Lukas Nel, Contributing Photographer

Firehouse 12, a studio and performance venue located by the New Haven Green, echoed with music from the Yale Lift Off program on Monday evening. 

The event was a first of its kind, showcasing composers and singers from the Yale School of Music who performed original pieces. The program consisted of three performances across different genres, including song-poetry and a Shakespeare-inspired opera scene. 

The night started with a performance of “towards your arms,” showcasing a duo of guitarist Matiss Cudars and vocalist Amalia Crevani, the vocalist. The song captured the essence of a half-asleep dreamer, with Cudars’ strings and Crevani’s soprano telling the story of a dreamscape that is difficult to escape. 

“The [piece] was a marriage between two different worlds. [It] almost existed with one foot in both camps — between art music and popular music,” said Curtis Serafin, a Music School lecturer who was in attendance. “You have a sort of electric guitar complement that comes from a sort of singer-songwriter background that you don’t find very commonly in art songs. But the singing itself was very classic in nature.”

Following this beginning, the audience was treated to a performance of “Mr. & Mrs. M.,” written by Aaron Levin MUS ’27. 

The piece was inspired by the scene from Shakespeare’s “Macbeth,” where Lady Macbeth persuades Macbeth to assassinate King Duncan.

“It’s the psychological crux of the whole play,” Elana Bell MUS ’23, one of the performers, explained. “It’s where Lady Macbeth is really getting into Macbeth’s head and convincing him to commit.” 

Bell, a recent Yale graduate, is now based in New York, starting her career journey in opera.

The evening’s grand finale was the evocative “Excerpts from ‘Songs at Night.’” Rooted in the poetry of Anna Margolin and sung in Yiddish, the performance featured Kara Morgan’s MUS ’24 soulful voice accompanied by Esther Kwan on bass and Carter Johnson MUS ’29 on piano. 

According to Morgan, while the songs are all by the same composer, the pieces capture different love stories at various points in a person’s life.

“This was a great chance for them to encourage and then help produce premier performances of excerpts of these works that are largely in progress still,” Anna Smigelskaya, a piano fellow at the Music School said. 

Morgan, a graduate student with the Yale Opera department, commented on the enduring relationships and connections that the event created.

She said she thought the Yale Lift Off was a success, and said she hopes it might inspire and develop into a future class at the Music School.  

“It’s singers getting paired up with composing students or recent graduates, creating something special together,” she said.

Firehouse 12 is located at 45 Crown St.