American Folklore

"This recording represents a moment of great symbolic charge in the trajectory of the ensemble, especially since it coincides with William Boughton's seventh and final year at the helm of the Yale Symphony Orchestra. The relevance of this recording, as a reflection of the joint work between William Boughton and the Yale Symphony Orchestra, lies in its ability to synthesize the experience accumulated during the years of collaboration and to become a sound testimony of the shared artistic project. In any case, William Boughton has selected works by composers who are widely recognized, both in the United States and internationally." Josep Bosch, Sonogram Magazine 

"Dawn makes something remarkable out of the idea o sunrise as ‘a constant event that moves continuously around the world’, cast here as a chaconne – itself a form of constant rotation which allows the composer to draw ever new orchestral colours out of simple C major scales and arpeggios… Ultimately, it’s the quieter, less showy tendencies revealed in the album’s opening works – the transfigured consonance of Dawn and the fragility of Shanty – that linger in the mind." John Fallas, Gramophone, August 2025

“This recording represents a moment of great symbolic charge in the trajectory of the ensemble, especially because it coincides with William Boughton's seventh and final year at the helm of the Yale Symphony Orchestra.
The album brings together works by internationally renowned American composers, each with their own voice within the rich mosaic of US classical and contemporary music. It includes pieces by figures as diverse as Duke Ellington, refined in forms, orchestrations and melodic turns; Aaron Copland, creator of an unmistakably American sound, with a lively energy and a clear and dynamic pulsation; Christopher Theofanidis and Bernard Rands, contemporary composers of great harmonic and textural sophistication; and Omar Thomas, an emerging voice that fuses classical languages with elements of jazz, gospel and African-American music.” Josep Bosch, Sonogram Magazine 

"…There are professional orchestras in this country who do not play as well as the students in the Yale Symphony Orchestra.

If someone heard the Rands in 2022 and loved it, here’s their chance to own a recording of it. For the rest us, American Folklore is a reminder of how undergraduate and graduate students can play on a professional level, and are worthy of your support. It’s nice that Yale has a football team, but next time I am in New Haven, I’ll be checking the school’s concert schedule, not its athletics calendar." Raymond Tuttle, Fanfare, 2026