School Notes: School of Music
July/August 2008

Benefit concert raises funds for disaster relief

Responding to the great humanitarian need created by three recent natural disasters, Yale and New Haven community musicians performed a special benefit concert in Sprague Hall on May 21. The concert, called "Help Can't Wait," raised $10,000 and the proceeds were given to major charities providing services to the victims of the earthquakes in China, the typhoon in Myanmar, and the recent tornadoes in the United States. Performers included the Yale-New Haven Chinese School Children's Chorus and members of the Yale Philharmonia, Yale Concert Band, Yale Symphony, Yale Glee Club, Yale Cellos, and student and faculty soloists from the School of Music.

This was the third "Help Can't Wait" concert organized by musical organizations at Yale. The first was in response to the tsunami and earthquakes in Southeast Asia and the Pacific in 2004, and the second benefited victims of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Alumnus wins the Pulitzer prize in music

David Lang ’83MusAM has won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in music for his piece, The Little Match Girl Passion, based on the children's story by Hans Christian Andersen. The piece was commissioned by Carnegie Hall and premiered in October 2007 at Carnegie's Zankel Hall in a performance with sopranos Miriam Andersen and Bente Vist, tenor Christopher Watson, and bass-baritone Jakob Bloch Jespersen. Lang's music has been performed by ensembles as varied as the New York Philharmonic and the Kronos Quartet. He is renowned for his work with the experimental collective Bang on a Can, which he founded with two other Yale composers, Michael Gordon ’82MusM and Julia Wolfe ’86MusM. David Lang was visiting professor of composition at the Yale School of Music in 2006.