History of ISM
The ISM Today
The Friends of the Institute
Meet the Faculty
Meet the Students
The Institute has grown from a group of three faculty and seven students in the first graduating class to twenty-four resident and visiting faculty who teach throughout the University, and seventy students. The ISM maintains administrative and teaching space in the Sterling Divinity Quadrangle. Faculty are appointed to the Institute jointly with the School of Music or the Divinity School (or both), and some have appointments in other departments at Yale. Students are admitted jointly to the Institue and either the School of Music or the Divinity School, or, occasionally, both.
The Institute of Sacred
Music and the Yale School of Music
The Institute of Sacred Music and the Yale Divinity
The Common Experience
Instruments, Special Activities and Publications
Performances and Special Events
Lectures Sponsored by the Institute
International Activities and International Representation
in the Yale Institute of Sacred Music
The Institute of Sacred Music and
the Yale School of Music
Joining forces with the considerable resources of the School of Music, the ISM trains musicians for careers in church music, performance, and teaching. Students majoring in organ, choral conducting, and voice will go on to careers in churches and schools, playing or conducting ensembles there or on the concert stage. Some students elect the specialized track in church music studies in order to study liturgy, Bible, and theology along with the more standard music curriculum.
All ISM music students receive a broad musical education equal to that of any YSM student, but they are also trained with an eye toward understanding the religious and liturgical roots of the music they perform. The young composer with a serious interest in writing sacred music and music for specific liturgical traditions is also occasionally admitted to the Institute. Six concert and liturgical choirs (Yale Camerata, Schola Cantorum, Recital Chorus, Repertory Chorus, Marquand Choir, and Marquand Gospel Choir) have their home in the Institute, and count many Institute students
among their members.
Institute faculty and students concentrate on the music of the
churches through performance and through repertorial, analytical,
and historical studies. As both performers and scholars, our faculty
and students form a bridge between the School of Music and the Department
of Music and are committed to demonstrating the connection of music
with culture, liturgy, and religious thought. The repertories studied
are of two broad types: (1) cantatorial and congregational song;
and (2) Western art-music, including masses, motets, oratorios,
art songs, and vocal chamber music; and organ repertory in all styles and from all periods. The Institute
also encourages serious study of music from other faiths and non-Western
At a time when the state of music in churches and synagogues pleads
for various kinds of well-informed change, it is crucial that talented
students who have vocations in sacred music be prepared for challenges
both musical and theological. These students must have the finest
musical training; they must also argue persuasively for music of
authority, knowing enough of liturgical and church history, and
of theology, to do so. Thus, although the Institutes choral
conducting, organ performance, and voice performance majors are
fully enrolled in the School of Music, they are encouraged to elect
courses in liturgics, theology, biblical study, and religion and
In its broadest sense, the Institute of Sacred Musics presence
at the heart of a major school of music is a reminder that secular
repertoriesfrom madrigals and opera to chamber music and symphonieswere
brought to their first heights by musicians trained in the churches,
and that composers make frequent and conscious returns to the traditions
of liturgical music. Mendelssohns resurrection of Bachs
choral works, Brahmss patient studies and editions of medieval
and Renaissance repertories, Stravinskys use of Russian Orthodox
chant in his Mass, and Ivess deeply religious "secular"
works all reclaim the musical materials of congregational song.
The Institute thus upholds the importance of the churches and religious
institutions for the teaching and preservation of great musical
repertories, whether simple or complicated, music of the past or
contemporary compositions, the concert mass, fugue, hymn tune, or
The Institute of Sacred Music and the
Yale Divinity School
As the direct descendant of the School of Sacred Music at Union Seminary, the Institute is deeply committed to its affiliation with the Yale Divinity School. Institute faculty affiliated with the Divinity School are concerned with the history and present life of the churches, and especially with worshiping congregations in a broad spectrum of Western Christian denominations, as well as Judaism and Eastern Christianity. The program in liturgical studies at the Institute and Divinity School has faculty who are historians of liturgical texts, music, and ceremony, but who are also keenly interested in and knowledgeable about the worship of the contemporary churches. The student who studies religion and the arts at the ISM has access to faculty and courses in the history of the visual, literary, and musical arts. Students at the Divinity School can matriculate through the Institute with concentrations in either of these two programs.
Institute/Divinity faculty focus on four broad subject areas: the
Bible in liturgy and religious art; hymnology; the history of Christian
denominations; and theology, politics, and the arts. These subject
areas intersect with and augment the work of colleagues in other
disciplines at the Divinity School. Thus, students at the Institute
learn through programs at the Divinity School how canonical texts
have gone forth to the assembly, and how, from patristic times to
the present, these texts have been learned and reinterpreted by
the worshiping community. Classes at the Divinity School in liturgical
subjects, including music history, religious poetry and drama, iconography,
and architectural history, stress encounters with primary source
materials, manuscript and archival study, as well as trips to museums,
galleries, and architectural sites. All are possible through Yales
great libraries and collections, the many historic churches in the
region, and New Havens proximity to New York City.
Students at the Institute may also participate in daily worship
in Marquand Chapel. The chapel program is a partnership of Yale
Divinity School and the Institute under the direction of two faculty
members – Siobhán Garrigan, the assistant dean for
Patrick Evans, director of chapel music. It is rich in variety, and the ecumenical nature
of the Institute and Divinity School is expressed in the leadership
and content of the services. In keeping with the esteemed heritage
of preaching at Yale and the Divinity School, sermons are offered
twice a week by faculty, students, staff, and invited guests from
beyond campus. On other days the rich symbolic, artistic, and musical
possibilities of the Christian tradition are explored and developed.
The assembly’s song is supported by the Marquand Chapel Choir,
the Marquand Gospel Choir (both groups supported by the Institute),
two a cappella groups, many and various soloists,
and occasional ensembles. Many avenues for musical leadership are
open to the student body by volunteering, as are many avenues of
leadership through the spoken word.
The Common Experience
Students at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music and either professional school, Music or Divinity, have many unparalleled opportunities for interdisciplinary exchange: through Colloquium, in which all Institute students enroll, through courses taught by Institute faculty, team-taught travel seminars and through other offerings including biennial faculty-led study tours open to all Institute students. In 2006 the Institute traveled to Mexico; in 2008 the destination was Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, and Croatia; and in 2010 the Institute went to Germany. The destination in 2012 is Greece and Turkey. These tours offer participants excursions and rich opportunities to see, hear, and learn in the primary areas of the ISM—sacred music, worship, and the arts. The ISM covers most expenses of the tours for its students.
Instruments, Special Activities and Publications
The Institute maintains facilities and enterprises to support its mission, including the Yale organs, choral activities -- including the Yale Camerata, Schola Cantorum, Marquand Choir, the Marquand Gospel Choir, Repertory Chorus and Recital Chorus. Related performances, workshops, international conferences, study tours, scholarly, popular and educational publications also come under the aegis of the Institute.
Performances and Special Events
As an interdisciplinary center and major arts presenter in New Haven, the Institute offers a full schedule of concerts (some featuring Yale faculty and guest performers), drama, art exhibitions, films, literary readings, lectures, and multi-media events during the year. In 2010–2011 the Institute sponsored seventy-nine events open to the public (including forty-four student recitals), which were attended by an estimated 19,500 people.
Lectures Sponsored by the Institute
The Institute sponsors two annual lectures. The Tangeman Lecture is named for Robert Stone Tangeman, professor of musicology at Union Theological Seminary, in whose name the Institute’s founding benefactor endowed the Institute at Yale. Recent Tangeman lecturers include the philosopher Mervyn Cooke, Christopher Dustin, Wendy Heller, Jeffrey Kurtzman, Daniel Melamed, Peter Mercer-Taylor, Markus Rathey, and Elaine Sisman. Melanie Lowe will deliver the Tangeman Lecture in 2012.
The Kavanagh Lecture, named for the late Professor Emeritus of Liturgics Aidan Kavanagh, is given in conjunction with Convocation Week at Yale Divinity School. Lecturers in this series include Paul Bradshaw, John Baldovin, Margot Fassler, Ronald Grimes, Jeffrey Hamburger, Lawrence Hoffman, Maxwell Johnson, Nathan D. Mitchell, Robert F. Taft, S.J., Janet Walton, and Gabriele Winkler. In fall 2011, Don Saliers will deliver the Kavanagh Lecture.
International Activities and International
Representation in the Yale Institute of Sacred Music
The ISM draws its students and faculty from all over the world. Currently, about nine percent of students come from outside the United States, as do seven faculty members.
Faculty and students at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music work together to create a vital network of international exchange between performing musicians and scholars in liturgical studies and religion and the arts. The ISM’s Colloquium series has engaged broad themes of inculturation, and the liturgical and musical heritage and contemporary practice worldwide.
The Institute has a tradition of sponsoring, sometimes in collaboration with other entities, musicians, artists, and scholars from around the world to perform, exhibit, and lecture at Yale. Recent visitors have included the Tuks Camerata from South Africa; the Westminster Choir, the Collegium Regale, the Clare College Choir, and the early music ensemble I Fagiolini from England; the Ensemble européen William Byrd from France; the Calmus Ensemble Leipzig from Germany; the Orthodox Singers and Heinavanker Ensemble from Estonia; the Singhini Ensemble of Kathmandu from Nepal, Bach Collegium Japan from Japan, the Yonsei University Concert Choir from South Korea; guest composers James MacMillan from Scotland and Tarik O’Regan from England; hymnographer I-to Loh from Taiwan; choral conductors Carl Høgset from Norway; Stefan Parkman from Sweden; Sir David Willcocks, Sir Neville Marriner, Stephen Layton, Nicholas McGegan, Paul Hillier, Simon Halsey, and James Vivian from England; Krzysztof Penderecki from Poland; and Helmuth Rilling from Germany; soprano Dame Emma Kirkby from England; artists Nalini Jayasuriya from Sri Lanka, Sawai Chinnawong from Thailand, Wisnu Sasongko from Indonesia, He Qi and Huibing He from China, Adrian Paci from Albania and Italy, Hanna Cheriyan Verghese from Malaysia, Soichi Watanabe from Japan, Jae-Im Kim from Korea, and Emmanuel Garibay from the Philippines; organists Michael Gailit from Austria; Gerard Brooks, Thomas Trotter, Dame Gillian Weir, and (in 2011) Simon Preston from England; Grethe Krogh from Denmark; Hans-Ola Ericcsson from Sweden; Jon Laukvik from Norway; Harald Vogel from Germany; Rachel Laurin from Canada; and Sophie-Véronique Cauchefer-Choplin from France. The Institute also hosted an exhibition of molas by anonymous artists from the San Blas Islands off the coast of Panama and cosponsored an exhibition of works by contemporary women artists from the Islamic world. In fall 2009 the annual Kavanagh Lecture was presented by Gabriele Winkler from Germany.
In preparation for the Institute’s 2006 study trip to Mexico, the Colloquium speaker series featured Mexican scholars, artists, and practitioners: Ricardo Valenzuela, Edward Pepe, Carlos Touché-Porter, and Clara Bargellini. Leading up to the 2008 study tour to the Balkans, speakers included Ivica Novakovic, Bogdan Lubardic, Slobodan Curcic, Enes Karic, and Katarina Livljanic. We have also brought Canadian and American artists and scholars who specialize in various traditions of world music, art, and liturgy: Craig Russell and Lorenzo Candelaria (lecturers on topics of Mexican musical traditions), Ray Dirks (a painter of works about Africa focusing on Ethiopia), Laura James (a painter of Antiguan heritage with works forging links between African Americans and their countries of origin), and the late Jaroslav Pelikan, who offered a lecture to complement a concert by Simon Carrington and the Schola Cantorum of creeds from around the world. In 2005 the ISM collaborated with other departments to present an international interdisciplinary conference, “Sex and Religion in Migration,” examining the development of religious and gender identities in the context of globalization, and bringing together scholars, authors, artists, and filmmakers from all over the world. In 2006 a collaboration with Amherst College brought scholars and practitioners from around the world to Yale for the conference “Sacred Music in Transition: Ethnomusicological Perspectives on Religion, Ritual, and Society.” In 2008 the Institute hosted an international liturgical conference entitled “The Spirit in Worship and Worship in the Spirit.” Another international liturgical conference in 2011, entitled “Liturgy in Migration: Cultural Contexts from the Upper Room to Cyberspace,” will bring speakers from the U.K., Germany, Russia, and the USA to Yale.
Yale Schola Cantorum has toured internationally, performing in Italy, Hungary, France, South Korea, and China.
Institute students and faculty travel the world as individuals, and also as a group for study tours every other year. In 2004 organ majors played upon instruments in northern Germany and then joined with the rest of the ISM in travel to Denmark and Sweden. In May 2006 the destination was Mexico; in 2008 the Institute visited Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, and Croatia; and in 2010 Germany. In 2012 the Institute will travel to Greece and Turkey.
(Updated July 2011)