2009 Commencement photos now online
Congratulations to the Yale School of Music Class of 2009! Check out our gallery of the big day.
YSM students perform at the Kennedy Center
Fourteen students from the Yale School of Music will perform at the prestigious Kennedy Center in Washington, DC on Monday, May 25 at 6:00 pm. The concert is part of the the Conservatory Project, a series of events presenting the finest young artists from the country’s foremost conservatories.
The varied program includes solo and ensemble performances of music by Haydn, Verdi, Bizet, and Prokofiev, as well as less well-known composers such as Keiko Abe, Jorge Morel, and Robert Beaser. Solo piano, guitar, and marimba are featured, as well as vocal works, a string quartet, and a brass quintet. (more…)
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.
Yale Club of Taipei presents its first public concert
The Yale Club of Taipei announces its first public concert at 7:30 pm on Sunday, March 14, at the Novel Hotel in Taipei, Taiwan（新舞台，台灣台北市信義區松壽路三號). The concert will feature special design, including lights and a slide show. Attendees are invited to share their memories of the Yale campus.
Musicians from the Yale School of Music include flutist Chia-fen Tsai (2001), pianists Chiao-Han Liao (1999), Pei-yee Lee (1996), and Yu-Huang Lin, (1995); violinists Chia-chun Lu (2002), Jia-chi Huang (1996); violist Horng-ren Shih (1995); cellists Ching-wen Hsu (1997), Tsao-lun Lu (1999) and Chia-yi Tseng (2003); and composers Wen-tze Lu (1991) and Ling-Huei Tsai (1998).
Program
Chi-yi Lo: “1945″ (Original Music to Film Cape No. 7)
Charles Ives: “TSIAJ” from Piano Trio
Tyzen Hsiao: Fantasy for Flute and Piano
Robert Schumann: Fantasy Pieces, Op. 73
Robert Schumann: Piano Quartet in E-flat major, Op. 47, movements III and IV
Wen-tze Lu: Yale Tower and Bull Dog (dedicated to all Elis; world premiere)
Ludwig van Beethoven: Sonata for Violin and Piano, “Spring,” movement I
Franz Schubert: Piano Quintet in A Major, “Trout”, D. 667, movements IV and V
George Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue (Chamber version)
Ilya Poletaev wins Grieg Competition in Florida
Ilya Poletaev, a Yale School of Music graduate who now teaches in the Department of Music, has won first prize in the Grieg Festival Young Artists Competition at Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida. The competition, which is open to pianists, vocalists, and violinists, is part of a three-day Grieg Festival highlighting important but lesser-known works of Edvard Grieg. The grand prize-winner will undertake a concert tour in Norway, including concerts at Oystese Hardanger, Troldhaugen (Grieg’s estate) in Bergen, and at the 2009 Grieg Festival in Oslo.
Poletaev leads a multi-faceted career as a classically-trained pianist as well as a performer on early keyboards. As a solo pianist, he has appeared with the Toronto and Hartford symphony orchestras; as a chamber musician, he has performed alongside distinguished artists such as Robert Mann, Donald Weilerstein, Gary Hoffmann, Boris Berman, Paul Hersh, and Susan Narucki. He has also appeared at such prestigious festivals as Moab, Caramoor, Sarasota, Norfolk, Yellow Barn, Banff, the Orford Arts Center, and Stratford Summer Music Festival. He is a recent Laureate of the 2008 National Stepping Stone Competition in Canada. As a harpsichordist, he has been heard in such venues as Weill Hall in Carnegie Hall and the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York. As a continuo player, he has played under such conductors as Andrew Lawrence-King, Graham O’Reilly, and Helmuth Rilling.
Shizuo Kuwahara ’01MM wins 2008 Solti Competition
Frankfurt, November 9, 2008 – The Fourth International Conductors’ Competition Sir Georg Solti has a winner: the 32 year old American Shizuo Kuwahara picked up first prize. Eugene Tzigane (26, also from the USA) received second prize, and Andreas Hotz (27) from Germany came in third place. He was the first German candidate to reach the final round of the International Conductors’ Competition Sir Georg Solti. In 2006 Shizuo took second place in the Solti Competition.
First prize is €15,000, second prize €10,000 and the candidate in third place receives €5,000. The first and second prize winners also received bonus prizes: invitations to conduct for the Frankfurt Museum Orchestra, the hr Symphony Orchestra as well as other German and international orchestras. The public finale concert today, Sunday morning, in Frankfurt’s Alter Oper saw three finalists at the conductor’s stand of the hr Symphony Orchestra performing the following works (selected by drawing lots): Gioacchino Rossini’s “William Tell” overture (Andreas Hotz), Carl Maria von Weber’s “Oberon” overture (Shizuo Kuwahara) and Giuseppe Verdi’s “The Force of Destiny” overture (Eugene Tzigane). Then all three candidates each conducted Igor Stravinsky’s “Firebird Suite” (from No. 4 to the end). After a short break to discuss the winner, the jury chairman Rolf-E. Breuer announced the decision, unanimously agreed by the members of the jury after evaluating the two rehearsal days, Friday and Saturday, and the public finale today, Sunday.
To conclude the morning’s thrilling events there was a performance of Michael Glinka’s “Ruslan and Ludmilla”, conducted by Shizuo Kuwahara, the first prize winner.
The members of the jury for the final round, as chaired by Rolf-E. Breuer, were: Lady Valerie Solti (Patroness of the Competition and widow of the legendary conductor Sir Georg Solti), Ulrich Edelmann (First Concertmaster of the hr Symphony Orchestra), Zdenĕk Mácal (Head Conductor of the Czech Philharmonic), Andreas Mölich-Zebhauser (Director of the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden), Matthias Pintscher (composer and conductor), Sebastian Weigle (General Music Director for the City of Frankfurt am Main, Head Conductor of the Frankfurt Museum Orchestra) and Lothar Zagrosek (Head Conductor of the Konzerthaus Orchestra in Berlin).
Shizuo Kuwahara • www.shizuokuwahara.com
The audience in Frankfurt will still remember Shizuo Kuwahara well as the second prize winner of the last Solti Competition. Since then he (32) has been invited to be a guest conductor by numerous orchestras, such as the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie (German Radio Philharmonic Orchestra) as well as the Polish Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra, which he conducted at the Weilburger Schloss concerts. He received his training at Yale University and the Eastman School of Music, where he graduated with distinction. His first positions were as Associate Conductor of the Virginia Symphony Orchestra and the Philadelphia Orchestra under Christoph Eschenbach, before he was appointed Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the IPPO Philharmonic in Tokyo.
