School Notes: School of Music
March/April 2013

School honors Tokyo Quartet

At the Tokyo String Quartet’s last New Haven performance on January 22, the ensemble received the Sanford Medal, the highest honor conferred by the School of Music. Dean Robert Blocker presented the award to the quartet’s current members—violinists Martin Beaver and Kikeui Ikeda, violist Kazuhide Isomura, and cellist Clive Greensmith—as well as to one former member, Peter Oundjian. The first violinist of the quartet for 14 years, Oundjian has remained a member of the School of Music faculty and is the principal guest conductor of the Yale Philharmonia. The Sanford Medal is named for Samuel Simons Sanford (1849–1910), a pianist and educator who was a member of the Yale music faculty from 1894 to 1910. Sanford was instrumental in the establishment of the School of Music within Yale University. 

The Tokyo String Quartet has been in residence at the School of Music since 1976, coaching chamber music ensembles, mentoring young string quartets, and performing every semester. The quartet has also been in residence at the Yale Summer School of Music/Norfolk Chamber Music Festival in northwest Connecticut, both coaching and performing. In this last performance on the Oneppo Chamber Music Series, the ensemble performed string quartets by Haydn, Mendelssohn, and Bartók. The Tokyo Quartet will continue to tour and teach this semester, and will give their final performance this July on the stage of the Music Shed in Norfolk.

Yale Opera at the Shubert

Yale Opera presented a new production of Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi  (The Capulets and the Montagues) in February at New Haven’s historic Shubert Theatre. Music director and continuo player Speranza Scappucci returned to Yale Opera, following her warmly received debut in last year’s Cosi fan tutte, to conduct the Yale Philharmonia in the production. Marc Verzatt, who has directed numerous Yale Opera productions including The Magic Flute, Die Fledermaus, and La bohème, was the stage director. The creative team also included set designer Riccardo Hernandez ’92Dra, costume designer John Carver Sullivan, and lighting designer William Warfel ’55, ’57MFA.