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Michael Yaffe
Michael Yaffe, associate dean at the Yale School of Music, has received a National Guild Service Award from the National Guild for Community Arts Education. Yaffe was honored at the organization’s Annual Awards Luncheon, which took place in Boston on November 11 at the Conference for Community Arts Education.
According to its website, “The National Guild for Community Arts Education supports and advances access to lifelong learning opportunities in the arts. We foster the creation and development of community arts education organizations by providing research and information resources, professional development, networking opportunities and funding, and by advocating on behalf of the field.”
“The National Guild Service Award is offered for outstanding achievement to individuals who have given exceptional service to the National Guild and the community arts education movement,” according to the Yale School of Music’s website, which also indicates that Yaffe “was a member of the Guild’s board of trustees from 1999 to 2006 and is currently chair of the Accrediting Commission for Community and Precollege Arts Schools. He also served on the board of the National Association of Schools of Music and was chair of its non-degree-granting commission.”
Yaffe was quoted in a Yale School of Music news release as saying: “Arts education is the education of the emotions … and we need that more than ever in our splintered and dysfunctional society. Emotional education can channel the anger in today’s politics. It can help us through traumas in our personal lives. It can teach us how to work together — to trust one another. And it could help to convince policy makers of the value of what we do. Over the years, I have become more and more convinced that it could be a unifying principle for all of us, in all levels of arts education.”
Robert Blocker, dean of the Yale School of Music, was quoted in that news release as saying: “Michael Yaffe is one of the nation’s leading proponents of community arts education. … He is responsible for transforming the lives of countless children and enriching their communities. The National Guild Service Award is a tangible expression of recognition for his unselfish commitment to music and to community arts education.”