New Music for Orchestra Dec. 11 features music by David Lang
The Yale School of Music presents a concert of new music for orchestra, performed by the Yale Philharmonia under the direction of Shinik Hahm, on Friday, December 11 at 8 pm in Woolsey Hall. The concert highlights two works by David Lang: International Business Machine and Grind to a Halt.
International Business Machine, subtitled “an overture for Tanglewood,” was written for the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The Boston Globe called the piece “a brisk, elegantly-fashioned work depicting today’s post-industrial computer age.” Grind to a Halt is dedicated to the memory of Jacob Druckman, Lang’s composition teacher and a longtime member of the Yale School of Music faculty. According to Lang, “One of the things that interests me very much is how certain mechanical musical tasks force players – and listeners – into a kind of concentration that can be spellbinding. The intense concentration necessary to coordinate the ensemble in Grind to a Halt is a kind of virtuosity in itself.”
Lang, who won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in Music, has said: “The world needs happy tunes. But for me, the interesting ideas are where those happy tunes aren’t. The interesting things are in the dark places, or in the ugliness, or in the noise or the grit.” (more…)
Chamber Music Society at Yale presents Bach’s Six Brandenburg Concertos in one evening
Fifth concerto will be played on period instruments
The Yale School of Music will present the complete set of J.S. Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos, performed by a conductor-less chamber orchestra led by renowned faculty performers. The set of Brandenburg Concertos, first performed in 1721, is regarded by many as the pinnacle of Baroque instrumental composition. Each concerto is scored differently and inventively, and features different instruments or sets of instruments. The impressive cast of faculty performers who will bring these masterpieces to life includes violinists Ani Kavafian, Syoko Aki, Robert Mealy, and Wendy Sharp; violist Ettore Cause, flutist Ransom Wilson, clarinetist David Shifrin, oboist Stephen Taylor, bassoonist Frank Morelli, hornist William Purvis, and harpsichordists Avi Stein and Ilya Poletaev. The fifth concerto will be performed on period instruments with baroque bows, featuring performers from the Yale Baroque Ensemble.
The concert will take place on Tuesday, December 8, 2009 at 8 pm in Morse Recital Hall in Sprague Hall (470 College Street, New Haven) and is part of the Chamber Music Society at Yale’s concert series, directed by David Shifrin. The series occasionally expands its programming to present small chamber orchestras that play without a conductor. (more…)
Yo-Yo Ma premieres cello concerto by Angel Lam ’10AD
Cellist Yo-Yo Ma and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of music director Robert Spano, will present the New York premiere of Angel Lam’s Awakening from a Disappearing Garden on Saturday, November 7, at Carnegie Hall. The piece, a concerto for cello and orchestra, was commissioned by Carnegie Hall and was first performed in Atlanta Symphony Hall on October 15 and 16, 2009. This is Lam’s third commission from Carnegie Hall, which describes her as “a young composer whose work sounds both Chinese and Western, contemporary but also timeless.” (more…)
Yale Baroque Ensemble performs experimental music of the 17th century
Concert features Yale’s new baroque instruments
The Yale Baroque Ensemble presents Stylus Fantasticus, a concert of experimental music from the seventeenth century on Tuesday, November 10 at 8 pm in Sprague Hall. The evening’s program reawakens an era when composers were experimenting with formal invention and creating the first sonatas of Western music. This repertoire ranges from the avant-garde music of the early part of the seventeenth century to the contrapuntal ingenuity of Henry Purcell at the end of the century. With works for one, two, and three violins with basso continuo, the program will include music by composers such as Gabrieli, Castello, Uccellini, Biber, Schmelzer, Purcell, and others. Robert Mealy is the director of the Yale Baroque Ensemble, whose members are Benjamin Charmot and Katherine Hyun, baroque violins; Daniel Lee, baroque violin and viola; Laura Usiskin, baroque cello; and Avi Stein, harpsichord. (more…)
New Music New Haven 11/19 features composer Jack Vees
Program includes Vees’s “Party Talk” and premieres by other Yale composers
The Yale School of Music presents a New Music New Haven concert featuring composer Jack Vees on Thursday, November 19 at 8 pm in Sprague Hall. The highlight of the concert will be Vees’s Party Talk, a piece written in 1996 for narrator and mixed ensemble of winds, brass, percussion, piano, organ, strings, and electric bass. The concert will also premiere music by student composers, including excerpts from Chris Cerrone’s opera Invisible Cities, Jordan Kuspa’s Piano Trio, Adrian Knight’s Work for Sixteen Strings, and Feinan Wang’s Pisces Monodrama–Chapter VII. Christopher Theofanidis is the artistic director of the New Music New Haven concert series. (more…)
Imani Winds performs with Jasper String Quartet
The Grammy-nominated Imani Winds will join guest ensemble the Jasper String Quartet for a concert on Tuesday, November 17, 2009 at 8 pm in Sprague Hall (470 College Street, New Haven). The renowned wind quintet will perform a colorful variety of music – Bozza’s Scherzo for Wind Quintet, Ligeti’s Six Bagatelles for Wind Quintet, and Villa-Lobos’s Woodwind Quintet. The Jasper Quartet, the graduate quartet-in-residence at the Yale School of Music, will play Haydn’s String Quartet in E-flat major, Op. 76 No. 1. The concert will culminate in a piece featuring all the performers: Sierra’s Concierto de Camara, a nonet for winds and strings. Along with the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Imani Winds commissioned the Concierto de Camara from the Puerto Rican-born composer Roberto Sierra in 2008. At the work’s premiere, critic David Stabler of The Oregonian wrote: “Sierra’s exuberant nonet fairly danced off the stage… preserving the integrity of each ensemble while demanding intricate interplay among individual players. The cross-court volleys amid the rushing scales were exhilarating to behold.”
The name Imani, which means “faith” in Swahili, reflects the African-American and Latin American ancestry of the ensemble’s five members: Valerie Coleman, flute; Toyin Spellman-Diaz, oboe; Mariam Adam, clarinet; Jeff Scott, horn; and Monica Ellis, bassoon. The members of the Jasper Quartet, named for Jasper National Park in Alberta, Canada, are J Freivogel and Sae Niwa, violin; Sam Quintal, viola; and Rachel Henderson, cello. (more…)
Wendy Sharp in Sunday afternoon recital Nov. 15
Violinist Wendy Sharp will join with pianist Julie Nishmura in a Faculty Artist Recital featuring a broad range of music from the eighteenth century to the twenty-first. Several pieces on the program are based on earlier music, including the opening work: Stravinsky’s Suite Italienne, based on his ballet Pulcinella, which in turn reworked music of the Italian baroque. Flow, my tears, by Yale faculty composer Christopher Theofanidis, references John Dowland’s 1596 air of the same name. Dvorak’s Four Romantic Pieces for violin and piano are arranged from his own Miniatures for two violins and viola. Mozart’s Sonata in A major, K. 526, provides a classical anchor. The program will conclude with Jennifer Higdon’s String Poetic, a piece praised by the New York Times as “striking.” The San Francisco Chronicle noted its “rhetorical clarity and dexterous interplay between the two instruments.” The recital will take place on Sunday, November 15, 2009 at 4 pm in Morse Recital Hall in Sprague Hall (470 College Street, New Haven).
Admission to the recital is free. For more information, visit the School of Music’s website or call the Yale School of Music concert office at 203 432-4158. (more…)
Guitarist, lutenist John Schneiderman at Collection of Musical Instruments
The Yale Collection of Musical Instruments will present a recital by the critically-acclaimed John Schneiderman, a virtuoso on plucked instruments and a specialist in eighteenth-century lutes and nineteenth-century guitars. Based in California, Mr. Schneiderman is in demand as a soloist and chamber musician collaborating on recordings and performances throughout North America. Schneiderman will perform in the intimate venue of the Yale Collection of Musical Instruments, one of the foremost institutions of its kind, on Sunday, November 15, 2009 at 3 pm. (more…)
Yale Opera announces spring repertoire
Winter production of The Marriage of Figaro
to be followed in April by a double-bill of Carmen and Le Rossignol
A scene from Yale Opera's production of Mozart's The Magic Flute at the Shubert Theatre, February, 2009. Photo by Jennifer Lester.
Yale Opera and artistic director Doris Yarick-Cross are pleased to announce the repertoire for its winter and spring productions. The winter production, which will take place at New Haven’s historic Shubert Theater in February, will be an Mozart’s popular The Marriage of Figaro. The opera will be performed in the original Italian with projected English translations. This production by Robert Driver will feature a creative team including stage director Vera Lúcia Calábria, set designer Boyd Ostroff, and lighting designer William Warfel. Christoph Campestrini will conduct the Yale Philharmonia.
The month of April will bring a double-bill of Bizet’s La Tragédie de Carmen and Stravinsky’s Le Rossignol. Both productions will be performed in their original languages – French for Carmen and Russian for Le Rossignol – with projected English translations. Mark Streshinsky will provide stage direction, Douglas Dickson and Timothy Shaindlin will provide musical direction and accompaniment, and William Warfel will design the lighting. The performances will take place April 16 and 17 at 8 pm in Morse Recital Hall in Sprague Hall. (more…)
Organist Brian Harlow performs music from Bach to the present day
Program features Widor’s masterful Symponie Romane
The organist Brian Harlow, director of music at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Morristown, NJ, will perform a recital on the celebrated Newberry Memorial Organ in Yale’s Woolsey Hall on Thursday, October 22, 2009 at 8pm. The program will open with J.S. Bach’s Toccata in C major, BWV 564. It continues with Mytò, written in 1981 by the Dutch composer Ad Wammes, and Herbert Howells’s De profundis clamavi ad te, Domine (Ps. 130:1) from the Psalm-Preludes. The most recent work on the program is the 2002 Toccata for Organ by the American composer Gerre Hancock. The recital, one of the final requirements for the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Yale School of Music, will conclude with Charles-Marie Widor’s masterpiece for the organ, the Symphonie Romane, Op. 73. (more…)
Jasper Quartet performs Haydn, Auerbach, and Smetana
The up-and-coming Jasper String Quartet, rapidly becoming a favorite with audiences and critics alike, will offer a free recital on Monday, October 19 at 8 pm. The performance will feature the music of Haydn, Auerbach, and Smetana and will take place in Morse Recital Hall in Sprague Hall. The evening will open with Haydn’s Quartet in G major, Op. 76, No. 1 and will continue with Lera Auerbach’s third quartet, the Cetera desunt – Sonnet for String Quartet, in which the structure of a sonnet influences the internal rhymes of the music. Concluding the program is Smetana’s introspective, deeply personal String Quartet No. 1, “From My Life.” The Jasper Quartet is the Fellowship Quartet-in-Residence at the Yale School of Music, where they study with the Tokyo String Quartet. The members are J Freivogel and Sae Niwa, violin; Sam Quintal, viola; and Rachel Henderson, cello. (more…)
Saxophone Summit brings together six stellar saxophonists
Jimmy and Tootie Heath performing in Sprague Hall. Photo by Harold Shapiro.
The Yale School of Music will present a Saxophone Summit featuring six great performers on the entire family of instruments, from the soprano sax to the rare contrabass. The stellar lineup includes Jimmy Heath, Frank Wess, Antonio Hart, Todd Bashore, Frank Basile, and Scott Robinson, as well as superb rhythm section including drummer Tootie Heath, bassist David Wong, and pianist Michael Weiss. The event takes place on Friday, October 16 at 7:30 pm in Morse Recital Hall in Sprague Hall (470 College Street, New Haven), and will begin with a presentation by the performers about the evolution of the saxophone in jazz and the various kinds of saxophones that will be played in the evening’s program.
According to Willie Ruff, director of the Duke Ellington Fellowship, “Though it had an important role among the French and the Belgians in their military bands, the saxophone was treated as a stepchild in the early years of its existence. It took the coming of age of a small cadre of jazz musicians in the United States to really give the saxophone its voice. It is this rich story of the saxophone in jazz that we will explore in this program.” (more…)
Tokyo String Quartet to perform Haydn, Beethoven, and Bartok
The Tokyo String Quartet, one of the world’s foremost chamber ensembles, will perform three powerhouse works on Tuesday, October 20, 2009 at 8 pm. Artists in residence at the Yale School of Music for the past 33 years, the quartet appears in recital every semester. Their performance this October will open with Haydn’s Quartet in D major, Op. 76, No. 5, and will continue with Beethoven’s “Serioso” Quartet in F minor, Op. 95. The evening will conclude with Bartók’s Quartet No. 6, the last work Bartók wrote in his native Hungary before emigrating to the United States in 1939.
The Tokyo Quartet’s performance, which is presented by the Chamber Music Society at Yale, will take place on Tuesday, October 20 at 8 pm in Morse Recital Hall in Sprague Hall (470 College Street, New Haven). The members of the Tokyo String Quartet are Martin Beaver and Kikuei Ikeda, violins; Kazuhide Isomura, viola; and Clive Greensmith, cello. (more…)
Florilegium opens the concert season at the Collection of Musical Instruments
The Yale Collection of Musical Instruments will open its 2009-10 concert season on Sunday, October 18 at 3 pm. The acclaimed British ensemble Florilegium will be represented by flutist Ashley Solomon and harpsichordist Terence Charlston. The program, entitled “Father, Son, and Godfather,” features music by Johann Sebastian Bach, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, and Georg Philipp Telemann.
Tickets to the performance are $20, $15 for Yale staff and senior citizens, $10 for students. For more information, visit the Yale School of Music website or call 203 432-4158. (more…)
Season’s first Lunchtime Chamber Music October 14
The Yale School of Music will present the first Lunchtime Chamber Music concert of the season on Wednesday, October 14 at 12:30 pm in Morse Recital Hall in Sprague Hall (470 College St., New Haven). This free event features a colorful variety of ensembles comprised of graduate musicians who have come from around the world to study at the Yale School of Music. Violinist Wendy Sharp is director of the chamber music program.
The program will include movements from:
J.S. Bach, Brandenburg Suite, arr. for brass quintet
André Jolivet, Pastorales de Noël for flute, bassoon and harp
Franz Schubert, Trout Quintet for piano and strings
W.A. Mozart, Quintet in E-flat major for piano and winds
Tomaso Albinoni: Concerto “Saint Mark,” arr. for brass quintet
Admission to the concert is free. For more information, visit the Yale School of Music website, or call 203 432-4158.
New Music New Haven features composer Bernard Rands
New Music New Haven presents a concert featuring composer Bernard Rands on Thursday, October 8 at 8 pm in Morse Recital Hall in Sprague Hall. Rands, a professor at Harvard, is the winner of such accolades as the Pulitzer Prize and a Grammy Award. The program will feature Rands’ virtuosic Concertino for solo oboe and mixed ensemble, and “now again” for mezzo-soprano and ensemble. Rands favors unconventional combinations of instruments: the ensemble for Concertino consists of flute, clarinet, harp, and string quartet, and that for “now again” includes flute, clarinet, trumpet, percussion, harp, violin, viola, cello, and soprano and alto singers. The text of “now again” compiles fragments of poetry from Sappho.
The concert will also premiere new works by two Yale School of Music composers. Jordan Kuspa’s Lemonade Battery for chamber orchestra will open the evening’s program. Following it will be Polina Nazaykinskaya’s Real April for soprano, baritone, and ensemble, based on the poetry of Jordan Jacks and Laura Marris. (more…)
Pianist Wei-Yi Yang to perform Chopin and Scriabin
The dynamic pianist Wei-Yi Yang, who won over audiences last year with his fiery performance in Messiaen’s Turangalila-Symphonie, will perform a solo recital on Wednesday, October 14 at 8 pm in Morse Recital Hall in Sprague Memorial Hall (470 College Street, corner of Wall St., New Haven). The program will feature the music of Chopin and Scriabin, including Chopin’s Prelude in C-sharp minor, Op. 45; Nocturne in F-sharp minor, Op. 48 no. 2; and Sonata in B minor, Op. 58, as well as Scriabin’s Twelve Etudes and the Poème-nocturne, Op. 61.
Tickets are only $11 to $20, students $6. Subscriptions to the Horowitz Piano Series are available until September 30. (more…)
Fall Opera Scenes announced
A scene from Yale Opera's production of William Walton's opera The Bear, Sprague Hall, spring 2009.
This October, Yale Opera will continue its tradition of offering two distinct evenings of fully-staged operatic scenes. The artistic staff features stage director Marc Verzatt and music directors Douglas Dickson and Timothy Shaindlin. In addition, John Carver Sullivan will be the costume designer, and William Warfel will design the lighting.
Each opera scene will be sung in its original language with projected English translations.
Friday, October 30 will present scenes by Mozart, Dvorak, and Ambroise Thomas. The evening of Saturday, October 31 will feature the music of Donizetti, Rossini, Stravinsky, and Massenet.
The singers, all part of Yale Opera, include Mireille Asselin, Eric Barry, Jeremy Bowes, Andrew Craig Brown, Gala El Hadidi, Jennifer Feinstein, Adam Frandsen, Stephanie Jeanne Gilbert, Amanda C. Hall, Jihee Kim, Michael-Paul Krubitzer, Lóránt Najbauer, David Pershall, Tyler Simpson, Vince Vincent, and Chrystal E. Williams.
The opera scenes will take place Friday, October 30 and Saturday, October 31 at 7:30 pm in Morse Recital Hall at Sprague Memorial Hall. Doris Yarick-Cross is the artistic director of Yale Opera. (more…)
Don Byron pays tribute to Benny Goodman
The Yale School of Music will present the versatile talents of clarinetist/saxophonist Don Byron and his jazz quartet on Thursday, September 24 at 8 pm in Morse Recital Hall in Sprague Hall (470 College Street, New Haven). Byron, known for his work in jazz and classical as well as klezmer, salsa, hip-hop, and many other genres, will be joined by Bryan Carrott, vibraphone; Kenny Davis, bass; and Eric Harland, drums. The quartet will play music associated with Benny Goodman, including the famous “From Spirituals to Swing” Carnegie Hall concert. Part of the Ellington Jazz Series directed by Willie Ruff, this concert is also the second event in the week-long Celebrating the King of Swing: A Festival for Benny Goodman’s 100th Birthday. (more…)
Bigger Than Life: Big Band Music of Benny Goodman
Festival for Benny Goodman’s 100th birthday concludes with a concert by the Yale Jazz Ensemble, directed by Thomas C. Duffy and featuring clarinetist Vincent Oneppo
Yale’s Celebrating the King of Swing: A Festival for Benny Goodman’s 100th Birthday will conclude with a big band concert on Tue, Sep. 29 at 8 pm in Sprague Hall, featuring arrangements that made Goodman one of the most popular musicians of all time.
Thomas C. Duffy will direct the Yale Jazz Ensemble and clarinetist Vincent Oneppo in an exciting program called Bigger Than Life: The Big Band Music of Benny Goodman. The authentic arrangements – including many of Goodman’s signatures, like “Let’s Dance,” “Don’t Be That Way,” and “Sing, Sing, Sing” – were selected from the Benny Goodman Archives in the Gilmore Music Library at Yale. They include music by the great Fletcher Henderson and other legendary composers associated with New Haven and Yale, including Mel Powell and Cole Porter. (more…)
Celebrating the King of Swing: A Festival for Benny Goodman’s 100th Birthday
Week-long celebration September 22-29 highlights Goodman’s close ties to Yale, with concerts of classical and jazz repertoire
Goodman relaxes in a rehearsal in Yale's Woolsey Hall in 1985.
The Yale School of Music presents Celebrating the King of Swing: A Festival for Benny Goodman’s 100th Birthday. This series of concerts and other events explores Goodman’s enduring contributions to music, both classical and jazz.
On Tuesday, September 22 at 8 pm in Sprague Hall, YSM presents The Classical Legacy of Benny Goodman, a concert of music commissioned and/or premiered by the legendary clarinetist. While many people are aware that Benny Goodman made forays into classical music, they may not realize that he was in fact a major player. Goodman is known predominantly as a jazz musician and bandleader who helped usher in the Swing Era of the 1930s and ’40s, but he was deeply involved in commissioning, performing, and recording a sizeable body of classical works—many of which have become standards of the repertoire—by some of the 20th century’s greatest composers. The program will feature several of these works, including Bartók’s Contrasts, Poulenc’s Clarinet Sonata, Alan Shulman’s Rendezvous, Morton Gould’s Benny’s Gig and Recovery Music, and Copland’s Clarinet Concerto. The program will be repeated at Zankel Hall in Carnegie Hall on Saturday, Sep. 26 as part of the Yale in New York series. (more…)
YSM students perform at Summer Music Sundays
Bartlett Arboretum and Gardens will feature students from the Yale School of Music in their Sunday morning classical music series. Held every Sunday from June 28 through September 6, the summer series takes place on the grounds of the gardens, which are located in Stamford, Conn. In case of rain, the performances will take place in the Visitor Center’s intimate living room. Concerts are free to members or with garden admission.
Sunday Morning Classical Music 10-11am
June 28
July 5, 12, 19, 26
August 2, 9, 16, 23, 30
September 6
Bartlett Arboretum and Gardens
Commencement Concert Toasts the Class of 2009
The Yale School of Music presents its annual Commencement Concert on Sunday afternoon, May 24, 2009 at 4:00 pm in Sprague Memorial Hall (College and Wall Streets, New Haven). Admission is free. The hour-long program showcases outstanding graduating performers who have come from around the world to study at Yale. Performers include virtuosi from the School’s string, wind, piano, and voice departments performing a diverse program.
Because many parents and friends of graduating students may not have had the opportunity to hear the high level of music-making offered at the Yale School of Music, Dean Robert Blocker introduced Sprague Hall Commencement concerts in 1996. Marking the end of the School’s concert season, the Commencement Concert also provides an opportunity for regular concert-goers in the Yale and New Haven communities to enjoy a final program by outstanding student performers.
EVENT DETAILS
Sunday, May 24, 2009 at 4 pm, Morse Recital Hall in Sprague Hall (Corner of College and Wall Streets, New Haven).
Yale School of Music Commencement Concert. Top graduating performers from the Yale School of Music, including voice, strings, winds, and piano. Admission is free. For more information: 203 432-4158, music.yale.edu.
Yale Cellos Gallery
View photographs of two sold-out concerts by the Yale Cellos with director and founder Aldo Parisot. The concerts, which took place at Yale and in Carnegie Hall, honored Aldo Parisot’s 50th year on the Yale School of Music faculty.
All photos by Vincent Oneppo.
