Current Concert Season

Wayne Escoffery, Music Director. Celebrating the legacy of Wayne Shorter (1933-2023), the legendary American jazz saxophonist, composer and bandleader. Shorter came to mainstream prominence in 1959 upon joining Art Blakey’s “Jazz Messengers,” for whom he eventually became the primary composer. In 1964 he joined Miles Davis’ “Second Great Quintet,” and then co-founded the jazz fusion band “Weather Report” in 1970. He recorded more than 20 albums as a bandleader.

Many Shorter compositions have become jazz standards, and his music has earned worldwide recognition, critical praise, and commendation. He was the winner of 12 GRAMMY awards, and was acclaimed for his mastery of the soprano saxophone since switching his focus from the tenor in the late 1960s and beginning an extended reign in 1970 as DownBeat’s annual poll-winner on that instrument.

The New York Times music critic Ben Ratliff described Shorter as “probably jazz’s greatest living small-group composer and a contender for greatest living improviser.”

Thomas C. Duffy, Music Director.

• “A Child’s Garden of Dreams” by David Maslanka is a deeply rich piece, written as a meditation on the vivid dream images of a dying girl. It is accompanied by projections of the pastel drawings the composer made with his left hand while wrestling with the act of composing the piece.

• “Trains of Thought” by Alex Shapiro. The electronically reproduced sounds of the chords and rhythms of a high-speed train in motion weave in and out of the musical texture provided by the band.

• “Russian Christmas Music by Alfred Reed was commissioned in 1944 as a tribute to the friendship between the Russian and American allies in WWII. It celebrates the common bonds between peoples, which sustain regardless of political divisions and governmental disagreements.

• “Duplicity” by Yale College sophomore Rory Bricca represents the dance between honesty and deception that plays out subconsciously in our minds. Tonight’s performance is the world premiere.

Yale and Harvard “Battle of the Big Bands” at Sculler’s, Boston MA. The Yale Jazz Ensemble Big Band (Wayne Escoffery, Music Director) and the Harvard Jazz Band (Yosveny Terry, Music Director).

Harvard’s Jazz Band has performed worldwide, including 2017 performances in Cuba, and past concerts have included tributes to Herbie Hancock, Benny Golson, and many other important jazz artists. Performers in these concerts have included Terri Lyne Carrington, Lionel Loueke, Harold Mabern, George Coleman, Don Braden, and more.

The Yale Jazz Ensemble, a seventeen-piece big band, performs a wide variety of music, from pieces from Yale’s Benny Goodman archive to the newest, most progressive jazz compositions. The Ensemble has performed in the United States and internationally and has played with or opened for the Mingus Big Band, the Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra, the Toshiko Akiyoshi/Lew Tabackin Big Band, the World Saxophone Quartet, Jane Ira Bloom, Jimmy Owens, and Branford Marsalis.

The Yale Concert Band, Thomas C. Duffy, Music Director, presents an eclectic and exciting program:

• Igor Stravinsky’s 1910 debut of “The Firebird” launched him to the forefront of contemporary composers. The ballet, about a beautiful bird-woman who is captured by and later rescues a young prince, is widely praised for its symbiosis between décor, choreography, and music.

• “Cave of the Winds” by Russell Peck. This unique and mysterious theater piece is played from memory in the dark. The premise is that the members of the band are blind and can communicate only through touch and sound.

• “A Mother of A Revolution!” by Omar Thomas is a celebration of the bravery of trans women, and in particular, Marsha ‘Pay It No Mind’ Johnson, who is credited with being one of the instigators of the famous Stonewall uprising of June 28,1969 – one of the pivotal events of the LGBTQ liberation movement of the 20th century.

• A Leonard Bernstein triptych: “Almighty Father (Chorale from Mass), “Make Our Garden Grow” (from Candide), “Slava!”

• “Luminance” by Shuying Li explores the interplay between light and darkness, seeking to evoke a sense of radiance and brilliance through its music.

Wayne Escoffery, Music Director. Celebrating American drummer and composer Max Roach (1924-2007) and his commitment to championing equality and social justice through music.

The program will feature two movements of his avant-garde jazz album and vocal-instrumental suite “We Insist!” (subtitled Max Roach’s “Freedom Now Suite”) on themes related to the Civil Rights Movement. Both movements were orchestrated and arranged specifically for the YJE Big Band by Michael Philip Mossman.

Roach was a pioneer of bepop, but worked in many other styles of music and with various musicians including Coleman Hawkins, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Abbey Lincoln, Dinah Washington, Charles Mingus, Billy Eckstine, Stan Getz, Sonny Rollins, Eric Dolphy, Booker Little, and more. He was inducted into the “DownBeat” Hall of Fame in 1980 and the “Modern Drummer” Hall of Fame in 1992.

Yale Jazz Ensemble Big Band at Dizzy’s Club in New York, Wayne Escoffery, Music Director. Two sets: 7:00 and 9:00 p.m. Celebrating Max Roach and championing equality and social justice through music. Featuring two movements of Roach’s avant-garde jazz album and vocal-instrumental suite “We Insist!” (subtitled “Freedom Now”) on themes related to the Civil Rights Movement. With special guest Nasheet Waits, drums – son of drummer Freddie Waits and original member of Max Roach’s M’Boom percussion ensemble founded in 1970.

Director of Bands Thomas C. Duffy celebrated his 40th year at Yale in 2022. Yale Bands alumni and friends mounted a fundraising campaign to honor him by naming an annual concert after him. Beginning in 2023 the Band’s April concert was titled “The Thomas C. Duffy Yale Concert Band Spring Concert,” as will be each subsequent Yale Concert Band Spring Concert, in perpetuity.

Thomas C. Duffy, Music Director. Program:

• “Afro-American Symphony” by William Grant Still is the first full orchestral symphony composed by an African American and premiered for a US audience by a leading orchestra, the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. This 4-movement wind band transcription retains the blues progressions, rhythms, and folk elements that reflect Still’s 1930s musical style.

• “New England Triptych” (William Schuman) is based on the choral music of William Billings, an early-American New England composer. Written in three sections, “Be Glad Then, America,” is noble and majestic; “When Jesus Wept” is a sensitive framing of the sacred verse; and “Chester” is the American Revolutionary hymn and marching song that served as the de facto colonial national anthem. David Mills (Director of Bands [emeritus], University of Connecticut), guest conductor.

• “In Between” (Aaron Israel Levin) takes its inspiration from movies about making movies (like Federico Fellini’s “8½” or David Lynch’s “Mulholland Drive”), where the lives of fictitious filmmakers “off-set” often become intermingled with the film they’re attempting to make. The title refers to what happens in between “takes,” and the inevitable merging of off- and on-set. (Premiere of wind band version).

• Ron Nelson’s “Medieval Suite” is an homage to three great master choral composers of the Middle Ages: Leonin (middle 12th century), Perotin (c. 1155-1200), and Machaut (c. 1300-1377).

Thomas C. Duffy, Music Director. Celebratory music and Yale songs on the eve of Yale’s Commencement. Outdoors on the Old Campus (chairs provided).