Yale School of Music: Recent Episodes
Yale School of Music
At YSM, the only school of music in the Ivy League, students engage their curiosities and discover their voice.
Meet composer Aaron Israel Levin 19’MM 27’DMA, who spoke with us about his piece Videogame Vespers, which was recorded, mixed, and mastered in the CSMT studios.“Videogame Vespers is a piece for violin and electronics that pairs video game violence with violin virtuosity” said Levin, who intertwines increasingly difficult violin passagework with classic gaming and arcade sound effects in punchy, rhythmic juxtapositions. “Placing traditional violin performance in dialogue with electronic sound allowed me to examine this intersection between popular culture and the culture of Western concert music. This junction is a concept I’m increasingly interested in, and which I’ve explored in other electroacoustic compositions, including Hand Bones for harpsichord and electronics.”
Meet soprano Amalia Crevani, ’23MMwho spoke with us about her piece Serenata for voice and electronics, composed and produced in CSMT.“Serenata [is] in many ways is a bridge between the natural/acoustic and digital worlds,” Crevani said. Aiming to create a particular nocturnal scene, I not only used various vocal techniques (chirping, cricket sounds, frogs croaking, and breath for wind sounds, etc.), but also special editing effects such as reverb, compression, and overtone manipulation to more accurately create the scene I envisioned in my mind’s eye (or, better yet, ear). Having the tools to more precisely shape these sounds through tech manipulation, I was better able to recount the piece’s central story at an entirely musical level.”
Meet composer Lila Meretzky ’22MM ’23MMA, who spoke with us about some of her recent work using CSMT.“One of the pieces I created in CSMT was a radio-play version of the short story Quadraturin by Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky about a man whose apartment slowly turns into an abyss,” Meretzky said. “I was drawn to the radio-play medium because Krzhizhanovsky’s story is oddly void of visual detail but rich with sonic description. For the radio play, I recorded the text, foley, and original music in the CSMT studio to create an immersive underscoring. Once I’d collected these sounds, I composed the piece using Logic on the studio computers.”
Meet composer Lila Meretzky ’22MM ’23MMA, who spoke with us about some of her recent work using CSMT.Meretzky discussed her work Bone Dice for voice and analog synthesis, explaining, “I recorded my own vocals and improvisation on a Moog Sub 37 Synthesizer that lives in the studio and worked them together in Logic.” “CSMT opened up new possibilities for me, particularly with recording and synthesis. It’s a really valuable experience for a composer to record, mix, and master their own music. Production is as much a part of the compositional process in electronic and recorded music as conceptualizing a form or putting pencil to manuscript paper. As I leave Yale, I am looking for more ways for my electronic work to influence my acoustic work and vice versa.”
In this fifth and final episode of Simply listen: women in dialogue, composition student Soomin Kim talks with percussionist Ji Su Jung, who earned her master-of-music degree and artist diploma from the Yale School of Music in 2019 and 2020, respectively, and has launched a career that’s equally focused on performing and teaching. Soomin asks Ji Su about discovering music and the marimba as a young child, coming to the United States from South Korea to study, expanding the marimba repertoire and collaborating with composers—“women composers, especially”—and more.
In this fourth episode of Simply listen: women in dialogue, composition student Soomin Kim talks with pianist Althea Waites, who earned her master-of-music degree from the Yale School of Music in 1965. In 1982, The San Bernardino Sun said Althea “has made the performance of music by Black women composers one of her ‘crusades.’” “I learned not to let anybody else determine what I should be, what I should do,” Althea said in that interview. “Nowadays, they call that ‘women’s liberation.’ In the past, it was just survival, the ability to do and think for oneself.” Soomin talks with Althea about her experiences as a woman of color at Yale and beyond, her 1993 recording Black Diamonds: Althea Waites Plays Music by African-American Composers, her history of and approach to activism, and the idea, in Althea’s words, that “art makes us fully human.”
In this third episode of Simply listen: women in dialogue, composition student Soomin Kim talks with soprano Leah Hawkins, who earned her master-of-music degree from the Yale School of Music in 2015. Leah has since worked with the Washington National Opera, Metropolitan Opera, and Philadelphia Orchestra, and has performed at such iconic venues as the White House and the Bolshoi Theatre. Soomin asks Leah about being a woman of color in the opera world, making the difficult transition from mezzo-soprano to soprano, having her career disrupted by the pandemic, and more.
In this second episode of "Simply listen: women in dialogue," composition student Soomin Kim ’21MM talks with cellist Inbal Segev, an accomplished performer who’s said she’s “committed to reinvigorating the cello repertoire” and is doing just that. Soomin asks Inbal, who earned her master of music degree from the Yale School of Music in 1998, about coming to the United States from her native Israel to study, commissioning work from and working with composers, being a mother and having a career, and more.
In observance of Women’s History Month, we're producing a five-part series of conversations between composition student Soomin Kim ’21MM and Yale School of Music graduates whose contributions to music and society reflect those of so many women of the YSM community. We hope you'll join us in listening to their voices and celebrating their stories. In this first episode of "Simply listen: women in dialogue," Soomin talks with composer Lori Laitman '75BA '76MM, who's written music for more than 300 art songs and other vocal works. Lori studied flute at YSM but found her creative voice in setting words to music. Soomin asks Lori about “accidentally” (Lori's word) becoming a composer, finding a process, and learning from singers and instrumentalists.