School Notes: School of Music
May/June 2011

Organist wins Grammy for Messiaen recording

Paul Jacobs '02MusM, '03ArtA, became the first organist to receive a Grammy Award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. He won in the category of Best Instrumental Soloist Performance Without Orchestra for his recording of Olivier Messiaen’s Livre du Saint-Sacrement. The recording, his second album, was released in September 2009 on the Naxos label. Currently the chairman of the organ department at the Juilliard School, Jacobs performed the complete Livre du Saint-Sacrement on the Newberry Organ in Woolsey Hall as part of the Yale School of Music’s Messiaen Centenary Celebration in December 2008.

Third Symposium on Music in Schools

The School of Music will hold its third biennial Symposium on Music in Schools June 9–12. Fifty music teachers from public schools across the United States have been selected to receive the Yale Distinguished Music Educator Award, which allows the educators to attend the symposium for free. A panel of music professionals selected the awardees from a pool of 300 nominees representing 45 states. The Distinguished Music Educators will be joined at the symposium by the music teachers of the New Haven Public Schools. This year’s symposium will feature a keynote address by education journalist John Merrow and a workshop with renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma on the value of music education. Participants will also attend a performance by Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble. In addition, the symposium will present the world premiere of a film created in a collaboration of YSM’s Music in Schools Initiative, New Haven’s Co-Op Arts and Humanities Magnet School, and the Casady School in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Awards and appointments

The Bruckner Society of America announced that Paul Hawkshaw will be awarded the Joseph Kilenyi Medal of Honor. This honor is given to individuals whose work exemplifies the understanding and appreciation of the life and music of Anton Bruckner. Hawkshaw is deputy dean of the Yale School of Music, professor in the practice of musicology, and director of the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival. Hyo Kang, a professor of violin, was honored with the Daewon Music Awards Grand Prize. The most prestigious music award in Korea, the award honors Kang’s contributions to the field of music through his establishment of the Great Mountains International Music Festival. Dean Robert Blocker, a past member of the artist faculty at the Brevard Music Center in North Carolina, was named a distinguished alumnus by the school. William Purvis was appointed the director of the Yale Collection of Musical Instruments. Purvis joined the Yale School of Music faculty in 1999, after several years on the Norfolk faculty, and in 2003 became coordinator of winds and brass. He had served as interim director of the Collection of Musical Instruments since 2008.