Willie Ruff receives Sanford Medal
Willie Ruff ’53BM, ’54MM received the Sanford Medal, the School of Music’s highest honor, this past Monday, May 20. Dean Robert Blocker presented the medal at the School’s Commencement ceremonies in Sprague Hall. The award honors Ruff’s contributions to the Yale School of Music and to the field of music. A musician and scholar of wide-ranging [...]
A Conjoining of Ancient Song: A World Premiere Screening
A Conjoining of Ancient Song, a new documentary by Dr. Gretchen Berland and Yale School of Music professor Willie Ruff, will receive its world premiere. The half-hour Yale documentary retraces the trajectory of a rapidly eroding form of congregational singing out of Scotland and into both African American and Native American religious song traditions. After the screening, [...]
Lou Donaldson receives Ellington Medal
Lou Donaldson, the legendary saxophonist and recently named NEA Jazz Master, was awarded an Ellington Medal last Friday, October 5. Willie Ruff, the director of the Ellington Fellowship at Yale, conferred the medal during a concert featuring Donaldson and his quartet. The concert, which took place in Morse Recital Hall, was the second event of the 2012–13 [...]
Willie Ruff to lecture on jazz legend Oscar Pettiford May 13
Willie Ruff, Professor of Music and the Director of the Duke Ellington Fellowship at Yale, will present “Blues in the Closet,” a musical portrait of the legendary bassist and cellist Oscar Pettiford, on Sunday, May 13 at 3 pm. Pettiford, born in 1922 in Oklahoma to parents of African American and Native American ancestry, is [...]
Video: Jazz Concert Preview
“The drum is central to American jazz music,” says Willie Ruff in a new video. “Without the drum, the language dies.” Watch Willie Ruff talk about jazz drumming and Friday’s concert featuring the percussion quartet The Whole Drum Truth.
Willie Ruff, Whole Drum Truth headline Nov. 4 concert
Event kicks off “A House Full of Rhythm,” the 2011–2012 Ellington Jazz season The Ellington Jazz Series at the Yale School of Music kicks off its 2011–2012 season on Friday, November 4 with a concert featuring French horn player Willie Ruff and the star drum quartet The Whole Drum Truth. Multistyle violinist Mari Black will [...]
Home Grown Stars: Yale’s Ellington Program honors performing arts schools in a free concert October 1
Groups from Neighborhood Music School, Co-Op High, and ECA will perform The Yale School of Music and the Duke Ellington Fellowship will celebrate the contributions of three New Haven performing arts schools on Friday, October 1 at 8 pm in Morse Recital Hall (located in Sprague Hall, 470 College Street, New Haven). The jazz concert, [...]
