Yale Daily News

Throughout Thomas Duffy’s forty years at Yale, the music director of Yale Bands has composed pieces about everything from underwater rubies to a Parisian in America.

On Thursday at 7:30 p.m. in Woolsey Hall, the Yale Concert Band will commemorate Duffy’s 40 years of service in their spring concert. The program will include a selection of his compositions throughout his tenure at Yale.

As an artist, Duffy likened himself to Norman Rockwell. According to Duffy, like American painter Norman Rockwell, he’s a good technician. His music isn’t necessarily high art, but still well known. Duffy has spent the last 40 years writing pieces for schools, universities and beginner bands with varying levels of skill. 

“A lot of my music is a caricature of other things,” Duffy said. “I create little worlds in my music.  [When] I’m commissioned to write a piece by a school or university, I generally go there and ask what’s going on in their community, so I can pick a program for the music about what’s going on in their personal world.”

Over the last 40 years, Duffy has published 62 pieces for bands, 10 of which will be played at Thursday’s concert. The two pieces in this program of which he is most proud are “Crystals” and “Parisian in America.”

“Crystals” was the first piece he ever published and one that established his reputation as a composer. The composition, which was commissioned by a high school in 1985, is a five-minute piece made from four one-minute movements, with each representing a different crystal: a percussive and articulated part representing cyanide, a beautiful and sparkly part representing underwater rubies, an upbeat but ominous part for ice and the final closure representing monolith, a crystal found in limestone. It was his first piece for the Texas school system and meant to be played for piano competitions.

“Parisian in America” is quite different and is a lighthearted parody on a famous piece by American composer George Gershwin titled “An American in Paris.” The original piece was intended to evoke the feel of Parisian street life during the roaring twenties from the perspective of an American tourist, and was heavily influenced by the jazz music of the time. “Parisian in American” is intended to switch the roles, and evoke the reactions of an aristocratic Parisian to a Fourth of July parade in New York City, where they get swept up in the energy and excitement and end up singing “Frère Jacques” and other traditional French songs with the parade. 

Besides the more lighthearted pieces, the show will be closed off with “Flights of Angels sing thee to thy rest,” a song dedicated to the war in Ukraine. Duffy composed the piece as an elegy to two of his neighbours from his hometown of Mansfield, Connecticut: Major Harold Lawson Lewis Jr, who was killed in 1980 in a failed attempt to recover American hostages from Iran, and Thomas A. DiBenedetto, who was killed in a bombing in Beirut in 1983.

“It’s a somber and beautiful piece; it starts up beautiful and very contemplative, and then it ends up kind of with triumph and glory,” Duffy said. “These were two people that were patriots and they did their country’s duty. So it is a finale piece that starts very contemplative and it fits a time when people are involved in conflict.” 

According to Alina Martel ’23, president of the Yale Concert Band, many of the pieces are very different from one another, with some being more lighthearted and others slower with more of an emotional undertone. 

“Overall we’re going for a width of different pieces that also allows for a depth of experience,” Martel added.

However, preparations for the concert have not always been smooth sailing. Trumpet player James Brandfonbrener ’22 said that COVID-19 was a big issue when organizing the concert as it led to many participants being absent from rehearsals for weeks at a time or not being able to play in the concert. Since the band was forced to find replacements in the midst of midterm season, getting students to volunteer to take an isolating student’s spot was difficult.

After this concert, the Yale Concert Band is planning another performance for April 24 continuing the theme of Thomas Duffy’s music. Tickets are available online and are free for students but must be reserved before the concert.

The Yale Concert Band was started in 1917.