School Notes: School of Music
March/April 2012

Philharmonia explores chamber music

This February, the Yale Philharmonia worked with guest conductors Xu Zhong and William Christie on two programs of music for chamber orchestra. The first program, presented February 24, offered a chamber arrangement of Mahler’s Symphony No. 4, with Heather Buck ’96MusM as the vocal soloist, and Haydn’s Cello Concerto in C major, with Jian Wang ’88CERT as the soloist and cello professor Aldo Parisot conducting. The Philharmonia also performed under early music specialist William Christie ’69MusM in two concerts that also featured the debut of the Yale Choral Artists. The all-Handel program was performed both in Morse Recital Hall and, as part of the Yale in New York series, in Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall.

YSM pianists perform Prokofiev’s complete piano sonatas

The School of Music presented the complete piano sonatas of Sergei Prokofiev last December to celebrate a new, definitive performance edition of the scores, edited by faculty member Boris Berman. Berman, the author of Prokofiev’s Piano Sonatas: A Guide for the Listener and the Performer, was the first pianist to record the composer’s complete solo piano works. The sonatas were divided into two recitals, and each pair of programs was presented first on campus, in Morse Recital Hall, and then in Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. The pianists, selected through a school-wide competition, were Naomi Woo ’13MusM, Euntaek Kim ’13ArtA, David Fung ’12MusAM, Esther Park ’12ArtA, Scott MacIsaac ’14CertPF, Lee Dionne ’13MusM, Larry Weng ’12ArtA, Melody Quah ’13ArtA, and Henry Kramer ’13ArtA.

Anonymous gift aids restoration effort

To help restore the Battell Stoeckel Estate in Norfolk, Connecticut—home of the annual Norfolk Chamber Music Festival—to its early twentieth-century splendor, an anonymous donor has contributed $500,000 toward the renovation of Whitehouse and $1 million to be used as a two-to-one challenge grant for restoring the historic Music Shed. The Battell Stoeckel Trust will add $1 million to the anonymous contribution for Whitehouse. The money will be used to complete the second phase of a total renovation of the Battell family’s ancestral home. The first phase was finished this past winter; the new construction, which includes rebuilding the roof and chimneys, as well as a new security system, is scheduled for completion in time for the festival’s 2012 season.