Shrinking degrees of separation in the music world?

The musical universe is smaller than we think. And perhaps this writing will incubate a linked chain of “connections” that will go further–

So here it is:

Now that I’m well past my Oberlin Conservatory student years, I notice that Lillian Freundlich, my beloved teacher during my New York City H.S. of Performing Arts era, is honored posthumously at the Peabody Institute website by students a bit younger than me.

An Oberlin alumna, she began commuting to Baltimore, launching a second teaching career after her husband, Irwin, former Chair of the Juilliard Piano Department, passed away. That followed my relocation to Fresno in 1979. It’s no wonder that I would stumble upon Leon Fleisher, concert pianist, and Peabody faculty member when he performed on our local Philip Lorenz Memorial Concerts Series. He had spoken glowingly about my teacher.

If one went back far enough, Lillian Lefkofsky Freundlich’s piano teachers would have led to the famous pedagogue, Theodore Leschetizky, a historic name with its own treasure trove of connections. Reeling out his many students and theirs would unleash a gush of them with their tie-ins to the next generation of performing pianists. The list of virtuoso concert artists Leschetizky trained included Anna Yesipova, Ignaz Friedman, Ignacy Jan Paderewski, Artur Schnabel, Mark Hambourg, Alexander Brailowsky, Benno Moiseiwitsch, and Mieczysław Horszowski.

Horszpowski crops up on a short list of Murray Perahia’s mentors. The legendary pianist had a connection to the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont.

(Speaking of teachers and their descendants, I studied with Ena Bronstein before she left Fresno and continued her career at the Westminister Choir College of Rider University. Ena, a Chilean, was a student of Claudia Arrau’s assistant, Raphael De Silva, but played often for Arrau.) When Gilmore award-winning pianist, Ingrid Fliter performed in Fresno, her bio revealed studies with De Silva, and by association a connection to Philip Lorenz, former husband of Ena Bronstein. Lorenz founded the Fresno Keyboard Concerts Series and helped Arrau edit the complete edition of Beethoven sonatas.

Emigration to California and more connections.

No sooner than I had touched down in the richly fertile San Joaquin Valley, I had bumped into Lillian’s Freundlich’s Oberlin Conservatory roommate, Roselle Bezazian Kemalyan, from the class of 1933.

Kemalyan had set up the Bezazian piano scholarship at Oberlin, her legacy into the Millennium. The Bezazian name, has its own reservoir of connections.

Before I had even met Lillian Freundlich through her nephew, Douglas, (a well established Lutenist) and former camper at Merrywood in Lenox, Massachusetts, I acquired my first decent piano, a Sohmer upright formerly owned by Lucy Brown, a well-known New York City based concert pianist.

Uncannily, I recently discovered that Seymour Bernstein, the revered pianist and teacher, author of With Your Own Two Hands, had taught a student, who was a former pupil of the late, Lucy Brown, and “loved her.” (Would Lucy have known Ethel Elfenbein, my first West side teacher who played on the East River concert series?) Both had made appearances at historic Town Hall.

In the same e-mail exchange, I discovered that Bernstein had used Franz Mohr to maintain his Steinway B. The piano technician turned up in Fresno in 1990, to help resuscitate my Steinway “M.” Dispatched by Steinway and Sons, after my article “How Could This Happen to My Piano?!” was published in the Piano Quarterly, Mohr had just completed a book memorializing his years as Vladimir Horowitz’s personal tuner.

Not to forget that Bernstein lists Alexander Brailowsky (a tie to Leschitizky) as one of his teachers.

Rosina Lhevinne, ushers in another gush of connections too long to tabulate, except to mention that I attended Lhevinne’s 80th birthday celebration concert at the Juilliard School back in 1960. Van Cliburn, John Browning, and Mischa Dichter, among her many illustrious students, were no doubt present at that event.

Flash forward:

Having met Elaine Comparone, harpsichordist, through her Internet postings and You Yube channel in the past year, I discovered that she played chamber music with Daniel Waitzman, recorder virtuoso, who was a Marble Hill Projects dweller when I was living there from age 5 to 19. In fact, I heard him sample three different range recorders in his apartment one afternoon when he was about 18 years old. A Vivaldi presto played on a sopranino produced an unabashed display of virtuosity.

Taking a journey down memory lane, I’ll never forget the day I had bumped into two ladies at the Richmond California Amtrak station as I was heading home to Fresno from my El Cerrito piano studio.

Noticing their thick Bronx accents, I edged up to them like an in-your-face New Yorker would, and inquired about their origins. No sooner than I got my answer, we were seated tightly at a small table on southbound train 712 jabbering away.

In the course of the first twenty minutes, I’d discovered that both women lived right beside the music school I attended as a small child which was located off Kingsbridge Road and Jerome. To my astonishment, these ladies confided that they knew the eccentric Director, Mrs. Elston who came with beaded glasses and an officious demeanor. She sermonized about a “progressive” musical education that had a political and dialectical overlay. I just sat impatiently as a 6-year old, while my mother sucked it all up.

What an amazing coincidence to meet two people who knew Elston back then! As it played out, one of the travelers became a Facebook friend and lives in Florida. The other, who relocated to Arkansas, has been out of touch.

Add to my shrinking degrees of separation, Eugene Lehner, who was first violist of the Boston Symphony for decades. (He passed away in 1997.) By coincidence, he popped up at Brandeis, working with Comparone, years after he coached a string quartet at Merrywood Music camp where I played second violin.

Toss in Diana Halperin, violinist, and Gerard Schwarz, conductor whom I knew at the HS of Performing Arts. Both eventually performed with Comparone.

Bel Kaufman, author of the bestseller, Up the Down Staircase, and my English teacher at the Performing Arts school knew my great aunt Sonia, among other relatives at Seagate, (on Long Island) Ardent lovers of Sholom Aleichem’s writings gathered in a lovely setting to read and share kinship (in the 1940s) No doubt music was a vital part of these convergences.

This is a good place to insert the discovery that “Musakant” was my maternal grandmother’s maiden name acquired through painstaking Genealogy research conducted by my second cousin, Leon Ginenthal. I tried to go one step further, to find out if the family owned a piano factory in Eastern Europe as had been rumored. But I was resoundingly stopped in my tracks by a Music History Professor at the City University of New York. She insisted that all arrows pointed to St. Petersburg, not remotely a part of my family’s migration. Kaput! Finished!

In a less “related” Facebook driven search, I had a Page reunion with Herbert Gardner, my Orchestra teacher at John Peter Tetard JHS 143 in the Bronx. His father, Samuel Gardner, became my violin teacher in New York City. Having played with the famous Kneisel Quartet based in New England, Sam probably knew, Eugene Lehner, a long-time member of the Kolisch Quartet that played in Boston.

Since Gardner Sr. made chamber music appearances at Blue Hill, Maine, where his teacher, Franz Kneisel founded the summer festival, it was no surprise that Murray Perahia would turn up in the 60s as a Blue Hill chamber musician along with his appearances at Marlboro in Vermont. (the Rudolf and Peter Serkin hub)

The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center is the next spin-off. Murray Perahia, Richard Stoltzman, Richard Goode, Elaine Comparone, and Andre Michel Shub come to mind. These names pop up in different locales. Stoltzman graced Fresno with a psychedelic concert, using a big screen of abstracts as an extra-musical backdrop. Perahia presented on Community Concerts here before it went under. Comparone turns up everywhere in one capacity or another as the ultimate in harpsichord playing. Goode, a close companion of Perahia more than tags along, having culled a reputation as a serious Beethoven interpreter and master class presenter.

As it happened, I heard Goode play in Karl-Ulrich Schnabel’s Masterclass at the Mannes College of Music back in the early 70s. Richard was then in his twenties, and performed the Schumann Fantasy. (first movement) Speaking of Mannes, my latest connection to that music school, is through Irina Morozova, accomplished pianist and faculty member. I spotted her incredible set of You Tubes that revealed great artistry and sensitivity. She provides an additional tie-in to the 92nd Street Y, where I took coaching in Chamber Music from Yuval Waldman in the early 1970s.

***
Flashing back:

Herb Gardner from my JHS days, it turns out, fathered son James, whom I remember from his containment in the stroller. A well respected actor, he turned up as Facebook friends with P.A. Grad, Alexander Carney, one of our “shared” connections.

Lillian Freundlich was friends with Rudolf Serkin I discovered when I greeted him in the Green room of Carnegie Hall following his memorable performance of Beethoven’s “Waldstein” Sonata. He was so kind to embrace me and send is warm regards to her.

Peter Serkin, Rudolf’s son, was close friends with Harris Goldsmith, one of my musical companions in New York City when I was living on West 74th Street. Harris was working for High Fidelity Magazine reviewing concerts and disks. He was pals with Murray Perahia and Richard Goode.

Murray Perahia, a year ahead of me at P.A. turned up in Fresno for a Master class, three weeks before my delivery date. In a mini-reunion of sorts, I performed Beethoven’s “Tempest” Sonata, on edge.

Jerry Grossman, cellist and youngest member of the New York Philharmonic was my floor neighbor on West 74th Street and Amsterdam. I attended “Young People’s Concerts of the Phil,” when Leonard Bernstein was music director.

Loaded with musicians, our building housed apartment dwellers with even less than six degrees of separation between them. You could apply the same to the historic Ansonia a few blocks west which was stacked with opera singers who serenaded passersby below.

Members of the Metropolitan Opera came through the Ansonia with its own wealth of connections.

Marjorie Janove, piano teacher in Portland Oregon, to whom I referred a student, received her Doctorate at Indiana University, where she studied with Menahem Pressler. I heard Menahem perform with the Beaux Art Trio in Tanglewood when I attended Merrywood Music camp.

Another favorite from the Indiana school was Gyorgy Sebok, also known to Janove, who presented Masterclasses at the Oberlin Conservatory when I was a student.

Gabriela Montero, concert pianist and improviser who played in Fresno, was a pupil of Rosalina Sackstein, one of my family members through marriage. I played for Rosalina when she visited my uncle and aunt in Hartsdale, New York.

Although Montero alluded briefly to Sackstein in one of her newspaper interviews, she was reluctant to share more about Rosalina’s teaching when I went backstage.

On that note, I’ll pause until more “connections” rise to the surface from my deep-layered, fuzzy memory.

Oops, I forgot that I spotted an Oberlin alumna at Seymour Bernstein’s You Tube Channel site. He featured “Lydia Seifter,” who was a member of the Jack Radunsky “rat pack.” (A group of his students, including myself, formed a clique)

**

Enough said.

If you have “connections” to share, please send. There’s no telling where all this could lead! We might be related.

LINKS:

My family’s genealogy

http://arioso7.wordpress.com/2011/11/09/little-apple-big-apple-mayhem-murder-and-music-my-familys-history-and-genealogy/

My High School Years:

http://arioso7.wordpress.com/2011/12/08/my-new-york-city-high-school-of-performing-arts-fame-yearbook-and-what-i-found/

Music, Life, and Memories (Recollections of Lillian Freundlich)

http://arioso7.wordpress.com/2010/12/09/music-life-and-memories-you-tube-video/

Piano teachers and students/Reluctant Farewells

http://arioso7.wordpress.com/2011/02/28/piano-teachers-students-and-reluctant-farewells/

Mozart, memories, reflections, revisits…

http://arioso7.wordpress.com/2011/12/11/revisiting-a-mozart-slow-movement-k-545-think-love-warmth-and-elegance-videos/