School Notes: School of Music
May/June 2019

Yale affiliates earn Grammy Awards

Faculty composer Aaron Jay Kernis ’83MusM won a Grammy Award in the Best Contemporary Classical Composition category for his Violin Concerto, which was performed by violinist James Ehnes, conductor Ludovic Morlot, and the Seattle Symphony.

Violinist Sheila Fiekowsky ’75MusM and cellist Owen Young ’87MusM earned Grammy Awards as members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in the Best Orchestral Performance category for the ensemble’s recording of Shostakovich Symphonies Nos. 4 and 11.

Erica Brenner ’89MusM earned a Grammy Award for producing Songs of Orpheus, a recording that features tenor Karim Sulayman and Apollo’s Fire, conducted by Jeannette Sorrell, in a performance of music by Monteverdi, Caccini, d’India, and Landi. The recording won in the Best Classical Solo Vocal Album category. Brenner studied flute at YSM and is a member of the Recording Academy.

Yale in New York series brings YSM artists to Carnegie Hall

The school’s 2018–19 Yale in New York series concluded in March with Music for Guitars, a program led by faculty guitarist Benjamin Verdery that featured current students and alumni, including René Izquierdo ’99MusM, ’01ArtA. The series, which presents performances at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall and preview concerts at the School of Music, kicked off in September with a production, in collaboration with the School of Drama, of Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale. In February, faculty clarinetist and series artistic director David Shifrin led a program called Music for Clarinets, which celebrated the instrument and the clarinet-ensemble tradition.

Cellist and longtime faculty member remembered

In April, the YSM community celebrated the extraordinary life and career of Aldo Parisot, who passed away in December at age 100. Family, friends, and the YSM community gathered to remember the legendary cellist and pedagogue, whose 60-year presence at the school, Dean Robert Blocker has said, was “transformative and transcendent.” A sold-out concert by the beloved Yale Cellos, led by Parisot’s longtime colleague, YSM faculty cellist Ole Akahoshi, followed the celebration.