School Notes: School of Music
March/April 2008

YSM a player in Internet2 music

The School of Music is rapidly developing its capabilities in music distance learning, thanks to a computer-based system, a Codec transmission system, and Internet2 -- a super-fast, fiber-optic network created by a consortium of universities, companies, and government agencies. These systems will allow the school to partake in master classes, lectures, workshops, and performances in conjunction with music schools and concert venues all around the world. As a result of these developments, the school was invited to serve as the testing site for a series of demonstrations of the various transmission products available to present distance learning through the Internet2 system. A workshop in Miami, co-sponsored by Internet2 and the New World Symphony, brought together practitioners of music distance learning from throughout the country. Jack Vees, director of the Yale Center for Studies in Music Technology, took the lead in Yale's presentation on February 11. From the stage of Sprague Hall, a performance by YSM viola student Anne Lanzilotti ’08MusM was transmitted to the workshop. The session, "Video Codecs -- What's Tried and True; What's New," was a demonstration of five different transmission systems, allowing participants in the workshop to determine the best transmission method.

More laurels for Yale singers

Singers from the Yale Opera program captured three of the top four prizes in the New England regional finals of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, which took place in Boston on January 27. Edward Parks ’08MusM and Christopher Magiera ’09ArtA, both baritones who study with Richard Cross, took first place, and moved on to the national semifinal round in New York on February 17. Tenor Zach Borichevsky ’08MusM won the Encouragement Award. Six of the 16 singers who made it to the final round as winners of district auditions were students from the School of Music, an "unprecedented" event for the school, according to Doris Yarick Cross, artistic director of Yale Opera. The other Yale singers in the final round were tenor Joshua Kohl ’09ArtA, soprano Olivia Vote ’08MusM, and tenor Jay Carter ’08MusM. Bass-baritone Damien Pass ’09MusM was a finalist in the Midwest region.

Laderman's 20 years at Yale celebrated at Carnegie Hall

The school honored Ezra Laderman on the occasion of his 20 years at Yale with a concert on March 3 in Weill Recital Hall in Carnegie Hall. Laderman, professor of music and one of America's most honored composers, served as dean of the School of Music from 1990 to 1995. The works on the program spanned a large part of his career, from his 1954 Bassoon Concerto to Part II of Interior Landscapes for two pianos, completed in 2007. Performers were current students, faculty, and alumni, including bassoonist Frank Morelli, the Biava Quartet, duo-pianists Greg Anderson ’08MusAM and David Kaplan ’08MusAM, flutist Sabatino Scirri ’09ArtA, and violinists Nicholas DiEugenio ’08ArtA and Katherine Hyun ’09ArtA.