Adriana Zabala named inaugural Assistant Dean of Collaborative Arts
The Yale School of Music is pleased to announce the appointment of Adriana Zabala as the School’s first Assistant Dean of Collaborative Arts. In this new leadership role, Zabala will help foster interdisciplinary partnerships, wellness, and community engagement within YSM and throughout the broader Yale campus.
Since joining the faculty in 2020, Zabala has championed collaborative and cross-disciplinary learning. In the classroom, she integrates voice instruction with elements of visual art, literature, and cultural history. With Professor Christopher Theofanidis, she co-conceived and co-teaches the Yale Song Lab, an innovative course in which students create and perform original musical works.
The new deanship was created by Dean José García-León as part of a concerted effort to cultivate collaboration and community across the School and the University.
“One of my priorities is collaboration across the board — within the school but also within Yale’s other schools and the College, and even within New Haven,” García-León says.
As Assistant Dean, Zabala will partner closely with Albert Lee, Associate Dean for Student Life and Community Engagement, and other campus leaders to expand opportunities for student engagement and wellbeing. Her responsibilities will include advancing existing programs and developing new initiatives, including those that support student mental health. One initiative planned for next year, for example, is a workshop on overcoming social anxiety in the context of professional networking.
“Her presence in the school and her advocacy even before she took on this role have made the school a more welcoming and connected place,” says Lee.
“I would like it to be part of our identity at YSM that our creativity and our expansiveness are as important as our virtuosity and our excellence,” says Zabala as she looks ahead. “My hope is to significantly contribute to our Yale School of Music students' continued evolution as innovative musical artists, thinkers, and scholars who engage with our own community and the wider world with curiosity and joy."
Raised across Caracas, Venezuela, Houston, and Miami, Zabala brings a holistic, global perspective to the new role. She studied at Louisiana State University, the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, and as a Fulbright Scholar in Salzburg. She previously served as associate professor of voice at the University of Minnesota, chaired the voice division at UMN’s School of Music, and created and led the interdisciplinary global seminar Vive les Arts! in Paris.
