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Students, Faculty + Alumni

Yale composers win New Music USA grants

 

New Music USA logo

More than two dozen student, alumni, and faculty composers from the Yale School of Music have received grants from New Music USA for a variety of commissions, projects, and performances. This year, New Music USA has helped fund 114 projects with grants totaling more than $500,000. Please join us in congratulating the following members of our composition community.

Students

Gabrielle Herbst ’20MM is a part of a project titled “The Female Gaze” through which works featuring the female voice are commissioned and performed. A twist on the trope of the “male gaze,” the project’s composers, performers, and intended audience members are all women. Herbst’s First Lady of the Air was inspired by the life of Amelia Earhart.

Joel Thompson ’20MMA received a commission from the Grant Park Music Festival’s FestivalNext initiative, part of Chicago’s Night Out in the Parks program, which brings classical performances into Chicago neighborhoods. Thompson’s string quartet will be performed by fellows from the festival’s Project Inclusionprofessional development program, which serves young musicians of historically underrepresented identities.

Liliya Ugay ’16MM ’22DMA was a Fellow at the CULTIVATE 2018 Emerging Composers’ Institute, which was created by the Music from Copland House ensemble. The program commissioned Ugay and other fellows to write pieces that were later workshopped, performed, and recorded.

Alumni

The Los Angeles-based Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra will commission 20 composers, with commissioned works to be performed in the 2020 season as part of the organization’s 20x2020 series. Of those composers, eight are YSM alumni or faculty: Andy Akiho ’11MM, Krists Auznieks ’16MM ’22DMA, Christopher Cerrone ’09MM ’10MMA ’14DMA, Natalie Dietterich ’16MM ’17MMA, Ted Hearne ’08MM ’09MMA ’14DMA, Hannah Lash ’12AD, Peter Shin ’20MMA, and Sarah Kirkland Snider ’05MM ’06AD.

Works by Reena Esmail ’11MM and Caroline Shaw ’07MM will be performed by the multi-genre string quartet Brooklyn Rider as part of the ensemble’s “Healing Modes” program in April 2020 at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at the University of Maryland. “Healing Modes” was inspired by the idea that music is a force for healing.

The composing-performing group Invisible Anatomy, including Ian Gottlieb ’15MM, Paul Kerekes ’12MM ’14MMA ’19DMA, Brendon Randall-Myers ’14MM, Ben Wallace ’14MM ’21DMA, and Fay Wang ’10MM ’12AD, presented Illumination as part of the 2019 Tribeca New Music Festival. The performance combined music and performance art and was based on the role of light in human life.

Molly Joyce ’17MM was one of the composers commissioned in 2016 by Grand Valley State University New Music Ensemble as part of its celebration of the 100th anniversary of the National Parks System. A CD of the commissioned works will be released on Innova Recordings. Joyce also received a grant for her project “Breaking and Entering,” which examines physical immobility in dance and music.

Works by Molly Joyce ’17MM, Loren Loiacono ’10BA ’12MM, and Tanner Porter ’19MM were performed as part of “Sing Out, Justice!” a program presented by the Albany Symphony’s 2019 American Music Festival. The festival commemorated the anniversaries of the passage of the 19th Amendment and the Stonewall riots.

Caroline Mallonee ’00MM will have her String Tunes recorded by the Buffalo Chamber Players, for whom she is the composer-in-residence. String Tunes  consists of 12 solos, two trios, one duo, and one quartet.

Marc Mellits ’91MM will be commissioned to write for the Chicago Opera Theater as part of Ear Taxi 2020, the second Chicago Festival of New Music put on by New Music Chicago. The festival’s mission is to support Chicago-based composers, artists, and performers by connecting them with cultural institutions.

Matthew Welch ’13MMA ’17DMA collaborated with five other composers to create the opera Chunky in Heat, which premiered this summer as part of Experiments in Opera’s 2018-2019 residency at the Flea Theater in New York City. Welch is a co-founder of Experiments in Opera.

Faculty

Faculty composer Martin Bresnick will be commissioned by the PRISM Quartet for its performance and recording project “Mending Wall,” which explores the role of walls in today’s society. Bresnick’s piece is based on the 1914 Robert Frost poem of the same name.

Faculty composer Christopher Theofanidis ’94MMA ’97DMA will write a piece for the Allentown Symphony Orchestra for its celebration of the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, in 2020. The work, for strings and harpsichord, will examine themes of conservation and environmentalism.