October 10, 2003

Litton to be awarded Sanford Medal during Walton Centenary Celebration

Yale will mark the centenary of the birth of British composer Sir William Walton on Friday-Saturday, Oct. 18-19, with a series of events that will include an exhibition, a symposium and several performances.

The celebration will begin at 11 a.m. on Friday with a panel discussion titled "Walton in Performance." Participants will be television and movie producer Humphrey Burton, British conductor and scholar David Lloyd-Jones and Dallas Symphony Orchestra conductor Andrew Litton. The moderator of the discussion is Edward Cumming, a graduate of the Yale School of Music who was recently appointed conductor of the Hartford Symphony Orchestra. The discussion will take place in Rooms 38-39 of the Beinecke Library.

The major musical event of the weekend is a Walton Centenary Concert on Saturday evening. At 7 p.m., Lloyd-Joneswill deliver a pre-concert lecture at the Beinecke Library. The concert itself will take place at 8 p.m. at Woolsey Hall. The performance will feature Andrew Litton, an expert on English music who won a Grammy Award in 1997 for his performance of Belshazzar's Feast with the Bournemouth Symphony, guiding the Yale Philharmonia Orchestra, the Yale Camerata (Marguerite Brooks, director) and the New Haven Chorale (Paul Mueller, director) in three of Walton's works. Litton, the principal conductor and Music Director of the Dallas Symphony, is a world-renowned Walton interpreter. 

Baritone Stephen Powell will sing the lead in Belshazzar's Feast, and cellist Jian Wang will solo in the Concerto for Violoncello and Orchestra. Walton's Crown Imperial March will round out the program.

Dean Robert Blocker, will be awarding the Sanford Medal, Yale School of Music's highest honor, to both Sir William's widow, Lady Susana Walton, which she will be accepting on behalf of her late husband; and to Andrew Litton, for his many achievements in the field of music.