At the present moment, the Choral Program consists of a WORKSHOP FOR CHILDREN AGES 5 - 11, POLYPHONIC CHOIR FOR TREBLE VOICES AGES 9 -14(the official choir for the Florentine Opera Theater) and a FEMALE YOUTH CHOIR (CORO GIOVANILE) OF ADOLESCENTS.
The singers attend the school afternoons, following their regular school classes, once or twice weekly.
WORKSHOP FOR CHILDREN
The Children start choral practice at the School of Music of Fiesole at an early age, 5-8 years old, and attend the Workshop classes once or twice weekly. This group is divided into 2 levels according to age and experience. Three teachers are involved, all three singers, choral directors and pianists: JOAN YAKKEY originally from New York City, teacher and coordinator ENNIO CLARI (from Jugoslavia), accompanying pianist and CLAUDIA AVERSA, young singer and pianist.
The Children study the basics of vocal technique and learn folksongs, canons and early 2 part arrangements of choral music. They study note reading and rhythmic interpretation at every lesson through the age of 13 (throughout Choral Workshop and Polyphonic Choir) with the use of didactic materials created by Joan Yakkey: coloring books The Sign and the Sound, Magic Music Cards (musical card games) and 16 sight-singing pamphlets entitled The Language of Music . The overall method is based on a fusion of the Italian fixed DO system and the Kodaly chromatic syllables. Please refer to the following sites (not linkable) for further explanations of the Didactic material:
http://www.geocities.com/jyakkey/JoanYakkeyideas.html
http://www.geocities.com/jyakkey/magicmusiccards.html
www.geocities.com/jyakkey/languageofmusic.html
THE YOUTH CHOIRS
The POLYPHONIC CHOIR includes about 25 children with experience ages 9-14 and the FEMALE YOUTH CHOIR, founded in 1980 includes high school students. The Director of the choirs is Joan Yakkey and the accompanying pianist and teaching assistant is Riccardo Foti, organist from the American Church St James. Assistant to both choirs is a former member: Camilla Silvestri.
Each choir has a separate schedule (meeting twice weekly) and a repertory differentiated, based on vocal and reading capacity and taste. As of late, given the extension of the regular school day and later arrival of the younger children at the Fiesole School, we have decided to overlap the two choir schedules for 30 minutes at each rehearsal taking advantage of a certain repertory adapt for both choirs to sing together such as Oratorios, Cantatas, Symphonic and Operatic choral pages.
The Repertory for both choirs contains music from several centuries, from Gregorian chant to live Electronics, both a cappella and with instrumental accompaniment, in various languages.
Both choirs perform regularly in Tuscany for concerts and official diplomatic visits by dignitaries such as the President of Italy and the Pope; they have also participated in Choral Festivals, Conventions, and Choral Competitions throughout Europe. The singers have lately been recorded on Decca label with Zubin Mehta conducting, Andrea Bocelli singing in La Boh�me and Tosca (Puccini). The choirs have sung with several important orchestras and opera houses such as: Maggio Musicale Fiorentino at the Comunal Theater of Florence, ORT, Italian Youth Orchestra, La Fenice theater (Venice), San Carlo theater (Naples), Settembre Musica (Turin), Festival of Two Worlds (Spoleto), Festival Puccini (Torre del Lago), Festival of Batignano with singers from Convent Garden.
The children are called each year to sing and perform in Symphonies and Operas requiring young singers. They have sung on stage in the following productions:
Puccini: La Boheme, Tosca, Turandot
Monteverdi: Il Ritorno di Ulisse in Patria
Henze: Tom Thumb
Ponchielli: La Gioconda
Luciani: Talgor
Davis: The Two Fiddlers
Krasa: Brundibar
Bussotti: Ispirazione
Humperdinck: Hansel und Gretal
Berg: Wozzeck
Gurlitt: Wozzeck
Bizet: Carmen
Verdi: Attila
Haendel: Judas Maccabeus
Bartolucci: La Nativit�
Tschaikovsky: The Queen of Spades
Berlioz: The Damnation of Faust
Strauss: Die Frau Ohne Schatten
Monteverdi/Berio: Orfeo/B
Schoenberg: Moses und Aaron
Mahler: Third Symphony
Orff: Carmina Burana
Mozart: Magic Flute
Leoncavallo: I Pagliacci
Britten: The Little Sweep, The Turn of the Screw, Ceremony of Carols
Hindemith: Ploner Musiktag, Acht Kanons
Ponchielli: La Gioconda
Mozart: The Magic Flute
Wagner: Tannhauser
Savona: Opera delle Filastrocche
Riz Ortolani: Movie Concert
Giacomelli: Volevo un Foglio
Puccini: Tosca
Moussorgski: Kovantchina
Professor Joan Yakkey is a graduate of Music and Art High School and holds a B. A. degree in Music Composition from Queens College, New York City. She is also a graduate from the Music Conservatory of Florence, Italy, and holds the equivalent of three M.M. degrees: Piano Performance, Choral Direction and Composition, International Teaching Methods. She has studied at the Orff Institute of Salzburg, Austria and with Nadia Boulanger at the Paris Conservatoire of Music, France.
Professor Joan Yakkey teaches Piano at the Music Conservatory in Florence, Italy since 1976, and in 1978 founded the Choral Department for Young Singers at the European School of Music, Fiesole, Florence, Italy where she is now Choral Director of its three youth singing groups and Department Head. She has established the Choir for Children at the Music Conservatory of Florence in 1997 - 2003 and the Junior Singing Club for children at the St. James American Church of Florence, now directed by a former student.
Professor Joan Yakkey has recorded on CD:
Anonymous Venetian Airs of the 18th Century,
Lo Spazzacamino (The Little Sweep) by Britten in Italian,
Sacred Songs and Canzonettes for Three Voices by Claudio Monteverdi,
and the Holocaust Opera Brundibar, by Hans Krasa.
For over twenty-five years Joan Yakkey has been preparing soloists and choral groups of young singers for concerts, television programs, CD recordings, music festivals, International competitions, operas for children and Operatic/Symphonic roles for the major Opera Theaters and Summer Festivals (Spoleto, Torre del Lago, Rovereto etc.) throughout Italy.
Joan Yakkey is the author of several teaching methods, Magic Music cards, coloring note reading and sight singing books in bilingual editions mainly for children, and is an arranger and composer of instrumental, choral and vocal music. Recently she has been able to take advantage of her special status as a Professor in Italy, and has researched several unpublished scores from the 13th to the 18th centuries. In the year 2000 her transcriptions of four Canzonets by C. Monteverdi have been published by the Treble Clef Editors, N.C.
