My Carnegie Hall “Debut”

One week from today, HaZamir:The International Jewish Teen Choir, will perform at Carnegie Hall in New York City. One of my choral pieces, Netzach Yisrael will be part of the program.

Carnegie Hall is one of the world’s greatest concert venues, and I have a long and very happy relationship with it. My choral work has been performed there many times, my orchestrations have been played there by the New York Pops and the New York Choral Society, and I’ve sung onstage there in the bass section of the Zamir Chorale.

Over the years, I’ve noticed that having my work performed at Carnegie Hall never gets old; it’s always a thrill and an honor.

My first association with Carnegie Hall was unusual, which explains why the word “Debut” is in quotation marks in the title of this blog entry.

During my career as a freelance musician, a lot of my work came from ads I placed in various trade papers. I got calls to coach and accompany singers, as well as transcribing music from tape recordings for songwriters who could not do their own notation.

Many of my clients were elderly people who had retired from work, and were now free to follow their long-deferred dreams of doing something in music. More often than not, I seemed to function more as an occupational therapist that as a musician.

One of my clients - I forget his name - taught in the NYC Public Schools, and after he retired he started writing short pieces for orchestra. I was hired to recopy his scores and to extract parts for the orchestra players. His work was not flashy, but it had a kind of homespun charm to it.

One of his pieces was a set of three “Hebraic Moods,” each about a minute long. The last movement was in the style of a folk dance. The movement ended with a solo bassoon repeating the melody and then drifting off into nothingness.

I suggested that my client should add a “button” at the end; a “button” being a short chord for the entire orchestra, to serve as a cue to the audience that the piece was over. This would avoid a potentially awkward silence after the piece was over.

My client didn’t think much of my idea, so I let it pass.

A few days later, my client called me on the telephone. He had sent the piece to the conductor of the Local 802 Senior Concert Orchestra. and the conductor liked the piece well enough to consider adding it to the program of a free concert the orchestra was to give at Carnegie Hall. The conductor, however, insisted that my client add a “button” at the end, and gave as his reason, the same argument I had made about the ending.

I resisted the urge to say “I told you so!”

My client asked me to add the button. I had all the materials, score and parts, in a folder at my office, so I added the “button,” a nice assertive D major chord, in the score in the score and parts.

These materials were printed, bound, and sent to the orchestra’s librarian.

I was given a pair of tickets to the concert, and I went with a friend of mine.

The piece worked very nicely, and the “button” did just what “buttons” are supposed to do.

I turned to my friend and said, “You hear that nice chord at the end? That’s mine!”

Eventually, other pieces would be heard at Carnegie where all the notes were mine.

Everybody’s got to start somewhere, and this humble beginning was my foot in the door at Carnegie Hall.

Music for Jewish Worship

Long story short: I grew up in a secular household, and came to religion very late in life, in my forties. What brought me in was the music. Not the bland folk-rock they played for family services, but the real music. Sitting in the sanctuary during the High Holy Days, I marveled at the power and depth of such pieces as Janowski’s Avinu Malkeinu and Helfman’s Sh’ma Kolienu. These and other pieces of similar quality made me decide to start writing my own musical settings of biblical and liturgical texts.

I believe that when a composer sets a sacred text to music, that composer is writing a midrash, a commentary and interpretation. Ideally, the musical setting adds meaning to the text, and expresses in music what cannot be conveyed only with words. Just as an illuminated manuscript adds visually to the text, the music should add and enrich the text with sound.

When I set a Psalm or a prayer to music, my first step is to analyze the text, to fully understand its structure and meaning. I feel it’s best not to approach the text with pre-conceived musical ideas; the musical ideas should stem from the words of the text.

During Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the congregation recites the Vidui, the communal confession of sins. One translation of this list refers to “the sin of distorting facts to fit our theories,” and hearing this phrase spoken prompts a little voice in my head to add, “and the sin of distorting texts to fit our melodies.”

The composer should have a deep understanding of the stresses of the text, which words within the phrase are the important ones, and which syllables within the words are stressed. It’s always a bad practice to put the em-PHA-sis and the wrong syl-LA-ble, and this is a most egregious sin when the text being set to music is one we should hold in the greatest reverence.

Unfortunately, I see and hear such carelessness or ignorance way too often in the music that’s currently most popular in Reform Judaism.

Case in point: there are many musical settings of the keynote phrase of Psalm 133, “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.” Here’s the text in transliterated Hebrew, with stresses added:

Hi-NEI mah tov u-ma-na-IM SHE-vet a-CHIM gam YA-chad.

I know at least three musical settings where the last three words are rendered as “AH-chim gam ya-CHAD.”

The perpetrators of these offenses either don’t know what’s correct, which is bad, or they know but don’t care, which is worse.

I often hear musical settings of the liturgy that make me wonder if the composer really knows what the prayer is about.

Mi Chamocha (“Who is Like You?”) is a song of praise, first sung by Moses’s sister, Miriam, after the parting of the Red Sea. If you had been there and experienced the event first-hand, I’m sure that your pulse would be racing, and your adrenaline level would be sky-high. By me, a musical setting of Mi Chamocha should reflect that feeling of awe and excitement. All too often, the setting I hear at services has a gentle, rocking quality. It may be pretty, but it has nothing to do with the text. Ironically, many settings of Oseh Shalom, a prayer for peace, suggest the galloping of horses.

If you’re at services, and your Rabbi is preaching a sermon, I’m sure you’d want your Rabbi to have wisdom and insight to share with you. You’d want to be intellectually and emotionally engaged with the Rabbi’s message and come away with something to think about.

I believe that the music heard during a worship service should be as wise and profound as a good sermon.

One way in which much of the current worship music fails is its desire to sound like popular music. I believe worship music should be accessible, but it shouldn’t sound like it belongs anywhere except in the sanctuary. The Shabbat liturgy stresses that the day of rest is set apart from the rest of the week, and the music should reflect that distinction.

Rabbis need to be reminded that there’s a great heritage of music outside of what they heard at summer camp when they were kids. We hear a lot about how important our traditions are, but an awful lot of excellent worship music has been cast aside and forgotten.

The kind of music I write doesn’t seem to have much of a place in temples anymore. The emphasis is on very simple music to which the congregation can sing along. Choirs, if they exist at all, are only there to lead the singalongs. Congregations have forgotten how to listen; if they can’t participate, by singing along, or clapping hands, or shaking a tambourine, they don’t know what to do with themselves. If the music can’t be taught quickly to non-musicians, it can’t be used.

Many congregations no longer even have cantors. If the rabbis have guitars and know three chords, they can do the job themselves.

Some congregations will still have traditional music for the High Holy Days. It’s the musical equivalent of putting out the good dishes for the holidays, and, for the rest of the year, it’s the musical equivalent of paper plates.

I’m very glad that there are such things as Jewish concert choirs. My work is heard from them a lot more than it’s heard in temples. I’d venture to guess that these concert choirs exist in large part to meet the need for Jewish music that has some substance to it. There’s a small but devoted audience for such choirs. I hope this continues.

I have no suggestions for how to improve the music used for worship services. By me, it’s a lost cause. That’s very sad.

The Story Behind the Song: Episode 2 — Sonata for Soprano Saxophone and Piano

Right off the bat, my Sonata for Soprano Saxophone and Piano is a piece, not a song. However, I like the alliteration of Story and Song, so let’s let it stand.

I wrote the Soprano Sax Sonata in the later part of 2001, and I finished it in early 2002.

The story starts a long time before that, however.

While I was a freshman at Manhattan School of Music, in 1972, I heard saxophonist Paul Cohen (no relation) play in a recital. Paul was studying for a Masters degree at the time. I had never heard sax playing like this; unlike the sax-playing I had heard in jazz and rock, Paul’s sound was sweet and pure, like a classically-trained singer, and he was able to produce the entire gamut of dynamics, from ppp to fff.

I decided that I’d like to write something for Paul, and Paul was enthusiastically in favor of this. (Paul is a great evangelist for saxophone music, and I remember that when we were first introduced, by a mutual friend, his first words to me were “What have you written for saxophone?”)

I made it my business to have a saxophone in the band for an off-off Broadway musical (“New York Flesh & Fantasy”) I wrote in 1976. This was followed by a Quintet for Alto Saxophone and Strings (1978) and my first Saxophone Quartet (1980).

By the time I wrote Saxophone Quartet Nº 2 (1998), Paul was teaching saxophone at Manhattan School of Music. When I showed him the score, Paul assigned the piece to four of his graduate students. The leader of this group was James Noyes. While the group prepared to give the piece’s premiere, James always had questions for me, and these were smart questions that required me to dig deep in order to answer them.

Sax Quartet Nº 2 was premiered in April, 1998. The group stayed together as the Surge Saxophone Quartet, and managed to win an Artists International award that gave them to perform at Carnegie Recital Hall.

After all of this, James felt comfortable enough to make a suggestion, and he said to me, “Steve, you should write a piece for soprano saxophone. All of the recital literature is for alto sax. If you wrote a good piece for soprano, you. would get a LOT of performances!” I saw the wisdom of James’s suggestion, but I did not act upon it right away.

Fast-forward to 2001. The events of September 11, 2001 had a devastating effect on New York City, both emotionally and financially. Tourism stopped, and the theater business suffered terribly. As I was making the bulk of my living as a copyist, proofreader, and sometimes orchestrator of Broadway musicals, I found myself out of work, and very depressed.

I stayed depressed for quite a while, and then I remembered that James Noyes wanted me to write something! I began to think about a soprano sax piece. Thoughts of what to write and how to write it took my mind off the gloom around me, and it gave me a sense of purpose.

Sometimes I’ll begin a new piece with all-new ideas. More often, I begin by taking inventory of ideas I just happen to have lying around in my brain, gathering dust. (In the world of musical theater, such things are referred to as “trunk tunes.”)

Years earlier, I had thought of writing a flute sonata, but the opening I had reminded me so much of the Poulenc Sonata, that I was never able to make much headway with it. But, it occurred to me, there probably wasn’t such a piece for soprano sax. So I took my flute sonata opening, changed the key from E minor down to B-flat minor to put the soprano sax in a better range. Things began to flow once I had made this change.

MOVEMENT 1

The opening theme of the first movement rises to a high note that serves as a pivotal point to go to other harmonic regions. The red marks in the photo show what I mean:

I knew that later on in the movement, I’d want to get back to the main theme by way of the pivot-point. That would be a startling, dramatic way of getting into the recap section.

So that, by me, is a very satisfying arrival point. But those figures that lead up to it four measures before the arrival point, what are those?

After some thought, I realized that the figures that lead to the recap could be the basis of the secondary motive. Working backwards, I came up with a melody that used those figures as its basis.

Movement 2

Towards the end of 2001, I often had trouble sleeping. One night, around 4 AM, some musical ideas came to me. I got up to write them down, and every now and then I needed to look at a piano keyboard, but I wouldn’t allow myself to play it, lest I disturb the rest of the sleeping household. I held my hand over the keys, sounded out the notes silently in my head, and jotted them down on manuscript paper. In the morning, I looked at what I’d written, played it on the piano, this time for real, and I decided that what I had was useable.

The idea led to other ideas, and in a few hours I had lots of material to use.

This would become the basis for Movement 2, a slow, bluesy piece in E-flat Major.

In structure, it’s basically an AABA song form. I had the idea of starting the first A in the soprano sax’s lowest register, going up an octave to the middle range for the second A, and, after the B (Bridge) section, using the highest range for the third and final A section.

While I was working on the second movement, I learned that. one of my musical heroes, arranger Ralph Burns had passed away. I never had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Burns, but having copied or proofread several musicals he orchestrated, I felt as if I knew him. Burns had started in big-band jazz, played piano for Woody Herman and contributed many scores to the band’s repertoire. Later on, he started orchestrating Broadway shows, including Funny Girl, Sweet Charity, and Chicago. Burns brought a jazz sensibility to Broadway musicals, and they’ve never been the same since. It seemed fitting to be writing something like the blues at the time, and I decided to dedicate the movement in memory of Ralph Burns.

Movement 3

After the second movement’s “dark night of the soul” atmosphere, it was time for a total change of pace and mood.

I repurposed a short piece I wrote at the age of 17, originally for oboe and piano. It was sprightly and cheeky, and centered mostly around the Lydian mode (basically a major scale but with a raised 4th step).

The first 1’ 30” of the movement come from that youthful oboe piece, but the melody that follows is (was) new material, written by my 47-year-old self. It’s quite a contrast.

The music for Movement 3 doesn’t require much explanation; it makes its point all by itself.

One harmonic trick seems worth mentioning.

The main theme starts in B-flat, but in its the second half, we find ourselves suddenly in D Major.

Towards the end, I wanted that D Major section of the theme to come back in B-flat, which is the home key for the movement. In order to accomplish that, the first part of that tune would need to be in G-flat. Once in the home key, I combine the lyrical middle-section melody over the opening material, which wraps things up nicely, if I do say so myself!

I must say, James Noyes was right! This Soprano Sax Sonata has garnered many performances, all around the world, and has been recorded on three different CDs.

See the RECORDINGS page for details

The moral to this story is this: If you’re a composer, you would do well to listen to performers when they tell you about the sort of piece they’d like to perform, but they can’t find it. Once you’ve identified a need, you can find a way to fill that need, and the world (part of it, at least) will beat a path to your door. Leave a light on for them!

The Story Behind the Song: Episode 1 — Adonai Malach (Psalm 97)

This is the first in what may become a series of blog entries, giving some context to various of my compositions: How, why, when were they written, and what happened to them once they were.

In many ways, “Adonai Malach (Psalm 97)” was a breakthrough piece for me.

I had started writing Jewish choral music in 1998, and it took quite some time before it met with any kind of acceptance. A setting of “Hashkiveinu” (2004) for female choir a cappella was performed at a Shalshelet Festival concert. My setting of “Sha-alu Shalom Y’rushalayim” (2006) was the first of my pieces to be performed by the Zamir Chorale and heard at the North American Jewish Choral Festival. My 2008 setting of “Mi Chamocha” got performed at Temple Emanu-El in New York City, and many other pieces followed.

My style was cerebral, and more often than not, people would remark that it “sounded like Rossi.” (Salamone Rossi [1570-1630], court composer to the Duke of Mantua, and the first Jewish composer to write, perform and publish contrapuntal choral music based on Jewish liturgy and texts.) As flattering as such a comparison might be, it was also an indication that my music was challenging for performers and for listeners. Perhaps too challenging…

Lyricist Sammy Cahn was often asked which came first, the music or the lyrics. Sammy would invariably answer, “The phone call!” And, indeed, it was a phone call that prompted me to write what would become one of my most successful choral pieces.

I got a call from Hazzan Faith Steinsnyder of Hebrew Union College. Faith knew my work from having heard it at the North American Jewish Choral Festival, and I had also written a piece for a cantorial student to sing at her senior recital. Faith told me that one of her former students, Cantor Larry Eschler, wanted to commission a new choral piece to dedicate to his teacher, and I was the lucky composer to be selected to write the piece.

I had many discussions with Faith and Larry about what text to set to music and what sort of piece it should be. Both of them told me that they wanted the piece to be a “crowd-pleaser,” and I had to think about how I might go about pleasing a crowd. Certainly not by writing anything that might be mistaken for Renaissance music. The piece had to have a contemporary sound, with rhythm strong enough to grab the listeners. Could I do this and still remain true to myself?

We settled on Psalm 97, which appears in the Shabbat evening litugy as part of Kabbalat Shabbat, a preliminary warmup before the serious praying begins.

The text of the Psalm describes God reigning over the universe, with images of fire, thunder, lighting, mountains moving, and it calls out to be set in a bold, energetic way.

The energy starts right from the get-go with the piano introduction. The left hand plays a steady stream of eighth-note octaves, while the right hand plays a syncopated figure voiced all in triads.

I knew that there was such a thing as the Adonai Malach mode, and that it bore a resemblance to the Mixolydian mode. It’s like a regular major scale, except that the 7th degree is flattened. The I (tonic) chord is major, and so is the IV (sub-dominant) chord, but the V (dominant) chord is minor, and that brings with it a special sort of grandeur.

The piece is in C Major, but look at all the B-flats in the opening vocal phrase!

I won’t bore you with any more analysis. Suffice it to say that even with a strong rock feel, the piece has harmony beyond the usual three chords, and the structure, counterpoint, and dynamics are the work of a composer, not a songwriter. This was my solution to the problem of how to please a crowd without sacrificing my own voice.

The piece was first heard at an American Conference of Cantors convention (2010 — Memphis, TN). It found its way into the repertoire of HaZamir: The International Jewish Teen Choir, who gave the New York premiere in 2011. It has since been performed many times in many places, and it’s currently published by Transcontinental Music Publications.

One of my favorite performances took place in 2018, when HaZamir performed it in David Geffen Hall, Lincoln Center, New York City. That performance was recorded for posterity, and I’m very happy to be able to share it with you here. Enjoy!

Pandemic Performance

According to an old adage, a tree is best measured when it is down.

Similarly, it’s easiest to assess the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic when it’s more-or-less over.

As I write this, 23 June 2021, cases of infection are down, the number of vaccinated adults is up (albeit not far enough), and various cities and states are starting to lift restrictions.

The pandemic forced a total shutdown of music and theater, and a number of performances of my own work were canceled.

I’m one of the lucky ones, in that I do the bulk of my music-making sitting at a desk, and I was able to continue composing and assisting my clients.

People who do the bulk of their music-making in live performance did not have it so easy, but some of them founds some very creative ways to stay connected with their audiences and keep their skills sharp.

We’re fortunate to be living in an age in which technology has advanced to such a degree that performances can be assembled digitally.

A number of friends made use of an app called A Cappella, which allows the user to record multiple video tracks. A horn player friend of mine assembled a video in which he played all the horn parts for Robert Schumann’s Konzertstück for 4 Horns. This was a very impressive performance. I teased my friend by commenting, “Thank you for letting us watch you play with yourself!” I’m happy to report that he and I are still friends in spite of this.

Several choirs mastered the technique of having individual choristers record videos of themselves singing their parts alone, and then synchronizing all the videos to make a presentation of a large choir singing together while apart. Having participated in several such projects, I can tell you that, while recording your part in isolation can be lonely, the end result can be very satisfying, almost as satisfying as a live choral performance.

Two saxophonists I know, David Wright and Charles Gray, created videos of themselves playing multiple saxophones of all sizes and shapes. One such video featured my Sinfonia for Saxophone Choir (2010), and I was delighted with the results. This is, without a doubt, the most precise performance of my work I’ve ever witnessed, and the two players blend beautifully with themselves and each other.

There’s a link to the video on YouTube below..

If like what you see and hear, please consider making a donation to the artists HERE. Thank you!

Music? Noise?

Several of my friends on Facebook have recently shared a graphic with an unattributed quotation: “May all that has been reduced to noise in you become music again.”

A quick search on Google revealed that the quote comes from David Teems, an author and songwriter who caters to the Christian market.

I’m sure Mr. Teems means well with his message. I have some trouble with it myself.

Obviously, his message is that he wishes people who are troubled to find a way out of whatever is disturbing them, and move towards something more healthy and positive. That’s a lovely sentiment, and one which I embrace, all except for the part about music.

Mr. Teems seems to equate music with happiness, fulfillment, inner peace, and other such warm and fuzzy feelings, Certainly, music can be all of those things, but that is not all that music is.

Music expresses thoughts and feelings which cannot be put into words. Music can express dark sentiments as well as light ones. Music can frighten as well as comfort. Music can excite as well as soothe.

I believe that dissonance is the spice of music. Music without dissonance strikes my ears the same way food without seasonings strikes my palate; I find it bland and innocuous.

In the words of Charles Ives, “Stand up and take your dissonance like a man!”

What is Music About?

This is a question I get asked all the time; "What is your piece about?"

Usually, I have the answer ready ahead of time, and I reply, "The piece is about 12 minutes." (Or whatever the duration is; it varies from piece to piece.) This is what comes of a childhood spent reading "Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions" in Mad Magazine.

After they've laughed, or haven't laughed, I'm usually pressed for a more serious answer, and serious answers require some thought. So here are some thoughts.

To a real musician, music isn't about anything except itself. It's about form, structure, sonority, harmony, counterpoint, orchestral color, etc. Sure, there's some subconscious thought about why this chord, or that turn of phrase was chosen, and there's usually some emotion that determined whatever choice was made. But these emotions are very difficult to express with words. If I could express my thoughts with words, I'd have written a novel instead of a sonata. Once I've finished my sonata, someone invariably asks me for words to explain what words cannot explain.

When I was much younger, my program notes were highly technical analyses of what I wrote. You'd need a PhD in Music Theory to understand them. The music is much more accessible than those program notes.

Now that I'm older, I'm much less inclined to bore the reader with too much detail. But I have to tell them something. And so I tell them a story.

I'll tell them a story about how and why and when the piece was written. Who commissioned it and for what reason? How long did I work on it? If the piece wasn't written on commission, what inspired me to write it?

Such a story, plus some very general descriptions of the structure, usually passes for some acceptable program notes.

But the story doesn't end there.

Whenever I attend a performance of my music, people always approach me afterwards and tell me what the music suggested to them. Some of these descriptions can get very colorful. I'm convinced that people really listen with their eyes first and their ears second, and if you don't supply a visual to go with your music, your listeners will supply the visual themselves.

Back in 2012, I was composer-in-residence for Bachanalia, a small string orchestra. Bachanalia's founder and artistic director, Nina Beilina, asked me to supply a new piece for part of a program called "Song of Songs." Every piece on the program was a song of some sort; a Canzona by J.S. Bach, Rachmaninoff's Vocalise, some sung excerpts from Shir HaShirim (Song of Songs), and de Falla's Seven Spanish Folk-Songs. I was to contribute another piece to this list, and - after some discussion - I made plans to write a medium-length piece for solo viola and strings, to be called "A Song For Strings." I didn't think the piece was about anything, except the 8 minutes or so of its running time, but composers are often the last to know what their music actually means.

The concert went very well. The performance venue was BargeMusic, which is an actual barge moored to a pier on the Brooklyn side of the East River in New York City. It's under the Brooklyn Bridge, and lines up with lower Manhattan.

During the intermission, someone in the audience approached me, and I could see she had been crying fairly recently.

She told me she enjoyed the piece, and said that while she listened, she was looking out at the river, and the Manhattan skyline. She said that she kept looking at where the twin towers of the World Trade Center used to be, and weren't anymore since 9/11/01, and, for her,  the music became all about that loss, so acutely about it as to bring her to tears.

I can no longer hear that piece without thinking of what that listener told me. Through her response, the piece has gone from something rather abstract to something very specific.

Alas, I was not able to record the performance at BargeMusic, but I do have the MIDI playback from the score file. Take a listen, and see what the music is about to you.

Virtual Music Store

I have recently opened an online music store on this website. Various pieces I've composed or arranged are available as PDF downloads.

Here's how it works: Log on directly to STEVE COHEN'S MUSIC STORE or click on any of the BUY SHEET MUSIC buttons on the pages for pieces that are available at the sore. Once there, make your selection and proceed to Checkout. Payments for Checkout are handled through PayPal. Upon payment, you will be sent, via email, a link to the PDF file for your purchase. Go collect your PDF file, print out the score and parts, and start making music.

At this writing, I'm in the process of severing ties with Amazon.com. Most of what I had listed there is now here.

Most of my Jewish vocal music is available from TRANSCONTINENTAL MUSIC PUBLICATIONS and OYSONGS.

If there's anything you see here that doesn't have some sort of link, please go to the CONTACT page, and let me know your wishes.

Thank you, and happy shopping!

Regietheater - A Rant

"Regietheater" is German for "Director's Theater," and we see a lot of it in the opera house these days. In it, directors are allowed to impose their "concepts" over a dramatic work, and, in doing so, they often go directly against the wishes of the work's authors.

This current season at the Metropolitan Opera House, we have a new production of Mozart and DaPonte's Cosi fan tutte which moves the action from 18th-century Naples to 20th-Century Coney Island. A few seasons ago, there was a new production of Verdi's Rigoletto with the action moved to 1960s Las Vegas.

Richard Rodgers once said that when a musical show is successful, the sets and costumes look the way the orchestrations sound. Every creative artist from every department is on the same wave length, and they are each making the same general statement with their contributions to the show. That's my ideal as well, and I see less and less of it at the opera house.

I can cite specifics from two recent Met Opera productions.

The Met's 2016 production of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde sets the action on a big, modern ocean-liner. During the Vorspiel (Prelude), images from the ship's sonar device are projected on the screen. Fair enough. It's nice to have something to look at while you listen. When the opera itself starts, the first voice we hear is that of a young sailor singing while on watch. The stage direction from Wagner's libretto says "(heard from a height, as if from the masthead)" Our young sailor sings:

Westwards the gaze wanders; eastwards skims the ship.
Fresh the wind blows towards home: my Irish child, where are you now?
Is it your wafting sighs that swell my sails?
Blow, blow, you wind!

What sails? This is a modern ship with an engine. The ship moves whether there's a wind or not. Why is this sailor even out on deck? If he's on watch, his place is sitting in front of the sonar screen, We just saw it!

Also from 2018, there was a new production of Strauss's Elektra. This opera is supposed to start with a big, loud, brassy burst from the orchestra, stating the Agamemnon theme. Instead, the curtain opens on a bunch of servants with brooms, sweeping the courtyard in silence. This goes on for a while, and when the orchestra does enter, it seems arbitrary, and is robbed of it's power.

The librettist's wishes are no longer honored, and neither are the composer's wishes.

Lest you think I am a Luddite, resistant to all change and innovation, I'll close by citing one modern director who, by me, creates thrilling theater without betraying the source material. I'm speaking of William Kentridge. So far, the Met has commissioned Kentridge to design and direct productions of Shostakovich's The Nose, and Berg's Lulu. Both productions are huge successes, both artistic and financial. Much of the success is due to Kentridge's sensitivity to the styles of the composers; his designs match and enhance the music. I'm eager to see more such work, not only from Kentridge, but any other directors who have the courage to make a true collaboration with the composer and librettist. May it be so!

Arranger for Hire

I’m happy to announce that I have just signed on as a Staff Arranger with an organization called Arranger for Hire. It’s a collective of composer-arrangers run by my good friend, Jon Burr. They provide a wide variety of musical services, such as transcriptions, orchestrations, backing tracks, special arrangements for weddings; you name it, they can get it done for you.

 

Pierre Boulez (1925 — 2016)

6 January 2016

Another great one has left the building.

Pierre Boulez was Music Director of the New York Philharmonic from 1971 to 1977, right around the time I started going to orchestra concerts on a regular basis. He introduced a lot of new music to the subscribers, many of whom left concerts early rather than have their ears and brains challenged. Those who stayed got to hear some truly thrilling music.

I was always impressed with Boulez’s ability to make the standard repertoire sound fresh and new. If he led a performance of a piece I was sure I knew inside out and backwards, he was always sure to bring out some detail I had never before noticed.

Boulez instituted “Rug Concerts” in the summertime, in an effort to attract younger audiences, and I remember those with great nostalgia. Seats were removed from the hall, and the audience sat on mats on the floor. The orchestra played in front of the stage, and one could sit on the stage, behind the players, and witness the music from the players’ point of view.

During the regular season, I always brought scores to follow. It would be too dark to read at my assigned seat, so I would grab an empty front-row seat, and read the score from the light spilling off the stage. At one concert, Boulez looked over his shoulder at me from the podium, and asked me, “Are you ready?” I blushed and said, “Yes. Go ahead,” and then he faced the orchestra and gave the downbeat.

Pierre Boulez leaves a great legacy of recorded performances, and these will remain a vital reminder of his talent and influence.

Thank you, Maestro.

NY TIMES OBITUARY

A Night at the Opera

10 October 2015

I saw a performance of Wagner’s Tannhäuser at the Metropolitan Opera House two nights ago, and I’m still exhausted!

I have to marvel at the energy and stamina of everyone involved, onstage, backstage, and in the orchestra pit; what a feat to stay focused and deliver at the highest level for over three hours, closer to four. Heldentenor Johan Botha, who sang the punishing title role, sounded as fresh in Act III as he did in Act I.

It was a novelty to see such an old-fashioned production. Otto Schenk’s production dates from 1977, and hasn’t been seen at the Met since 2004. Who knows when — or if — it will be seen again?

I find it refreshing to see a production which simply presents the opera itself, and not some director’s revisionist take on it. This production looked the way the music sounded.

Tannhäuser has some glorious music in it. It’s relatively early Wagner, and he’s still emulating the influences of Weber and Meyerbeer, and even early Bel Canto styles.

The story and characters are firmly rooted in 19th-Century attitudes, and these can prove troublesome to a modern audience. Our protagonist is the 13th-Century troubador (Minnesinger) Tannhäuser, although nobody ever calls him Tannhäuser; they all address him as Heinrich. Call him what you will, our hero doesn’t know what the heck he wants out of life. Wherever he is, he wants to be somewhere else. If he’s in the Venusburg, he longs for sunlight and trees and grass and a life of purity and virtue. If he’s back in the real world, rubbing shoulders with his pious friends and colleagues, he longs for the excitement and sensuous pleasure to be found in the embrace of Venus, the goddess of love and lust.

Tannhäuser is loved by Elisabeth, the chaste daughter of the Landgraf of Thuringia. She has fallen for his sweet voice, and she pines for him even after he’s walked out on her to hunt for thrills. When he comes back, disgraces himself by singing of carnal love in the Song Contest and disses her in the process, she falls for him even harder. Eventually she wastes away and dies, and her death ostensibly redeems Tannhäuser, who hardly deserves such a redemption. Why would she forfeit her own life, happiness, and fulfilment? Why doesn’t she give herself to someone who will appreciate her properly, love her and honor her? Where’s her sense of self-respect? Wolfram adores her, he too has a lovely voice, and he’s a gentleman to boot. But, alas, baritones rarely if ever get the girl.

This whole story rings false, and displays a rigid world view, even as it professes to be revolutionary. Women are either saints or sluts.

With all this in mind, should we cast Tannhäuser aside as hopelessly outmoded? Hell, no! It’s important that we see such things and recognize them for what they are. Seeing operas like this are a history lesson, and I think opera houses should show them the way museums show masterpieces of the past; unchanged, unvarnished, and unedited. Let the audience make the connection between the past and the present.

Birth of a Notion

2 July 2015

What is the source of inspiration? Do we find inspiration, or does inspiration find us?

For me, inspiration can come from a compelling message from a text, a fascination with a particular instrument or group of instruments, or — best of all — a commission.

Recently, however, inspiration came to me from a most unlikely source: a wisecrack.

On June 26, 2015, The US Supreme Court ruled in favor of same-sex marriage, a 5-4 vote in the case of Obergefell v. Hodges. This was big news, and it created quite a stir on Facebook and all over social media. I got into the spirit, and posted a status update that said, “In honor of today’s Supreme Court decision, my next piece will be in 5/4 time.”

That remark went over very well. It got over 110 “likes” in about a day.

A day later I was out taking a bike ride. I get some of my best, and craziest ideas on bike rides. Most of my thoughts on this ride centered around “Why not write a short, festive piece in 5/4 time to celebrate this landmark decision?” I remembered a tune I concocted while still a teenager, and that was indeed in 5/4 time — no doubt heavily influenced by Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five,” and Lalo Schifrin’s theme music for “Mission Impossible,” both very popular back in the day — and it was energetic and cheeky, exactly the right tone for this occasion, some forty years later.

My first idea for a title was “Uneven Steven,” but I soon rejected that for two reasons.

1) I didn’t want the title to be about me, and
2) a quick search on Google showed that “Uneven Steven” had already been used by a blues band and a DJ/rapper, among others.

I thought of the colorful phraseology used by Justice Antonin Scalia in his recent dissents, and the term “Jiggery Pokery” had a nice rhythm to it. Of course, Justice Scalia used “Jiggery Pokery” in his dissent on the Affordable Care Act (Burwell v. King), not the same-sex marriange decision. It also seemed a little perverse to celebrate a milestone of social equality by writing in an uneven meter, but in both of these considerations my heart won out over my head; sometimes an idea can be right without being logical.

So, Jiggery Pokery it would be, in 5/4 time. As I hummed the tune and timed it, to arrive at a metronome marking, I discovered that the tempo was quarter-note = 180. [British musicians use the term “crotchet” for what we Americans call a quarter-note, and I think you’ll agree that Justice Scalia was being very crotchety in his dissents] I like the fact that the tempo was 180. 180 is 10 x “chai” (the Hebrew word for “life,” and the numerical value of its letters add up to 18), and 180º is a complete about-face. The country had just made a complete 180 (there are still some stragglers resisting this change, but I have faith that they’ll catch up with the rest of us eventually) so 180 was a very appropriate tempo. I pushed this even further by adding the phrase “Tempo giusto” to the marking; “giusto” is the Italian word for “just.” Usually you use this word to indicate that you want the music played in strict time, no speeding up or slowing down, but “giusto” shares its Latin root with “Justice,” which indicates what’s fair and right as well as the person appointed to wear a robe and interpret our laws.

I knew I wanted the piece’s duration to be somewhere between three and four minutes. After all, “brevity is the soul of wit.” Using my (limited) skills in math, I determined that I’d need to write no fewer than 108 measures (3 minutes) and no more than 144 (4 minutes). When the piece was finished (in about 3 days, which is very fast for me) it comprised 128 measures, with a running time of 3:33. (3+3+3 = 9, as in 9 Supreme Court Justices!)

I am hoping that Jiggery Pokery gets heard soon, played by live humans on real instruments. When that happens, I’ll post a link to a recording, assuming I’m lucky enough to get one. In the meantime, here’s the MIDI version:

*************

UPDATE: 29 October 2016 - Jiggery Pokery has indeed been played by live humans on real instruments. The humans in question are the Madison String Quartet, and I’ve just added a recording of their performance on the page for Jiggery Pokery. Check it out! 

Getting Unstuck

16 April 2015

Donald Francis Tovey, in his magnificent Essays in Musical Analysis, cites a riddle he often posed to his students: (I’m paraphrasing here)

Q: What is it that we wish to learn from the Great Masters, but cannot?
A: How to get out of a hole, because they never get into one.

With all due respect, Mr. Tovey’s answer seems to be deceptive and incomplete. It’s not that the Great Masters never got into holes, but we never get to see them in holes, as we only get to see their completed work with all problems solved. I have no doubt that the Great Masters struggled plenty, and that their finished pieces, which seem so effortless and inevitable, are products of hard work, rigorous attention to detail, trial and error, doubt, angst, and despair. They’ve left us very little evidence of their struggles, but that does not mean their struggles did not occur.

I confess that I often struggle with my writing, and that my inspiration often flags. I’ve recently completed two new pieces, my Saxophone Quartet No. 3 and a choral setting of Avinu Shebashamayim (Prayer for the State of Israel). Both pieces gave me trouble. Or, to put it more accurately, I gave myself trouble on both of those pieces. Recognizing that distiction is the first step to overcoming the trouble.

I remember my teacher, Giampaolo Bracali, of blessed memory, comparing composing to driving a car. When you’re lost, or at a dead end, he said, it’s probably because you made a wrong turn somewhere earlier. If you go back and retrace your route, you may get a clue as to where you went wrong, and where, perhaps, you should have gone instead.

I continue to follow Giampaolo’s excellent advice, and I find his technique useful, not only for undoing a faux pas, but also for figuring out where to go next.

It’s very rare for me to work out the entire structure of a piece in advance. Usually I make it up as I go along. One idea leads to another, and I let these ideas run free as long as possible. At a certain point — or, should I say, an uncertain point — this stops being effective, and then it’s time to take stock of what I’ve done. I’ll analyze what I have so far, and write an outline of it. Doing this can be very helpful, in many different ways. It could be that I have too much material, and that I could make a more coherent presentation doing more with less. It could be that there are aspects of how the various motives relate to each other that I have not explored. Seeing how ideas are presented the first time may give me ideas about how to develop them later on.

That’s good advice for a journey that’s already started, but what about the times when you can’t even get the engine to turn over?

When you find you can’t even begin, there’s certainly an emotional component holding you back, and that’s coming from you, not from your material.

I find that I’m highly susceptible to an affliction called “Importantitis.” I feel that if I’m working in a form others have worked in before, I’m in competition with them, and I must outdo them, or else I have failed. That’s crazy, of course, and holding onto such thoughts leads to severe self-consciousness and doubt, utter paralysis. I cannot proceed until I’ve talked myself out of the irrational fears that hamper my progress.

One way to bypass all this mishegoss is to forget about all the great masters of the past, forget about posterity, and just focus on the right now. It’s not necessary, I tell myself, that your piece lives for the ages, but it is necessary that your piece lives for the five or ten minutes of its running time. The people who create are always the people least qualified to judge the work, as they’re way too close to the work to have any perspective. So don’t judge, just create! Let all the others judge. Casablanca (1942) is a great movie, one of my favorites, and a classic if ever there was one, but no one who worked on it knew or even believed it was going to be great; they were all on board because they were under contract. Greatness is an accident as often as not. Make yourself accident-prone.

Essays Before a Quartet - Part 1

6 December 2014

I wrote my first Saxophone Quartet in 1980, when I was 26. At the time, I just called it Saxophone Quartet, but when I wrote another one, many years later, it became known as my Saxophone Quartet No. 1. I had been out of college (Manhattan School of Music) for four years, but I was still studying privately with Giampaolo Bracali of the MSM composition faculty. I had written some chamber music, a song cycle,  and a Symphony, and I was starting to get active writing for the theater, having been admitted into the BMI Musical Theater Workshop in 1978 (This august institution was not yet named for Lehman Engel, as he was still alive and kicking and running the Workshop). I had also taken a summer course in Jazz Arranging at the Eastman School of Music in 1978, and techniques and voicings I learned there made their way into my “serious” music. Consequently, this was perhaps the first of my pieces to show the influences of jazz and theater sensibilities as well as my conservatory training. For one thing, it was remarkably terse compared to the rest of my chamber pieces, only 12 minutes long. The last movement was in swing, and it swung. It was premiered in the Spring of 1980 at an MSM Alumni Concert. It was well received, and it started to become popular almost immediately.

Theater writing, both as composer and orchestrator, kept me occupied throughout the 1980s. Starting around 1985, I was beginning to make sketches for what would become my Saxophone Quartet No. 2, but I was not able to finish it until 1998, when I was 44. I’m not sure what prompted me to make the second quartet be in four movements instead of three, but it seems to have been a good decision. This piece has also met with wide acceptance, and has garnered many performances and an excellent recording, (by the New Hudson Saxophone Quartet on their CD “The American Muse”) which I believe is still available.

Eighteen years separate my Sax Quartets Nos. 1 and 2, and - at this writing - Sax Quartet No. 2 was sixteen years ago. I held off writing a third quartet for quite a long time, but I feel ready now to work on Sax Quartet No. 3.

I have the two inner movements (of four) finished, and I’m currently working on the two outer movements. One advantage of writing two movements at once is that if one movement gives you trouble, you can pick up the other one and make progress on it. I often feel as if I’m trying to do a jigsaw puzzle, but I don’t have the picture of what the puzzle’s supposed to look like to guide me. It also seems as if some of the pieces I’m trying to make fit might belong to some other puzzle. All I can do is generate material, and try to determine if it belongs, where it goes, and where it takes me.

Update on 2015-03-18 12:34 by Steve Cohen

Saxophone Quartet No. 3 is finished. Baruch HaShem! Check back here for news of its premiere.

Visual Aids - A Rant

15 October 2014

The concert season has started, and New Yorkers have had, or will have, opportunities to attend the following:

Bach’s “Saint Matthew Passion,” staged by Peter Sellars.

Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring,” staged by puppeteer Basil Twist.

Schubert’s “Winterreise,” staged by artist and director William Kentridge.

I see this as a trend, and I’m trying to decide what I think about it.

On the one hand, this represents full employment for artists of all sorts, in addition to musicians, and that should be considered a good thing.

On the other hand, I’m disturbed by the implication that audiences today don’t listen so well anymore, and actually need all this visual window dressing in order to appreciate music.

Actually, let’s take “The Rite of Spring” out of the discussion; That piece started out as a ballet, so it was meant to coexist with décor, costumes, and dancing.

That leaves us with the Bach and the Schubert. Both pieces use music and text to tell stories. Neither piece was intended for the theater stage. Both pieces are extremely dramatic on their own; they don’t need no stinkin’ scenery or costumes. Any good performance of these works should evoke vivid imagery in the mind of the listener, assuming the listener has an imagination and the power to use it.

I remember many years ago I took my young son to a children’s concert, and the program included Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf.” There was a small orchestra, a narrator, and a mime troupe, acting out the story. The use of the mime troupe goes against the composer’s wishes. Here’s what Prokofiev himself had to say:

Before the start of the performance, the instruments were shown to the children, and the themes were played on them; during the performance the children heard the themes repeatedly, and learned to differentiate the timbres of the instruments — herein lay the educational purpose of the piece. … what was important to me was not to tell a story, but to have the children listen to the music, for which the story was merely a pretext.
— taken from the Foreward to Four Orchestral Works by Sergei Prokofiev, Dover Edition

If we give our children visual crutches like this, instead of letting them develop their innate abilities to listen attentively and use their imaginations, they will continue to expect such crutches when they become adults.

What a world, what a world…

A Song is Born

1 October 2014

I’ve been writing music for the Jewish Synagogue since 1997. After the warm reception for my setting of Mi Chamocha (2008), it seemed like a good idea to set the rest of the Shabbat Evening Liturgy, and so I tackled Yism’chu, Kiddush, Shalom Aleichem, and others.

For all of these, I kept to writing for SATB choir a cappella, including a solo part for a cantor, when appropriate.

At one point, I was planning to gather all of these pieces together as a complete Shabbat Evening Service. Lately, I’ve more-or-less abandoned the idea of a complete service, although I still intend to set as many texts from the Liturgy as I can. Complete services seem to be less in favor now than in the past, when composers like Max Helfman and Isadore Freed were writing them. Nowadays, cantors assemble very eclectic mixes for their music menus, drawing on music from the 18th, 19th, 20th, and 21st Centuries. Maybe that’s good, maybe that’s bad, but that’s the way it is. All I can do is write as well as I can, keep practical considerations in mind, and hope for the best. I’ve been very fortunate so far.

It occurred to me that I don’t always need to write for an a cappella group, and it might be a good idea if I brought in a keyboard instrument when it’s warranted. I decided to write a setting of Yih’yu L’ratzon for soprano solo, mixed (SATB) choir, and keyboard. (could be organ, piano, electric piano, whatever)

The text for Yih’yu L’ratzon comes from Psalm 19, Verse 14. It says, “May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable to You, O, God, my Rock and my Redeemer.” In the Shabbat service, this text (or Oseh Shalom) is read after a silent meditation just before the Torah scroll is taken out of the Ark, and read.

When I set a liturgical text, I usually begin by analyzing the phrases, seeing which words get emphasized, and which syllables within the words get stressed. It seems to me that music should illuminate the text, so it’s crucial to get the stresses right, and not put the em-PHA-sis on the wrong syl-LA-ble. Here’s how I marked up a copy of the text in preparation to set it to music.

Now that I can see where the proper stresses are, I read the text and see if any rhythms suggest themselves. Sure enough, they do.

I see I’ve set the entire text in only 8 measures. This suggests to me that I can do it at least twice. I can consider each iteration of the text to be an A section. It occurs to me that I can, and should have the first A end on the dominant (the V) so we can go back and sing it again, and the second A should end on the tonic (the I). So let’s add some pitches to those rhythms.

Having done two A sections, we need to hear something else now, a B section. What should I use as a text for a B section? How about the same text again, but this time sung in English rather than Hebrew? Sounds good to me!

And then we should go back for one more A section, but we should have at least one new element in place so the listeners don’t get bored by an exact repetition of what they’ve already heard. And we need an ending this time.

Musical structure isn’t just formulas out of theory books. The musical forces for which you’re writing can also inform, and sometimes even dictate how you’ll assemble and present your ideas. I’ll show you the form just as bare bones, and then show you what happens when consideration of the personnel available is taken into account.

A

A

B

A

Intro - Keyboard only

A - Solo Voice (text in Hebrew)

A - Solo Voice. with a choral background.

B - Choir takes over, sings text in English.

A - Choir sings the Hebrew text, descant part for Solo Voice.

I was lucky in that the choral background I wrote for the 2nd A section had an Alto line that answered the solo part. That gave me the basis for the descant for the Solo Voice in the 3rd A; just take the Alto line up an octave. The tune sat low enough that I could assign it to Altos and Baritones, with harmony parts for Sopranos and Tenor, giving us a rich color we had not yet heard, and a fuller texture as befits the culmination of the piece.

To end, I had the melody cadence on the tonic, but I harmonized it to move away from the tonic chord, making it imperative that we repeat the last phrase and really get to the harmonic home base, this time ending high with a held note for the Solo Voice to hold while the choir sings one more cadence, built on material from the keyboard introduction.

At this time, (Monday, 6 October 2014) there has not been a live performance yet of this new setting of Yih’yu L’ratzon. I am hoping that changes soon, and I will post an update when and if that happens. Until then, I only have an mp3 of the MIDI playback to share with you. It’s correct and accurate, but soulless. Nevertheless, enjoy!

Update

on 2014-12-10 13:40 by Steve Cohen

UPDATE: Yih’yu L’ratzon WILL be performed, Friday, 12 December 2014, at Temple Emanu-El in New York City. This is one of four of my choral settings in the music menu for the Shabbat evening service. Emanu-El records its services to stream over the internet. I’ll post recordings here soon.

Update

on 2015-12-31 23:24 by Steve Cohen

UPDATE: Yih’yu L’ratzon was premiered on 12 December 2014, by Cantor Lori Corrsin and the Emanu-El Choir (Dr. Andrew Henderson, organist) at Temple Emanu-El in New York, NY. Click the audio player below for the recording of that performance.

Copyright Compliance: Do the Right Thing!

24 July 2014 (REVISED: 12 Nov 2018)

A while ago, my friends at the Guild of Temple Musicians (GTM) asked me to share my thoughts on copyright compliance. I was happy to oblige them. The article seems to have been lost with the GTM updated its website, so the text of the article appears below.

Copyright Compliance: Do the Right Thing! 

“Thou shalt not steal.” – Exodus 20:15 

These words, along with the rest of the Ten Commandments, adorn the sanctuaries of most of our temples and synagogues.  These are words that all of us surely take to heart.  Yet many of us, perhaps unwittingly, may be committing theft regularly by the illegal photocopying of music. 

How do we follow the copyright laws?  What ARE the copyright laws?  That's what we're here to discuss. 

First off, it's important to know that these casual thefts are not victimless crimes.

Buying one copy of a choral work and then reproducing photocopies of it to distribute to a choir cheats the composer out of royalty payments, which are based on the number of copies sold. The publisher is also cheated, and this can result in higher prices, and fewer selections in the publisher’s catalog. Most American publishers are reporting sharp declines in the sales of printed music. They’ll surely be forced out of business if this trend continues.  

I think we can all agree that music adds immeasurably to the worship experience and to the strength of the congregation when they are united in song. Therefore it is in the best interest of all of us – musicians, clergy and congregation – to do all we can to keep the sources of our music from drying up. 

Copyright means the right to copy. By law, the right to copy music is reserved to the copyright holders, usually composers or publishers, and it is up to the rest of us to respect and abide by that right. Be sure that all the people who make music at your synagogue – cantors, choir, instrumentalists – are reading from legal copies of the music. Of course, special circumstances will arise occasionally (see below for some examples), and some instances of copying are permissible. Always ask yourself if the copy you’re about to make is being made to avoid paying for a legal copy; if the answer is yes, what you’re about to do is probably illegal. 

With advances in technology, illegal sharing of all sorts of media has become much easier. That doesn’t make it right. Let your conscience be your guide, and, if necessary, let yourself be the guide of your congregation’s conscience. 

If you feel you have a special circumstance, the best way to deal with it legally and ethically is to seek out the copyright holder and ask for help in solving the problem. Most publishers have a “go-to” person for this sort of thing. Composers who self-publish are especially approachable. 

Many of us pride ourselves on “going green” to protect the environment. This is good and laudable. The same fervor should also apply to respecting and observing the intellectual property rights of the creators of the music that inspires us to worship.

Frequently Asked Questions: 

Q: May I make a copy to eliminate page turns?

A: As long as you only make one copy for each page you have already paid for.

Q: May I enlarge music for those with vision issues (including myself)? 

A: Same as above or secure a reprint license from publisher.

Q: May I make extra copies for singers who left music at home? 

A: Not legally.  Order a few extra copies, when you first acquire the music.  Inform choristers they are responsible for returning music, and that they may be charged for what they lost and haven’t returned.

Q: If I see a song I like in an anthology, may I copy it to give to my accompanist?

A: You shouldn’t. You should have two legally purchased copies, one for the soloist and one for the accompanist.

Q: What if I wanted to do the aforementioned anthology selection with a choir? My budget won’t allow me to buy that many copies of the book.

A: This is your cue to get in touch with the copyright holder and request a license to reprint. Explain your situation, and – in most cases – the copyright owner will  custom-fit you with a solution.

Resources:

COPYRIGHT LAW INFORMATION: http://www.copyright.gov/title17/

FAQ (Music Publishers Association): http://www.mpaonline.org.uk/FAQ

URJ BOOKS AND MUSIC: http://www.transcontinentalmusic.com/

CANTORS ASSEMB LY: http://www.cantors.org/

TARA PUBLICATIONS:  http://www.jewishmusic.com/

OY SONGS: http://www.oysongs.com/

Forward, March!

23 February 2014

As I write this, on Sunday morning, 23 February 2014, the sun is shining and the temperature is 47º F, but there is still a lot of snow and ice everywhere. This winter has been a brutal one, but there are encouraging signs that winter is on its way out and spring is on its way in.

After the hustle and bustle of “holiday season” in December, it seems that cultural life in New York City goes into partial hibernation in January and February, and starts to get its groove back in March. I had fairly few local performances these past two months, and perhaps that’s all for the best; it’s more than likely those events might have been poorly attended or even canceled altogether due to the weather.

I have three local performances coming up in March, about which I am very pleased and excited. Details are as follows:

13 March 2014, Thursday @ 7:30 PM, my Sonata for Soprano Saxophone and Piano will be performed by Javier Oviedo and Helene Jeanney at the DiMenna Center in New York City. The concert is part of the series The Classical Saxophone Project. I’m particularly pleased to have my work on the same program with such masterpieces as the “Hot Sonate” by Erwin Schulhoff and “La Création du Monde” by Darius Milhaud. Please click HERE for details.

23 March 2014, Sunday @ 3 PM, Bachanalia’s “Jewish Voices” Concert at Congregation Ansche Chesed will include three of my psalm settings, (Shiru Ladonai Shir Chadash, Esa Einei, and L’chu N’ran’nah) which I’ve arranged for voice(s) and string orchestra, sung by Hazzan Natasha Hirschhorn and the Shirei Chesed Community Chorus. The program also includes J. S. Bach’s Double Concerto in D minor (BWV 1043), Dmitri Shostakovich’s Chamber Symphony in C minor, Op. 110a, and the Gershwin/Frolov “Porgy and Bess” Fantasy. Please click HERE for details.

30 March 2014, Sunday @ 3 PM, my setting of Adonai Malach (Psalm 97) will be performed at Carnegie Hall by HaZamir: The International Jewish High School Choir. I’d be thrilled to have this group perform my music anywhere; having them perform it at Carnegie Hall is a dream-come-true. Click HERE for details.

Collaboration

10 July 2013

I learned a lot in music school, but it often seems that my real education began as soon as I graduated and started working. Perhaps things are different nowadays, but back when I was an undergrad, conservatories were preparing students for careers they were unlikely ever to have. Instrumentalists were studying to be soloists, singers were training to be opera stars, and so on. And here we all are now - those of us who didn’t die or give up music altogether - playing in pit orchestras, singing backup, teaching, copying, proofreading, etc. And we’re grateful!

One of the useful skills I did not learn in college was how to collaborate. And what an important skill that is. If you write a piece and are lucky enough to get someone to rehearse and perform it, you will be collaborating with them. If you garner a commission, you’ll be collaborating with your patron as well as the performers. If you write vocal music or a theater piece, you’ll either collaborate with another creative person, or limit yourself to setting texts by dead poets whose work is out of copyright. And if your theater piece gets produced, you’ll be collaborating with producers, directors, choreographers, designers, actors, dancers, and musicians.

I’m slowly learning that talent and ability only account for maybe 25% of a successful professional career. The other 75% is your political and diplomatic skills. The ratio may even be more like 80/20 or 90/10. A prominent contractor for Broadway shows told me that if he had the choice of hiring a great player with an attitude or a slightly-less-great player who was pleasant and cooperative, he’d hire the supposedly lesser player every time.

The key to collaboration is compromise. Compromise means no one gets everything he or she wants. Compromise sometimes means sacrificing your ideals. But if you want your work to be seen and heard, it’s very necessary to team up with people who can do things you cannot do, and it’s best if they feel they are working with you, not working for you.

I’ve worked on a bunch of musical theater projects, and the word “team” gets used a lot. Like any team, there are people with different skills and areas of expertise, and, ideally, they are pulling in the same direction towards a common goal. A team that has trust, communication and esprit de corps is much more likely to reach their goal than a team where there’s tension, and the members are in competition with each other. At any time, someone on the team will be carrying the ball, so to speak, and it’s up to the other team members to stay out of the way, as well as clear a path. Every now and then, the ball will be thrown to you, and then it’s up to you to run with it, shoot, and score.

Have you ever played on a team where one player considers himself to be “the star”? I have, and it’s not fun or rewarding. If you can possibly help it, don’t be that player.