School Notes: School of Music
July/August 2020

Video project provides platform for communication during lockdown

In May, the school launched Postcards from Confinement, a platform through which members of the YSM community can share messages of gratitude with those who are confronting the COVID-19 pandemic directly, and provide a measure of comfort to those who wait in isolation for brighter days. 

New faculty members appointed

The school named Gerald Martin Moore its new director of the Yale Opera and coordinator of vocal studies. Moore’s “artistic direction and teaching will enable us to further strengthen Yale Opera’s legacy of excellence that was so thoughtfully nurtured by Doris Yarick-Cross,” Dean Robert Blocker said. Yarick-Cross retired at the end of the 2019–2020 academic year. 

Mezzo-soprano Adriana Zabala will join the YSM faculty as associate professor of voice, adjunct. “I know that our respective areas of expertise will complement each other to the benefit of the program,” Moore said. 

Craig Cramer will serve at the school and the Institute of Sacred Music as visiting professor of organ for the 2020–2021 academic year.

Paul Watkins, who has served since 2018 as visiting professor adjunct of cello, has been named the School of Music’s full-time professor in the practice of cello.

YSM commencement held online

On May 18, the school held its 127th commencement online. While “we can’t be together in person to celebrate the achievements of our graduating students,” Dean Robert Blocker said in a prerecorded message, “we are connected by what brought us to Yale back in September and what has brought musicians here for 125 years.”