, Yale Bands President, will answer any questions you
may have.
The Yale Concert Band, the musical center
for the woodwind and brass world at Yale University, is best known for its varied
repertoire, which spans from traditional marches, world premieres, and crowd
favorites to the music of Glenn Miller and theatrical pieces (involving black
lights, a fog machine, sunglasses and the biggest clarinet you've ever seen).
Recent successes for the ensemble include two sold-out performances of our recreation
of the Glenn Miller Band in Woolsey Hall, a tour in Bermuda in 2005, and most recently a tour in Brazil in 2007. In addition,
the Yale University Concert Band hosted the CBDNA Eastern Division Conference in
April 2000, featuring a weekend of symposiums
and concerts.
Auditions for the 60 member ensemble are held during the first week of September
followed by the ensemble's annual retreat to the "Music Shed" at the site of
the Yale School of Music's "Norfolk Chamber Music Festival" in Norfolk, CT,
in early September. All interested musicians should prepare a piece of music
which demonstrates your artistic and technical abilities (ie: an All-State audition
piece or comparable etude) and be prepared to sight read.
The Yale Concert Band travels, too. Recent tours have taken the YCB to
Brazil, Bermuda, Ireland, Spain, North Africa, Vienna, Salzburg, and Prague, and St.
Petersburg.
Imagine, if you will, this scene: a warm spring evening, midnight, in the
middle of hahvahd Yard. The calm of the evening - the night before finals -
is suddenly shattered by a group of rampaging musicians. To both smiles and
water-balloon fire, at the foot of the John Harvard statue these bandies treat
Cambridge to "Bulldog" and "Smells Like Teen Spirit."
The Yale Precision Marching Band,
called "the Edsel of marching bands" by the New York Times, is nothing
like your high school band. In fact, we're probably the polar opposite.
Schooled in the ancient arts of feng schwee (the placement of buttons
on one's band blazer to channel favorable forces) and shattering concrete
with sheer musical volume, we are nothing if not a force to be reckoned
with. The fall season finds us at the Yale Bowl most weekends, combining
musical prowess with wildly entertaining halftime shows to cheer on
our beloved Bulldogs. Come winter, the YPMB shows off its rocking
tunes at Yale's hockey and basketball games. Occasionally we surface
at stranger venues, from fencing to swimming, baseball and track and
field. No gig is too small to be infused with that extra dose of Yale
spirit. Athletic events are standard fare, but you never know where
the YPMB might show up. Our travels have taken us to play for former
First Lady Hillary Clinton on the steps of City Hall, to New York
for the annual Greenwich Village Halloween parade (in full costume,
natch), Giants Stadium, Chicago's Soldier Field, Madison Square Garden,
the Olympic arena in Lake Placid, NY, and even to San Diego, CA. If
you want to contribute and you have a pulse, you've passed muster
- we have musicians of all degrees, student arrangers (how else do
you think we got "Basket Case"), script writers, props wizards
and more. We're looking forward to our part in a great season with
the football team, the hockey team, and the many other wonders that
go with being "A Member Of..." World domination can't be
far away.
Since 1997, Yale Bands alum David Brandenburg has been the director of the Yale Jazz Ensemble, a standard big band that performs material ranging from swing
charts selected from Yale's Benny Goodman archives to the newest and most
progressive jazz compositions. The YJE hosted the Ivy League Jazz Festival
for five consecutive years and has
co-hosted and performed at the Yale Jazz Festival, warming up for such
groups as the Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra, the Toshiko Akiyoshi/Lew Tabackin
Big Band, the World Saxophone Quartet, Yale Band alumna Jane Ira Bloom and
Branford Marsalis. The YJE has appeared twice at New York City's famous
Village Vanguard (each time warming up the Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra),
where it recorded its souvenir album The Yale Jazz Ensemble Live at the
Village Vanguard. In 1993, the YJE packed London's famous Soho club Ronnie
Scott's for an evening of American jazz. The YJE
typically performs one concert each semester in Sprague Hall, as well as
other gigs in Woolsey Hall on Parents' Weekend, the New York Yale Club,
the residential colleges and GYPSCY, the graduate student bar on the Yale
campus. In the past, the YJE has appeared at the Village Vanguard in New
York City, Ronnie Scott's in London, the Ivy League Jazz festival and the
Yale Jazz festival.
Auditions for the Yale Jazz ensemble are held at the beginning of each
school year. The audition consists of several excerpts taken from the
coming year's program, as well as a little bit of improvisation. Jazz
ensemble audition packets are distributed during the first week of
classes; a little under a week is given to prepare the excerpts in the
packet. The Jazz Ensemble manager, who works with Dave to coordinate jazz
band publicity, concert work crews, and additional gigs, is selected each
September
after auditions.
If there's a question of yours that we didn't answer here, just email us.
We'd love to hear from you.
Love,
Rita Alway, Yale
Bands President
Rosa Li, Drum
Major, Yale Precision Marching Band
