School Notes: School of Music
September/October 2007

How to get to Carnegie Hall

A series of five concerts in Carnegie Hall this season will illustrate Yale's great musical legacy, showcase our renowned faculty artists, and bring to the nation's most fabled concert hall young performers of unusual promise who have come to study at Yale. The first concert, on October 1 in Carnegie's Zankel Hall, will feature the Tokyo String Quartet, in residence at Yale since 1976, and the Alianza Quartet, a post-graduate ensemble that the Tokyo Quartet has been mentoring for the past several years. The program includes the Alianza performing the Brahms piano quintet with another esteemed member of the Yale faculty, pianist Claude Frank. On October 29 in Weill Recital Hall, the school will present an evening of songs by Charles Ives, Class of 1898. Programs for February and March have not yet been announced, but the season will conclude with a concert by the Philharmonia Orchestra of Yale in Stern auditorium, featuring pianist Boris Berman in a Prokofiev piano concerto.

Honoring a Yale great

Professor Emeritus Keith Wilson, known to three generations of Yale College and School of Music alumni as the director of bands, clarinet professor, director of the Norfolk Summer School of Music, associate dean of the School of Music, conductor, and arranger, was honored at ClarinetFest 2007, the convention of the International Clarinet Association, in Vancouver, British Columbia. The July 6 tribute was organized by two of Wilson's former School of Music clarinet students, Bonnie Campbell ’87MusM, on the faculty of Chicago's Merit School of Music, and Francois Houle ’87MusM, one of Canada's leading clarinetists. Several of Wilson's students and colleagues, all fine performers, were on hand to pay tribute to his artistry and inspiring teaching: Derek Bermel ’89, composer and clarinetist; Roger Cole ’82MusAD, professor at the University of Idaho; Gene Collerd ’73, ’74MusM, professor at the University of Illinois, Chicago; Eric Mandat ’81MusM, professor at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale; and Richard Stoltzman ’67MusM, renowned soloist and chamber musician. Greetings from Yale came from a more recent clarinet alumnus, Deputy Dean Thomas G. Masse, ’92ArtA. Joining the alumni group was David Shifrin, who became clarinet professor at Yale on Wilson's retirement in 1987. After nearly two hours of tributes and great clarinet playing, the entire group played the premiere of "Lobgesang" (Song of Praise), written for the occasion by Professor of Music Joan Panetti ’74MusAD. Unfortunately, Keith Wilson could not attend the event due to a brief illness. However, the organizers made a high-definition video of the event, which he was able to enjoy later in the month.