Organ at YSM

The organ program at the Yale School of Music prepares students for careers as soloists, teachers, and church musicians. All students attend the departmental seminar, which is devoted to a comprehensive survey of organ literature from all musical periods, and receive individual lessons from faculty members and renowned visiting artists who come to Yale for one week each year. The Yale Institute of Sacred Music offers an employment-placement service for organ students at Yale. All organ majors are enrolled at the School of Music as well as the Institute of Sacred Music. Interested applicants must apply to both.

Yale organists have the opportunity to practice and perform on Yale’s extensive collection of fine instruments: the H. Frank Bozyan Memorial Organ in Dwight Memorial Chapel (von Beckerath, three manuals, 1971); the organ in Battell Chapel (Walter Holtkamp Sr., three manuals, 1951); Marquand Chapel at the Divinity School (E. M. Skinner, three manuals, 1931); and the Newberry Memorial Organ in Woolsey Hall (E. M. Skinner, four manuals, 1928), one of the most renowned Romantic-era organs in the world. Two-manual practice instruments by Flentrop, Holtkamp, Casavant, and other builders are located in Woolsey Hall and at the Institute of Sacred Music, which also houses five Steinway grand pianos, a C.B. Fisk positive, and a Dowd harpsichord.