The degree program in vocal performance at Yale has two distinct tracks: One in Opera, and one in Early Music, Song, and Chamber Ensemble. Both tracks are designed to enhance and nurture the artistry of young singers by developing in them a secure technique, consummate musicianship, and comprehensive performance experience.
The Yale community and the New Haven area offer ample opportunities for solo experience through church positions, professional orchestras, and various Yale choral and instrumental ensembles. Close proximity to New York and Boston makes attendance at performances and auditions in those cities convenient. Additionally, students have the opportunity to teach voice to undergraduates in Yale College and to non-majors in the Yale School of Music.
Opera
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Doris Yarick-Cross (artistic director and voice); Lili Chookasian and Richard Cross (voice); Douglas Dickson (opera coaching); Jonathan Kelly (song coaching); Emily Olin (Russian diction); Timothy Shaindlin (opera coaching, diction, vocal repertoire); Annette Wegener (German diction); and guests.
Singers in the opera program are prepared for rigorous careers by practical studies in the art of opera performance. The program encompasses thorough musical training including languages, style, acting, body movement, recitals, and general stage skills. Full productions with orchestra, as well as performances of excerpts, are presented throughout the year to give students varied performance experience. Recent productions have included Gianni Schicchi, Suor Angelica, Le médécin malgré lui, Die Zauberflöte, Faust, la Bohème, Falstaff, La Traviata, La Cenerentola, Cosi fan tutte, Les Contes d’Hoffman, Le Nozze di Figaro, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Die Fledermaus, Albert Herring, La tragedie de Carmen, The Rape of Lucretia, The Kaiser of Atlantis, Iolanta, and the first staged Italian performance of Rossini’s Il viaggio a Reims. Repertoire is chosen with young voices in mind, and to afford the widest casting possibilities and maximum experience for all.
Private voice lessons are supplemented by intensive coaching in both operatic and song literature. Weekly seminars and voice classes stress diction, interpretation, and effective communication. Master classes by eminent artists give young musicians contact with, and insight into the real world of music. Such guests have included Elly Ameling, Carlo Bergonzi, Alan Held, Régine Crespin, Franz Hans Hasl, Marilyn Horne, Evelyn Lear, Sherrill Milnes, and Renata Scotto.
Early Music, Song, and Chamber Ensemble
Marguerite Brooks and Simon Carrington (ensemble); Margot Fassler and Markus Rathey (musicology); Judith Malafronte (voice); James Taylor (program advisor and voice)
This vocal track, leading to the M.M. degree, is designed for the young singer whose interests lie principally in the fields of early music, oratorio, lieder, contemporary music, and choral chamber ensembles.
The primary goal is to prepare the young singer for the rigors of a professional singing career through the development of a sound technique, musicianship, stylistic versatility, and performance skills. Private voice lessons are supplemented by intensive coaching in song and oratorio literature and concentrated study of ensemble techniques in the chamber ensemble, Yale Schola Cantorum, directed by Simon Carrington. The Schola Cantorum tours annually and began a recording schedule in 2005. Weekly seminars and voice classes provide in-depth instruction in performance practices, diction, and interpretation, and singers have the opportunity to participate in master classes by internationally renowned artists. Students are encouraged to avail themselves of the offerings of the University, particularly courses in the Department of Music. All students enrolled in the Early Music, Song, and Chamber Ensemble voice track will also participate in the ISM’s Colloquium on Wednesday afternoons, and will choose two electives from the academic courses offered by the Institute.
Lili Chookasian, contralto, made her Metropolitan Opera debut in 1962. She has appeared in this country with the Chicago Lyric, New York City, and San Francisco Opera companies, among others. Internationally, she has performed in Bayreuth, Salzburg, Hamburg, Florence, Buenos Aires, Montreal, and Barcelona. In concert she has sung with all of the major symphony orchestras in the United States, as well as the Berlin Philharmonic, under the world's most distinguished conductors. Miss Chookasian has recorded for CBS Masterworks, RCA, Columbia, Decca, MGM, and Deutsche Grammophon. In March 1985 she was selected by the American Vocal Academy to be in the newly initiated Hall of Fame of American Opera Singers. She previously taught voice at the Northwestern University School of Music.
Richard Cross, bass, made both his European and New York debuts in 1958. He has appeared with the opera companies of San Francisco, Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Madrid, Cologne, Hamburg, Budapest and Washington, as well as with the New York City Opera. Mr. Cross has appeared at the Cologne Festival, the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy, and the Schwetzingen Festival. He has sung with many of the major symphony orchestras, including Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle and Pittsburgh. Mr. Cross has recorded for London Records, RCA and Columbia. He has served on the faculties of the Hartt School of Music and the Boston Conservatory and is currently on the faculties of the Juilliard School of Music and SUNY Stonybrook.
Douglas Dickson, piano, received his B.A. degree from Princeton University and his M.M.A. from the Yale School of Music. He has performed in Europe, Asia, South America , and throughout the United States. His performances have been heard on NPR stations in many states, Colombian National Radio, and ABC-T. As a vocal accompanist he has played for the master classes and studios of Sherrill Milnes, Renata Scotto, Régine Crespin, Carlo Bergonzi, and Licia Albanese. Mr. Dickson has been accompanist or music director for productions at Quinnipiac College, the Yale School of Drama, Opera Theater of Connecticut, Connecticut Experimental Theater, and Shubert Opera. He was music director and conductor for Yale Opera’s spring 2000 production of Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia. In 1997 and 1998 he performed and taught at the Itu Festival of Arts in Brazil, and has served for nine years on the faculty of Quinnipiac College. Mr. Dickson joined the Yale faculty in 1998.
Judith Malafronte, mezzo-soprano, has appeared with the San Francisco Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, the St. Louis Symphony, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the Handel and Haydn Society. She has sung at the Tanglewood Festival, the Boston and Utrecht early music festivals, and the Göttingen Handel Festival. Winner of several top awards in Italy, Spain, Belgium and the US, including the Grand Prize at the International Vocal Competition in Hertogenbosch, Holland, Malafronte holds degrees with honors from Vassar College and Stanford University, and studied at the Eastman School of Music, in Paris and Fontainebleau with Nadia Boulanger, and with Giulietta Simionato in Milan as a Fulbright scholar. She has recorded for major labels in a broad range of repertoire and her writings have appeared in Opera News, Stagebill, Islands, Early Music America Magazine, Schwann Inside and Opus.
Timothy Shaindlin, a native of New York City, joined the Yale School of Music faculty in September 2008. After studies at Indiana University, he worked for New York City Opera, Washington National Opera, San Diego Opera, Wolf Trap Opera and Pittsburgh Opera, and recently completed a 15-year stint with the Lyric Opera of Chicago, where he also coached for the Ryan Opera Center for American Artists. He has also coached for Glimmerglass Opera, Sarasota Opera and Hawaii Opera Theatre, where he recently conducted Sondheim's A Little Night Music. In Europe, he worked for Barcelona's Gran Teatre del Liceu and played five summers of master classes for Tito Gobbi. He has also played classes and coachings for such artists as Joan Sutherland, Birgit Nilsson, Beverly Sills, Marilyn Horne, Natalie Dessay, Ben Heppner, Luciano Pavarotti, Zinka Milanov, Eleanor Steber, Samuel Ramey, Regina Resnik, Regine Crespin and Federica von Stade. In 2007 he prepared War and Peace for the Metropolitan Opera.
The American lyric tenor James Taylor joined the Yale faculty in 2005 after serving as Professor of Voice at the Musikhochschule in Augsburg, Germany, since 2001. He is one of the most sought after oratorio singers of his generation, appearing worldwide with such conductors as Christoph Eschenbach, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Christoph von Dohnányi, Herbert Blomstedt, Daniel Harding, Harry Christophers, Osmo Vänskä, Phillipe Herreweghe and Franz Welser-Möst, and touring extensively with Helmuth Rilling. Important guest appearances have included concerts with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Vienna Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Concentus Musicus of Vienna, the Toronto Symphony, Tafelmusik, the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig, the Orchestra of St. Lukes, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Israel Philharmonic, and the San Francisco Symphony. He has recorded Dvorak’s Stabat Mater, Mendelssohn’s Paulus, Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, Händel’s Messiah, Bach’s B Minor Mass, and the songs of John Duke. Professor Taylor is one of the founders of Liedertafel, a vocal ensemble which has appeared in major European music festivals and recorded for the Orfeo label. A recording of Scottish and Welsh songs by Franz Josef Haydn, together with Donald Sulzen and the Munich Piano Trio, has recently been released. Prof. Taylor earned the B.Mus. degree from Texas Christian University and the Master’s Diploma from the Hochschule für Musik in Munich.
Doris Yarick-Cross, soprano, has appeared with most of the major opera companies in the United States, including the San Francisco, Chicago Lyric, and New York City, as well as companies in Europe, Australia, and Canada. She spent sixteen years in Germany where she sang leading roles in major opera houses. She has sung with the symphony orchestras of Pittsburgh, Minnesota, Quebec, Toronto, San Francisco, and the New York Philharmonic. She is well- known as a recitalist and has appeared in hundreds of concerts across the country. She has served on the faculty of the University of Texas and was head of the voice department at the University of Connecticut prior to coming to Yale.