Previous Concerts
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After nearly two decades at the helm of Woolsey Hall, Maestro William Boughton conducts his final concert as the Music Director of the Yale Symphony Orchestra. Carlos Simon’s “Holy Dance” opens the program with its evocation of “joyous dancing, spontaneous shouting, and soulful singing” found in the worship services of predominantly Black churches. Former Yale Symphony Orchestra cellist Henry Shapard returns as the soloist in Elgar’s rhapsodic and haunting Cello Concerto, written as a response to the devastation of World War I. Maestro Boughton concludes the season and his tenure as Music Director of the Orchestra with Holst’s The Planets, the interstellar masterpiece that finds its legacy in the music of countless sci-film films and its enthrallment of generations of listeners with its evocation of the celestial bodies: cosmic and dramatic in scale, transcendent and picturesque in its portrayal of the beyond.
Carlos Simon - “Holy Dance” from Four Black American Dances
Sir Edward Elgar - Cello Concerto
Finale, Gustav Holst - The PlanetsThe 24/25 Woolsey Series is generously supported by the Daniel Feller ’74 Yale Symphony Endowment Fund in Honor of John Mauceri (Music Director 1968-74).
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Carlos Simon’s “Holy Dance” opens the program with its evocation of “joyous dancing, spontaneous shouting, and soulful singing” found in the worship services of predominantly Black churches. Yale Symphony Orchestra’s Tobias Liu and Erin Nishi are the soloists in Mozart’s effervescent Sinfonia Concertante, a masterpiece that swells with operatic laments and bursts with irrepressible joy. On the second half, the Orchestra undertakes Brahms’ monumental Fourth Symphony — called “one of the supreme creative acts of the Romantic era” — an exquisite blend of heart and mind, of profound depth and immense power.
Carlos Simon - “Holy Dance” from Four Black American Dances
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Sinfonia Concertante
Johannes Brahms - Symphony No. 4The 24/25 Woolsey Series is generously supported by the Daniel Feller ’74 Yale Symphony Endowment Fund in Honor of John Mauceri (Music Director 1968-74).
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The Yale Symphony Orchestra joins forces with the Yale Glee Club and the Elms City Girls Choir for a monumental performance of Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms. The concert opens with Carlos Simon’s “Waltz,” a “gesture of reclamation” towards the appearance of debutante balls in Black social circles during the 1930s. Duke Ellington’s River Suite is a spiritual poem of water: when the water reaches the sea, he writes, “the river is no longer a river. It has passed its point of disembarkation and here we realize the validity of the foundation of religion which is the HEAVENLY ANTICIPATION OF REBIRTH.” Christopher Theofanidis’ “Rainbow Serpent” gains inspiration from Australian aboriginal creation myths, where all humans are connected by “dreamtime ancestors.” And Copland’s Billy the Kid follows the bravado of the infamous American outlaw of the Old-West.
Carlos Simon - “Waltz” from Four Black American Dances
Duke Ellington - River Suite
Igor Stravinsky - Symphony of Psalms
Christopher Theofanidis - Rainbow Serpent
Aaron Copland - Billy the KidThe 24/25 Woolsey Series is generously supported by the Daniel Feller ’74 Yale Symphony Endowment Fund in Honor of John Mauceri (Music Director 1968-74).
This concert is made possible through the generous support of the Charles B. Kaufmann III ’66 Yale Glee Club Fund.
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On Sunday afternoon, December 8, 2024 at 1:30 p.m., the Yale Glee Club featuring the Yale Symphony Orchestra and soloists from the Yale School of Music and the Institute of Sacred Music will present its annual Handel’s Messiah Audience Sing-along at Battell Chapel, located on the corner of Elm and College Streets on the campus of Yale University.
There is a suggested donation of $10 and scores will be available for purchase for an additional $10.
A portion of the proceeds go to benefit New Haven’s homeless.
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The Orchestra adventures through swashbuckling, fantastical classics in this concert, which features John Williams’ iconic Star Wars soundtrack, Strauss’ ebullient symphonic tone poem of the infamous libertine, Don Juan, and Korngold’s soundtrack to the 1940 film, Sea Hawk. Carlos Simon’s “Tap,” a study of the tap dance and its origins in the social climate of American slavery, and Aaron Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man,” written in response to the US entry in World War 2 and now embedded in popular culture, remind us of how art can transform historical realities. Rounding out the program is Bernard Rands’ Symphonic Fantasy, a one-movement work dedicated to Music Director William Boughton.
Richard Strauss - Don Juan
Bernard Rands - Symphonic Fantasy
Aaron Copland “Fanfare for the Common Man”
Erich Korngold - Sea Hawk Overture
Carlos Simon - “Tap” from Four Black American Dances
John Williams “Star Wars” SuiteThe 24/25 Woolsey Series is generously supported by the Daniel Feller ’74 Yale Symphony Endowment Fund in Honor of John Mauceri (Music Director 1968-74).