Welcome, New Students

Leslie C. Smith

Each autumn we welcome new students to the ISM who bring a breadth and depth of diverse backgrounds to our interdisciplinary enterprise. Most of them accepted our invitation to tell a bit about themselves, so that our alumni and friends can catch some of the enthusiasm that abounds at this time of year.

New students were invited to meet faculty in an informal gathering at the home of Martin Jean, and all students, faculty, and staff celebrated the opening of the academic year at the ISM picnic, held on the grounds of the Eli Whitney Museum in Hamden.

Click here to see the new students' bios.

See more pictures here.

Notes on the Staff

Martin D. Jean

This year, we bid farewell to Rebecca Wexler, an ISM alumna (MAR  ’07) and klezmer musician who worked as the Choral/Vocal Assistant here for two years. She is moving to Boston to begin a cantorial program at Hebrew College.  She is also the music director at Kahal B'Raira, a congregation for Humanistic Judaism in Cambridge.

Jared Stellmacher has joined the ISM staff as the Choral/Vocal Assistant.  Jared is a recent ISM graduate receiving his master of music degree in organ this past spring.  Before moving to Connecticut, he attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he earned a bachelor of music degree in organ and also served as Assistant Music Director at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Madison, WI.  Jared is also an active recitalist and accompanist in addition to serving as Associate Organist at the First Presbyterian Church of New Canaan, CT.

Glen Segger is no stranger to the ISM, having been a student here from 1992-95, and serving as Teaching Assistant to the Foundations of Worship course over the last several years.  This year, Glen will also be the ISM Fellows Coordinator, assisting our Director, Martin Jean, in getting this newly created fellows program off the ground.  Glen recently completed his Ph.D in liturgical studies from Drew University, where he successfully defended his dissertation on Richard Baxter’s Reformed Liturgy with distinction.

Remembering Gale Pollen

Gale Pollen, who was the face of the Institute to so many over the 23 years she worked here, has passed away. At her retirement party in July 2006, Martin Jean remarked “for the Institute, you have become the institutional memory... You have been the line of continuity through massive changes in an enterprise that began its life with 25 students, faculty, and staff, and now comprises almost 100.” She was 59.

A native of New Haven, Gale worked at Yale for nearly 37 years. After retiring, she gave generously of her time, volunteering at Yale-New Haven Hospital two days a week, and two evenings a week at Ten Thousand Villages. Whe is survived by her parents, Curtis L. and May Pollen of Hamden, three sisters, and a brother, as well as several nieces and nephews. A memorial service was held at Whitneyville United Church of Christ on October 15, 2009.

Vivat Schola

A Fond Reminiscence of Six Years at Yale

Simon Carrington

Not long after I had taken over the choral program at New England Conservatory in 2001, a letter arrived in the mail from someone named Martin Jean outlining a plan by the Institute of Sacred Music at Yale to create a choral conductor professorship and to endow a small chamber choir to specialize in music from before 1750.

Did I know anyone who might be suitable for the position?

I dutifully racked my brain for names and sent in a list, adding tentatively that this sounded like a dream ticket and I was tempted to apply myself.

| learn more

Twelve Days in Asia

Kathryn Aaron (MM [voice] expected 2010)

Waiting on the steps of Woolsey Hall at five o’clock on a Sunday morning to board a bus to begin the journey to Asia, I clutched for my passport and my score of the B-minor Mass. Half awake, half asleep: as long as I have those two items everything is fine. Boarding the flight for a fifteen-hour flight from JFK to Hong Kong, my thoughts had barely begun to focus on the adventure that was ahead of me.  As we chased the sunrise over the North Pole, most of the members of Schola Cantorum and Collegium Players were still shaking off the cold sweat of final papers so recently delivered to eager professors as they drifted into the listless sleep that only economy seats on an international flight can provide.  The first leg of the tour would begin in Seoul, Korea, a three-hour plane ride from Hong Kong that drags you across one more time zone smack into the center of a brand new day, Monday.

So began the Schola and Collegium tour of Asia which would see Seoul, Beijing, and Shanghai within a twelve day span. | learn more

Donations in Gale's memory may be made to:

• The American Heart Association, 5 Brookside Dr., Po Box 5022, Wallingford CT 06492;
• Whitneyville United Church of Christ, 1253 Whitney Ave., Hamden CT 06517; or
• Parents Foundation for Transitional Living Inc., 100 Broadway, New Haven CT 06511.