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Faculty composer Hannah Lash, on YSM's annual New Music for Orchestra program

Hannah Lash

On Dec. 7, conducting fellow David Yi will lead the Yale Philharmonia in a program of new orchestral works by the School of Music's graduate-student composers. The annual New Music for Orchestra program is part concert and, to the composers whose music is performed, part workshop.

"The only way to learn orchestration is to hear your own work," faculty composer and New Music New Haven Artistic Director Hannah Lash said. "You can study scores all you want, but there's nothing like having that hands-on experience." Part of that experience is hearing, in person and in context, what works and what may not. "There's nothing like learning from your own mistakes."

For Lash and her faculty colleagues in YSM's composition program, the annual program reflects the work students have done throughout the semester and in some cases before that. It's also a snapshot of work that will continue. The School's faculty composers mentor students in conceptual and practical areas. "We feel really compelled to share our experience," Lash said.

And while the graduate-student composers are the beneficiaries of that wisdom, members of the Yale Philharmonia become ambassadors of the music that's being composed today. "For any player who has any anticipation of potentially playing in an orchestra," Lash said, "it's really, really important that they have a first-hand experience (with music) that has been written by their contemporaries" -- in part to help dispel the notion that orchestras are simply vehicles for music of the past. "They, too, are benefiting from this," Lash said of the instrumentalists, "not just their composer peers."

The New Music for Orchestra program presents an opportunity for audience members, too. Each year, Lash sits among them without identifying herself. "Optimistically," she said, "the response has been positive. They're curious and sort of don't know what to make of (watching) the next generation of composers find their legs a little bit." On Dec. 7, that next generation of composers will add new music to the orchestral repertoire.