On June 16th, flutist Carmen Lemoine and archivist Tessa Updike visited former SFCM flute faculty member Yaada Weber in the East Bay to record an interview for our Oral History Project. Yaada’s story began in Honolulu, Hawaii, where she was born and grew up. She was sixteen when Pearl Harbor was bombed, and remembers watching the planes with her father near their house.
Yaada studied composition at Mills College with Darius Milhaud, and flute with Herbert Benkman. As a composition student, she wrote twelve-tone music, and had a prize-winning piece played by the French National Orchestra. Yaada also studied with flutist Doriot Dwyer, and with physiotherapist Amos Gunsberg. After college, she joined the Oakland Symphony and began teaching flute at SFCM.
We are honored to share Yaada’s memories here. Enjoy!
Carmen Lemoine and Yaada Weber, June 2016
"Notes From the Past" 