YSM Alumni and Student News Round-Up | June 2025

Cellist Pedro de Alcantara ’83MM will release his new book Hands, Wrists, Fingers: Creative Health for Musicians in August 2025. The book is illustrated with 200 photos and accompanied by 36 video clips, published by Anthem Press.

Conductor Jonathan Babbitt ’85MM was appointed Director of Performing Arts at Mitchell College in New London, CT in March. In this role, he teaches music theory, music history, technical stage craft, stage makeup, and acting; he also conducts the Select Chorus and directs the theater program. 

Composer and YSM faculty member Katherine Balch ’16MM was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in April. Her accordion concerto was premiered in May with Ensemble Intercontemporain at Wigmore Hall, a commission from the venue. Balch’s musica pyralis was also featured on a subscription concert at the Oregon Symphony.

Conductor Stefano Boccacci ’25MMA was named assistant conductor of the 2025 Colorado Music Festival, where he will work alongside YSM faculty member and Yale Philharmonia principal conductor Peter Oundjian.

Guitarist Joseph Ehrenpreis ’24MM ’25MMA will begin a Doctor of Musical Arts degree at UCLA this fall, studying with Mircea Gogoncea. He will record two new projects with Etymology Classics: a set of ten original children’s lullabies for solo 8-string Brahms guitar and a collection of John Dowland lute works arranged for the same instrument. Both albums will be released later this year.

Horn player Stephanie Fritz ’22MM started subbing on the Broadway production of Sondheim's Old Friends in April, starring Bernadette Peters and Lea Salonga.

Violinist Laurel Gagnon ’25MMA and her trio, Vinola Trio, won the grand prize at the Plowman Chamber Music Competition.

Vocalist Giorgi Guliashvili ’25MMA will join the Royal Opera House in London as a member of the Jette Parker Artist Programme for the 2025–26 and 2026–27 seasons.

Composer Lance Hulme ’97DMA released his second portrait album Leaps & Bounds: The Music of Lance Hulme on the Métier label (Divine Art Recording Group). The double album includes award-winning works such as An Eternal Flame, JethroZen, Slapdash Redux, Wildcat, and Bonfire Bacchanal.

Bassoonist Eleni Katz ’20MM ’21MMA, a Wisconsin native and UW-Madison alumna, will join the faculty of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music as bassoon teaching faculty in August. She is excited to return home and re-join the institution as both a teacher and a member of the Wingra Wind Quintet.

Conductor Joseph Kemper ’18MM was appointed Associate Professor of Music (Choral Conducting and Voice) at St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN. In this role, he will conduct the St. Olaf Chapel Choir and Viking Chorus and serve on the artistic committee of the St. Olaf Christmas Festival.

Vocalist Paweł Konik ’17MM debuted as Amfortas in Wagner’s Parsifal at Staatsoper Stuttgart to critical acclaim in 2017. He also debuted as Capulet in Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette at the Polish National Opera and performed Mahler’s 8th Symphony with the Silesian Philharmonic in May.

Violinist Elizabeth Suh Lane ’89MM, founder and artistic director of Bach Aria Soloists, invited jazz pianist Helen Sung to compose a new piece for the ensemble. In April, Bach Aria Soloists and Sung gave the world premiere of Rubicon Suite as part of a concert blending Bach and jazz on The Folly Jazz Series.

Harpist Chai Lee ’24MM was appointed Principal Harpist at the Kansas City Symphony by music director Matthias Pintscher.

Harpist Subin Lee ’25MM was named to Forbes Korea’s 2025 “30 Under 30” list.

Pianist Feiyi Liao ’24MM ’25MMA premiered his solo piano composition Inscape 心魔 at his Yale degree recital, concluding three years of secondary study in composition and a thirteen-year creative exploration as a pianist. The work reflects his pursuit of modern pianistic virtuosity and his engagement with the sonic world of the ancient Chinese instrument bianzhong (编钟).

Composer Kacper Madejek ’25MM ’30DMA won first prize in the 4th Brussels Chamber Ensemble Composition Competition. His orchestral work Musica Umbra will be performed in June at Flagey in Brussels as part of the Polish Classical Gems concert celebrating Poland’s 2025 EU Council Presidency. Violinist Laura Esnaola ’05BA ’06MM a founding member of the Brussels Chamber Ensemble, will perform in the concert.

In May, clarinetist Osiris J. Molina ’98MM and guitarist Rene Izquierdo ’09MM ’00AD performed the world premiere of Perpetuum Mobile by celebrated Cuban composer Leo Brouwer at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, as part of the Cuban Cultural Center of New York's retrospective of Brouwer's music.

Vocalist Molly Netter ’14MM, returned to the voice faculty at Oberlin’s Baroque Performance Institute alongside James Taylor and Dame Emma Kirkby. Recent performances include Reena Esmail’s the history of Red with the Albany Symphony, David Lang’s song of songs at New York City Center, little match girl passion at The Met Cloisters, and Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with Mark Vuorinen in Ontario. In the 2025–26 season, she will appear in Bach’s B Minor Mass with the San Antonio Philharmonic, a medieval-to-contemporary program with Voices of Music, and Mozart’s Mass in C Minor with the Bach Society of St. Louis.

Composer Tawnie Olson’s ’99MM ’00AD multi-movement Beloved of the Sky and recorded and released on The Crossing’s recent album, At Which Point. The piece was commissioned by the Barlow Foundation for The Crossing, Seraphic Fire and the BYU Singers. It was published in April by E.C. Schirmer in their Donald Nally Contemporary Voices series.

Vocalist Juliet Ariadne Papadopoulos ’24MM won second place in the Lyndon Woodside Oratorio Solo Competition, hosted by the Oratorio Society of New York at Weill Recital Hall. In late May, she returned to Carnegie Hall to perform as a soloist with the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Sir John Rutter.

Violist Kyra Philippi ’98MM, founded KSH Sinfonia, the first school orchestra at KSH High School in Hoofddorp, the Netherlands. The orchestra focuses on sharing a love and enthusiasm for classical music, performed by students of all levels and backgrounds.

Organist Ian Quinn ’04MM, professor of organ at Florida State University, has been elected to the fellowship of the Royal Historical Society (FRHistS) and the Society of Antiquaries (FSA). He has also been appointed as an Honorary Research Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music and recently received the Edith and Richard French research fellowship from the Beinecke Library, Yale University.

Vocalist Nola Richardson DMA ’20, performed works by Bach and Vivaldi with the Seattle Symphony, and the Mozart Requiem with the Jacksonville Symphony in May.

Percussionist Ian Rosenbaum ’10MM ’11AD and his Grammy-nominated ensemble, Sandbox Percussion, a true champion of contemporary art music, were featured on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts, showcasing music by Andy Akiho ’11MM and Viet Cuong.

In March, vocalist Laurie Rubin ’03MM performed at Beyond Blindness’s 8th annual Vision Beyond Sight Gala.

Composer Greg Sandow ’74MM had a concert and recording of his three string quartets with the Terra String Quartet, who are in residence at Yale. The recording will be released later this year on the Acis Productions label.

Flutist Elvin Schlanger ’22MM was appointed principal flute of the Dayton Philharmonic. He will begin the role in the 2025–26 season.

Organist Nicholas Stigall ’26MM gave the world premiere of Pamela Decker’s Chromatic Rhapsody on an Original Theme in January at Woolsey Hall.

Susan E. Thompson ’79MM, curator of Yale’s Morris Steinert Collection of Musical Instruments, recently published Resounding Brass: Conch Shells to Silver Trumpets: The Evolution of Brass Instruments as Viewed through Objects in Yale University’s and Privately Held Collections (New Haven: Yale Printing and Publishing Services, 2024). The book features 153 color photos and 139 pages. The project was realized with the help of museum staff including Timothy Feil ’17MMA, Will Riley Robbins ’17MM, Gabriel Mairson ’19MM ’20MMA, and Christina Linsenmeyer.

Composer Liliya Ugay ’16MM ’22DMA was named the 2024 Distinguished Composer of the Year by the Music Teachers National Association — the first female composer to receive this honor since 2000. This award was given for her work pull no more, an electroacoustic harp piece created in collaboration with Noël Wan ’16MM. Ugay’s Hopper Quartet, commissioned by Florrie Marshall ’18MM ’26DMA, was a laureate of The Molinari Quartet Ninth International Composition Competition in Montréal, Canada. Ugay has also been promoted to Associate Professor at Florida State University College of Music, where she has been on the composition faculty since 2019.

In May, composer Joseph Waters ’82MM premiered El Sidd & The Healers, a mythic rock opera set in the decaying twilight of the 1960s counterculture. The opera, inspired by Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha, explores the search for truth and healing within the psychedelic landscape of communes and gurus, critiquing the illusions and power dynamics of the era's utopian dreams.

Composer Benjamin Webster’s ’23MMA ’29DMA orchestral work, Autumn Movement, was performed by the Minnesota Orchestra in April, as part of the Minnesota Composer Institute.

Conductor Yiran Zhao ’23MM will be a Tanglewood Conducting Fellow this summer, leading the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra alongside Andris Nelsons, Dima Slobodeniouk, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Thomas Wilkins, and Andrés Orozco-Estrada. She will conduct the TMC Silent Film Project and a variety of repertoire including Ravel’s L’Enfant et les sortilèges, Daphnis et Chloé Suite No. 2, Bach’s Lutheran Mass in G, and pieces by Simon, Bartók, Golijov, Shostakovich, Joan Tower, Katherine Balch, Diana Syrse, and Gabriella Smith. Zhao will also make her debut conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Boston Symphony Hall in April of 2026, with Smetana’s Vltava.

These news updates feature current students and alums. Submit your news by August 31 to be included in the next YSM Alumni and Student News roundup.