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№ 2021.004 — Yale University — Yale College Class Day address
Robert Lopez
Songwriter (EGOT winner); Yale College Class of 1997
Visual speech map
Robert Lopez at Yale, 2021
A virtual Class Day address about songwriting, collaboration, friendship, creative pressure, and finding levity inside an unsettled world.
- 01 Virtual Class Day
- 02 Yale artist
- 03 Songcraft
- 04 Collaboration
- 05 Friendship
- 06 Humor
- 07 Shared work
- 08 Lightness
Setting
A remote ceremony still gathers a class
Lopez speaks to Yale's Class of 2021 through a recorded Class Day message, making distance, celebration, and shared attention part of the address.
The virtual format keeps families and dispersed graduates inside the same ceremonial frame.
A Yale College alumnus addresses students from inside the long arc of creative life after campus.
Humor and music make the message lighter without ignoring the weight of the year.
Craft
Creative work is built in company
The address treats songs, shows, and stories as collaborative objects that become stronger when one person's idea meets another's gift.
Film and theater work point to ensembles, not solitary genius, as the real production engine.
The songwriter's task depends on hearing what a scene, partner, or audience needs.
A useful idea becomes durable through testing, rewriting, and letting other people improve it.
Friendship
The weight gets lighter when shared
Lopez frames friendship and collaboration as a practical grace: they distribute pressure and turn ambitious work into something livable.
Companionship is presented as relief from having to carry every outcome alone.
Creative partnerships ask for generosity, timing, and willingness to be changed.
Making with others preserves playfulness even when the stakes are high.
Charge
Let play become serious work
The closing charge invites graduates to keep room for wit, friendship, and shared making as they enter a world that can feel overfull of pressure.
Humor becomes a tool for endurance rather than an escape from responsibility.
The future is easier to meet when graduates build circles that can make and mend together.
Songs and stories show how disciplined play can reach people across distance.
Transcript
The full transcript is hosted by the original publisher. Commencement Archive links to the source rather than republishing copyrighted text.
Read the full transcript at source →Provenance
Official Yale YouTube video confirmed (@yale, 2026-06-26); Yale News announcement verified live
Virtual Class Day during COVID hybrid Commencement, May 23 2021. Yale-hosted video message; transcription candidate. No text transcript. Category: Arts