The meeting between Prof. Marguerite Brooks (Yale) and Prof. Markus Utz (ZHdK) at a master class in Stockholm heralded the beginning of the collaboration between the Institute of Sacred Music at Yale University in New Haven and the profile of sacred music at the ZHdK. Since 2013, a joint exchange has taken place every two years: The choral conducting class from Yale with eight master students and their teachers (Marguerite Brooks and Jeffrey Douma) will travel to Zurich to hold a joint master class with the choral conducting class of the ZHdK and their lecturers (Beat Schäfer and Markus Utz). In September of the same year, the choir conducting students from Zurich and their lecturers are invited to Yale University.
Teaching in the master classes is cross-cultural and international: the American lecturers work exclusively with Swiss students and the Swiss lecturers teach the American students. All choral conducting students, most of whom are also trained singers, form a vocal ensemble for the master classes, with which the young conductors can then work. They benefit in several ways: in addition to the social and cultural exchange, they receive important impulses for their further development, but they also get to know the specific way of dealing with the repertoire typical of their country.
The Yale School of Music and the Institute of Sacred Music are part of the renowned Yale University and are considered one of the top addresses for choral conducting training, not only in the USA. In addition to Marguerite Brooks and Jeffrey Douma, the faculty members who teach regularly include renowned conductors such as David Hill (BBC Singers), Masaaki Suzuki (Bach-Collegium Japan) and Simon Carrington (King’s Singers), who, in addition to teaching choral conducting students, conduct major international tours and CD recordings with the school's own paid professional vocal ensemble “Schola Cantorum”.
ISM (Institute of Sacred Music, Yale University)