award for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (Without Orchestra), and Isbin was the only classical performer at the awards ceremony. Last November, Isbin performed at the White House’s Evening of Classical Music. sharonisbin.com Helen Campbell ’79MM Violist Helen Campbell recently returned from a Fubright teaching year in Moscow, where she taught American commercial law in the Department of World Politics at Moscow State University. She soon returned to give a series of lectures on various topics of interest: William “Big Bill” Haywood, the radical American labor leader; the second amendment and the American gun lobby; and (in a nod to her musical background) Charlie Parker.

Meanwhile, she is writing a series of essays, some of them about Russia, at least one about music. Campbell is a Collegiate Professor at the University of Maryland University College-Europe in Heidelberg, Germany.

David Kurtz ’80MM When the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences announced the winners of the 37th annual Emmy Awards, Yale School of Music alumnus David Kurtz added two to his collection. Kurtz won for Outstanding Achievement in Music Direction and Composition for a Drama Series for his work on The Bold and the Beautiful (CBS). As both composer and lyricist, he won Outstanding Original Song for a Drama Series for The Young and the Restless, also on CBS. Previous accolades include Emmy Awards in 1989, 2006, and 2009, as well as numerous ASCAP Film & Television Music Awards for Most Performed Underscore. In addition to his work on The Young and the Restless and The Bold and the Beautiful, Kurtz has contributed to the music for By the Sea, Alien Nation, Charles in Charge, and many other television productions, as well as movies including The Big Chill, Instant Justice, and Hunk.

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Student & Alumni News Susan Royal ’81MM Dr. Susan Royal, professor of flute and chair of woodwinds at SUNY Fredonia, has received outstanding reviews for her CD The New Lyric Flute, on Centaur Records. The review in The American Record Guide states that the “musicianship is exemplary.” The Flute Talk praised “Royal’s gorgeous full sound…luscious vibrato and complete command of the instrument.” Dr. Royal performed works from this CD at the KRAS International Guitar Festival in Europe in July 2009, as well as on a recital tour in Puerto Rico in March 2009. In addition to her other activities, Dr. Royal served as Acting Director of SUNY Fredonia’s School of Music for the spring semester, 2009.

Charles Kaufman ’82MM The Longfellow Chorus was born of Charles Kaufman’s work as music director of First Parish Church in Portland, Maine, and as a tour guide for the Maine Historical Society at the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow House, the poet’s boyhood home. The ensemble, which Kaufman founded and directs, focuses on musical settings of the poetry of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Kaufman’s research has found “gems… by Sir Arthur Sullivan, of Gilbert and Sullivan. There’s a Liszt piece, and an Elgar piece. There are tons of obscure Victorian composers.” The first Longfellow Chorus concert was held in February 2007 at the First Parish Church. A concert the following year introduced the first Longfellow Chorus International Composers Competition.

Eleven new works were premiered at the 2008 concert. Kaufman, said the Bangor Daily News, “has single-handedly revived a lost sub-genre: the music inspired by the words of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.”

Read the article at www.bangordailynews .com/detail/137451.html. www.longfellowchorus.com Pedro de Alcantara ’83MM Pedro de Alcantara was named the editor of a book series at Oxford University Press titled “The Ingegrated Musician,” based on his innovative pedagogy. His first volume, Integrated Practice: Coordination, Rhythm & Sound, will be published later this year, together with a dedicated website partly funded by a grant from alumniVentures. Pedro is currently writing the volume The Integrated String Player and supervising volumes for keyboard players, wind players, and singers.

In the meantime, he is finishing his third novel for children, under contract at Random House, which also published his novels Backtracked (2005) and Befiddled (2009). Pedro travels the world coaching musicians and professionals in every field. www.pedrodealcantara.com

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Wayman Chin ’83MM Wayman Chin, Dean of the Conservatory at the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, Mass., served as a member of the Music Program Faculty for the winter 2010 cycle at the Banff Centre in Canada.

Paul Jacobson ’83MM, ‘83MAR Organist Paul Jacobson was recently ordained a priest in the Episcopal Church.

He is serving as Curate at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Morristown, NJ. In November and December 2010, he appeared with the Chicago Symphony.

David Lang ‘83MMA The 2010 Grammy for Best Small Ensemble Performance was awarded to David Lang’s The Little Match Girl Passion by David Lang, in a Harmonia Mundi recording by Ars Nova Copenhagen and Theatre Of Voices, conducted by Paul Hillier. The composition earned Lang the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2008.

Marin Alsop ‘77BA The Grammy Award for Best Classical Contemporary Composition was given to Jennifer Higdon’s Percussion Concerto, in a recording featuring the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Marin Alsop ‘1234567.

Samuel Maynez ’85CERT In December 2009, the re-elaboration of Vivaldi´s opera Motecuhzoma II by Samuel Maynez received its world premiere in Mexico City. It was a long-term project that was a part of his doctorate in Mesomerican Studies at Mexico´s National University. Maynez introduced Maya, Mahuatl, and sixteenthcentury Spanish instead of the customary Italian, and juxtaposed pre-Hispanic musical instruments with Vivaldi´s orchestration.

He deployed additional Vivaldi material to reconstruct the missing parts of the score and eliminated the long recitatives, making them a mixture of Singspiel and melologue. Full houses at the Hidalgo Theater greeted the project with standing ovations. Future plans include performances in Mexico, Italy, and the United States.

Antonio Underwood ’87MM Tubist Antonio Underwood has released his latest CD, They Call Him...Antonio. Both this recording and his first CD, Tuba Mirum, can be downloaded from his web page. www.toneeastmusic.com

Hector Valdivia ’87MM, ’88MMA, ’94DMA Hector Valdivia is a professor at Carleton College, where he serves as chair of the music department, teaches violin and viola, and is the S. Eugene Bailey Director of the Carleton Orchestra. He recently completed an audio recording of works by Amy Beach for Centaur Records that features two versions of her Variations on Balkan Themes.

One version is for two pianos; the other, for orchestra, Dr. Valdivia orchestrated and then conducted with the Moravian Philharmonic in the Czech Republic. centaurrecords.com Pete Derheimer ’88MM Pete Derheimer wrote while in reheasals for a full produccion of Puccini’s Turandot at the Teatro Maestranza en Sevilla. It is an international double cast produccion with Maria Guleghina and Janice Baird as Turandot; Fabio Armiliato and Marco Berti as Calaf; Daniela Dessi and Norah Amsellem as Liu. Gwendolyn Toth ‘88 DMA ARTEK director Gwendolyn Toth DMA conducted Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610 in acclaimed, standing-room only performances in January, at the Washington National Gallery of Art and at Church of St. Ignatius Loyola in New York City. The New York Times called it “a resounding performance”; American Recorder wrote: “The vocal presentation was all but seamless. Conducted by Gwendolyn Toth, whose conducting style is clear, expressive, and personal, the Vespers were offered without intermission. A long standing ovation followed the performance.”

Trombonist Maureen Horgan ’83MM Trombonist Maureen Horgan had a busy spring sabbatical, gearing up for recording a CD of her commissions and other works by friends, including several works for trombone and electronics. Dr. Horgan is Associate Professor of Music at Georgia College & State University. She was a soloist with the Georgia College and State University Concert Band, and performed and/or gave masterclasses at the International Women’s Brass Conference, New England Conservatory, Anderson University, University of Tennessee Chattanooga, and Georgia Southern University. She also presented her ongoing research on Women in Male-Dominated Fields at the International Women’s Brass Conference in Toronto.

Richard Dowling ’87MM Richard Dowling opened Dowling Music inside Steinway Hall in May 2010. After the closing of the legendary Joseph Patelson Music House, Dowling Music became Steinway Hall’s only tenant, aiming to be the newest and most comprehensive provider of sheet music in Manhattan. Its main store is located in Houston, Tex. www.dowlingmusic.com

Marco Beltrami ’91MM Composer Marco Beltrami and Buck Sanders were nominated for an Oscar for Best Score for The Hurt Locker. Beltrami was previously nominated for the score to 3:10 to Yuma.

He has written scores for many other films, including the Scream movies; I, Robot; Blade II; Hellboy; and The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. www.marcobeltrami.com

Augusta Read Thomas ’88MM The American Academy of Arts and Letters has elected Augusta Read Thomas to membership; she was inducted in May 2009.

Augusta is the Music Alive Composer-inResidence with the New Haven Symphony.

Music Alive is a national residency program of the League of American Orchestras and Meet the Composer. Upcoming projects include commissions from the Juilliard School, New Haven Symphony Orchestra, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and DePaul University Orchestra. She holds the McIlroy Family Visiting Professorship in the Performing and Visual Arts at the University of Arkansas’ J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences and the Walton Arts Center in 2010-2011. Recent projects include Absolute Ocean, commissioned by the Houston Symphony, and Helios Choros, a triptych for orchestra (2006-2007). Augusta Read Thomas was recently appointed University Professor of Composition in the Department of Music and the College at the University of Chicago. www.augustareadthomas.com

Inbal Segev ’91CERT, ‘98MM Inbal Segev played the Elgar Concerto with the Haifa Symphony in Israel in February 2010, the CPE Bach Concerto in D minor with the Boulder Chamber Orchestra in October 2009, and the Monn and Vivaldi Concertos with the Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Orchestra in April 2010. Inbal recently joined the roster of Barrett Vantage Artists. She is excited to announce the formation of the Amerigo String Trio with Glenn Dicterow and Karen Dreyfus.

They recorded their first CD for the MMC label in June 2010. Inbal has enjoyed performing with the Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players in Manhattan regularly since 2005.

José-Luis Novo ’90MM, ’92MMA The Annapolis Symphony Orchestra (Maryland) released its first CD, Three Symphonic Centuries, under music director José-Luis Novo. The recording commemorates the 300th anniversary of Annapolis’s Royal Charter. The CD, recorded at two November 2008 concerts at the Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts in Annapolis, includes works composed or premiered in 1708, 1808, 1908, and 2008 by Corelli, Beethoven, Ravel, and the young Thai composer Narong Prangcharoen.

The 49-year-old orchestra received a 2008 ASCAP Adventurous Programming Award for the four world premieres generated by the Annapolis Charter 300 Young Composers Competition; Prangcharoen’s work was the winner of that competition.

Monica Germino ’93MM New music performer Monica Germino is the violin soloist on a new CD, Louis Andriessen: La Passione, on the BMOP/sound label.

The recording features the Boston Modern Orchestra Project and conductor Gil Rose performing Andriessen’s Bells for Haarlem, Letter From Cathy, Passeggiata in tram in America e ritorno, and La Passione. Her quartet, Electra, continues to develop new projects. During the 2009-10 academic year, she was a visiting professor of violin at the University of South Florida. www.monicagermino.com Steve Renaker ’93MM Steve Renaker has spent most of his time since graduation working as a software engineer, but starting in 2006 he took three years off to study harpsichord building. He recently finished two new instruments, selling one and keeping the other for his own use. www.renaker.com

Edward Turgeon ’93MM, ’94MMA, ’00DMA Anne Louise-Turgeon ’93MM, ’94MMA, ’00DMA Pianist Edward Turgeon earned tenure and was promoted to Associate Professor of Music at Florida Atlantic University’s Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of Music, in Boca Raton, Florida.

As a member of Duo Turgeon with his wife Anne Louise-Turgeon, also a pianist, last season included Asian engagements, including an appearance at Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music (Singapore) for a two-piano recital and masterclasses for piano duos. Next season includes premieres of new works by Libby Larsen and Bruce Adolphe, and concerts in Florida, Illinois, Serbia, Jamaica and Canada, including Music Toronto’s International Piano Series, San Francisco International Music Festival, and the Chicago International Duo Piano Festival. The summer of 2010 included a new recording of two piano music by American composers.

Pansy Chang ’95MM Since 2001, Pansy Chang has been Associate Professor of Cello, Miami University Of Ohio.

She is a performing member of Pink Martini.

Her performances with orchestra have included the Cleveland Orchestra, LA Philharmonic, Boston Pops, and the San Francisco, Houston, Seattle, and National Symhonies. She has performed in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Australia, in venues such as the Hollywood Bowl, Carnegie Hall, the Montreal Jazz Festival, and the Letterman Show.

Scott Morris ’96MM, ’97MMA Julian Coryell, son of the jazz guitar legend Larry Coryell, has joined the YMT Guitar Trio, replacing ex-Megadeth and Badi Assad guitarist Jeff Young. Scott Morris and Steven Thachuk are the other members of the trio.

The CTM Guitar Trio expects to continue YMT’s unique take on classical/jazz crossover with a greater focus on writing and performing original compositions. They have already toured extensively in the United States and England.

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Student & Alumni News Armando Bayolo ’97MM Armando Bayolo was among the featured composers at the 2010 Ibero-American Festival for the Arts in his native Puerto Rico. October brought the London premiere of Bayolo’s Hermandad at the Third Festival of American Music and the world premiere of Caprichos in the Netherlands by Hexnut, who commissioned the work. Mr. Bayolo spearheaded a week-long residency for Louis Andriessen at the Peabody Institute, where Bayolo teaches in the theory department.

In December, Mr. Bayolo was in residence at LeMoyne College in Syracuse, NY. February saw Mr. Bayolo in residence at the first Latin American Music Festival at Williams College and at the Peabody Institute.

Brigit Knecht ’98MM In February, 2010, Brigit Knecht completed her PhD in Arts Policy from the University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Titled Performing Under Pressure: Understanding the Relationship between Government and the Performing Arts, her dissertation looked at the ways in which government arts funding decisions are passed onto performing arts organizations and influence their ability to fulfill artistic mandates. Brigit maintains an active freelance career in both music and theatre in Calgary, Alberta.

Melissa Mackey ’98MM Melissa Mackey was granted tenure and promoted to Associate Professor of Bassoon and Music History at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. She is a member of the trio Neoteric, the world’s only trio for bassoon, horn, and cello. Their album, Neoteric Plays Bernard Hoffer, was recently released on Albany Records and iTunes.

Bernard Hoffer composed the music for the cartoon series The Thundercats, the theme music for the MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour, and several works for Neoteric. Dr. Mackey also freelances with the Evansville Philharmonic and Winter Opera St. Louis.

Jeremy Grall ’99MM Jeremy Grall was appointed Assistant Professor of Music at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where he teaches courses in guitar and music history. In the spring of 2009, Grall graduated with the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Memphis. Dr. Grall’s dissertation, titled An Analytical Edition of Giovanni Kapsberger’s Partite sulla Folia: Ornamentation, Performances Practices, and Compositional Structures in Kapsberger’s Folia Variations, combines his interests in musicology, music theory, and performance. He presented his research on Kapsberger at the Cardiff University Music Analysis Conference in Cardiff, Wales and the Society for Music Theory South-Central Chapter.

Carl Schimmel ’99MM Carl Schimmel was appointed Assistant Professor of Music Theory and Composition at Illinois State University last year. He was a participant in the Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute in November, and was in residence at Copland House in May/June.

He was asked to write a new work for Lucy Shelton and Da Capo Chamber Players which premiered at Merkin Hall in June. Carl and his wife are now the parents of twins, Otto and Thora. They were born on December 28th, 2009.

Ken Ueno ’99MMA Ken Ueno was recently appointed Assistant Professor of Composition at UC Berkeley.

He won the Berlin Prize for 2010-2011, and released a portrait CD of orchestra concerti (viola, overtone singer, and a duo concerto for biwa and shakuhachi) on the BMOP/ sound label. He continues to garner performances worldwide by Kim Kashkashian with Robyn Schulkowsky, as well as with the Hilliard Ensemble. www.kenueno.com

Calvin Bowman ’99MMA, ’05DMA Last October, Calvin Bowman performed the complete Bach organ works in one sitting at the Melbourne International Arts Festival.

The Australian praised the “...masterful series of performances.” Last November, Sir Neville Marriner conducted Bowman’s song cycle I would sing a little while in a performance recorded for commercial release. Bowman has been commissioned to write works for the Melbourne Chamber Orchestra, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Chorus and St. Jakobs Chamber Choir Stockholm (co-commission), and the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, among others.

His song Now Touch the Air Softly is to be released on Deutsche Grammophon and was nominated for Best New Composition at the 2009 Limelight Awards.

Maureen Nelson ’00MM and Richard Belcher ’00MM As half the Enso Quartet, violinist Maureen Nelson and cellist Richard Belcher received a Grammy nomination for Best Chamber Music Performance. The Enso Quartet, formed in 1999 at the School of Music, has earned multiple honors at the 2004 Banff International String Quartet Competition and victories at the 2003 Concert Artists Guild International Competition, the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, and the Chamber Music Yellow Springs Competition.

The ensemble’s 2005 debut on Naxos Records, a 2-CD set of Ignaz Pleyel’s six string quartets, Op. 2, garnered rave reviews. The Grammy nomination for Best Chamber Music Performance went to their most recent Naxos release, the three string quartets of Alberto Ginastera, featuring soprano Lucy Shelton.

Reto Reichenbach ’00MM Reto Reichenbach was invited to give master classes and a workshop on contemporary piano music at the Music Conservatory and the TCA Cultural Center in Kunming, China and to perform recitals in Kunming and Yuxi in March and April 2010.

Stephen Wilder ’00MM, ’01AD Singer Shara Worden (My Brightest Diamond) and chamber ensemble yMusic premiered a set of three songs composed by Stephen Wilder on March 6th, 2010 at the Symphony Space in NYC, as part of the 92YTribeca festival called Diamonds, Teeth and Yarn.

The song set is entitled Three Li’l Dramas.

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Joseph Rubenstein ’01DMA Joseph Rubenstein is the artistic director of Keys to the Future, which presented its fifth annual festival of contemporary piano music in May 2010 at (Le) Poisson Rouge. The festival featured three concerts, each bringing together a variety of pianists (including Rubenstein) to perform music from a broad variety of composers from Chick Corea and Don Byron to György Ligeti and Magnus Lindberg, as well as alumni Marc Mellits ’91MM and Judd Greenstein ’04MM. www.keystothefuture.org Shawn Crouch ’02M, Patrick Dupre Quigley ’02MM Shawn Crouch was appointed as the director of the Miami Choral Academy, an initiative of Seraphic Fire, Miami’s professional chamber choir whose artistic director is Patrick Dupre Quigley. As a composer, Crouch has had numerous commissions and commercial recordings this past year. Highlights include a large cantata commissioned by Chanticleer, entitled The Garden of Paradise. The Garden of Paradise uses texts from American poet Brian Turner’s moving account of his time as a soldier in the Iraq War. The third movement, “Lullaby,” was recorded for Chanticleer’s Best of Chanticleer, released last October.

In addition, a new work for chamber orchestra entitled City Columns was recorded by the Moravian Philharmonic and released on Navona Records’ orchestral compilation entitled Mementos.

ShawnCrouchMusic.com MiamiChoralAcademy.org Sue-Jean Park ’02MM Violin alumna Sue-Jean Park is pleased to announce her CD release of the Franck and Fauré Violin Sonatas. This CD is a collaboration with pianist Jung-Won Shin and was generously underwritten by a professional development grant awarded by Murray State University. Dr. Park performed Chen Gang and He Zhanhao’s Butterfly Lovers Concerto with the Paducah Symphony in March and played Bruch’s Violin Concerto with the Washington Sinfonietta Orchestra in May. Currently she is serving as Assistant Professor of Violin and Viola at Murray State University and concertmaster of the Jackson Symphony. She has held both positions since 2006.

Nigel Potts ’02MM In the fall of 2009, Nigel Potts appeared as the guest organist on Philadelphia’s WRTI-FM radio station playing the Wanamaker Grand Court Organ. The hour-long program of transcriptions included music by Walton, Bach, Purcell, Rachmaninoff, Elgar, Delius, and Whitlock, and his latest transcription of Liebestraume by Liszt. The following week, Potts gave an organ recital on the newly restored organ at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. Nigel is now represented by Phillip Truckenbrod Concert Artists and remains Organist and Choirmaster at Christ & St. Stephen’s Church in New York City. www.nigelpotts.com Catherine Ramirez ’02MM, Lachezar Kostov ’08AD Catherine Ramirez received a faculty appointment to teach flute and theory at St. Olaf College in Minnesota beginning September 2010. Ramirez was also selected as one of five musicians, out of 300 current students, to represent the Rice University Shepherd School of Music in performance at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC in March 2010. This performance was part of the Kennedy Center Conservatory Project, an initiative of Performing Arts for Everyone’s Millennium Stage, which is designed to present exceptional musical artists from our nation’s leading conservatories, colleges and universities in performance at the Kennedy Center. She performed with another Rice doctoral student, cellist Lachezar Kostov ’08AD. Leonardo Ambadjian ’02MM, ’03AD In March 2010, Leonardo Ambadjian won the audition for principal trumpet of the Teatro Colon Opera of Buenos Aires, the most important theatre in all Central and South America. Since 2007, Ambadjian has been principal trumpet with the National Symphony Orchestra of Argentina.

Christian Van Horn ’02MM, ’03AD This past season, bass-baritone Christian Van Horn made debuts with Staatsoper Stuttgart, San Francisco Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, and the Portland Opera. Return engagements included the Bayerische Staatsoper and Lyric Opera of Chicago. www.christianvanhorn.com

Patrice Jackson ’03CERT Patrice Jackson was recently signed to Columbia Artist Management International and is the only American cellist on their roster. www.cami.com/?webid=2087 Eric Beach ’07MM, Josh Quillen ’06MM, Adam Sliwinski ’03MM, ’04MMA, ’09DMA, and Jason Treuting ’01MM, ’02AD So Percussion – Eric Beach, Josh Quillen, Adam Sliwinski and Jason Treuting – join the faculty at Bard Conservatory as co-directors of the Conservatory’s undergraduate-only percussion program, which will admit its first students in August of 2011. The quartet was among the recipients of grants from Chamber Music America (CMA) for ten commissioning projects in six states; they commissioned Steve Mackey to compose an extensive work for percussion quartet.

Faculty composer Aaron Jay Kernis ’83MM was among those commissioned by CMA grant recipients. So Percussion released three CDs last spring, all on Cantaloupe Records. They also started a summer program for college-aged percussionists at Princeton University, called the So Percussion Summer Institute.

Paul Weber ’03MM, ’04MMA, ’08DMA The new BA in Sacred Music program at Franciscan University of Steubenville, founded by Paul Weber (assistant professor of music and director of the program in organ), graduated its first two music majors this past spring. Now in its third year, the Sacred Music Program at FUS has produced competition winners (2009 Pittsburgh AGO chapter competition), commissions for new music (David Hughes ’03BA), and concert invitations for the Schola Cantorum Franciscana (Wheeling Cathedral, University of Pittsburgh).

Kim Foster Wallace ’04CERT, Eric Dudley ’03MM, ’04MMA Kim Foster Wallace and pianist Eric Dudley presented a Mother’s Day concert of rarelyperformed chamber music for viola and piano.

The duo reunited in New York City to present works of Bartok, Nino Rota, Shostakovich, Frank Bridge, and to offer the American premiere of English composer Granville Bantock’s Viola Sonata from 1919.

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Student & Alumni News Joseph Gregorio ’04MM February 2010 was a busy month for Joseph Gregorio. On February 8, his song “As Adam, early in the morning” (from Five Whitman Songs) was performed in San Francisco by mezzo-soprano Zheng Cao and pianist Mack McCray. Gregorio’s new composition, Love, thricewise, won the Pacific Chorale’s 2009-2010 Young Composers Competition.

It premiered in February under the direction of Robert Istad in Costa Mesa, California Gregorio’s Dona nobis pacem was performed at the Eastern Division conference of the American Choral Directors Association by the Penn State Glee Club, conducted by Christopher Kiver. The PSGC also performed Dona nobis pacem on tour in New Zealand. www.josephgregoriomusic.com Iain Quinn ’04MM Chandos Records has recently released the fourth solo CD from organist Iain Quinn.

The repertoire is focussed on music from the Nordic countries and includes a new work by Icelandic composer Askell Masson written specially for this disc. Iain has also recently received a Louise Dyer research award from Musica Britannica. He continues as Director of Music and College Tutor at the College of St. Hild and St. Bede, Durham University, and is a doctoral fellow in the Department of Music, pursuing a PhD in musicology. www.iainquinn.org Maria Wildhaber ’04MM Maria Wildhaber released her debut CD Song to my Love on MSR Classics. It contains her own arrangements of Bulgarian songs and dances for solo bassoon and piano. The CD is now available online at www.mjwmusic.com and www.amazon.com, as well as on iTunes.

Steve Lin ’05MM Steve Lin has been appointed as guitar instructor at San Jose State University in California. He also teaches at De Anza College, a community college in Cupertino, California. www.linguitar.com Jeb Wallace ’05AD Jeb Wallace has been appointed to the faculty at Utah Valley University as Assistant Professor and Director of Brass Studies.

Dr. Wallace previously served on the faculty at Susquehanna University, James Madison University, and Dickinson College. He also taught in the pre-college division at the Cleveland Institute of Music and Stony Brook University.

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Ryo Yanagitani ‘04MM, ‘05AD, ‘08MMA, Andrea Lam ‘04AD Ryo Yanagitani and Andrea Lam won major prizes in the Tenth San Antonio International Piano Competition. Yanagitani won the Gold Medal – the competition’s top prize – and Lam won the Silver Medal. In addition, Yanagitani was awarded prizes for the best performance of a Romantic work and of a work by a Latin American composer, as well as the prize of the junior jury. Lam was awarded prizes for the best performance of a Classical composition and best performance of a Russian work. As the gold medal winner, Yanagitani will appear in performances with the San Antonio Symphony, St. Mark’s Music Series, and Symphony of the Hills (Kerrville).

Jacob Braun ’06AD Jacob Braun joined the Penderecki String Quartet and is now teaching at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario. In addition to concerts and teaching with the quartet, Jacob has performed this year at Merkin Hall in New York, Ganz Hall in Chicago with the Chicago Chamber Musicians, and for a UNICEF benefit concert in Calgary with prodigy Jan Lisiecki, piano. Last summer, Jacob was in residence at the Innsbrook Institute (Innsbrook, Missouri) and the Lake Luzerne Music Center (Lake Luzerne, NY) individually, and at the Indiana String Academy, the Toronto Chamber Music Festival, and the Ottawa Chamber Music Festival with the Penderecki Quartet. ps4.ca Mingzhe Wang ’06MMA On Feb. 24, 2010, clarinetist Mingzhe Wang gave a world premiere performance as one of the soloists of Lee Hoiby’s triple concerto Prayer and Procession at the College Band Directors’ National Association Southern Division Conference, held at the University of Mississippi. Mingzhe is an assistant professor of clarinet at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tenn. He is also the co-founder and co-artistic director of the Gateway Chamber Ensemble, an ensemble with a flexible pool of musicians founded in 2008. The group’s first commercial CD (SACD format) of wind serenades by R. Strauss and Mozart, conducted by Gregory Wolynec, was released by Summit Records in March 2010. www.mingzhewang.com www.gatewaychamberensemble.com

Robinson McClellan ’06MM, ’07MMA El Salto, a new performance format for new music and ethical inquiry that Robinson McClellan founded, was hosted by the NY Society for Ethical Culture on April 23, 2010.

Robin’s work This Ravelled Dust: Cantata for a Nuclear Age received its world premiere April 30 with the Toronto Choral Artists under Mark Vuorinen. He completed the cantata at a two-week artist residency at Yaddo in March. A commission from the Hudson Opera House premiered in Chatham, NY in August. Nativity Kontakion and Gather Me, two recent commissions, will be premiered in Boston in October, and Robin has been invited to Greece to participate in recording sessions for these works. robinsonmcclellan.com Dantes Rameau ’07MM Dantes Rameau is executive director of the Atlanta Music Project. This past year, he was an Abreu Fellow at the New England Conservatory. The goal of this one year post-graduate program is to train musicians in all aspects of management, leadership, fundraising, and music education so they can be leaders in bringing El Sistema-inspired programs to the United States and other parts of the world. El Sistema is the monumental Venezuelan youth orchestra program that has served over 3 million kids since 1975, most of them from impoverished backgrounds. Gustavo Dudamel, the LA Phil’s music director, is a graduate of El Siste. www.dantesrameau.blogspot.com Haley Rempel ’07MM After graduating from Yale, flutist Haley Rempel taught at Platt College in San Diego and worked at the Orange County High School of the Arts as a flute instructor, chamber music coach, and theory teacher.

More recently, Haley recorded her second CD, consisting of pieces from the court of Frederick the Great. In late 2009, she gave concerts throughout Germany and France and also performed a debut recital with renowned harpsichordist Eric Lussier in Canada. She gave a recital the Agassiz Chamber Music Festival in June 2010 and received an invitation to perform with Eric Lussier’s Musik Barock series in March 2011.

Ashley Bathgate ’07MM, ’08AD Ashley Bathgate became one of the newest members of the Bang on a Can All-Stars. The new All Star line up made its New York debut at the People’s Commissioning Fund Concert on February 24, 2010. www.ashleybathgate.com Edward Parks ’08MM Edward Parks made his Metropolitan Opera House debut this past season. Parks, a graduate of the Yale Opera program, was a winner of the Met’s 2008 National Council Auditions at the Grand Finals Concert on February 24, 2008. He is a native of Indiana, Pennsylvania. He sang the role of Fiorello in Rossini’s The Barber of Seville beginning October 2009.

Rupert Boyd ’08AD The debut CD Valses Poéticos from guitarist Rupert Boyd – recorded by Eugene Kimball in Sprague Hall – received high praise in the two leading classical guitar magazines.

Soundboard wrote: “Boyd’s playing is beautifully refined, with gorgeous tone... musically and technically flawless.” Classical Guitar (UK) wrote: “The performances that Boyd gives here are first-rate... a fine CD from a player who deserves to be heard.”

Last October, Boyd was one of twelve— and the only guitarist—to make it to the finals of the prestigious Concert Artists Guild competition in New York City. www.rupertboyd.com Soprano Melanie Russell ’08AD After graduation, soprano Melanie Russell made her New York City debut to critical acclaim in Opera Omnia’s premiere performance of The Coronation of Poppea. She has since participated in performances under the batons of Helmuth Rilling, Ton Koopman, Jane Glover, and Stefan Parkman, and her first solo engagement at Carnegie Hall with Simon Carrington (Fauré’s Requiem).

She was heard as a soloist in Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass at Cornell University with fellow Yale Voxtet alums Steven Wilson ’07MM (tenor) and Sylvia Rider ’07MM (mezzo-soprano) under the direction of YSM graduate Holland Jancaitis ’05MM, ’07MMA. She is currently engaged with the professional choir at Trinity Episcopal Church Wall Street in New York City.

Derrick Wang ’08MM Derrick Wang was named a winner in the 58th Annual BMI Student Composer Awards, which “recognize superior creative talent” in music composition. Wang’s BMI awardwinning work is the ten-minute, one-act opera ISH, scored for two tenors, barintone, bass-baritone, and keyboard. He was one of eleven young classical composers, ages 13 to 26, who were named winners in the 58th Annual BMI Student Composer Awards.

Awards Chair Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, BMI President and CEO Del Bryant, and BMI Foundation President Ralph N. Jackson announced the decisions of the jury and presented the awards at a reception held May 14 at the Jumeirah Essex House Hotel in New York City. www.derrickwang.com Timo Andres ’07BA, ’09MM Shy and Mighty, the first album from composer and pianist Timo Andres, was named a Pick of the Week by WNYC and received four stars from the Guardian. Featuring ten interrelated piano pieces and released on the Nonesuch label, Shy and Mighty is performed by Andres and fellow alum David Kaplan ‘07MM, ’08MMA. John Schaefer of WNYC called the album “an impressive debut,” and the Guardian called him “unquestionably a distinctive talent.” www.nonesuch.com/albums/shy-and-mighty www.andres.com Dominick DiOrio ’08MM, ’09MMA Dominick DiOrio traveled to Sweden to compete in the Eric Ericson Award, the top international competition for young choral conductors. He was one of 12 invited conductors, and one of only two from the United States.

He has enjoyed beginning his first year as Director of Choral Activities and Assistant Professor of Music at Lone Star CollegeMontgomery, in Texas. In this position, he has already doubled the number of students in choruses, and he has helped to oversee the building of a new Music Hall. He was invited to present his MMA research on embedded tonality in Penderecki’s St. Luke Passion at the American Choral Directors Association Southwest Convention in Denver this past February. Domonick’s recent edition of Handel’s “As Pants the Hart” is now published by Alliance Music. Commonwealth Youthchoirs has commissioned a new choral work, which was premiered at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia in June. www.dominickdiorio.com

Ted Hearne ’08MM, ’09MMA At the final concert of the International Gaudeamus Music Week 2009, which took place in Amsterdam September 7-12, the Gaudeamus Prize was awarded to composer Ted Hearne. The award of 4,550 Euros is intended as a commission for a new work which will be performed at the 2010 International Gaudeamus Music Week. Hearne received the prize for selected movements from Katrina Ballads, a composition performed on September 10 at the Conservatory of Amsterdam by the ensemble ‘de ereprijs’ conducted by Wim Boerman. Hearne himself was the soloist as singer.

Helen Kim ’11MM, Yoonhee Ko ’10MM, Jeong-ah Ryu ’10MM The Charis Piano Trio – Helen Kim, violin; Yoonhee Ko, cello; and Jeong-ah Ryu, piano – won the Coleman-Barstow Prize for Strings (the top prize in the strings division) at the Coleman Chamber Ensemble Competition, held Saturday, April 24, 2010 in Los Angeles.

The trio was coached by cellist Ole Akahoshi.

The winners presented a formal concert on Sunday, April 25th.

Chelsea Chen ’09AD Chelsea Chen was awarded the 2009 Lili Boulanger Memorial Prize of $5,000. The prize is given annually to an outstanding musician under the age of 35 exhibiting unusual talent and promise for the future.

Past winners have included distinguished composers Ned Rorem and Robert Levin. The designated field of this year’s competition was organ performance. Ms. Chen studied with John Weaver and Paul Jacobs at Juilliard, spent a Fulbright year in Taiwan introducing classical organ performance to the public, and studied with Thomas Murray at YSM. Michael Compitello ’09MM Michael Compitello spent the 2009-10 academic year in Frankfurt, Germany. He was awarded a Fulbright US Student scholarship to conduct research and work with the Ensemble Modern and the International Ensemble Modern Academy, a year-long course in contemporary chamber music. He also worked with percussionists Rainer Römer and Rumi Ogawa. The Ensemble Modern is one of Europe’s most active and exciting contemporary music ensemble, and are renowned for their unique organizational structure, where the members decide jointly on repertoire and concerts without a full-time artistic director or conductor.

Michael studied the artistic and logistic functioning of the ensemble while working on chamber music with its members.

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Student & Alumni News Scott Switzer ‘10MM As part of the National Symphony Orchestra’s two-week focus on John Adams: Perspectives, members of the National Symphony Orchestra and the Conservatory Project Chamber Ensemble (comprised of a student from each of the 15 participating conservatories) performed two works by John Adams under the baton of the composer. The National Symphony Orchestra invited a student from each Conservatory Project institution to perform, including YSM student Scott Switzer.

Watch video of this concert at http://www.kennedy-center.org/explorer/ videos/?id=M4297 YPG performance on March 1: www.kennedy-center.org/explorer videos/?id=M4181 http://www.kennedy-center.org/explorer artists/?entity_id=21952&source_type=B or http://bit.ly/cPHcoo (case-sensitive)

Igor Pikayzen ’11MM Igor Pikayzen captured first prize in the Tadeusz Wronski International Competition for solo violin, held September, 2009 in Warsaw, Poland.

The Yale Percussion Group The Yale Percussion Group, directed by faculty member Robert van Sice, was among the select group of winners of the PAS International Percussion Ensemble Competition and the inaugural World Music Percussion Ensemble Competition in 2009.

As a result of their success, the YPG performed a Showcase Concert at the PASIC 2009 conference in Indianapolis, IN.

Marc Daniel van Biemen ’10CERT Violinist Marc Daniel van Biemen has been accepted by the Berliner Philharmoniker to study in its Orchestra Academy. During his two years in the program, he will study with the principal second violinist and will play chamber music with orchestra members as well as concerts with the Berlin Philharmonic in Berlin and throughout the world.

The Yale Percussion Group also performed on the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage in March, 2010 as part of the Conservatory Project. The performance was part of the Kennedy Center’s “Performing Arts for Everyone” initiative.

The Amphion String Quartet and Linden String Quartet The Amphion String Quartet and Linden String Quartet were jointly awarded first place in the 2010 Hugo Kauder Competition, held at Sprague Hall on Friday, June 11.

The members of the Amphion String Quartet are Katie Hyun ’09AD, violin; Mihai Marica ’04CERT, ’08AD, cello; and David Southorn ’09MM, ’10AD, violin; as well as violist Wei-Yang Andy Lin, a DMA candidate at Stony Brook University. The Linden String Quartet is the incoming fellowship quartet -in-residence at the School of Music; its members are Sarah McElravy and Catherine Cosbey, violins; Eric Wong, viola; and Felix Umansky, cello (all ‘12AD). Earlier in the year, the Amphion String Quartet won the Dr. Harry & Lina Berrier First Place for Piano & Strings and the Hugo & Lucy Vianello Audience Prize at the Plowman Chamber Music Competition. The competition was held on March 14th at the Missouri Theatre Center for the Arts. The Amphion Quartet was invited to spend the summer at Music @ Menlo’s International Program.

Joseph Mikolaj ’10MM Joseph Mikolaj, a student of James Taylor at the Institute of Sacred Music and the School of Music, took first prize at the New York Oratorio Society’s Lyndon Woodside Solo Competition on April 10. Mikolaj performed selections from Haydn’s Creation and Mendelssohn’s Elijah. He was the youngest musician to compete in this year’s event.

Marianna Prjevalskaya ‘07MM, ’10AD At the José Roca International Piano Competition in Valencia, Spain in November 2009, Marianna Prjevalskaya won first prize by a unanimous decision of the jury. In March 2010, she became a prize winner of Takamatsu International Piano Competition in Japan.

In June of 2010 she became prize winner of the prestigious Sendai International Piano Competition, also in Japan. http://musicians.yale.edu/marianna. prjevalskaya

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Angel Lam ’10AD Cellist Yo-Yo Ma and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of music director Robert Spano, presented the New York premiere of Awakening from a Disappearing Garden by Angel Lam on Saturday, November 7, at Carnegie Hall. The piece, a concerto for cello and orchestra, was commissioned

by Carnegie Hall and was first performed in Atlanta Symphony Hall in October 2009.

This was Lam’s third commission from Carnegie Hall, which describes her as “a young composer whose work sounds both Chinese and Western, contemporary but also timeless.”

Jasper String Quartet, Lorien String Trio In the 2009 Fischoff Competition, the Jasper String Quartet won second prize, and the Lorien String Trio won third. The Jasper Quartet (J Freivogel, violin; Sae Niwa, violin; Sam Quintal, viola; and Rachel Henderson, cello, all ’10AD) was the Fellowship Quartetin-Residence from 2008 to 2010. The Lorien Trio is Nicholas DiEugenio ’08AD, violin; Ashley Bathgate ’07MM, ’08AD, cello; and Ilya Poletaev ’03MM, ’04MMA, ’10DMA, piano.

Poletaev also won the first prize for piano at the Seventeenth International Bach Competition in Leipzig, Germany, last summer.

The Jasper Quartet are the 2010-12 Artistsin-Residence at the Oberlin Conservatory, the 2009-2011 Ernst C. Stiefel Quartetin-Residence at the Caramoor Center for the Arts, and the 2009-2011 Ensemble-inResidence at Naples Chamber Classics.

Yale pianists win in Europe, South America, and Connecticut Three Yale pianists placed in the top tier of major international competitions this fall.

Marianna Prjevalskaya ’07MM, ‘10AD was the third place winner in the Seventh International Ignacz Paderewski Competition in Bydgoszcz, Poland, long regarded one of the most prestigious piano competitions in the world.

Forty-four pianists from 20 countries, selected from 150 candidates, took part in the competition, which took place from November 4 to 18, 2007. Two School of Music pianists were among the top prize winners in one of South America’s most important competitions, the Thirty-fourth International Music Competition in Vina del Mar, Chile.

Each year, the competition alternates among five musical disciplines (piano, voice, guitar, violin, and violoncello). This was the year for piano, and Ryo Yanagitani ’08MMA won second prize, and José Menor ’07AD won third. At the Connecticut Music Teachers Association’s Young Artist Piano Competition on March 4, Marianna Prjevalskaya won the first prize, Marko Mustonen shared the second, and Reinis Zarins and Juan Carlos Fernandez-Nieto both shared the third.

Send your updates to musicnews@yale.edu or submit at music.yale.edu/alumni.

Vivian Perlis retires from OHAM Vivian Perlis has stepped down as the director of the Oral History of American Music (OHAM) project at Yale. On the faculty of the Yale School of Music for many years, Perlis founded OHAM and developed it into a unique archive of recorded interviews with leading figures in American music.

In April of 2010, in recognition of Perlis’s accomplishments, Dean Robert Blocker presented her with the prestigious Sanford Medal.

Among Perlis’s publications are: Charles Ives Remembered, An Oral History, which was awarded the Kinkeldey Prize of the American Musicological Society in 1975; and two volumes co-authored with Aaron Copland: Copland: 1900 Through 1942, which garnered a Deems Taylor/ASCAP award, and Copland: Since 1943. Perlis is co-author with Libby Van Cleve of the award-winning book and CD publication, Composers’ Voices from Ives to Ellington, published by Yale University Press (2005). Among her productions are recordings of the music of Leo Ornstein and Charles Ives, and television documentaries on Ives, Eubie Blake, Aaron Copland, and John Cage.

As Senior Research Scholar at Yale, Vivian Perlis will continue her work in the field of American music. She continues as the vice-president of the Aaron Copland Fund for Music and the Charles Ives Society.

Libby Van Cleve ’92 DMA succeeds Perlis as director of OHAM. www.yale.edu/oham

A personal note from the editor In the nearly forty years since the founding of this magazine, there have been only three editors: Isabelle Tuttle DeWitt ’49, Ian Mininberg ’34, and myself. The passing of Mrs. DeWitt nearly a year ago and Mr. Mininberg in late April, not to mention my decision to retire this fall, has made this a time for reflection and tribute.

“What makes Yale different?” Isabelle DeWitt wrote in the Editor’s note in the very first issue. “There won’t be a single answer; but maybe in our pages at least some light will shine forth…The wish to tell people about the exciting things going on in every part of Yale is getting stronger every day.” Isabelle did a wonderful job of getting this publication off the ground in its early years and communicated an exciting overview of the rich and expanding musical life at Yale in the 1970s.

She was also very active in the School’s alumni affairs, and in 1972, she began compiling alumni news for the publication.

The box of Music at Yale magazines from those years is never far from reach, as I refer to them frequently and—to be honest— browse them nostalgically. It is my hope that sometime soon these pages will be digitized and made available on the School’s web site.

Ian Mininberg served as editor throughout the 1980s and 90s. His final issue was in January 2001, a “magazine within a magazine,” bound together with the first issue that I edited. As Dean Blocker wrote in the preface to that issue, “Ian’s stewardship of this publication has ably blended expansive strokes and rapt attention to the smallest details…Ian is a source of institutional

memory and institutional conscience. He has always framed Music at Yale in artistic excellence and academic integrity. His values will always be the bedrock of Music at Yale.”

Ian was also alumni director for nineteen years, and he wrote, in the same issue, “There’s hardly a music center in the world that does not boast of a Yale School of Music graduate. To be a part of the dynamic energy of this School has been one of the the most fulfilling roles of my life.

Mark Mininberg, Ian’s son, said in eulogizing his father, “On the surface his words were so simple, but the deeper one’s understanding of life became, the more profoundly his words resonated in the soul.” I’m sure Mark could relate many wonderful examples of Ian’s wisdom. The one that comes to mind — more practical than philosophical — is when he said to me upon my taking over the magazine, “You know, it’s hard work.” I didn’t quite understand how right he was until I began stewardship of the magazine in 2001.

But fortunately there has not been a problem finding, in Isabelle DeWitt’s words, “exciting things going on.”

This publication is a two-way venture.

We want you to know what is happening at your School, and just as importantly, we want to hear from you about the highlights of your professional and personal lives.

Although Music at Yale in its current form will continue to provide this news, we look ahead to publishing news as it happens on the web.

This activity, along with the magazine, is part of an integrated effort to bring you useful and interesting information about the School and the profession of music.

—Vincent Oneppo ‘73 MM

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In memoriam and by her son H. Daniel DeWitt, Jr. She is survived by her daughters, Adele DeWitt and Martitia DeWitt Ornelas, both of New York City, as well as her 3 sisters, Grace Tuttle Noyes and Nancy Tuttle Adam of Nantucket, and Harriet Tuttle Noyes of Arlington, Ma, and numerous cousins, nieces and nephews.

A memorial service was held on Saturday, November 14th, at Trinity Church on the Green in New Haven. A reception followed at the Parish House of nearby Christ Church.

Contributions may be sent to Parents’ Foundation for Transitional Living, Inc., One Hundred Broadway, New Haven, Connecticut 06511, or to www.parentsfoundation.com.

Isabelle Hollister, 82 Isabelle Hollister Tuttle DeWitt died Saturday September 26th at her home in New Haven.

Mrs. DeWitt was born November 14th, 1926, in Boston, MA, to Isabelle Hollister Tuttle and H. Emerson Tuttle. She spent much of her childhood in New Haven, where her father was the first Master of Yale’s Davenport College. Mr. and Mrs. Tuttle were artists whose etchings and paintings have been shown and collected worldwide.

Mrs. DeWitt was educated at the Foote School in New Haven, St. Timothy’s School in Catonsville, MD, and at the Yale School of Music. She married H. Daniel DeWitt, M.D., in 1960 at Dwight Chapel in New Haven. They settled in New York City, where their 3 children were born, and spent summers on Nantucket, where the couple first met. After Dr. DeWitt died in 1969, Mrs. DeWitt returned with her children to New Haven. There she became the founding editor of Music at Yale and Foote Prints, alumnae periodicals for her alma maters.

She was the senior accompanist for New Haven’s Classical Ballet Academy during the 1970’s, and taught piano at various times in her life.

Mrs. DeWitt also flourished as a New Haven real estate agent, working with the late Barbara B. Tower and H. Pearce Company.

She retired from real estate in 2007 after more than 25 years in the business.

In 1992 Mrs. DeWitt co-founded the Parents’ Foundation for Transitional Living, a private, nonprofit mental health residential community dedicated to the recovery of adults with serious and persistent mental illness. Distinguishing itself from other mental health residential facilities, The Parents’ Foundation is focused not on psychiatric treatment but on rebuilding their clients’ lives in the community.

Mrs. DeWitt was predeceased by her husband,

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to join the faculty in 1951. He gave recitals in New York and throughout New England in addition to numerous performances at Yale and the Norfolk Summer School of Music as recitalist, chamber musician, and soloist with orchestra. He also served as a Resident Fellow at Branford College and as Associate Dean of the School of Music.

An influential teacher, he was profiled in a 1998 New York Times article by Anthony Tommasini, who said, “Professor Currier is a pianist of exceptional refinement and musical understanding. He is respected among musicians and revered by the students he taught during a 38-year career at Yale.”

Reflecting on his long teaching career, Currier said, “My students have been my life, my family. Whenever I reflect on the number of my students who are presently enjoying very distinguished careers, I can only feel grateful that my affiliation with Yale rewarded me with so many meaningful associations.”

Upon his retirement in 1989, the School of Music honored him by producing his recordings of solo piano music of Chopin, Debussy, Mozart, Schumann, and Schoenberg in Sprague Hall. The compact disc was sent to all students who had studied piano with him, as well as his Yale colleagues, one of whom wrote, “Years of thought, experience, and love have produced this elegant, articulate warm playing, and no respectable nuance was left untouched. I only hope this brand of artistry will not vanish; at least this recording will help to remind us of what is possible.”

Donald Robert Currier, 91 Donald Currier, Professor Emeritus of Pianoforte at the Yale School of Music, died at Yale-New Haven Hospital on January 7th, 2010, after a brief illness. In his thirty-eight years on the Yale faculty, he was highly regarded as a teacher and consummate performer. According to Dean Robert Blocker of the Yale School of Music, “Don Currier’s passion for the piano was evident in his playing and teaching. He was a complete musician, one who understood and valued the inextricable relationship of performance and scholarship, emotion and intellect. His contributions to the School and to music will continually be reflected in the lives of those who were fortunate enough to study with him.”

Born in Milton, Mass., Donald Currier began piano lessons at the age of seven. He studied piano and theory while in high school at the New England Conservatory, and later earned an undergraduate degree from that institution. After serving in the U.S. Army during World War II, he attended the Yale School of Music, then taught for several years at Connecticut College before returning to Yale

In August 1989 Currier was named a Steinway artist and in 1989-90, he was Visiting Professor of Piano at the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore. In retirement he continued for several years to perform in venues locally and across the United States and in Canada. Later he gave short recitals in his home, conducted master classes, and taught privately. In 1998 he and his wife made a CD of piano music and poetry titled Not to Look Back and in 2005 he published his book, Why the Piano: Conjectural writing about the piano and the people who devote their lives to it. It is part close examination of music important to his life, and part memoir of his career as a pianist.

Donald Currier is survived by his wife, Charlotte Garrett Currier; stepsons Matthew Garrett of New Haven and Tyler Garrett of West Palm Beach, Florida; a nephew, Richard Harlan Currier of New York City; and Arthur, Stephanie, and William Watt of Buzzards Bay, Mass. Services will be private. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the the Yale School Of Music, Piano Maintenance Fund, P.O. Box 208246, New Haven, CT 06520, attention: Betsy Carr.

In memoriam

Ian Mininberg, 102 Ian Mininberg, Ph.D., 102, of Middletown and formerly of New Haven, husband of Mary Ellen (Murphy) Mininberg, passed away on Thursday, April 29th at Middlesex Hospital.

Born in Wishek, North Dakota, he was the son of the late Nison and Ella (Resvin) Mininberg.

A concert pianist, he studied in Chicago, and later Berlin, with Frederick Lamonde. He continued his studies in Paris with pianist Isadore Philipp and composer Jacques Pillois.

He was editor and publisher of Keyboard Magazine, the nation’s largest music education magazine for schools. A 1934 graduate of the Yale School of Music, he became alumni director in the 1960s and from 1980 to 2001 editor of the School’s alumni magazine.

For his 60 years of service to the University, he was awarded the Yale Medal in 2002.

The medal citation read, in part: “Through his personal efforts and leadership he has significantly strengthened the bond between the School of Music and its alumni over the years. His extraordinary loyalty, dedication, and vision have provided the School of Music with invaluable support and have invigorated alumni ties. Every music alumni gathering, communication, or effort for the past 60 years bears the stamp of Ian Mininberg’s tireless work and planning.”

He was also the recipient of the Yale School of Music’s Alumni Certificate of Merit in 1973.

The Ian Mininberg ’34 Alumni Award, School’s highest distinction for alumni achievement, was created in 1997, and he was the first recipient.

His loving kindness will be remembered by all who were touched by him. Besides his wife, he is survived by his son, Mark Mininberg and his wife, Nancy of Middletown; his grandson, Matthew Mininberg and his step-grandchildren, Abrain, Jayne and Marah Paley.

Ian Mininberg’s autobiography, which appeared in the January, 2001, issue of Music at Yale, is available on the School’s web site.

Pianist Shirley Hsiao-Ni Pan ’91MM, ’92AD On July 25, 2009, pianist Shirley Hsiao-Ni Pan died following a five-year battle with breast cancer.

A concert celebrating her life and teaching was held on October 25, 2009 at the Peabody Institute, where she was on the faculty of the Peabody Preparatory division.

Mrs. Helen J. LaFlair ’34 CERT Mr. Ian Mininberg ’34 Mrs. Helen B. Rhein ’35 CERT Mrs. Elaine W. D’Elia ’38 Mr. George W. Avery ’39 Mrs. Helen B. Merrell-Siler ’40 Harry B. Ray, Ph. D. ‘41BA, ’42BM Professor Albert Gillis ’42BM, ’48MM Mrs. Celeste H. Morrison ’44 Professor David S. York ’44BM Mrs. Shirley E. Grossman ’45 Mrs. Martha B. Martin ’45 Mrs. Lillian C. Shockley ’45BM Virginia Hitchcock Hermann ‘46MM Professor James M. Beale, Jr. ’46BM, ’47MM Dr. George H. Jacobson ’46BM, ’47MM Professor Donald R. Currier ’47MM Miss Martha F. Lachowska ’47 Dr. Richard Edwards ’48BM Ms. Barbara S. Izard ’48BM Mr. Reynolds E. Steiger ’48 Professor Robert W. Baisley ’49BM Mrs. Dorothy F. Bartels-Keith ’49BM, ’51MM Mrs. Isabelle T. DeWitt ’49BM Mr. Timothy P. Miller ’49BM, ’51MM Mr. Barry B. Taxman ’49BM Mr. Vincent B. Allison ’50BM Mrs. Rose D. Aversa ’50 Mrs. Ruth Cole Kainen ’50BM Professor William Skelton ’50BM, ’51MM Mr. Chester Ray Jones ’51BM Professor Robert R. MacKinnon ’51BM, ’52MM Mr. Robert L. Mahaffey ’51BM, ’52MM Mrs. Jean Churchill Rymaszewski ’51 Professor Richard B. Stark ’51BM, ’52MM Mr. Alan W. Williams ’51BM, ’53MM Mr. Edward N. Chapman, Jr. ’52BM Mr. Arthur R. Kelley ’53BA, ’54BM, ’55MM Dr. Nancy C. Phillips ’53BM Ms. Joan T. Diedolf ’54BM Mr. Earl M. Banquer ’55BM, ’56MM Ms. Donia Adzima Carey ’55BM Dr. Martha Novak Clinkscale ’55MM Mr. John A. Riley, Jr. ’55MM Miss Virginia M. Carson ’56BM, ’57MM Mr. Richard D. Fortino ’57 Mr. Goff Owen, Jr. ’57BM Mr. Johannes F. Somary ’57BA, ’59MM Mrs. Marianna Hedlund Didriksen ’58 Ms. Bernadette B. Gutter ’59MM Mr. Abraham Isaac Menkin ’60 Mr. John M. Rinehart, Jr. ’61 Mr. Robert G. Meyers ’64MM Mr. John E. Ferritto ’65MM Ms. Karen Aleath Nelson ’68MM, ’69MMA Ms. Charlene H. Riccardi ’69 Mr. Charles W. England ’73MM Mr. Evan C. Ahern ’79MM Ms. Shirley H. Pan ’91MM, ’92AD Ms. Charlotte L. Braverman ’94MM, ’95AD

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Photo: Yale News Bureau

Notes across campus

YSO adds light to sound in Scriabin’s Prometheus Scriabin wrote his Prometheus: Poem of Fire to incorporate not only a full orchestra, chorus, piano, and organ, but also a tasteira per luce: a keyboard instrument that projects beams of light in colors that reflect the piece’s harmonic progress.

When Yale’s undergraduate concert orchestra, the Yale Symphony Orchestra, performed Alexander Scriabin’s Prometheus: Poem of Fire in February 2009, it was the first full-production of this multimedia work to benefit from contemporary lighting technology and the recent discovery of the composer’s hand-written directions for its execution.

Scriabin wrote the piece 100 years ago as a sound and light spectacle showcasing his esoteric theory that there is an intrinsic relationship between music and color. The tastiera per luce emits no sounds but projects beams of light that change color according to the harmonic progression of the music.

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In 1969 and 1971, the Yale Symphony Orchestra addressed some of these challenges and performed Prometheus with light sources spread throughout Woolsey Hall, using the mass of the audience as a reflective body.

This performance built on the YSO’s history of realizing Scriabin’s vision.

In 1978, the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris obtained a first-edition score of Prometheus with Scriabin’s long-lost hand-written annotations, a copy of which is held at the Gilmore Music Library at Yale. The score, not widely known, dates from 1913, and contains detailed annotations for the “luce” part in Scriabin’s own handwriting. “This information revolutionizes previous conceptions of the relationship between lights and music,” says Yale doctoral candidate Anna Gawboy, whose research provided insights critical for this production.

The composer’s newly discovered directions for color and lighting and instructions for such special effects as tongues of flame, lightening flashes and fireworks will enable Yale students to bring the entire work to light, literally, in its most authentic form to date.

Scriabin’s notations also shed light on how far in advance of his times the visionary composer was. With lighting created by award-winning designer Justin Townsend, and with guidance from Scriabin’s hand-written notes, the Yale production used cutting-edge LED technology, allowing a single source of light to produce a full spectrum of color, and, synchronized with the music, change from one color to another without missing a beat.

The Yale Symphony Orchestra (YSO) was founded in 1965 by a small group of Yale undergraduates who saw a need for a permanent platform for student musicians to perform together. Today, the Yale Symphony enjoys a reputation as one of the premiere undergraduate orchestras in the United States, and performs an average of six concerts a year. It has presented premieres of many works, including the European premiere of Leonard Bernstein’s Mass in 1973 and the U.S. premiere of Debussy’s Khamma.

From the Archives

It began in 1955, when Griswold decided to study the flute. According to Luther Noss, who was Dean at the time, Griwold wanted to be able to play along with his son, who was learning piano. Dean Noss and Keith Wilson recommended Michael Mennone ’55MM, the School’s first flute major, who not only taught Griswold how to play but who happily developed a warm relationship with the president.

Griswold, according to Noss, “was much impressed with his teacher’s competence and also awed by the complexities of music theory (as he frequently told me), with the result that he enthusiastically endorsed everything we were doing or wished to do.”

Griswold became so adept at playing the flute that he appeared in 1958 at a Yale Band pops concert, directed by Keith Wilson, in a flute trio with Mennone and Prof. David Kraehenbuehl ’48MM, who composed “Variations on an Old Saw(ng)” for the occasion. The band gave the president an honorary Master of Flute Playing for his efforts.

It is hardly a cooincidence that in the same year President Griswold approved the drawing up of plans and the preparation of cost estimates for a new music facility on campus. The proposal received the approval of the University Council and was given tentative approval by the Yale Corporation.

Griswold was a champion for the music center, but when he succumbed to colon cancer in 1963, the project died with him.

The president and his teacher had maintained contact in the years before Griwold’s death.

In 1961, upon receipt of a gift from Mennone of recordings of the Brandenburg Concerto, Griswold wrote in gratitude, “Not only does it remind me of one of the most pleasant and satisfying experiences in my life, but it comes as a most timely and ingratiating reminder to keep up my music. Although I had to put the flute away for about two months, I am back on the old scores and playing, on the average, about twice a week.” He added as a P.S., “Yesterday I became a LIFE MEMBER of AFM Local No. 234!”

Michael Mennone retired as professor of music at Western Connecticut State University in 1992 and now lives in Kennesaw, Georgia.

Photo: Charles Albertus, Yale News Bureau

The President’s Flute Teacher The understanding of the art of music, not to mention an appreciation for the talent and effort required to become a musician, varied greatly among Yale’s presidents over the years and is in most cases a matter of speculation. But the appreciation that president A. Whitney Griswold, who served as president of Yale from 1951 to 1963, developed for the art and science of music is well documented.

The executive committee that planned the symposium of the International Federation of Music students included (rear, left to right) Julius Scheier, John Strauss, James Yannatos, Martha Bixler, Robert MacKinnon, Billy Jim Layton, Sherodd Albritton, Maryann Brehm, and (front) Cynthia Thomas. Credit: Charles Albertus, Yale News Bureau Life at YSM in the early 1950s Over the past several years, Cynthia Thomas Stuck, ’52BMus, has sent us many mementos from her time at the Yale School of Music.

We are very grateful for the glimpse into life at the School in those days that these items provide. The material includes photographs, programs, posters, and even greeting cards .

One such card is a Merry Christmas greeting from Lois and Quincy Porter, with a humorous caricature of Porter drawn by fellow student Glen Michaels on the cover. Cynthia writes, “Q. P. really looked just like that, with his cigarette ashes dripping into his viola.”

There are Collegium concert programs illustrated by Paul Hindemith with student performers such as Mel Powell, Frank Lewin, Fenno Heath, Willie Ruff, and Yehudi Wyner who would later become faculty members.

listed speeches by Paul Hindemith, Otto Kinkeldey, Stefan Wolpe, Susanne K. Langer, Paul Henry Lang, and Dimitri Mitropoulos.

Each School gave a chamber music concert of student works — with moderated critiques — in Sprague, and there was one orchestra concert of music by budding composers from seven of the schools conducted by Keith Wilson. Among the composers were Walter Hartley from Eastman, Jacob Druckman and Hall Overton from Juilliard, John Williams and Ezra Laderman from Columbia, “Morty” Feldman from Philadelphia Musical Academy, Lee Hoiby from Curtis; and Billy Jim Layton, John Strauss and Yehudi Wyner from Yale.

Mr. Charles Ives is listed as one of the sponsors of the symposium.

Some of the most interesting material is related to the Fifth Annual Symposium of the International Federation of Music Students, Juilliard Chapter, which took place on March 12 to 17, 1951 at the Yale School of Music.

In the photo reproduced here is a meeting of the executive committee, probably in some room in Sprague Hall. Note the poster on the wall for a concert in Sprague Hall featuring their classmate, Mel Powell, along with Benny Goodman and Lionel Hampton. This swing concert was arranged by the committee to raise funds for the symposium.

Judging by the roster of participants in the symposium, it is fair to say the committee did a marvelous job. The member schools were Curtis, Eastman, Juilliard, New England Conservatory, Royal Conservatory in Toronto, and Yale; Columbia, New York’s Contemporary Music School, and the Philadelphia Musical Academy were guests. The printed program

Cover of a holiday card from Quincy Porter, drawn in caricature by Glen Michaels.

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Contributors to the YSM Alumni Fund

Class of 1940

Class of 1943

Class of 1945

Mr. Philip William Maas, Jr.

Mrs. Josephine C. Del Monaco

Mrs. Muriel Port Stevens

Mrs. Jean Harris Mainous

Class of 1941

Mrs. Libbe R. Murez

Class of 1946

Mrs. Mary D. Torrence

Mrs. Hope L. Whitehead

Professor James M. Beale, Jr.

Mrs. Dorothy Smith Havens

Class of 1944

Dr. Joseph B. Carlucci Mrs. Melba H. Sandberg

Mrs. Florence G. Smith

Thank you for your generous support of the School’s educational and artistic endeavors.

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Class of 1947

Class of 1948

Class of 1949

Mrs. Nina Ardito Gambardella

Mrs. Mary Louise Yoder Hicks

Mrs. Marie B. Nelson Bennett, Ph.D.

Mrs. Olga B. Johnson

Mrs. Jane S. Lee

Mr. Herbert J. Coyne

Miss Martha F. Lachowska

Mrs. Grace P. Lukas

Professor Emma Lou Diemer

Professor Leo B. Reynolds

Mr. Shmuel Magen

Robert B. Hickok

Ms. Betty Whitehill Olsson

Mrs. Eleanore H. Lange Kard

Professor Reinhard G. Pauly

Professor Henry N. Lee, Jr.

Mr. Albert C. Sly

Ms. Marion E. Mansfield

Mrs. Helen W. Wriston

Professor Franklin E. Morris Ms. Jean Belfanc Northup Mrs. Arleen G. Rowley Professor Julia Schnebly-Black Miss Elaine Straley

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Contributors to the YSM Alumni Fund Class of 1950

Class of 1955

Class of 1960

Professor John C. Crawford

Mrs. Elena G. Bambach

Professor Rollie E. Blondeau

Mr. Lee Howard

Mr. Earl M. Banquer

Professor Donald Miller, Jr.

Mrs. Anne P. Lieberson

Mrs. Ellen Powell Bell

Mrs. Sheila A. Marks

Mrs. Marjorie J. McClelland

Dr. Martha Novak Clinkscale

Dr. Robert W. Molison

Professor William F. Toole

Mr. Robert C. Hebble

Miss LoisAnn Oakes

Professor G. Truett Hollis

Professor Victor W. Ryder

Class of 1951

Dr. Michael M. Horvit

Mr. Stephen A. Simon

Mr. Robert C. Barker

Mr. George A. Mathes, Jr.

Professor Robert M. Cecil

Ms. Elaine Troostwyk Toscanini

Class of 1961

Mr. William A. Dresden

Mr. William W. Ulrich, Jr.

Mr. Ernesto Epistola

Mrs. Renee K. Glaubitz

Class of 1956

Mr. Robert L. Mahaffey

Miss Virginia M. Carson

Professor Mary W. Krosnick

Mrs. Lorraine L. Schaefer

Mrs. Mary D. Doeringer

Ms. Lois Wetzel Regestein

Mr. Joseph Lawrence Gilman

Mr. Bernard Rubenstein

Mrs. Linda W. Glasgal

Dr. Carl B. Staplin

Class of 1952 Mr. Robert C. Barker

Professor William Lee Hudson

Mr. Haskell L. Thomson

Mr. William C. Duffy, Jr.

Class of 1957

Ms. Mary G. George

Mrs. Sandra P. Andreucci

Class of 1962

Mrs. Norine P. Harris

Prof. Richmond Browne

Mr. Raymond P. Bills

Mr. Edward H. Higbee, Jr.

Mrs. Ella A. Holding

Professor Joel A. Chadabe

Mrs. Judith L. Lipner

Mr. Goff Owen, Jr.

Ms. Charlotte M. Corbridge

Mr. David A. O’Leary

Mrs. Joan B. Mathes|

Mr. Ralph P. D’Mello

Professor Eckhart Richter

Mrs. Joyce B. Osborn

Mrs. Sylvia W. Dowd

Mr. Ezra G. Sims, Jr.

Denis Mickiewicz, Ph.D.

Professor Eiji Hashimoto

Mrs. Gwendolyn H. Stevens

Mrs. Joan F. Popovic

Professor Arthur Welwood, Jr.

Mrs. Cynthia T. Stuck

Mrs. Dorothy C. Rice

Mrs. Linda T. Lienhard

Mr. Ronald D. Simone

Professor James R. Morris

Class of 1953

Mr. Pablo B. Svilokos

Mr. Peter P. D. Olejar

Professor Leonard F. Felberg

Dr. Anne Yarrow

Mrs. Florence Fowler Peacock

Prof. Joanna B. Gillespie

Professor Hildred E. Roach

Mr. Edwin Hymovitz

Class of 1958

Dr. Donald Glenn Loach

Professor John K. Adams

Dr. Donald Glenn Loach

Mrs. Marianna H. Didriksen

Class of 1963

Prof. Willie H. Ruff, Jr.

Mrs. Margaret D. Gidley

Professor Charles Aschbrenner

Dr. Eugene Thamon Simpson

Professor Richard W. Lottridge

Mrs. Jean S. Bills

Ms. Joan G. Stanko

Mr. Philip A. Prince

Miss Grace Ann Feldman

Professor Armin J. Watkins

Mr. George R. Schermerhorn

Dr. Daniel M. Graham

Class of 1959

Mr. W. Marvin Johnson, Jr.

Class of 1954

Mr. Robert H. Gutter

Dr. Maija M. Lutz

Professor Galen H. Deibler

Mrs. Alice K. Kugelman

Professor Charles Vun Kannon

Mrs. Joan M. Mallory

Ms. Jo Ann B. Locke

Mrs. Linda L. Rosdeitcher

Professor Robert A. Montesi Dean David W. Sweetkind Mrs. Georgene V. Vogt Mrs. Cora W. Witten

36

Professor Peter J. Hedrick

Mrs. Hannelore H. Howard

Mrs. Joyce M. Ucci

Thank you for your generous support of the School’s educational and artistic endeavors.

Class of 1964

Class of 1969

Class of 1975

Dr. Robert C. Mann

Ms. Kunie F. DeVorkin

Mr. Hall N. Goff

Mrs. Jamee F. Schrader

Mrs. Helen B. Erickson

Jacquelyn M. Helin

Class of 1965

Mr. Clinton L. Ingram

Professor Larry E. Jones

Ms. Janis W. Bass

Ms. Jane P. Logan

Mr. Joseph H. McGauley

Miss Rosemary Colson

Ms. Paige E. Macklin

Dr. Kay George Roberts

Professor Brian Fennelly

Mr. Bryan R. Simms

Ms. Christie A. Rollason-Reese

Professor Charles E. Page

Class of 1970

Class of 1976

Professor Alvin Shulman

Ms. Anita La Fiandra MacDonald

Professor Lenard C. Bowie

Ms. Georgia McEwan Palmieri

Ms. Katherine A. Brewster

Ms. Jill Shires

Professor Joan Osborn Epstein

Dr. Martin R. Sunderland

Professor William G. Hoyt, Jr.

Dr. Roderic M. Keating

Ms. Rheta R. Smith Professor Melinda K. Spratlan

Class of 1966

Professor Mark R. Kroll

Mr. Richard A. Konzen

Dr. Lucy E. Cross

Mr. William Nicholas Renouf

Mr. Henry G. Mautner

Dr. Charlotte Dalton Farney

Prof. Preethi I. de Silva

Mr. J. Reid Patterson, Jr.

Mrs. Ethel H. Farny

Mr. Allan D. Vogel

Mr. Dale Thomas Rogers

Mr. John M. Graziano

Mr. Donald S. Rosenberg

Ms. Patricia Grignet Nott

Class of 1971

Mr. Steven L. Rosenberry

Ms. Lola Odiaga

Pres. Ronald A. Crutcher

Ms. Lori Laitman Rosenblum

Judith R. Alstadter, Ph.D. Professor Donald F. Wheelock Mr. Joseph L. Wilcox

Mr. David B. Johnson Ms. Chouhei Min Mr. Anthony C. Tommasini

Mr. Michael D. Thornton Prof. Michael C. Tusa Mr. Robert W. Weirich

Mr. David G. Tubergen

Ms. Barbara M. Westphal

Professor Richard L. De Baise

Class of 1973

Class of 1977

Mr. Howard N. Bakken

Professor David B. Baldwin

Ms. Leslie Van Becker

Class of 1967

Mr. George S. Blackburn, Jr. Mr. W. Ritchie Clendenin, Jr. Mr. Daniel Robert Harris Mr. Thomas F. Johnson Professor Paul Jordan Mr. Richard E. Killmer Professor Carol F. Lieberman Professor Vincent F. Luti Miss Joan Maurine Moss Mrs. Abby N. Wells

Class of 1968 The Rev. Dr. Robert Carpenter Professor Frank V. Church Professor Garry E. Clarke Ms. Carol N. Cohen Professor Michael G. Finegold Mr. Richard F. Green

Mr. William B. Brice Mr. Gene Crisafulli Ms. Clarissa C. Dozier Professor Frank Shaffer, Jr. Mr. Frank A. Spaccarotella

Mr. David A. Behnke Mr. Eliot Hamilton Fisk Professor Boyd M. Jones II Mr. Philip D. Spencer

Class of 1978

Class of 1974

Ms. Gwen Adams

Mr. Michael C. Borschel

Mr. William H. Beermann

Professor Gene J. Collerd Mr. Robert L. Hart Dr. Janne E. Irvine Mr. David Lasker Mr. Stephen Osmond

Professor K. Butler-Hopkins Mr. Frank Heuser Mr. Jerrold Pope Mr. John P. Varineau Professor Donald R. Zimmer

Ms. Susan Poliacik Mrs. Permelia S. Sears Mr. Kenneth D. Singleton Ms. Antoinette C. Van Zabner

Mr. David J. Longmire

37

Contributors to the YSM Alumni Fund Class of 1979

Class of 1983

Class of 1988

Ms. Cecylia B. Barczyk

Mr. James R. Barry

Mr. Douglas Robert Dickson

Professor Susan M. Blaustein

Mr. Jeffrey Evans Brooks

Mr. Jason Arthur Rubinstein

Mr. Bradley G. Dechter

Mr. Wayman L. Chin

Ms. Jennifer Louise Smith

Ms. Sharon Dennison

Mr. Jonathan E. Dimmock

Ms. Deborah Dewey

Ms. Daphne A. Foreman

Class of 1989

Mr. Frederick L. Giampietro

Ms. Maureen Horgan

Mrs. Theresa E. Langdon

Mr. Aaron Jay Kernis

Mr. William Jerold Crone

Mr. William J. Myers

Mr. R. Adrian Smith

Mr. William A. Owen III

Mr. Robert J. Straka, Jr.

Professor Jan Radzynski

Ms. Robin G. Tabachnik

Lt. Cmdr. James G. Wallace Mr. Marvin Warshaw

Class of 1980

Mr. James G. Casey

Ms. Betsy Adler Brauer Mr. Edward H. Cumming III

Mr. Gary Crow-Willard

Mr. David L. Loucky

Mr. David M. Kurtz

Dr. Jody A. Rodgers

Mr. Peter M. Marshall Mr. Harris Shiller

Class of 1985

Ms. Mary Diane Willis-Stahl

Mr. Christopher J. Creeger

Ms. Pamela Geannelis

Dr. Melissa Kay Rose

Dr. Marie Jureit-Beamish

Ms. Sally L. Rubin

Dr. Edward C. Nagel

Dr. Timothy D. Taylor

Mr. Stephen B. Perry

Ms. Carol Kozak Ward

Mr. Daniel W. Reinker

Mr. David R. Wiener

Mr. Mark J. Richards Ms. Susan Rotholz

Class of 1986

Ms. Rebecca L. Schalk

Dr. Dale L. Adelmann Ms. Susan S. Breitung Ms. Kirstin Fife Mr. Richard H. Goering Ms. Brigitte Paetsch Gray Mr. David M. Pittsinger

Dr. M. Teresa Beaman

Mr. Nicholas Robert Smith

Dr. David Calhoon

Ms. Terri Rae Sundberg

Mr. Charles L. Kaufmann Mr. Grant R. Moss

Class of 1987

Mr. Joseph M. Waters

Mr. Allen H. Bean Mr. Andrew M. Campbell Ms. Gina F. Cooper Ms. Kathryn Lee Engelhardt Ms. Tammy L. Preuss Ms. Kyung Hak Yu

38

Mr. Benjamin Carey Poole Dr. John A. Sichel Ms. Sally Stewart Strauch Mr. Joseph Talleda

Mr. Marco E. Beltrami

Ms. Justina B. Golden Mr. Kevin J. Piccini

Mr. David Wishnia

Ms. Kirsten Peterson

Dr. Thomas Stephen Dubberly

Mr. Robert E. Eberle

Class of 1982

Ms. Irina Faskianos DePatie

Class of 1991

Dr. John T. King

Mr. Christopher P. Wilkins

Ms. Siu-Ying Susan Chan

Mr. Steven F. Darsey

Ms. Barbara Peterson Cackler

Dr. Gwendolyn J. Toth

Ms. Jo-Ann Sternberg

Mr. Richard E. Andaya

Mr. Eliot T. Bailen

Mr. Regan W. Smith

Ms. Gina Marie Serafin

Classof 1990

Ms. Violeta N. Chan-Scott

Class of 1981

Ms. Genevieve Feiwen Lee

Class of 1984

Ms. Claudia Lois Ayer

Mr. Rodney A. Wynkoop

Mr. George Paige Hoyt

Ms. Amy Feldman Bernon Ms. Eva Marie Heater Mr. Thomas G. Masse Ms. Tamara A. Meinecke Mr. Svend J. Ronning Mr. D. Thomas Toner Prof. Nadine C. Whitney

Class of 1992 Dr. Carolyn A. Barber Ms. Amy Lynn Thiaville Mr. Ferenc Xavier Vegh, Jr. Mr. Gregory Christopher Wrenn

Class of 1993 Ms. Inbal Segev Brener Ms. Kin Chau Mr. Douglas Denniston Dr. Barbara J. Hamilton-Primus Ms. Jill A. Pellett Levine Dr. Anne V. Louise-Turgeon Mr. Jonathan Allen Noel Mr. Stephen James Renaker Dr. Andrew D. Shenton

Thank you for your generous support of the School’s educational and artistic endeavors.

Class of 1994

Class of 2000

Class of 2005

Ms. Julie Anne Bates

Mr. Dennis Jon Christians

Mr. Dmitri Atapine

Ms. Monica Buffington

Dr. Suzanne Marie Farrin

Ms. Kan Chiu

Mr. Scott A. Cranston

Dr. Joan Jooyeon Lee

Ms. Angela Michelle Early

Dr. Edward S. Turgeon

Jonathan Reuning-Scherer, Ph.D.

Ms. Laura Margaret Garritson

Mr. Ian R. Warman

Mr. Ravi S. Rajan

Mr. John-Quentin Lee Kim

Mr. Brennan Dale Szafron

Dr. Sarita Kit Yee Kwok

Class of 1995

Ms. Jessica Wiskus

Mr. John-Michael Muller

Ms. Tanya Anisimova

Dr. Sebastian Zubieta

Prof. Conor R. Nelson

Mr. David James Chrzanowski

Class of 2001

Class of 2006

Mr. Robert A. Elhai

Ms. Tanya Bannister

Ms. Theresa Marie Calpotura

Mr. Edward Duffield Harsh

Dr. Stephen Mulvey Buck

Mr. Vincent A. Carr

Mr. Pieter Jacobs

Mr. Chad Edward Burrow

Ms. Marisa Wickersham Green

Ms. Leslie Ann Johnson

Mr. Andrew Elliot Henderson

Mr. Colin D Lynch

Mr. Ronald Ling-Fai Lau

Ms. Mary Wannamaker Huff

Mr. Diego Matamoros

Mr. Stephane Levesque

Ms. Jennie Eun-Im Jung

Mr. Paul Daniel Murphy

Dr. Neil Richard Mueller

Mr. John Frederick Kaefer

Ms. Anna Z. Pelczer

Mr. David Henry Nadal

Dr. Daniel Dixon Kellogg

Mr. Jason Patrick Robins

Mr. Peter Savli

Ms. Hsing-Ay Hsu Kellogg

Ms. Sharon Wei

Ms. Christina Otten Toner

Mr. Robert M. Manthey

Mr. Douglas Raymond Williams

Class of 2002

Class of 2007

Dr. Richard J. Gard

Mr. John Richard Miller

Mr. Paul Abraham Jacobs

Ms. Sarah Marie Perkins

Ms. Sara Elizabeth Andon

Mr. Christopher Matthew Lee

Mr. Alexander E. Reicher

Dr. Jayson Rodovsky Engquist

Mr. William Anthony Martin

Ms. June Young Han

Dr. Justin Charles O’Dell

Mr. Anthony Joseph Bancroft

Ms. Ayako Tsuruta Ms. Cheryl Rita Wadsworth

Class of 1996

Mr. Lanfranco Marcelletti, Jr.

Class of 2008 Mr. Thomas Alfred Bergeron II

Mr. James K. McNeish

Class of 2003

Mr. Peter M. Miyamoto

Dr. David Aaron Colwell

Mr. Sergiy Viktorovich Dvornichenko

Mr. Austin Peter Glass

Ms. Alma Maria Liebrecht

Mr. Michael Alan Hampf

Mr. Derrick Li Wang

Dr. Michael David Mizrahi

Ms. Yi-Ping Yang

Ms. Karen E. Peterson

Class of 1997

Mr. Nicholas William DiEugenio

Mr. Mark Elliot Bergman

Ms. Andrea Edith Moore

Ms. Hehsun Chun

Mr. Daniel Kevin Roihl

Class of 2009

Mr. Harold Yale Meltzer

Mr. Andrew Patrick Scanlon

Ms. Laura Catherine Atkinson

Dr. Paul Mathew Weber

Class of 1998

Ms. Ellen Claire Connors Ms. Merideth Irene Hite

Mr. Alexander G. Adiarte

Class of 2004

Mr. Patrick J. Carfizzi

Ms. Ariana Scott Falk

Mr. Juan Carlos Fernandez Nieto

Mr. William R. Funderburk IV

Ms. Amanda Marie Ingram

Mr. Patrick O’Connell

Mr. Lawrence J. Loh

Ms. Katherine Mireille Mason

Mr. Thomas Jared Stellmacher

Mr. Bradley P. Moore

Ms. Ah-Young Sung Mr. Jonathan Harold Taylor

Class of 1999 Mr. Alexander Sylvain Bauhart Mr. Robert Lynn Goodner Ms. Pamela Getnick Mindell

Mr. Vaughn Joseph Mauren

Class of 2010 Ms. Hanna Na

and Dean Robert L. Blocker

Ms. Emily Anne Payne Prof. Wei-Yi Yang

39

at 2010 Editor: Vincent Oneppo ’73MM Associate Editor: Dana Astmann Design Manager: Monica Ong Reed Publication Design: James Frost Music at Yale is a publication of the Yale School of Music.

Please address correspondence to: Music at Yale Concert and Media Office Yale School of Music P.O. Box 208246 New Haven, CT 06520-8246

website: music.yale.edu email: musicnews@yale.edu

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