Music at Yale - Alumni Magazine

Music at Yale 2011-2012

Tokyo Quartet Closes 44-Year History Norfolk Receives Restoration Grant Challenges and Opportunities in Today’s Classical Music World

Career strategies advice

Sight-impaired musicians succeed

The Academy inspires alumni

Contents

School of Music News

2

Concert News

6

Norfolk Festival Awarded $1.5 Million for Historic Preservation

9

Classical Music Today: Balancing Challenges with Opportunities

10

Seeing Through Barriers

13

Alumni Find Inspiration in The Academy

16

News from the Music in Schools Initiative

18

Faculty News

22

alumniVentures 2011–12 Award Winners

24

Student and Alumni News

25

In Memoriam

32

Contributors 33

1

Tokyo String Quartet to retire in 2013

The Tokyo String Quartet

The Tokyo String Quartet, which joined the faculty of the Yale School of Music as Artists-in-Residence in 1977, announced this spring that the concert season 2012–2013 will be its last.

Founded in 1969, the quartet – Martin Beaver, violin; Kikuei Ikeda, violin; Kazuhide Isomura, viola; and Clive Greensmith, cello – has become one of the world’s most distinguished chamber music ensembles. They have been performing over one hundred concerts each year across the globe, and have released more than 40 landmark recordings on labels including Harmonia Mundi, BMG/ RCA Victor Red Seal, Angel-EMI, CBS Masterworks, Deutsche Grammophon, and Vox Cum Laude. Their recordings have garnered seven Grammy nominations, the Grand Prix du Disque, and “Best Chamber Music Recording of the Year” awards from both Stereo Review and Gramophone magazines.

In announcing the quartet’s retirement from Yale and the international stage, Greensmith said: “It has been a humbling and extraordinary experience to be part of such an ensemble, but it is time to step away from the hectic travel schedule and allow each of us the opportunity to pursue our individual performing and teaching interests.” In a statement, the ensemble said, “We have had a wonderful season, and we like to feel, as we look forward to our next (and last) season as a quartet, that we have never played better.”

Dean Robert Blocker commented: “For over 35 years, the Tokyo Quartet has been an integral part of the fabric of our School. Their artistry on the concert stage is matched by their passion for the string quartet literature and their dedication to nurturing the musicians of tomorrow. We are grateful for their friendship and for their transformative contributions to the Yale School of Music.”

The Tokyo Quartet’s final concert will take place at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, the summer home of the Yale School of Music, in June 2013.

2

Under Purvis’s leadership, the Collection has begun live-streaming all its concerts. A solo harpsichord recital

by Masaaki Suzuki in April 2011 was the first event streamed live from the gallery performance space. The Collection now offers free live streams of its Sunday afternoon concert series as well as special events during the year.

New ensemble, Yale Choral Artists

The Yale School of Music and the Yale Glee Club announced last August the organization of a new professional choral ensemble, the Yale Choral Artists.

The Yale Choral Artists are a projectbased ensemble comprised of leading professional singers from around the country and will be directed by School of Music faculty member Jeffrey Douma.

Since 2003, Douma has directed the undergraduate Yale Glee Club, which the New York Times praised as “one of the best collegiate singing ensembles, and one of the most adventurous.”

Dean Robert Blocker said, “The Yale Choral Artists will enhance and enrich the School’s commitment to the choral arts. Gifted singers from throughout the nation will not only bring a new artistic voice to our concert programs but also mentor Yale undergraduate and graduate students.”

The ensemble’s first two projects, both in 2012, included a February program with guest conductor William Christie ’74MM in Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall, and a June program of contemporary American music at the Yale International Choral Festival.

Sanford Medals awarded to Wang, Christie, Polisi William Purvis

Purvis appointed director of Collection of Musical Instruments In March of 2011, William Purvis was appointed as the Director of the Yale Collection of Musical Instruments.

Purvis, a horn player, conductor, and educator, had been serving as the Interim Director of the Collection since 2008.

After several years as a faculty artist at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival/ Yale Summer School of Music, Purvis joined the Yale School of Music faculty in 1999. In 2003, Purvis became the Coordinator of Winds and Brass, and in the 2008–09 concert season he was the artistic director of Messiaen Centenary Celebration at Yale.

Dean Blocker said, “In the transitional period that Bill Purvis served as Interim Director, the Collection enhanced its artistic offerings, took measures to preserve and sustain its holdings, and engaged the Yale and professional communities in its activities.” Blocker cited Purvis’s leadership, his broad musical interests, and his commitment to the Collection as compelling reasons for the appointment.

3

This spring, Dean Robert Blocker presented the Sanford Medal, the School of Music’s highest honor, to three highly distinguished alumni “for distinguished service to music.”

Cellist Jian Wang ’88CERT, whom Dean Robert Blocker called “one of the leading cellists of our age,” received the medal before performing Haydn’s Cello Concerto in C major with the Yale Philharmonia on February 24. Aldo Parisot, Wang’s former teacher and mentor, guest conducted the concerto.

Blocker noted, “Wang’s distinctive musical voice sings through his cello with a profound sense of the human spirit, regardless of the work or its historical context.”

Early music pioneer William Christie ’69MM received the Sanford Medal on February 25, before leading the Yale Philharmonia, Yale Baroque Ensemble, and the new Yale Choral Artists in an all-Handel program. The program was presented that night in Morse Recital Hall and again to warm critical acclaim in Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall.

“William Christie is one of the world’s foremost interpreters of early music,” said Dean Blocker, “and his artistry is revealed through conducting that transforms the score, performers, and audiences alike. Rare is the artist who excels as performer, teacher, and scholar; Christie has earned that distinction.”

William Christie ’69MM rehearses the Yale Philharmonia and Yale Choral Artists.

Kevin Puts ‘96MM wins Pulitzer, Andrew Norman ‘09AD a finalist Yale School of Music graduate Kevin Puts ’96MM is the winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize in Music for his opera Silent Night.

Joseph Polisi ’73MM, ’75MMA, ’80DMA was awarded the Sanford Medal at Commencement on May 21. Polisi, the first bassoonist to earn the DMA degree from the School of Music, has been the president of The Juilliard School since 1984. His recordings include a solo album of twentieth-century music on Crystal Records, and his books, both published by Amadeus Press, are The Artist as Citizen (2005) and American Muse: The Life and Times of William Schuman (2008). In presenting the award, Dean Blocker noted Polisi’s “many accomplishments as performer, as author, as leader,” and continued: “We see in his work, over a span of a quarter century at Juilliard, the values inculcated during his student days at Yale: an interest in the world beyond music, a commitment to people who do not have accessibility to music, an interest in a much broader education for artists that are going to lead the musical enterprise throughout the world.”

Yaffe receives national award Associate Dean Michael Yaffe was honored by the National Guild for Community Arts Education last November. The award is offered to individuals who have given exceptional service to the National Guild and the community arts education movement.

Past recipients include Betty Allen, Lolita and Azim Mayadas, Robert Capanna, Stephen Shapiro, and Ed Farmilant. The National Guild for Community Arts Education, founded in 1937, is the sole national service organization for community arts education providers. The organization supports and advances access to lifelong learning opportunities in the arts. Yaffe was a member of the Guild’s board of trustees from 1999 to 2006 and is currently chair of the Accrediting Commission for Community and Precollege Arts Schools. He also served on the board of the National Association of Schools of Music and was chair of its non-degree-granting commission. Prior to coming to Yale in 2006, he served as executive director of the Hartt School of the University of Hartford for twenty years, greatly increasing its student population, expanding its faculty, and initiating new programs to make high quality arts education accessible to all.

Dean Blocker awards the Sanford Medal to Joseph Polisi ’80DMA. 4

The Pulitzer Prize in Music is awarded to a “distinguished musical composition by an American that has had its first performance or recording in the United States during the year.” This year’s citation called Silent Night “a stirring opera that recounts the true story of a spontaneous cease-fire among Scottish, French and Germans during World War I, displaying versatility of style and cutting straight to the heart.”

The multilingual libretto is by Mark Campbell. The opera, based on the 2005 film Joyeux Noël, was commissioned and premiered by the Minnesota Opera in Minneapolis in November, 2011.

After the premiere, the Star Tribune asserted, “The piece is a significant addition to the repertoire and heralds the emergence of composer Kevin Puts as a force in American opera.”

Opera News hailed Puts as “a master polystylist… With this remarkable debut, Puts assumes a central place in the American opera firmament.”

Silent Night is Puts’ first opera.

Another Yale School of Music graduate, Andrew Norman ’09AD, was among this year’s finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in Music. Norman was nominated for The Companion Guide to Rome, cited as “an impressive musical portrait of nine historic churches, written for a string trio but sometimes giving the illusion of being played by a much larger group, changing mood and mode on a dime.”

The piece premiered on November 13, 2011, in Salt Lake City and is published

by Schott Music.

Iseman Met Opera Broadcasts continue on campus The Yale community enjoyed a second year of free, on-campus broadcasts live from the Metropolitan Opera. The Iseman Broadcasts, made possible by a gift from Frederick Iseman ’74BA, debuted in the fall of 2010 after Morse Recital Hall was updated with new sound and projection technology.

Lobgesang for seven clarinets, written by faculty composer Joan Panetti ’74DMA for faculty emeritus Keith Wilson.

New York-area alumni gathered at Steinway Hall on April 17 for a reception and concert. Four alumni of the piano

program performed: Wen-Yin Chan ’04MM, ’06MMA, ’12DMA; Han-chien Lee ’05MMA, ’06AD; Mimi Solomon ’99BA; and Lucas Wong ’06MM, ’07MMA, ’12DMA. The School of Music plans to hold similar events in other cities in the future.

This season, the series presented eleven broadcasts live in HD. Over 4,000 free tickets were distributed to members of the Yale community, and even more went to students in local public schools.

“My seduction by opera began at Yale,” Iseman said when he made his gift in 2010. “The Met graciously gave this uncredentialed student reviewer from the now-defunct Yale Revue critic’s seats on the aisle. Don Giovanni, Rosenkavalier, Cavalleria Rusticana, Manon Lescaut, Pavarotti, and Birgit Nilsson all ignited my interest in an art form that, at its best, is overwhelming and takes one out of oneself… Sitting in a Met Opera board meeting watching a preview of the HD-TV season, I decided that I wanted every Yale student to experience what I had had and that the technology now permitted.”

Alumni gather at events in New Haven and New York The School of Music hosted two alumni gatherings this year, offering graduates the opportunity to mingle and reconnect to alumni from across the years. The first, in November, took place in New Haven. It began with a reception hosted by Dean Blocker at the Graduate Club and continued with a concert in Morse Recital Hall. The concert featured clarinet professor David Shifrin alongside several alumni and student performers, including clarinetist and former Deputy Dean Thomas Masse ’91MM, ’91AD. The program included the premiere of the complete version of

Astrid Baumgardner in the classroom.

Career Strategies Office created The School of Music launched its new Career Strategies Office in the 2011–2012 academic year. The initiative provides career coaching, resources, and programs that will assist School of Music students in launching and managing their careers. The School also appointed Astrid Baumgardner as Coordinator of Career Services and Lecturer. Baumgardner is a certified professional career coach and lawyer who works with professional musicians to help them create successful careers in the arts. The new Career Strategies Office offers career coaching sessions; seminars and workshops on career issues; access to job banks; and assistance with creating materials such as digital portfolios. Saturday Seminars bring leading thinkers in the arts to campus to discuss important issues facing musicians today.

A new class, Creating Financially Sustainable Careers in the Arts, teaches the entrepreneurial skills that artists and cultural leaders of the twentyfirst century need in order to create sustainable careers.

See page 10 for Astrid Baumgardner’s article on career strategies.

5

Concert News

Chamber music series renamed for Vincent Oneppo ’73MM The Chamber Music Society at Yale, one of the most popular concert series at the School of Music, has been freshly renamed the Oneppo Chamber Music Series. The new name honors Vincent Oneppo ’73MM, who served Yale throughout his rich career after studying clarinet with Keith Wilson.

Most recently, Oneppo was Director of Concerts and Media at the School and the editor of this magazine. “Numerous people,” noted Dean Robert Blocker, “are familiar with Vincent Oneppo’s vital role in directing the chamber music series over the years and in bringing many of the world’s finest performers to New Haven. Upon his retirement, it seemed fitting to honor both him and the series in this manner.”

Yale in New York The fifth season of Yale in New York offered four highly focused programs.

The series opened with Vocal Britain, a program of music by Benjamin Britten and William Walton. Faculty member Janna Baty ’93MM sang William Walton’s song cycle A Song for the Lord Mayor’s Table. Faculty hornist William Purvis and tenor Dann Coakwell ’11AD performed Britten’s Serenade with a string orchestra of current students.

The second half featured Walton’s Façade: An Entertainment, with Baty and actor John McDonough as reciters.

William Boughton, the music director of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra and an expert in the music of Walton, conducted.

Ransom Wilson conducts and Frank Morelli is the soloist in Gubaidulina’s Bassoon Concerto at Carnegie Hall.

The season continued with an allProkofiev program, presenting all nine piano sonatas in two back-to-back recitals. In February, William Christie ’69MM conducted the Philharmonia and the Yale Choral Artists in an all-Handel program. Details on these concerts can be found elsewhere in the magazine.

De Profundis: The Deep End, a concert of music for low instruments, closed the season. Faculty performers – including Frank Morelli, bassoon; Scott Hartman, trombone; Donald Palma, double bass; Ole Akahoshi ’95CERT, cello; and Ransom Wilson, conductor – were joined by students and alumni in music ranging from Schütz to Mozart to Bruckner to Gubaidulina. Feast of Music summarized the concert as “Deep, dark – and thoroughly satisfying.”

Students perform Prokofiev’s complete piano sonatas The School of Music presented the complete piano sonatas of Sergei Prokofiev last December to celebrate a new, definitive performance edition of the scores, edited by faculty member Boris Berman. The sonatas were divided into two recitals (Nos. 1, 2, 5, 9, and 4; and Nos. 6, 7, 8, and 3), and each pair of programs was presented first in Morse Recital Hall and then in Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall.

6

The pianists, selected through a schoolwide competition, were Naomi Woo ’13MM, Euntaek Kim ’13AD, David Fung ’12MMA, Esther Park ’12AD, Scott MacIsaac ’14CERT, Lee Dionne ’13MM, Larry Weng ’12AD, Melody Quah ’13AD, and Henry Kramer ’13AD. The New York Times wrote: “It was inspiring to explore this genre of Prokofiev’s work with a roster of gifted young pianists who had thrown themselves into the project.”

Yale Opera performs in Warsaw In April, singers of Yale Opera traveled to Warsaw, Poland to perform and record Montemezzi’s L’amore dei tre re at this year’s Beethoven Festival. Łukasz Borowicz conducted the concert performance of the opera, which also featured the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Warsaw Philharmonic Choir. Yale singers in the cast were soprano Sara Jakubiak ’06MM, ’07AD as Fiora; tenor Eric Barry ’10MM, ’11AD as Avito; tenor Jorge Prego ’12AD as Flaminio; and baritone David Pershall ’10MM, ’11AD as Manfredo.

L’Amore dei Tre Re is a opera in three acts by Italo Montemezzi (1864–1952).

The libretto is based on the tragic poem

by Sem Benelli. “This piece is rarely performed,” noted Eric Barry, “and has only two known recordings — three after ours is mastered and produced.” The performance took place in the Warsaw Philharmonic Concert Hall under the honorary patronage of the Ambassador of the United States of America, Lee Feinstein.

Jack Vees and Benjamin Verdery lead an improvisation workshop at the 2012 Guitar Extravaganza.

At home in New Haven, Yale Opera presented a new production of Cosí fan tutte in February. Justin Way directed the production, and Speranza Scappucci became the first woman to conduct a Yale Opera production. In April, the program presented a new production of Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia, with stage direction

by Vera Calabria and musical direction by Douglas Dickson and Timothy Shaindlin.

Yale Philharmonia takes on Beethoven, Baroque, more The Yale Philharmonia, under conductor Shinik Hahm, opened its season with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.

The orchestra was joined by the Yale Camerata, Yale Glee Club, and soloists

from Yale Opera. An enthiastic audience filled Woolsey Hall to capacity.

In February, the Yale Philharmonia worked with guest conductors Xu Zhong and William Christie on two programs of music for chamber orchestra. The first program, presented February 24 in Morse Recital Hall, offered the chamber arrangement of Mahler’s Symphony No. 4, with soprano Heather Buck ’96MM, and Haydn’s Cello Concerto in C major, with Jian Wang ’88CERT as the soloist and cello professor Aldo Parisot conducting.

Under early music specialist William Christie ’69MM, the Philharmonia performed two concerts that featured

the debut of the Yale Choral Artists. The members of the Yale Baroque Ensemble served as principal string players. The all-Handel program was performed both in Morse Recital Hall and, as part of the Yale in New York series, in Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall. The warm New York Times review singled out moments including the “fleet, immaculate and vivid rendition” of the overture to Solomon and the “stirring performance” of The King Shall Rejoice.

In the final concert of the season, the orchestra performed under Jahja Ling ’85DMA. Ling, the music director of the San Diego Symphony, led the orchestra in Dvorak’s Symphony No. 8 and works by Brahms and Ginastera.

Guitar Extravaganza returns for seventh success The seventh Yale Guitar Extravaganza, directed by faculty member Benjamin Verdery, took place on March 24.

The day-long Extravaganza featured performances by SoloDuo (Matteo Mela and Lorenzo Micheli), Kim Perlak ’01MM, Zaira Meneses, and the electric guitar quartet Dither (whose members include James Moore ’06MM). The day opened with performances by two youth ensembles: the Hartt Suzuki Guitar Ensemble, directed by David Madsen, and the Heritage High School Guitar Ensemble, directed by Kevin Vigil ’99MM. YSM students took part in master classes with Zaira Meneses and the members of SoloDuo. Educators Scott Cmiel, Daniel Corr ’01MM, ’02AD, Jeffrey

William Christie takes a bow.

7

Bassist Ron Carter performs on the Ellington Series.

McFadden, Perlak, Verdery, and Vigil came together for a panel discussion on the Future of Classical Guitar Pedagogy.

Other sessions featured faculty member Jack Vees and, in a talk held at the Yale Collection of Musical Instruments, luthier Gary Lee.

Norfolk Chamber Music Festival The Yale Summer School of Music/ Norfolk Chamber Music Festival celebrated another summer of education and performance. The season opened June 12 with a gala appearance by the renowned King’s Singers. The pianist Jeremy Denk, who has earned exceptional acclaim for his recording Jeremy Denk Plays Ives, performed Ives’s “Concord” Sonata. (Ives, a lifelong Connecticut resident, was a member of the Yale College Class of 1898.)

New Music New Haven features Steve Reich, Kaija Saariaho Steve Reich and Kaija Saariaho were the guest composers on the New Music New Haven concert series. The concert on March 29 featured two of Reich’s works: Proverb (1995) for voices, vibraphones, and electric organs, and Vermont Counterpoint (1982) for eleven flutes, for which faculty member Ransom Wilson led eleven of his current and former flute students.

On April 12, the concert featured Saariaho’s pieces Serenatas – a collection of five small pieces for cello, piano, and percussion – and Terrestre, a reworking for solo flute (with violin, cello, harp, and percussion) of the second movement of the flute concerto Aile du songe (Wing of Dream). Other NMNH concerts featured music by faculty composers Martin Bresnick, Aaron Jay Kernis, Ezra Laderman, David Lang, Ingram Marshall, and Chris Theofanidis alongside new pieces by student composers.

Ellington Series presents “A House Full of Rhythm” “The drum is central to American jazz music,” says Willie Ruff, the director of the Duke Ellington Fellowship at Yale.

“Without the drum, the language dies.”

With that in mind, Ruff dubbed the 2011–2012 Ellington season “A House Full of Rhythm.” That season opened with The Whole Drum Truth, a quartet of leading drummers from modern American jazz led by Albert “Tootie” Heath. Willie Ruff and multistyle violinist Mari Black ’06MM, ’07AD also performed. Pianist and arranger Toshiko Akiyoshi, who has been named an NEA Jazz Master, performed with her quartet, and the legendary bassist Ron Carter filled the house for his performance with guitarist Russell Malone and pianist Donald Vega. The season closed with drummer Matt Wilson and his band Arts and Crafts.

Watch Willie Ruff discuss rhythm: music.yale.edu/concerts/ellington

8

For the first time, dancers took the stage in the historic Music Shed: Full Force Dance Theater performed original choreography to Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du Soldat, conducted by faculty member Ransom Wilson. The 2011 season closed with another stellar guest ensemble, the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra under music director Nicholas McGegan. The festival also continued its decades-long tradition of providing professional, intensive training to gifted young musicians in three programs: the New Music Workshop, the Chamber Music Session, and the Chamber Choir and Choral Conducting Workshop. for more highlights of the 2011–2012 concert season, visit music.yale.edu/news/?tag=concerts

Norfolk Festival Awarded $1.5 Million for Historic Preservation An anonymous donor has contributed $1.5 million to jump-start the restoration of Norfolk’s Battell Stoeckel Estate. $500,000 will go toward the renovation of Whitehouse, the Battell family’s ancestral home, and $1,000,000 serves as a 2:1 challenge grant for the historic Music Shed.

“Needless to say, we are incredibly grateful,” said Paul Hawkshaw, director of the Norfolk Festival. “It is a wonderful shot in the arm for our ambition of restoring the entire estate to its early twentieth-century splendor.”

The Battell Stoeckel Trust will add $1 million to the anonymous Whitehouse contribution. The money will be used to complete the second phase of a total renovation of the Battell Family’s ancestral home. The first phase – restoration of water-damaged rooms on the south side of the building – was finished this past winter at a cost of $750,000. The new construction, which started in July, will include rebuilding the roof, reconstruction of the chimneys, and a new security system. The work is scheduled for completion in time for Norfolk Festival’s 2012 season.

The million-dollar anonymous gift and all matching monies will be used for restoration of the Music Shed and replacement of the present music studio Annex, which was added during the 1970s and is now defunct. The Shed itself was built by New York architect E. K. Rossiter in 1906, and can be configured to hold audiences of two to seven hundred people. Its stage has been graced by some of the world’s greatest composers and performers, including Fritz Kreisler, Jan Paderewski, Jean Sibelius, Sergei Rachmaninov, and Ralph Vaughan Williams.

Both the Whitehouse and Music Shed projects will be overseen by John G. Waite Associates. One of America’s foremost preservation architects, “Jack” Waite has supervised the renovation of many of America’s most important buildings, including George Washington’s estate, Mount Vernon; Edith Warton’s home, The Mount; the Jefferson Rotunda at the University of Virginia; the Harry S. Truman Library; Baltimore Cathedral; the Lincoln Memorial; and, most recently, the Statue of Liberty. Bill Gridley, a Trustee of the

9

Battell Stoeckel Estate, commented: “We are very fortunate to have the benefit of such expertise for our historic treasures right here in Norfolk.”

Regarding the Music Shed, Jack Waite says: “In addition to preserving the integrity of this historic architectural and acoustic gem, we are very concerned that the renovation will improve audience comforts for the twenty-first century.”

The restoration will look to provide an “all natural” cooling system with a reconstructed cupola (as normal air conditioning would crack the redwood interior); larger, modernized washrooms; a new Green Room to greet performers; and a more accessible concessions area.

The original cupola, the remnants of which are still visible from inside the hall, was destroyed by lightning decades ago.

“The Music Shed is one of America’s most important cultural monuments and should be considered a national landmark,” says Waite. “We are looking forward to preserving it for audiences for generations to come.”

Classical Music Today: BALANCING CHALLENGES WITH OPPORTUNITIES

by Astrid Baumgardner

10

Classical musicians face enormous challenges today, as the culture around us shifts rapidly. With a sharp decline in the percentage of adults who attend classical music concerts and a rise in the median age of classical music audiences, as demonstrated by research from the N.E.A. and the League of American Orchestras, many performing arts organizations find it increasingly difficult to balance their budgets.

They are selling fewer tickets and struggling to raise money. The financial crisis of 2008 has only exacerbated the situation.

But in addition to traditional work in performance and education, today’s musicians can take advantage of new opportunities by embracing an entrepreneurial mindset and proactively creating their career opportunities, as well as looking for ways to connect with and engage their audiences.

A Blend of the Old and the Emerging To counter these trends, organizations are experimenting with new programming and audience outreach.

Informality and audience participation and engagement are increasingly important.

Orchestras now recognize the importance of community engagement, says Jesse Rosen, president of the League of American Orchestras. They are beginning to view themselves as a “vital community asset that can serve different segments of the community,” which helps them “expand their reach and overall impact beyond the concert hall.” Los Angeles and other cities are nurturing youth orchestras modeled on Venezuela’s El Sistema. Others are

forming partnerships with hospitals and senior centers, reaching out to amateur musicians, engaging audiences more actively and creatively at live concerts, and fostering educational outreach.

Individual members of orchestras are beginning to share their stories with the community. Violinist Robert Vijay Gupta ’07MM of the Los Angeles Philharmonic directs a non-profit called Street Symphony, an ensemble of musical activists who bring live classical music to mentally ill individuals living in deeply impoverished, disenfranchised communities.

This spirit of audience and community engagement is infusing other types of performance. Young chamber ensembles like the Jasper String Quartet (YSM’s Fellowship Quartet-in-Residence 2008– 10) and Linden Quartet (in residence 2010–12) perform both classical and contemporary repertoire and creatively engage audiences in the music through outreach and residencies.

In today’s thriving new music scene, performers, composers, and ensembles (such as YSM-founded So Percussion, Alarm will Sound, The Knights, and Metropolis) offer up exciting music to a younger, hipper crowd. They’ve

Jasper String Quartet ‘10AD. 11

Robert Gupta ‘07MM, member of the L.A. Philharmonic and director of Street Symphony

expanded to venues other than concert halls, such as Le Poisson Rouge in New York. So Percussion’s Adam Sliwinski ’03MM, ’04MMA, ’09DMA feels that while today’s younger audiences may not be as well versed in the classical tradition as their parents or grandparents, they are passionate about music. When musicians know how to engage these audiences effectively, they can be “invited into” the world of great music. Cellist Maya Beiser ’87MM, who frequently collaborates with other artists and actively commissions new work, believes that new music can provide a “special, transformative experience” that creates a powerful connection between audience and performer.

Teaching artistry is developing a new generation of classical music lovers while providing additional opportunities for musicians. Creative intelligence is increasingly important in our culture, says Dr. Edward Bilous, a pioneer in the field of arts education and teaching artistry and the director of Julliard’s newly-created Center for Innovation in the Arts. “Few disciplines nurture creative intelligence better than the arts,” Bilous believes, “and teaching artists will be leading the charge in this area.”

(continued from page 11)

ASTRID’S ADVICE

Creating Sustainable Careers as Artists

In this world of shifting paradigms, here is what today’s musicians can do to build sustainable careers.

So how are musicians faring in this world? A 2010 survey of recent arts graduates conducted by the Strategic National Arts Alumni Project (SNAAP) at the University of Indiana shows that 47% are working in the field as performers, music teachers, or K-12 arts teachers.

Traditional fields like orchestras, chamber ensembles, and education are highly competitive, but jobs for classical musicians exist. Studies from the Future of Music Coalition show that graduates of top music schools are more likely to teach, hold salaried positions in orchestras or ensembles, and perform live than non-graduates of conservatories or music schools.

We are living in a “remarkable and fascinating time,” says Beiser, when the artist must persevere to make a career happen. Performers and composers can expand the terrain, as So Percussion did when they created their percussion quartet – a genre that did not exist ten years ago. Sliwinski adds that musicians need to operate like a business and find the “right balance between commerce and art.”

But few musicians today rely on one source of employment; most juggle at least two or three different roles.

Josh Quillen ’06MM (of So Percussion) recommends diversifying your sources of work and revenue so that you are “too small to fail.”

Even musicians with traditional positions in orchestras, like Gupta of the L.A. Philharmonic, embrace the entrepreneurial spirit and pursue multiple opportunities to extend the reach of classical music.

What are you good at? What are your values? What are you passionate about? What other skills do you have? Align your career aspirations with your values, strengths, and passions. This will motivate you to keep going and to project the confidence you need to succeed.

Think about what makes you unique.

Connect with your ideal target audience. Not only can this help your confidence and motivation, but it improves your chances of getting yourself noticed and followed.

Whether pursuing traditional opportunities or creating new ones, today’s musicians should adopt the entrepreneurial mindset of positivity and possibility. Pursue opportunities; don’t wait for them to come to you. Be flexible and open-minded, and build on your experiences. Commit to your dream, and persevere to make it a reality.

To create new opportunities, seek out unusual performance venues like bars, churches, community centers, and nursing homes. Create your own ensemble that offers something unique. Team up with a composer and commision a new piece. Collaborate with artists in other fields: visual arts, drama, film, dance. Start your own music studio.

Create your own arts organization, start a festival, or curate a new concert series. Look for support from local organizations or corporations.

12

Today’s musicians need a host of business and entrepreneurial skills: communication (both speaking and writing), goal-setting, project planning, financial management, time management, and marketing skills.

Master the art of speaking about music in order to engage your audiences.

Harness technology. Record and distribute your own music. Take advantage of new revenue streams.

Be aware that many musicians are building an online presence, so develop a distinctive brand and cultivate your fan base in order to stand out.

Personal relationships count.

Nurture those relationships by connecting with people who share common interests. Be a generous colleague: share your information and contacts, and remain in touch with people in your network. Do not hesitate to seek support from trusted friends and advisors.

Today’s musicians must take charge of their careers. Master the skills and boldly adopt the entrepreneurial mindset in order to ride the wave of opportunity. The twenty-first century represents a new chapter in the story of classical music. Today’s efforts and experiments will solidify the art form for the future.

Astrid Baumgardner is Coordinator of Career Strategies and Lecturer in Careers in Music.

Seeing Through Barriers

by Elizabeth Fleming Martignetti ’10MMA

In many ways, the career of Laurie Rubin ’03MM looks as diverse as that of many musicians: she performs as a recitalist, established a private teaching studio, co-founded ensembles, and serves as the associate artistic director of the performing arts festival and school that she also co-founded.

13

Preceding page: Laurie Rubin in La Voix Humaine at the Greenwich Music Festival Right: Braille music notation.

Yet the operatically trained mezzosoprano has faced more challenges than many. Rubin, who is blind, has sensed that some directors, conductors, and concert presenters are afraid to put a blind performer on stage. While she has sung several roles on stage, invitations to young artist programs have been limited.

David Goldstein, director for the National Resource Center, says that as intense as the focus on gaining literacy can be, the sense of community is also important, both among the small cohort of students from all over the country and in teacher-student mentoring relationships. Young, sight-impaired

hurting my feelings. Therefore, a lack of communication occurs.”

Rubin’s multi-faceted project Do You Dream in Color? aims to jump-start a dialogue about blindness. The project began as an art song composed by Bruce Adolphe on a poem he asked Rubin to write. Writing a lyric about her blindness, while daunting, Even offstage, blind musicians empowered her to shape her face the hurdle stemming from representation of herself. the dominance of notated “Do you dream in color?” asks the little girl, “What... excited me about music. While Braille music this project was that for notation has existed almost holding the program she wants me to sign. years, I had been dying to as long as the Braille alphabet I sense her hands in front of my face, just scream at the top of my (Louis Braille himself was a voice that the barriers of fear blind piano teacher), many and take the glossy book from her. and mystery society placed sight-impaired musicians, “I don’t know,” I tell her. in front of me – barring me like Rubin, learn entirely “Why don’t you explain colors to me, from certain career, social, by ear. The Braille notation and other opportunities – system has limits: it is not and I will tell you if I dream them.” were so unnecessary.” The widely understood in either from the text of Do you Dream in Color? four stanzas reveal not only the sighted or sight-impaired how Rubin experiences and community and, for most

by Laurie Rubin grapples with her blindness, performers, it cannot be but how the outside world read simultaneously during understands and frames performance. In music school, musicians come together and prepare for it. Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Times however, courses like music theory and the challenges of musical training in the wrote: “Rubin comes to terms not so aural skills generally require students sighted music community. much with her own perceptions of colors to be fluent in notation and its related but with other people’s perceptions of her But after years of training, musicians vocabulary. perceptions.” find that auditions – with their tightly Promoting music literacy is one mission The piece has become the centerpiece of of the National Resource Center for Blind constructed format – rarely allow the time or space to confront the concerns an educational curriculum. By reframing Musicians, located at the Neighborhood of potential employers. “When people visual experiences into ones informed by Studios of Fairfield County in are not afraid to ask me those questions other senses, says Rubin, the workshops Bridgeport, CT. To prepare blind [about my blindness], and I have the demonstrate that sight-impaired musicians for college-level music study, opportunity to answer, I find that those people can function well in the sighted the center offers a week-long summer are the most successful situations,” says world. Working with composer Bruce institute focused on developing Braille Rubin. “The real dissonance occurs Adolphe, who is interested in the musical music fluency and knowledge of music because I don’t like to make my blindness imagination, and Mary Radnofsky, an theory, along with skills like learning to a big deal, and most people are afraid interdisciplinary curriculum writer for navigate a campus. to bring it up for fear of offending or the Socrates Institute, Rubin shapes

14

Laurie Rubin ‘03MM leads a classroom discussion.

the workshops with several different audiences in mind.

One is potential employers: unemployment rates for the sight-impaired are as high as 70%. Audiences also include teachers and school-aged children, both sighted and blind. “If I can educate kids while they are still willing to learn, then the likelihood of them being uninhibited by blindness as an adult is very strong,” Rubin says. “I think the more knowledge people have, the less fear they will have, and they will be more willing to take chances on those of us who are blind.”

When trumpeter and music educator John Brandon ’09MM heard about alumniVentures, he began thinking about his experiences in grade school in Ohio.

His school had a population of blind students, and, as a sighted student, he had one-on-one experience assisting a blind student at his school. “I learned a little bit about being blind, about not being able to see, and began to think about how you get around.”

Inspired by these early experiences and by the large, successful music program at the Ohio State School for the Blind – which has a mandatory music curriculum and a marching band that has gained national attention – Brandon is now becoming certified as a Braille music transcriber, a project he is undertaking with the support of an alumniVentures grant. The Library of Congress – which may hold the largest library of Braille music in the United States – grants the certification. Transcribers in this multiyear process must learn both literary and musical Braille, and the transcription equipment can be quite expensive. The Library of Congress website lists fewer than forty Braille music transcribers willing to take private commissions.

Knowing that many sight-impaired musicians are not fluent in notation, Brandon said, “One part of me said that this was unneccesary.... [But] I’m not the person to say we shouldn’t do this, since someone might benefit from it.”

Brandon plans to expand the Braille brass catalog in particular. With more solo

15

and chamber repertoire, intermediate- to advanced-level students could participate more easily in events such as statesponsored solo and ensemble festivals.

He hopes to make these transcriptions available for free through a fullyaccessible website that he would develop.

The site would also serve as a resource for music educators.

As for Rubin, since receiving a YSM alumniVentures grant last year, her Do You Dream in Color? project has garnered interest from the Francis Blend School, a school for the blind in Los Angeles, and from HGO-Co, the outreach arm of Houston Grand Opera. She hopes to begin trying out the workshops in school visits in tandem with a concert tour planned for January 2013. The song “Do You Dream in Color?” was released on an album of the same title featuring Rubin and pianist Marija Stroke ’81BA, ’82MM), by Bridge Records in February 2012. Her memoir of the same title is due to be released by Seven Stories Press in October.

Leelanee Sterrett ’10MM performs with the Academy at (le) Poisson Rouge in New York.

In 2008 when Owen Dalby ’06ba, ’07mm entered the Academy in New York City as a fellow, he knew he’d play great halls, learn new repertoire, and spend time working with schoolchildren. What he didn’t know was that the two-year program run by Carnegie Hall, the Juilliard School, and Weill Music Institute would help him tap a yet-unfound passion and show him how he wanted to use music to affect lives.

“At the time, I knew for sure that I wasn’t ready yet to take the plunge and enter the music world full sail,” said Dalby, 27, a violinist. “But other than that, life was still a big question mark.”

Designed in part to help young musicians like Dalby better understand how they want to use their talents, the Academy has provided mentoring, performing opportunities, and music education training to more than 60 fellows since its founding in 2006.

Through a partnership with the New York City Education Department, it has also provided artists in residence to elementary, middle, and high schools in each of the city’s five boroughs – an aspect of the program Dalby said “terrified” him at first. But then, he said, he saw the students he was assigned to instruct not just nod and tap their toes

Alumni Find Inspiration in The Academy

by Cindy Wolfe Boynton

as he played the viola or violin, but lean into the music. Feel it. Get excited.

“Seeing the kids light up, ask questions and want to make music too – something many of them had never considered before – made me want to instill in them the same kind of fearlessness that I learned at Yale,” said Dalby, who since graduating the Academy in 2010 has performed with chamber groups like the Metropolis Ensemble both throughout the U.S. and internationally. In May, he was also asked to join the orchestra that recorded the music played during the 2012 Tony Awards ceremony at Manhattan’s Beacon Theatre.

16

“I was supposed to be inspiring these kids, but really they were inspiring me,” Dalby continued. “They made me want to continue to engage them, and others, and to use music to get people excited about art, life, and the impact music can have on all of us.”

They also led Dalby to become a cofounder and co-artistic director of The Declassified, a chamber ensemble made up of roughly 40 alums who – like The Academy encourages – are working to “revolutionize live, musical arts” by performing “guerilla concerts” at unexpected places like hospital lobbies and college dining halls, and by directly engaging with their audiences, said Yale

left: An interactive school performance with Sterrett, Monroe Huang, Cho, and Yoobin Son ’09MM, flute.

Below: A performance with Yves Dharamraj ’02BA, ’03MM, cello; Brian Ellingson ’09MM, bass; Shelley Monroe Huang ’08MM, bassoon; and Paul Won Jin Cho ’09MM, ’10AD, clarinet.

and Academy grad James Austin Smith ’08MM.

time I do that, I think I become a better performer. Having to think about who I am presenting the music to, and what I hope to accomplish from it, has helped me grow in some unexpected ways. I think a lot deeper now about my interpretation and how to make the music more interesting.”

musicians. It’s a gig that (like the more than 100 concerts and festivals he’s played this past year) he describes simply as “amazing.”

“We see these concerts as opportunities to show the power and impact of music,” Equally amazing, he said, will be when, said Smith, 28, who plays the oboe, in the fall, he becomes the first oboist in calls himself a music advocate and, in Lincoln Center’s Chamber Music Society the fall, will join the oboe faculty of the Two. On Sept. 24, he will also State University of New York perform at Lincoln Center at Purchase. “Instead of just with Yale School of Music oboe performing to the audience, we lecturer Stephen Taylor as part interact with them. We get off “Seeing the kids light up, ask questions of the Society’s Opening Night: the stage and sit with them. We and want to make music too – Serenades. tell stories before and during the performance that show, something many of them had never “There’s nothing like playing hopefully, we’re so much more with your teacher,” Smith said. considered before – made me want than just a bunch of people who “And as a model and musician, to instill in them the same kind of play instruments together.”

Steve can’t be beat. He was At least part of the inspiration for The Declassified came from the two participating in the Academy’s biannual residency at Skidmore College where, in the words of horn player Leelanee Sterrett ’10MM, fellows spend five days playing in dorms, English classes, between vending machines and the library, “infiltrating as many corners of the campus as possible with an exciting and fresh approach to classical music.”

Many of these informal performances or “informances” occur unannounced, Strerrett said, designed to surprise and delight in equal measure.

“Our goal is to make the music come alive,” Smith continued. “And each

fearlessness that I learned at Yale.”

Owen Dalby ’06BA, ’07MM

Through friendships he made at the Academy, Smith also hosts a weekly podcast downloadable from iTunes that offers live interviews and performances with both upcoming and well-known

17

completely inspiring to me at Yale, and still an inspiration. So this will be a thrill.”

Although Sterrett, a 2012 Academy grad, is not yet 100 percent sure how she’ll pursue her career, she has no doubt it will somehow involve making classical music more accessible and familiar to audiences: “Musical performances are usually a one-way conversation from the stage, but The Academy works to make it more of a dialogue. I love that, and connecting with audiences is what I want to continue to do.”

News From The Music In Schools Initiative

Ruben Rodriguez ‘11MM and students at John C. Daniels School

Music in Schools Initiative names Ruben Rodriguez Lead Teacher Ruben Rodriguez ’11MM was named the Lead Teacher of the Music in Schools Initiative last fall. Rodriguez has been involved in the Music in Schools Initiative since he began working as a graduate teaching artist upon his arrival at Yale. After graduating, he took the position of part-time band teacher at John C. Daniels School through funding from the Class of 1957 Endowment.

Rodríguez will continue to teach at John C. Daniels School. He will also administer the School’s graduate teaching artist programs at ten other New Haven Public Schools. Also in his portfolio will be the administration of the City-Wide Honors Band and Chorus, the Yale/New Haven Young Artists Solo Competition, and the Morse Summer Music Academy. Dean Blocker commented, “His full-time appointment at YSM is a logical continuation and extension of the work he has been doing in New Haven for the past several years.”

The Music in Schools Initiative includes the School’s year-round programs in the New Haven Public Schools, funded by the Class of 1957 Endowment, as well as the Morse Summer Music Academy, which has enjoyed two successful summers and will expand in the summer of 2012.

18

Class of 1957 receives AYA award The Association of Yale Alumni (AYA) selected the the Yale College Class of 1957 to receive the 2011 Outstanding Class Volunteer Engagement and Leadership Award. In its citation, AYA praised the Class “for conceiving and funding the Class of ’57 Music Endowment to enable Yale to share its resources in support of music education for urban public school children.” Much of this activity has taken place in close collaboration with the School of Music.

The School of Music has long supported arts education programs in the New Haven Public Schools. These efforts were confirmed and enhanced with the establishment of the Music in Schools Initiative in 2007, thanks to the generous contribution of the 50th reunion class gift by the Yale College Class of 1957.

In recognition of the value of music and arts education in the public schools, these visionary Yale alumni established an endowment to ensure the continuing development of music programs in New Haven.

Morse Summer Music Academy enters third season The annual Morse Summer Music Academy will expand this summer, its third, to reach 75 students from eighteen New Haven Public Schools. The program received a record number of applicants, who were selected based on their essays, auditions, and GPAs. The session will take place at the Yale School of Music in July and August, 2012.

Paul Florek ‘11MM works with a student.

In 2011, 51 students from fourteen New Haven Public Schools attended the second Morse Academy. Highlights included field trips to Yale the Collection of Musical Instruments and the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, weekly formal concerts for family and friends in Morse Recital Hall, and a visit from Enid and Lester Morse. Jose Meza, a ninth-grade trumpet student, wrote and performed a piece dedicated to the Morses.

The Academy offers New Haven Public School (NHPS) students the opportunity to participate free of charge in an intensive four-week music program. It is made possible through a generous endowment established

by Enid and Lester Morse ’51BA. In addition to receiving private lessons, students play in ensembles and study musicianship, composition, and conducting. Instructors include YSM teaching artists, NHPS music teachers, and YSM faculty members.

19

“These are some of the most committed young musicians I have ever seen,” said Associate Dean Michael Yaffe last August, addressing the students and their families at the graduation ceremony. “These students will go back to school this year as musical leaders.

They will be more technically proficient, but they also will teach their fellow students about the value of music and emotion – because they care about making music, and they understand the impact it can have.”

Rubén Rodríguez ’11MM will direct the program for the first time in 2012, as part of his duties as the lead teacher of the Music in Schools Initiative. As in previous years, the students’ parents and guardians will attend required workshops throughout the program, to help them build the skills to support their children’s ongoing musical studies.

News From The Music In Schools Initiative

Symposium on Music in Schools The third biennial Symposium on Music in Schools took place at the Yale School of Music in June 2011. Fifty outstanding public school music teachers from around the country were invited to spend three days at the School of Music, all expenses paid, and to receive the Yale Distinguished Music Educator Award.

Collectively, the distinguished educators hailed from thirty states, taught myriad genres of music, and worked in elementary, middle, and high schools in urban, rural, and suburban school districts. They were selected from over 300 nominations from public school

superintendents, music coordinators, and members of the Yale College Class of ’57. Throughout the symposium, the teachers participated in a variety of discussion groups about innovation in music education. They were joined in program activities by music teachers from the New Haven Public Schools.

Programs began with a presentation by Mark Churchill, director of El Sistema USA, and Scott Shuler, president of MENC: The National Association for Music Education. They spoke about the role of arts organizations and teaching artists in the school setting, and music teachers’ responsibilities in outside collaborations.

The Music in Schools Initiative, with teaching artists Wai Lau ’12AD (top left) and Kaitlin Taylor ’12MM (bottom right).

20

In a demonstration of distance-learning technology, guitar students from two schools performed for each other and offered critiques – with New Haven students appearing live on stage, and a class in Rhode Island appearing on video screen through a program called Cisco TelePresence Movi. (The Rhode Island guitarists are students of 2009 Symposium alumnus Fritz Benz.)

Teachers then brainstormed ways to use the technology in their own classrooms.

That evening, the Awards Dinner brought together the visiting and New Haven teachers with members of the Class of ’57. Associate Dean Michael Yaffe and Dean Robert Blocker presented the Distinguished Music Educator Awards. The evening featured a keynote speech by John Merrow, education correspondent for PBS NewsHour and president of Learning Matters.

Speaking about his experiences as a young teacher, Merrow said, “What we discovered, quite by accident, is something you know in your core: kids are not afraid of work, not if it’s

work of value. Some teachers believe, incorrectly, that they can improve a student’s self-esteem with words and easy expressions of praise... You know that accomplishment is the foundation of self-esteem. Students know when they’re doing their best, and they know when they’re being allowed to cut corners. They may grumble that their teachers are expecting too much, but good teachers know enough not to listen to that particular complaint.”

The Symposium culminated with a lecture in Morse Recital Hall by internationally acclaimed cellist YoYo Ma on cross-cultural exchanges

The 2011 Symposium on Music in Schools.

21

made possible by music and the arts.

That evening, Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble performed a concert on the New Haven Green. Both the lecture and the concert were presented by the International Festival of Arts & Ideas.

Supported by the Yale College Class of 1957, the Symposium is a core program of the Music in Schools Initiative. The next Symposium will take place in June 2013, and YSM will begin accepting nominations in September 2012. For more information: » music.yale.edu/community/symposium

Faculty News

Boris Berman publishes new edition of Prokofiev sonatas Shanghai Music Publishing House has published the complete Piano Sonatas of Sergei Prokofiev in a new performance edition by Boris Berman.

Berman, a member of Yale School of Music faculty since 1984, is a recognized authority on Prokofiev’s music. This bilingual (English-Chinese) publication contains various recommendations for performers. Berman compared the text of the sonatas with manuscripts and first editions, and corrected numerous errors that had been perpetuated by countless editions and recordings, to create the most reliable edition of Prokofiev’s sonatas currently available.

Kernis, Boykan elected to Academy of Arts and Letters The American Academy of Arts and Letters announced that Aaron Jay Kernis ’83MM, a member of the composition faculty, and Martin Boykan ’53MM were elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters. The American Academy of Arts and Letters was established in 1898 to “foster, assist, and sustain an interest in literature, music, and the fine arts,” and is chartered by Congress.

Paul Hawkshaw awarded Joseph Kilenyi Medal of Honor The Bruckner Society of America awarded Paul Hawkshaw the Joseph Kilenyi Medal of Honor in May of 2011. This honor is given to individuals whose work exemplifies

Faculty Appointments for 2012–2013

the understanding and appreciation of the life and music of Anton Bruckner.

Hawkshaw’s publications include seven volumes of Bruckner’s collected works (Vienna), which are performed by major orchestras and choruses throughout the world. His articles have appeared in The Musical Quarterly, NineteenthCentury Music, and the Oesterreichische Musikzeitschrift, and he wrote the Bruckner biography for Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians. In 1996 he was invited by the Austrian National Library in Vienna to give the commemorative address marking the centenary of the composer’s death.

Hyo Kang Wins Daewon Music Awards Grand Prize Violinist Hyo Kang was honored with the Daewon Music Awards Grand Prize, the most prestigious music award in Korea. The citation noted his contribution to the field of music through his establishment of the Great Mountains International Music Festival. Kang has led a versatile career as a performer, teacher, and artistic director for the past three decades, and has served on the School of Music faculty since 1996. In 1995, he founded the conductor-less string orchestra Sejong, of which he is artistic director.

In 2003, Kang was appointed Honorary Ambassador by the Governor of Gangwon Province, Korea. Upon being asked to bring the first international music festival to Pyeongchang, Kang launched the Great Mountains Music Festival and School in 2004. He continues to serve as its artistic director.

Schwantner wins Grammy The Grammy Award for Classical Instrumental solo went to a performance of Joseph Schwantner‘s Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra.

Schwantner was a member of the School’s composition faculty from 1999 to 2003.

Paul Hawkshaw accepts the Kilenyi Medal of Honor 22

Melvin Chen, piano Melvin Chen ’91BA has been appointed Associate Professor of Piano (Adjunct). In announcing this faculty position, Dean Robert Blocker also appointed Chen to serve as Deputy Dean of the School.

Blocker commented, “Melvin Chen’s longstanding relationship with Yale College and the School of Music, his international profile as an artist, and his successful tenure as associate dean at Bard College make him ideally suited for his work at the new deputy dean in the School of Music. We look forward to welcoming him back to Yale.” Chen has performed at venues such as Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Jordan Hall, and the Kennedy Center, and throughout Canada and Asia. His solo recordings include Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations on the Bridge label, praised as “a classic” by the American Record Guide. He has also released recordings of Joan Tower’s piano music (Naxos); the Shostakovich piano sonatas (Bridge); and Ricky Ian Gordon’s Orpheus and Euridice (Ghostlight). Chen was a member of the Yale School of Music faculty from 2000 to 2005.

More recently, he has served as the associate director of the Bard College Conservatory of Music as well as a member of the piano faculty.

Carol Jantsch, tuba

Hannah Lash, composition

Carol Jantsch has been the principal tuba of the Philadelphia Orchestra since 2006; she won the position while still a senior at the University of Michigan, becoming the first female tuba player in a major symphony orchestra. She then returned to Michigan to complete her Bachelor of Music degree, graduating summa cum laude. Carol Jantsch has appeared as a soloist with the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, St. Petersburg Symphony Orchestra, Henry Mancini Institute Orchestra, and the United States Marine Band, among others.

A featured artist at brass festivals in Finland, Germany, Canada, and the United States, she has appeared on NPR’s radio series From The Top and in 2009 was honored with a Best of Philly award from Philadelphia Magazine. Jantsch has given master classes in Europe, Asia, and North America, and is on the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music, Temple University Boyer College of Music, and Manhattan School of Music. In 2009, she released her first solo recording, Cascades.

Hannah Lash ’12AD is the recipient of awards including the ASCAP-Morton Gould Young Composer Award, Charles Ives Scholarship, and the Naumburg Prize. She has received commissions from the Fromm Foundation, Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, Aspen Music Festival, Orpheus Duo, Howard Hanson Foundation, and many others.

The American Composers Orchestra selected her work Furthermore for the 2010 Underwood New Music Readings, and the Minnesota Orchestra performed her work God Music Bug Music as part of the Minnesota Composers Institute.

Her chamber opera Blood Rose was presented by NYC Opera’s VOX in 2011.

Lash’s music has also been performed at Carnegie Hall, Le Poisson Rouge, the Chelsea Art Museum, Tanglewood, the Times Center, and the Chicago Art Institute. Lash earned a bachelor’s degree in composition from the Eastman School of Music, a Ph.D. from Harvard University, a performance degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music, and an artist diploma from the Yale School of Music. Her primary teachers include Martin Bresnick, Bernard Rands, Julian Anderson, and Robert Morris. Her music is published by Schott.

23

Astrid Baumgardner, career strategies A certified professional career coach and lawyer, Astrid Baumgardner helps professional artists create successful careers. A regular lecturer on career development at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, as well as a frequent guest lecturer at the Juilliard School and the Manhattan School of Music, she also presents career and leadership workshops at leading NYC law firms.

She is co-chair and past chair of the board of the American Composers Orchestra, and also serves on the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum Advisory Board. Astrid Baumgardner graduated magna cum laude from Mount Holyoke College and from Rutgers Newark School of Law, where she was on the Law Review.

After practicing law in New York City for 25 years, she combined her professional skills with her love of the arts to serve as the deputy executive director of the Alliance Française of New York. She subsequently became an independent consultant to non-profit arts boards before starting her coaching company, Astrid Baumgardner Coaching and Training.

alumniVentures 2011–12 award winners

The School of Music’s innovative alumniVentures program, now in its fourth year, offers grants to projects that advance the cause of music. Here are the winners of the 2011–12 grants. The selection committee included Vincent Oneppo ’73MM, chair, as well as Robert D’Angelo ’77MM, Jeff Fuller ’69MM, Cayenne Harris ’00MM, Sharon Wei ’06AD, and Kyung Yu ’87MM. $8,000 Grant

$5,000 Grants

Additional Grants

Laura Usiskin, ’09MMA

David Sims ’87MMA

Montgomery Music Project (MMP), bringing affordable, high quality string instruction and music development to children in Montgomery, Alabama, and the River Region and forging strong community ties under the umbrella of the arts. MMP sends first-rate teachers to elementary schools and offers on-site music instruction on the violin, viola, and cello. Students meet weekly for further instruction and receive an instrument and supplies.

Listening Adventures, an educational series illuminating Western classical music and its influence in society in imaginative, non-traditional ways for seniors and members of other lowand fixed-income groups throughout Connecticut.

Ariana Falk ’05AD | Mentorship program at Mother Caroline Academy (Boston, Mass.)

$7,500 Grant Robert Gupta, ’07MM Street Symphony, an ensemble of professional musicians dedicated to delivering live performance and music workshops to the most underserved and disenfranchised communities in Southern California: the homeless and mentally ill, the incarcerated, and injured/homeless veterans. $6,000 Grant Nora Lewis, ’01MM Wind Instruments for Haiti, a project to provide good quality intermediatelevel wind instruments for students at L’Orchestre Obed Lominy at L’École Musique Dessaix-Baptiste in Jacmel, Haiti. Many instruments were damaged or destroyed by the January 2010 earthquake. Concerts given by the school draw enthusiastic audiences who connect emotionally with the music and fill the 300-seat auditorium beyond capacity.

David Skidmore ’07MM A new partnership between the Chicago Park District, Make Music Chicago, and Third Coast Percussion. A threemonth residency will involve the planning, composition, and rehearsal of a new collaborative work for Third Coast Percussion and the Chicago Park District’s volunteer Davis Square Park Community Band, premiered by the two groups on Make Music Chicago, presented by Rush Hour Concerts.

James Austin Smith ’08MM and Paul Murphy ’06MM Podcasts by The Declassified, a newly incorporated group of alumni from the Carnegie Hall Academy/Ensemble ACJW. The funding will help launch a series of hosted, performance-based podcasts with the goal of “declassifying” classical music by giving a layperson’s window into the process of making music.

Daniel Trahey ’02MM Manos Biancos – The OrchKids White Hands Chorus of Baltimore will be established in the fall of 2012 to integrate students with disabilities into society through music. Most of the children in the chorus have hearing impairments and will learn an ornate form of sign language used to interpret pieces of music.

24

Kenneth Freed ’87MM | Assisting English Language Learners through Music, a collaboration between the Mankato Symphony Orchestra and the Mankato School District (Mankato, Minn.)

Robert Honstein ’10MMA | Fast Forward Austin (Austin, Tex.) Emily Boyer ’06MM and Colleen Potter Thorburn ’09MMA | New Music for Horn and Harp Roshanne Etezady ’99MM, Suzanne Farrin ’08DMA, Daniel Kellogg ’03DMA, Caroline Mallonee ’00MM, Carl Schimmel ’99MM, Adam Silverman ’04DMA, Orianna Webb ’03MMA | Original Compositions Inspired by Young Children Suzanne LeFevre ’93AD | Mercury Baroque (Houston, Tex.) Mary Bowden ’06MM | Chrysalis Chamber Players (South Florida) Samuel Woodhead ’99MM | Washington Trombone Ensemble (Washington, D.C.) Rogene Russell ’73MM | Fine Arts Chamber Players Educational Programs (Dallas, Texas) Michael Finegold ’69MM | Anne Bradstreet’s 400th Birthday Concert (North Andover, Mass.)

For the full list of winners and project descriptions, visit http://music.yale.edu/ alumni/winners11.html

Student and Alumni News

Tom Johnson ’67MM is featured on a radio series called Music by my Friends, issued by a private radio station in London and available online every Saturday night. Lara Vincy Gallery presents a solo exhibition by Tom Johnson of math scores, entitled “Music in Figures.”

Alvin Singleton ’71MMA had his piece Different River premiered by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, with Robert Spano conducting.

Sheila Barnes ’74MM, ’75MMA was appointed Professor of Singing at Cambridge University (Trinity College) in September 2010, a continuing appointment. She was awarded a residency last year at the Britten-Pears School at Aldeburgh to act as Vocal Consultant to a new early music group, La Nuova Musica, led by David Bates.

She will serve as Vocal Consultant to this group’s first recording by Harmonia Mundi, scheduled for 2012.

Nansi Carroll ’75MM, ’76MMA, ’82DMA recently founded a non-profit organization, A Musical Offering, to help coordinate and fund her annual Jubilus Music Festival, now in its eighth season.

She also was awarded a 2010–2011 Yale alumniVentures grant to support musical outreach to local students by Jubilus Festival resident artists.

Cindy McTee ’78MM retired from 27 years of teaching composition at the University of North Texas and married conductor Leonard Slatkin in November, 2011. They currently reside in Bloomfield Hills, MI. Pamela Marshall ’80MM composed Shepherds and Angels (settings of early American and Appalachian Christmas songs) for chorus, violin, harp, and tambourine. The piece premiered December 2011 by the Genevans at Geneva College, PA, directed by Robert Copeland, and by the Master Singers in Lexington, MA, directed by Adam Grossman.

The Tropikordia Foundation, which promotes string performance and was co-founded by Mark Tanner ’82BA, ’83MM, announced its new grant program. The grant program supports individual projects that promote string playing and the use of acoustic string instruments in innovative ways. Each grant is usually funded with $2500. For grant applications and more information: www.tropikordiafoundation.org Peter Derheimer ’88MM celebrated his twentieth anniversary as solo timpanist and founding member with the Real Orquesta Sinfonica de Sevilla.

Tom Novak ’91MM has been promoted to Provost and Dean of the College at New England Conservatory.

Robert Beaser ’76BA, ’77MA, ’81MMA, ’86DMA is composer-in-residence at the Hochschule für Music in Munich, and his Piano Concerto opens the 2012 Beijin Modern Music festival.

David McConkey ’77MM became Rector of All Saints Church, George Row, Northampton, UK.

25

Beryl Heurmann ’93MM was the 2011 winner of the Judith Lang Zaimont Prize in composition awarded by the International Alliance for Women in Music (IAWM) for her composition Ridge of Blue Longing for two pianos. In 2012, Lee will join the faculty of the University of Montana Wilderness and Civilization Program, an interdisciplinary study of wildland conservation and the humannature relationship, for which she has developed the composition class “Sound in the Natural World.”

Stephen Thomas ’93MM was appointed to the piano faculty at Brigham Young University-Idaho starting the fall of 2011. In December, Stephen’s chapter on Brahms appeared in The Pianist’s Craft: Mastering the Works of Great Composers, edited by Richard Paul Anderson and published by Scarecrow Press.

Kevin Puts ’96MM won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize in Music for his opera. Silent Night: Opera in Two Acts, was commissioned and premiered by the Minnesota Opera in Minneapolis on November 12, 2011, a stirring opera that recounts the true story of a spontaneous cease-fire among Scottish, French and Germans during World War I, displaying versatility of style and cutting straight to the heart.

Robert Aldridge ’97MMA, ’00DMA won a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition at the 54th Annual Grammy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles. Aldridge is a professor at the John J. Cali School of Music at Montclair State University. Along with librettist Herschel Garfein (also of Montclair State), he was awarded the Grammy for Best Contemporary Classical Composition for the opera Elmer Gantry.

Student and Alumni News

Violinist Duane Padilla ’99MM and his band, the Hot Club of Hulaville, won a high honor from the Hawaii Academy of Recording Arts: the band’s album Django Would Go was awarded the Hoku Na Hano Hano Award for Jazz Album of the Year 2011. The Hoku Na Hano Hano Awards are the Hawaiian music industry’s equivalent of the Grammys.

In addition to playing Gypsy jazz with Hot Club of Hulaville, Padilla plays violin in the classical Gemini Duo and is also a freelance recording engineer, photographer, and chef.

Harold Meltzer ’97MMA, ’00DMA was among eight composers who received commissions from the Serge Koussevitzky Music Foundation in the Library of Congress and the Koussevitzky Music Foundation, Inc. Meltzer will write a piece for the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra. He also received a recent commission from the Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group and was named a finalist for the 2009 Pulitzer Prize in Music.

A director and co-founder of Sequitur Ensemble, Meltzer teaches composition at Vassar College.

Jeremy Grall ’99MM, since being appointed at the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 2009, has presented papers at the Society for Seventeenth Century Music, XI International Congress on Musical Signification In Krakow, Poland; Euromac VII in Rome, Italy; South-Central Chapter of the American Musicological Society, and the Southern Chapter of the College Music Society. Last year Grall premiered Mirages for electric guitar and tape by Ethan Wickman on the Birmingham Art Music Alliance 2011 Concert Series.

Keri E. McCarthy ’00MM, Assistant Professor of Oboe and Music History at Washington State University, was awarded a Fulbright Scholar grant to lecture and research at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand in 2011– 2012. McCarthy studied relationships between Thai traditional and art musics.

Her project includes commissioning three new pieces for oboe duo from Thai composers Weerachat Premananda, AnoThai Nitibhon, and Siraseth PanturaUmporn. Keri will perform the works in concert with oboists from Thailand, Malaysia, and the Philippines. She also taught oboe and American music history at Chulalongkorn University.

Kim Perlak ’01MM released her solo classical guitar CD Common Ground in April 2012. All of the music on the recording is American, new, and written by living composers. The recording features works by two Yale School of Music composers, faculty member Benjamin Verdery and Robert Honstein ’04BA, ’10MMA. She is directing the second annual “Ben & I Play for Peace” concert series.

Erika L. Schafer ’01MM is Assistant Professor of Trumpet and Assistant Director of Bands at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. She recently traveled to Chile, where she presented master classes at Catholic University and the University of Chile, both in Santiago.

Schafer was also a guest clinician for the Chilean Air Force Band, led by Fabrizzio De Negri.

Katherine Lee ’02AD was recently appointed Chamber Music Coordinator at the Music Institute of Chicago, ranked as one of the three largest and most respected community music schools in the country. She has been on the piano faculty since 2003. She is also currently the Community Outreach Director for the Beethoven Festival in Chicago, which is organized through the International Beethoven Project.

26

Constantine Finehouse ’02MM returned to the Yale campus to participate in a concert of music by composer Tony Schemmer, a Saybrook Old Blue.

Oboist Andrew Parker ’03MM has been appointed Assistant Professor of Oboe at the University of Iowa. He has also taught and coached chamber music at international festivals including the FEMUSC festival in Brazil, the Hartwick Festival in New York, and the Kinhaven Music School in Vermont.

Benjamin Berghorn ’04MM was recently Guest Principal Trumpet with the Beijing Symphony Orchestra in China.

Ryo Yanagitani ’04MM, ’05AD, ’08MMA has been appointed Assistant Professor of Piano at University of British Columbia School of Music. He began teaching last fall.

Conor Nelson ’05MM was appointed Assistant Professor of Flute in the College of Musical Arts at Bowling Green State University beginning in the fall of 2011.

Ryan Johnstone ’05MM, the band director at Aledo Middle School in Aledo, Texas, was named the Phi Beta Mu Outstanding Young Bandmaster for 2012. The honor was announced at the Texas Music Educators Association Convention; presentation ceremonies will be held in conjunction with the annual Convention of the Texas Bandmasters Association meeting in San Antonio.

In Hwa Lee ’06MM, ’07AD, cello, and Solomon Liang ’12MM, violin, were selected as two of the first prize winners in the Alexander & Buono International String Competition. They were featured as soloists in the winner’s concert on November 20, 2011 at Carnegie Hall.

Hando Nahkur ’06MM released his second CD, DeusExClavier, which reached the Top Music Charts in Europe and won Record of the Year – Die Platten des Jahres from Zeit-Online in Germany.

Jason Robins ’06MM won the position of second trombone with the Alabama Symphony Orchestra. Currently the principal trombone of the Erie Philharmonia, Robins will begin his new appointment in September 2012.

Sami Merdinian ’06MM, ’07AD is one of the violinists in the New Yorkbased string quintet Sybarite5, which was one of three winners of the 2011 Concert Artists Guild Victor Elmaleh Competition, receiving the Sylvia Ann Hewlett Adventurous Artist Prize. Also taking top honors at the October 19 event was the Amphion String Quartet, whose members include violinists Katie Hyun ’09AD and David Southorn ’09MM, ’10AD as well as cellist Mihai Marica ’04CERT, ’08AD. Winners of the annual competition join the Concert Artists Guild roster with a two-year management contract and receive a New York recital, among other awards.

Yoshi Onishi ’07MM, ’08AD won the prestigious 2011 Gaudeamus Prize. 385 compositions from over thirty countries were submitted for consideration; thirteen compositions were nominated for the prize and were performed during the festival. The international jury unanimously selected Onishi from the thirteen nominees.

Onishi’s Départ dans… was performed by the Nieuw Ensemble. Ted Hearne ’09MMA won the 2009 Gaudeamus Prize for selected movements from his piece Katrina Ballads.

Composer Zachary Wadsworth ’07MM was named a winner in the King James Bible Composition Awards, held May 17, 2011 at the Temple Church in London, England. His composition for chorus and organ, “Out of the South Cometh the Whirlwind,” was selected from more than one hundred international entries in the category of works for experienced choirs. In addition to receiving a prize of £2,000, Zachary will have his composition published by the English publisher Novello.

Christian Lane ’08MM won the Canadian International Organ Competition (CIOC) in October. The CIOC, which was held in Montreal, was the only international organ competition in the Americas in 2011. In the finals, Lane and the other four finalists each played a 60-minute recital. Lane’s prize of $30,000 also includes a three-year management contract with Karen McFarlane Artists, a CD recording with ATMA Classique, and career management and coaching from the CIOC.

Dantes Rameau ’07MM was chosen for a $25,000 prize from over 9000 applicants as a winner of AOL’s 25 for 25 Grant Program. Awards were given to artists, innovators, and journalists who are using their art to foster social change.

Thomas Bergeron ’08MM, ’09AD is on the faculty of Williams College as Artist Associate in Trumpet and director of the brass ensemble. He is also principal trumpet of the Springfield Symphony and the Berkshire Symphony. Most recently, Thomas has been awarded a fellowship at The Academy of Carnegie Hall. Starting in the fall of 2012, he will be a member of Ensemble ACJW and a Teaching Artist in New York City’s public schools.

Eric Beach ’07MM, Adam Sliwinksi ’03MM, ’04MMA, ’09DMA, David Treuting ’01MM, ’02AD, and Josh Quillen ’06MM, members of So Percussion, have been appointed to the faculty of the Bard Conservatory of Music.

Michael Mizrahi ’08DMA, ’04MMA was appointed Assistant Professor of Piano at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin.

David Kaplan ’08MM was appointed co-artistic director of Lyrica Chamber Music, a series devoted to bringing world class chamber music to the Morris County, NJ area for 25 years. This year’s season included two world premieres, a young composer’s competition, performances by members of Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble ACJW and the Hausmann String Quartet, and special events for students of Newark Public Schools.

27

Dominick DiOrio ’08MM, ’09MMA, ’12DMA, and Tian Hui Ng ’10MM were two of eight conducting fellows selected by the Carnegie Hall Choral Institute and the Young People’s Chorus of New York City to take part in the Transient Glory Symposium, led by 2011 MacArthur Fellow and symposium artistic director Francisico J. Núñez. From February 15 to 18, they paricipated in three days of intensive training workshops and performances of new music commissioned for young voices for the Transient Glory series, culminating in performances at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall.

DiOrio will join the faculty of the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University next fall as Assistant Professor of Music in the choral conducting department, a tenure-track position. As a composer, he was named the winner of the 2012 Yale Glee Club Emerging Composers Competition. His new a cappella work

Student and Alumni News

Ode to Purcell, scored for SATB chorus and SATB solo quartet, will be premiered in November 2012.

Kyung Jun Kim ’09CERT, violin, won the third prize at the Fifth Yokohama International Music Competition (strings professionals general category). The competition was held in August of 2011.

In addition, Mr. Kim visited Italy last year and received a diploma at the 29th Concorso Internazionale di Violino (Rodolfo Lipizer).

Pianist Reinis Zarins ’09CERT was recently awarded the Great Latvian Music Award 2011 in the category of Outstanding Interpretation.

The award is the highest state recognition in the field of classical music in Latvia. Zarins received the award for three interpretations: a solo recital (Bach+Messiaen and Kenins+Schumann), a concerto (Mozart’s Concerto in G major, K. 453), and a duo recital of twentieth-century works with a Latvian violinist (Messiaen+Ravel and Corigliano+Gershwin).

Jihoon Shin ’09MM won the 33rd annual Young Artist Competition of the National Flute Association. She also won the prize for best performance of the newly commissioned work. The competition for outstanding flutists was held in August, 2011 in Charlotte, North Carolina. As the first-prize winner, Ms. Shin received a cash prize of $5,000 and will be presented by the NFA in a performance at its 2012 convention.

Andrew Norman ’09AD was among this year’s finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in Music. Norman was nominated for The Companion Guide to Rome, cited as “an impressive musical portrait of nine historic churches, written for a string trio but sometimes giving the illusion of being played by a much larger group.”

He was also named the 2011–2013 Music Alive Composer-in-Residence for the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP). During the two-year residency, BMOP will commission a large symphonic work from him scheduled to premiere in 2013. In addition, BMOP will record some of Andrew’s pieces for a prospective BMOP/sound album.

Pianists Lindsay Garritson ’10MM, ’11AD and Henry Kramer ’13AD both won prizes in the 2011 Montreal International Competition. Garritson won Second Prize, and Henry Kramer ’13AD won the third prize. Garritson, Kramer, and the first-prize winner appeared in the Winners’ Gala Concert in Montréal’s Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier at Place des Arts, with the Orchestre Métropolitain directed by Jean-François Rivest.

The Jasper String Quartet ’10AD received the Cleveland Quartet Award, it was announced last October by Chamber Music America (CMA). The Jasper Quartet was the graduate quartet-inresidence at the Yale School of Music from 2008 to 2010. Established in 1995, the biennial Cleveland Quartet Award honors and promotes a rising young string quartet whose artistry demonstrates that it is in the process of establishing a major career.

28

Jeremy Friedland ’10MM began work as an administrator with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Responsibilities include raising money from individual donors and planning fundraising events so that the orchestra can continue it’s Carnegie Hall series, tour nationally and internationally, and continue its work with New York City students.

Mindy Heinsohn ’10MM was appointed as Lecturer in Music at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland for the 2011–2012 academic year. She is also on the flute faculty at the International School of Music in Bethesda, Maryland.

Doug Lindsay ’10MM has been appointed as trumpet professor at Kennesaw State University.

Jacob Cooper ’10MMA won the 2011 Carlsbad Music Festival Composers Competition. The annual Carlsbad Music Festival, in partnership with ArtPower@ UCSD, made the announcement. Cooper was selected from a pool of 134 applicants from around the world. The selection panel included the four members of the Calder Quartet and Festival director Matt McBane. As the winner of the competition, Jacob Cooper won a $3,000 co-commission from the Festival and ArtPower@UCSD to write a major new piece for the Calder Quartet. It was premiered at the 2011 Festival and performed again at The Loft at UCSD on January 27, 2012.

Andy Akiho ’11MM won the inaugural composition competition held by new music ensemble eighth blackbird. Akiho was one of three finalists selected from an initial pool of 504 applicants; the finalists each received a cash prize and were invited to write a work for the ensemble.

Akiho’s piece was called ERASE. As the competition winner, Akiho received an additional cash award and the promise of a future performance of ERASE by eighth blackbird.

Dashon Burton ’11MM took first prize at the 2012 Oratorio Society of New York Vocal Competition. Two other Yale alumni also earned recognition: Jennifer Feinstein ’11MM took the the Frances MacEachron Award for Fourth Place, and Nacole Palmer ’00BA received both the Richard Westenburg Award and the Johannes Somary Award. As the recipient of the Ruth Lopin Nash Award for First Place, Burton received a prize of $7,000.

Cellist Mihai Marica ’04CERT, ’08AD; clarinetist Romie de Guise-Langlois ’06MM, ’07AD; oboist James Austin Smith ’08MM; and percussionist Ian Rosenbaum ’11AD were among the twelve musicians selected as the winners of this year’s CMS Two auditions. CMS Two, a program of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, offers professional opportunities to performers in the early stages of major careers. During their three-year residency, members participate in all aspects of musical life at CMS, including national and international tours; radio and television broadcasts; recordings, and performances in venues including Alice Tully Hall.

Violist Kendra James ’12MM won the first prize in the Shean Strings Competition in Edmonton last summer. In addition to an award of $8,000, she won the opportunity to perform as a soloist with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra.

Composer Garth Neustadter ’12MM won an Emmy Award for his score for the PBS documentary “John Muir in the New World,” an episode of American Masters. The score was recorded at Yale with members of the Yale Philharmonia, the Yale Symphony Orchestra, and the Linden String Quartet ’12AD. Esther Park ’12AD won the second prize in the Houston Symphony’s Ima Hogg Young Artists Competition, held in June, 2011 at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University. In addition to receiving the $2,500 Houston Symphony League Jerry Priest Award, Park played Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with the Houston Symphony at the Miller Theatre.

Mezzo-soprano Annie Rosen ’12MM won first place in the Metropolitan Opera’s New England Regional Auditions. In addition, bass-baritone Andrew Craig Brown ’12AD took third place, and baritone Cameron McPhail ’12MM won an Encouragement Award.

Hermelindo Ruiz ’12MM was awarded the Andrés Segovia–José Miguel Ruiz Morales Prize in the Curso de Música de Santiago de Compostela, Spain. The prize reflects Ruiz’s interest in pursuing a dual career as both a guitarist and composer.

29

Charles Richard-Hamelin ’13MM and Scott MacIsaac ’14CERT won prizes in the 2011 Toronto Symphony Orchestra National Piano Competition. As the firstprize winner, Richard-Hamelin will play Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto with the orchestra in Roy Thomson Hall in the 2012–13 season. He also took part in a live interview and performance on Classical 96.3 FM. MacIsaac won second prize as well as the award for Best Performance of a Romantic Work. As part of this prize, MacIsaac performed a recital in the Free Concert Series in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts.

Student and Alumni News Recordings + Publications

Ceremony of Carols, released on Delos and featuring Etherea Vocal Ensemble with harpist Grace Cloutier ’05MM, became the No. 1 featured classical album on iTunes and debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard “traditional classical” charts. Other Yale alumni featured on the album include Arianne Abela ’10MM, Awet Andemicael ’10DIV, Alan Murchie ’85BA, ’07DIV, and Lucy Fitz Gibbon ’10BA, in addition to Yale staff members Rebekah Westphal (Director of International Admissions, Yale College) and Derek Greten-Harrison (Admissions and Student Affairs, Institute of Sacred Music).

Davis Brooks ’77MM, a professor of violin at Butler University, has released two solo CDs in the past year. Music and Electronics contains seven pieces for violin and tape by seven American composers and was positively reviewed in Strad magazine. In March, Davis released The Violin Music of C. P. First. In addition to his teaching duties, he is associate concertmaster of the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra and maintains an active commercial recording schedule.

The Janus Trio, whose flutist is Amanda Baker ’00MM, released an album earlier this year on the New Amsterdam Records label (run by Judd Greenstein ’04MM). i am not was one of Time Out Chicago’s top ten albums to check out, one of NPR’s top ten albums to buy in the 12th Annual Director’s Cuts Gift Guide by Ned Wharton, and a Time Out NY pick of the week for their album release at Joe’s Pub. The album includes music by Jason Treuting ’02AD.

Pedro de Alcantara ’81MM has published his fifth book, Integrated Practice: Coordination, Rhythm & Music. The book was published by Oxford University Press as the foundation volume of the series The Integrated Musician, of which Alcantara is the editor. The series’ main concept is that a musician’s good health is a creative act. The book is supported by a dedicated website with 72 video clips and 25 audio clips; the website was partially financed by a grant from the alumniVentures program.

The Serafin String Quartet, which includes violinist Kate Ransom ’81MM, released its first commercial recording on the Centaur Records label. American Tapestry features works by American composers and composers influenced

by American sounds, including Barber, Dvo˘rák, Gershwin, and Still.

30

Bill Doerrfeld ’88MM has released his debut album entitled Time And Again, featuring an ecletic blend of ten original solo piano works in both classical and jazz idioms. Shortly afterward, he released his second album, A Passing Moment. The album features ten original solo piano compositions ranging in styles from virtuosic up-tempo Latin, R&B, boogie-woogie, jazz waltz, and funk to pensive, rhapsodic jazz/classical ballads.

Additionally, 70 of Doerrfeld’s piano works in classical/jazz styles have been published.

Peter Kolkay ’02MMA, ’05DMA released a new CD, “BassoonMusic.” The disc has just been released by CAG Records and consists of 21st century American music for bassoon and piano. Featured are works by Yale alumni John Fitz Rogers and Judah Adashi, as well as former guest professor George Perle.

31

Miki Aoki ’02MM, pianist, has released a debut CD of solo piano works of Zoltan Kodaly under the German Label Profil Hänssler.

Ian O’Sullivan ’11MM is currently working on a CD of Hawaiian Classical Guitar Music, a new genre, as published in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Similar to Brazilian or Spanish guitar music, this repertoire reflects the Hawaiian Islands while maintaining the standards of concert music and the Classical tradition.

O’Sullivan is also raising funds for this project at Kickstarter.com (project name: “Classical Guitar Music of Hawaii”).

In Memoriam

Lili Chookasian Lili Chookasian, a renowned contralto who sang at the Metropolitan Opera and taught at the Yale School of Music, died peacefully in her sleep on April 10, 2012.

Ms. Rosalind MacEnulty ’40BM Mrs. Helen E. Campbell ’43BM Mrs. Jean Harris Mainous ’43BM, ’44MM Mrs. Melba H. Sandberg ’46BM Mrs. Virginia H. Herrmann ’46MM Professor George H. Hunter ’47BM, ’48MM

Chookasian was born in Chicago in 1921 and celebrated her 90th birthday last summer. In her career, she appeared with many of the world’s major conductors, symphony orchestras, and recording and opera companies.

Mrs. Ann B. Monroe ’48 Mrs. Helen P. Miller ’49BA Professor John C. Crawford ’50 BM, ’53MM Mr. Edward A. Weisman ’51 Mr. John S. Glasel ’51BA, ’52BM Professor Robert M. Cecil ’51BM, ’52MM Professor James D. Yannatos ’51BM, ’52MM Mr. David A. Pizarro ’52BM, ’53MM Mrs. Beverly J. Schuler ’55MM Miss Phyllis D. Shinn ’56MM Mr. Robert M. Morris ’57 Mrs. Judith Z. Tinsley ’70 Mr. Michael D. Thornton ’76MM Mr. Charles A. Reynolds ’87MM Dr. Sally J. Cherrington Beggs ’90MM, ’91MMA, ’94DMA Monty Carter ’93MM Ms. Christine Yu-Ting Liu ’01MM Mr. John Richard Miller ’07MM

Robert Blocker, Dean of the School, wrote: “Lili was a source of joy and inspiration to all of us and to countless generations of students.

Her career can only be described as magnificent, as she was one of America’s greatest singers. Her life exemplified extraordinary gifts of love, compassion, and grace for her family, friends, and colleagues.

We were enlarged by her presence, and we celebrate the gifts she freely gave to each of us and to our School.”

“Chookasian was a genuine contralto,” wrote Brian Kellow in Opera News. “She possessed the kind of gutsy, dramatic sound that has always been rare and has… practically disappeared today.” Chookasian specialized in the concert repertoire for contralto: Mahler’s Second Symphony, Das Lied von der Erde and Kindertotenlieder, Verdi’s Requiem; Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky; and secondary contralto roles in opera, such as Ulrica, La Cieca in La Gioconda, Madelon in Andrea Chénier.”

After retiring from the stage in 1986, Chookasian joined the voice faculty of the Yale School of Music. In 2002 she was awarded the Sanford Medal, the School of Music’s highest honor. She was named Professor Emerita of the School of Music in 2010.

Teresa Stratas recalled Chookasian’s voice as “gorgeous — gold with streaks of black, like molten lava. One got lost in that sound, no matter what she was singing.”

32

Contributors to the YSM Alumni Fund

SINCE SPRING 2011

The School of Music is grateful for your generous support of the School’s educational and artistic endeavors.

Class of 1940 Mr. Philip William Maas, Jr. Class of 1941 Mrs. Mary D. Torrence Class of 1943 Mrs. Josephine C. Del Monaco Mrs. Libbe R. Murez Mrs. Hope L. Whitehead Class of 1944 Mrs. Florence G. Smith Class of 1947 Mrs. Olga B. Johnson Class of 1948 Prof. Reinhard G. Pauly Mr. Albert C. Sly Class of 1949 Mr. Herbert J. Coyne Prof. Emma Lou Diemer Mr. Robert B. Hickok Mrs. Eleanore H. Lange Kard Ms. Marion E. Mansfield Prof. Franklin E. Morris Mrs. Marie B. Nelson Bennett, Ph.D. Ms. Jean Belfanc Northup Mrs. Arleen G. Rowley Prof. Julia Schnebly-Black Class of 1950 Mrs. Anne P. Lieberson Mrs. Marjorie J. McClelland Dr. Mischa Semanitzky Prof. William F. Toole

Class of 1951 Ms. Martha H. Bixler Mr. William A. Dresden Mrs. Renee K. Glaubitz Mrs. Hannelore H. Howard Mr. Thomas B. Jones

Class of 1956 Mr. Charles Burkhart Mrs. Mary D. Doeringer Mr. Joseph Lawrence Gilman Mrs. Linda W. Glasgal Mrs. Joyce B. Kelley

Class of 1952 Mr. Robert C. Barker Ms. Mary G. George Mrs. Norine P. Harris Mr. David A. O’Leary Prof. Eckhart Richter Mr. Ezra G. Sims, Jr. Mrs. Gwendolyn H. Stevens Mrs. Cynthia T. Stuck

Class of 1957 Prof. Richmond Browne Mrs. Ella A. Holding Mr. Gerald Jonas (Yale College) Mr. Denis Mickiewicz, Ph.D. Mrs. Joan F. Popovic Dr. Anne Yarrow

Class of 1953 Prof. Leonard F. Felberg Prof. Joanna B. Gillespie Mr. Edwin Hymovitz Dr. Donald Glenn Loach Ms. Joan G. Stanko Prof. Armin J. Watkins Class of 1954 Prof. Galen H. Deibler Ms. Jo Ann B. Locke Prof. Robert A. Montesi Dean David W. Sweetkind Mrs. Georgene V. Vogt Prof. Charles Vun Kannon Mrs. Cora W. Witten Class of 1955 Mrs. Elena G. Bambach Mr. Robert C. Hebble Prof. G. Truett Hollis Dr. Michael M. Horvit Ms. Elaine Troostwyk Toscanini Mr. William W. Ulrich, Jr.

33

Class of 1958 Prof. John K. Adams Mrs. Margaret D. Gidley Prof. Richard W. Lottridge Mr. Philip A. Prince Mr. Robert K. Thompson, Jr. Class of 1959 Dr. G. Lawrence Jones Mrs. Joan M. Mallory Mrs. Linda L. Rosdeitcher Class of 1960 Mrs. Sheila A. Marks Prof. Donald Miller, Jr. Ms. LoisAnn Oakes Mr. Dwight L. C. Oarr Prof. Victor W. Ryder Mr. Stephen A. Simon Class of 1961 Mr. Ernesto Epistola Prof. Peter J. Hedrick Prof. William Lee Hudson Prof. Werner G. Rose Mr. Bernard Rubenstein Dr. Carl B. Staplin Mr. Haskell L. Thomson

Contributors to the YSM Alumni Fund

Class of 1962 Mr. Raymond P. Bills Ms. Charlotte M. Corbridge Mr. Ralph P. D’Mello Mrs. Sylvia W. Dowd Prof. Eiji Hashimoto Mrs. Linda T. Lienhard Prof. James R. Morris Mr. Peter P. D. Olejar Mrs. Florence Fowler Peacock Prof. Hildred E. Roach Mr. George R. Schermerhorn Class of 1963 Prof. Charles Aschbrenner Mrs. Jean S. Bills Ms. Grace Ann Feldman Dr. Daniel M. Graham Mr. W. Marvin Johnson, Jr. Dr. Maija M. Lutz Class of 1964 Dr. Robert C. Mann Class of 1965 Ms. Rosemary Colson Prof. Brian Fennelly Prof. Charles E. Page Prof. Alvin Shulman Class of 1966 Ms. Rheta R. Smith Ms. Judith R. Alstadter, Ph.D. Dr. Lucy E. Cross Mrs. Ethel H. Farny Mr. John M. Graziano Ms. Patricia Grignet Nott Ms. Lola Odiaga Prof. Donald F. Wheelock Mr. Joseph L. Wilcox

Class of 1967 Mr. Howard N. Bakken Mr. George S. Blackburn, Jr. Mr. W. Ritchie Clendenin, Jr. Prof. Richard L. De Baise Mr. Daniel Robert Harris Mr. Thomas F. Johnson Mr. Richard E. Killmer Prof. Vincent F. Luti Ms. Joan Maurine Moss Mrs. Abby N. Wells

Class of 1972 Ms. Nelly Maude Case Pres. Ronald A. Crutcher Mr. David B. Johnson Prof. Myrna S. Nachman Dr. Daniel J. Stepner Ms. Julie Margaret Stoner Mr. Anthony C. Tommasini Mr. David G. Tubergen

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

Class of 1973 Prof. David B. Baldwin Mr. William B. Brice Mr. Gene Crisafulli Ms. Clarissa C. Dozier Mr. Vincent P. Oneppo Mrs. Sharon L. Ruchman Prof. Frank Shaffer, Jr. Mr. Frank A. Spaccarotella

Class of 1969 Ms. Syoko Aki Erle Ms. Kunie F. DeVorkin Mrs. Helen B. Erickson Mr. Jeff Fuller Mr. Clinton L. Ingram Ms. Jane P. Logan Ms. Paige E. Macklin Mr. Mallory Miller Mr. Bryan R. Simms

Class of 1974 Mr. Michael C. Borschel Prof. Gene J. Collerd Mr. Robert L. Hart Dr. Janne E. Irvine Mr. David Lasker Ms. Susan Poliacik Mrs. Permelia S. Sears Mr. Kenneth D. Singleton Ms. Antoinette C. Van Zabner

Class of 1970 Ms. Anita La Fiandra MacDonald Ms. Jill Shires Ms. Elizabeth Ward

Class of 1975 Mr. Daniel S. Godfrey Mr. Hall N. Goff Ms. Jacquelyn M. Helin Prof. Larry E. Jones Mr. Anthony M. Lopez Mr. David A. Marshall Ms. Christie A. Rollason-Reese

Class of 1971 Prof. Preethi I. de Silva Ms. Laura E. Jeppesen Prof. Mark R. Kroll Mr. William Nicholas Renouf Ms. Wendy S. Schwartz Mr. Paul H. Severtson Mr. Allan D. Vogel

34

Class of 1976 Ms. Katherine A. Brewster Ms. M. Susan Brown Prof. Joan Osborn Epstein Mr. Richard A. Konzen Mr. Dale Thomas Rogers Mr. Donald S. Rosenberg Ms. Lori Laitman Rosenblum Prof. Michael C. Tusa Mr. Robert W. Weirich Ms. Barbara M. Westphal Class of 1977 Mr. Daniel I. Asia Mr. David A. Behnke Prof. Boyd M. Jones II Mr. Shmuel Magen Mr. Dennis P. Michel Mr. Philip D. Spencer Ms. Leslie Van Becker Class of 1978 Prof. Donald R. Zimmer Class of 1979 Ms. Cecylia B. Barczyk Prof. Susan M. Blaustein Mrs. Theresa E. Langdon Ms. Susan Bell Leon Mr. William J. Myers Mr. William A. Owen III Prof. Jan Radzynski Mr. Marvin Warshaw Class of 1980 Dr. Eliot T. Bailen Ms. Laura B. Cook Mr. Gary Crow-Willard Mr. David M. Kurtz Mr. Richard Lalli Mr. Peter M. Marshall Ms. Mary Diane Willis-Stahl Mr. Rodney A. Wynkoop

Class of 1981 Ms. Carol M. Adee Ms. Barbara Peterson Cackler Ms. Kim D. Cook Dr. Robert E. Eberle Ms. Pamela Geannelis Ms. Karen E. Hopkinson Dr. Marie Jureit-Beamish Dr. Edward C. Nagel Dr. Susan L. Royal Ms. Rebecca L. Schalk Mr. Regan W. Smith Mr. Christopher P. Wilkins Class of 1982 Dr. M. Teresa Beaman Mr. Charles L. Kaufmann Mr. Timothy P. Schultz Mr. Joseph M. Waters Ms. Lisa Wiedman Yancich Class of 1983 Mr. James R. Barry Dr. Jeffrey Evans Brooks Mr. Wayman L. Chin Mr. Pedro de Alcantara Ms. Maureen Horgan Mr. Aaron Jay Kernis Mr. Robert Adrian Smith Mr. Robert J. Straka, Jr. Class of 1984 Ms. Betsy Adler Brauer Ms. Violeta N. Chan-Scott Mr. Edward H. Cumming III Mr. Andrew F. Grenci Mr. David L. Hagy Mr. Claudio Jaffe Mr. David L. Loucky Dr. Jody A. Rodgers

35

Class of 1985 Mr. Steven F. Darsey Dr. Thomas Stephen Dubberly Dr. Stephen R. Pelkey Mr. Gregory M. Peterson Mr. Kevin J. Piccini Dr. Melissa Kay Rose Ms. Sally L. Rubin Dr. Timothy D. Taylor Mr. David R. Wiener Class of 1986 Ms. Susan S. Breitung Mr. Richard H. Goering Dr. Carole M. Harris Mr. Nicholas Robert Smith Ms. Terri Rae Sundberg Class of 1987 Ms. Kathryn Lee Engelhardt Mr. Kenneth H. Freed Dr. David Perry Ouzts Ms. Tammy L. Preuss Ms. Kyung Hak Yu Class of 1988 Mr. Douglas Robert Dickson Ms. Jennifer Louise Smith Class of 1989 Mr. George Paige Hoyt Ms. Genevieve Feiwen Lee Ms. Gina Marie Serafin Class of 1990 Ms. Siu-Ying Susan Chan Ms. Irina Faskianos DePatie Ms. Tomomi Ohrui Mr. Stanley James Serafin Class of 1991 Mr. Marco E. Beltrami Ms. Amy Feldman Bernon Ms. Eva Marie Heater Mr. Gregory S. Jacobs (Yale College) Mr. Thomas G. Masse Dr. John A. Sichel Mr. D. Thomas Toner

Contributors to the YSM Alumni Fund

Class of 1992 Dr. Carolyn A. Barber Mr. Ronald Charles Evans, Jr. Mr. Ferenc Xavier Vegh, Jr. Mr. Gregory Christopher Wrenn

Class of 1998 Ms. Melissa J. Marse Mr. Bradley P. Moore Ms. Tram Ngoc Sparks Mr. Carlos Urbano Villarreal

Class of 1993 Dr. Barbara J. Hamilton-Primus Ms. Jill A. Pellett Levine Ms. Inbal Segev Brener Dr. Andrew D. Shenton Mr. David E. Spies

Class of 1999 Mr. Netta Mordechai Hadari Ms. Pamela Getnick Mindell Ms. Emily Anne Payne Prof. Wei-Yi Yang

Class of 1994 Ms. Julie Anne Bates Mr. Ian R. Warman Class of 1995 Mr. Ole Akahoshi Mr. Anthony Joseph Bancroft Mr. David James Chrzanowski Mr. Robert A. Elhai Ms. Elizabeth Ann Goode Mr. Edward Duffield Harsh Ms. Leslie Ann Johnson Mr. Ronald Ling-Fai Lau Ms. Eleanor Sandresky Mr. Peter Savli Ms. Christina Otten Toner Ms. Ayako Tsuruta Ms. Cheryl Rita Wadsworth Class of 1996 Ms. Sara Elizabeth Andon Mr. Thomas Russell Brand Dr. Jayson Rodovsky Engquist Ms. June Young Han Mr. James K. McNeish Dr. Peter M. Miyamoto Ms. Karen E. Peterson Class of 1997 Mr. Mark Elliot Bergman Mr. Stephen Matthew Black Mr. Paul D. Cienniwa Mr. Harold Yale Meltzer

Class of 2000 Dr. Suzanne Marie Farrin Dr. Joan Jooyeon Lee Ms. Stephanie Yu Lim (Yale College) Dr. Sebastian Zubieta Class of 2001 Mr. Daniel Bard Mr. Andrew Elliot Henderson Ms. Mary Wannamaker Huff Mr. Jared Clayton Johnson Dr. Daniel Dixon Kellogg Ms. Hsing-Ay Hsu Kellogg Ms. Nora Anderson Lewis Mr. Robert M. Manthey Class of 2002 Mr. Garmon John Ashby Mr. Michael B. Benninger Mr. Paul Abraham Jacobs Mr. Christopher Matthew Lee Dr. Justin Charles O’Dell Class of 2003 Ms. Anna Kay Rachel Brathwaite Mr. Austin Peter Glass Mr. Mingzhe Wang Class of 2004 Ms. Sarah J. Briscoe Ms. Tina Lee Hadari Mr. Yaroslav V. Kargin Ms. Katherine Mireille Mason Ms. Ah-Young Sung

36

Class of 2005 Ms. Laura Margaret Garritson Dr. Sarita Kit Yee Kwok Prof. Conor R. Nelson Class of 2006 Dr. Ryan J. Brandau Ms. Marisa Wickersham Green Ms. Bee-Seon Keum Mr. Colin D Lynch Mr. Paul Daniel Murphy Class of 2007 Mr. Eric Bradley Beach Mr. Daniel Henry Beck Mr. Thomas Ronald Flippin Jr. Class of 2008 Mr. Cameron Waterman Arens Mr. Thomas Alfred Bergeron II Mr. Dominick DiOrio III Mr. William Parker Kitterman Mr. Christian Mark Lane Mr. Naftali Yitzhak Schindler Mr. Derrick Li Wang Ms. Yi-Ping Yang Ms. Huili Zhai Class of 2009 Ms. Laura Catherine Atkinson Ms. Ellen Claire Connors Mr. Qin Han Mr. Wenbin Jin Mr. Vaughn Joseph Mauren Mr. Thomas Jared Stellmacher Ms. Laura Esther Usiskin Ms. Donna Yoo Class of 2010 Ms. Hanna Na Mr. Kensho Watanabe Class of 2011 Mr. Xi Chen Ms. Neena Deb-Sen Ms. Reena Maria Esmail Mr. Lorant Najbauer Mr. Ruben Rodriguez Mr. Domenic Robert Salerni

Editor Dana Astmann Writers Astrid Baumgardner Cindy Wolfe Boynton Jessica Johnson Elizabeth Fleming Martignetti Photography Dana Astmann Joanne Bouknight Stefan Cohen Mike Franzman Bob Handelman Austin Kase Richard LaPlante Jennifer Taira Jennifer Taylor Cover Photo Bob Handelman Photo Editor Monica Ong Reed Design Paul Kazmercyk Additional Thanks Danielle Heller Leelanee Sterrett Music at Yale is a publication of the Yale School of Music P.O. Box 208246 New Haven CT 06520-8246 music.yale.edu musicnews@yale.edu

Non-Profit U.S. Postage PAID New Haven, CT Permit No. 526