School Notes: School of Music
July/August 2014

Yale ensembles visit Ghana

The Yale Percussion Group and the undergraduate Yale Concert Band traveled to Ghana in May for 12 days of cultural exchange, musical research, and community service. The two ensembles performed several times and undertook service projects in the village of Yamoransa, with which Yale has an ongoing relationship. While based in Cape Coast, the percussionists studied, performed, and recorded traditional drumming and dance with Ghanaian drum masters.

One highlight was a Nkonsonkonson “Unity” concert at the National Theater in Accra to benefit the Ghana-Yale Partnership for Global Health. Thomas C. Duffy conducted this joint performance, in which Yale musicians performed alongside the National Symphony Orchestra of Ghana. Ghanaian and Yale musicians came together in two additional unity concerts, one with the University of Ghana at Legon and one at the University of Cape Coast. In addition, Ambassador Gene A. Cretz hosted a performance at the US embassy.

Composers named to American Academy

Composers David Lang ’83MusAM, ’89MusAD, a member of the YSM composition faculty, and Alvin Singleton ’71MusAM were recently elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Lang, who holds Carnegie Hall’s Richard and Barbara Debs Chair in Composition for the 2013–2014 season, is the winner of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in Music.

Alumnus wins Rome Prize

Composer and percussionist Andy Akiho ’11MusM was awarded the Luciano Berio Rome Prize to compose new works for orchestra. The Rome Prize is awarded annually to 30 individuals who represent the highest standard of excellence in the arts and humanities. Each recipient is awarded a fellowship to finance living and working space in Rome. Akiho is one of two musicians selected for this year’s Rome Prize. 

Composer is finalist for Pulitzer Prize

Composer Christopher Cerrone ’09MusM, ’10MusAM, was named a finalist for the 2014 Pulitzer Prize in music for his opera Invisible Cities. John Luther Adams won the prize
for his composition Become Ocean; the other finalist was John Adams, for The Gospel According to the Other Mary. The citation for Cerrone’s work called Invisible Cities “a captivating opera based on a novel by Italo Calvino, in which Marco Polo regales Kublai Khan with tales of fantastical cities, adapted into an imaginary sonic landscape.”