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Goodbye! + Looking Back

Jairus Rhoades - Monday, June 9, 2025
 Events 
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Summer!

Keeping up with the exciting series of competitions and performances around the world featuring many Yale musicians that have had lasting impacts on our members – whether it be through working with them alongside each other in studio or being mentored by them for a class – has been heartwarming and inspiring. The Terra String Quartet winning second prize at the Bordeaux International Competition, Carter Johnson clutching finals in the Van Cliburn and the Gold Medal at Dublin, and Vitaly Starikov winning the silver medal at the Cliburn, have been incredible following along and we celebrate them in their amazing achievments. 
 

I wanted to show you all some photos of the achievments that YUPC has made as we reflect on this year and become excited to see what our new amazing 2025-2026 board will do for the upcoming 2025-2026 season! 
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Two Pianos, Four Hands, Zero Key tops....

Bryant Li, our outgoing Artistic Director, reached out to me about playing a piece by Yale resident composer Christopher Theofanidis, the Fantasy for two pianos. It was really fun rehearsing with him as we were both in YSO and found some opportunities in our recent greece tour to run it through. Though the pianos in our final performance venue were rather scuffed and one of them were completely lacking in the white keytops, it made the performance that much more exciting and arguably more privy to fun spontaneous ideas. 

 

Look above! Our facebook is finally back on! Click above and follow our handles on Facebook, IG, and YouTube . 

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Board Turnover Meeting

Despite everyone literally being all over the world, almost all of the new board met with me, Kevin, and Kristen to begin the transition of them taking the helm over YUPC. We discussed new positions, like Cristian Makhuli's BF '28 appointment as our first-ever masterclass director, the creation of the "Creative Director" position that Daniel Jung MC '28 will now be filling, and some possible merch ideas that could go effective starting Fall 2025. 

Fill out our merch survey below so we can make this a successful first-ever merch drop.

I apologize to the board for using the photo lol. 
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Gershwin, Schubert, and some Brahms!

Derek Harrison GH '27 and Jacob Leshnower GH '27, musicians active not just as pianists but as talented cellists and percussionists respectively, put together a really groovy "It Ain't Necessarily So" arranged by Mischa Portnoff. The popular song is probably one of the most recognizable of Gershwins, so even though it was a short performance, it contrasted really nicely with the Daniel and Hannah's following performance.

Our incoming co-presidents Daniel Wang JE '27 and Hannah Rubin MC '27 (our incoming co brought the lovely world of Schubert four-hand piano to the Dport common room, but it wasn't the famous Fantasy that he is known for– rather instead, they played the Schubert Rondo, mentioned by them to be described by Schumann as having a "heavenly length" :D. 

Bryant Li TB '27 and myself also attempted at playing the (original) two-piano transcription of Brahms' fourth symphony as an hommage to YSO having played it. Was a lot of fun trying to get this together in the little time we did!
 
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Looking to next year!

When finishing up our first board meeting with Kevin, Serina, Aaron, Bryant, and Hannah sometime over zoom around this time last year, there was an energy that made me jittery with excitment. All sorts of ideas were flung here and there, and our enthusiasm filled up the screen and low key everytime we would have meetings in Tsai city to the point where we would get tired and not have any time or energy to do anything else. Sticking to one of the ideas of bringing in artists for a masterclass series was always one that I supported, and I can't overstate how supportive our 2024-2025 board has been in working so last minute to meet the vision– Another huge thanks to Professor Wei-Yi Yang for pushing on an adminsterative end to coordinate with the masterclasses guests (as well as teaching an amazing kick-off class to start the series), and the Arts Discretionary Fund, the Yale Business Office, and Dean Kate Krier, for making this series happen!   

Masterclasses and Yale-external collaboration has been somewhat of a theme for YUPC this year, and while we strive to really try to explore that, I want to encourage all of you to ask yourself how YUPC can support you in your piano adventures while being an undergrad– the masterclasses all came out of a personal need and wish that some of us voiced. As a rising senior, I only wish we did this sooner. 

Hannah and Daniel are not just amazing pianists, but they are extremely nice people too, who are extremely polite and super able in taking YUPC even further. I've had the pleasure of working or talking to all of our other new board members (I'm so sorry I did you all so dirty with this ss I promise you don't look nearly as chopped as you think you do) prior to their appointment, and they've been so kind to give their time to have a meeting over zoom despite many of them being on musical / non-musical grinds throughout the summer. 

Once again, reach out to these amazing people (not pictured not because she didn't want to get sniped  is Chloe Park SB '28 and Cristian Makhuli BF '28) for any ideas/ ways you could improve as a pianist. 


Once again, I'm so excited for the year to come and look forward to seeing what YUPC will do next year! 

Love,
Jai