A two-time Tony Award-winning composer and a six-time Grammy Award-winning singer are bringing their boundary-pushing expertise to Yale's Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), as professors in the practice.
Jeanine Tesori, a composer of musical theater and opera, and Dawn Upshaw, a classically trained singer of opera and concert repertoire, both joined the faculty in July and will each teach one course per semester. Both are appointed in the Department of Music and Tesori also holds a fully joint appointment in Theater, Dance and Performance Studies. She has taught a course in the Shen Curriculum for Musical Theater, which is administered by both departments, every other year since 2012.
"We are so lucky to have two titans of the music world joining the Faculty of Arts and Sciences," said Marc Robinson, the dean of Humanities in the FAS. "Jeanine Tesori's profound works for music theater and Dawn Upshaw's glorious performances in opera houses and concert halls have changed lives. I am thrilled that Yale students will now learn from their vast experience."
Tesori's body of work includes the scores for multiple Broadway musicals, including "Kimberly Akimbo," "Fun Home," "Caroline, or Change," "Shrek The Musical," and "Thoroughly Modern Millie." She won the 1999 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Music in a Play for a production of "Twelfth Night" at Lincoln Center, and the 2004 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Music for "Caroline, or Change." She has six Tony nominations, with two awards for best original score: one in 2015 for "Fun Home" (shared with Lisa Kron) and the second in 2023 for "Kimberly Akimbo" (shared with David Lindsay-Abaire).
