Music at Yale | Spring 2018

Music at Yale Spring 2018

Scholarship, artistry, and cultural leadership a call for equity in music education

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Contents 04

FROM THE DEAN

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NEW STAFF

20 Faculty composer Martin Bresnick’s new

oratorio premieres

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HIGHLIGHTS 07 Achievements recognized at

Honors Banquet

08 Convocation 2017 celebrates

transformative power of music

YSM musicians succeed at Concert Artists Guild competition

FEATURES 22 Yale Philharmonia premieres new edition

of Bruckner’s original Eighth Symphony

26 Music and social justice: building

community through art

32 YSM declaration calls for equity in music education

NEWS 10 Concerts 12 Faculty 14 Students ANNOUNCEMENTS 16 YSM revamps BA/MM degree program 17 Students establish School’s first

LGBTQ+ affinity group

ACHIEVEMENTS 18 Concert series at Collection of Musical

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CLASS NOTES

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RECORDINGS + PUBLICATIONS

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IN MEMORIAM

48 YSM ALUMNI FUND CONTRIBUTORS

Instruments turns 50

Stay connected! Follow us for news, updates, and more. @yalemusic

yalemusic 3

FROM THE DEAN

Dear YSM community, The 2017-2018 academic year was an exciting one at the Yale School of Music, filled with extraordinary music-making and constant reminders that despite the relentless cacophony of our present world, hope truly does reside here. Our dedicated faculty and staff, immeasurably talented students, and you, our devoted alumni and friends, make the Yale School of Music the remarkable place that it is. With this issue of Music at Yale, we seek to capture the spirit of cultural leadership we cultivate at the School. You, and indeed all of our distinguished alumni, continue to astonish us with your abilities and leadership at a time when the latter is needed more than ever. Our students enjoy wonderful successes on the concert stage and bring music to communities where hope remains an unfulfilled promise. In the coming weeks, we will disseminate an impassioned Declaration on Equity in Music for City Students, the thoughtful yield of YSM’s sixth Symposium on Music in Schools, which was organized by Associate Dean Michael Yaffe and his dedicated team.

Robert Blocker

The Henry and Lucy Moses Dean of Music

This spring, a committee representing YSM’s constituencies began envisioning a future in which the School’s impact in and on the world is sustained and broadened. YSM is a place where human dignity matters, and as we look forward with renewed hope, we reaffirm our mission to educate and inspire students with exceptional artistic and academic talent for service to the profession and to society. A new strategic plan will involve a careful examination of our curricula and programs to ensure that future alumni are equipped for a world whose landscape is forever changing. We also embark on this effort intent on securing the resources necessary to fully endow the School of Music. Today, we look to tomorrow with a profound sense of gratitude for our heritage. In 2019-2020, we will commemorate YSM’s 125 th anniversary and all that has brought us to this auspicious moment. We look forward to sharing more details in the coming months about our yearlong celebration. I am deeply and profoundly moved by the spirit of the people who work, study, and teach here. There is perhaps no one who learns as much as I do each day, in this place where hope abounds. I thank you for your continued support as we at the Yale School of Music seek to mend our troubled world through music.

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Music at Yale is a publication of the Yale School of Music P.O. Box 208246 New Haven, CT 06520-8246 music.yale.edu musicnews@yale.edu Editor

David Brensilver Art Direction / Design

Katie Kelley Contributing Writers

David Brensilver Lucile Bruce Antonia Chandler Rachel Glodo Contributing Editors

Paige Breen Antonia Chandler Mackenzie Dilbeck Lauren Schiffer Kristy Tucker Donna Yoo Photographers

Ian Christmann Matt Fried Bob Handelman Harold Shapiro

Send Us Your News

musicnews@yale.edu

Yale Opera’s 2018 production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute 5

NEW STAFF

Alix Bornstein joined the Dean’s

Office as a senior administrative assistant. Bornstein most recently worked in New York as an executive assistant and investor relations representative for a firm of hedge-fund managers. Prior to that, she spent several years in Newport, Rhode Island, working for Bannister’s Wharf and the Clarke Cooke House, serving in roles ranging from administration to event planning, operations, facilities management, and interior design. Bornstein, who earned a bachelor of arts degree in philosophy and fine art from Salve Regina University, reports to Chief of Staff Stefanie Parkyn and handles various administrative functions for the Dean’s Office. Paige Breen joined the YSM

staff as the admissions and alumni affairs coordinator. She previously worked for the National Youth Orchestra of China, where she was the director of operations and logistics, overseeing all U.S. components of the program, recruiting students and staff, and coordinating travel and visa needs for teaching artists. Breen earned her bachelor of science degree in geology and geophysics from Yale University in 2016. While studying at Yale, she worked at YSM as a box office assistant and as an 6

usher. She was also a member of the Yale Concert Band and Yale’s Guild of Carillonneurs. Reporting to Director of Admissions and Alumni Affairs Donna Yoo, Breen works on recruiting outstanding musicians, coordinating the administrative work in both the admissions and alumni affairs areas, and fostering alumni relations. Mackenzie Dilbeck, YSM’s new director of communications, comes to the School with a wealth of experience from her previous directorship at the University of Oklahoma College of Law. There, she worked in close association with the Dean on coordinating the college’s strategic initiatives and leading its communications, marketing, and media relations efforts. Dilbeck reports to Dean Robert Blocker, and, with a graduate degree in strategic public relations from The George Washington University and an extensive background in highereducation communications, brings a well-rounded perspective to her role at YSM. Charles “Chuck” Stupakevich

joined the School’s staff as a financial analyst and works closely with Associate Dean Michael Yaffe and Business Operations Manager Patty Torello on recently launched financial systems. The position

is shared with the Yale School of Art, which has similar needs. Stupakevich has been at Yale for 10 years and worked with the School of Music for the past five years as a manager for Yale Shared Services, where he specialized in budgeting and financial analysis. He started his Yale career working in the Shared Science Service Branch as a grant accountant and offers years of experience in finance as a certified public accountant. Kellie Wood joined the YSM

staff as an administrative assistant to Director of Student Services Suzanne Stringer. With several years’ experience as a corporate registrar for 30 institutions, Wood has the tools necessary to navigate the complex systems and detailed transactions inherent to her new role. Wood earned her bachelor of science degree in psychology from Mitchell College.

music.yale.edu/contact

HIGHLIGHTS

Retired professor Willie Ruff

Left to right: Yale University Provost Benjamin Polak, Yale University President Peter Salovey, YSM Board of Advisors member Carol Colburn Grigor, and YSM Dean Robert Blocker

Achievements recognized at Honors Banquet

At the School of Music’s annual Honors Banquet, which celebrated achievements in the YSM community, Dean Robert Blocker presented Carol Colburn Grigor ’69MMA CBE with the School’s highest honor, the Samuel Simons Sanford Award. Blocker said Grigor, a member of the School’s Board of Advisors, “is one of America’s most generous … most thoughtful philanthropists.”

changed all our lives,” Blocker said of Ruff. In a nod to the man and legendary saxophonist who indirectly inspired him decades ago to study at YSM, Ruff said, “I thank, most of all, Charlie Parker.” In 1972, a year after joining the YSM faculty, Ruff organized a convocation in Woolsey Hall that welcomed the giants of jazz to Yale and launched the Duke Ellington Fellowship and the Ellington Jazz Series.

Also honored was longtime professor Willie Ruff ’53BM ’54MM, who retired in May 2017 after 46 years on the faculty. Blocker, with University President Peter Salovey and Yale Provost Benjamin Polak at his side, presented Ruff with the University’s prestigious Nathan Hale Award. “He’s

Blocker presented the Ian Mininberg Distinguished Service Award to pianist Warren Lee ’00MM and the Cultural Leadership Citation to Yale Collection of Musical Instruments Curator William Nicholas Renouf ’71MMA, who retired in May 2017. The collection’s director, faculty hor-

nist William Purvis, accepted the citation on behalf of Renouf, who was unable to attend the event. Before presenting a wealth of student prizes, Blocker recognized longtime faculty pianist Peter Frankl for his dedication to the YSM community. Frankl retired in December 2017 after 30 years on the School’s faculty. The evening was largely about acknowledging the achievements of the School’s students, many of whom would graduate a few weeks later. At the end of the banquet, Blocker told those in attendance, “Claim the future. It belongs to you.”

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HIGHLIGHTS

Convocation 2017 celebrates transformative power of music

School of Music Dean Robert Blocker often describes music as “the currency of hope” and has long championed the School’s commitment to equality. That commitment was reiterated emphatically in Blocker’s 2017 Convocation speech, Music Among Friends, in which he celebrated “courage, inclusivity and diversity, connectedness, tolerance and respect, and compassion.” Upon its founding, he said, “the School of Music opened wide its doors and heart to all those who brought their gifts of talent and intellectual curiosity to campus.” Blocker told new and returning students that “all of us bring anx-

ieties, concerns, and even fears about the human condition to this room tonight, for we live in a time in which human dignity and indeed humanity are being assaulted throughout the world.” Connecting YSM’s values to its mission, he said, “music teaches us that every voice is distinct and important, that each is necessary for harmony, and that is precisely why we know that our combined voices will help repair our troubled world.” YSM’s 2017 Convocation featured performances by faculty violinist Daniel S. Lee ’06MM ’08AD and faculty harpsichordist Arthur Haas; bass-baritone

Dashon Burton ’11MM and pianist David Fung ’11MM ’13MMA ’17DMA; and violinist Sirena Huang ’19AD and pianist Lam Wong ’18MM. Those performances added punctuation to Blocker’s remarks, which concluded with him telling members of the incoming class that “here at YSM, you will experience fully the gift that is music among friends.” Referencing a favorite story about Robert Louis Stevenson, he encouraged all in attendance to “take hope, and make holes in the dark with the beauty and light of your music.”

Clockwise from top: YSM Dean Robert Blocker delivers his 2017 Convocation speech, Music Among Friends. Bass-baritone Dashon Burton performs “Grosser Herr, o starker König,” from Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, BWV 248. Students sing Schubert’s An die Musik. Violinist Sirena Huang and pianist Lam Wong perform Tchaikovsky’s Valse-Scherzo, Op. 34. Faculty violinist Daniel S. Lee and faculty harpsichordist Arthur Haas perform Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber’s Violin Sonata No. 3 in F major, C. 140. 8

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NEWS

Concerts Yale Philharmonia Principal

David Robertson

Guest conductor

Angela Hewitt Guest pianist

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Conductor Peter Oundjian and the Yale Philharmonia launched the season with a spirited performance of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring before one of the largest audiences to attend a Philharmonia concert in recent years. Oundjian also conducted the orchestra in the worldpremiere performance of the International Bruckner Society’s new edition of the composer’s Eighth Symphony, which was created from the original autograph manuscript by School of Music Professor of Musicology Paul Hawkshaw, a member of the society’s editorial board.

Guest conductors David Robertson and Ignat Solzhenitsyn led the Philharmonia in a season that featured concerto appearances by violinist Laura Park ’18MM, violist Josip Kvetek ’18MM, and percussionists Georgi Videnov ’17MMA and Sam Um ’17MM ’18MMA — all winners of the School’s 2017 Woolsey Hall Concerto Competition. Under conducting fellow David Yi’s baton, the Philharmonia performed new works by graduate-student composers, and a concert in Morse Recital Hall with violinist Sirena Huang ’19AD and pianist Szymon Nehring ’19AD. The orchestra also joined Yale Opera at the Shubert Theatre for performances of Mozart’s The Magic Flute, conducted by Israel Gursky.

In April, the Philharmonia performed Mahler’s Ninth Symphony under Oundjian’s direction and to welcomed guest conductor Marin Alsop for a season-ending performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Yale Glee Club and Yale Camerata. Horowitz Piano Series This year’s Horowitz Piano Series was marked by faculty pianist Peter Frankl’s farewell recital in November, at which he appeared for the last time as a faculty member. Frankl retired after serving 30 years on the School’s faculty.

The first semester also featured performances by faculty pianists Boris Berman (the series’ artistic director), Wei-Yi Yang, and Hung-Kuan Chen, and an appearance by Bach specialist Angela Hewitt, who performed the composer’s monumental “Goldberg” Variations. Faculty pianist and Deputy Dean Melvin Chen kicked off the series’ spring semester, which also included a recital by faculty pianist and YSM Dean Robert Blocker. In February, the series welcomed keyboard virtuoso Marc-André Hamelin, who presented an eclectic program that included works by Liszt, Debussy, Samuil Feinberg, and Leopold Godowsky. A concert showcasing several of Berman’s former students closed the series in April.

Oneppo Chamber Music Series

Under the artistic direction of David Shifrin, this year’s Oneppo Chamber Music Series opened with a performance by YSM’s ensemble-in-residence, the Brentano String Quartet, and continued with appearances by three visiting ensembles: the Academy of St Martin in the Fields Chamber Ensemble, the Endellion String Quartet, and the Takács Quartet. The latter was joined by celebrated pianist Garrick Ohlsson for a performance of Brahms’ Piano Quintet in F major, Op. 34, on a program that also included quartets by Mozart and Shostakovich.

The Calidore String Quartet, whose cellist, Estelle Choi, earned a master of music degree from YSM in 2012, began the second semester, which also welcomed to Morse Recital Hall the Chien-Kim-Watkins Trio, a group of acclaimed musicians who joined forces in the new ensemble. After the Brentano String Quartet’s second concert of the year, the season was set to conclude in May with a program featuring the winners of the School’s annual chamber music competition. Yale Opera Yale Opera’s

performance season, conceived by the program’s artistic director, Doris Yarick-Cross, began with a program of scenes from Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte

Yale Opera’s 2018 production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute

and Don Giovanni, Massenet’s Cendrillon, Puccini’s La Bohème, Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel, Donizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia, Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos, and Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking.

Salvant, whom The New York Times has described as “the finest jazz singer to emerge in the last decade.” Salvant bolstered that reputation with her near-sold-out appearance in Morse Recital Hall.

Mozart’s The Magic Flute was reimagined by stage director Dustin Wills, a Yale School of Drama alumnus, for Yale Opera’s annual performance run at New Haven’s historic Shubert Theatre. Conductor Israel Gursky led the Yale Philharmonia through Mozart’s beloved score as the cast brought to life Wills’ forwardthinking vision that explored the human condition and flawed Enlightenment ideals.

In February, the Wayne Escoffery Quintet featuring Jeremy Pelt presented a program called “Delightfulee Morgan,” which celebrated the late, legendary trumpeter Lee Morgan’s 80th year. Saxophonist Escoffery, a lecturer in improvisation and an ensemble coach in the School’s jazz initiative, put together the program, which featured a number of Morgan’s rarely heard and unrecorded compositions.

The 2017-2018 Yale Opera season was set to close in May with a production in Morse Recital Hall of Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel.

The 2017-2018 season came to a close with Harp vs. Harp, a concert showcasing the musical imaginations of harpist Edmar Castaneda and harmonicist Grégoire Maret.

Ellington Jazz Series Led by acting Artistic Director Thomas C. Duffy, this year’s Ellington Jazz Series kicked off with a performance by Cécile McLorin

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NEWS

Faculty

Ani Kavafian

Professor of Violin

Professor of Piano Boris Berman’s recording of Debussy Préludes and Estampes was released on the French label Le Palais des Dégustateurs in October 2017. In November 2017, Yale University Press published the newly revised version of Notes from the Pianist’s Bench, Berman’s comprehensive guide to piano technique, performance, and interpretation. The new edition is electronically enriched with audio and video clips, which are available to readers of both the printed edition and the e-book. In 2018, Berman’s book Prokofiev’s Piano Sonatas was released in Chinese (traditional characters) and Korean translations. William Boughton, lecturer in

Paul Hawkshaw

Professor of Musicology

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music and music director of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, spent the winter in the United Kingdom broadcasting and recording with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales for the British label Lyrita. Boughton conducted John Joubert’s Symphony No. 3 and Piano Concerto with soloist Martin Jones, and Thea Musgrave’s Phoenix Rising and Loch Ness: A Postcard from Scotland. Jeffrey Douma, professor of

conducting and director of the Yale Glee Club and Yale Choral Artists, collaborated with the Nathaniel Dett Chorale, Yale Alumni Chorus, and Harriet Tubman Institute to produce the Toronto North Star Festival.

Douma led the premiere of Martin Bresnick’s oratorio Whitman, Melville, Dickinson — Passions of Bloom at the International Festival of Arts & Ideas, and the premiere of an expanded version of Music in Common Time by Caroline Shaw ’07MM. A Naxos recording by the Yale Philharmonia and the Choral Artists of works by Hannah Lash ’12AD, Ted Hearne ’08MM ’09MMA ’14DMA, and David Lang ’83MMA ’89DMA is forthcoming. Lecturer in Hearing Richard Gard ’02MM ’04MMA ’07DMA has edited and published 432 hymns, psalms, and sacred works over the last year. Gard has digitized music scores and music-education resources using his patented audio-analysis and music-user interfaces. He is the chief academic officer of the Music Prodigy Corporation, which develops music-education applications. Professor of Musicology Paul Hawkshaw was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar teaching in the musicology department at the University of Vienna and in the graduate program of the Vienna University for the Performing Arts for the spring 2018 semester. Yale Philharmonia Principal Conductor Peter Oundjian premiered the International Bruckner Society’s new edition of the composer’s original Eighth Symphony—

which Hawkshaw created from the original autograph manuscript—with the Yale Philharmonia in October 2017. Oundjian conducted the piece with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra in February 2018, and was poised to take it on tour with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in May 2018. Hawkshaw is on the International Bruckner Society’s editorial board. In February 2018, faculty tubist Carol Jantsch and her trombone colleagues from the Philadelphia Orchestra premiered Jennifer Higdon’s Concerto for Low Brass. In April 2018, as part of a John Williams tribute concert, Jantsch was set to perform Williams’ Concerto for Tuba and Orchestra. Professor of Violin Ani Kavafian toured Korea, China, and Taiwan with The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. In January 2018, she premiered a chamber work by David Ludwig at Chamber Music Northwest’s Winter Chamber Music Festival in Portland, Ore. In March 2018, she performed an all-Mozart concert with pianist Anne-Marie McDermott at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Orchestral works by Professor of Composition Aaron Jay Kernis mus are featured on two recently released CDs. Simple Songs (Albany Records) features three song-cycles with

soprano Talise Trevigne, and Dreamsongs (Signum Records) features three concertos with violist Paul Neubauer and cellist Joshua Roman. A recording of Kernis’ Concerto for Violin and Orchestra featuring James Ehnes will be released on the Onyx label in September 2018. In March 2018, Ehnes performed the concerto with the Berlin Philharmonic under the direction of Leonard Slatkin. The New England Conservatory orchestra was to premiere Kernis’ Symphony No. 4 in Boston in April 2018. Assistant Professor of Composition Hannah Lash ’12AD had her piece How to Remember Seeds premiered by the Calidore String Quartet at the 60 th anniversary of the Schneider Concert Series (originally the New School Series) at the Mannes School of Music. The piece, performed alongside works by Caroline Shaw ’07MM and Matthew Ricketts, was favorably reviewed by The New York Times. Lecturer in Acting and Movement Christopher Murrah directed Toe Pick, a play written by Zackary Grady that was staged at Dixon Place in New York City in February 2018, concurrent with the Winter Olympic Games. The play depicts the 1994 scandal involving U.S. figure skaters Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan.

Markus Rathey, previously an associate professor of music history, was promoted to Robert S. Tangeman Professor in the Practice of Music History in spring 2017. His book Bach’s Major Vocal Works: Music, Drama, Liturgy, originally published by Yale University Press in 2016, is now published in a Japanese translation.

Faculty clarinetist and Oneppo Chamber Music Series Artistic Director David Shifrin received Chamber Music America’s 2018 Richard J. Bogomolny National Service Award, which is presented annually to an individual who has provided historic service to the small ensemble music field. Previous recipients of the Bogomolny Award include Rudolf Serkin, Chick Corea, and Paquito D’Rivera. Toshiyuki Shimada, associate

professor of conducting and conductor of the Yale Symphony Orchestra, guest conducted the distinguished Presidential Symphony Orchestra of Turkey in Ankara in November and December 2017. The program consisted of Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet Suite No. 1 and Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor with renowned Polish pianist Marek Drewnowski.

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NEWS

Students Hornists Luke Baker ’18MM and Scott Leger ’18MM won first and second prize, respectively, in the University Division of the 2017 International Horn Competition of America.

Ethan Braun

Composition

Ariel Horowitz

Violin

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Violinist Alyssa Blackstone ’18MM traveled to Kenya during spring break in collaboration with the organization 58ten to hold music-education classes in two different orphanages. Blackstone brought instruments with her, taught classes, and performed. Composer Ethan Braun ’21DMA was nominated for the 2017 Gaudeamus Award in the Netherlands for his work Discipline. Choral conductors Maggie Burk ’19MM and David McNeil ’18DMA were named finalists at the American Choral Directors Association’s Graduate Conducting Competition. In March, they traveled to ACDA’s Eastern Division Conference in Pittsburgh, Pa., where they participated in master classes with Dr. Jerry Blackstone (University of Michigan). The Bonus Trombone Quartet, which includes Grant Futch ’18MM, Zachary Haas ’18MM, Hillary Simms ’18MM, and William Wortley ’18MM, was the featured and winning ensemble at the 2017 American Trombone Workshop Quartet Competition.

Composer William Gardiner ’13MM ’19DMA was commissioned by John Adams and Deborah O’Grady through their Pacific Harmony Foundation to write a cello concerto for Tessa Seymour and the Berkeley Symphony (Calif.). The premiere took place at Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall in October 2017. Zachary Haas ’18MM won

the Bach Bass Trombone Solo Competition at the Big XII Trombone Conference. Prizes included a dedicated commission of a solo piece and a featured recital at the 2019 conference to premiere the new work.

Violinist Ariel Horowitz ’19MM was the recipient of the 2017 Salon de Virtuosi Career Grant, and was also awarded $10,000 from the McGraw Foundation for her efforts in arts education and community engagement. Sean Kennard ’19DMA will join

the faculty at Stetson University as assistant professor of piano.

Henry Kramer ’13AD ’15MMA ’19DMA was appointed associate professor of piano at the University of Missouri’s Kansas City Conservatory of Music and Dance for the 2017-2018 academic year.

Cellist Jenny Kwak ’17MM ’18MMA was selected to be a Zarin Mehta Fellow through

the New York Philharmonic’s Global Academy. Kwak traveled to New York for an intensive 10-day program, which included playing alongside New York Philharmonic musicians.

Igor Lichtmann

Guitar

Ryan Lindveit ’19MM was selected to be a composition fellow at the Aspen Music Festival and School’s Susan and Ford Schumann Center for Composition Studies in summer 2018. In March, his piece Like an Altar with 9,000 Robot Attendants was performed in Houston.

forward to making music with friends and engaging with the Philadelphia community. Hillary Simms ’18MM was the winner of the 2017 American Trombone Workshop Division II Solo Competition, a finalist at the 2017 International Trombone Marsteller Solo Competition, and a second-prize winner in the brass category at the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal Manulife Competition.

Guitarist Igor Lichtmann ’18MMA, co-founder of the digital resource Tonebase, was accepted into the 2017 Tsai CITY Summer Fellowship program at Yale. The fellowship consisted of a $15,000 grant, a rigorous business-training course, and access to a vast network of mentors and investors. Florrie Marshall ’18MM

Florrie Marshall

Viola

received the 2017 Interdisciplinary Arts Award from Yale’s Center for Collaborative Arts and Media. Along with Abhi Nayar ’18BA, Marshall founded A Collective Conscience, which explores the nexus between live musical performance and audience engagement. Pianist Ronaldo Rolim ’20DMA recently joined the roster of Astral Artists and is looking 15

ANNOUNCEMENTS

YSM revamps BA/MM degree program Written by David Brensilver

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Before the start of the 2017-2018 academic year, YSM and Yale College revamped the existing bachelor of arts/master of music program. Previously open only to Yale College students making plans for graduate school, the expanded degree path allows high-school students to plan simultaneously for college and graduate school.

College students who begin the program in their senior year can complete some requirements toward their master’s degrees before graduating and enrolling at the School of Music.

As had been and remains the case, Yale College students can apply to the program during their junior year. Now, high-school students everywhere can apply to attend college and graduate school at Yale. Admission to the five-year program is through acceptance into both Yale College and the School of Music.

For enrollment in fall 2018, the YSM admissions office received applications from 112 highschool seniors. Thirty-two of those BA/MM degree applicants were invited to audition live. “That alone is a huge achievement for them,” said Donna Yoo ’09MM, the School’s director of admissions and alumni affairs. “They’ve clearly demonstrated a high level of performance. They’re also demonstrating an interest in pursuing a liberal arts education at an Ivy League school.”

The program, in its expanded form, offers undergraduates the opportunity to study with YSM faculty and to spread master’s-degree course requirements over five years. Similarly, Yale

Reflecting on the applications her office received, Yoo said, “We’ve discovered incredible musical talent. We can only imagine the academic potential these young people have, as well.”

Students establish School’s first LGBTQ+ affinity group Written by Rachel Glodo Joshua Thompson and Antonia Chandler

Students at the School of Music have begun the process of establishing an LGBTQ+ affinity group called OutLoud, the first of its kind at YSM. Spearheaded by Antonia Chandler ’18MM and Joshua Thompson ’17MM ’18MMA, OutLoud held its first meetings in fall 2017. The group’s mission is “to create and foster a safe and supportive environment for YSM’s LGBTQ+ students.” While there are many resources available to students throughout Yale University, Thompson said, it is “important to have a community within the School,” one in which students feel “comfortable and supported by their peers.”

Chandler and Thompson spoke about the importance of community in the context of a stressful degree program. YSM students pursue busy professional careers that often take them out of town. When they are in New Haven, they spend countless hours in the practice room. This makes connecting with peers challenging, said Thompson, who envisions OutLoud as a space in which LGBTQ+ students “have visibility.” OutLoud was inspired in part by the rich LGBTQ+ communities at Yale’s other graduate and professional schools. The group’s members have received support from other affinity groups on campus and recently attended an LGBTQ+ mixer funded by Yale’s

Graduate and Professional Student Senate. Chandler and Thompson are in the process of drafting a charter and identifying a faculty sponsor as they look to establish the School’s first officially recognized student group. In the meantime, OutLoud is hosting social events for LGBTQ+ students at YSM. In the future, as part of the group’s mission, OutLoud aims to “provide students with an encouraging community of musicians through holding meetings, distributing resources, and uniting students.”

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COLLECTION

Concert series at Collection of Musical Instruments turns 50 Written by Antonia Chandler

This season, the Yale Collection of Musical Instruments celebrated the 50 th anniversary of its concert series, one of the longest-running series in the country featuring music composed before 1800. Since its inception, the series has presented historically informed performances by world-renowned artists, many on instruments owned and preserved by the collection. The 2017-2018 season included performances by The Sebastians, guitarists John Schneiderman and Hideki Yamaya, cellist Julius Berger and fortepianist Christoph Hammer, viola da gambist Paolo Pandolfo, and the Smithsonian Chamber Players. This year also ushered in a new era at the collection, following the retirement in May 2017 of William Nicholas Renouf ’71MMA, who served as a curator 18

at the collection for more than four decades. Renouf, who started at the collection just a few years after the series was established, spoke of its growth over the years. “We’ve broadened our scope in the series from the medieval period through the early 20 th century, always looking for the historical perspective. Over time we’ve been able to engage highly acclaimed professionals, and there’s a regular representation of the best in the field.” Susan Thompson ’79MM, another longtime curator at the collection, spoke about allowing certain instruments to be used for performances in the series. “Our primary mission is to preserve the collection. That we are able to permit portions of it to be played by qualified musicians in concert speaks to our credibility as a museum within the academ-

ic environment, where discerning audience members have the opportunity not only to see but also to hear well-conserved, historical instruments in a unique and reverberant setting.” YSM faculty hornist William Purvis, who serves as the director of the collection, emphasized the importance of having a concert series as part of the collection’s programming. “We see the series as important [because] it’s showcasing these instruments as living instruments,” Purvis said, “and not just as static works of decorative art.”

Top, left to right: collection Curator Susan Thompson, retired collection Curator Nicholas Renouf, and collection Director William Purvis Bottom: Keyboard gallery, Yale Collection of Musical Instruments

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ACHIEVEMENTS

Faculty composer Martin Bresnick’s new oratorio premieres

Yale School of Music faculty composer Martin Bresnick

Written by David Brensilver

In June 2017, Whitman, Melville, Dickinson – Passions of Bloom, a new oratorio by faculty composer Martin Bresnick, was given its world-premiere performance by the Yale Choral Artists and members of the Yale Philharmonia at the International Festival of Arts & Ideas, which commissioned the piece. A second performance took place the following evening at the Yale Summer School of Music/ Norfolk Chamber Music Festival. Bresnick’s oratorio, which is modeled on Bach’s St. John Passion, celebrates the work of its namesakes — Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, Emily Dickinson, and literary critic Harold Bloom, who earned a Ph.D. from Yale in 1956 and is the Sterling Professor of the Humanities 20

and English at the University. Bresnick assembled the libretto using poems by Whitman, Melville, and Dickinson, and excerpts from Bloom’s The Daemon Knows: Literary Greatness and the American Sublime. “These particular works have been part of my mental universe since I was a young student,” Bresnick said before the premiere. “Others I only recently got more closely acquainted with.” Bresnick said he had permission from Bloom to use “anything I wanted” from The Daemon Knows. Vocal soloists included YSM faculty tenor James Taylor, who sang Bloom’s words, and several alumni, including sopranos Sherezade Panthaki ’11AD,

Megan Chartrand ’13MM, and Sarah Yanovitch ’15MM; mezzo-soprano Katherine Maroney ’06MM; tenors Colin Britt ’10MM, Gene Stenger ’15MM, and Steven Soph ’12MM; and bass-baritone Paul Tipton ’10MM. The performances were conducted by Jeffrey Douma, professor of choral conducting at YSM and founding director of the Yale Choral Artists.

In backto-back years, YSM musicians succeed at Concert Artists Guild competition Written by Antonia Chandler

In recent years, YSM students and alumni have had great success at the Concert Artists Guild (CAG) Victor Elmaleh Competition. In 2016, guitarist Jiyeon “Jiji” Kim ’17MM won first prize, and bassist Samuel Suggs ’14MM ’20DMA was named the New Music/New Places Fellow. Both awards included cash prizes, debut recitals in New York, and professional management contracts. Kim and Suggs each performed traditional repertoire as well as new music, which was welcomed in the competition. “We think it’s important for young artists who are starting out their career to think outside the box,” CAG Senior Vice President Steve Shaiman said, “and we try to help them shape their creative vision to guide them towards the career path that makes sense for them.” “I wanted to do a lot of new music, and I play electric guitar, and I wanted to work with living composers,” Kim said of her competition performance. “It’s cool that they are promoting me as the kind of artist who does both” new music and traditional repertoire. Suggs said the fellowship “has led to fruitful collaborations, my first major commission, and the opportunity and confidence to create and cultivate my own voice as an artist while pursuing a new image for the solo double bass.”

What separates a competitor from a winner, CAG’s manager of programs and development, Jessica Lightfoot, said, is “someone who is not just an excellent musician, but also someone who is ready to be a performer.” Musicians associated with YSM had success at the 2017 CAG competition, as well. The Argus Quartet and pianist Dominic Cheli ’16MM were named joint first-prize winners. The quartet served as the School’s fellowship quartet-in-residence from 2015-2017 and was the first to be mentored by YSM’s ensemble-in-residence, the Brentano String Quartet. Placing first in the Senior Strings division of the University of Michigan’s M-Prize Chamber Arts Competition in May 2017, the Argus Quartet secured a residency at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance during the 2017-2018 academic year. The quartet is currently the graduate quartet-in-residence at The Juilliard School. Cheli studied with Peter Frankl at YSM, where he earned the Charles S. Miller Prize and the Elizabeth Parisot Prize. He recently recorded a CD of music by Muzio Clementi at YSM for an album that was released on the Naxos label. Cheli is pursuing an artist diploma and studying with Fabio Bidini at the Colburn Conservatory of Music in Los Angeles.

Jiyeon “Jiji” Kim, winner of the 2016 Concert Artists Guild Victor Elmaleh Competition

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Professor of Musicology Paul Hawkshaw 22

Yale Philharmonia premieres new edition of Bruckner’s original Eighth Symphony Written by Lucile Bruce

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P aul Hawkshaw has a few opinions about Anton Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony, one of which is that Bruckner never should have revised it in the first place.

“He wrote the original version over a period of about three years, and he left us an autograph copy,” said Hawkshaw, a musicology professor at YSM and an expert on Bruckner’s life and music. “If he had just left well enough alone, this would be the only version we’d have today.” In the summer of 1887, soon after he completed the Eighth Symphony, Bruckner sent it to his friend Hermann Levi, asking if Levi would be willing to conduct the premiere performance. Bruckner was optimistic. Levi had conducted the composer’s Seventh Symphony in Munich to great acclaim and Bruckner was confident the Eighth would be their next project together. But Levi declined, telling the composer he did not understand the new symphony. Stung by Levi’s rejection and overtaken by self-doubt, Bruckner Anton Bruckner began what Hawk1824-1896 shaw described as a “torturous series of revisions” in collaboration with his students. He completed the second version in 1890. Since that time, the two versions have created significant editorial confusion. Today, Hawkshaw is helping to clear up that confusion. In October 2017, the Yale Philharmonia performed the International Bruckner Society’s new edition of the composer’s original Eighth Symphony, which 24

Hawkshaw, a member of the society’s editorial board, created from the autograph manuscript. Peter Oundjian, principal conductor of the Philharmonia, conducted the 80-minute epic to great success. “I was sitting in the balcony, and at the end, everyone just rose to their feet,” Hawkshaw said. “Peter did a marvelous job, and the students were wonderful.” Hawkshaw created the score for the New Anton Bruckner Complete Edition under the auspices of the Austrian National Library, in Vienna. This editorial project, undertaken by an international community of Bruckner scholars, will take years to complete. Hawkshaw will edit three major symphonies, the Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth. He started with the first version of the Eighth and is currently working his way through the more controversial 1890 version. The original version lay forgotten for decades. In 1954, the opening movement was performed in Munich as part of a celebration of the composer’s 130 th birthday. It wasn’t until 1973, in London, that the first version was premiered in its entirety. In his program notes for the Yale performance, Hawkshaw wrote, “Bruckner himself was rightly very proud of the first version. He wrote that the finale in particular was ‘the best piece I have ever composed.’ We hope you will enjoy this magnificent work in the form in which its colossal, often enigmatic creator first conceived it.” Hawkshaw’s love of Bruckner began during his teenage years when, as a young trombonist, he played in the prestigious National Youth Orchestra of Canada. “It was an extraordinary experience,” he said. “Our conductor, Georg Tintner, grew up in Austria before World War II in the age-old Austrian musical tradition. He was a fanatic about Bruckner. We played three Bruck-

The Yale Philharmonia rehearses Bruckner’s original Eighth Symphony prior to the October 2017 performance

ner symphonies with him. He convinced us that we should love Bruckner, too.”

In the end, the differing versions offer insight into Bruckner’s creative process even as they muddy our understanding of what the composer intended and This spring, as a Fulbright Visiting Scholar in Vienna, why he made the choices that he did. Hawkshaw is teaching at the University of Vienna’s Institute of Musicology and continuing his editorial For Oundjian, the ambiguity is a gift of freedom. work at the Austrian National Library. He said the “When I conduct a Bruckner symphony, I find myfirst and second versions of the Eighth are dramati- self being more spontaneous,” he said. “In Bruckner cally different. The revision is much darker than the there’s a feeling that there are many different ways original, especially at the end of the first movement. you could make something work.” In the original, the first movement ends with a triumphant coda; the second movement includes a love The Eighth Symphony is a “very big piece, with a very -song melody that is entirely missing from the later mature language,” Oundjian said. “Certainly in the version. The breathtaking Adagio is essentially the Romantic period, Bruckner stands out as being the same in both versions. great, profound spiritual voice. Asked which version of Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony a young conductor should study, Oundjian said, “As a mentor, I think one of the most important things I can do is to help the next generation think for themselves. I would say study both versions and decide what you want to do. There may be practical considerations — length, for example, since the first is longer — but if anything, I might encourage someone to take the option of doing the first because it’s not done as often.” The original Eighth also reveals where Bruckner was headed, musically, after the success of his Seventh Symphony. “There is something quite new and daring in the first version,” Oundjian said. He speculates that the negative reaction Bruckner originally received had to do with Levi’s surprise at the work’s lack of convention.

“I feel quite different after conducting a Bruckner symphony than I do conducting just about anything else,” he said. “It’s akin to meditating, and I can’t quite explain it.” Although he is quick to point out that not everyone would agree, Oundjian believes the first version offers the modern listener a unique and extraordinary experience. “His music is, almost invariably, extremely uplifting, tender, and spiritual,” he said. “In the Eighth, the sentences are long. The paragraphs are long. But we still read epic novels. Somehow when it comes to music, people are afraid to have expectations of long-term attention. But in the case of Bruckner, it’s so worth it, and so rewarding.”

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music + social justice building community through art Written by Lucile Bruce

Vijay Gupta Photo by Mathieu Young

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Photo by xx.

V ijay Gupta ’07MM spends a lot of time on Skid Row, the neighborhood in downtown Los Angeles where thousands of homeless people sleep on the streets every night. It is not far from the Walt Disney Concert Hall, where Gupta, a violinist in the Los Angeles Philharmonic, has an office. While Skid Row and Disney Hall are worlds apart in many ways, both are home to the creative spirit.

Gupta is the founder and artistic director of Street Symphony, a nonprofit organization that engages the people of Skid Row through music-making and dialogue. In addition to offering regular live performances at Skid Row’s Midnight Mission shelter and area prisons, Street Symphony involves residents in the creation and performance of music through multiple initiatives including private coaching, composition workshops, and the

Urban Voices Project, a community choir comprised of people who are or were homeless. Street Symphony has been an intensely personal journey for Gupta. It was born from his outrage at the conditions of Skid Row, his reckoning with his own chaotic childhood, and his desire to stretch the traditional boundaries of music-making. One of six Citizen Artist Fellows at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts this year, Gupta recognizes that music is limited in its capacity to solve complex social problems, yet he believes in music’s transformative power. He is among a growing number of musicians who are sharing their music with others in pursuit of a better world. “What was that composer feeling when he wrote that?” asked an inmate in the Twin Towers Correctional Facility in Los

Angeles following a recent Street Symphony performance of Schumann’s String Quartet in A minor, Op. 41, No. 1. For Gupta, that question is an example of how the people of Skid Row continually challenge his understanding of the mission he is on. “I think our audiences in Skid Row have fewer preconceptions about classical music than our concert hall audiences do,” he said. “They aren’t interested in the quality of our performances. They want to hear the stories of the music.” When professional musicians work with members of their communities, they bring with them certain ideas and assumptions that need to be scrutinized in order for that work to take hold. YSM visiting professor Sebastian Ruth explores the theory and 27

Left to right: Community MusicWorks resident musicians Minna Choi, Ashley Frith, Chloe Kline, Zan Berry, Jesse Holstein, Adrienne Taylor, Sebastian Ruth, Lisa Barksdale, Luke Fatora, and Laura Cetilia. Photo by Stephanie Alvarez Ewens

practice behind such work in his “Music, Service, and Society” seminar. He suggests there are “four variables” a musician could consider when linking musical practice with a social-justice agenda: content (What music are we playing? Are we thinking critically about the canon?), context (Where is the work happening? Who is doing it? How is race a factor?), process (How are we teaching? What are our performance expectations?), and intention (What are we trying to do, and why?). Through multiple readings, including John Dewey on the philosophy of aesthetics and Maxine Greene on arts, education, and social justice, Ruth’s students delve into big questions about the artist in society. They analyze case studies of famous citizen artists — Nina Simone, Pablo Casals, Daniel Barenboim — who worked with different communities for different pur28

poses. “My hope,” Ruth said, “is that people leave the class with a lot of perspectives with which to engage in their own artistic careers and pursuits.” A violinist, violist, and the founder and artistic director of Community MusicWorks in Providence, R.I., Ruth says that for him, one of the biggest challenges is “how to teach in a way that doesn’t repeat the patterns of oppression you’re trying to disrupt.” This idea is one that resonates with Yaira Matyakubova ’06AD, a violinist and senior resident musician at Music Haven, a New Haven nonprofit founded by Tina Lee Hadari ’04MM that was originally modeled on Community MusicWorks. Both organizations offer lessons and performance opportunities for young people, using a holistic approach that emphasizes human and community development.

Matyakubova, a member of the Haven String Quartet, whose members are resident musicians at Music Haven, said the tension between imparting knowledge to her students and creating the conditions for their personal and artistic freedoms is alive for her every day. “I have a metaphor for this,” she said. “I’m given a bundle of keys. If knowledge is the set of keys, I have to find the right key for each student. It is different for every child. If a child wants to play something and he’s very excited about it, I have to hear that, and not just embrace Suzuki. “We have to be very flexible in different dimensions,” she said, “in how we see and hear, and in thinking about every student’s background, heritage, and future. How can we put those experiences together in the best way possible and let something new be born out of them?”

Faculty composer David Lang’s symphony for broken instruments was premiered at the 23 rd Street Armory in Philadelphia in December 2017 Photo by Ryan Collerd for The New York Times

David Lang ’83MMA ’89DMA sees his work in much the same way. Lang teaches composition at YSM and is a co-founder of the contemporary-music organization Bang on a Can. As a composer, he aims “to bring something necessary into the world” — something new that draws people together and “shines a light” on a community’s concerns. “Writing music,” Lang said, “is a utopian act.” Lang grew up in Los Angeles in the 1960s and received a “strong dose of social justice” from his parents. The Vietnam War inspired his first political composition, illumination rounds, written in 1981 when he was a graduate student at Yale. The piece, for violin and piano, explores the phosphorescent bullets that enabled helicopter gunmen to more accurately aim machine guns while firing at night during the war. The piece premiered at Carnegie Hall in 1982 and

marked the beginning of Lang’s philosophical wrestling with the role of music in society. His Pulitzer Prize-winning vocal piece the little match girl passion, drawn from the story The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen and set in the format of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, is a musical meditation on suffering and the limits of human compassion. In 2016, Robert Blackson, director of Temple Contemporary, a gallery at Temple University’s Tyler School of Art, called Lang to tell him that he had access to all of the broken instruments in the Philadelphia public-school system, and to ask if Lang would be interested in composing something for those instruments. “I couldn’t believe how amazing this was,” Lang said. Inspired and excited, he was also infuriated by the social and political realities on stark display in one of American’s poorest school

districts. “Public-school music had changed my life,” he said, “and here were 1,500 broken instruments, out of circulation, not changing the life of someone else.” Lang’s symphony for broken instruments premiered in December 2017. An ensemble of more than 400 professional musicians and public-school students from across Philadelphia played those broken instruments, creating a beautiful, moving sound. And here, music really did change the world: all of the fixable instruments are being repaired and will be returned to the hands of schoolchildren. As a composition teacher, Lang challenges his students to think hard about the role music plays in a community. On the Navajo (Diné) Reservation in New Mexico, violinist Ariel Horowitz ’19MM works with children living in poverty and environmentally toxic condi29

tions. Her small organization, the Heartbeat Project, provides music and math education for two weeks in the summer for students living on the reservation. The program builds on traditional Navajo (Diné) music and educational practices to offer academic and musical experiences for disenfranchised students who are hungry for opportunities. “We are not really teachers, we’re students,” Horowitz said. “We aren’t meant to speak over our students’ struggles, or define their struggles for them.” Similarly, Gupta said, Street Symphony musicians need to be clear about their relationship to the communities they enter. “We aren’t part of the Skid Row community, and that’s something we need to own,” he said. “We get to leave.” Yet, he keeps going back. Showing up, he said, is a huge part of the work, a counterpoint to the personal and societal abandonment so many Skid Row residents have experienced throughout their lives. “For some people, a place like Skid Row or the county jail is the beginning, a place of remarkable rebirth,” he said. “We hear amaz-

ing stories about incredible resilience. Once we sit and talk with folks, we realize they’re just people. Of course we have privileges, but we’re all battling our own demons. Their raw honesty and authenticity are very refreshing.” For American classical musicians, questions about music, community, and justice are increasingly coming to the fore. “We’re at an interesting place in our field,” Horowitz said. “We’re having to innovate more than ever to make our art form accessible to more diverse, younger audiences.” The focus, she said, “has to be about us going to other people,” not the other way around. Like many young performers, Horowitz sees the future of music as being closely tied to the well-being of communities. Gupta, quoting Nina Simone, said, “An artist’s duty ... is to reflect the times.” And, he said, to build bridges. “It’s our job to tell the stories, to offer evidence to the contrary,” he said of the prevailing narrative that places blame on the individual rather than the systemic forces — race, class, institutional power structures — that land

Right: Broken instruments from Philadelphia’s public schools on display at Temple Contemporary Photo by Haley Adair, courtesy of Temple Contemporary, Tyler School of Art, Temple University

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people on Skid Row in the first place. The women and men of Skid Row are “our beloved community that we’ve forsaken.” For Matyakubova, an intangible bridge connects both sides of the citizen artist’s life, spanning the space between social-justice practitioner and professional musician. “We rehearse in the morning as a professional string quartet,” she said of her work at Music Haven. “Then we switch through the lunch hour into the very basics of teaching our instruments. The inspiration itself becomes a bridge. For me, the learning is about holding on to your own self as an artist. I feel very blessed and grateful to have the opportunity to do both.”

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YSM declaration calls for equity in music education Written by David Brensilver

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Rubén Rodríguez

Director, Music in Schools Initiative, Yale School of Music

Fan oractiveRubénmusicRodríguez ’11MM, life fuels one’s

“capacity to aspire.” Rodríguez, the director of the Yale School of Music’s Music in Schools Initiative, which supports public-school music teachers and each year serves more than 1,000 students in the New Haven Public Schools, said students engage with music “because they can dream.” Yale School of Music Dean Robert Blocker regularly articulates the idea that an active music life is every child’s birthright, one that our public-education system should ensure. “For me,” Blocker said, “a program of engagement with music in public schools is very personal.” Reflecting on his childhood, he said, “I am a musician today, and, more importantly, one who loves and is passionate about music, because of teachers who came to our public school in South Carolina each week and turned the cafeteria into a music classroom.” In May, the School of Music will publish a Declaration on Equity in Music for City Students, which demands that students in city schools be afforded the same

opportunities their suburban counterparts enjoy. “Compared to the nation as a whole, cities (and city schools) are home to a disproportionately large population of students of color,” the declaration explains, citing U.S. Department of Education statistics. “Approximately 70 percent of city students are students of color; this is 20 percent higher than the national average. This is due to the historical and ongoing patterns of racism and segregation that have shaped our nation and isolated ‘non-white’ populations in urban areas. Like so many other aspects of educational, social, and cultural life, access to school music opportunities correlates to the color of a student’s skin.” In practical terms, the declaration picks up where musicologist Claude Palisca left off 40 years ago. In 1979, Palisca wrote, in the Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, “The post-Sputnik movement was interrupted by the painful realization that many children in the cities and of the racial minorities were not enjoying even the

quality of education that we were criticizing, that before we could improve education for some ... we ought to extend to all the basic opportunity for an adequate general education.” Palisca, the late Henry L. and Lucy G. Moses Professor Emeritus of Music at Yale University who with Donald J. Grout authored the widely used textbook A History of Western Music, was revisiting Music in Our Schools, a document published in 1964 by the U.S. Office of Education. Music in Our Schools was the yield of a “Seminar on Music Education,” held at YSM the previous year. What had begun as a curriculum review designed to improve music education served instead, as Palisca later pointed out, to betray the realities of an education system that did not and does not serve city students, particularly those of color, the way it serves their suburban counterparts. As he started to plan the Yale School of Music’s sixth Symposium on Music in Schools, a biennial program of YSM’s Music in Schools Initiative, Associate Dean Michael Yaffe reflected on 33

the 1963 seminar, and on Palisca’s later lament. “That made me think: Palisca got that in 1979. Here we are, 40 years later, and not much has changed,” he said. Yaffe oversees the Music in Schools Initiative, which was launched in 2007 with a gift from the Yale College Class of 1957. The primary element of the initiative, which upon its establishment organized and enhanced work in the community that the School of Music had been doing for years, is a partnership with the New Haven Public Schools in which graduate-student teaching artists from YSM support the work of certified public-school music teachers. That work carries over to the Morse Summer Music Academy, an intensive monthlong program that was established with a gift from Enid and Lester Morse, Yale College ’51. The initiative also supports a visiting professor (Sebastian Ruth, currently) whose focus is community engagement. In the late 1970s, Yaffe was the assistant director of operations at the National Association of Schools of Music in Washington, D.C. While at the time he was unfamiliar with the 1963 seminar, the resulting report, and Palisca’s subsequent review of that work, Yaffe understood the implications of California’s Proposition 13, a piece of property tax reform that reduced public-education funding and, in turn, robbed music educators of resources. National policy leaders, he said, “just let it happen.” Forty years ago, Yaffe wondered, “What are we going to do?” In 2016, he recognized that “this is something the Yale School of Music could use its bully pulpit to help.”

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Lively discussion at YSM’s sixth Symposium on Music in Schools

ministrators, foundation leaders, music-education scholars, and public-policy experts who were invited to participate in the June 2017 symposium. Discussions held during a three-day retreat sought to “encourage the creation of ecosystems” that support the goal outlined in the document-in-progress, and to further inform the document itself.

Whereas previous symposia served in large part to facilitate workshops and recognize public-school music teachers from around the country with Yale Distinguished Music Educator Awards, Yaffe and his colleagues “made a strategic decision that we wanted the [2017] symposium to have a lasting impact.” During the 2016-2017 academic year, Yaffe, Rodríguez, and Yaffe’s assistant, Rachel Glodo, began drafting what was then referred to as a “manifesto.” That document — the declaration, today — was sent to a group of public-school and university educators and ad-

Aldie Lopez-Rios, one of 10 music educators recognized during the 2017 symposium, teaches music to students in kindergarten through eighth grade in the Phoenix, Ariz., public schools. He was inspired by the shared notion that every student “should be entitled to music education.” After the symposium, Lopez-Rios began moonlighting as a band director at Rosie’s House, a Phoenix-area community music school that provides free after-school programs to hundreds of students from “economically disadvantaged backgrounds,” according to the organization’s website. Lopez-Rios, whose daughter attends a public school that offers no music education whatsoever, plans to use the declaration as an advocacy tool in his community and beyond.

The Music in Schools Initiative in practice

During the symposium, Tarik Ward, the director of music programs at the New York Citybased ELMA Philanthropies Services, talked about the story of inequity, saying, “If you tell me your zip code, I can tell you your life story.” The “story of inequity” is, ultimately, the basis for the declaration, which “calls for every student in every city in America to have access to a robust and active music life.” A particularly powerful portion of the declaration itself is one that explores the idea of dignity. “Innate human dignity implies innate human rights,” the declaration insists. “The right to enjoy and participate in society and culture is a natural extension of this relationship, as found in the articles of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights,” which the United Nations General Assembly adopted 70 years ago. Dignity was of paramount importance, and was the subject of much constructive scrutiny, as Rodríguez, Yaffe, Glodo, and symposium participants crafted the declaration. “You can’t dream if you don’t know your value as a person,” Rodríguez said. To him, music can help young people

recognize and appreciate their inherent value. Rodríguez grew up in Bogotá, Colombia, where music was an activity he had to pursue outside school. “I was one of those kids, and music did that for me,” he said. Symposium participant Lara Davis, the arts-education manager at Seattle’s Office of Arts & Culture, wanted to make sure that any language about dignity was properly framed. “No matter what language we’re using,” she said, “it’s important that we stop and have an explicit conversation about what we mean. This work has to be about elevating the inherent power that young people already have,” and about making “the assumption that young people come with all the inherent capacities to engage creatively.” Among YSM’s partners in conceiving and preparing the declaration is the VH1 Save the Music Foundation, whose executive director, Henry Donahue, has for years been discussing with Yaffe issues of inequity in music education. The foundation plans over five years to provide $5 million in funding to the Newark Public Schools “to restore music

education in all 38 schools there,” Donahue said, providing an example of the work the foundation does. “Everybody agrees that music education is a good thing,” he said. “Our challenge is to sort of create that sense of urgency around it.” The declaration, as he sees it, is “a call to action. People really haven’t been asked, in a comprehensive sense, to fight for it.” It is not music itself that needs saving, Donahue pointed out. “American music communities, particularly in the cities, are in a lot of ways very robust. We can have an influence on this music education piece,” specifically its availability to students in all corners of America. “This is a human right,” he said. “What we’re fighting for is the right to have music and art and beauty as a part of their life.”

Visit music.yale.edu/declaration beginning in June 2018 to learn more about the Declaration on Equity in Music for City Students.

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CLASS NOTES

Bernard Rubenstein

1950s Composer Emma Lou Diemer ’49BM ’50MM celebrated her 90th birthday in November 2017 by performing a concert of her original compositions.

1960s Dorothy Riess MM retired from her medical practice in 2000 and resumed playing organ. She performed 75 th, 80th, and 85 th birthday recitals at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Oboist and conductor Bernard Rubenstein ’61MM was recently the guest conductor for the premiere of Egils Straume’s Concerto for Clarinet, with Eddie Daniels and the Hollywood Chamber Orchestra at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Pianist Althea Mitchell Waites ’65MM recently received the Ovation Award for program excellence from the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, Eastern Cape, South Africa. Waites has an upcoming recording project with pianist 36

Jane Ira Bloom

Mark Uranker, with whom she performs as the Orpheus Duo.

1970s Trumpeter David Baldwin ’73MM ’74MMA ’79DMA will retire in May 2018 from the University of Minnesota School of Music, where he has taught for 44 years. Baldwin has also been active in the International Trumpet Guild since its inception, serving as secretary and on the board of directors. Saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom ’76BA ’77MM earned a Grammy Award for her jazz trio album Early Americans as a surround producer in the “Best Surround Sound Album” category. Composer Marilyn Susan Brown ’76MM received a commission from Kol Nashim (the women’s choir of the Colorado Hebrew Chorale) for a setting of Hannah Senesh’s poem To Die. The composition will be performed during Kol Nashim’s upcoming season. Pianist Nina Deutsch ’73MMA was named a Lifetime Achiever

Laura Jeppesen

by Marquis Who’s Who as a leader in music. Deutsch is the only woman in the world to have recorded the complete piano music of Charles Ives. Violist Laura Jeppesen ’71MM was a 2017 recipient of the Andrew W. Mellon Blended Learning Initiative Grant for innovative teaching at Wellesley College. Jeppesen received the grant for the redesign of a lecture course in Renaissance music that incorporated learning to play the viola da gamba. Andrew Kraus MM will perform

in two faculty recitals in April 2018 at the University of Mary Washington, where he is an adjunct professor of piano. Kraus will premiere a new piano concerto by American composer Richard Bellak.

Anita MacDonald ’70MM has

been accepted as a tom-tom student of Nat Adams’ Rake n’ Scrape troupe.

Stephen Osmond ’74MM retired after a 40-year tenure as music director of the Jackson Symphony Orchestra

Richard Dowling

(Mich.) and was named conductor laureate. John Stevens ’75MM recently

retired as professor emeritus of tuba and euphonium at the University of WisconsinMadison’s Mead Witter School of Music. Hannah Hsu Wang ’72MM

is a recitalist, church choir conductor, accompanist, and chamber musician. Wang has performed at such venues as Alice Tully Hall and the National Theater and Concert Hall in Taipei.

Barbara Hamilton

Violinist Kirstin Fife ’86MM is now composing and has had several of her chamber pieces performed. Fife’s works include a trio for oboe, violin, and cello, and a violin concerto. She is currently performing a cycle of 22 songs for violin and piano. Conductor David Hagy ’84MM ’86MMA ’92DMA is the music director of the Salisbury Symphony Orchestra and the orchestra director at Wake Forest University.

Cellist Frank Dodge ’81MM is celebrating the 30 th season of Spectrum Concerts Berlin, of which he is the founder.

Composer Juliana Hall ’87MM will join the Fall Island Vocal Arts Seminar as the program’s 2018 guest composer. Hall will coach participating young professional singers and pianists who will join mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe for a concert of Hall’s art songs.

Pianist Richard Dowling ’87MM was nominated for a Grammy Award for his threeCD recording The Complete Piano Works of Scott Joplin on the Rivermont Records jazz label. Dowling recorded the album on a Hamburg Steinway concert grand piano.

Violist Barbara Hamilton ’86MMA ’93DMA, now in her 24th season as artistic director of the Colorado Chamber Players, was poised to perform chamber music works by Brahms and Schubert with cellist Lynn Harrell in Colorado and Wyoming in April 2018.

1980s

Charles Kaufmann

Violinist Rosemary Hatch ’81MM has received the Outstanding Contribution to Community Music Education award from the Utah American String Teachers Association. Hatch and her husband, magician Richard Hatch, run the Hatch Academy of Magic & Music in Logan, Utah. This March, bassoonist Charles Kaufmann ’82MM showed his documentary Still Dreaming: Frances Walker at 93, in honor of the 94th birthday of concert pianist Frances Walker, the first tenured female African American professor at Oberlin Conservatory. Cellist Joshua Koestenbaum ’80MM and violinists Maureen Nelson ’00MM and Kayla Moffett ’13MM won Grammy Awards as members of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra in the “Best Chamber Music/ Small Ensemble Performance” category for the ensemble’s Death and the Maiden album. Susan Merdinger ’84BA ’85MM was appointed to the piano faculty at Concordia University Chicago.

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CLASS NOTES

Susan Rotholz

Hornist Kathy Morse ’86MM received a Fund for Teachers grant to research history, culture, and composers. Using research conducted on those topics in three Russian cities, Morse will create interdisciplinary learning programs that incorporate music, dance, and architecture. Susan Rotholz ’81MM was appointed flute professor at Vassar College last year. Rotholz is also teaching in the music performance program at Columbia University/Barnard College and at the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College, and recently put out her second solo record, American Tapestry.

Antonio Underwood

community engagement. The award offers financial support to local high school musiceducation programs using the model of the Grammy Signature Schools program. Guitarist Lise Friedman Spiegel ’85MM is a licensed clinical psychologist with a private practice and teaches AP courses in psychology in California. Tubist Antonio (Tony) Underwood ’87MM created Tone East Music, which runs the Serbia Children’s Jazz Festival in Novi Sad, Serbia, and is proudly endorsed by the Institute of International Education in Washington, D.C.

Composer John Sichel ’85MMA ’90DMA is assistant professor of music and co-chair of the Visual and Performing Arts Department at Raritan Valley Community College (N.J.). His recent CDs include The Chamber Music of John Sichel and John Sichel Piano Sonatas.

Composer Joseph Waters ’82MM had his opera St. Francis De Los Barrios performed in New York City by SWARMIUS, a trans-classical contemporary group from southern California. The work was commissioned by the San Diego City Opera and was directed by Cynthia Stokes.

Percussionist Patrick Smith MM won an award from the Grammy Foundation for

Patti Wolf ’89MM was appointed lecturer in collaborative piano at the University of Texas’ Butler

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Bryce Dessner

School of Music in September 2017.

1990s Pianist Siu-Yin Susan Chan ’90MM, who serves as associate professor of music at Portland State University (Ore.), will perform in April 2018 at St Martin-in-the-Fields in London as a Si-Yo Artist. Chan’s latest CD, Echoes of China: Contemporary Piano Music, was released by Naxos in 2015. Violinists Irene Cheng ’94MM and Louis Lev ’90MM, and trombonist Rebecca Cherian ’81MM won Grammy Awards as members of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in the “Best Orchestral Performance” category for the ensemble’s recording of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5 and Barber’s Adagio for Strings. Guitarist Bryce Dessner ’98BA ’99MM won a Grammy Award as a member of the rock band The National, whose album Sleep Well Beast won in the “Best Alternative Music Album” category.

Charles Nichols

Bassoonist Stéphane Lévesque ’95MM performed the world premiere of Simon Leclerc’s Concerto Grosso for Five Bassoons, Contrabassoon, Strings, and Timpani, and Michael Daugherty’s Dead Elvis for bassoon and chamber ensemble, and played in the Montréal premiere of Gernot Wolfgang’s Encounters for violin and bassoon. Composer Charles Nichols ’92MM had his work In the waiting room of America for baritone voice, trumpet, trombone, and bass clarinet performed by the loadbang ensemble at the Charlotte New Music Festival at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Composer Tawnie Olson ’99MM ’00AD will be the composer-inresidence at the 2018 Women Composers Festival of Hartford (Conn.). The festival will present a scene from Olson’s new opera, Sanctuary and Storm, performed by Yale alumnae Evanna Lai ’15MM ’16AD and Sarah Paquet ’16MM, among others.

Karen Schneider-Kirner

Guitarist Mesut Özgen ’93MM ’94AD won the Knight Foundation’s Arts Challenge, which provides funding for ideas that seek to challenge and enrich the community through the arts. Violinist Svend Rønning ’91MM ’93MMA ’97DMA recently premiered Three Prayers for Violin and String Orchestra, written for him by composer Jerry Kracht, with the Pacific Lutheran University Symphony Orchestra. Rønning serves as chair of strings and professor of violin at Pacific Lutheran University (Wash.). Organist Karen SchneiderKirner ’90MM brought 15 students from the University of Notre Dame to China to dedicate the new Notre Dame Global Gateway in Beijing and collaborated in a concert with students from universities across China. Composer Arlene Sierra ’94MM had her music performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Austrian Ensemble for New Music, and the BBC

Daniel Alexander

Philharmonic this past season. Sierra will release her third portrait disc on Bridge Records later this year. Pianist Stephen Thomas ’93MM recently presented concerts and master classes at the National Conservatory of Music in Peru, the National University of Córdoba in Argentina, and in seven cities throughout China. Thomas directs the piano program at Brigham Young University – Idaho.

2000s Flutist Daniel Alexander ’05MM ’06AD accepted a one-year position as the flute lecturer at Valdosta State University (Ga.), to begin in August 2018. Clarinetist Joshua Anderson ’15MM and oboist Aaron Hill ’07MM ’08AD have both joined the University of Nevada, Reno faculty as assistant professors starting in fall 2018. They will join fellow YSM alumni, cellist Dmitri Atapine ’05MMA ’06AD ’10DMA and pianist Hye-yeon Park ’05MM ’06AD, on the UNR music faculty. 39

CLASS NOTES

Emily Boyer

Trumpeter Thomas Bergeron ’08MM ’09AD was appointed director of chamber music and orchestra at Deerfield Academy (Mass.), where he also teaches music theory. He is the principal trumpeter of the Springfield Symphony Orchestra and a member of the Atlantic Brass Quintet. Hornist Emily Boyer ’06MM and harpist Colleen Thorburn ’08MM ’09MMA ’15DMA premiered eight new works for horn and harp as the Apple Orange Pair in 2017. Their debut album, Seeds, features commissioned works and transcriptions by the duo. Organist Vincent Carr ’06MM was appointed associate professor of music in organ and sacred music studies at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music. Prior to joining the faculty at IU, Carr served as associate organist at the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark, N.J. Choral conductor and composer Dominick DiOrio III ’08MM ’09MMA ’12DMA composed 40

Thomas Flippin

Gathering, a 20-minute piece for chorus, wind symphony, soprano, and baritone, for a commission from the University of Illinois for its sesquicentennial celebrations. Guitarists Thomas Flippin ’07MM ’08AD and Christopher Mallett ’09MM received a Clifford/Levy Creativity Grant from the Diller-Quaile School of Music (N.Y.) to support the organization’s “Women of the Guitar Commissioning Project,” which was created to increase gender inclusivity in the classical guitar repertoire. Violist and conductor Nadège Foofat ’06MM has joined the Hamburg State Opera and Philharmonic State Orchestra as assistant conductor to General Music Director and Chief Conductor Kent Nagano. Prior to this appointment, Foofat was music director of the Esopus Chamber Orchestra from 2009 to 2014. Clarinetist Jenny Goodson ’09AD was appointed head of music at Lancing College Preparatory School in England

Ian Howell

in September 2017. Countertenor Ian Howell ’06MM became a full-time member of the voice faculty at the New England Conservatory of Music in 2016. Howell teaches studio voice, coaches baroque vocal repertory, and directs the graduate voice pedagogy program. In the past year, organist Paul Jacobs ’02MM ’03AD was the

soloist in James MacMillan’s A Scotch Bestiary with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Stephen Paulus’ Grand Organ Concerto with the Cleveland Orchestra, and a recording of Saint-Saëns’ Organ Symphony with the Utah Symphony. Violinist Kyung-Jun Kim CERT was awarded second prize at the Malta International Music Competition in Mdina, Malta. Kim previously won the Salon de Virtuosi Award and the Jefferson Symphony Orchestra’s (Colo.) International Young Artist Competition, and was a semifinalist at the Tchaikovsky International Competition for Young Musicians.

Te Kōkī Trio

Pianist Martin Leung ’10MM performed Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with Maestro Horst Forster and the Academic Leipzig Orchestra in November 2017. Leung earned the opportunity after winning the concerto division of the Los Angeles International Liszt Competition last year. Guitarist Steven Lin ’05MM was interviewed on FM 91.3 in Taipei, Taiwan; performed a concert at the Philippine Women’s University in Manila, Philippines; and is a member of the Black Cedar Trio, which recently released its debut album, A Path Less Trod. The Te Kōkī Trio, which includes pianist Jian Liu ’06MM ’08MMA ’13DMA and cellist Inbal Megiddo ’98BA ’01MM ’02AD, was nominated for a Vodafone New Zealand Music Award in the “Best Classical Artist” category for its CD Debussy Sonatas and Piano Trio, on the Rattle Records label. Bassoonist Adrian Morejon ’05MM ’06AD joined the faculty of the Curtis Institute of

Ilya Poletaev

Music as a woodwind chamber music coach. In February 2018, Morejon performed and recorded Joan Tower’s new bassoon concerto, Red Maple, with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, to be released on BMOP/sound. Percussionist Denis Petrunin ’09MM ’10AD won the position of principal timpanist of the Symphony Orchestra Augusta (Ga.). Pianist Ilya Poletaev ’03MM ’04MMA ’10DMA was granted tenure and promoted to the rank of associate professor of piano at McGill University’s Schulich School of Music. Conductor Jonathan Richter ’09MM joined the faculty at the University of Massachusetts Lowell as director of choral ensembles. Previously, Richter was on faculty at the New England Conservatory and Roger Williams University. Richter also sings professionally with the Boston-based Genesis Chamber Singers.

Daniel S. Lee

Flutist Enrico Sartori ’05MM was appointed full-time professor at the Northeast Normal University School of Music in Changchun, China, where he teaches flute and music history and conducts the orchestra. Sartori is also on faculty at Rutgers University – Newark, which just opened a campus in China. The Sebastians, whose members include alumni violinists Daniel S. Lee ’06MM ’08AD and Nicholas DiEugenio ’08AD ’09MMA ’14DMA, and cellist Ezra Seltzer ’06BA ’07MM, opened their New York season with a concert titled “Via Amsterdam,” featuring Italian Baroque compositions published in the musical port city. The Sebastians are the ensemble-inresidence at the Yale Collection of Musical Instruments. Marianne Shifrin ’06MM won the position of principal clarinetist of the New Mexico Philharmonic. Shifrin is also currently serving as acting principal clarinetist of the Arizona Opera Orchestra.

41

CLASS NOTES

Derrick Wang

Katherine Balch

Oboist James Austin Smith ’08MM will join the faculty of Stony Brook University as interim visiting artist-in-residence for the 2018-2019 school year.

understand ethics at the intersection of music and philosophy, is co-sponsored by the European Union and Aarhus University.

Composer Derrick Wang ’08MM had his opera Scalia/Ginsburg receive its second production, this time at the Glimmerglass Festival. The performance featured a Q&A with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Wang is an adjunct professor at the Peabody Conservatory of The John Hopkins University.

Trombonist Martin Wittenberg ’04MM is an artist manager and booking representative at Alliance Artist Management, where he works with several YSM alumni, including Adam Sliwinski ’03MM ’04MMA ’09DMA, Josh Quillen ’06MM, Eric Cha-Beach ’07MM, and Jason Treuting ’01MM ’02AD of Sō Percussion.

Russell Weismann ’07MM was the featured organist for the National Symphony Orchestra’s “In Your Neighborhood” event Evolution of Keyboard Instruments in January 2018. Weismann has upcoming performances at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and St. Thomas Church, in New York City.

Hornist Jessica Wiskus ’00MM ’01MMA ’06DMA is currently a research fellow at the Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies in Denmark. Wiskus’ project, in which she will work to 42

2010s

Dashon Burton

composition fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center. Balch received a commission from the Concert Artists Guild to write a piece for the Argus Quartet (YSM’s fellowship quartet-inresidence from 2015 to 2017), and was named the California Symphony’s Young American Composer-in-Residence. Emily Brandenburg ’17MMA was appointed principal violist of the Evansville Philharmonic Orchestra (Ind.) and artist-in-residence at the University of Evansville.

The Ulysses String Quartet, which includes violist Colin Brookes ’13MM ’14AD, was named the first-prize winner of the American Prize in Chamber Music Performance (Professional Division).

Composer Samuel Adams ’10MM recently had his orchestral work many words of love premiered at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. Adams’ Chamber Concerto for violin was premiered by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and a new work for the Australian Chamber Orchestra will soon be performed there.

Bass-baritone Dashon Burton ’11MM will join the Cleveland Orchestra for performances of Leoš Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen at Severance Hall and on a European tour.

Composer Katherine Balch ’16MM was selected to be a

YSM alumni have created a chamber music society at the

Dann Coakwell

Yale Club of Hong Kong, and have participated in such events as the ninth Hong Kong International Chamber Music Festival. Participating alumni include pianist Rachel Cheung ’13MM, clarinetists Eric Fung ’15MM and Wai Lau ’12AD, and violinist Ruda Lee ’15MM ’17MMA, among others. Tenor Dann Coakwell ’11AD accepted an appointment as assistant professor of voice at Ithaca College. He is a soloist on the Grammy-nominated album Considering Matthew Shepard by Conspirare, a choral ensemble directed by YSM alumnus Craig Hella Johnson ’90MMA ’95DMA. Flutist Felice Doynov ’17MM and choral conductor Stephanie Tubiolo ’14BA ’16MM organized a benefit concert for refugees and immigrants in January 2018. The concert raised money for both Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services (IRIS) and Alianza TPS (TPS Alliance). Composer Stephen Feigenbaum ’12BA ’13MM, under his stage name, Johan, presented and arranged a concert of music by Beethoven and Kanye West

Lauren Hunt

for orchestra at the Belasco Theatre in Los Angeles in collaboration with the Young Musician’s Foundation, and at Alice Tully Hall in collaboration with Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Violist Victor Fournelle-Blain ’13MM was granted tenure as the associate principal violist of the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal and was also appointed viola lecturer at McGill University’s Schulich School of Music. Pianist David Fung ’11MM ’13MMA ’17DMA joined the faculty of the University of Georgia’s Hugh Hodgson School of Music as an assistant professor. Composer Michael Gilbertson ’13MM joined the faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where he teaches music theory and musicianship. Gilbertson’s woodwind concerto, The Cosmos, was featured on NPR’s Performance Today with host Fred Child. Hornist Lauren Hunt ’13MM will perform in Belgium in July as part of ClarinetFest 2018. Hunt

Eun Taek Kim

serves on the faculty at Illinois State University. Oliver Jia ’14AD joined the piano

faculty at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley in fall 2017.

Dexter Kennedy ’14MM spent fall 2017 as visiting assistant professor of organ at Oberlin Conservatory. Prior to that, Kennedy completed a summer concert tour of 10 venues in Europe and performed a recital in Bogotá, Colombia. Emil Khudyev ’11MM joined the Seattle Symphony as associate principal clarinetist. Farkhad Khudyev ’10MM now

serves as the assistant conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, music director at the Hidden Valley Orchestra Institute, and music director of Youth Music Monterey County (Calif.). Pianist Eun Taek Kim ’13AD was named a recipient of the Center for Musical Excellence’s 2017 International Performing Arts Grants. Kim has been a featured soloist with the Xiamen Philharmonic Orchestra, the Korean National University of Arts Chamber Orchestra, the 43

CLASS NOTES

Brittany Lasch

Kramer Milan

Lexington Philharmonic (Ky.), and the Dubuque Symphony Orchestra (Iowa).

Yang Li ’17MM has joined

Violinist Barbora Kolářová ’14MM is the visiting concertmaster of Orquestra Filarmônica de Minas Gerais in Brazil. Kolářová is a laureate of the Golden Classical Music Awards International Music Competition, the Manhattan International Music Competition, and the Grand Prize Virtuoso International Competition in Salzburg.

Percussionist Kramer Milan ’16MM ’17MMA was appointed adjunct professor at Olivet College in Michigan, and joined the Midland Symphony Orchestra as a section percussionist.

Trombonist Brittany Lasch ’12MM was appointed to the faculty of Bowling Green State University. Lasch was also recently named a winner of Astral Artists’ 2017 National Auditions, and her trombone quartet, Boston Based, won the 2017 International Trombone Association’s Quartet Competition.

Baritone Dean Murphy ’17MM joined the ensemble at Deutsche Oper Berlin, singing supporting roles in 12 productions throughout the season. Murphy has been a featured performer with such ensembles as The North, Opera Theater of Connecticut, Salt Marsh Opera, and Connecticut Lyric Opera.

Composer Michael Laurello ’15AD was appointed manager of recording services and technical engineer at Bowling Green State University’s MidAmerican Center for Contemporary Music. 44

the viola section of Orquesta Filarmónica de Jalisco in Mexico.

Cellist Mo Mo ’16MM performed in the 2017 Serge & Olga Koussevitzky Young Artist Second Prize Winners Recital in January 2018.

Violinist Anastasia Petrunina ’10MM won the position of concertmaster of Symphony Orchestra Augusta (Ga.). Petrunina has been a featured soloist with the Novaya Rossiya State Symphony Orchestra (Russia).

Natalia Rubis

Composers Hilary Purrington ’17MMA and Daniel Schlosberg ’10BA ’13MM ’14MMA ’18DMA were selected to participate in the 15 th annual Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute. They were chosen from a pool of 158 candidates and traveled to Minneapolis for the orchestra’s acclaimed professional training program. Double bassist Will Robbins ’17MM completed a fellowship in January 2018 at the Youth Music Culture Guangdong festival in Guangzhou, China. He served as an artistic liaison between participants Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, the Silk Road Ensemble, and other distinguished faculty members. Soprano Natalia Rubis ’17MMA was a finalist of the first Giusy Devinu Competition at Teatro Lirico in Cagliari, Italy. Rubis made her professional operatic debut as Calisto in Handel’s Giove in Argo at HändelFestspiele in Halle in June 2014. Tenor Galeano Salas ’13MM won the 2017 Stella Maris International Vocal Competition and received a

Miki Sawada

prize of 15,000 euros. Salas is returning for a second season to the opera studio at the Bayerische Staatsoper. Composer Kathryn Salfelder ’12MM resides in Boston and teaches harmony at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she serves as a lecturer in music theory. Current projects include new works for Boston Musica Viva, MIT, and wind ensembles of all levels. Pianist Miki Sawada ’14AD received a grant for her project Gather Hear Alaska, supported by the Alaska Humanities Forum and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Sawada traveled for three weeks in Alaska with a piano in a van, accompanied by a documentary filmmaker. Guitarist An Tran ’16MM was awarded the grand prize at the Classics Alive Young Artists Auditions, which took place in Malibu, Calif., in October 2017. Alexander Walden ’17MM

was awarded first prize in the solo trombone category

Alexander Walden

and grand prize overall at the International Women’s Brass Conference. Walden also recently won a principal position with the Sichuan Symphony Orchestra in China. Flutist Victor Wang ’14BS ’15MM was awarded first prize and the Philip Dikeman Prize (awarded to the best performance of a newly commissioned piece) at the National Flute Association’s Young Artist Competition, held in Minneapolis.

Amy Yang

Pianist Amy Yang ’10AD serves as the chamber music mentor at the Curtis Institute of Music and as a chamber music coach at the University of Pennsylvania. Yang looks forward to upcoming recitals and to the 2018 release of her debut solo CD.

David Wharton ’11MM was appointed artist/teacher in trumpet at the University of Rhode Island. Wharton is currently the principal trumpeter of both the Berkshire Symphony (Mass.) and the Delphi Chamber Orchestra (N.Y.), and is also a member of the renowned contemporary music ensemble Le Train Bleu. Xinyi Xu ’14MM recently won a

position in the viola section of the Hartford Symphony Orchestra. Xu is also a member of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra.

45

RECORDINGS + PUBLICATIONS

the Arabella String Quartet, which released its debut CD, In the Moment: Short Pieces for String Quartet. It was named ClassicFM’s Album of the Week in June 2017.

Cellist Pedro de Alcantara ’83MM had his new book, The Integrated String Player: Embodied Vibration, published by Oxford University Press in December 2017, along with a dedicated website with 80 video clips illustrating the book’s concepts and exercises. Guitarist Rupert Boyd ’08AD has released an album with his duo Boyd Meets Girl on the Sono Luminous label. Gramophone praised the eponymous album, saying, “They play like one, with a harmony of purpose as sure as their intonation.” Violinist Gerald Elias ’75MM has published two audiobooks with music, Devil’s Trill and Danse Macabre, both mysteries that take place in the world of classical music. He has also published two other novels, Spring Break and Symphonies & Scorpions. Bass trombonist Eliud Garcia ’17MM has released his debut CD, Personal, with the help of sound engineer Angel Vidal. Personal is a Latin pop album featuring music that varies in style from 46

traditional pop to classical. The album showcases YSM musicians and is available digitally. Composer Juliana Hall ’87MM has had her art-song catalog signed by E.C. Schirmer Publishing. First editions of nearly 30 song-cycles comprised of some 175 of Hall’s art songs and vocal chamber-music works were published by Schirmer in fall 2017. Trumpeter Aaron Hodgson ’07MM ’08MMA ’12DMA has released his first solo album, inner voice, on Blue Griffin Recording. Hodgson has been praised for his “exquisite musicianship and assured composure” (International Trumpet Guild) and his “outstanding lyrical trumpet playing” (Hartford Courant). Composer Lance Hulme ’94MMA ’98DMA has had two of his compositions, Ghost Dialogues and The Street Has Changed, featured on a new CD, Ghost Dialogues, on the Métier label. Violinist Sarita Kwok ’05MMA ’06AD ’09DMA is a member of

Trombonist Achilles Liarmakopoulos ’10MM has released a new album, Ethereal, which features pieces for trombone with harp, piano, guitar, cello, and orchestra. Liarmakopoulos is a member of the Canadian Brass and is an adjunct trombone professor at Brooklyn College. Conductor Richard Rosenberg ’77MM has finished recording his critical edition of Arnold Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht for string orchestra, for an allSchoenberg CD on the Naxos label, with the National Music Festival, of which he is the artistic director. The CHROMOS Tuba Quartet, which includes David Spies ’93MM ’94AD, released its CD Chromos Tuba Quartet Plays the Music of John Stevens. Bass-baritone John Taylor Ward ’12MM ’13MMA ’17DMA

is featured on the Seattle Symphony’s recording of Nielsen’s Fourth Symphony, Voices of Music’s Venetian Christmas Vespers 1630, and Les Arts Florissants’ In an Italian Garden on Harmonia Mundi.

IN MEMORIAM

The Yale School of Music recognizes the passing of these faculty, alumni, colleagues, and friends:

Harry P. Bartocetti ’54BM ’55MM

Jane S. Lee (Gladys Jane Scarborough) ’48MM

Frank V. Church ’68MM ’69MMA

Andrew D. Salvo MM

G. P. Dikeman ’87MM

Mischa Semanitzky ’50BM ’51MM

Joseph L. Gilman ’56BM

James A. Sparks MM & Mary B. Sparks

Robert H. Gutter ’59BM ’60MM

Robin G. Tabachnik ’81BA ’83MM

Eric C. Jensen ’65BA MM

Mark D. Tanner ’82BA ’83MM

David M. Kayser ’83MM

Margaret Wey-Ervin ’73MM

Charlotte K. Krosnick MM

47

CONTRIBUTORS TO THE YSM ALUMNI FUND

The School of Music is grateful for the generous support of its alumni and friends. The following individuals made a contribution to the YSM Alumni Fund during the 2017 calendar year. To make your gift, please visit yale.edu/givemusic.

Ole Akahoshi ’95CERT Kenta Akaogi ’16MM John S. Allen ’13MM Eric Anderson ’14MM Gregory N. Anderson ’08MMA ’13DMA Sandra P. Andreucci ’57BM ’58MM Anita M. Ashur-Wakim Mus Laura C. Atkinson ’09MM Eliot T. Bailen ’80MM ’82MMA ’89DMA Richard L. De Baise ’67MM ’70MMA Amanda D. Baker ’00MM Howard N. Bakken ’67MM David B. Baldwin ’73MM ’74MMA ’79DMA Elena G. Bambach ’55BM ’56MM Cecylia B. Barczyk ’79MM James R. Barry ’83MM Julie A. Bates ’94MM Janna M. Baty ’93MM Alexander S. Bauhart ’99MMA M. Teresa T. Beaman ’81BA ’82MM in memory of Thomas Nyfenger Leslie Van Becker ’77MM David A. Behnke ’77MM Erin Bennett Marie B. Nelson Bennett ’49BM Mark E. Bergman ’97MM Amy F. Bernon ’91MM Jean S. Bills ’63MM Raymond P. Bills ’62MM George S. Blackburn, Jr. ’64BA ’67MM Serena and Robert Blocker Donald L. Books ’71MM Michael C. Borschel ’74MMA ’79DMA in memory of Keith L. Wilson Sam Boutris ’17MM 48

Sarah Boxmeyer ’16MM Eric A. R. Braley ’17MM Ryan J. Brandau ’06MM ’07MMA ’11DMA Susan S. Breitung ’86MM Christopher Brown ’14AD Kathleen M. Butler-Hopkins ’78MMA ’82DMA David Calhoon ’82MM Robert K. Carpenter ’65BA ’68MM William Cerny ’51BA ’52BM ’54MM Siu-Ying S. Chan ’90MM Heejin Chang ’13MM Violeta N. Chan-Scott ’84MM Melvin Chen ’91BS Wayman L. Chin ’83MM Minsol Cho ’13MM ’14AD Ji Young Choi ’17MM Frank V. Church ’68MM ’69MMA Evan B. Cogswell ’17MM Rosemary Colson ’65MM Michael P. Compitello ’09MM ’12MMA ’16DMA Lydia R. Consilvio ’17MM Kim D. Cook ’81MM Charlotte M. Corbridge Mus Noah J. Cotler ’14MM Herbert J. Coyne Mus Christopher J. Creeger ’85MM Gene Crisafulli ’73MM Gary Crow-Willard ’80MM Ronald A. Crutcher ’72MMA ’79DMA Edward H. Cumming III ’84MM ’85MMA ’92DMA Steven F. Darsey ’85MM ’86MMA ’90DMA Galen H. Deibler ’54BM ’55MM Sharon Dennison ’79MM Irina F. DePatie ’89BA ’90MM Kunie F. DeVorkin ’69MM Deborah Dewey ’79MM Emma Lou Diemer ’49BM ’50MM Dominick DiOrio III ’08MM ’09MMA ’12DMA Felice Doynov ’17MM Patrick J. Durbin ’15MM Mahoko Eguchi ’93MM ’94MMA ’00DMA Robert A. Elhai ’86MM ’88MMA ’95DMA Kathryn K. Engelhardt ’87MM Jayson R. Engquist ’96MM Joan O. Epstein ’76MM Helen B. Erickson ’69MM

Lei Fan ’91Cert Ethel H. Farny ’66MM Pauline B. Fearn ’67MM Leonard Felberg ’53BM ’54MM Jamie B. Forseth ’12MBA Jeff Fuller ’67BA ’69MM William R. Funderburk ’98MM Carl Gardner ’16MM Christopher Garwood ’17MM Michael J. Gilbertson ’13MM Joanna B. Gillespie ’53BM ’54MM Linda W. Glasgal ’56BM ’57MM Renee K. Glaubitz ’51BM Hall N. Goff ’75MM Jie Gong ’07MM Adele M. Grabowski ’17MM Daniel M. Graham ’63MM Wynton Grant ’17MM John M. Graziano ’66MM ’70MPHIL ’75PHD Marisa W. Green ’06MM Mary J. Greer ’78BA ’86MA Matthew Gregoire ’17MM Andrew F. Grenci ’84MM Meera Gudipati ’17MM Cody Halquist ’16MM ’17MMA Barbara J. Hamilton ’86MMA ’93DMA in memory of Professor Jesse L. Levine June Y. Han ’96MM ’97AD Norine P. Harris ’52BM Edward D. Harsh ’88MM ’92MMA ’95DMA Robert L. Hart ’74MM Scott A. Hartman in memory of John Miller Robert C. Hebble ’55BM Peter J. Hedrick ’61MM Andrew E. Henderson ’01MM Kelly A. Hill ’12MM ’13AD Benjamin P. Hoffman ’14MM Maureen Horgan ’83MM George P. Hoyt ’89MM William G. Hoyt ’76MM Shelley A. Monroe Huang ’08MM William L. Hudson ’61MM Mary W. Huff ’01MM Helen K. Hui ’69MM Timothy I. Hurd ’77MM

Janne E. Irvine ’74MM Paul A. Jacobs ’02MM ’03AD in honor of Professor Thomas Murray Seolyeong Jeong ’17MM in honor of Professor Peter Frankl David B. Johnson ’72MMA Graeme S. Johnson ’17MM Zachary E. E. Johnson ’17MM in honor of Paul Johnson G. Lawrence Jones ’59MM Molly S. Joyce ’17MM in honor of Visiting Professor Sebastian Ruth Marie Jureit-Beamish ’81MM ’83MMA ’85DMA Raymond Vun Kannon ’53BA ’54BM ’55MM Christopher I. Keady ’17MM Joyce B. Kelley ’56BM ’57MM Daniel D. Kellogg ’01MM ’03MMA ’07DMA Aaron J. Kernis Mus Choha Kim ’14MM Yeonsu Kim ’98MM in honor of Professor Michael Friedmann Alvin K. Klevorick ’75MAH in memory of Regina Relin Amy Klohr ’75BA in memory of Mr. C. William Harwood, IV Richard A. Konzen ’76MM ’77MMA ’84DMA Mark R. Kroll ’71MM David M. Kurtz ’80MM Jordan A. Kuspa ’10MM ’12MMA ’17DMA Sarita K. Kwok ’05MMA ’06AD ’09DMA Christian M. Lane ’08MM Elizabeth S. Lane ’88MM Theresa E. Langdon ’79MM David Lasker ’72BA ’74MM Ronald L. Lau ’95MM Eduardo Leandro ’99MM in honor of Professor Robert van Sice Christopher M. Lee ’02MM Evelyn K. Lee ’71MM Hwan-Hee Lee Seunghee Lee ’92MM ’94AD Susan B. Leon ’79MM Robert H. Levin ’93MM Nora A. Lewis ’01MM Churen Li ’17MM in honor of Professor Peter Frankl 49

CONTRIBUTORS

Jessica K. Liebowitz ’87BA Linda T. Lienhard ’62MM Stephanie Lim ’00BA Jahja W. Ling ’80MMA ’85DMA Yang Liu ’17MMA Donald G. Loach ’53BM ’54MM Jo Ann B. Locke ’54BM Richard W. Lottridge ’58BM Vincent F. Luti ’67MM ’70MMA ’78DMA Maija M. Lutz ’63MM Xin-Hua Christine Ma Anita L. MacDonald ’70MM Paige E. Macklin ’69MM Joan M. Mallory ’59BM Robert M. Manthey ’01MM Sheila A. Marks ’60MM Melissa J. Marse ’98MM Peter M. Marshall ’80MMa ’85DMA Katherine M. Mason ’04MM Jesse R. McCandless ’17MM Marjorie J. McClelland Mus Daniel R. McGrew ’17MM Bruce G. McInnes ’64MM Donald G. Miller, Jr. ’55BA ’60MM Edmund J. Milly ’15MM Chouhei Min ’72MMA Pamela G. Mindell ’99MM ’00MMA ’05DMA Yurie Mitsuhashi ’16MM Peter M. Miyamoto ’96MM ’97AD Robert W. Molison ’60MM Joanna C. Mongiardo ’98MM Robert A. Montesi ’54BM James R. Morris ’62MM Grant R. Moss ’82MM ’83MMA ’91DMA in honor of Professor Charles R. Krigbaum Joan M. Moss ’67MM John-Michael Muller ’05MM William J. Myers ’79MM Theresa Nedry-Molinaro ’83MM Molly K. Netter ’14MM Thomas Newman ’77BA ’78MM Tian Hui Ng ’10MM Patricia G. Nott ’66MM ’69MMA ’76DMA Alan M. Ohkubo ’14MM Peter P. D. Olejar ’62MM William A. Owen III ’79MM 50

Esther J. Park ’12AD ’13MMA ’17DMA in honor of Sam Park Sun-A Park ’16AD ’17MMA in honor of Sam Park Reinhard G. Pauly ’48MM ’56PHD Florence F. Peacock ’62MM in honor of Richard T. Contiguglia Sarah M. Perkins ’07MM Stephen B. Perry ’81MM Gregory M. Peterson ’85MM Karen DiYanni Peterson ’96MM ’97AD Kirsten Peterson ’90MM Joan J. Pi ’00MM AD Kevin J. Piccini ’85MM Benjamin C. Poole ’90MM Nigel C. Potts ’02MM in memory of Ronald Gerwood Potts Hilary R. Purrington ’17MMA William Purves James H. Pyle ’78MM Jan Radzynski ’79MM ’80MMA ’84DMA Lois W. Regestein ’61MM Daniel W. Reinker ’81MM Dorothy C. Rice MUS Mark J. Richards ’81MM Eckhart Richter ’49BA ’52BM ’53MM Hildred E. Roach ’62MM Will R. Robbins ’17MM in honor of the Maestro Dale T. Rogers ’76MM Svend J. Ronning ’91MM ’93MMA ’97DMA Linda L. Rosdeitcher ’59BM Melissa K. Rose ’85MM David N. Rosen ’69LLB Donald S. Rosenberg ’76MM ’77MMA Steven L. Rosenberry ’76MM Lori Laitman Rosenblum ’75BA ’76MM Susan Rotholz ’81MM Bernard Rubenstein ’61MM Natalia R. Rubis-Krzeszowiak ’17MMA i n honor of my parents, Piotr and Malgorzata, and my husband, Krystian Victor W. Ryder ’58BA ’60MM Jonathan Salamon ’17MM in honor of Professor Arthur Haas Robert S. Satterlee ’89MMA ’94DMA

Rebecca L. Schalk ’81MM Karen P. Schneider-Kirner ’90MM Natasha K. Schnur ’17MM S. W. Schwenterly ’67BS Shannon M. Scott ’87MM Kristen E. Seaman ’94BA Permelia S. Sears ’74MM Inbal Segev Brener ’93CERT Paul H. Severtson ’69BA ’71MM Frank W. Shaffer, Jr. ’73MM ’75MMA ’80DMA Jihoon Shin ’09MM Jill Shires ’70MMA Alvin Shulman ’65MM John A. Sichel ’85MMA ’90DMA Preethi I. de Silva ’71MMA ’76DMA Bryan R. Simms ’66BA ’69MM ’70MPhil ’71phd Kenneth D. Singleton ’74MM ’75MMA ’81DMA James Austin A. Smith ’08MM Regan W. Smith ’81MM Rheta R. Smith ’65MM Frank A. Spaccarotella ’73MM Timothy D. Spelbring ’05MM Philip D. Spencer ’77MM Melinda K. Spratlan ’65MM ’71MMA ’75DMA Lee M. D. Starovich ’17MM in honor of Assistant Professor Donald Palma Richard S. Steen ’72MMA ’78DMA in memory of Gustav Meier Luke D. Stence ’16MM ’17MMA Gwendolyn H. Stevens ’52BM ’55MM Julie M. Stoner ’72MM Cynthia T. Stuck ’52BM Timothy M. Sullivan ’66MM ’71MMA ’79DMA James K. Sutterfield ’14MM Pablo B. Svilokos ’57BM Jonathan H. Taylor ’04MM Timothy D. Taylor ’85MM in memory of Keith L. Wilson Joshua W. Thompson ’17MM Colleen P. Thorburn ’08MM ’09MMA ’15DMA Vesselin T. Todorov ’09MM ’10AD Marianne Di Tomaso ’17MM William F. Toole ’50BM ’52MM Ayako Tsuruta ’95MM AD Michael C. Tusa ’75BA ’76MM William W. Ulrich, Jr. ’55BM ’57MM

Joyce M. Ucci ’63MM Sam S. Um ’17MM June W. Vangerven ’81BA ’82MM John P. Varineau ’78MM Ferenc X. Vegh, Jr. ’92MM Emily Payne Veletzos ’99MM John E. Viton ’77MM ’87MMA ’94DMA Cheryl R. Wadsworth ’95MM Althea M. Waites ’65MM Derrick L. Wang ’08MM Adam B. Ward ’05MM Carol Kozak Ward ’85MM in memory of Felix Kozak Elizabeth Ward ’70MMA Marvin Warshaw ’79MM ’80MMA Robert W. Weirich ’76MM ’81DMA Abby N. Wells ’67MM William F. Westney ’71MMA ’76DMA Donald F. Wheelock ’66MM Joseph L. Wilcox ’66MM Christopher P. Wilkins ’81MM Ralph K. Williams ’68MM Mary D. Willis-Stahl ’80MM Gregory C. Wrenn ’92MM Rodney A. Wynkoop ’73BA ’80MMA ’85DMA Donna Yoo ’09MM Kyung Hak Yu ’87MM Lauren K. Yu ’13MM Antoinette C. Van Zabner ’74MM ’75MMA Joyce S. Zaritsky ’63MM Michael A. Zuber-Zander ’14MM Sebastian Zubieta ’00MM ’02MMA ’09DMA

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