An evil king, a secret assassination, and war between the armies of Spain and Algeria. But in the end, they all live happily ever after, to the tune of drums and brass fanfares inspired by this story’s fourth-grade authors.
The story was told Thursday — and the soundtrack peformed — as part of the Music in Schools Initiative, endowed by the Yale College Class of 1957. Michael Yaffe, associate dean of the Yale School of Music, read “When the Brothers Unite” aloud to an auditorium full of Lincoln-Bassett elementary school students as a slideshow of student illustrations rolled and a brass quintet from the School of Music played a score written specifically for the story.
It was the latest collaboration in a six-years-running program bringing together public school students and Yale musicians. Click on the play arrows to the videos above and below for samples.
Yaffe read the story twice: first without accompaniment, and then with the quintet playing behind him. After the performance, the musicians played excerpts and asked the student audience to identify which characters or events the different themes represented.
Jay Wadley, a recent graduate in composition from the Yale School of Music, composed the music for “When the Brothers Unite” after meeting with its six young authors to get their input. “I talked to them about what they thought the music for their book would sound like,” he said. “What does the Spanish music sound like? What does the Algerian music sound like? How about the war, or the moon?”
During his second meeting with the students, Wadley (pictured) brought in a recording of some music he had written, but the students pushed him in a new direction. “I came in with some music that actually had very little to do with the countries themselves,” he said. “I asked if it was necessary to write music that was very specific to those countries, and they definitely thought that was a good idea.”
So Wadley hit the library, researching pop and folk music of Spain and Algeria, and figuring out how to set those styles to a brass quintet. The strum of a flamenco guitar became a trumpet flutter tongue, and Algerian percussion instruments were replaced with tambourines and drumsticks.
“I know grown-up people who don’t know that there are composers still living and writing,” said Wadley. “So I think it’s great for these kids to meet a living composer and see that people are still doing this, that it’s not something that’s so archaic.”
Lincoln-Bassett was the first school to work with the Music in Schools Initiative, beginning six years ago. This year it is one of 20 New Haven schools involved in the initiative. Next Monday, June 16, at 1:30, another books and music event will be held at the John C. Daniels School, where New Haven Schools Superintendent Reginald Mayo will read a story to music composed by Thomas C. Duffy, Yale School of Music professor and director of University Bands.
“We show that music is about expressing yourself and collaborating with so many other mediums,” said John Miller (pictured), a project manager of the Music in Schools Initiative. “When you combine them together, the experience students can have is tremendous.”
