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…)
From the Archives: Composer David Stanley Smith
David Stanley Smith spent much of his musical life at Yale, where he studied with Horatio Parker and was friends with Charles Ives. Later in his career, he taught music history at the university. In 1920, he succeeded his old mentor Parker as dean of the School of Music and conductor of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra (when it was closely integrated with the university). (more…)
“Senior” by Timo Andres ‘09MM premieres at Carnegie Hall
Composer Timothy (Timo) Andres enjoyed a successful premiere of his orchestral work “Senior” in Carnegie Hall on Sunday, March 22.Written for string quartet and orchestra, the piece is written to evoke the state of mind of a senior in college. The New York Youth Symphony commissioned the 12-minute work, performing it with the ACME String Quartet and conductor Ryan McAdams.
According to Anthony Tommasini of the New York Times, “This pensive and restless music does seem to touch on the conflicting emotions that Mr. Andres identifies with senior slump: expectancy and finality, bewilderment and boredom. But the piece was fascinating on musical terms alone… The acuteness of Mr. Andres’s ear lends intricacy to the layered lines and pungency to the piercing harmonies.” (more…)
New Music New Haven features Martin Bresnick’s multimedia, anti-war piece Caprichos Enfáticos
The Yale School of Music features composer Martin Bresnick in a New Music New Haven concert at 8:00 pm on Thursday, April 2 in Morse Recital Hall in Sprague Memorial Hall. The program highlights Bresnick’s Caprichos Enfáticos: Los Desastres de la Guerra (Emphatic Caprices: The Disasters of War), a piece that laments the excesses and tragedies of war by integrating devastating interpolated DVD projections, created by Johanna Bresnick, based on Francisco Goya’s book of etchings Los Destastres de la Guerra. Pianist Lisa Moore and the acclaimed ensemble So Percussion will perform this multimedia work. (more…)
Interview: Ezra Laderman on his own music
Ezra Laderman, professor of composition, talks with Susan Hawkshaw, assistant director of the Oral History American Music Project, about the program of his music on the Yale in New York series presented March 3, 2008 at Weill Recital Hall.
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The concert of chamber works spanned the broad range of Laderman’s career, from his 1954 Bassoon Concerto (performed with string quartet) to the New York premiere of Interior Landscapes II for two pianos (2007). Interior Landscapes I opened the program, which also featured June Twenty-ninth (1986) and June Thirtieth (2004) for solo flute as well as the Violin Duets from 1998.
Laderman came to the Yale School of Music in 1988 as a visiting professor and served as Dean from 1989 to 1995. He is now a professor of composition and artistic director of the New Music New Haven series. The recipient of three Guggenheim fellowships and a Rome Prize, in 2006 Laderman was elected the president of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
