Students Write and Illustrate Books; Yale Composers Set Them to Music

New Haven, Conn. — Books written by students at Lincoln-Bassett and Daniels schools through the Yale School of Music Class of ’57 Music Education Project will be read aloud in school assemblies on June 12 and 16. Members of the press are invited to this celebration of the arts, which will include a live performance of incidental music by Yale composers and a screening of the artwork students drew to illustrate their texts.

Books written by students at Lincoln-Bassett and Daniels schools through the Yale School of Music Class of ’57 Music Education Project will be read aloud in school assemblies on June 12 and 16. Members of the press are invited to this celebration of the arts, which will include a live performance of incidental music by Yale composers and a screening of the artwork students drew to illustrate their texts.

On June 12, at 1:15 p.m., Yale School of Music Associate Dean Michael Yaffe will read at Lincoln-Bassett, 130 Bassett Street. The reading will be accompanied by music composed for brass quintet to accompany the text by recent Yale School of Music graduate student Jay Wadley.

On June 16, New Haven Public School Superintendent Reginald Mayo will read from the book by Daniels School students, which has been set to music for a brass quintet by Dr. Thomas C. Duffy, Yale School of Music professor and director of University Bands. The Daniels School is located at 569 Congress Avenue, and the reading begins at 1:30 p.m.

The book writing project is one of several programs that Yale School of Music has brought to New Haven Public Schools as part of a Music in Schools initiative started by the Yale College Class of 1957 to honor its 50th reunion. In the book-writing program, one group of student writers and illustrators from each of the participating schools, produces a book collaboratively, drawing on their life experiences and creative imaginations. A composer from the School of Music works with the authors to develop music that “fits” or enhances the narrative. While the books are being read at the assemblies, students’ illustrations will be projected on a screen and incidental music will be performed by graduate students and staff from the School of Music.

Among other programs Yale School of Music students have introduced at the Lincoln Bassett, Vincent Mauro Math, Science & Technology and Daniels schools through the Class of 1957 gift are a course in the tango; a creative writing class that engages students in writing about a work of art while listening to music; a poetry class, in which students learn what music and verse have in common; and a class in which students make their own short videos and work with Yale School of Music composers to create an appropriate “soundtrack.”