THE NUTCRACKER SUITE
Titre original
Yale Concert Band
Yale Concert Band
Yale’s Premier Wind Ensemble
Thomas C. Duffy, Music Director
Overture Miniature
Yale Jazz Ensembles Big Band
Wayne Escoffery, Music Director
present
side by side
Marche
The Nutcracker Swings!
Friday, December 5, 2025, at 7:30 p.m., Woolsey Hall, Yale University
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Yale Jazz Ensembles Big Band
arr. Mayhew L. Lake arr. Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn ed. Jeff Lindberg (2010)
Miniature Overture
Overture
Jazz Solos: Amelia Shaw – clarinet; Rohan Wassink - tenor saxophone; Leo Craig – trumpet
March of the Toy Soldiers Peanut Brittle Brigade
Jazz Solos: Leo Craig – trumpet; Amelia Shaw - clarinet; Hari Viswanathan – piano; Wes Lewis – tenor saxophone
Danse de la Fee-Dragee
Dance - Sugar Plum Fairy Sugar Rum Cherry
Jazz Solos: Allie Gruber – baritone saxophone; Rohan Wassink – tenor saxophone
Danse Russe Trépak
Russian Dance Volga Vouty
Jazz Solos: Victor Herrera – trumpet; Chris Sylvester – alto saxophone; Wes Lewis - soprano saxophone; Naomi Wharry – trombone; Amelia Shaw – clarinet
Danse Arabe
Danse Chinoise
Arabian Dance Arabesque Cookie
Jazz Solos: Allie Gruber – flute; Amelia Shaw – clarinet; Solomon Geleta – alto saxophone
Chinese Dance Chinoiserie
Jazz Solos: Amelia Shaw – clarinet; Rohan Wassink – tenor saxophone; Hari Viswanathan - piano
Danse Des Mirlitons
Valse des Fleurs
Dance of the Reed Flutes Toot Toot Tootie Toot
Jazz Solos: Allie Gruber – baritone saxophone; Amelia Shaw – clarinet;
Waltz of the Flowers
Danse of the Floreadores
Jazz Solos: Naomi Wharry, Jacob Lebroda – trombones; Allie Gruber – baritone saxophone; Truth Templeton – trumpet; Amelia Shaw – clarinet
About the Music Directors
Thomas C. Duffy (b. 1955) is Professor in the Practice of Music, Director of University Bands, and Clinical Professor of Nursing at Yale University, where he has worked since 1982. He is known as a composer, a conductor, a teacher, an administrator, and a leader. His interests and research range from non-tonal analysis to jazz, from wind band history to creativity and the brain. Under his direction, the Yale Bands have performed at conferences of the College Band Directors National Association and New England College Band Association; for club audiences at New York City’s Village Vanguard, Birdland, Dizzy’s Club, and Iridium; Ronnie Scott’s (London); the Belmont (Bermuda); as part of the inaugural ceremonies for President George H.W. Bush; and concertized in twenty-three countries in the course of nineteen international tours.
Duffy produced a two-year lecture/performance series, Music and the Brain, with the Yale School of Medicine; and, with the Yale School of Nursing, developed a musical intervention to train nursing students to better hear and identify body sounds with the stethoscope. He combined his interests in music and science to create a genre of music for the bilateral conductor – in which a “split-brained conductor” must conduct a different meter in each hand, sharing downbeats. His compositions have introduced a generation of school musicians to aleatory, the integration of spoken/sung words and “body rhythmWs” with instrumental performance, and the pairing of music with political, social, historical and scientific themes. He has been awarded the Yale Tercentennial Medal for Composition, the Elm/Ivy Award, the Yale School of Music Cultural Leadership Citation, and certificates of appreciation by the United States Attorney’s Office for his Yale 4/Peace: Rap for Justice concerts – music programs designed for social impact by using the power of music to deliver a message of peace and justice to impressionable middle and high school students.
Duffy has served as associate, deputy and acting dean of the Yale School of Music. He has served as a member of the Fulbright National Selection Committee, the Tanglewood II Symposium planning committee, the GRAMMY Foundation Music Educators Award Screening Committee, and completed the MLE program at the Harvard University Institute for Management and Leadership in Education. He has served as: president of the Connecticut Composers Inc., the New England College Band Directors Association and the College Band Directors National Association (CBDNA); editor of the CBDNA Journal, publicity chair for the World Association of Symphonic Bands and Ensembles; and chair of the Connecticut Music Educators Association’s Professional Affairs and Government Relations committees. He is a member of American Bandmasters Association, American Composers Alliance, the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, Connecticut Composers Incorporated, the Social Science Club, and BMI. Duffy has conducted ensembles all over the world, including the National Association for Music Education’s National Honor Band in the Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C. (More extensive data is available at https://www.duffymusic.com, including a high resolution downloadable photo.)
Harold Shapiro
Harold Shapiro
Wayne Escoffery is a 2014 and 2021 DownBeat Critics Poll Winner for both the Tenor and Soprano Saxophones, and a Grammy Award winning musician. He is currently one of the musical directors of The Mingus Big Band, leads his group The Wayne Escoffery Quartet, and is the founder of Black Art Jazz Collective. He is considered one of the Jazz world’s most talented saxophonists and in-demand sidemen.
Originally from London, England Wayne grew up in New Haven, Connecticut, which is where his love for Jazz and formal study of music began. As a highschool student and an undergraduate at The Hartt School, Escoffery studied under the mentorship of Saxophone legend Jackie McLean and was among the second class of students at the prestigious Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz at The New England Conservatory which is where he received a Master’s degree in Music.
In 2006 he secured one of the most coveted gigs in jazz: a frontline position in Tom Harrell’s working quintet. For over a decade, Escoffery was mostly associated with trumpet master having toured the globe with him, recording seven CDs with The Tom Harrell Quintet and co-producing four of those releases. Escoffery has been a member of The Mingus Dynasty, Big Band and Orchestra since 2000 and has made several recordings with the group. Over the years he has recorded and performed internationally with a who’s who in Jazz including Ron Carter, Ben Riley, Abdulah Ibrahim, Eric Reed, Carl Allen, Al Foster, Billy Hart, Eddie Henderson, Rufus Reid, Wallace Roney, Randy Brecker and Herbie Hancock just to name a few.
Escoffery leads his own groups which tour internationally and has made several highly acclaimed studio recordings with said groups. His current working quartet features pianist David Kikoski, bassist Ugonna Okegwo and drummer Mark Whitfield Jr. who has taken over for the late great Ralph Peterson Jr. The band’s most recent albums The Humble Warrior and Like Minds on the Smoke Sessions Records label have gotten rave reviews and both received 4 stars in DownBeat Magazine. Escoffery’s newest album Alone released in August of 2024 reflects on love, loss, and solitude, and features a remarkable All- Star Quartet with Gerald Clayton, Ron Carter, and Carl Allen. The stunning new album is an atmospheric and haunting mood piece that has received 5 stars in the London Times, 4 stars in Jazzwise Magazine and 4 Stars in DownBeat Magazine. Critics have called this album the best of 2024 so far and said it’s Wayne Escoffery at his finest.
Escoffery is also a founding member of a collaborative group Black Art Jazz Collective which is comprised of fellow rising star musicians of his generation and is dedicated to celebrating the origins of Jazz and African American Icons through originally composed music.
In addition to performing, Escoffery is dedicated to music education and presents lectures and masterclasses on Jazz music. He is currently the saxophone instructor for The New Jersey Performing Arts Wells Fargo Jazz for Teens program and teaches private online and in person lessons for all instruments. In the fall of 2016 Wayne Escoffery was appointed Lecturer of Jazz Improvisation and ensemble coach at the Yale School of Music and is now the director of Jazz Ensembles and Jazz Saxophone instructor as a part of Yale University’s Jazz Initiative, the first of its kind for the University. The vast array of contributions Wayne Escoffery has made to the Jazz world in such a short time leads seasoned industry professionals like Niel Tesser to write “Pay special attention to tenor man Wayne Escoffery whose rapid development - from album to album (and seemingly solo to solo) - has given us a jazz hero for the coming decade.”
More information about Wayne Escoffery can be found at https://www.wayneescoffery.com/.
Harold Shapiro
Kasia Idzkowska
YALE CONCERT BAND 2025-2026
Thomas C. Duffy, Music Director
Stephanie Hubbard, Operations and Productions Manager
Piccolos
Salena Huang YSEAS ’26*
Flutes
Zoe Frost MY ’27*
Noah Watson TD ’28
Diego Lee TC ’29
Allan An BR ’28
Kaustuv Mohanty MC ’29
Peter Nelson JE ’26
Mei Hao YSEAS ’28
Noelle Smith BK ’28
Oboes
Sophia Graham DC ’26*
Penelope Emerson MY ’29
Estelle Balsirow JE ’26
Eb Clarinet
Nickolas Hamblin MUS ’25/’26
Bb Clarinets
Sammy Feingold MY ’28 Keith L. Wilson
Principal Clarinet Chair **
Joshua Chen SY ’27
Su Min Pyo PC ’29
Trevor Strano MC ’28
Ben Swinchoski BF ’25
Eleanor Kandoll PC ’29
Cameron Nye BR ’27
Amalee Bowen GSAS ’28
Bass Clarinet
Jacob Knowles ES ’28
Bassoons
Ari Blehert JE ’28*
Bryce Falkoff TC ’29
Alto Saxophones
Lizzie Seward DC ’27*
Sean Yu PC ’29
Daniel Guo DC ’29
Tenor Saxophone
William Wakefield BF ’29
Baritone Saxophone
Hanson Qin ES ’28
Cornets/Trumpets (rotating)
Lydia Berger MY ’29*
Greta Garrison BF ’28
Graydon Nolen DC ’28
Isaiah Harvey TD ’28
Kyle Chen SY ’27
French Horns (rotating)
Micah Draper PM ’28*
Atticus Chan TC ’29
Shell Ross GH ’26
Zakariya Bouzid GH ’28
Trombones
Griffin Rupp MUS ’26*
Max Watzky BF ’27
Beatrice Beale Tate PC ’28
Nathan Lange SY ’27
Euphonium
Alfred Ma JE ’29
Tubas
Benson Wang BK ’27*
Gregory Wolf TD ’26
Lillian Adey MY ’29
String Bass
Ziv Shah SM ’29
Piano/Celeste
Matthew Li MY ’29
Percussion (rotating)
Madeline Chun SM ’26*
Nikolai Stephens-Zumbaum BF ’26*
Gaby Garcia SM ’29
Jacob Leshnower GH ’27
Mirabel Solomon BF ’28
Tally Vaneman GH ’27
Zahra Virani SY ’26
Music Librarians
Allan An BR ’28
Zahra Virani SY ’26
*principal
**Friends of Keith L. Wilson (Director of Yale Bands from 1946–1973) honored him by endowing the principal clarinet chair in the Yale Concert Band in his name. If you would like
YALE JAZZ ENSEMBLES BIG BAND 2025-26
Wayne Escoffery, Music Director
Stephanie Hubbard, Operations and Productions Manager
Clarinet
Amelia Shaw TC ’28
Soprano Saxophone
Wes Lewis GSAS ’25
Alto Saxophones
Christopher Sylvester GH ’26
Solomon Geleta MC ’28
Tenor Saxophones
Rohan Wassink ES ’26
Wes Lewis GSAS ’25
Baritone Saxophone/Flute
Allie Gruber PC ’26
Trumpets
Jared Wyetzner PC ’27
Truth Templeton BF ’26
Victor Herrera SM ’28
Leo Craig BR ’28
Trombones
Naomi Wharry MUS ’27
Jacob Lebroda ES ’27
Joshua Gabrielson TC ’28
Madelyn Stoklosa MUS ’27
Piano
Hari Viswanathan BF ’28
Guitar
Yiannis Scotiniadis MY ’28
Bass
Thara Joseph GH ’26
Drums
Christopher Palazzo SY ’27