The Friends of Music at Yale support undergraduate musical activities at Yale. Our mission is to further, at Yale University, learning in the art of music in all its forms and aspects, and to that end to solicit and encourage contributions of money and other gifts to support special music-related collections and faculty-directed undergraduate organizations whose sources of funds are not sufficient to accomplish their goals. We wish to further in every possible way the growth of musical culture in the undergraduate life of Yale College and in the community.
In 2018-2019 our Cynthia W. Dixon Memorial Fund provided private music lesson scholarships for nine Yale undergraduates. Here are the 2018-2019 honorees.
Professor Wendy Sharp’s Chamber Music students gave us two wonderful chamber concerts this Fall – on Dec. 7th and 8th – highlighting their many musical achievements. They will give more concerts in April, so stay tuned!
Yale College New Music presented new works of Yale College composers on our Shake, Rattle & Roll event in the Beinecke Library on November 6th. We featured a unique concert with guest performers Russell Fisher, on steel pans, and Matthew Woodward, on violin. There will be two more concerts, one with the Luceris Vocal Ensemble on Feb. 12th, 2020, and the other concert on April 8th, 2020 with Music from Copland House.
The Friends of Music also provides the Beekman Cannon Friends of Music Prize, which is awarded to the undergraduate student who has completed either the most outstanding senior essay on a musical subject or the most impressive musical composition exhibiting unusual originality and promise. Here are the winners!
We also sponsored an array of professional guest speakers and performing artists who visited Yale College at the invitation of our music faculty to enhance students’ on-campus musical experiences. Guests in 2018-2019 included violinist Nadia Sirota and violoncellist David Ying for Music 221: Chamber Music, and composers Michael Torke and EllenTaaffe Zwilich visited the Composition Seminar.