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MUSIC
Closely related to Dr. Yeagley’s religious education is his musical education. Yeagley’s father noted talent his son when, at the age of three, young Yeagley could perfectly imitate the songs his older brother played on the piano. Yeagley evinced perfect pitch, the ability to call a pitch by a letter name, without seeing or touching the instrument.
Yeagley had some piano lessons when he was seven, but did not show sufficient interest to continue. It was not until age eleven, after three serious illnesses left him unable to pursue athletic interests, that Yeagley concentrated on music. He devoted himself to the piano, and after two years of practice, performed Rubinstein’s Piano Concerto No.4 with the Oklahoma City Symphony Orchestra, Guy Frazier Harrison, Conductor. Yeagley was also interested in composition, and had written several “classical” style pieces by the age of thirteen. He then wrote elaborate fugues for chamber ensembles, and more lengthy works for piano solo.
He went to Oberlin College Conservatory of Music in the mid-70’s, at the height of post-Viet Nam campus liberalism. Oberlin was excessive, radical, and reckless. Yeagley experienced severe conflicts over his conservative, “orthodox” Protestant religious beliefs. Yeagley began taking composition more seriously as a result. Though he began his freshman year with an all-Beethoven recital, by his junior year his passion became focused on the definition of religious music. The central theme of all his formal education has been the identification of spirituality in music. “Is there such a thing as religious music?” Yeagley asked. “If so, what is it that is religious about it?” By the time he graduated, he had concentrated on composing. His senior piano recital was an entire program of his own piano compositions in which he attempted to explore musical expression of subjective religious sentiment.
This led Yeagley into religious studies and the pursuit of music from many angles. For instance, at Emory, Yeagley took courses in history and political theory. What does a political leader think about music? What does a philosopher think? Yeagley studied Plato and Aristotle, non-musicians who had very perceptive ideas about the effects of music on people and on individual musicians. This kind of knowledge became part of Yeagley’s idea of the definition of music in general.
Nearly two decades later, Yeagley decided to return to piano performance. He began practicing piano on a dilapidated instrument in the gymnasium of a small grade school, and within six months, he auditioned at Juilliard, Manhattan, and Mannes, in New York. He performed Liszt’s “Dante Sonata,” Beethoven’s “Waldstein,” and works of Rachmaninoff, Debussy, and Brahms. The Dean of Juilliard privately told Yeagley that most of the faculty judges thought his playing was eccentric, radical, and quoted one judge as writing, “at his age, beyond redemption.” However, Juilliard’s renowned Beveridge Webster (then in his nineties) thought Yeagley was truly an original, creative talent, and recommended him highly, knowing the rest of the faculty would refuse him.
Yeagley entered Hartt School of Music (Hartford, CT), in 1988. He earned the Artist Diploma for performance, and wrote serious academic papers as well. This is essentially the equivalent of a two-year Masters. After that, Yeagley entered the University of Arizona, and there completed his Doctorate of Musical Arts, with a thesis on Franz Liszt’s “Dante Sonata.” This 1838 composition was Liszt’s first pianistic attempt to express religious sentiment in original, idiomatic piano gestures and harmonies. Yeagley’s thesis was published in part, in 1995, in the Journal of the American Liszt Society Vol.37 (January-June). Yeagley was still not satisfied with any formal concept of religious music.
As a composer, Yeagley invented new forms of chant. He was a cantor for two years at St.Paul’s in Glastonbury, CT, and introduced his chant there. He developed it further while at the University of Arizona. Yeagley studied composition there with Daniel Asia, and specialized in vocal music. Yeagley also began to develop an entirely new system of harmonic organization, and once again began writing contrapuntal instrumental music, to test his system.
In 1998, Yeagley premiered his three movement composition for Oboe and Bassoon in Caserea, Israel. At the same concert, Yeagley introduced his new form of cantorial music. Since then, Yeagley has written many works, including the first grand opera on the Jewish Holocaust. Yeagley wrote the story line, the libretto, and the music. It is based on the story of Jack Eisner, a Warsaw ghetto survivor living today.
Yeagley’s piano teachers (in chronological order) included Mary Cooke Caster, Ernestine Scott, Fernando Laires, Ruth Slenczynska, Alexander Uninsky, John Perry, Dadi Mehta, Sanford Margolis, Luis de Mauro Castro, and Nicholas Zumbro. His composition teachers were Joseph Wood, Richard Hoffman, Krystoff Penderecki, and Daniel Asia.
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