Current Concert Season
Upcoming Events
October 4, 2024 | |||
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7:30pm | Composers and Soloists from Venezuela and Mexico - Yale Concert Band Opener |
Thomas C. Duffy, Music Director. Yale’s wind symphony opens its season with music by composers and soloists from Venezuela and Mexico: Other music: |
Woolsey Hall (WOOL)
500 College Street
New Haven, CT
06511
|
November 13, 2024 | |||
7:30pm | Yale Jazz Ensembles Big Band Opener - Music by the Tenor Sax Masters |
Wayne Escoffery, Music Director. Season opener. Featuring music by John Coltrane and NEA Jazz Masters Sonny Rollins, Joe Henderson, Frank Foster, and George Coleman. Coltrane’s revolutionary hard bop and modal jazz work includes Giant Steps and A Love Supreme. Rollins recorded over 60 albums and composed standards like “Oleo” and “Doxy.” Henderson recorded with Blue Note, Milestone, and Verve and is best known for Page One, featuring “Blue Bossa” and his own composition, “Recorda Me.” Foster led, arranged, and composed for the Loud Minority Big Band and the Count Basie Orchestra. Coleman’s work spans blues to post-bop; he continues to perform today. |
Sprague Memorial Hall (SMH ), Morse Recital Hall
470 College Street
New Haven, CT
06511
|
November 15, 2024 | |||
7:30pm | Yale Concert Band Fall Concert: "The Pursuit of Happiness" (world premiere) (Jim Colonna), "Symphony No. 4" (David Maslanka) |
Thomas C. Duffy, Music Director. ● “The Pursuit of Happiness: A Symphony for Wind Ensemble” by Jim Colonna. World premiere of a Yale Concert Band commission. Written in 2024, this twenty-minute work celebration of optimism in the face of hardship is inspired by The Happiness Lab, a positive psychology podcast hosted by Laurie Santos, the Chandrika and Ranjan Tandon Professor of Psychology at Yale University. Each movement (“The Seeker,” “When I looked to the sky, the stars sparkled with love,” “Simply, Play,” and “Be Here, Now”) is named after a quotation from philosopher Alan Watts and derived from Colonna’s favorite consonant and dissonant musical intervals. ● David Maslanka’s monumental “Symphony No. 4” (1993) is inspired by the spontaneous rise of the impulse to shout for the joy of life. Structured as a single thirty-minute movement, the symphony’s main melodic material is derived from Bach chorales and hymn tunes, most notably “Old Hundred.” According to Maslanka, these allusions take the composer’s fascination with the life of Abraham Lincoln as an entry point for contemplating the fundamental human issues of unity, transformation, and rebirth in times of chaos. ● Kevin Day’s energetic “Stride” (2023), a Yale Concert Band commission, contrasts brass and drum grooves with a lyrical section featuring the woodwinds. The piece is inspired by the two meanings of its title: to decisively overcome obstacles, but also to march on the field, a homage to Day’s background in the Texas marching band tradition. ● Charles Ives, Yale class of 1898, composed the “Country Band March” in 1903. The “out-of-tune” introduction and eclectic allusions to nursery rhymes, country fiddling and Sousa marches parody the sounds of a country band. |
Woolsey Hall (WOOL)
500 College Street
New Haven, CT
06511
|
December 6, 2024 | |||
7:30pm | Side by Side - The New York Afro Bop Alliance Big Band "Pan American Nutcracker Suite" and the Yale Concert Band |
“Everyone has a Christmas album, but this one, for sure, is distinctive, different, and delightful. And a worthy successor to Ellington and Strayhorn.” — Richard J Salvucci, All About Jazz “The Pan American Nutcracker Suite is an aural tour de force, an all-encompassing, immersive sound experience.” — music writer Ken Micallef Presented in the spirit of the season as part of the Yale School of Music’s Ellington Jazz Series, the Latin Grammy Award-winning New York Afro Bop Alliance Big Band and the Yale Concert Band will perform two, interspersed settings of Tchaikovsky’s beloved “Nutcracker” Suite. The New York Afro Bop Alliance Big Band will perform its famed Pan American Nutcracker Suite, a jazz/Afro-Caribbean reconceptualization of Tchaikovsky’s classic co-created and arranged by drummer Joe McCarthy and Vince Norman that unites diverse musical traditions of the Americas and beyond. Each movement of the Pan American Nutcracker Suit will be followed by one from the traditional, classical arrangement performed by the Yale Concert Band, led by Thomas C. Duffy, in a wonderful presentation that juxtaposes two complementary versions of this timeless masterpiece. |
Woolsey Hall (WOOL)
500 College Street
New Haven, CT
06511
|
February 14, 2025 | |||
7:30pm | Yale Concert Band Winter Concert |
Thomas C. Duffy, Music Director. Program TBA. |
Woolsey Hall (WOOL)
500 College Street
New Haven, CT
06511
|
March 5, 2025 | |||
7:30pm | Yale Jazz Ensembles Big Band Spring Concert |
Wayne Escoffery, Music Director. Program TBA. |
Sprague Memorial Hall (SMH ), Morse Recital Hall
470 College Street
New Haven, CT
06511
|
April 4, 2025 | |||
7:30pm | Yale Concert Band - Seraph Brass, guest artists |
Thomas C. Duffy, Music Director. Feat. Jennifer Jolley’s “Dust” for brass quintet and wind ensemble, Seraph Brass, guest artists. All-female chamber group Seraph Brass was founded by trumpet soloist Mary Elizabeth Bowden with a mission to showcase the excellence of female brass players and highlight musicians from marginalized groups, both in personnel and in programming. Winners of the American Prize in Chamber Music, the group has been praised for their “beautiful sounds” (American Record Guide), “fine playing” (Gramophone), and “staggeringly high caliber of performance” (Textura). Seraph primarily performs as a quintet, with a dynamic roster drawing from America’s top brass musicians. Other music TBA. |
Woolsey Hall (WOOL)
500 College Street
New Haven, CT
06511
|