Music at Yale | Fall 2022/Spring 2023

Feature | 18

Blocker leaves legacy of transformative leadership

Dear YSM community,

For the past 28 years, the “Letter from the Dean” in Music at Yale has shared with the YSM community the work and the goodness of this remarkable place. The task of writing a final letter prior to my retirement as Dean on August 31 is daunting for many reasons, none more than wanting to express adequately enough to each of you my sense of profound gratitude.

Much has changed at Yale and in the world since my arrival at 435 College Street on a hot, humid August evening in 1995, yet much remains the same. What is different today from 1995 is evident to those who have traveled with me on this journey. The School has welcomed numerous world-class faculty and an extraordinary staff, expanded the music campus with new and refurbished buildings, and secured financial stability. What has not changed is the nature of the people who have studied, taught, and worked here. Their compassion, resilience, and determination have reflected a tenacious advocacy and conviction that music is likely the best guardian of human dignity.

Most of you have heard me speak of music as the currency of hope. It is my unyielding belief that our art form has the capacity to heal a broken world and to lift the spirits of, and ensure meaningful dialogue among, disparate people by building bridges of understanding. During your time at YSM, you learned that those who established our School understood the critical importance of the role music plays in our lives, in society, and certainly in any major university’s curriculum. Together, we have experienced the joy and wonder that music brings to those who engage with it.

Music speaks to each of us individually. It is the transformative and transcendent bond that we share, and it is the only language that has spoken forever to people who have no other means to communicate with one another. This alone offers reason for optimism. I am humbled and grateful to know that long after I leave this office, Yale and the YSM community always will resound with music.

It is my heartfelt intention upon retirement as Dean to join you in supporting and advancing the work of the School as it purposefully anticipates the future here at Yale and beyond. Further, I look to the outstanding cultural leadership of all YSM alumni in response to Rabbi Tarphon’s admonition, “You are not required to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.”

It has been my privilege and high honor to serve you as Dean of the Yale School of Music.

Warmest regards,

Robert Blocker

Henry and Lucy Moses Dean of Music

Dean Robert Blocker.

Photo by Sara Gardner, Yale School of Music.

Dean Robert Blocker.

Photo by Sara Gardner, Yale School of Music.

⤤ Front cover

Trumpet, H. N. White, Cleveland, c. 1930 (American, 20th century). Collection number: US.NH.y 3686.2005. A trumpet of nickel silver, with brass ferrules, and Art Deco style engraving on the bell. The instrument belonged to the renowned trumpeter, cornetist, composer, and bandmaster James Hembray Wilson.

→ In the collection

Editorial staff:

David Brensilver

Katherine Darr

Sara Gardner

Katie Kelley

Elizabeth Landau

Design: FAY www.fay.design

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Blocker leaves legacy of transformative leadership

Outside Leigh Hall, one can hear music—the sounds of pianists at the keyboard, violinists drawing bows against strings, chamber groups rehearsing intricately woven passages. Sometimes it is Dean Robert Blocker at the Steinway in his office, reading through a work in preparation for an upcoming performance or tapping into the magic of Mozart between meetings…

Life after Yale: Magdalena Kuźma

One year after graduating from YSM, soprano Magdalena Kuźma ’22MM is an ascendant vocalist appearing on some of the most celebrated stages in the world…

The draw to and drawbacks of piano competitions

The School’s distinguished piano faculty often serve as jurors for competitions around the world at which younger musicians seek to establish themselves and boost their careers…

Film composer Marco Beltrami returns to campus

In February, composer and YSM alum Marco Beltrami ’91MM returned to Yale to work with the School’s composition students in classroom and one-on-one sessions…

Concert season offers historical performances

The 2022–2023 season offered concertgoers a wealth of memorable performances. The Yale Philharmonia, led by Principal Conductor Peter Oundjian, gave the world-orchestral premiere of Helen Hagan’s Piano Concerto in C minor using a new orchestration by Soomin Kim ’21MM ’22MMA and featuring pianist and musicologist Dr. Samantha Ege as the evening’s soloist. The performance took place on the same Woolsey Hall stage that Hagan presented her work, in 1912, with an ensemble of peers. Hagan was the first Black woman to graduate from the School of Music. The Yale Philharmonia also premiered a new edition, by Professor Emeritus of Music Paul Hawkshaw, of Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony on a program that also featured a performance of Brahms’ Violin Concerto with faculty violinist Augustin Hadelich. The orchestra welcomed to the podium this season distinguished guest conductors Carolyn Kuan and Leonard Slatkin.

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The Yale Philharmonia string section in rehearsal.

Photo by Sara Gardner.

Yale Opera presented a new production of Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia, directed by Candace Evans, at the Legacy Theatre in Stony Creek following Fall Opera Scenes and Liederabend programs and a gala concert with the Yale Philharmonia. Yale Opera’s year concluded with performances of Rossini’s Le Comte Ory.

Alumni were well represented during the 2022–2023 season, no more so than during the Yale Clarinet Celebration organized by faculty clarinetist David Shifrin. More than 30 alums and current students joined Shifrin for a performance of music ranging in style from ragtime to contemporary.

Jazz, too, was explored during this past concert season. Fifty years after Willie Ruff ’53BM ’54MM, now Professor Emeritus of Music, invited more than 40 giants of the art form to Yale, local drummer Jesse Hameen II and his band, Elevation, celebrated America’s classical music with a performance that paid tribute to some of those same artistic giants. As part of the performance, Hameen received the School’s prestigious Duke Ellington Medal. In April, the Ellington Jazz Series presented Epitaph: 100 Years of Mingus, a performance by the revered Mingus big band, with Grammy Award-winning saxophonist, YSM Lecturer in Jazz, and Director of Yale Jazz Ensembles Wayne Escoffery and Yale students, of Charles Mingus’ rarely performed big-band

epic.

[Facing page] Left to right: bass-baritone Finn Sagal ’24MM, soprano Jillian Tate ’24MM, and conductor Louis Lohraseb ’15MM perform during Yale Opera’s Winter Gala Concert with the Yale Philharmonia in Woolsey Hall. Photo by Matt Fried.

[Top] Yale Opera’s production of The Rape of Lucretia. Photo by Matt Fried.

[Bottom] The Yale Clarinet Celebration, which featured more than 30 YSM students and alums. Photo by Harold Shapiro.

[Top right] Wayne Escoffery performs during the performance of Charles Mingus’ Epitaph. Photo by Matt Fried.

[Top] Students rehearse in various spaces on campus.

Photos by Sara Gardner.

[Bottom] Leonard Slatkin conducts the Yale Philharmonia in a rehearsal.

Photo by Sara Gardner.

The path to tomorrow

Collection, Norfolk Festival renovation updates

A major facilities-improvement project began at the Yale Summer School of Music/Norfolk Chamber Music Festival in September and is slated for completion in time for the summer 2023 session. A replacement of the Music Shed Annex is underway and will yield new rehearsal spaces, and Eldridge Barn, which had been used for rehearsals, will be converted to student housing. The $10 million project is funded by the Ellen Battell Stoeckel Trust, the School of Music, and donors, and includes such upgrades to the Music Shed as a new air-cooling system, improved recording capabilities, a new green room, and the relocation of restrooms. Kirkegaard Associates, which consulted on acoustics design during renovations to YSM’s Sprague Memorial Hall, which was finished in 2003, and in the design of the Adams Center for Musical Arts, which opened its doors in 2017, is working on the Norfolk

project. “We have a chance now to really make the Norfolk Festival a destination,” Festival Director Melvin Chen said.

Simultaneously, renovations to the Morris Steinert Collection of Musical Instruments are ongoing. Objects from the Collection are being relocated to Yale’s West Campus in advance of construction, which will reimagine the Collection as a teaching museum. Construction, which will include the installation of a new climate-control system—and during which, Collection Director William Purvis said, “care will be taken to preserve the unique and extraordinary acoustics” of the keyboard gallery—is due to start this spring with a goal of work being completed by fall 2024, in time for the 125th anniversary, in 2025, of Steinert’s original gift of keyboards and other musical instruments to Yale in 1900. “This project will significantly enhance the Collection and its role at the School and the University for years to come,” said Purvis, who will conclude his directorship of the Collection at the end of this academic year.

[Bottom] Rendering of the Eldridge Barn.

[Facing page, top]

An 18th century French harpsichord by Pascal Taskin at the Morris Steinert Collection of Musical Instruments.

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School of Music students gather at a reception in the Yale Commons following Convocation. Photo by Harold Shapiro.

[Facing page, bottom] Students share a meal and conversation in the Adams Center lounge in celebration of the Chinese Lunar New Year.

Photo by Sara Gardner.

Graduates help grow Alumni Fund

At the start of the academic year, YSM’s Office of Development and Alumni Affairs secured the help of eight alumni volunteers in encouraging “their classmates and other Yale alums to give back to the School of Music,” Development and Alumni Affairs Officer Liz Landau said. The Alumni Fund Volunteer Program was modeled on initiatives that have long existed at Yale. Landau called the program a “service to the School” and said, “We’ve definitely seen results from it,” explaining that YSM’s Alumni Fund enjoyed about a 50-percent increase in participation this past fiscal year over previous years.

Convocation 2022 welcomes “a new chapter”

In early September, the incoming class was formally installed during a ceremony that implicitly celebrated the tradition itself, which YSM Dean Robert Blocker began upon arriving at Yale in 1995. Convocation 2022 included the presentation of awards, captivating performances—including the annual collective singing of Schubert’s An die Musik—and a speech titled A New Chapter, in which Blocker, who will retire at the end of August after 28 years as Dean, said, “A new chapter begins tonight for each of us in this hall. … I wish for each of you a time at Yale that is fulfilling, enlightening, and inspiring.”

Student Advisory Council sets agenda

The School of Music’s Student Advisory Council embarked this academic year on an ambitious agenda that seeks to build on the work of last year’s inaugural Council. This year’s Council members seek to further define the group’s organizational structure and election processes, appoint a Council chairperson, and establish more efficient lines of communication between councilors and their

constituents. Beyond the group’s structure and operations, the Council continues to engage the YSM administration about course evaluations and more efficient processes for scheduling degree recitals and making and announcing performance assignments.

Council members remain dedicated to discussing ongoing health and safety policies at YSM, and, to the extent conditions allow, planning more social-engagement and community-building activities at the School of Music.

For more information, contact Liz Landau at elizabeth.landau@yale.edu.

Life after Yale Magdalena Kuźma

One year after graduating from YSM, soprano Magdalena Kuźma ’22MM is an ascendant vocalist appearing on some of the most celebrated stages in the world. Most notably, Kuźma is participating in the Metropolitan Opera’s prestigious Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, an opportunity, Kuźma said, to hone skills, undergo “a lot of training,” and perform with one of the world’s most revered companies. In addition to the ongoing experience at the Met, Kuźma has recently performed with the Santa Fe Opera and Opera Orlando, and, this coming summer and fall, will appear at the Glimmerglass Festival and in art-song recitals at Wigmore Hall in London and Merkin Hall in New York—those recitals the result of winning the Concert Artists Guild competition last year.

“I feel I was super prepared” for this career moment, Kuźma said, reflecting on the transition

from graduate-professional school to full-fledged career. “Yale Opera truly works as a young artist program.” At Yale, Kuźma received “much attention” from faculty, guest artists, and peers. Today, Kuźma is enjoying similar mentorship from the artists and administrators at the iconic Metropolitan Opera. “They’ve really been working hard to get the Young Artists on the stage,” Kuźma said of the company’s leadership. In April, Kuźma sang Giannetta in a Metropolitan Opera production of Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore. It’s a role Kuźma covered at the Met in January and an opera the soprano knows well, having sung Adina in Yale Opera’s May 2022 production. For Kuźma, revisiting the work on the Met’s hallowed stage and working with that iconic company less than a year after graduating from Yale has been nothing less than a dream realized.

Soprano Magdalena Kuźma sings the role of Pamina in an Opera Orlando production of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte Bearded Lens Photography.

I feel I was super prepared ... Yale Opera truly works as a young artist program. Magdalena Kuźma

The draw to and drawbacks of piano competitions

The School’s distinguished piano faculty often serve as jurors for competitions around the world at which younger musicians seek to establish themselves and boost burgeoning careers. For the competitors, the events offer opportunities to showcase their artistry and meet peers and those who might have the influence to engage them for future performances.

Anthony Ratinov ’20BS ’22MM ’23MMA, who won Second Prize at the 2022 Olga Kern International Piano Competition, the Jury Prize at the 2022 Hilton Head International Piano Competition, and First Prize at the 2021 Canada International Artists Piano Competition, has a “positive” relationship with competitions. “I think of a competition as exposure and a performance opportunity,” Ratinov said. “I never think about it as an actual competition. A musical career is grounded on the network that you’re able to create. I enjoy having competitions as markers in terms of progress,” including any new repertoire that’s learned for a particular contest. Still, Ratinov said, “I think all pianists have complicated relationships with competitions.”

Alexa Stier ’21MM ’27DMA, winner of the 2022 Virtuoso and Belcanto Concerto Competition, agreed with Ratinov about the value of exposure while pointing out that musicians must avoid giving competitions the power to “validate you as a musician.” Upon arrival at YSM, Stier wasn’t focused on competitions. It’s been important to faculty pianists Boris Berman and Wei-Yi Yang ’95MM ’96AD ’99MMA ’04DMA that Stier expand her repertoire beyond the familiar.

Henry Kramer ’13AD ’19DMA, who earned Second Prize at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in 2016 and won the National Chopin Competition of the United States, Montreal International Music Competition, and China Shanghai International Piano Competition in 2020, 2011, and 2012, respectively, teaches at the University of Montreal, where he advises students to think carefully before applying to participate in competitions. Kramer does agree that performance contests offer opportunities “to make connections.”

“Don’t go through all that effort if it’s not going to be worth it,” Kramer said, explaining that “it takes a long time to build up that kind of technical security and focus.”

“My competition success has definitely helped me,” Kramer said. “I do encourage certain students of mine to do them.” There are other students, Kramer said, whom he urges to pursue other avenues if their musical interests don’t align with the competition repertoire or design. “There are people who are not suited to them,” Kramer said, explaining that rejection “could be very detrimental” to those musicians, and there are “other things one can do to establish themselves.”

[Top] Portrait of Alexa Stier by Balog Zsolt.

[Facing page] Anthony Ratinov performs at the National Society of Arts and Letters’ annual Viennese Ball at the Cosmos Club in Washington, D.C.

Photo by Paolo Galli.

“There are plenty of competition winners that nobody knows about,” Kramer pointed out, and plenty of well-known pianists who didn’t go the competition route.

Yang worries about the limitations that preparing for competitions can place on developing one’s artistry through a thorough exploration of the ever-growing repertoire. That is, spending so much time on repertoire with which a student is already familiar, Yang pointed out, is “different than what we aim to do at this stage of their life—to broaden and expand” on students’ knowledge of the repertoire and experience with music of varying styles and of different periods. If a competition can be used as a motivator, Yang said, “I’m for it. Why not?” One can grow and develop, Yang pointed out, through the experience of “participating in and enduring these challenges.” Still, Yang said, “my concern remains.”

“There is a value” to competitions, Berman said, “and there is a danger.” Sure, exposure is invaluable, especially in

a scene that’s now brimming with competitions, not to mention the competitive nature of the field itself. The drawbacks, though, can be “huge.” One of those is that the time spent honing familiar repertoire leaves little space for studying and learning new pieces. More important, perhaps, is that “the competitor should be able to handle a setback in the competition, which statistically is more likely than a win. But not every artist is thickskinned,” said Berman, who remembered one of his students who was eliminated after the first stage of a competition and took it very hard. “It took me a semester to put him back on track,” Berman said, explaining that “some competitors tend to take the personal opinion of judges as an objective valuation of their artistry. For them this may become a traumatic experience.”

Stier commented on the burden of facing rejection. “It sucks. It’s not a good feeling. But you have to cope with it. It makes you stronger.”

Film

composer

Marco Beltrami returns to campus

In February, composer and YSM alum Marco Beltrami ’91MM returned to Yale to work with the School’s composition students in classroom and oneon-one sessions. Beltrami—who in October participated in a panel discussion called “Storytelling for Impact: Harnessing the Power of Arts, Media, and Culture,” which was organized as part of Yale’s “For Humanity Illuminated” campaign—studied at YSM with Jacob Druckman, after which he relocated to Los Angeles to study with Jerry Goldsmith at the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music. Since then, Beltrami has scored dozens of Hollywood blockbusters including Free Solo, The Hurt Locker, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, and the movies from the Scream franchise. He recently completed work on the score for Renfield and began work on the latest John Wick film. We spoke with Beltrami about breaking into the film-scoring industry, the differences between that scene and the world of concert music, his approach to the work, and teaching, which, after college and graduate school, he said, wouldn’t have been a natural progression because at that point he felt he “had nothing to say, honestly.”

[Top] Composer Marco Beltrami with his score for La Citta Decadente.

Photo by Dawn Jones.

[Facing page] Beltrami talks with YSM’s composition students during a seminar on campus in February.

Photo by Sara Gardner.

Are you asked frequently about an entry point into the film industry?

There are always a lot of questions from students about how one breaks into the business. In the commercial world, you’re trying to find someone who likes your ideas.

What are the primary differences between composing for film and writing for a live performance?

In film, you’re trying to talk to people who are not musically trained. It’s a very different dynamic. It’s a different skill set. You’re working for the vision of other people, serving a visual medium. The recording is the performance. A lot of stuff is manipulated and treated in the studio. You’re not thinking about repeat performances.

And writing for the concert hall...

It’s about the idea itself.

What does your process look like?

It is very different from project to project. It is unique. The process is the same in that I approach every film the same way, which is to get an overview of it and try to reduce it to its most simple characteristics. You’re trying to figure out what the point is that you want to convey, and how to do that.

You have a developing interest in teaching. How does that fit into your work and practice?

At this point, I have a little bit of real-world experience that might be beneficial to students. It’s an ongoing interest. As I get older the balance will move more toward teaching. At this point, I’m still immersed in (film scoring).

This conversation was edited for clarity. For Humanity presentation: forhumanity.yale.edu/

BLOCKER

leaves legacy of transformative leadership

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Portrait of Dean Robert Blocker by Sara Gardner.

[Bottom]

Dean Robert Blocker performs in Morse Recital Hall.

Photo by Bob Handelman.

Outside Leigh Hall, one can hear music—the sounds of pianists at the keyboard, violinists drawing bows against strings, chamber groups rehearsing intricately woven passages. Sometimes it is Dean Robert Blocker at the Steinway in his office, reading through a work in preparation for an upcoming performance or tapping into the magic of Mozart between meetings. More than once, Blocker has remarked to a colleague in the hallway, “You know, I must have the best job in the world,” situated as he has been in that office, at this School and University, for nearly three decades, learning each and every day about the art form from faculty and students alike, from guest artists, from the new repertoire that is imagined and created in the studios, classrooms, and concert venues that hold the echoes of performance and expression.

As he prepares to retire after twenty-eight years as Dean, Blocker, who will remain on the School’s faculty, can follow the thread of his good professional fortune back to childhood, to the piano, and to the vocal works of Bach he sang in grade school and church, finding, in melody, harmony, and rhythm, a prescription for hope and wonder. Indeed—first, for Blocker, there was music. Ask him about this place and he will tell you it is about people and the art form to which each of us should have access as a birthright. He will tell you that what we do, as artists, can help heal our fractured world. It is that high-minded reverence for music-making and its power that has imbued Blocker’s leadership and a career at Yale that has been transformative for the School, the University, the City of New Haven, and the world.

IT HAS BEEN A PRIVILEGE TO WORK CLOSELY WITH DEAN BLOCKER. HIS WISDOM AND VISION, COMMITMENT TO EXCELLENCE IN EDUCATION AND SCHOLARSHIP, BOLD CREATIVITY, AND PRINCIPLED LEADERSHIP HAVE REDEFINED THE SCHOOL, AND HIS IMMENSE CONTRIBUTIONS WILL BE FELT FOR GENERATIONS TO COME.

Peter Salovey President, Yale University

Deanship redefined

When he arrived at Yale in 1995, Blocker brought with him a vision, a conception of what the School of Music ought to look and sound like, ought to represent, given its place on this storied campus. He had a long-term strategic plan and the knowledge and expertise to reimagine an institution whose work it is to prepare the most exceptional, ascendant young musicians for service to the profession and to society, as the School’s mission stipulates. That would take more than wonder and hope. It would take support, and, most important, it would take people who shared with the School’s founders the belief that music deserves a place in the curriculum of a university of Yale’s reputation. Blocker came to Yale with an impressive history of building programs. He had served with distinction as the founding Dean of the School of the Arts and Architecture at UCLA, and as Dean at the University of North Texas College of Music and the School of Music at Baylor University.

Blocker was familiar with the Yale School of Music’s legacy. There were and had always been remarkable performers and composers here— faculty, students, and academic pedagogues, alike. What was needed in the mid-1990s were the building blocks that could propel the School into the twenty-first century—scholarships and major facilities-improvements, a faculty whom, along with current students and alumni, constituted a community that gave music at Yale tangible meaning, a curriculum and programming befitting of the lone graduate-professional music school in the whole of the Ivy League. Blocker’s successful efforts to secure an extraordinary $100 million gift in 2005 enabled the School to offer full scholarships to all students in perpetuity, which in turn helped the School attract the most sought-after graduate students and young artists in the world.

Investment in existing programs including the Yale Summer School of Music/Norfolk Chamber

Music Festival and Morris Steinert Collection of Musical Instruments were vital, as were those that would provide faculty and staff with state-ofthe-art spaces in which to work, whether reimagined and renovated or built anew, expanding the School’s campus at the heart of the University. Sprague Memorial Hall, whose construction in 1917 had been made possible by one of the most important cultural philanthropists of her time, was remade—its concert venue, Morse Recital Hall, an acoustic and aesthetic marvel. Leigh Hall, once the University’s health-care center, was repurposed, as was Hendrie Hall, Yale’s former Law School building, in a project that yielded the Adams Center for Musical Arts, which connected Leigh Hall and Hendrie Hall, offered students and faculty a towering new orchestral rehearsal hall, classrooms, and additional practice spaces, and, for the first time, provided spaces for School of Music students to interact with their counterparts from Yale College’s Department of Music. Every element of the School’s remarkable growth has been made possible by Blocker’s extraordinary fundraising acumen, his ability to convey to potential supporters the importance and value of the School’s work and to interest those potential supporters in sustaining the School’s mission through timely and generous gifts. Investment in the School’s work in the community was also made, thanks in large part to the relationships Blocker forged and the critical funding he secured through collaboration with the Yale College Class of 1957. Just as he has described himself as the most fortunate person in the world for having the opportunity to regularly hear world-class artists in rehearsal and performance, Blocker has frequently pointed out that performances by students from the New Haven Public Schools who participate in YSM’s Music in Schools Initiative are among the most meaningful he has attended during his time at Yale.

Joseph Polisi President Emeritus, The Juilliard School

ROBERT SET A STANDARD EXCELLENCE … AND BY YALE SCHOOL OF MUSIC

SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM, DEVELOPED ONE OF THE AFTER PROGRAMS IN AND FOR THAT YALE—AND

EDUCATIONAL WORLD—OWE AN ENORMOUS DEBT

STANDARD FOR BY MAKING THE MUSIC A FULL PROGRAM, HE ALSO THE MOST SOUGHTIN THE WORLD. YALE—AND THE MUSIC WORLD—OWE HIM

OF GRATITUDE.

Community cultivated

Tradition, Blocker knew, would help draw a farflung community together. With Commencement exercises marking the transition from one academic year to the next, he established an annual Convocation in September during which the incoming class is formally installed in a ceremony marked by performances by faculty, alumni, and current students. Also added to the traditions the YSM community maintains today were the singing of Schubert’s An die Musik at Convocation and Commencement, a popular, year-ending Honors Banquet, where excellence awards are presented to students and faculty, and the establishment of prizes created to acknowledge the extraordinary achievements of the artists who have called this special place home and the staff who have been charged with its operations.

As much as Blocker understood the value of community here in New Haven, he has also long appreciated YSM’s international reach. Thousands of alumni live and work in cities around the world, cities whose populations value music and its place in our global society.

Blocker’s work in China alone has made the world a bit smaller. In addition to entering into several strategic agreements with cultural institutions across China, Blocker and Wang Cizaho, then President of the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, organized “Musicathlon: The Conservatory Music Festival,” in which students and faculty from music schools and conservatories around the world gathered for performances before the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, and which brought the Yale Philharmonia to Asia for performances in Beijing, Shanghai, and Seoul.

Locally, Blocker’s longtime presence on the Yale campus and in New Haven has positioned the School of Music as a cultural resource, a destination for concertgoers from Greater New Haven and beyond, and, as former Yale President Richard Levin has said, “the soul of the University.” The School’s place at Yale, in New Haven, and on the world stage, was at the heart of the community’s 2019 celebration of the 125th anniversary of the School’s establishment.

[Top] Robert and Serena Blocker with President Bill Clinton.

[Facing page, left] Photo taken before the Adams Center for Musical Arts dedication ceremony, February 2017. From left: Serena and Robert Blocker, Denise and Stephen Adams, Yale University President Peter Salovey and wife Marta. Photo by Harold Shapiro.

[Facing page, right] Dean Blocker at the signing ceremony with the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, 2010.

IN HIS MORE THAN QUARTER OF A CENTURY AS DEAN, ROBERT BLOCKER NOT ONLY TRANSFORMED THE SCHOOL OF MUSIC, HE TRANSFORMED YALE. HE DID SO BY INFUSING BEAUTY THROUGHOUT OUR LIVES, THROUGHOUT THE UNIVERSITY. HE DID SO BY REACHING OUT TO THE NEW HAVEN COMMUNITY, AND OUT BEYOND ACROSS THE WORLD. HE DID SO BY USING MUSIC TO BRING US TOGETHER, TO SHOW US OUR SHARED VALUES, OUR SHARED JOYS, AND OUR SHARED RESPONSIBILITIES. HE DID SO BY REMINDING US WHAT EXCELLENCE SOUNDS LIKE.

Benjamin Polak

William C. Brainard Professor of Economics, Professor of Management

Crises faced

If there has been one monumental project Blocker could not foresee embarking on it was keeping the work of the School going during the COVID19 pandemic. The Yale Philharmonia was set to begin a tour to Boston, New York, and Washington, D.C., when the world shut down. Following guidance from the University and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Blocker and his administration, almost overnight, had the School of Music operating virtually to the fullest extent that could be accomplished given the nature of music study and performance. For two years, during which work was accomplished mostly online, the YSM community came together in ways that reflected the cultural leadership Blocker spent his deanship championing. Students, alumni, and faculty created videos in their homes that the School shared widely, while some curated video playlists for patients and caregivers in area hospitals. Others, led by faculty, gave concerts in the parking lot behind the Adams Center. Slowly, as the coronavirus was understood, the YSM community began to return for safely conducted in-person performance activities. Eventually, the YSM community returned in full to campus, eager to welcome audiences and to take the stage in Morse Recital Hall and Woolsey Hall to do what they came here to do. The community that returned was one that had learned much about itself during months of isolation and lockdown. Just as the pandemic reminded the world that unexpected tragedy could arrive out of the blue, on a massive scale, events during that same period forced us all to face anew an ever-unfolding atrocity. The murder of George Floyd in May 2020, an act of violence that brought an outraged many into the streets to protest the systemic and structural racism that have always pervaded our society, expedited the hiring of YSM’s inaugural Director of Equity, Belonging, and Student Life and placed a Schoolwide focus on the relative lack of diversity in classical music. Coming out of the pandemic, Blocker sought anew to train a focus on an early YSM alum, pianist, and composer—Helen Hagan, whose Piano Concerto in C minor was given its world-orchestral premiere 110 years after Hagan composed the work and performed it, with an ensemble of her peers, on the same stage.

Faculty horn player William Purvis leads students in a rehearsal in the Adams Center parking lot during the spring 2020 semester.

’95–’23

’95–’23

’95

Robert Blocker is appointed the Henry and Lucy Moses Dean of Music and Professor of Piano at Yale. Blocker begins several traditions including the annual Convocation and Honors Banquet celebrations that mark the end of each academic year, and the singing of Schubert’s An die Musik at Convocation and Commencement.

’00

The Horowitz Piano Series is established, and faculty pianist Boris Berman is appointed Artistic Director.

’96

The Board of Visitors, later renamed the Board of Advisors, is established to provide advice and counsel for the advancement of the School of Music and to support the School’s mission.

’03

Sprague Memorial Hall reopens after comprehensive renovations, revealing a refurbished Morse Recital Hall, a state-of-the-art recording studio, the Center for Studies in Music Technology, and practice rooms.

’05

Stephen Adams ’59BA and Denise Adams make a transformative gift of $100 million, enabling the School to expand academic programs and give full-tuition scholarships to all students. Renovations are completed on the building at 435 College St., which reopens as Leigh Hall in honor of Abby and Mitch Leigh, who had made a generous gift to the School in 2001. The renovated Leigh Hall houses faculty studios, classrooms, and administrative offices, including the Dean’s Office. The Music in Schools Initiative is formalized with a gift from the Yale College Class of 1957, which had begun discussions in 1997 about creating a national arts policy and helping to bolster the relationship between Yale and the City of New Haven.

’08

Through “Musicathlon: The Conservatory Music Festival,” organized in partnership with the Central Conservatory of Music (Beijing) President Wang Cizhao, students and faculty from conservatories and music schools around the world gather for performances one the eve of the 2008 Summer Olympics. Through the festival, the Yale Philharmonia performs in Beijing, Shanghai, and Seoul. The Collection of Musical Instruments becomes part of the School of Music.

’07

The Yale in New York concert series begins presenting concerts at Carnegie Hall and other New York City venues.

’09

The School adopts its first strategic plan, Beyond Boundaries.

’10

The School begins livestreaming concerts free of charge. The Iseman Met Opera Broadcasts series begins thanks to a gift from Yale College graduate Frederick Iseman ’74BA.

’15

A major construction, renovation, and expansion project begins on Hendrie Hall, which reopens as the Adams Center for Musical Arts.

’13

The Tokyo String Quartet retires from the international concert stage and from its longtime residency at Yale. The Brentano String Quartet is named the School’s new faculty quartet-in-residence.

’17

The Adams Center for Musical Arts, a new complex that links the newly renovated Hendrie Hall with the previously renovated Leigh Hall, opens for use at the start of the spring semester. A grand-opening ceremony is held on February 16.

’19

The School celebrates its 125th anniversary. The Yale Philharmonia is set to go on an East Coast tour of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia with the Bach Choir, London. The tour is cancelled as COVID-19 enters the United States. The School moves operations online in order to adhere to health and safety protocols set forth by the University with guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

’22

Renovations begin on the building that houses the Morris Steinert Collection of Musical Instruments, including the installation of climate controls for the Collection’s objects and other major improvements. A major facilitiesimprovement project begins at the Yale Summer School of Music/Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, including the replacement of the Music Shed Annex and the conversion of Eldridge Barn to student housing.

’21

Timothy Steinert ’82BA and his wife, Lixia Zhang, make a major gift to the Yale Collection of Musical Instruments, renaming it the Morris Steinert Collection of Musical Instruments at Yale.

’23

Robert

Blocker retires as the Henry and Lucy Moses Dean of Music.

The final year

In September 2022, Yale University President Peter Salovey announced Blocker’s intention to retire, after twenty-eight years in the Dean’s Office at YSM, in August 2023. In the final years of his tenure, Blocker had opportunities to appoint more distinguished artists to YSM’s impressive faculty. Major renovation projects were ongoing at Norfolk Festival and at the Steinert Collection of Musical Instruments, and a search was launched to identify Blocker’s successor. As he prepared to step away from the Dean’s Office and to occupy a teaching studio in Leigh Hall, Blocker reflected on nearly thirty years of work and leadership at Yale and the people and music that have surrounded and nourished him. Planning, this past winter, was

underway for the send-off event in April. To ask him in a private moment each year how he felt his recital had gone would elicit the same response: “Better than it could have, not as well as it should have”—in that, a healthy measure of modesty. While he has always performed here at Yale and beyond, Blocker has not, perhaps since his earliest days at the keyboard, had anything to prove to anyone. He plays because he needs to, needs the nourishment of the music itself, whether it is a work by Bach, Mozart, or a faculty composer, and wants very much for whomever might be in the audience—whether in Morse Recital Hall or some other venue halfway around the world—to experience the wonder that he did as a child and still does.

Dean Robert Blocker, with faculty and students, during Commencement.

Photo by Ian Christmann.

Yale Medal recipients since 1995

Ian Mininberg ’34BM (2002)

Stephen Adams, Board of Advisors (2009)

Nancy Better, Board of Advisors (2019)

Don Roberts, Class of 1957 (2022)

Yale Honorary degrees since 1995

Caroline Shaw, 2022

Renee Fleming, 2020

Herbie Hancock, 2020

Willie Ruff, 2018

Marin Alsop, 2017

Stevie Wonder, 2017

Audra McDonald, 2016

Angelique Kidjo, 2015

Joseph W. Polisi, 2014

Ralph Stanley, 2014

John Adams, 2013

Midori Goto, 2012

Youssou Ndour, 2011

Aretha Franklin, 2010

Sofia Gubaidulina, 2009

Paul McCartney, 2008

Emanuel Ax, 2007

Krzysztof Penderecki, 2003

Dawn Upshaw, 2001

Robert Shaw, 1998

Paul Simon, 1996

Wynton Marsalis, 1995

YSM faculty at work beyond the classroom

News

Paul Hawkshaw creates new edition of Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony

music.yale.edu/news/ paul-hawkshaw-createsnew-edition-brucknersseventh-symphony

In February, Ensemble Modern gave the premiere of waste knot, for soprano, large ensemble, and amplified Dictaphones, by faculty composer Katherine Balch ’16MM, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic premiered Balch’s all around the sea blazed gold, for sinfonietta, on the orchestra’s Green Umbrella Series. In April, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and cellist Zlatomir Fung premiered Balch’s whisper concerto, and in May the Darmstaadt Staatstheater Orchestra gave the European premiere of the concerto with cellist Maximilian Hornung. Balch was a recipient of New Music USA’s Amplifying Voices grant, through which a new work was co-commissioned by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic for the 2024–2025 season.

Following the success of two recordings of music by Brahms and Valentin Silvestrov (Palais des Degustateurs), faculty pianist Boris Berman performed in recitals in New York, Washington D.C., Paris, Brussels, Glasgow, and on various campuses in the United States. He also performed and gave numerous master classes at universities, conservatories, academies, and festivals in Austria, Belgium, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Professor of Music History Lynette Bowring and Professor of Analysis and Musicianship Stephanie Venturino presented papers at the annual joint meeting of the American Musicological Society, Society for Ethnomusicology, and Society for Music Theory in New Orleans, LA. In ‘Hidden Pedagogies’: Strategies for Learning in Early Modern Italy, Bowring surveyed educational strategies in 16th century Italy, seeking resonances between the education of musicians and some pedagogies for literacy, handwriting, and math during that era. Venturino’s paper, Who Is Allowed to Be a Music Theorist? Sarah Mary Fitton and Conversations on Harmony (1855), focused on Fitton’s original theory of augmented sixth chords and her distinctive approach to chromatic scale harmonization, as well as questions about gender and class in music-historical narratives.

Faculty composer Martin Bresnick’s Mending Time was performed in September by the New Thread (saxophone) quartet at the Tenri Cultural Institute in New York City. Bresnick’s chamber orchestra arrangement of Janáček’s On an Overgrown Path was performed in November at Verbrugghen Hall at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music in Australia. In January, violinist Jenny Khafagi and pianist Lisa Moore performed Bresnick’s Bitter Suite at Tempo Rubato, in Melbourne, Australia, and at The Neilson during the Sydney Festival.

In January, Jeffrey Douma was appointed the Marshall Bartholomew Professor in the Practice of Choral Music at Yale and was recognized as Choral Conductor of the Year by the Connecticut chapter of the American Choral Directors Association. Douma conducted the premiere of Memory of Water by Garth Neustadter ’12MM with the Yale Choral Artists and faculty percussionist Robert Van Sice’s Percussion Collective and prepared the Yale Glee Club for joint performances with Chanticleer and the Kaleidoscope Vocal Ensemble, which joined the Glee Club for the premiere of Prayer for Deliverance by Joel Thompson ’20MMA ’26DMA, conducted by Arianne Abela ’10MM.

[Bottom] Valentin Silvestrov and Boris Berman in Mallorca in June 2022.

Photo by Patricia Lozano.

[Facing page] Faculty violinist Augustin Hadelich performs Brahms’ Violin Concerto with the Yale Philharmonia in April.

Photo by Matt Fried.

Saxophonist, Lecturer in Jazz, and Director of Yale Jazz Ensembles Wayne Escoffery released his new album, Like Minds, in April on the Smoke Sessions Records label. Escoffery’s previous album, The Humble Warrior, included an interpretation of Benjamin Britten’s Missa Brevis alongside original compositions. Like Minds features collaborations with jazz giants Tom Harrell, Gregory Porter, and Mike Moreno along with Escoffery’s regular quartet.

The Sebastians, a New York-based early music ensemble directed by faculty members Jeffrey Grossman and Daniel Lee ’06MM ’08AD, concluded its 10th anniversary concert season on April 15 with a performance featuring Bach’s Mass in G major. The ensemble includes Yale alumni Lee, Nicholas DiEugenio ’08AD ’09MMA ’14DMA, Ezra Seltzer ’06BA ’07MM, and others.

Faculty violinist Augustin Hadelich appeared as a soloist this spring with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Boston Symphony Orchestra and concluded a multiyear residency with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra in Hamburg, Germany. Hadelich performed Brahms’ Violin Concerto with Principal Conductor Peter Oundjian and the Yale Philharmonia in April.

Paul Hawkshaw’s new critical edition of Anton Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony was published in Vienna as part of the new Bruckner Collected Works Edition. The Yale Philharmonia, led by Principal Conductor Peter Oundjian, premiered the new score in Woolsey Hall in April.

Faculty violinist Ani Kavafian judged the Bowers Competition, Chamber Music Society’s young musicians program, and performed in Alice Tully Hall and at the Ocean Reef Chamber Music Festival in Florida in April. Kavafian was named Director of the 2023 Vivace Festival and will participate in the Four Seasons, Sarasota, Saratoga, Heifetz Institute, Bridgehampton, Music@Menlo and Lake George festivals.

Works by faculty composer Aaron Jay Kernis ’83 that recently received premieres include Edensongs (with text by Peter Cole), written for the Yale Schola Cantorum, at Woolsey Hall, Grace for cellist Matt Haimovitz, On Hearing Nightbirds at Dusk for harpist Yolanda Kondonassis, and Sky Music, performed by YSM students in Morse Recital Hall in Sprague Memorial Hall. Additional performances included a portrait concert featuring a chamber version of Kernis’ Earth, for tenor Nicholas Phan, and Goblin Market at the Curtis Institute of Music in March, and a performance of the orchestral version of Earth by Santa Fe Pro Musica.

Yale Opera Director Gerald Martin Moore’s recent engagements have included master classes for the San Francisco Opera’s Adler Fellowship program and the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto and serving as a judge for the Metropolitan Opera’s Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition. Future projects include recording a recital CD with Erin Morley that will also feature longtime YSM faculty member Ransom Wilson, hosting the Metropolitan Opera Radio Quiz, appearing in recitals with Morley and Renée Fleming, teaching and giving master classes at the Merola Opera Program in San Francisco, Music Academy of the West, Lyric Opera of Chicago’s Ryan Opera Center, and Ravinia Steans Music Institute’s Program for Singers. In February, for the fifth consecutive year, Moore served as Associate Director of Carnegie Hall’s SongStudio with Fleming.

[Left] Faculty clarinetist David Shifrin leads students and alums in a performance during the Yale Clarinet Celebration.

Photo by Matt Fried.

[Bottom] James O’Donnell conducts the Westminster Abbey choir at the state funeral of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. AP photo.

Faculty organist James O’Donnell was made a Lieutenant of the Royal Victorian Order by King Charles III. The honor followed the funeral for Queen Elizabeth II, for which O’Donnell directed the music.

In September, faculty tenor James Taylor received Voices of Ascension Chorus and Orchestra’s George Perrin Prize for extraordinary contribution to the vocal arts in this country. The organization’s artistic director, Dennis Keene, considers Taylor the great American Bach tenor of his generation and one of the most important vocal teachers in the United States.

Faculty clarinetist David Shifrin organized a Yale Clarinet Celebration in December. The concert, on YSM’s Faculty Artist Series, featured more than 30 School of Music students and alums.

Faculty composer Christopher Theofanidis ’94MMA ’97DMA is writing a clarinet concerto titled Indigo Heaven for Steve Williamson and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for that organization’s 2023–2024 season. Williamson is the orchestra’s principal clarinetist.

News

music.yale.edu/news/ flutist-tara-helen-oconnorjoins-ysm-faculty

In June, New Focus Records will release a new CD by faculty guitarist Benjamin Verdery titled A Giant Beside You, which features four pieces for guitar and string quartet performed with the Ulysses Quartet, which includes cellist and YSM alum Coli Brookes ’13MM ’14AD. The CD includes the world premiere recording of the Quintet for High Strings by YSM alum Bryce Dessner ’98BA ’99MM, Verdery’s A Giant Beside You, and Verdery’s arrangement for guitar and string quartet of Leonard Bernstein’s Sonata for Clarinet. The CD was recorded and produced by YSM Director of Technology Matthew LeFevre.

Faculty cellist Paul Watkins and his colleagues in the Emerson String Quartet embarked on a tour that will be the ensemble’s final slate of performances. The quartet was established in 1976 and will disband in October.

In September, faculty flutist Ransom Wilson received the National Flute Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award. In November, Wilson was appointed the Camilla Huxford Endowed Chair in Orchestral Studies at the University of Alabama, whose faculty Wilson will join in August having taught at YSM since 1991. In a press release, the University of Alabama said Wilson’s “appointment … will make a tremendous addition to what is already a vibrant, energetic, and highly experienced faculty. His vast skillset and range of experience will provide a new level of leadership for the Huxford Symphony Orchestra, providing outstanding experiences and opportunities for our students.”

Following residencies at the Yale Summer School of Music/Norfolk Chamber Music Festival and festivals in Italy and the Netherlands, YSM faculty pianist Wei-Yi Yang ’95MM ’96AD ’99MMA ’04DMA will give performances and master classes at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., National Tsing Hua University in Hsinchu City, Taiwan, and Conservatori Superior de Música de les Illes Baleares in Palma, Spain.

Faculty mezzo-soprano Adriana Zabala performed the role of Prince Lelio in the American premiere of Pauline Viardot’s Le Dernier Sorcier at the Wallis Annenberg Center in Beverly Hills in March. That followed the premiere recording Zabala made of the same work on Bridge Records with Camille Zamora, Jamie Barton, and Eric Owens. In May, Zabala reprised the title role in Nadia: A Chamber Music Play at the Hamel Music Center in Madison, Wis., presented by Lunarts, an organization that celebrates women in the arts.

The Yale School of Music is pleased to announce the appointment of flutist Tara Helen O’Connor, who will join the faculty in September as Visiting Associate Professor, Adjunct, of Flute. Ms. O’Connor has been a frequent guest lecturer at Yale and appreciates the legacy of excellent flute pedagogy and performance her predecessor, Professor Ransom Wilson, built over the course of three decades.

[Top] Faculty pianist Wei-Yi Yang.

[Bottom] Faculty mezzosoprano Adriana Zabala.

Class notes

1950

Violin Fingering, Basic to Developed, a book by John (Jack) Bauer ’54BM ’55MM, was published in December by Mel Bay Publications, which has published five other books by Bauer.

1960

In September, Éditions L’Harmattan published Tom Johnson ou la amusique logique, which examines the work of composer Tom Johnson ’61BA ’67MM. The composer’s process is also examined in the YouTube playlist Tom Johnson: Illustrated Music.1

Pianist Althea Waites ’65MM prepared music by Margaret Bonds for a recording project. The album includes three pieces by Bonds that have never been recorded, along with a major work by Curt Cacioppo, former professor of music at Haverford College, titled Fantasy-Choruses on This Little Light of Mine, which was written for and dedicated to Waites.

1970

In August 2023, soprano and educator Sheila Barnes ’74MM ’75MMA will teach “Lingua e Lirica” at Casa Monteripido in Perugia, Italy. Barnes’ courses bring together awardwinning coaches and singers to promote authentic interpretations of Italian opera and chamber music through a focus on the intersection of language and music.

In November, City Lyric Opera presented the New York premiere of Uncovered, a chamber opera in one act by Lori Laitman ’75BA ’76MM with a libretto by Leah Lax.

Prayer for Israel by composer Max Stern ’70MM was presented at the 14th European Cantors Convention at the Rumbach Synagogue in Budapest. The work was performed by the Hungarian chamber choir Kecskemet Singing Circle led by conductor Peter Erdei, who was Director of the Kodály Pedagogical Institute of the Liszt Academy of Music for more than 30 years.

Violinist James Wallenberg ’76MM is celebrating his 44th season this year as a member of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.2

1980

Creative Health for Pianists: Concepts, Exercises & Compositions by Pedro de Alcantara ’83MM was published in May by Oxford University Press.3

Horn player Marian Hesse ’85MM retired from teaching in 2020. Hesse still performs around the world with the Chestnut Brass Company, an ensemble with which she has made more than 20 recordings, including Hornsmoke: The Music of Peter Schickele, which won a Grammy Award.

Gregory Peterson ’85MM was named Professor of Music and College Organist Emeritus at Luther College, in Decorah, Iowa, upon his retirement in May. In recognition of his teaching career, which spanned more than 30 years and three institutions, former students and colleagues commissioned a new organ work in his honor from American composer Libby Larsen.

Composer Dr. John Sichel ’85MMA ’95DMA was named artist-in-residence at Capulin Volcano National Monument in New Mexico.

Tubist Antonio Underwood ’87MM recorded two CDs, Tone Poem XIII: Sunday’s Window and Tone Poem XIV: Continuation. The albums were produced by Underwood’s music label, Tone East Music Technology LLC.

The Magic Hummingbird, an opera by composer Joseph Waters ’82MM, received its world premiere performance in June 2022 at The Cutting Room, in New York City. Excerpts from the opera were performed in July at Ópera en la Calle in Tijuana, Mexico. The Magic Hummingbird tells the story of three San Diego rockers who join refugees in Tijuana and cross into the United States through a magic tunnel.4

[Facing page] Christina Hughes ’15MM joined “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band.

Dr. Mark Elliot Bergman ’97MM won the International Society of Bassists’ 2022 Research Competition. Bergman’s winning paper, E-portfolios as Learning Tools for Applied Double Bass Study: A Research-Based, Practice Oriented Approach, will appear in an upcoming issue of the ISB’s academic journal.5

Amy I-Lin Cheng ’98MM ’99AD was appointed Assistant Professor of Music (a tenure-track position) and Piano Chamber Music Coordinator in the Piano Department at the University of Michigan’s School of Music, Theater & Dance.

Bryce Dessner ’98BA ’99MM returned to campus for a multiyear residency at the Yale Schwarzman Center during which the guitarist and composer is commissioning and curating new works from Julia Bullock (with Carolyn Yarnell ’89MM), Ash Fure, Nathalie Joachim, and Anna Thorvaldsdóttir that will be premiered at Yale. The residency will also explore Dessner’s work with opera and theater director Kaneza Schaal.6

Maureen Hurd Hause ’96MM ’97MMA ’02DMA was named Associate Director of the Department of Music at the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. Hause served as Interim Associate Director at the institution during the 2021–2022 academic year.7

A recording of Cloud Ossuary, a new symphonic work by composer Douglas Knehans ’93MMA ’96DMA, garnered terrific reviews and nine international recording awards. One reviewer on the classical music blog Planet Hugill wrote, “Cloud Ossuary is a striking and fascinating work, full of gorgeous textures and colors, yet, throughout it is clear that Knehans brings a strong structural underpinning to the beauty, making for a satisfying symphonic work.” 8

Clarinetist Seunghee Lee ’92MM ’94AD released a new album, Aspire, with bandoneonist and composer JP Jofre and the London Symphony Orchestra. The album’s centerpiece is the first concerto ever written for the clarinet and bandoneon, which was commissioned by and written for Lee.9

Osiris Molina ’98MM and René Izquierdo ’99MM ’00AD collaborated on Cuba, Alabama, an album of works for clarinet by Cuban composers. The album features music by Paquito D’Rivera, Andrés Alén, Javier Zalba, and two premiere recordings of works by Leo Brouwer, including a work commissioned by Molina and Izquierdo for clarinet and guitar.10

In July, the celebrated choir The Crossing premiered Beloved of the Sky by Tawnie Olson ’99MM ’00AD. The multimovement work explores and celebrates the creative process through texts by Canadian artist Emily Carr. Beloved of the Sky was commissioned by the Barlow Foundation for The Crossing, Seraphic Fire, and the BYU Singers. Olson’s Salve Mater received its premiere in Toronto in November. The piece, which was commissioned and performed by the Tafelmusik Chamber Choir conducted by Ivars Taurins, sets a new Latin text inspired by the Salve Regina.

Double-bassist Changwoo Sohn ’96MM, a professor at Kookmin University in Seoul, Korea, gave a volunteer performance at Joeten-Kiyu Public Library in Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands.

2000

Trumpeter Benjamin Berghorn ’04MM served as Visiting Professor of Music at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas, for the 2022–2023 academic year.

The score for The Real Charlie Chaplin, the first foray into film scoring for composer Robert Honstein ’04BA ’10MM ’14DMA, was nominated for a News & Documentary Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Composition. The Real Charlie Chaplin can be seen on Showtime.11

Internationally acclaimed guitarist Yuri Liberzon ’07MM released a recording of music for the instrument by Konstantin Vassiliev on the Naxos Records label. Vassiliev’s music synthesizes jazz, Russian folk music, and contemporary Western traditions. The album features music written over a 22-year period, with three pieces composed specifically for Liberzon.12

Composer Andrew Norman ’09AD was appointed Associate Professor of Composition at the USC Thornton School of Music and will begin serving in that capacity in fall 2023.

Pianist Marianna Prjevalskaya ’07MM ’10AD was appointed to the faculty at East Tennessee State University succeeding Esther Park ’12AD ’13MMA ’17DMA, who was appointed to the faculty at Columbus State University. Park succeeds Henry Kramer ’13AD ’19DMA, who was appointed to the faculty at the University of Montreal.

Violinist Simeon “Moni” Simeonov ’06MM ’07AD was appointed the Edelman Chair of Chamber Music at the Colburn School.

Sharon Wei ’04MM, Associate Professor of Viola at Western University in London, Ontario, Canada, was named a 2022 Faculty Scholar.

music.yale.edu/news/ bryce-dessner98ba-99mm-returnsyale-schwarzmancenter-residency

The award recognizes significant recent scholarly achievements among faculty at Western University who have an international presence in their discipline and are considered all-around scholars. Wei is the new violist of the New Orford String Quartet and toured with Musicians from Marlboro in October.

Bass-baritone Douglas Williams ’06MM and composer Matthew Barnson ’12DMA premiered a new work with the Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France at the Maison de la Radio in Paris, in October.13

Martin Wittenberg ’04MM founded his own artist management firm, Wittenberg Artists. Based in New York City, Wittenberg Artists represents such established musicians as Gidon Kremer and Steven Isserlis, as well as such newcomers as violinist Stella Chen, cellist Seth Parker Woods, and conductor Naomi Woo ’13MM.14

Pianist Lucas Wong ’06MM ’07MMA ’12DMA was appointed Visiting Professor of Vocal Coaching at the A. J. Fletcher Opera Institute at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.

2010

Guitarist and composer Gulli Bjornsson ’17MM ’18MMA was appointed Associate Professor of the Practice of Electronic Composition at the University of Kansas School of Music.

Tenor Ryan Capozzo ’21MMA, a member of the Ryan Opera Center Ensemble, made his Lyric Opera of Chicago debut singing Remendado in a springtime production of Carmen.15

In July 2022, violinists Cameron Daly ’18BA ’20MM and Gregory Lewis ’19MM ’27DMA joined the Callisto Quartet, YSM’s fellowship quartet-inresidence. Grand Prize winners of the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition and Second Prize winners of the Banff International String Quartet Competition, the Callisto Quartet has also received prizes at the Bordeaux, Melbourne,

and Wigmore Hall competitions. The group is managed worldwide by Kanzen Arts.16

In October 2022, Kevin R. Dombrowski ’14MM was appointed Principal Trombonist of the Fort Wayne Philharmonic.

Flutist Jake Fridkis ’14MM ’15AD was nominated for a Grammy Award in the “Best Rap Album” category for serving as a contributing writer and producer on DJ Khaled’s recording God Did.17

In August 2022, The Crossing released Born, an album that features two works by composer Michael Gilbertson ’13MM ’21DMA: Born and Returning. The album won a Grammy Award in the “Best Choral Performance” category.18

Violinist Sirena Huang ’19AD won the Gold Medal at the 11th quadrennial International Violin Competition of Indianapolis. The prize, according to the Indianapolis Star, includes “$75,000 cash, a recital debut at Carnegie Hall, recording contract, and website development and maintenance for four years.” 19

Christina Hughes ’15MM joined “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band in Washington, D.C., as a staff sergeant in the ensemble’s flute section.P.42

In July, guitarist JIJI ’17MM signed with Kirshbaum Associates Management. In fall 2023, JIJI will begin serving as Associate Professor at Indiana University.20

Clarinetist Graeme Steele Johnson ’17MM ’18MMA joined the award-winning wind quintet WindSync in September 2022. One of only two American woodwind quintets with full-time, international touring schedules, WindSync has won the Concert Artists Guild Victor Elmaleh Competition and the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition and is represented by MKI Artists. The group’s upcoming projects include a recording at Abbey Road Studios.21

16 (left), 20 (right)

Alumni spotlight: composer Molly Joyce

Read a Q&A with Joyce on the YSM website: music.yale.edu/news/ alumni-spotlightcomposer-molly-joyce

Perspective, the latest album from composer Molly Joyce ’17MM (released on New Amsterdam Records), features interviews with disabled people on the topic of what access, care, and interdependence have brought to their lives.22

Jenny Lee ’18MM was appointed Adjunct Instructor of Piano at the University of Arizona’s Fred Fox School of Music for the 2022–2023 academic year.

Violinist Ruda Lee ’15MM ’17MMA performed with the Yale Alumni Chamber Music Society in Hong Kong as part of a charity concert organized by the Mighty Oaks Foundation in November.

Josip Kvetek ’18MM was appointed Assistant Principal Violist of the Sinfonieorchester Basel.

Clarinetist Jesse McCandless ’17MM won an audition for the Principal Clarinet chair in the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.

Joshua Newburger ’17MM was appointed Principal Violist of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra.

In November, pianist Michael Noble ’12MM ’14MMA ’20DMA released his debut album, American Dissident, which features music by Frederic Rzewski and Margaret Bonds.23

In September 2022, the Attacca Quartet, of which violinist Domenic Salerni ’11MM is a member, released Evergreen, an album featuring music by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Caroline Shaw ’07MM that won a Grammy Award in February. A follow-up to the Grammy Award-winning album Orange, Evergreen was released by Nonesuch Records and has been reviewed in Pitchfork and Slant magazines. An album-release show took place at Public Records in Brooklyn, N.Y.24

Several YSM alumni participated in the Sphinx Orchestral Partners Auditions. Violist Marlea Simpson ’19MM won Second Prize in the strings and harp category, and clarinetist Juan Esteban Martinez ’21MM won First Prize in the woodwinds category. Double-bassist Matthew Peralta ’21MM ’22MMA earned an Honorable Mention.25

In December, tenor Stephen Soph ’13MM made his Seattle Symphony and Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra debuts in performances of Handel’s Messiah.

Violinist Matheus Garcia Souza ’14MM performed the New York premiere of Christopher Stark’s Fire Ecologies with the Unheard-of//Ensemble at the Gowanus Canal (literally on the water). The 50-minute multimedia piece incorporates images of the 2020 California wildfires. The commission was made possible by Chamber Music America’s Classical Commissioning Program.26

Noël Wan ’16MM was appointed Assistant Professor of Harp and Entrepreneurship at Florida State University, where Wan will lead the harp program and join the College of Music’s entrepreneurship cohort. Wan won the Gold Medal at the 12th USA International Harp Competition in July 2022.27

Pianist Naomi Woo ’12BA ’13MM won the Virginia Parker Prize. Administered by the Canada Council for the Arts, the award recognizes “a musician, instrumentalist, or classical music conductor … who demonstrates outstanding talent, musicianship and artistic excellence and who makes a valuable contribution to artistic life in Canada and internationally,” the Council explained in its announcement.

2020

Mezzo-soprano Rhianna Cockrell ’21MMA and choral conductors Joe Lerangis ’25DMA and Gloria Yin ’22MM established the New Muses Project, “a DEI-centered classical music organization, promoting justice and curiosity through performance, education, and scholarship,” according to the organization. The project was launched in August with a concert at the Kaufman Music Center in New York.

Composer Sophia Jani ’22MM established a concert series in Germany called Feet Become Ears.28

A group of artists including Allison Chu, who earned master of arts and master of philosophy degrees in 2022 from Yale’s Department of Music, where she is a Ph.D. candidate, Edwin Joseph ’20MM, Frances Pollock ’19MM ’25DMA,

and Emily Roller ’07BA established the Midnight Oil Collective, which “combines the tools of venture capital with those of cooperative economics to create a wholly new business model that truly centers creators. It is a model developed by the minds of artists with the specific needs of artists in mind,” according to the organization.

Pianist Simon Karakulidi ’21MM ’22MMA won Second Prize at the inaugural Samson François International Piano Competition in Cagnessur-Mer, France.

Composer Soomin Kim ’21MM ’22MMA orchestrated Helen Hagan’s Piano Concerto in C minor, whose world-orchestral premiere was performed in October by pianist and musicologist Dr. Samantha Ege and the Yale Philharmonia, led by Principal Conductor Peter Oundjian. Hagan was the first Black woman to graduate, in 1912, from the Yale School of Music.29

Soprano Magdalena Kuźma ’21MM made her Metropolitan Opera debut singing Giannetta in a production of Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’amore in April.30

Pianist Chungho Lee ’21MMA won Second Prize at the San Francisco Artciál International Piano Competition, which was held online in July and August 2022.

Pianist Linda Lee ’23MM was a co-Second Prize winner at the Giorgos Thymis International Piano Competition in Thessaloníki, Greece. In addition to earning a cash prize, Lee will return to Greece for performances next season. Lee won First Prize at the 28th Leoš Janáček International Piano Competition in Brno. In addition to the cash prize, Lee will return to the Czech Republic for performances.31

Charissa Leung ’21MM joined the second violin section of the Nashville Symphony at the start of the 2022–2023 season.32

Stephen Perkyns ’22MM joined the New York City Ballet Orchestra as Principal Cellist in September.33

Composer Udi Perlman ’26DMA was named the 2024 Pogorzelski-Yankee awarded composer by the American Guild of Organists.34

Pianist Anthony Ratinov ’20BS ’22MM ’23MMA won Third Prize at the San Francisco Artciál International Piano Competition, which was held online in July and August. Ratinov won Second Prize at the Olga Kern International Piano Competition.

Christopher Rogers-Beadle ’21MM ’23MMA was appointed Solo Violist of the Deutsch Kammerphilharmonie Bremen.

Violist Joseph Skerik ’24MM won Third Prize at the Oskar Nedbal International Viola Competition in Prague.

Pianist Alexa Stier ’21MM ’27DMA was named a winner of the Virtuoso & Belcanto Concerto Competition.35

Organist Alexander Straus-Fausto ’24MM performed at Our Lady of Sorrows in Toronto in March, Saint John’s Episcopal Church in West Hartford in May, and will perform at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., in July, and Saint James United Church in Montreal in August.36

Jae In Yoo ’22MM won Eighth Prize at the 12th USA International Harp Competition.

In July, pianist Seho Young ’21MM ’22MMA won the Bronze Medal at the New Orleans International Piano Competition.37

Composer Ben Wallace ’22DMA was hired to arrange ZEDD’s album Clarity for piano and orchestra. ZEDD celebrated the 10-year anniversary of the release of Clarity in October at a concert at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Calif. The program featured a performance of Wallace’s new arrangement.

Pianist Derek Wang ’24AD was awarded Second Prize at the Liszt Utrecht competition and performed five concerts around the Netherlands.

Composer Samantha Wolf ’21MM ’22MMA was appointed Artist-in-Residence at the Longy School of Music in Boston. Under the mentorship of composer Amy Beth Kirsten, the two-year appointment will allow Samantha to compose and present her first opera, a surrealist dark comedy set in a game show.38

Guitarist Daniel Zanuttini-Frank ’22BA ’23MM won First Prize at the Concorso Musicale Nazionale “Villa Oliva.”

Pianist Muzi Zhao ’23MM was awarded the Gold Medal at the 2022 Seattle International Piano Competition.

Percussionist Kevin Zetina ’20MM ’21MMA was appointed Lecturer of Percussion at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.39

2023 GRAMMYS

PLEASE JOIN US IN CONGRATULATING MEMBERS OF THE YALE SCHOOL OF MUSIC COMMUNITY WHO WON A 2023 GRAMMY ON FEB. 5.

Composer Michael Gilbertson ’13MM ’21DMA won for his pieces Born and Returning, which were recorded by The Crossing. The album, titled Born, won in the “Best Choral Performance, Classical” category and also features music by Edie Hill.

YSM faculty tubist Carol Jantsch and cellist Alexander Veltman ’90MM won as members of the Philadelphia Orchestra for a recording titled Letter from the Future featuring Contact by composer Kevin Puts ’99MM. The recording also features the trio Time for Three and was conducted by Xian Zhang. The album won in the “Best Classical Instrumental Solo” category, for Jennifer Higdon’s Concerto 4-3, and in the “Best Contemporary Classical Composition” category.

Double-bassist Daniel Krekeler ’99MM won as a member of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra for a performance of Terrance Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin.

Bassoonist Dennis Michel ’77MM won as a member of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for a recording of Mason Bates’ Philharmonia Fantastique: The Making of the Orchestra. The recording, which was conducted by Edwin Outwater, won in the “Best Engineered Album, Classical” category.

Violinist Dominic Salerni ’11MM won as a member of the Attacca Quartet for a recording titled Evergreen, featuring music by composer Caroline Shaw ’07MM. That album won in the “Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance” category.

[Top] The Attacca Quartet at the 2023 GRAMMYs.

Donald M. Roberts receives Yale Medal

In November, Donald M. Roberts ’57BS received the Yale Medal, which is bestowed by the Yale Alumni Association for “outstanding individual service to the University.” Roberts led an effort through which the Class of ’57 endowed and helped formalize the School of Music’s Music in Schools Initiative.

In its announcement about this year’s Yale Medal recipients, the YAA explained, “As founder of the Music in the Schools Initiative at the Yale

School of Music, Roberts began a now-thriving program that has enhanced music education for more than one thousand New Haven Public Schools students and counting. His generous personal donation to the Class of 1957 Music Endowment led many of his fellow classmates to join him in support of music in public schools.”

The endowment’s inception can be traced back to the Class of ’57’s 40th reunion, in 1997. Roberts was class secretary, and he and his classmates wanted to provide support for a “worthy cause.” The Class of ’57, Roberts said, was also driven to “strengthen the association between Yale and the City of New Haven.”

Over the course of a decade, a program was conceived that included a partnership with the New Haven Public Schools, a biennial Symposium on Music in Schools designed to recognize music educators across the United States for their excellence, and a faculty position at the School of Music whose curricular focus was community engagement. On the occasion of its 50th reunion, the Class of ’57 made a gift to the School with which to fund the initiative. Today, more than a thousand young musicians from the New Haven Public Schools have been mentored by graduate students from the School of Music whose work supports the certified public music educators in the local public-school district.

“I vividly recall the class meeting in November 1997 at which Don and his classmates outlined a vision for a national arts policy that would ensure the birthright of music for all children in America,” School of Music Dean Robert Blocker wrote in a letter nominating Roberts for a Yale Medal. “None of us could have begun to imagine the impact that the Initiative has had as a national model and lodestar for diversity, equity, and inclusion in city schools.”

Roberts, speaking understatedly on behalf of the Class of ’57, said, “Microscopically, I think we’ve helped.” Reflecting on performances by students who’ve participated in the Initiative, Roberts said he and his classmates “marvel at each other.” The program today, he said, is “a lot bigger than when we started. There have been other efforts in other cities around the country to replicate the New Haven teaching scheme.”

[Bottom] Donald Roberts.

In memoriam Emily Anne Payne

Emily Anne Payne ’99MM died peacefully on August 22, 2022, in Los Angeles, CA. Daughter of Serena and Robert Blocker and an alumna of the Yale School of Music, Emily’s talent and intellect were extraordinary, and she nurtured them with care and curiosity.

Born in Atlanta, GA, Emily earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from UCLA in 1997 and her Master of Music degree from the Yale School of Music in cello performance in 1999. She also earned the California Professional Multiple Subject Credential, K-12 and the California Certification for Gifted and Talented.

At Yale, she performed, recorded, and toured with the Yale Cellos and sang with the Yale Camerata. Emily spent summers at Banff studying with her beloved cello professor, Aldo Parisot. A consummate artist, Emily’s passion for making music as a cellist and singer was admired and respected by peers and faculty alike.

A dedicated teacher, Emily possessed the exceptional ability to inspire a class while offering additional guidance to students who needed it most, and she was a trusted advocate for children and parents whose voices are marginalized.

Peter E. Derheimer ’88MM

Rosamond Hamlin

Neil K. Keen ’80MM

Michaela M. Paetsch ’84

Emily A. Payne ’99MM

Kenneth N. Price ’90MM

Gerard Rosa ’60BM ’62MM

M.L. Spratlan, Jr. ’62BA ’65MM

John D. Weinland ’65BA ’69MM

Emily’s lifelong commitment to service is reflected in her selection as the national 2017 recipient of Kappa Delta sorority’s Order of the Pearl. She was a member of the YSM alumniVentures committee and a member of the School’s Student Advisory Council. Emily served her community in Los Angeles through engagement with the UCLA Medical Center Neuroscience Unit, the Children’s Community School, and by singing in the All Saints Episcopal Church Beverly Hills Choir for more than 20 years.

Emily’s life was celebrated in services at All Saints Episcopal Church in Beverly Hills and the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in Atlanta.

[Top] Emily Anne Payne. Photo courtesy of her family.

Gifts in Emily’s memory can be made to the Yale School of Music.

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

[Bottom] Peter Derheimer.

Honor roll

The School of Music is grateful for the generous support of its alumni and friends. The following individuals made a contribution between May 31, 2022 and March 31, 2023. To make your gift, please visit yale.edu/givemusic.

Alumni Fund

Kent R. Adams

Ole Akahoshi ’95CERT ’97MM

Judith R. Alstadter ’66MM ’72MMA ’75DMA

Gregory N. Anderson ’08MMA ’13DMA

Katharine Strenge Anderson ’84MM

David B. Angell ’84MM

Richard A. Appelgren ’94AD

Dmitri Atapine ’05MMA ’06AD ’10DMA

Halina D. Avery ’96MM

Eliot T. Bailen ’80MM ’82MMA ’89DMA

Amanda Dawn Baker ’00MM

Howard N. Bakken ’67MM

David B. Baldwin ’73MM ’74MMA ’79DMA

Anthony Joseph Bancroft ’95MM

Cecylia B. Barczyk ’79MM

Geoffrey W. Barnes ’74MM

James R. Barry ’83MM

Julie Anne Bates ’94MM

Alexander Sylvain Bauhart ’99MMA

David A. Behnke ’77MM

Mark E. Bergman ’97MM

Amy Feldman Bernon ’91MM

George S. Blackburn, Jr. ’64BA ’67MM

Sara Lambert Bloom ’68MM

Ronald A. Borror ’67MM ’73MMA ’78DMA

Michael C. Borschel ’74MMA ’79DMA

Ryan J. Brandau ’06MM ’07MMA ’11DMA

Anna Kay Rachel Brathwaite ’03MM

Betsy Adler Brauer ’84MM

Susan S. Breitung ’86MM

Inbal Segev Brener ’93CERT ’98MM

Mark Allen Brombaugh ’77MMA ’83DMA

Anthony Carlisle Brooks ’03MM

Karen L. Burlingame ’85MM

K. Butler-Hopkins ’78MMA ’82DMA

Jesús Castro-Balbi ’99MM

Susan Chan ’90MM

Violeta N. Chan-Scott ’84MM

Tien-Min Chou

Gene J. Collerd ’73BA ’74MM

Rosemary Colson ’65MM

Charlotte M. Corbridge

Noah J. Cotler ’14MM

Ronald A. Crutcher ’72MMA ’79DMA

Edward H. Cumming, III ’84MM ’85MMA ’92DMA

Ralph P. D’Mello ’62MM

Richard L. De Baise ’67MM ’70MMA

Preethi I. de Silva ’71MMA ’76DMA

Deborah Dewey ’79MM

Dominick DiOrio, III ’08MM ’09MMA ’12DMA

Michael John Diorio, III ’02MM

Patrick J. Durbin ’15MM

Robert A. Elhai ’86MM ’88MMA ’95DMA

Anonymous ’87MM

Joan Osborn Epstein ’76MM

Helen B. Erickson ’69MM

Reena Maria Esmail ’11MM ’14MMA ’18DMA

Eduardo Espinel ’03MM ’04AD

Ethel H. Farny ’66MM

Alan K. Fetzer ’81MM

Michael G. Finegold ’68MM ’69MMA

Geoffrey Fuller ’67BA ’69MM

Richard J. Gard ’02MM ’04MMA ’07DMA

Richard J. Gard ’02MM ’04MMA ’07DMA

Daniel Tran Gien ’94 ’96MM

Jay L. Gitlin ’71BA ’74MM ’82MA ’02PhD

Alexander Glantz ’93

Richard H. Goering ’86MM

Hall N. Goff ’75MM

Jie Gong ’07MM

Daniel M. Graham ’63MM

Carol Colburn Grigor ’69MMA

Barbara J. Hamilton-Primus ’86MMA ’93DMA

June Young Han ’96MM ’97AD

Edward Duffield Harsh ’88MM ’92MMA ’95DMA

Robert L. Hart ’74MM

Troy Matthew Hascall ’04MM

Eva Marie Heater ’91MM

Dennis Helmrich ’64 ’66MM

Andrew Elliot Henderson ’01MM

Leonardo Hiertz ’00CERT ’05MM

Ella A. Holding ’57BM ’58MM

Melissa Hopwood ’98MM

William G. Hoyt, Jr. ’76MM

Hsing-Ay Hsu Kellogg ’01MM

Mary Wannamaker Huff ’01MM

Helen K. Hui ’69MM

Paul Abraham Jacobs ’02MM ’03AD

Nancy Dae Jin ’02MM

Wenbin Jin ’13MM ’09CERT ’15AD

Boyd M. Jones, II ’77MM ’78MMA ’84DMA

Jennie Eun-Im Jung ’01MM ’02AD

Julie Elizabeth Jung ’02AD

Marie Jureit-Beamish ’81MM ’83MMA ’85DMA

[Facing page] Sō Percussion returned to the Oneppo Chamber Music Series during the 2022–2023 season.

Photo by Matt Fried.

Igor Kalnin ’10AD

Daniel Dixon Kellogg ’01MM ’03MMA ’07DMA

Aaron Jay Kernis ’83

Richard E. Killmer ’67MM ’71MMA ’75DMA

Nayeon Kim ’12MM ’13AD

Dong-Geun Kim ’09AD

John T. King ’85MM

Karen A. Kmetzo ’79MPh

Daniel Phillip Knopf ’99MM

Richard A. Konzen ’76MM ’77MMA ’84DMA

Ronald H. Krasney ’75BA

David M. Kurtz ’80MM

Sarita Kit Yee Kwok ’05MMA ’06AD ’09DMA

Christian Mark Lane ’08MM

Theresa E. Langdon ’79MM

David Lasker ’72BA ’74MM

Ronald Ling-Fai Lau ’95MM

Jenny J. Lee ’18MM

Genevieve Feiwen Lee ’89MM ’90MMA ’94DMA

Christopher Matthew Lee ’02MM

Kangho Lee ’96MM

William B. Lepler ’80MM

Stephane Levesque ’95MM

Linda T. Lienhard ’62MM

Jahja Wang-Chieh Ling ’80MMA ’85DMA

Jaroslaw Lis ’92MM ’94AD

Donald Glenn Loach ’53BM ’54MM

Jo Ann B. Locke ’54BM

Vincent F. Luti ’67MM ’70MMA ’78DMA

Maija M. Lutz ’63MM

Xinhua Ma ’87MM

Anita La Fiandra MacDonald ’70MM

Matthew Lee Mainster ’10MM

Dennis P. Malone ’84MM

Robert C. Mann ’64MM

Robert M. Manthey ’01MM

Sheila A. Marks ’60MM

Katherine Mireille Mason ’04MM

Lyman McBride ’20MM

Marjorie J. McClelland

Charles M. McKnight ’73MM

Edmund J. Milly ’15MM

Chouhei Min ’72MMA

Pamela Getnick Mindell ’99MM ’00MMA ’05DMA

Michael David Mizrahi ’03MM ’04MMA ’08DMA

Joanna C. Mongiardo ’98MM

Grant R. Moss ’82MM ’83MMA ’91DMA

David Henry Nadal ’95MM

Hando Nahkur ’06CERT ’08MM

Kathryn L. Nichols ’77MM

Peter J. Nikiforuk ’87MM ’88MMA ’94DMA

Abigail Andrews Nims ’07AD

Alan M. Ohkubo ’14MM ’15AD

William A. Owen, III ’79MM

Sun-A Park ’16AD ’17MMA

Hye-Yeon Park ’05MM ’06AD

J. Reid Patterson, Jr. ’76MM

Aaron M. Peisner ’16MM

Julian V. Pellicano ’07MM ’09MM

Sarah Marie Perkins ’07MM

Kimberley Shelley Perlak ’01MM

Stephen B. Perry ’81MM

Gregory M. Peterson ’85MM

Kirsten Peterson ’90MM

Kevin J. Piccini ’85MM

Joseph W. Polisi ’73MM ’75MMA ’80DMA ’14MDh

Benjamin Carey Poole ’90MM

James H. Pyle ’78MM

Robert J. Redvanly ’80MM

Lois Wetzel Regestein ’61MM

Mark J. Richards ’81MM

Hildred E. Roach ’62MM

Kay George Roberts ’75MM ’76MMA ’86DMA

Dale Thomas Rogers ’76MM

Svend J. Ronning ’91MM ’93MMA ’97DMA

Linda L. Rosdeitcher ’59BM

Werner G. Rose ’61MM

Melissa Kay Rose ’85MM

Donald S. Rosenberg ’76MM ’77MMA

Bernard Rubenstein ’61MM

Jason Arthur Rubinstein ’88CERT ’91MM

Janna Leigh Ryon ’00MM

Robert Scott Satterlee ’89MMA ’94DMA

Elizabeth B. Schurgin ’07BA ’08MM

Permelia S. Sears ’74MM

Frank Shaffer, Jr. ’73MM ’75MMA ’80DMA

Joseph Shields ’00MM

Jill Shires ’70MMA

Alvin Shulman ’65MM

Bryan R. Simms ’66BA ’69MM ’70MPhil ’71PhD

Kenneth D. Singleton ’74MM ’75MMA ’81DMA

James Austin Smith ’08MM

Jennifer Louise Smith ’88MM

Rheta R. Smith ’65MM

Timothy Charles Snyder ’99MM

Tram Sparks ’98MMA ’03DMA

Timothy Dale Spelbring ’05MM

Philip D. Spencer ’77MM

Daniel J. Stepner ’72MMA ’78DMA

Julie Margaret Stoner ’72MM

Margaret A. Strahl ’56BM ’57MM

Pamela Sverjensky ’79MM

Brennan Dale Szafron ’00MM

Derek Saiho Tam ’11BA

Kiyoshi Tamagawa ’83MM

Timothy D. Taylor ’85MM

Debra Ann Thalberg ’91MM

Anthony C. Tommasini ’70BA

Michael C. Tusa ’75BA ’76MM

Ian Tuski ’15MM

Joyce M. Ucci ’63MM

Rachel Faye Van Voorhees ’80MM

Antoinette C. Van Zabner ’74MM ’75MMA

John P. Varineau ’78MM

Ferenc Xavier Vegh, Jr. ’92MM

Raymond Vun Kannon ’53BA ’54BM ’55MM

Cheryl Rita Wadsworth ’95MM

Althea M. Waites ’65MM

Alumni spotlight Dashon Burton

Dashon Burton ’11MM is a Grammy Awardwinning bass-baritone who’s appeared with such acclaimed ensembles as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and Seattle Symphony, at the Salzburg Festival, and with the choral group Roomful of Teeth. Burton studied at Yale with James Taylor, Simon Carrington, and Masaaki Suzuki, all of whom, Burton said, “brought such a welcoming spirit to music-making.” In addition to performing, Burton serves as Assistant Professor of Voice at Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music. When he is not onstage or in the teaching studio, Burton spends time studying aviation and learning about physics, reading, and enjoying comedy.

Derrick Li Wang ’08MM

Elizabeth Ward ’70MMA

Abby N. Wells ’67MM

Donald F. Wheelock ’66MM

Joseph L. Wilcox ’66MM

Christopher P. Wilkins ’81MM

Rodney A. Wynkoop ’73BA ’80MMA ’85DMA

Wei-Yi Yang ’95MM ’96AD ’99MMA ’04DMA

Kyung Hak Yu ’87MM

Concert Series and Patron Programs

Nina R. Adams ’69MS ’77MSN

Susan S. Addiss ’69MUS ’69MPh

Mary Alsop

Laura and Victor Altshul ’60MD

Gabriel Assumpcao ’22MPhil ’22MS

Linda and Roger Astmann

Henry E. Auer

Arnaud Augert

Christopher Avallone

Irma Bachman

William S. Barbee

Joan Barere

William P. Batsford ’89MAh

Claudia Bauer

Richard W. Beals ’60BA ’62MA ’64PhD

Laura Berry

Joan and Henry Binder ’78MAh

Serena and Robert Blocker ’95MAh

Georg’Ann Bona

Read a Q&A with Burton on the YSM website: music.yale.edu/news/ alumni-spotlight-bassbaritone-dashon-burton

Kathleen G. Bradley

Dorothea Brennan

Susan and Leslie Brisman ’79MAh

Anonymous

Robert A. Burt

Grace C. Burton

Maxamil Carlino

Felipe Carrasco-Tenezaca

Roseann Chatterton

Jeanne Chinard

Frank M. Colarusso

Roseline G. Crowley ’76PhD

Douglas J. Crowley ’63BA

Cynthia F. Cummiskey ’85BA

Michael Davidson

Jerome Delamater

Elizabeth M. Dock

Mildred A. Doody ’85JD

Robert Duguay

Richard H. Dumas

Maile Dyer

Erik Elligers

Ray C. Fair ’79MAh

Neda Farid

Delaney B. Farris

Terry S. Flagg

Madlyn and Richard Flavell

Steven David Fraade ’89MAh

Ralph W. Franklin

Michael A. Gantt

Gary W. Gara

Howard Garland ’73MAh

Peter S. Garsztecki

Smaranda Gata-Lungu

Arvand Golbazi

Richard E. Goldberg

Carolyn P. Gould

Angela Gourchane

Lauretta Grau

Elizabeth Greenspan ’76BA

Mary J. Greer ’78BA ’86MA

Eduardo A. Groisman ’11MAh

Elizabeth Haas

Timothy Hampford

Alexandru Harabagiu

Reiko Hashimoto

James Hatch

Robert Heimer ’80MS ’88PhD

Reinier Hesselink

Gwenith Heuss-Severance

Mary-Michelle Hirschoff ’70llB

Jay L. Hirshfield ’68MAh

Thomas R. Holahan

Penn Holsenbeck ’68BA

Peter Hunt

Francesco Iachello ’78MAh

Robert A. Jaeger

Nelson Johnson

Samuel Jungeblut

Shun-ichiro Karato ’01MAh

Alan Katz

Ivan M. Katz

Barbara Keefe

Ted R. Killiam

Robert Kleibohmer

Joan and Alan Kliger

Daniel R. Kopti

Florence H. Kovacevic

Alicia F. Laguarda

Ann R. Langdon

Constance and Joseph LaPalombara

Kathrin D. Lassila ’81BA

Lleana Licona

George Lister ’73MD

Zhao Liu

Tony Lombardozzi

Elizabeth N. Lowery ’78MAR

Deborah Madzik

Maurice J. Mahoney ’82MAh

Margaret B. Mann

Ann H. Marlowe

Diana Martinez-Saucedo

Denize V. Martins

Matthew McCaffrey

Jane F. Meditz ’17MAR

Teresa J. Mensz

John Merriman

Elizabeth D. C. Meyer

Irene Miller

Alexa Moya

Leonard Munstermann

Danny J. Nackan ’22MPhil ’22MS

Karla Neugebauer ’13MAh

Ilias Nikolakopoulos

Barbara and William Nordhaus ’63BA ’73MAh

Roy Ogren

A. David Paltiel ’85MBA ’89MA ’89MPhil ’92PhD

Bettina Patterson

Nancy A. Pelaez

John F. Pell

Lisa Peterson

Andrew Petracco

E. Anthony Petrelli ’61BA

Richard L. Petrelli ’65BA ’68MPh

Baruh Polis

Soenje Reiche

Cristin ’88MEM and David Rich ’83BA

W. Dean Rupp, Jr. ’65PhD

Paul Schultz

Erik M. Selmquist

Paul H. Serenbetz

Diane Sholomskas

Lorraine D. Siggins

Clifford L. Slayman ’83MAh

Alan C. Solomon

Richard Sonder

Wilma Stahura

Violette Takahashi

Michael J. Tessman ’73MDiV

David D. Thompson

Patricia Thurston

Lisa and David Totman ’61BA ’65llB

Suzanne Tucker

Antoinette Tyndall ’79MSN

Victor Thang Vu ’02BA ’05MDiV

Yifan Wang

Yilei Wang

Mary-Jo Warren

Abby N. Wells ’67MM

Jennifer Werner

Elizabeth R. Whitney

Roy H. Wiseman ’76MM

Elizabeth Anne and Werner Wolf ’65MAh

Kyle J. Wood

Jerónimo E. Yepes

Michael A. Zuber ’14MM

Endowed Scholarship, Support, and Resource Funds

Denise and Stephen Adams ’59BA

Preston G. Athey ’71BA

Halina D. Avery ’96MM

Nancy Marx Better ’84BA

Serena and Robert Blocker ’95MAh

Mary Beth and Walter Buck

Allison Butler

Donna M. Cable

David C. Cansler ’74BA

Nancy and H. Capers Cross

Joanne Lipman Distler ’83BA

Jayson Rodovsky Engquist ’96MM

Daniel Tran Gien ’94BS ’96MM

John M. Graziano ’66MM ’70MPhil ’75PhD

Edward J. Greenberg ’59BA

Mary J. Greer ’78BA ’86MA

Helen Chung-Halpern and Abel Halpern ’88BA

Ruth A. Hashimoto

Ruth and Stephen Hendel ’73BA

John A. Herrmann, Jr. ’57BA

Elinor Hoover ’89BA

Hammer Huang

Patrick Hie Young Jee ’99CERT ’03MM

Molly S. Joyce ’17MM

Anne-Marie Soulliére and Lindsey Chao-Yun Kiang ’64BA ’68llB

Jane ’72MPhil ’75PhD and Richard Levin ’72MPhil ’74PhD

Stephanie Yu Lim ’00BA

Paige E. Macklin ’69MM

Richard J. Martz

David McConnell

Lester S. Morse, Jr. ’51BA

Kimberley S. Perlak ’01MM

Eugene A. Pinover

Arnold L. Polinger ’68BS

Linda S. Reinfeld ’67MM

Alison F. Richard ’86MAh

Donald M. Roberts ’57BS

David N. Rosen ’69llB

Melanie and Jean Salata

Irving Sitnick

Jane Spangler

Richard S. Steen ’72MMA ’78DMA

Stephen M. Wittenberg ’57BA

Morris Steinert Collection of Musical Instruments

M. Teresa Beaman ’81BA ’82MM

Serena and Robert Blocker ’95MAh

Emile L. Boulpaep ’79MAh

Kevin Brodie

Anne and Guido Calabresi ’53BS ’58llB ’62MAh

Grace Clark

Victoria K. DePalma†

Jeffrey S. Kahn ’70BA

Richard D. Kaplan ’66MS ’68MPhil ’70PhD

Craig Kridel

Elias Nicholas Kulukundis ’54BA

Thomas G. MacCracken ’73BA

Craig A. Monson ’66BA

E. Anthony Petrelli ’61BA

William Purvis

Rodney J. Regier

Alan D. Seget ’71BA

Alan Steinert, Jr.

Stephanie L. Wiles and Jeff C. Rubin

Music in Schools Initiative

James M. Banner, Jr. ’57BA

Hope Childs

Thomas S. Chittenden ’57BA

William F. Eaton ’57BA

Jefferson Freeman ’57BA

Maria Hammons

Elvira and Richard Miller

Robert S. Walker ’57BA

Yale Summer School of Music/ Norfolk Chamber Music Festival

Emily Aber and Robert Wechsler

Mary M. Ackerly ’77JD and Michael Sconyers

Bernard R. Adams ’69llB

Joyce Ahrens

Kathy Albano and Paul Stranieri

Morel and Jeffrey C. Alexander ’01MAh

Peter Andrighetti

Vincent D. Andrus ’63BA

Anonymous

Janet B. Ansbro

Linda and Roger Astmann

Alan B. Astrow ’76BA ’80MD

Linda M. Austin

Joanna Aversa and Christopher M. Ursini

Elizabeth Bailey

Emily P. Bakemeier

Carolyn A. Barber ’92MM

Beverly Bartow and James Stengel

John J. Batten

Francis Baudry

Astrid and John E. Baumgardner, Jr. M. Teresa Beaman ’81BA ’82MM

John R. Beecher ’84MPh

Frank B. Bell

Joanne and Warren S. Bender

Anne Marie and Jonathan Berger

Estelle and Charles Berthiaume

Donald A. Bickford ’66BS

Lori Black

Serena and Robert Blocker ’95MAh

Sara and Les Bluestone

Jeannie and Edward Boehner

Elizabeth Bradford Borden ’04MEM

Candace Bowes and David Kurtz ’80MM

D. Weston Boyd

John W. Buckman ’83MAh

Margaret E. Burnett

Ann and Robert Buxbaum

Steven B. Callahan ’74BA and Randall R. Dwenger

Carol A. Camper and John Hartje

Fiorella Canin

James J. Capra, Jr. ’75BA

Susan E. Carpenter

Vincent Casey

Susan L. Caughman ’83MBA and Gerry Goodrich

Oscar G. Chase ’63JD

Melvin Chen ’91BS

Marlene and John W. Childs ’65BA

Hope Childs

Marvin L. Chin

Marjorie and Roger Clarke

Mary Lou Cobb

Peter Coffeen and Stephen Getz

Ellen Cohen and Steven David Fraade ’89MAh

Lewis G. Cole ’54llB

Suzanne and Edward Colt

George Cronin

Martha J. Crutchfield and Robert Hobbs

Hope Dana and John Perkins ’84MARCh

Robert A. Dance ’80MAR and Robert B. Loper

Donna and Richard Davis

Allan J. Dean

Anne Dennery

Andrew G. DeRocco

Katharine and Rohit Desai

Karen DiYanni ’96MM ’97AD

Elizabeth and Thomas Dubbs

Louise Ducas

Dalton G. Dwyer

Daryl W. Eaton

Jane Edwards and Humphrey Tonkin

Susan and Jon Eisenhandler

Paul Ellner

Fleur E. Fairman ’78BA and Timothy Wallach

Roselee and Nicholas Fanelli

Mary E. Fanette and Veronica Burns

Mary Kay and William E. Flowers

Alison B. Fox

Larita and Lawrence Freedman

Hugh J. Freund

Judith N. Friedlander

Deborah and Michael Friedmann

Sara Frischer

William Fuller

Adrienne Gallagher and James Nelson

John C. Garrels, III ’61BA

Linda Garrettson

Catherine Gevers

Justin Giampaolo

Elisabeth C. Gill

Sharon and David Gilmore

Ellen D. Glass

Dotty Smith and Lionel Goldfrank, III ’65BA

Danielle Greenberg

William and Mary Greve Foundation

Barbara Gridley

Madelon and Jerald Grobman

Judith and Morton E. Grosz

Sally and Larry Hannafin

William C. Harrop

Dorothy Hatch

Jane Henry

Barbara and Gerald Hess

Mary and Peter Hess

Judith and David Howard ’70BA

Daphne Hurford and Sandy Padwe

Marcie Imberman

Colta and Gary Ives

Leila and Daniel Javitch

Helen Jessup

Lane Kendig

Doreen and Michael Kelly

Joseph G. Kelly

Galene and Richard H. Kessin ’66BA

Anne-Marie Soulliére and Lindsey Chao-Yun

Kiang ’64BA ’68llB

Charles Kimball

Elizabeth Kitridge and Christopher Little ’71BA

Sara M. Knight

Diane and David Kopp

Myron L. Kwast

Robert Blocker

Henry and Lucy Moses Dean of Music

Serving our School of Music and Yale University as the Henry and Lucy Moses Dean of Music has been an unimaginable privilege and joy ...

What makes this School truly special to me are the people who have taught, studied, performed, and worked here.

[Facing page] Horn player William Sands ’24MM rehearses with peers.

Photo by Sara Gardner.

Sandra Landau and Richard Rippe

Kathrin D. Lassila ’81BA

Robert E. Lee

Susan and Douglas Lint

Nicholas W. Lobenthal ’83BA

John E. Long

Pepe Lopez

David N. Low, Jr. ’87MPPM

Albert J. Macchioni ’71BA ’75JD

Susan MacEachron and Michael Halloran

Caitlin Macy ’92BA and Jeremy Barnum

Paul Madore and Thomas Hlas

Ernest Malecki

Joan and Chris Maloney

Lenore H. Mand

Tom Martin

Judith and Ronald Maxwell

William B. McKeown

Standish Meacham ’54BA

Noel Melliza

Ruth and Stephen Melville

Patricia Nooy and Roger W. Miller

Mary E. Miller ’78MA ’80MPhil ’81PhD

Andrea and Robert M. Milstein ’70BA ’78PhD ’81MD

Roger Mitchell and Frank Peterson

Deborah and Timothy Moore

Bethany and Frank Morelli

Jeffrey Morrison

Andra Moss and Peter Chaffetz

Jeanne and James Moye

Jacqueline Ann Muschiano and Jonathan J. Silbermann

Valerie Nelson

Michael D. Nicastro

Norfolk Artists and Friends

Grace Noyes

Maureen and Michael O’Connor ’56BS

Eric G. Olsen ’84MS

Frances Pascale

Jennifer Perga

Catherine Perga

Susan Pinsky and Marc Rosen

Paul R. Provost

Sally and Andrew C. Quale, Jr.

Donna and Dennis Randall

Margo Rappoport and Michael J. Emont ’74JD

Nancy and James Remis

Susan and Peter Restler

Andrew Ricci

Cristin ’88MEM and David Rich ’83BA

Melissa Robinson

Philida Rosnick

Marion H. Sachdeva

Claire and Jeremy Sachs

Linda and Raleigh D. Sahl

Anita E. Saman

Elizabeth A. Scheel

Elizabeth Schorr and Eric Grossman

Marla Schreibman

Benjamin Leo Schrom ’04BA

Harvey Schussler

Joyce S. Schwartz

Michael K. Selleck

Harriet Schelare and Thomas R. Shachtman

Dee and Stanley Shapiro

Judith and Joel Sherman

Kathleen Sherrill

David A. Shifrin

Julia Shin and Tano Santos

Nelson Sly

Ileene Smith and Howard Sobel

Elizabeth and David Sollors

Marcia and Robert Sparrow

Monica Spencer ’91BA

Barbara Spiegel and Tom Hodgkin

Michael Spies

Bruce Stein ’80BA

Roxann Steinberg

Abbe and Peter Steinglass

J. W. Streett

Frederica M. Sulzbacher

G. A. Swibold and Richard E. Swibold

Martin J. Tandler

Steven Tepper

Nicholas S. Thacher ’67BA

Sarah M. Thacher ’98MDiV

Roger Tilles

Jack E. Triplett

Amy and David Troyansky

Sandra and David Van Buren

Patricia and Herbert A. Vance, Jr. ’65BA

Sally and William Vaun

Nancy H. Wadelton

Nancy R. Wadhams

Annick and Eliot Wadsworth

Susan Wagner

Alexandra Walcott

Tania and Mark A. Walker ’66llB

Eric Wanner

Mary-Jo Warren

Kim Welch and David Levin

Abby N. Wells ’67MM

Kate Wenner and Gilbert Eisner

Phyllis and William N. White

Susannah and Willard Wood

Helene Young

Hua gu, unknown maker of southern Shanxi Province, early 20th century (Chinese, 20th century). Collection number: US.NH.y 2050.1972. This Chinese ‘flower drum’ is painted with a dragon and Chinese characters. The folk art form ‘Flower Drum Lantern’ (Hua Gu Deng) combines dance, drama, song and percussion music, originally a rural folk seasonal tradition, has made its way to the stages of Chinese opera and the American Broadway musical.

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