Music

CALLING ALL CLASSMATE MUSICIANS: WE WANT TO HEAR YOU PERFORM!

As previously reported, we will have fun music at the reunion. By classmates. Yes, YOU!

We will have two “street pianos” in the tent at TD. Folks can just play a bit as they feel like it, while walking by, whether to entertain friends, jam or just communicate their thoughts.

Also, we are going to enjoy more music played by classmates after dinner on Saturday, including…

Is anyone else in the class composing and performing original music?   How about all the folks who serenaded us at the 50th — Classmates In Concert: Drost, Zamcheck, Bicknell?    How about all you veterans of those wonderful acapella singing groups we enjoyed in the ’60s?

Michael Folz (who’s recovering from kidney replacement surgery!) and his wife Maureen have mastered a new piece of recording equipment and have created three new songs.  Check ’em out!  And here’s a playlist of all three songs.

Michael Folz and his wife Maureen collaborated with our Norm Zamchek (piano) and Paul Severtson (violin) to produce — over the internet — an original that Michael wrote: If I Were To Call You. The production values are quite good, and it’s hosted here on Yale1969.org for your listening pleasure.

It’s the holidays and once again I’m arguing with classmates and friends about the latest Beatles’ release!  Plus ça change.  This time, it’s about Peter Jackson’s 8-hour miniseries on Disney+, studying the Fab Fours’ creation of the Let It Be album.

Back in our school days, The Beatles seemed to dominate our Decembers, beginning in freshman year when Rubber Soul could […]

Here is a podcast interview of our classmate Richard Tedlow, by Chris Yeh, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and investor.  Those of you who attended the 50th reunion may have seen Richard’s outstanding session on Thursday … demonstrating the “Socratic method” he perfected as an immensely popular HBS professor and later on the faculty at Apple…

“A Home in Hendrie Hall,” is an 18-minute film by Miriam Lewin ’80.  It chronicles the transformation of both the Glee Club and the University over the past 50 years — in celebration of the 50th anniversary of coeducation at Yale College.  It spends a lot of time on the classes of 1969, 70 and 71, as women arrived.  And it features more than a few recognizable faces of ’69ers.

The Memorial Service, held on the Sunday morning of Reunion weekend, was moving and evocative, according to many of the 60-ish classmates who attended. Most everyone said this one was deeply moving, in large part due to the magnificent singing of our own Dick Williams.
Good news: we have high quality recordings and pictures of the event; check it out —

On Saturday afternoon of Reunion Weekend, in Sprague Hall, several of us from the Class of 1969 regaled an audience of appreciative classmates, significant others, and passing bystanders with a program of original songs and classics from the 60s. If “writing about music is like dancing about architecture,” then let me not expound in text, but take you right to the goods:

Editor’s Note: If “singing is an athletic activity, plain and simple,” then our Whiffenpoofs are Olympic class athletes.  They really nailed it during reunion weekend.

Just give a listen to this 30-second clip of them singing!

Come to Sprague Hall just after lunch on Saturday to experience a great concert put on by some of the professional musicians in our Class: The Real Stormin’ Norman Zamcheck (ES), Rick Drost (BR), and host John O’Leary (SM), accompanied by Mat Kastner (SY). 

Between them, they have played national venues such as NY’s The Bitter End and Carnegie Hall, LA’s Hollywood Bowl and Troubadour, and Cambridge’s Passim.  They will perform their own songs as well as several 60s classics, including the song YOU chose in our survey as your favorite song.