Current Concert Season

The Yale Jazz Ensemble Big Band, Wayne Escoffery, Music Director, will celebrate Slide Hampton and George Coleman at its season opener on Wednesday, November 9, 2022, at 7:30 p.m. in Morse Recital Hall in Sprague Memorial Hall.
Admission is free and no tickets are required.
The concert will feature the pioneering music of jazz trombonist/composer/arranger Slide Hampton’s octet (of which saxophonist George Coleman was a member), with new big-band orchestrations of “A Moment’s Notice” and “Star Eyes” by Michael Philip Mossman, arranged specifically for the Yale Jazz Ensemble Big Band. Also featuring Hampton’s early works, including his expressive arrangement of “Motherless Child,” and his originals “Frame for the Blues,” “Go East, Young Man,” and “Althea,” originally written for The Maynard Ferguson Orchestra.

Thomas C. Duffy, Music Director.
• “Come Sunday” by Omar Thomas is a two-movement tribute to the Hammond organ’s central role in black worship services. The title is a direct nod to Duke Ellington, who held an inspired love for classical music and allowed it to influence his own work in a multitude of ways.
• “Serenade No. 10 (Gran Partita) K. 361” (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart) - Overture, Adagio (featured in the movie “Amadeus”), and Rondo
TRAINS! - Featuring New Haven Railroad Engine No. 349’s 1926 brass bell!
• “Little Train of the Brazilian Countryman” (Heitor Villa-Lobos)
• “Ghost Train I” (Eric Whitacre)
• “The Midnight Fire Alarm” (Harry Lincoln)
Guest Conductor: Ricky Fleming
Director of Bands, State University of New York - Buffalo State
• “Splinter” (Holly Harrison)
• “The Alcotts” (Charles Ives/trans. Richard Thurston)

Yale Concert Band, Thomas C. Duffy, Music Director.
• “Afro-Cuban Suite” (world premiere, commissioned by the Yale Concert Band). New Haven-based composer, bassist, and educator Jeff Fuller is widely known as a jazz bassist who specializes in Latin music. This suite ranges stylistically from bembé to bolero, from rumba to mambo. Fuller describes it as “my sincere homage to the music, musicians, and culture of Cuba,” further stating, “Cuban music has forged a deep river of inspiration which has carried me through decades of my professional life. To me, Cuban music and American jazz are two branches of the same tree.”
• “AMEN!” A reflection of composer Carlos Simon’s experience growing up in the African American Pentecostal Church, known for its exuberant outward expressions of worship–dancing, spontaneous shouting, and soulful singing.
• “Shades of Red” (Ryan J. Williams). Concerto for mellophone. Kate Warren, Yale School of Music ’23, mellophone
• “Serenade in Eb major, Op. 7” (Richard Strauss). Strauss’s lyrical and soaring serenade for chamber winds.
• “Bright Shadow Fanfare” (Nicole Piunno), Kelly Watkins, Director, Eastern Connecticut State University Concert Band:
• “On This Bright Morning” (David Maslanka), Kelly Watkins, Director, Eastern Connecticut State University Concert Band:
• “Rocketship!” (Kevin Day), Catherine Zhang Yale ’24, guest conductor

Yale Concert Band, Thomas C. Duffy, Music Director.
Our students want you to hear them play in the Yale Concert Band, without you having to come back to campus after a long day of work! Announcing the “Pre-Commute Mini-Concert” on Tuesday, February 21 at 5:15 p.m. – a 45-minute free concert in Woolsey Hall at the end of the work day.
Come for one or all of the four compositions on the short program:
• “Afro-Cuban Suite.” The Yale Concert Band commissioned this piece from New Haven-based composer, bassist, and educator Jeff Fuller ES’67/YSM’69 and performed the world premiere in Woolsey Hall this past Friday, February 10. Fuller is widely known as a jazz bassist who specializes in Latin music, and his suite ranges stylistically from bembé to bolero, from rumba to mambo. Fuller describes it as “my sincere homage to the music, musicians, and culture of Cuba,” further stating, “Cuban music has forged a deep river of inspiration which has carried me through decades of my professional life. To me, Cuban music and American jazz are two branches of the same tree.” The dedication reads: “It is with much respect that I dedicate this work to Professor Robert Farris Thompson, Ph.D. (1932–2021). He lived a long and fruitful life, passionately dedicated to the understanding of ‘Afro-Atlantic’ culture — to use a term he coined. He was a popular professor of African Art History at Yale, where his classes would sometimes feature musical performances by well-known African, Cuban, and Puerto Rican musicians. His spirited enthusiasm for the music was contagious, and he could frequently be heard on campus humming, singing, or reciting Afro-Cuban rhythms. ¡Mambo en paz, Prof. Bob!”
• “Bright Shadow Fanfare” (Nicole Piunno).
The intense contrast in “Bright Shadow Fanfare” refers to two possible meanings. It could mean bringing our darkness into the light in order to integrate it with our true self. It could also mean revealing our positive traits and gifts that we may not allow ourselves to show or give to others.
• “Rocketship!” (Kevin Day) – Catherine Zhang Yale SM ’23.5, guest conductor (clarinetist and drum major emeritus of the Yale Precision Marching Band).
“Rocketship!” is an energetic concert piece formed by two sections which express energy in different ways. The first is composed of short rhythmic patterns that start quietly before building to the end of each phrase. The second section introduces a marching snare drum solo accompanied by open fifths, known as power chords, in the winds. Brief motives accompany the sustained power chords, but quickly dissipate as a new motive begins. The different sections shrink as the composition develops until they are played one after the other at the very end.
• On This Bright Morning (David Maslanka)
There are times of stability in life, and times of significant transition. Transitions can be upsetting, often provoked or accompanied by physical or emotional troubles. They are times of uncertainty and unknowing, but also the times of greatest creative change. “On This Bright Morning” acknowledges the struggle, and the feelings of pain and loss in times of transition, but embodies the pure joy of realizing the bigger life. On this bright morning, life is new, life is possible.

Wayne Escoffery, Music Director. Featuring “O.P.” and “Eclipse” by Charles Mingus – excerpts from his 19-movement magnum opus, “Epitaph,” which was painstakingly pieced together after his death in 1979 by Mingus musicologist Andrew Homzy and first performed in full under the baton of Gunther Schuller in 1989; “Patricia” (Slide Hampton),” “Amsterdam After Dark” and “Revival” (George Coleman).

Thomas C. Duffy, Music Director.
Introducing the first annual “Thomas C. Duffy Yale Concert Band Spring Concert”: 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. From this year forward, the Band’s April concert will be titled “The Thomas C. Duffy Yale Concert Band Spring Concert.”
• “The Seer” (Erik Santos). Based on the poems of Langston Hughes and others, this avant-garde piece is set in the style of early Delta blues singer Howlin’ Wolf. Feat. Albert Lee, tenor/narrator.
• “Riffs” (Jeff Tyzik). This concerto for drum set with a swing style and Afro-Cuban flavor turns the traditional wind band into a huge jazz ensemble, with the drum set soloist leading the way. Feat. Makana Medeiros, Yale School of Music ’23, drum set.
• “Shut Out” by deaf composer Tyler Mazone is a piece about the experience of being a disabled person and not quite fitting into society. Feat. Brian Coffill (Director of Instrumental Ensembles, Randolph Macon College), guest conductor.
• “Serenade for Wind Nonet” (Katahj Copley). This chamber piece for nine musicians explores the journey of finding love again after recovering from the heartbreak of a failed relationship.
• “Peace Dancer” (Jodie Blackshaw). Inspired by the Australian First Nations book of the same name by Roy Henry Vickers (Squamish Nation).
• Other repertoire: “Postcard” (Frank Ticheli) and “La Oreja de Oro” (Mariano San Miguel