A musician and scholar of wide-ranging interests and influence, Willie Ruff plays French horn and bass and is an author, lecturer, and educator. After graduating from Yale, he joined Lionel Hampton’s band and soon collaborated with his friend, pianist Dwike Mitchell, to form the Mitchell-Ruff Duo. The duo performed on the bill with major jazz figures, including Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Count Basie, in every major nightclub. In 1959 they introduced jazz to the Soviet Union, playing and teaching in Russian conservatories, and in 1981 they did the same in China.

On faculty at the Yale School of Music since 1971, Professor Ruff has also been on faculty at U.C.L.A., Dartmouth, and Duke University. He is the founding director of the Duke Ellington Fellowship program at Yale, and his work in bringing jazz artists to Yale and New Haven public schools earned him the Governor’s Arts Award in 2000. Click here (Yale Bulletin) and here (Yale Daily News) for articles on the Fellowship’s 30th anniversary in 2002.

Willie Ruff, at right, greets clarinetist Richard Stoltzman ’67MM on the stage of Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall, April 2010

In addition to teaching Yale courses in arranging, ethnomusicology, and folklore, as well as the Interdisciplinary Seminar on Rhythm, Willie Ruff has led many conferences and research projects exploring music’s wide-ranging impact. He has organized an international conference on the Neurophysiology of Rhythmic Perception and created computerized music based on the theories of seventeenth-century astronomer Johannes Kepler.

Mr. Ruff’s work on congregational line singing involved a 2005 conference at Yale comparing the traditions practiced in Alabama, Kentucky, and the Gaelic-speaking Free Church Presbyterians in the Scottish Highlands. This conference resulted in three television documentaries and a feature story for NPR’s “Morning Edition.” His line-singing project continued in 2007 with a conference that included the Muscogee Creek Nation in Oklahoma.

Ruff’s memoir, A Call to Assembly, published in 1991 by Viking Press, was hailed by the L.A. Times as “an unmitigated delight” and received the Deems Taylor Award for excellence in a book on music. Ruff has also written on music and dance in Russia, and on the introduction of American jazz in China, where he has lectured in Mandarin. His second book, Six Roads to Chicago, is “a cultural study of an emerging city that wanted to be ‘the Paris of the Prairie,’ wrote the Hartford Courant.

Fung will compete in the finals this Friday, May 31 at the Palais des Beaux-Arts. He will perform Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat major with conductor Marin Alsop and the National Orchestra of Belgium. The final will be streamed live and on demand on the competition’s website.

The finalists were announced round midnight last Saturday, May 18 May. In alphabetical order, they are: Mateusz Borowiak, Tatiana Chernichka, David Fung, Rémi Geniet, Boris Giltburg, Roope Gröndahl, Sean Kennard, Stanislav Khristenko, Sangyoung Kim, Yuntian Liu, Andrew Tyson, and Zhang Zuo. The twelve finalists will compete between May 27 and June 1.

The Queen Elisabeth Competition was founded in 1937 and alternates among the divisions of piano, violin, composition, and voice. Past winners in piano include Emil Gilels, Leon Fleisher, Vladimir Ashkenasy, and Severin von Eckardstein.

The contemporary chamber ensemble The Declassified, known for its diverse approaches to audience engagement, will perform at the Yale School of Music on Friday, June 7 at 8 pm.

A pre-concert talk will take place at 7 pm. Both the talk and the concert will be in Morse Recital Hall, located in Sprague Hall at 470 College Street.

Several YSM alumni will be among the performers, including Shelley Monroe Huang ’08MM, bassoon; Paul Murphy ’06MM, trumpet; Owen Dalby ’06BA, ’07MM, violin; Brian Ellingsen ’09MM, bass; and David Kaplan ’07MM, ’08MMA, piano. Also performing are clarinetist Alicia Lee, violinist Emily Popham Gillins, violist Meena Bhasin, and cellist Saeunn Thorsteinsdottir. Murphy described the concert program as “youthful and invigorating.”

The program opens with two duets: Astor Piazzolla’s Three tangos for violin and double bass, and Sonnets for cello and piano by YSM alum Andrew Norman. Next comes  Martinu’s short jazz ballet La Revue de Cuisine. Scored for clarinet, bassoon, trumpet, violin, cello, and piano, the ballet features a variety of kitchen utensils flirting and scheming through a night in the kitchen.

The centerpiece of the evening is David Bruce’s Gumboots, written for clarinet and strings. The composer notes that “Gumboot Dancing… was born out of the brutal labour conditions in South Africa under Apartheid.” The piece, he adds, is “an abstract celebration of the rejuvinating power of dance, moving from introspection to celebration.”

The Declassified grew out of its members’ experiences in The Academy, a program that aims to develop a new, boundary-breaking kind of professional musician. Through performing, masterclasses, and teaching in public schools, fellows learn to interact dynamically with audiences. Alumni of The Academy decided to create their own ensemble, The Declassified, that embodied the training and development they had received. Now firmly, established, the ensemble has been hailed by the New York Times as “a new type of classical music group.”

This concert is their New Haven debut. Tickets to the concert are $15 general admission, $5 for students and children; the public can purchase tickets at music.yale.edu/concerts or at 203-432-4158. The concert is part of the 2013 Symposium on Music in Schools, which brings together 50 of the country’s finest music educators for four days of workshops, discussions, and other events.

ABOUT THE DECLASSIFIED

There have been three rounds: the first one – preliminary on recording, and semifinal and final live auditions in New York. 12 pianists advanced to the semifinals and 4 to the finals

As the winner, Bartal will perform a concerto with the NYCA Symphony Orchestra in the Winner’s Evening, as a part of next season’s “Evenings of Piano Concerti” Concert Series. The Winner’s Evening will be fully promoted by NYCA to media and journalists in New York City, and will be written up by the New York Concert Review.

Born in 1986 in Timisoara (Romania), Suzana Bartal started playing the piano at the age of 8 and made her debut with orchestra at the age of 13. She has appeared in such prestigious venues as Musee d’Orsay in Paris, Radio France, and the Music Academy in Budapest, and her numerous recital appearances have taken her through Romania, Hungary, France, Italy, Holland, and Germany.

A prizewinner in numerous national and international competitions since the age of 11, Suzana has also been awarded scholarships by the Yamaha Music Foundation of Europe, Nadia et Lili Boulanger Foundation (Paris), Mécénat Musical Société Générale, the ADAMI and the Williamson Foundation. Her appearances were broadcasted on several national radio and television channels in Romania, Hungary, as well as in France.

Recent competition prizes include: 1st prize and Faure special prize at the Concours International d’Ile de France, 1st prize at the Lagny-sur-Marne international competition, 2nd prize and Debussy prize at the Agropoli international competition (Italy), the 3rd prize at the FLAME competition Paris. In December 2010, Suzana was a finalist in the international piano competition in Campillos (Spain). After graduating with outstanding honours from the music-high school in her hometown, Suzana pursued her studies in France with Denis Pascal, Pierre Pontier and Florent Boffard in Paris and at the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique Lyon. She also received advice from musicians of high reputation, such as Andras Schiff, Menahem Pressler, Tamas Vasary, Claudio Martinez-Mehner, Aldo Ciccolini, Klaus Hellwig, Matti Raekallio, Anne Queffelec, Jean-Claude Pennetier, and others.

Since September 2011, Suzana has been studying with Peter Frankl at the Yale School of Music. Recent highlights include masterclasses with Thomas Adès at the International Musician’s Seminar Prussia Cove (UK) and a recital in the Festival Jeunes Talents (Paris). Suzana is a recipient of the Harriet Gibbs Fox Memorial Prize awarded by Yale in May 2012.

The Cultural Leadership Citation was awarded to James D’Addario. D’Addario is the CEO of D’Addario Strings, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of instrument strings, and (with his wife) co-founder of the non-profit James D’Addario Family Foundation.

The Ian Mininberg Distinguished Service Award was given to Vincent Oneppo ’73MM, who served Yale throughout his rich career and continues to aid the School even after his retirement in 2010.

This year’s Gustave Stoeckel Award was given to Boris Berman, a member of the YSM faculty since 1984. He is currently the coordinator of the piano department and the artistic director of the Horowitz Piano Series.

The School’s most prestigious honor, the Samuel Simons Sanford Award, was presented to composer David Kurtz ’80MM. Kurtz is the winner of numerous Emmy Awards for his work on television shows such as The Young and the Restless and The Bold and the Beautiful. Kurtz has also contributed to the music for movies including The Big Chill, Instant Justice, and Hunk.

Finally, Dean Blocker announced the Yale School of Music student prizes for 2013. The winners are as follows:

Brass and Woodwinds

Thomas Daniel Nyfenger Memorial Prize, to a student who has demonstrated the highest standard of excellence in woodwind playing:
» Ashley Smith

John Swallow Prize, to an outstanding brass player whose artistry and dedication have contributed to the department.
» Hana Beloglavec

Composition

Woods Chandler Memorial Prize, for the best composition in a larger form written during the year.
» Michael Gilbertson

Rena Greenwald Memorial Prize, for the best piano composition written during the year.
» Paul Kerekes

John Day Jackson Prize, for outstanding chamber music compositions written for strings, with or without other instruments.
» Polina Nazaykinskaya

Frances E. Osborne Kellogg Memorial Prize, for the best composition written in a contrapuntal style.
» James Rubino

Ezra Laderman Prize, for the best compositions written for musical theater or voice.
» Stephen Feigenbaum

Guitar

Eliot Fisk Prize, to an outstanding guitarist whose artistic achievement and dedication have contributed greatly to the department.
» Marco Sartor

Organ

Charles Ives Prize, to an outstanding organ major.
» Benton Blasingame

Julia R. Sherman Memorial Prize, for excellence in organ playing.
» Robert Bennesh

Piano

Charles S. Miller Prize, to a gifted pianist who has done outstanding work during the first year of study.
» Sean Chen

Elizabeth Parisot Prize, to outstanding pianists in the School of Music.
» Melody Quah
» Yevgeny Yontov

Strings

The Georgina Lucy Grosvenor Memorial Prize, to be awarded to the violist in the graduating class whose performances while at Yale have exhibited the highest potential for success as a soloist or chamber musician in the field.
» Kendra James

Aldo Parisot Prize, to gifted cellists who show promise for a concert career.
» Jennifer Jinhee Park
» Bo Zhang

The Broadus Erle Prize, to an outstanding violinist in the School of Music
» Melanie Clapies
» Corin Lee
» Cordelia Paw

Voice

David L. Kasdon Memorial Prize, to an outstanding singer in the School of Music.
» Alexander Hahn

Phyllis Curtin Career Entry Prize, to assist in launching the career for a graduating voice student who demonstrates exceptional talent as an artist and promise for a professional career.
» Vivien Shotwell

Master of Musical Arts

Friedmann Thesis Prize, for a MMA thesis notable for its distinguished research, original perspective, in-depth engagement with its subject, and well-crafted presentation.
» Marco Sartor
» Matthew Welch

School Prizes

Philip Francis Nelson Prize, for a student whose musicianship is outstanding and who demonstrates curiosity, talent, and the entrepreneurial spirit in the many dimensions of the music profession.
» Lauren Hunt

Presser Foundation Music Award, for an outstanding returning student, to advance his or her music education.
» William Gardiner

Yale School of Music Alumni Association Prize, to students who have not only excelled in their respective fields, but have also made important contributions to the general life of the School.
» Elizabeth Garrett
» James Jeonghwan Kim
» Henry Kramer
» Shawn Moore
» Esther Park
» Adrianna Tam
» John Taylor Ward
» Virginia Warnken

If you can’t see the magazine below, please click HERE.

On April 29, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation recognized twenty of America’s most vital artists working in the fields of contemporary dance, jazz, and theatre. David Lang ’89DMA, a faculty member of the School of Music, is among the 2013 recipients. Lang will receive an unrestricted, multi-year grant, plus additional targeted support for audience development. Read more about the award here, and read the original press release (PDF) here.

Lang, a past winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Music, is receiving the award for his work in dance and multidisciplinary performance. He is one of the most sought-after American composers in the dance world, having created works for such notable performers/choreographers as Benjamin Millepied, Shen Wei, Edouard Lock/La La La Human Steps, and Susan Marshall—a collaboration for which he received a BESSIE Award.

Lang’s latest project with Marshall is a postmodern dance-theatre–meets–rock-and-roll concept that takes place on real and virtual stages. The pair were recently awarded a 2013 grant from NEFA National Dance Project. Mr. Lang is also the co-founder and co-artistic director of New York’s legendary music collective Bang on a Can and was recently lauded as Musical America’s 2013 composer of the Year. He will hold the Richard and Barbara Debs Composer’s Chair at Carnegie Hall in the 2013–2014 season.

Professor Lang’s new album, Death Speaks, came out April 30. In the title song cycle, death is a character personified: Lang wrote for the piece’s Carnegie Hall debut last year, “It isn’t a state of being or a place or a metaphor, but a person, a character in a drama who can tell us in our own language what to expect in the World to Come.” The album was featured on National Public Radio’s First Listen; tracks are available for a limited time for free listening online.

About David Lang

The music of David Lang, Professor (Adjunct) of Composition, has been performed by major musical, dance, and theatrical organizations throughout the world, including the Santa Fe Opera, the New York Philharmonic, the San Francisco Symphony, The Cleveland Orchestra, the Kronos Quartet, The Nederlands Dans Theater, and the Royal Ballet to name a few, and has been performed in the most renowned concert halls and festivals in the United States and Europe. Lang is well known as co-founder and co-artistic director of New York’s legendary music festival, Bang on a Can. In 2008, Lang was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Music for The Little Match Girl Passion, commissioned by Carnegie Hall for Paul Hillier’s vocal ensemble, Theater of Voices. He has also has been honored with the Rome Prize, the BMW Music-Theater Prize (Munich), a Kennedy Center/Friedheim Award, the Revson Fellowship with the New York Philharmonic, a Bessie Award, a Village Voice OBIE Award, and grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Born in Los Angeles in 1957, David Lang holds degrees from Stanford University and the University of Iowa, and received the D.M.A. from the Yale School of Music in 1989. He has studied with Jacob Druckman, Hans Werner Henze, and Martin Bresnick. David Lang joined the Yale faculty in 2008.

We were pleased to receive multiple replies, and we can now identify the members of the Collegium Musicum in the photo at left.

Seated, left to right: Joseph Iadone, Charlotte Durkee, and Eckhart Richter.

Standing, left to right: Martha Bixler, John Temple Swing.

(Hindemith stands at right.)

On March 9, 2013, Wayne Weng ’12AD won the Seventh Iowa International Piano Competition with his performance of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major.

The competition, which began in 2005, is held every two years, and is limited to competitors between 18 and 35 years of age. Twelve finalists were selected from 92 applications. The finalists performed three rounds: an initial solo recital, a chamber music recital with members of the Rawlins Piano Trio, and finally, a performance of a Beethoven concerto with the Sioux City Symphony Orchestra.

According to the Sioux City Journal, Weng’s performance “was superior on all counts.” The review hailed his blend of “emotion and technical strength.”

Pianist Wayne Weng’s playing has been described as “bold, vibrant, and immensely musical” and as having “delicacy amounting to almost reverence […] through gossamer touch.”  (Wiltshire Gazette & Herald)  He has performed in Canada, the United States, England, France, Holland, Belgium, Austria, Serbia, Egypt, and Hong Kong, both as recitalist as well as collaborative pianist.  Mr. Weng has performed in venues such as the Kennedy Center, Steinway Hall, Cambridge Fitzwilliam Museum, the 100 Club in London, the Bulgarian Consulate in New York, Ruïnekerk Bergen, Brahms Museum Mürzzuschlag, Cairo Opera House, Orpheum Theatre in Vancouver, Vancouver Playhouse, and the British Columbia Governor House. His concerto performances have included appearances with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Victoria Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Seattle, and the Avanti Orchestra. He has also been featured on radio stations such as  WQXR (New York), CBC Radio, and Seattle King FM. In addition to performing, he has served as an adjudicator at the Festival on the Lake in Vancouver and the International Chopin Youth Competition in Houston. 

Weng has won prizes at the Washington International Competition for Piano, Tunbridge Wells International Young Artists Competition, Haverhill Sinfonia Soloists Competition, Pacific Piano Competition, CBC Debut Concert Artists Auditions, and the Kingsville International Young Performers Competition. He has also been a recipient of the Solti Foundation Grant and the British Columbia Arts Council Senior Scholarship.  He has participated in such summer festivals as the International Holland Music Sessions, International Keyboard Institute and Festival, TCU/Cliburn Piano Institute, Bowdoin International Music Festival, and Ecole d’Art Americaines in Fontainebleau, where he was awarded the Piano Prix.

Born in Taiwan in 1983, Wayne immigrated to Canada during his formative years. In 2006, under the tutelage of Natalya Antonova, he received his Bachelor of Music degree and the Performer’s Certificate from the Eastman School of Music.  He subsequently studied with Pavlina Dokovska and earned the Master of Music degree from the Mannes College of Music.  Thereafter he moved to London, where he was studying with Joan Havill at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.  After graduating with distinction from its Advanced Instrumental Studies program in 2010, Wayne moved back to the U.S. In 2012, he received his Artist Diploma from the Yale School of Music, where he studied with Peter Frankl.

Yale Opera in Morse Recital Hall

Yale Opera has announced the performance night casts for its upcoming production of Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta. The opera, which will be performed May 3 and 4, tells the story of a blind princess who experiences the transformative power of love.

The up-and-coming director Michael Gieleta makes his Yale Opera debut as the stage director. Timothy Shaindlin is the musical director for the production’s lush score. Doris Yarick-Cross is the artistic director of Yale Opera. Click here for more information, and here to purchase tickets.

Friday, May 3

Iolanta: Catherine Affleck McPhail

Marta: Vivien Shotwell

Brigitta: Claudia Rosenthal

Laura: Aleks Romano

King Rene: David Leigh

Vaudemont: Galeano Salas

Robert: Brian Vu

Almeric: Nikhil Navkal

Bertrand: Nathan Milholin

Ibn Hakia: Stephen Daniel

Saturday, May 4

Iolanta: Jenna Siladie

Marta: Kelly Hill

Brigitta: Alison King

Laura: Aleks Romano

King Rene: Alex Hahn

Vaudemont: Galeano Salas

Robert: Brian Vu

Almeric: Nikhil Navkal

Bertrand: Nathan Milholin

Ibn Hakia: Stephen Daniel