New endowment establishes Wendy Sharp '82BA Chamber Music Fellowship
The Yale School of Music is pleased to announce a new endowment to support the Chamber Music Fellowship program. The endowment is part of funds raised in honor of Wendy Sharp and Dean Takahashi. Sharp, an alumna of Yale College, is the director of chamber music at the Yale School of Music. Takahashi, her husband, is a graduate of the Yale School of Management who serves as senior director of the Yale University Investments Office.
The Chamber Music Fellowship program at the School of Music supports one- to two-year residencies by talented young string quartets. The current Fellowship ensemble is the Argus Quartet, which is mentored by the Brentano Quartet. Previous Fellowship ensembles included the Jasper String Quartet. In the mid-1980s, Sharp participated in the program as a member of the Franciscan String Quartet. The program was then called the Wardwell Fellowship, and the Franciscan Quartet studied with the Tokyo String Quartet, which was the faculty ensemble in residence 1976–2013.
Additional gifts made in honor of Sharp and Takahashi will endow a new professorship at the School of Management named for Dean Takahashi, and a scholarship for students in Yale College. In appreciation for the family's longtime commitment to the university, the Berkeley College common room was recently named for the Sharp-Takahashi family. Both of their children have attended Yale College as members of classes of 2014 and 2016.
Berkley Master Marvin Chun said, "[I believe that] Dean, Wendy, Kerry, and Kai… are Berkeley College’s first full two-generation family, considering that women were not admitted to Yale until 1969." The Yale School of Management noted in an article, "The funds for the gifts were raised through a special initiative to honor Takahashi’s 30 years of service to Yale… Numerous friends, classmates, and colleagues participated in the effort to raise funds in honor of Takahashi and… Wendy Sharp." The article quoted Takahashi as saying, “My family and I are immensely grateful and overwhelmed by the amazing generosity and support.”
