School Notes: School of Music
May/June 2015

American Academy honors alumni

Yehudi Wyner ’50, ’53MusM, has been elected president of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He succeeds architect Henry N. Cobb and will serve a three-year term. Wyner, who won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in Music, was a professor at the Yale School of Music from 1963 to 1977.

In addition, several Yale alumni are among the winners of the Academy’s 2015 awards in music. Harold Meltzer ’00MusAD and Kevin Puts ’96MusM were among the four winners of the Arts and Letters Awards in Music, honoring outstanding artistic achievement. Paul Kerekes ’12MusM, ’14MusAM, will receive the Walter Hinrichsen Award for the publication of a work by a gifted composer. Emily Cooley ’12 and Polina Nazaykinskaya ’10MusM, ’13ArtA, are among the recipients of the Charles Ives scholarships given to composition students of great promise.

Music in Schools program winners

The fifth Yale Symposium on Music in Schools takes place June 4–7 on the Yale campus. This year’s event focuses on partnerships between professional music organizations and public school music programs. All participants receive the Yale Distinguished Music Educator Award and will send representatives to the symposium for three days of strategic sessions. This year’s winners comprise 38 partnerships hailing from 19 states and the District of Columbia. Among the participants are the Philadelphia Orchestra, Jazz Aspen Snowmass, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the Cliburn Competition, Astral Artists, and the National Symphony Orchestra. Featured speakers include MacArthur Fellow Sebastian Ruth, Pulitzer Prize–winning composer David Lang ’89MusAD, and author/journalist Joanne Lipman ’83. For more information, visit music.yale.edu/symposium.

In memoriam: Ezra Laderman, 90

Composer Ezra Laderman died February 28 at the age of 90. His works included 12 string quartets, 11 concertos, and eight symphonies; six dramatic oratorios, seven operas, and music for two Academy Award–winning films. After joining the Yale School of Music community as a composer-in-residence in 1988, Laderman served as dean from 1989 to 1995. He then served as professor of music until his retirement in 2013 and was named professor emeritus in 2014. Laderman was a leader of numerous professional organizations, including service as director of the music program of the National Endowment for the Arts, president of the National Music Council, and president of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.