Current Concert Season

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.
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“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.

Thomas C. Duffy, Music Director. Program TBA.

Wayne Escoffery, Music Director. Program TBA.

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.