The long and deep tradition of choral music at Yale owes much to a continuous flow of new choral music created by composers within the Yale community and by commissions to outside composers.

One of the missions of the Yale Alumni Chorus Foundation is to sustain and enhance this respected tradition by commissioning new choral pieces to be sung by our chorus and other choruses at Yale, and also as a contribution to the wider body of choral music to be made available to any group interested in performing the music.

We have established a fund to underwrite these commissions for new music and have developed a process for identifying composers whose works are consistent with our goal: to add something new to the literature of choral music. This may be harmonic, melodic, rhythmic, or a sound comprised of some or all of these elements, or of the voice used in an appealing new manner; it should be music that thrills us for its beauty, excites us, stimulates us intellectually, or brings us peace; not music that evokes anger or unrest.

The Foundation is actively researching contemporary choral music, seeking out composers in this country and abroad who might help us reach our goals. All members of the Foundation’s Board of Directors and others have been invited to submit the names and, if possible, a CD containing music of the composer they propose. After screening by our New Music Committee, a recommendation is made to the Board.

New music may be composed to celebrate an event such as an anniversary or a success, an ideal (e.g., liberty), or just as appealing, music for its own sake. The lyric may be one relating to the event or anniversary, a poem deemed to be worthy of a musical setting, or a lyric that the composer is anxious to set to music. In most cases, we will specify a cappella or cantata with accompaniment by piano, cello, guitar, or another interesting instrument or small group of instruments. Duration will be that of typical anthems – approximately five minutes (plus or minus two minutes).

Recent Commissions

René Clausen, composer and conductor of the Concordia Choir at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota composed "Prayer" – a musical setting for a prayer written by Mother Teresa of Calcutta. It was premiered during the Chorus’s tour to Mexico and Guatemala in August 2009.

Another commission, gifted to the Yale Alumni Chorus by Neeta Helms, President of Classical Movements, was also premiered on that tour. “Tu,” composed by Jorge Cordoba Valencia, is a setting of the poem by Amado Nervo, one of Mexico’s leading poets of “Modernismo.”

For the Fifteenth Anniversary Tour to the Baltics, Vytautas Miskinis -- a leading Lithuanian choral director and composer -- set to music the exuberant poem by the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore. The Alumni Chorus will give a world premiere in the composer's home city of Vilnius.

For the 2018 Yale International Choral Festival, YAC commissioned a piece from André de Quadros. The title, “Breaking the Silence”, was inspired by Dr Martin Luther King Jr.’s memorable speech given in New York, on April 4, 1967, a year before he was assassinated – Beyond Vietnam, a Time to Break Silence. 2018, the fiftieth anniversary of his assassination, reminded us to speak out on issues of significance to our contemporary realities, and in the cause of justice. In that context, “Breaking the Silence” was conceived to align with Dr. Jeffrey Douma’s vision to create the Yale International Choral Festival as inclusive, compassionate, and welcoming at a time of political division. The participating choirs were the Ensemble Cantissimo from Germany (dir. Markus Utz), the Muslim Choral Ensemble from Sri Lanka, Staccato Coro Universitario from Mexico (dir. Marco Ugalde), the Yale Alumni Chorus (dir. Jeffrey Douma), and the Young People’s Chorus of New York City (dir. Francisco Nuñez). André de Quadros invited text and melodic contributions from the participating choirs/conductors on meaningful and relevant social issues for which they wished to join their voices in song. The piece, partly composed and partly improvised, collaged, blended, and connected the contributed fragments together with some composed material, in a cross-cultural expression of social consciousness.

List of Commissions