June 4, 2012/For Immediate Release / hi-res image available
UNCSA CHANCELLOR JOHN MAUCERI RECEIVES AWARD
WINSTON-SALEM – University of North
Carolina School of the Arts (UNCSA)
Chancellor John Mauceri has received an
award from the Association of Yale
Alumni (AYA).
The award, presented Saturday evening,
June 2, was presented “in recognition of
Distinguished Service to the Yale
College Class of 1967.” The honor was
given for Chancellor Mauceri’s success
in leading UNCSA for six years along
with his accomplishments at Yale and in
the arts throughout the world.
Chancellor Mauceri was at Yale this past
weekend to present an address at the
45th Reunion of his Class of 1967. He
spoke on “The Hollywood Sound: What It
Is and How It Works.”
The Founding Director of the Hollywood
Bowl Orchestra, Maestro Mauceri is one
of the world's preeminent experts on
film music.
The AYA Award was presented by Barry
Bardo ’67, 45th Reunion
Attendance Chair and a long-time friend
of Maestro Mauceri. Bardo said, “No one
in our very accomplished Yale class has
contributed more to the arts and to
music in particular, both at Yale and
throughout the world, than John
Mauceri. We take great pride in
presenting this AYA Award to Maestro
John Mauceri for his outstanding body of
work and look forward to many more years
of productivity from John and his
colleagues at the UNCSA.”
Photo by Donald Dietz
UNCSA Chancellor John Mauceri
A Music Theory and Composition major, Mauceri graduated
cum laude from Yale in 1967, winning the Wrexham Prize
for highest musical achievement and the Francis Vernan
Prize for composition.
After a year at Yale’s graduate school, Mauceri was
appointed Music Director of the Yale Symphony Orchestra.
He remained on the faculty for 15 years, building the
orchestra to international recognition and achieving an
unprecedented popularity for its symphony concerts.
At Yale, Mauceri taught orchestration, conducting, gave
guest lectures in the German and Italian Departments
and, with the Yale Symphony, developed the concept of
thematic programming built on his studies of information
theory, linguistics, and psychoacoustics. He conducted a
number of significant premieres including the first
American performances of Debussy’s Khamma and musiques
pour le roi Lear, the world premiere of the original
large orchestra version of Charles Ives’ Three Places in
New England as well as the new critical edition of his
Second Orchestral Set, the American premiere of
Stockhausen’s Hymnen (which he also produced on Yale’s
Cross Campus), the American premiere of Paul Hindemith’s
orchestrated Marienleben Song Cycle, as well as the
American premiere of the score to the silent film of
Richard Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier (performed with the
film and in the presence of legendary soprano
Maria Jeritza). He brought rare performances of
Hindemith’s Sinfonia Serena and Symphony “die Harmonie
der Welt” with the Yale Philharmonia to Carnegie Hall,
and led performances of Stravinsky’s Agon, Schoenberg’s
Gurrelieder, John Cage’s Atlas Eclipticalis, Debussy’s
Jeux, and Messaien’s Reveil des oiseux for the Yale
community.
His restoration of Scriabin’s Prométhée, ou le poème du
feu, observing the composer’s “keyboard of light,” by
making use of the newly developed laser technology, was
a sensation, and required the concert to be performed
three times, to a total audience of 7,500 people. (The
Yale community was estimated at 10,000 at that time.) In
his seven years as Music Director of the Yale Symphony,
Mauceri played to a consistently sold-out Woolsey Hall,
which has 2,500 seats.
In 1971 the Yale Symphony toured France and brought with
it Debussy’s Khamma (its French premiere), along with
Ives’ Symphony No. 4. In 1973 Mauceri produced and
conducted Leonard Bernstein’s Mass in New Haven with the
composer in attendance and, as a result, subsequently in
Vienna for its European premiere. Mauceri’s Vienna
production was telecast throughout Europe and America by
PBS, in conjunction with the BBC and the ORTF.
Mauceri left the faculty of Yale in 1982 as Associate
Professor, and in 1985 was awarded Yale’s first Arts
Alumni Award for Outstanding Achievement. He returned
for one semester in the spring of 2001 to teach a course
on the effects of World War II on contemporary esthetics
and conduct both Yale orchestras for the tercentennial
of the university.
As America’s first state-supported arts school, the
University of North Carolina School of the Arts is a
unique stand-alone public university of arts
conservatories. With a high school component, UNCSA is a
degree-granting institution that trains young people of
talent in music, dance, drama, filmmaking, and design
and production. Established by the N.C. General Assembly
in 1963, the School of the Arts opened in Winston-Salem
(“The City of Arts and Innovation”) in 1965 and became
part of the University of North Carolina system in 1972.
For more information, visit
www.uncsa.edu.
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