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Sound Travels with Jeff von der Schmidt

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Sound Travels with Jeff von der Schmidt

Tag Archives: Leonard Stein

From 100 to 103: The Wisdom of Elliott Carter

18 Thursday Jun 2015

Posted by Jeff von der Schmidt in Composers, Contemporary Music, Elliott Carter, Evan Hughes, LA International New Music Festival, Los Angeles, Music, New York City, REDCAT, Southwest Chamber Music, Tambuco Percussion Ensemble, Walt Disney Concert Hall

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Abdiel Gonzalez, Betty Freeman, E.E. Cummings, Elissa Johnston, Elliott Carter, Ezra Pound, Jon Lee Keenan, LA International New Music Festival, Leonard Bernstein, Leonard Stein, Marianne Moore, Pierre Boulez, Strand Bookstore, Tambuco Percussion Ensemble, Wallace Stevens

Elliott Carter at work in his Greenwich Village apartment on W. 12th.

Elliott Carter at work in his Greenwich Village apartment on W. 12th Street.

Around 2:30 P.M. on the afternoon of June 7th, 2012 my wife Jan and I arrived at Elliott Carter’s apartment for what was to be our last meeting together.  With Jan’s family in Brooklyn and New Jersey, we’d drop in on Elliott every opportunity we could and have luckily lost count just how many times we’d visited.  As Elliott entered his late 90s, each meeting became a special occasion. He was 103 that final late spring day.

The days of lunches prepared by his wife Helen were long gone by that point, but we still remember her simple New England tomato soup, and often quietly wear the scarf she gave Jan or the tie she gave me. And Carter was not far, about a block down and over, from the apartment of Charles Ives, which we’d sometimes go and see after visiting with Carter.

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From Old Hollywood to Old Vienna

29 Friday Aug 2014

Posted by Jeff von der Schmidt in Austria, Contemporary Music, Education, LA International New Music Festival, Music, Southwest Chamber Music, Travel, Uncategorized, Vienna Philharmonic

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Arnold Schoenberg, Bayreuth Festival, Bertolt Brecht, Chasen's Restaurant, Georg Eisler, Hanns Eisler, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Leonard Bernstein, Leonard Stein, Otto Klemperer, Patrice Chereau, Pierre Boulez, Roland Berger, Vienna Philharmonic

A gorgeous Viennese spring day.

A gorgeous Viennese spring day.

“Am I boring you?”

I was 22 years old in September of 1977. I had dreamed and worked and worked and dreamed of studying music in Vienna. At the time I played the French horn, which I retired in 1998 to devote myself to conducting. But for 25 years or more the horn was my voice, my love, my sound. And the person who had the greatest sound in the world was in Vienna, Roland Berger of the Vienna Philharmonic. All that money washing dishes in my parents’ restaurant was beginning to pay off.

However as I now look back, one man took me under his wing, guided me, encouraged me, talked to me, questioned me. And I know that I learned as much, if not more, from renowned Austrian painter Georg Eisler than any musical mentor I would encounter. His father, composer Hanns Eisler, was nominated for two Academy Awards in the 1940s. Somewhat more ominously, Hanns was the prime target of Richard Nixon and the House Un-American Activities Committee, known as HUAC.

“Am I boring you?”

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