School Notes: School of Music
July/August 2011

Concerto competition winners

The 2011 Woolsey Concerto Competition took place on April 16, with 22 finalists from the Yale School of Music competing. The guest judges selected three winners: violinist Soo Ryun Baek ’11MusM, performing Bruch’sScottish Fantasy in E-flat major; Lindsay Garritson ’11MusAD, the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor; and Kristan Toczko ’12MusM, the Ginastera Harp Concerto, Op. 25. The winners will appear as soloists with the Philharmonia Orchestra of Yale next season. This year’s judges were violinist Sharon Yamada ’85, ’87MusM; hornist David Ohanian; and pianist André-Michel Schub. The judges also awarded honorable mentions to violinist David Radzynski ’12MusM and soprano Sherezade Panthaki ’11MusAD.

Faculty honored at annual dinner

At the School of Music’s annual honors dinner on May 1, Dean Blocker presented four awards to faculty and alumni. Stephen Hendel ’73, a member of the school’s board of visitors, and his wife Ruth Hendel jointly received the Cultural Leadership Citation for their distinguished contributions to music. The Alumni Certificate of Merit was awarded to pianist Wei-Yi Yang ’04MusAD, a member of the faculty since 2005, for his contributions to the school, the community, and the profession. The celebrated flutist Marya Martin ’80MusM received the Ian Mininberg Distinguished Service Award. Pianist and composer Joan Panetti ’74MusAD, the Sylvia and Leonard Marx Professor in the Practice of Hearing and Chamber Music, received the Gustave Jacob Stoeckel Award. Named for Yale’s first professor of music, the Stoeckel Award is presented to Yale faculty who, like Stoeckel, have made extraordinary contributions to the school and, in so doing, have enriched the school and enlarged its role in America’s musical life.

Yale ensembles on the road

The Linden String Quartet, finishing its first year as the school’s graduate quartet-in-residence, appeared at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC on April 27. The performance streamed live on the Kennedy Center’s website and can still be viewed at www.kennedy-center.org/programs/millennium/archive.html. The Linden Quartet are Sarah McElravy and Catherine Cosbey, violins; Eric Wong, viola; and Felix Umansky, cello, all ’12ArtA. The Yale Percussion Group performed high-energy works by Steve Reich and David Lang ’83MusAM (also a current member of the YSM faculty) at the Galapagos Art Space in Brooklyn on June 22. The ensemble—made up of Yun-Chu Candy Chiu ’11MusM; Michael Compitello ’11MusAM; John Corkill ’11MusAD; Leonardo Gorosito ’11MusM; Ian Rosenbaum ’11MusAD; and Adam Rosenblatt ’12MusM—performed Lang’s the so-called laws of nature and Reich’sMusic for Pieces of Wood.