Student and Alumni News | May 2024

Join us in congratulating our students and alumni on their recent successes!

Composer Timo Andres ’07BA ’09MM was nominated for a Tony Award in the “Best Orchestrations” category for Illinoise.

Luke Baker ’18MM won the principal horn position in the Kyushu Symphony Orchestra in Fukuoka, Japan, in 2023 and earned tenure this year.

Composer Brittney Benton ’25MM was selected to participate in the Alba Music Festival Composition Program in Italy, where her Piano Trio No. 1 will be performed by the SOLI chamber ensemble.

Violist Ryan Davis ’16MM joined the University of British Columbia School of Music faculty as assistant professor and will begin in that role on July 1.

On April 8, before the total eclipse, choral conductor Dominick DiOrio ’08MM ’09MMA ’12DMA, who serves as professor of music and chair of choral conducting at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music, led the school’s ensemble NOTUS and student instrumentalists in his original work Eclipse Music for William Shatner, which accompanied the actor's original spoken-word narration, Welcoming the Darkness. An audience of thousands took in the performance at the university’s Memorial Stadium moments before totality. DiOrio and Shatner spoke via Zoom in preparation for their collaboration. Video of the performance is available on YouTube.

Organist Joseph Ferguson ’24MM was appointed associate director of music at Trinity Church in Princeton, New Jersey. Ferguson will serve as principal accompanist for church ensembles, including three choirs. Ferguson will also serve as director of music at the Episcopal Church at Princeton, where he will direct the Lux Choir.

Childhood, a composition by guitarist Thomas Flippin ’07MM ’08AD was premiered at the 15th annual Fret Fest at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University. The performance was conducted by Juliano Dutra Aniceto and featured Peabody faculty, Manuel Barrueco’s guitar studio, and advanced students from Peabody’s Preparatory division. The performance also featured the guitar-orchestra work Scenes from Ellis Island by YSM Associate Professor (Adjunct) of Guitar Benjamin Verdery. The concert was organized by Peabody Preparatory faculty member Zoë Johnstone Stewart.

Pianist David Fung ’11MM ’13MMA ’17DMA was appointed to the faculty at the Manhattan School of Music, joining Yefim Bronfman, Michelle Cann, and Olga Kern in that capacity. Fung continues to serve as a professor at the University of British Columbia and as curator at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts in Vancouver. With a repertoire of more than 60 concertos, Fung continues to work with orchestras and presenters around the world, including, most recently, the Cleveland Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, and Los Angeles Philharmonic, with such conductors as Marin Alsop, Gustavo Dudamel, and Stanislav Kochanovsky. Fung is represented by Arabella Arts.

Laurel Gagnon ’25MMA reached the live rounds of the Queen Elisabeth International Violin Competition in Brussels. Gagnon’s Vinola Trio, with clarinetist Li-Jie Yu and pianist Ruoyang Xiang, won Third Prize at the Music Teachers National Association’s Chamber Music Competition.

Composer Dayton Hare ’24MM won a fellowship through the 2024-25 Fulbright-Harriet Hale Woolley Awards in the Arts to service a residency, for the next academic year at the Fondation des États-Unis in Paris, to compose music that interacts with climate-change mitigation efforts the city has recently implemented. Hare’s piano trio, An object of some concern, was performed in Atlanta by the ensemble Bent Frequency. The piece was one of six works chosen from more than 500 works submitted in response to a call for scores.

In August, tenor Michaël Hudetz ’24MMA will tour Germany, Spain, and the UK with Masaaki Suzuki’s Bach Collegium Japan. Hudetz also has performances scheduled with the Grammy Award-winning vocal ensemble The Crossing.

Harpist Chaerin Kim ’05MM was elected an associate of the Royal Academy of Music in London.

In March, pianist Euntaek Kim ’13AD performed all nine of Prokofiev’s Piano Sonatas in two consecutive solo recitals at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The performances were a part of an ongoing project in which Kim will record the composer’s complete piano works.

Tenor Seiyoung Kim ’24MMA will sing the role of Harlekin in Viktor Ullmann’s Der Kaiser von Atlantis at the Vienna Volksoper in February 2025. The coproduction will also feature the Vienna State Ballet.

In February, violinist Sarita Kwok ’05MMA ’06AD ’09DMA was named the inaugural dean at Gordon College’s Adams School of Music. Kwok served as professor of music and chair of the college’s Department of Music since 2014.

The Sebastians, an early music ensemble directed by Jeffrey Grossman and Daniel Lee ’06MM ’08AD, concluded its 11th concert season with a performance featuring a reconstruction of Jean-Baptiste Lully's Les 24 Violons du Roi. The season included a performance of French baroque music with the Yale Voxtet and performances of Baroque music on period instruments in Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania.

The Amnis Piano Quartet—violinist Minkyung Lee ’23MM ’24MMA, violist Matthew McDowell ’24MM, cellist Jenny Bahk ’23MM ’24MMA, and pianist Linda Lee ’23MM ’24MMA—won the first-place prize at Chamber Music in Yellow Springs’ Annual Competition for Emerging Professional Ensembles.

In December, harpist Subin Lee ’25MM made her solo recital debut at the Seoul Arts Center.

Fear No More (2022) by composer Aaron Israel Levin ’19MM ’27DMA was included in North Star Music’s publication New Voices of Art Song.

Horn player Gabriel Mairson ’19MM ’20MMA won a tenure-track position with the North Carolina Symphony.

Composer Marcus Maroney ’00MM ’06DMA began the year with three collaborative premieres: The Telling, with NobleMotion Dance, was performed in January; Flying First Ward! with The ARTZ! Aerial artists and pianist Tali Morgulis was performed in February; and The Book of the Heavenly Cow with poet and video artist T. Lavois Thiebaud and Musiqa, was performed in March. Maroney was a featured guest composer at the International Duo Symposium at Northwestern State University in April.

Soprano Juliet Papadopoulos ’24MM made her Carnegie Hall (Stern Auditorium) debut singing the soprano solo in John Rutter’s Magnificat under the composer’s baton. Papadopoulos performed Pierrot Lunaire at the Arnold Schoenberg Center in Vienna and won the Grand Prize from the Doug Davis Composition and Performance Endowment at California State University, Bakersfield. Papadopoulos’ summer season includes a return to Carnegie Hall, a tour with the Yale Schola Cantorum performing J.S. Bach’s B-minor Mass, and an appearance as Donna Anna in an Opera Theater of Connecticut production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni.

Dr. Andrew Parker ’10MM was appointed associate professor of oboe at the Louisiana State University School of Music and will begin serving in that role in fall 2024. Parker currently serves as assistant professor of oboe and graduate coordinator at Oklahoma State University’s Michael and Anne Greenwood School of Music. 

Horn player Kate Sheeran ’04MM was named the Joan and Martin Messinger Dean of the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester and will begin serving in that role on July 15. Sheeran is currently executive director of the Kaufman Music Center in New York City. She previously served as provost and dean at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and, before that, as assistant dean at the Mannes School of Music at the New School in New York.

Soprano Jaeeun Shin ’24MMA participated in the Queen Elizabeth Competition with support from the School of Music.

Collective Brass, a quintet that includes trumpeter Carl Stanley ’15MM, released its third album, Under the Birch Tree, a collection of works by composers Bernhard Crusell, Kjell Roikjer, Waldemar Åhlén, Wilhelm Stenhammar, Wilhelm Peterson-Berger, and others, including original compositions for brass ensemble.

Alexander Straus-Fausto ’24MM will pursue an artist diploma in organ performance at the University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music after a summer of performances in Boston, San Francisco, and Toronto; at Coventry Cathedral, St. Paul’s Cathedral, and Westminster Abbey, in England; and at La Madeleine in France.

Cellist William Suh ’23MM ’24MMA won first prize at the 57th Serge & Olga Koussevitzky Young Artist Awards, which are sponsored by the Musicians Club of New York.

Tubist Antonio Underwood ’87MM was elected mid-Atlantic district vice president of the Yale Science and Engineering Association. He’ll serve in the position until April 2026. Underwood is in the process of mastering two tuba-featuring CDs for Tone East Music, LLC.

Horn player Kate Warren ’23MMA, who serves as a Yaffe Post-Graduate Teaching Fellow in YSM’s Music in Schools Initiative, will be the horn soloist in a production of the Tony and Emmy Award winning Broadway show Blast! which will embark on a 12-week summer tour of the northern prefectures of Japan, including a two-week sit-down in Tokyo.

Violinist Dawn Dongeun Wohn ’08MM ’09AD was appointed assistant professor of violin at the Mead Witter School of Music at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Wohn’s second album, Unbounded, which was released by Delos, was described as work of “enlightened advocacy” by Gramophone. BBC Magazine said Wohn performs with a “joyful sense of freedom, and a pure, unencumbered tone.”

Samantha Wolf ’21MM ’22MMA was appointed to the composition faculty at the University of Alabama and named co-artistic director of the university’s Contemporary Ensemble. In August 2023, Wolf’s A rose is a rose is a ruse: A Bachelor’s Tale was premiered at the Sydney Opera House by Ensemble Offspring to great critical acclaim. Wolf’s chamber opera, Sarah Gets Her Sh*t Together, was premiered at the Longy School of Music in March.

 

 

These news updates feature current students and alumni. Submit your news by July 1 to be included in the next Student and Alumni News roundup.