Charles Ives Concert and Hopkins Medal Ceremony

HONOREES

Over three hundred and fifty years ago, the Reverend John Davenport, one of the early leaders of the New Haven Colony, convinced Edward Hopkins, then Connecticut’s Governor, to provide funds for the establishment of a local grammar school for promising students.  Hopkins Grammar School was founded by Davenport’s vision and perseverance, and by Hopkins’ generous gift of £412, believed to be the first charitable bequest in North America.  On the occasion of the School’s milestone anniversary, we recognize our founder John Davenport with the Hopkins Medal.

Charles Edward Ives, born in Danbury, Connecticut on October 20, 1874, attended Hopkins Grammar School in New Haven from 1892 to 1894. While attending Hopkins, he was a member of the football and baseball teams, and earned a wage working as the organist for St. Thomas Episcopal Church on the New Haven Green. After graduating from Hopkins in 1894, Ives attended Yale University. Upon his graduation in 1898, Ives chose to enter the insurance industry as a full-time career instead of music, but it was for his music and compositional talents that his name became famous.  Grouped among composers such as Stravinsky and Bartok for the way he experimented with harmonies and the way he incorporated hymns and folk music into his compositions, Ives was regarded as a radical in his time.  While most of his work was written when he was young, he received his first award, a Pulitzer Prize, in 1947 at the age of 73.

PERFORMERS

James Sinclair is among the world’s pre-eminent scholars and champions of the music of Charles Ives. He is the Executive Editor for the Charles Ives Society, supervising the work of Ives scholars throughout the United States. In 1999 Yale University Press published his nearly 800-page A Descriptive Catalogue of the Music of Charles Ives, which received accolades from The Association of American Publishers and the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. James Sinclair has been the music director of the New Haven-based Orchestra New England since its founding in 1974.  Sinclair is currently recording for the Naxos label the complete orchestral music of Charles Ives.

Neely Bruce is a Professor of Music at Wesleyan University. He is active as a pianist, organist, composer and conductor. Bruce is the only pianist to have played all of the vocal accompaniments of Charles Ives. Since the late sixties, Bruce has worked with colleagues on all-Ives performances. Early in 2009 his life-long interest in the songs of Ives culminated in a four-day festival-conference featuring a complete performance of the 185 works of Ives for solo voice.

Gary Harger has extensive experience in opera, musical theatre and the spoken stage. He has performed leading tenor roles in many Mozart and Rossini operas, as well as Gilbert and Sullivan; and character tenor roles in Pagliacci, Die Fledermaus, Les Contes d’Hoffmann, L’Incoronazione di Poppea, Wozzeck, The Turn of the Screw.  He has been on the faculty of The Hartt School and Southern Connecticut State University, and teaches privately at his home in Orange, Connecticut.

Elizabeth Saunders has been featured in operatic appearances throughout the United States, Germany, Italy and Japan. She has also been a soloist with the American Composers Orchestra, and has recorded for Moscow Radio, the BBC and NPR. She has also made frequent oratorio appearances. Principle opera roles include Sister Helen in Dead Man Walking (Jake Heggie), and Lola in Cavalleria Rusticana. She is on the faculty of the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts.

Paul Woodiel is a professional fiddler and researcher of American traditional music. He premiered the violin sonata of Leonard Bernstein, who described him as “a first-class performer—one who combines spirituality with intellect.” A busy New York-based purveyor of a broad range of violin and fiddle styles, he has been a featured recitalist at the 92nd St. Y; the Miller Theater at Columbia; the New York Festival of Song at Carnegie Hall; and at music festivals from Bard College to the red rocks of Moab, Utah.