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Jack Nitzsche

Jack Nitzsche, an Oscar-winning songwriter, keyboardist and arranger who worked with Phil Spector, the Rolling Stones, Neil Young and Miles Davis, died on Friday, August 25, 2000 in Hollywood. He was 63.

Bernard Alfred Nitzsche was born in Chicago in 1937, and grew up on a farm near Newaygo, Michigan. He hoped to become a jazz saxophonist and moved to Los Angeles in 1955, but dropped out of music school. Mr. Nitzsche became Phil Spector’s arranger in 1962, creating orchestrations for the Crystals, the Ronettes, and Ike and Tina Turner.

During the 1960s he was a session keyboardist and arranger for the Rolling Stones, working on their albums from 1964 to 1974. Starting in 1967, he worked as pianist and arranger for Neil Young, a working relationship that lasted into the 1990s. He also worked with Randy Newman, Marianne Faithfull, the Neville Brothers, Jackie DeShannon and the Monkees, among others.

Under his own name he recorded an instrumental hit, “The Lonely Surfer,” in 1963, and released an album of orchestral pieces, St. Giles Cripplegate [hear a soundsample], in 1972. Andy Childs, in the liner notes to the recording, made by the London Symphony under the direction of David Measham, commented that "hearing it for the first time you could be excused for thinking that it was the work of a highly imaginative, possibly eccentric composer from a bygone age with definitely no knowledge of, or connection with, rock’n’roll." The album is named after the London church of the same name, where the recording took place. Childs refers to the "sudden changes of tempo and volume" in the six pieces, the "intense and sometimes discordant clusters of rhythms and riffs, and the sheer energy and vitality of the music" as "classic Nitzsche trademarks."

Mr. Nitzsche was most widely recognized for his film scores. His 1975 score for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was nominated for an Academy Award, and the song "Up Where We Belong" from An Officer and a Gentleman won Best Song in 1982. He wrote scores for more than 30 films, starting with the 1964 documentary The T.A.M.I. Show, and including such well-known titles as The Exorcist and 9 _ Weeks. His score for The Hot Spot, a 1990 film by Dennis Hopper, brought together John Lee Hooker, Taj Mahal and Miles Davis.

Mr. Nitszche died of cardiac arrest brought on by a recurring bronchial infection. He is survived by his son Jack Nitszche, Jr.

George Perlman with the Golans photo by Judith Golan

George Perlman, violinist and composer, taught for 74 years until two months before his death on June 23, 2000, at age 103. For much of his life he taught 60 hours a week, plus performing in concerts, composing works played around the world and editing violin music for Carl Fischer. He retired from teaching on April 15th of this year.

He joked that he had come to the Fine Arts Building at 410 S. Michigan, where he had his teaching studio, “just before the flood, the one in the Bible.” In fact, the Fine Arts Building, considered an historic Chicago landmark, is only a few years older than he was, having been built in 1885.

He was born on May 15, 1897, in the Ukraine, where generations of his family had been rabbis. He was 4 when his parents immigrated to Chicago. His principal teachers were Leon Samatini, Adolph Weidig; he also studied for a year with the great Leopold Auer.

Perlman studied law at Northwestern and DePaul Universities, earning his doctorate in law at DePaul. He joined a law office in 1927, while also teaching at the Fine Arts Building, but soon abandoned law to perform and teach.

In 1933 he became associate violin editor for the Carl Fischer music publishing company in New York, a position he held for many years. Perlman’s editions of such works as the Bach a minor violin concerto and the Ten Have Allegro Brilliant are still used by many teachers. Also popular are his anthologies, such as the Violinist’s Solo Album and the Violinist’s Contest Album. Perlman’s original music is published by Fischer, Boosey and Hawkes, and Theodore Presser.

Perlman’s work as a composer was motivated by his activity as a teacher. Barbara Sonies, a Philadelphia-based violinist who teaches at Swarthmore College, tells of how he composed exercises for her lessons that were suited to her individual technical needs. Some of his pieces, such as the Indian Concertino and the Concertino, are within the grasp of students who have studied the instrument for only a year or two. Joseph Golan, principal second violin of the Chicago Symphony, describes these pieces as “nice, listenable music, very rewarding for students.” Golan studied with Perlman from the age of 4 until he started with the Symphony in 1953, at the age of 22.

As a boy, Golan played Perlman’s Clown’s Greeting to a Dummy and his Suite Hebraique. In 1938, he privately recorded Perlman’s Indian Summer with the composer at the piano. The piece was inspired by a two-panel cartoon by John T. McCutcheon that appeared each autumn on the front page of the Chicago Sunday Tribune. Golan calls it a “sweet, simple, nostalgic song,” and he still plays it, in an arrangement he made for his quartet, the Golan Quartet. It is also apparently a favorite piece of his son, Lawrence, who recently released a CD entitled Indian Summer on the Albany label. The CD contains Perlman’s complete violin music. Lawrence Golan, who currently teaches at the University of Southern Maine, studied with Perlman for five years.

Many of Perlman’s pieces reflect his Jewish heritage: in addition to the Suite Hebraique, written in 1929, there are also the Ghetto Sketches of 1931 and the Israeli Concertino of 1973. In Joe Golan’s opinon, Perlman had “a great feel for Hasidic and Eastern European music, [as well as] Israeli music.” Golan played many of these pieces when he was young.

Perlman will probably be principally remembered, however, as a warm and inspiring teacher. Both Golans (father and son) and Sonies remember him as a “father figure,” someone who was “always interested” in their lives. Sonies reminisced that Perlman’s greatest gift was “knowing what to give when.” “He knew how to deal with students on a psychological basis,” she commented; “he had a way with young people, without ever talking down to them.” He facilitated his students’ developments in multiple ways: not just technically and musically, but also professionally. Sonies recalls small performances that he arranged, and a quartet that he set up for her as a girl. She studied with Perlman from the age of 5 until she went to Eastman as an undergraduate.

As a teacher, Perlman was both creative and curious. He used a great variety of music in his teaching, for instance. According to Sonies, Perlman “always had something different for each student…etude books no one ever used, parts of Locatelli concerti that went all over the fingerboard…” He was inventive in finding solutions to technical problems. In addition to creating his own exercises, he devised variations on more standard etudes.

Perlman also apparently had a “wonderful sense of humor,” according to Sonies. She remembers a period of time when her lesson, which ran from 4:30 to 6, was routinely interrupted by a call from Mischa Elman, as soon as the long-distance rates went down on the East Coast, a minute or two after 5. Perlman finally answered the phone one day and handed it to Sonies. The ensuing minute and a half was uncomfortable for both the great violinist and the 12-year-old Sonies. Perlman then took the call, and explained to Elman that if he was going to keep calling during Sonies’ lesson, he should talk to her!

Perlman taught countless students over the course of his career. Many of them went on to the Eastman and Juilliard Schools of Music, and have gone on to become professional violinists. Besides Sonies and Lawrence and Joseph Golan, other students in the profession currently include David Arenz, principal second violin in the Atlanta Symphony, Pamela Hentges, assistant principal second violin in the National Symphony, and Richard Posner, a freelance violinist in Chicago.

Mr. Perlman is survived by his wife, Carol, a librarian and violinist, and their daughter, Pamela Perlman.

Gerard Schwarz photo by Steve Sherman

The New York Chamber Symphony has received a $100,000 challenge grant from the Knight Foundation for a new music project. In cooperation with WNYC radio, the project is a competition for contemporary music that will be selected by orchestra musicians and judged by the audience. The competition is planned for the spring of 2002, and will be broadcast by WNYC and National Public Radio’s “Performance Today.” The nationwide radio audience, as well as the concert hall audience, will award prizes to two winners and two finalists. Music Director Gerard Schwarz calls the competition an “extraordinary opportunity for those of us who care about 21st century music.”

The idea for the project came from an article in the April 1998 edition of Harmony entitled “Restoring the Ecosystem of Classical Music Through Performer Selection and Audience Empowerment.” Written by Soong Fu-Yuan, who later became the New York Chamber Symphony’s Director of Audience Empowerment, the article came to the attention of Music Director Gerard Schwarz and Omus Hirshbein, the Symphony’s current Executive Director, in late 1998. In the article, Fu-Yuan advanced the idea that “the time has come for audience and performers to have a direct voice in the selection of new music.”

“For the past fifty years, ” Fu-Yuan commented in an interview, “the selection of new music has been made by the music director or by a panel of experts.” This has not been conducive, he contends, to the addition of contemporary works to the standard orchestral repertoire. Fu-Yuan draws a parallel between the relationship between composer, performer, and audience to that of manufacturer, purveyor, and client. Keeping with this analogy, he feels that the performers should make the decision as to what they try to “sell” to their audience.

From Fu-Yuan’s theories came the notion of a composition competition that would bypass the stage of “panel selection.” Instead, the musicians of the New York Chamber Symphony will directly select the semifinalists from the submitted entries. Three aspects of this process will distinguish this competition from its fellows, the “Masterprize” in England, and Philadelphia’s Centennial Composition Competition: the direct involvement of the orchestral musicians from the start; the of use recordings rather than scores alone for the initial review, and the anonymity of the contestants, which will be protected until the very end of the competition.

Portions of the selected works will then be broadcast on NPR’s “Performance Today,” courtesy of member station WNYC. The listening audience and the orchestra players will then vote to select the four finalists. At the final concert, the audience and the musicians will vote for two of the four works performed. The listening audience will also vote via telephone and the Internet. Thanks to electronic tallying, results will be available immediately following the voting. In the event that the concert audience and the listening audiences vote for different compositions, the first and second prizes will be split among the winners. First prize will be $50,000 and the second prize will be $35,000; the two remaining finalists will receive $5000 each.

“The competition itself is not the ultimate goal,” commented Gerard Schwarz. “The goal is to find pieces that are embraced by the audience, and it is about the debate about new music, its qualities, its place, and its audience.” Schwarz, who has received attention for his recordings and performance of the works of Howard Hanson and David Diamond, among others, seems concerned about the unenthusiastic response it generates even within the arts community. “Its odd for me to have so many friends involved in modern art, modern architecture, modern plays, thought-provoking books, and yet have very little interest in new music,” he explained. His hope is that the competition will serve as a “catalyst” for some desperately-needed discussion, one that will hopefully “move beyond the arts section of the newspaper.”

Benjamin Roe, at National Public Radio, is similarly energized by the prospect of using new technology to disseminate new music to a larger audience. “Technology has caught up with what [we] want to do, with [the possibility of] instant tabulations, [and] instant polling. It’s going to yield some very interesting results.” Roe called the competition “a way to celebrate new music.” Recently, he has been working on a series of Copland documentaries for NPR, and he admitted that he would like to see composition competitions regain some of the prestige they held fifty years ago. He is pleased that NPR is already working with the Chamber Symphony and WNYC, and foresees that it will be a very “media-friendly” event.

The conditions of the Knight Foundation grant meant that the Chamber Symphony, partnered with WNYC, need to raise an additional $100,000 within one year in order to be able to use the money. WNYC has already received some money from the NEA, and both organizations are working to raise more. Fu-Yuan stated that the competition will probably cost more than $200,000, depending on the number of entries they receive.

At the moment, the Chamber Symphony is still ironing out details in the competition rules. As it currently stands, they will not require that the music is newly-written, although it must be the work of a living composer who is an American citizen or a permanent resident. There will be no upper age limit, although a lower age limit may be imposed. Most significant, perhaps, there will be no restrictions placed on who can vote.

Schwarz predicts that the role of the audience in determining the winner will cause controversy. “Many people will say that it is not a positive thing,” Schwarz commented. He feels that the question of who should be deciding what new music the Chamber Symphony plays is one of the matters that should be discussed. “Who knows better?” Schwarz quipped. “Do I know better? I am more educated, I have lis
tened to more, I am more experienced. [But the decision ultimately] has to do with taste, and many members of the audience have wonderful taste.”

Schwarz also hopes that the involvement of the audience on such a direct level will free the classical music community from some self-imposed restrictions. “Let’s say that 30% of the press are lovers and supporters of the more difficult music being written today,” Schwarz conjectured. “This probably reflects [the tastes] of 3% of the audience.” However, performers who wish to program for their audience generally are not in position to completely ignore the press. Schwarz feels that a competition like this one may open up debate on the question of whether the power of musicians and the musical press to create “fads” for one style or another is destructive.

Fu-Yuan hopes that funding will be available for the Chamber Symphony and WNYC to repeat it every couple of years. What will mark it a success or a failure? According to Fu-Yuan, the ultimate goal is not only to “dig up some creative works that would become part of the standard literature, ” but to “make American classical music as popular as Beethoven or Brahms, to make listening to new music as urgent as going to see a new movie.”

Alvin Singleton photo by Joanna Eldredge Morrissey

Composer Alvin Singleton has recently returned from a residency at the Civitella Ranieri Center in Umbertide, Italy, awarded by the Civitella Ranieri Foundation. The purpose of the Fellowship is to provide gifted working artists with a significant period of uninterrupted time to concentrate on their work. Singleton was in residence for five weeks.

While in residence at Civitella, Singleton completed the composition of a trio for violin, clarinet and piano, revised a bass clarinet solo work and began research on a chamber orchestra piece. Singleton commented in an email that the benefits of the fellowship included "long periods of uninterrupted silence in a nice studio with natural light, and the genius of its location." He went on to explain that "working in a totally new cultural and physical environment forces the artist/person to re-examine, by comparison, basic assumptions and truths of everyday life, thus influencing the outcome of the artistic product in certain unforeseeable and unique ways."

Born in Brooklyn, New York on December 28, 1940, Alvin Singleton attended both New York University and Yale, and he studied as a Fulbright Scholar with Goffredo Petrassi at the Accademia Nationale di Santa Cecilia in Rome. Singleton has served as Composer-in- Residence with the Atlanta and Detroit Symphony Orchestras, and at Spelman College in Atlanta.

Singleton has been awarded the Kranischsteiner Musikpreis by the City of Darmstadt, Germany, twice the Musikprotokoll Kompositionpreis by the Austrian Radio, the Mayor’s Fellowship in the Arts Award by the City of Atlanta, and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Singleton’s compositions have been performed by most major American and European orchestras, and by the Kronos Quartet, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Nash Ensemble of London, the Asko Ensemble of Amsterdam, Ensemble des 20. Jahrhunderts of Vienna, the London Sinfonietta, Trio Basso of Cologne, and the Bremer Tanztheater.

Important international festivals have also programmed Singleton’s music. They include Chamber Music Northwest in Portland, Tanglewood, Aspen, Bang On A Can, the National Black Arts Festival in Atlanta, Other Minds in San Francisco, the Vienna Summer Music Festival, Pro Musica Nova in Bremen, the Styrian Autumn Festival in Graz, the Brussels ISCM World Music Days, and IRCAM in Paris.

Philip Glass at the NEC Conference photo by Jeff Thiebauth

In early September New England Conservatory‘s Research Center for Learning Through Music hosted a three-day national conference entitled “Making Music Work in Public Education: Innovative Programs and Research — A National Perspective.” The conference was organized by NEC’s Larry Scripp, Director of the Research Center.

The public forum featured six presentations on a wide range of topics, including a presentation by David Dik of the Metropolitan Opera Guild on the “Creating Original Opera” program, and how it has been implemented in the Lynn, Massachusetts public schools. Larry Scripp described NEC’s “Learning Through Music” curriculum and how it functions in the Nahant and Lynn, MA public schools and the Conservatory Lab Charter School.

Contemporary music and music creation play an integral part in the Learning Through Music program as it has been implemented in the Charter School. Last spring, for instance, the students studied Philip Glass‘ opera Aknahten, learning rhythmic patterns and a portion of an aria. When Glass, who is on the Advisory Board for the Center, came to town for performances of the opera by Boston Lyric Opera, he visited with the students and discussed some of his compositional decisions.

“Students need live composers in front of them,” Scripp emphasized. “First-source experience is very important.” Glass was apparently “astonished” by the clarity of the students’ questions. For instance, in Aknahten, the title character, an Egyptian pharaoh, is cast as a countertenor. In a more traditional opera, perhaps, this role would have been assigned to a tenor or bass, and consequently the first not he sings comes as a great surprise. Scripps was amused by the directness of the children’s response: “Why is this guy singing like a girl?” Glass explained to them that he wanted this character to grab the audience’s attention from the very first note.

Scripps feels that this kind of information “is what [the Charter School] should be about, this real contact with the artistic process, this is learning through music.” Scripp plans to do this with other composers in the future: plans have already been made with Michael Gandolfi. Gandolfi has written an opera, Pinocchio’s Adventures in Funland, for eight or nine singers. These singers will work with the children on inventing their own music, and then they will perform Gandolfi’s opera.

Creating original music plays an important role in the Charter School’s curriculum. During each trimester, the students create an opera around an original theme. Last year, they created fairy-tale operas. They began by studying traditional fairy tales, then made up their own. The children then used their invented text for musical group improvisation. Not only did that help them memorize the words, it allowed them to explore issues surrounding the setting of text. Scripp observed from the children’s portfolios that many of them had discovered how music can heighten the emotion inherent in words.

The Conservatory Lab Charter School opened last year to children in kindergarten through third grade, and expanded this year to include the fourth grade. The School will continue to add a grade a year for the next two years. Students are admitted by lottery, with a total of twenty per grade level. Each student is given the opportunity to take free violin lessons, using an instrument provided by the school.

The NEC Research Center, established in April 1998, researches, develops, and manages Learning Through Music programs through partnerships with selected public schools. The curriculum is directly overseen by the Center at the Charter School, and in the Lynn and Nahant public schools. The Center is also indirectly involved with five other public schools. Scripp’s broad goal with Learning Through Music is to “stimulate varied forms of emotional, cognitive, physical, and artistic development” through “authentic and intensive musical study.” The program also includes professional development for NEC students on the college level.

The New England Conservatory Research Center has formed a consortium with some of the other organizations represented at the Conference: the Metropolitan Opera Guild’s “Creating Original Opera;” A+ Schools in North Carolina; Juilliard‘s Arts and Education Program; and the Ravinia Festival Music Outreach Program.

Zdenek Macal photo by Vidal

On September 28th at 8 p.m., Zdenek Macal conducted the Manhattan School of Music Symphony, marking his appointment as Director of Conducting Studies and Artistic Advisor for the School’s orchestral program. The concert featured Richard Danielpour‘s Celestial Night, alongside works by Mozart and Beethoven.

Mr. Macal has a longstanding working relationship with Mr. Danielpour, a fellow Manhattan School faculty member. He originally commissioned Celestial Night for the New Jersey Symphony, where Mr. Macal is Music Director, for their first concert at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in 1997. For this year’s opening concert, Macal programmed Danielpour’s Toward the Splendid City. The conductor has also recorded a CD of the composer’s music, featuring both of these works, with the Philharmonia Orchestra for Sony Classical.

The idea of a deep commitment to the works of a single composer is not new to Macal. During his tenure as Music Director of the Milwaukee Symphony, Macal championed the music of Roberto Sierra, inviting him to serve as Composer-In-Residence, and conducting some of his works thirty or forty times. Macal is very proud of the fact that he was influenced Sierra’s ability to secure a contract with a publishing house. "When publishers saw that [his works had received] a hundred performances from me, they got excited. That is [my] work, building the career of the composer, doing service to the music."

Macal first heard Danielpour’s music while he was still conducting in Milwaukee; the first piece he heard was the orchestra piece First Light. He likes Danielpour’s music because he finds it "very dramatic and rhythmical. There are lots of colors, but basically there is rhythmic energy." According to Macal, Danielpour has labeled him his "favorite conductor" because he, like the music, has "so much energy."

At the time of the interview, Maestro Macal had already led Manhattan School students in the first rehearsal of Celestial Night. He was very pleased that they could sit down and read it. "It is rhythmical stuff, very difficult," he commented. He credits this partly to the high level of technical proficiency now expected of incoming undergraduates. "The level is so high…this is not the first time I have done a contemporary piece and the students [have done] a great job." Macal also feels that contemporary repertoire is actually easier for students to grasp than, say, Mozart or Beethoven. "The stylistic things, the phrasing and articulation in Romantic and Classical music, that is what gives me the most work," Macal explained. "They are closer to Danielpour, they understand that, because [the music contains the sounds of] of New York, [and] they understand the streets of New York."

As Director of Conducting Studies at MSM, Macal will supervise the studies of two conductors at the post-graduate level. Macal feels that it is important for his students to learn contemporary scores, but that basically "if you can conduct Beethoven, you can conduct Stravinsky or Bartók." Macal appears to perceive the biggest difficulty in approaching contemporary music is complicated rhythms. He believes that for his young conductors, the ability to handle complicated rhythms is absorbed, to some extent, from the world around them, perhaps obviating the need for further development in the classroom. "The young generation has [such a] strong rhythmical sense. Young people hear rock, jazz, commercials on TV…there is much ‘beat’ in our lives, maybe too much."

Macal’s students seem to absorb contemporary music with ease, and he would like to see audiences behave similarly. At the same time, he understands the malaise of many listeners. He believes that the prodigious fragmentation of styles over the last one hundred fifty years is to blame. "If you go from Mozart to Beethoven to Berlioz and Wagner, the difference or turn-over is not so big. Beethoven had patterns of accents in his music that anticipate[d] Berlioz and Wagner. However, if you take from 1950 to 2000, the step ahead is huge." Then there is the proliferation of music sources in the twentieth century: TV, radio, recordings, the Internet. Macal feels that this has caused composers to desperately search for styles that are original. And unfortunately, "the audiences [can’t] absorb the amount of stuff coming at them." Macal described it this way: "If you liked a certain style, like a certain color of lipstick — in Beethoven’s time, there were just one or two colors! Now, there is a whole spectrum, [that may include] many colors that you don’t like."

As Music Director in New Jersey, Macal has also conducted premieres of pieces by George Walker and Anthony Newman. In March 2001, Macal will conduct the premiere of a new concerto for flute, Flauta Carioca, currently being written by Thomas Oboe Lee for Bart Feller, Principal Flute in the NJSO. Also in the spring of next year, Macal will guest conduct Philip Glass‘ new timpani concerto with timpanists Jonathan Haas and Richard Holmes and the St. Louis Symphony.

Eddie Marshall photo by Chela Shanti

Drummer and longtime Bay Area jazz leader Eddie Marshall is the recipient of the First Annual SFJAZZ Beacon Award presented by Stella Artois. The award will be given each year to a member of the Bay Area jazz community who has played a vital role in preserving the traditions and encouraging the growth of jazz in the Bay Area.

Marshall called the award "quite an honor." He claims the award was "totally unexpected." He had called Executive Director Randall Kline about hiring his quintet for this year’s SF Jazz Festival, and Kline told him "he had another idea." Marshall was surprised largely because he "considers himself a sideman. I’m just a drummer who has played with quite a lot of jazz celebrities," he explained.

In an interview, Kline responded by saying that he "never thought of him as not being prominent." He also contested Marshall’s description of himself as solely a sideman, pointing out that he co-led the seminal 1970s fusion band The Fourth Way and co-leads his current band, Holy Mischief.

Kline calls Marshall "a true local treasure," citing his "constant presence" on the San Francisco scene for the past three decades. When Kline first moved to San Francisco in 1975, he heard Eddie Marshall at Keystone Korner, where he was the house drummer, performing with musicians such as Bobby McFerrin and vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson. In his long career, Marshall has also collaborated with jazz legends Stan Getz, Toshiko Akiyoshi, and Rahsaan Roland Kirk, among many others.

Marshall’s involvement with the San Francisco scene is all the more remarkable when viewed in the context of the changes that have occurred during that time. In the early 1980s, the city lost Keystone Korner, and no major jazz club has taken its place. Instead, that space has been filled by Yoshi’s, "across the bay" in Oakland. Marshall also feels that the "dot-com generation" has been supporting many smaller clubs and jazz in restaurants. Kline explained that when he started the San Francisco Jazz Festival in 1983, he made a point of only using local musicians. He explained that with fewer people using San Francisco has a home base, "gradually the festival changed character, with more out-of-town players," although he still feels he maintains a "pretty good mix." Marshall has performed regularly at the Festival.

Marshall and his band recently released a new CD entitled Eddie Marshall and Holy Mischief. With the exception of one tune, the music was entirely written by Marshall. Listeners will have the opportunity to hear Marshall play not only drums, but also recorder, his unusual second instrument for many years. This instrument is strongly associated with the Baroque period, but Marshall had never heard any Baroque music when he bought a tenor recorder from Montgomery Ward at age 16. Now, he considers Baroque music to be "his favorite repertoire aside from jazz." He particularly enjoys the playing of Marion Verbruggen.

The new award is made possible by San Francisco Jazz Festival sponsor Stella Artois, which will make a $5,000 contribution to the SFJAZZ Education Program in the name of the Beacon Award honoree for the next three years or longer. Marshall is pleased that educational programs will benefit from the award. Marshall teaches at San Francisco State, at The Jazz School in Berkeley, and at home.

The SFJAZZ Beacon Award presented by Stella Artois will be given to Eddie Marshall on Thursday, November 2, at San Francisco’s Masonic Auditorium, in the San Francisco Jazz Festival concert “A Salute to Eddie Marshall.” Marshall will perform with Holy Mischief and in a historic reunion of The Fourth Way. Marshall will also be joined onstage by all-star special guests Bobby McFerrin, Bobby Hutcherson, and jazz trumpeter Freddie Hubbard. Marshall has been put in charge of planning the program. He calls the task a "challenge," but he also explained that if he "show[ed] up for the award without playing" he "wouldn’t know what he was receiving it for."

The San Francisco Jazz Organization (SFJAZZ), founded in 1983, is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to preserving the traditions and encouraging the growth of jazz through presentation and education in the San Francisco Bay Area. SFJAZZ is the presenter of the annual San Francisco Jazz Festival, the SFJAZZ Spring Season, and multiple series of free outdoor concerts from June through October. The organization also produces a number of jazz education programs for youth and adults, as well as commissions for talented composers and an expanding array of other year-round events and programs.

Kevin Beavers photo by Lorin Burgess

Kevin Beavers, 29, was born in Colombia, grew up in West Virginia and holds degrees in composition from West Virginia University (B.M.) and the University of Michigan (M.M. and D.M.A. candidate). Currently, he is studying and working in Amsterdam on a grant from the Netherlands-America Foundation; he also teaches composition and theory at the Interlachen Summer Arts Academy. Mr. Beavers is the recipient of a commissioning grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Lee Ettleson Prize, and four ASCAP Morton Gould Awards. He has received commissions from the Tanglewood Festival Orchestra, the Detroit Civic Orchestra, and the Brooklyn Friends of Chamber Music.

Beaver’s Sinfonia, first performed by the Tanglewood Festival Orchestra in 1997, consists of three contrasting movements. The first movement, “Overture,” “starts big,” according to the composer, and features a “startling” country fiddle tune in the middle of an otherwise abstract texture. The second movement, “Winter Moon,” is based on the poem of the same name by Langston Hughes. Beavers compares the movement to a Mark Rothko painting, with “very little happen[ing].” It starts with some difficult, extremely high “icy” chords in the winds. Beaver named the last movement, “Chatterbox,” after a friend. Beaver describes the movement as a “big contrast” from the previous material. There is a “rap-like gesture” he gives to the winds, a steady drum beat, and a “very happy-go-lucky exciting finish” to this movement.

With Sinfonia, Beavers wanted to express “some of the shock and surprise of how life can twist and turn.” Beavers began work on the piece right around the time that his father was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Sinfonia also betrays Beaver’s ongoing interest in American vernacular music. An earlier work of his, Native Tongue, matched “techno grooves” with “avant-garde music,” and “Duke Ellington jungle music” with “Reich textures.”

Beavers is looking forward to the competition, partly because it will allow him the opportunity “to be working with the best,” partly because it will give the audience “the chance to be active participants.” He sees this as an inspiring event for the orchestra players, as well, because they will “really have captive ears.” “The new music world needs to take a new shot in a new direction,” Beaver stated. “This is a good starting point.”

Upcoming projects for Beavers include the premiere of a new set of songs, based on the poetry of Erin Galligan, by mezzo-soprano Wilma Wever at Weill Recital Hall. He is also writing a piece for the Cassatt String Quartet and soprano Stephanie Houtzeel, based on the poetry of Andrew Sofer.