School Notes: School of Music
July/August 2018

Composers named Pulitzer Prize cofinalists

Two Yale School of Music composers were named cofinalists for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize in music. Michael Gilbertson ’13MusM, ’21MusAD, was nominated for his work Quartet, which was commissioned by the Verona Quartet, Concert Artists Guild, and BMI Foundation. Ted Hearne ’08MusM, ’14MusAD, was nominated for his work Sound from the Bench, which was commissioned by Volti and The Crossing. 

Three win concerto competition

The school’s 2018 Woolsey Hall Concerto Competition yielded three winners: tubist Jacob Fewx ’18MusM, who performed Arild Plau’s Concerto for Tuba and Strings; pianist Sophiko Simsive ’18MusM, who performed Johannes Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Op. 15; and flutist Jungah Yoon ’19MusM, who performed Carl Reinecke’s Flute Concerto in D major, Op. 283. As winners of the competition, these instrumentalists will appear as soloists with the Yale Philharmonia during the 2018–19 season.

Opera program alumni earn awards

Two of Yale Opera’s outstanding alumni recently received awards from the Richard Tucker Music Foundation. Bass-baritone Christian Van Horn ’02MusM, ’03MusAD, received the prestigious 2018 Richard Tucker Award, becoming only the third bass-baritone to win the award in the organization’s 40-year history; and bass David Leigh ’14MusM received a Sara Tucker Study Grant.

A tech take on Hansel and Gretel

In May, the Yale Opera presented a contemporary take on Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel. In reimagining the classic opera, director John Giampietro found inspiration in the technology that consumes us even as we recognize the benefits of being so thoroughly connected. In the libretto, written by the composer’s sister, Adelheid Wette, and based on the fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm, brother and sister Hansel and Gretel are sent by their mother into the forest where they are held captive by a malevolent witch. In Yale Opera’s production, the forest was a virtual reality game, and the witch was the personification of the Internet’s harmfulness.