School Notes: School of Music
May/June 2014

Remembering Mitch Leigh

Mitch Leigh ’52MusM, a Yale graduate and benefactor, died March 16 following a stroke. Dean Robert Blocker noted, “Mitch Leigh continually maintained that his time at Yale was the turning point in his life,” citing in particular “his love and admiration for Keith Wilson, his lifelong friendship with Willie Ruff, and his gratitude for having Paul Hindemith as his teacher.” Leigh’s gifts to the School of Music honored Wilson with an endowed scholarship, established the Willie Ruff Chair in Jazz, and later named the band room in Hendrie Hall for Wilson. In 2006, the school’s building at 435 College Street was named Leigh Hall for the generosity of Abby and Mitch Leigh. Leigh once said in an interview, “After working with [Hindemith], when I left Yale I could write anything.” Leigh is best known for the musical Man of La Mancha, which opened on Broadway in 1965 and won two Tony Awards. Leigh was also a producer, director, and businessman.

School to work with record company

The School of Music and Naxos Records have agreed to coproduce 20 compact discs of piano music in the next few years. The recordings will encompass piano music by Domenico Scarlatti, Muzio Clementi, Franz Lizst, and other Romantic-period composers, which will be performed by piano students of the school. Professor Boris Berman, chair of the piano area, will make recommendations for the pianists who will have the opportunity to record each of the CDs. 

Faculty composer receives accolades

Faculty composer Aaron Jay Kernis received the 2014 A. I. duPont Composer’s Award from the Delaware Symphony Orchestra. The award recognizes a living American composer or conductor who has contributed significantly to contemporary classical music. Kernis also has been selected for induction into the American Classical Music Hall of Fame, which seeks to build and sustain enthusiasm for classical music in contemporary America by celebrating diverse facts of classical music excellence. This coming September, a biography and wide-ranging introduction to Kernis’s work, written by author and musicologist Leta Miller, will be published by the Illinois University Press as a part of its American Composers series.