RCEditions

During the time I was developing the Schuller commission I played a free lance date on the Charles River with conductor Peter Cokkinias and special guest David Amram. I fell in love with his music, and asked him that night if he would consider writing a saxophone concerto. I told him Gunther was writing a concerto for me, not knowing they were old and dear friends. David said 'sure'--and I asked what kind of a commission he would want and David said, 'whatever you are paying Gunther.' So I went home realized I was now committed to more commission money than I had made as salary in the previous year. But I did raise the funds, by asking aunts and uncles for small amounts, donating my fee back to the orchestra, etc. etc. And David Amram's 'Ode to Lord Buckley' was born on March 17, 1981. And so was David's daughter Adira, for whom a Jewish hymn tune is used in the third movement, celebrating the birth of a new child, called 'En Adir.' And David had it all timed out, being in NY state for the birth and Portland, Maine for the premiere passing out cigars to all. David is without doubt the most positive person I have ever known. 'Don't let the bad guys get you down,' David says. And he is irrepressible. As I said, he and Gunther are old friends; Gunther discovered David playing jazz horn in a rathskeller in Germany where David was in the 7th Army Band. Gunther said 'come back to NY when you are done, and we'll get you into Manhattan.' David did, beginning a long career which included writing music for Joseph Papp's Shakespeare in the Park, 'Manchurian Candidate,' ‘Splendor in the Grass,' composer in Residence with Leonard Bernstein and the NY Philharmonic, jazz performances with Dizzy Gillespie and Tito Puente, friendships and playing piano in club dates for poets Jack Kerouac and Alan Ginsburg, and writing a saxophone concerto in a piece dedicated to the character 'Lord Buckley,' whose own description defies any label. Interestingly both Gunther and David love jazz and honor it in different ways as performers. One of David's first published works was a ‘Trio, for Tenor Sax, Horn, and Bassoon,’ which was premiered at Town Hall in 1958 with Gunther in the audience. I managed to recreate that in Feb 2010 in a 80th and 85th birthday concert for both David and Gunther, whose birthdays are 5 days apart, and who both sat in the audience as I performed their works for saxophone. It was a nice night, and I was happy to see them so happy, as they hugged and traded most recent phone numbers!
My thoughts on David, and David's emails will fill another book, I hope, in the future.

John Harbison
Harbison was the first composer commissioned by 'World-Wide Concurrent Premieres and Commissioning Fund, Inc.' I had asked him to write a piece for years, knew him as Boston's greatest musical citizen, composer in residence at Tanglewood, President of the Aaron Copland Fund, as well as my host in the premiere of Gunther Schuller's Concerto with Pittsburgh Symphony, when he was composer in residence with that orchestra. But I couldn't get him to say yes to a piece, himself. When I came up with the idea that the piece would be simultaneously premiered around the world, John was on board, and in fact, became a member of the Board of WWCP. He has been immensely helpful to that organization as he has been to so many, including --the piece incidentally, combines in a classical framework, Funk, jazz, mariachi, tangos and new music.

Milton Babbitt wrote some really difficult music, and hard to listen to. And although Babbitt wrote the famous essay 'Who Cares if you Listen,' Milton told me, those title words, were not his, but an editor's. Milton believed that as a matter of integrity, the composer was writing for himself; to be true to one's self, one had to do that. In the case of the early work 'All Set,' that piece is '12-Tone Jazz,' combining jazz elements with the more severe dodecaphonic style. I have recorded it, and find it especially listenable. I later commissioned a piece from him 'Whirled Series,' (Milton was a baseball fan and did have a sense of humor, and fun with his titles) which has received some fine performances, from saxophonists Jim Forger (commissioned with John Sampen and I) and Demetrius Spaneas. One almost needs to be married to their pianist to work through the rhythms (Jim is!), and in the case of Demetrius, he had a dedicated composer pianist, Rodney Lister, who basically gave up 3 months of his life to learn and rehearse the piece. Music is like that. And, yes, it is worth it.

A Salute to (My) Teachers

5. Composers and Other Inspirations (cont.)