CALLING ALL MUSIC TEACHERS AND OTHER LOVERS OF WISDOM!

CALLING ALL MUSIC TEACHERS AND OTHER LOVERS OF WISDOM

For those seeking to give students an introduction to the true spirit that informs Classical composition and performance, the June 30th Symposium is an unprecedented opportunity. Teachers who attend, and the students that may accompany them, will experience the joy of poetry and song that provides the most immediate solution to the present crisis of American education--a crisis we all desire to resolve.

Studies have now definitively shown that regular immersion in classical music, in particular, and regular, preferably daily, practice of music studies, both vocal and instrumental, stimulate not only neurophysiological areas of the brain, but engage the mind in creative deliberation well after the immediate sensory experience of the music passes. Music improves the creativity of the mind. It gives "flesh and blood" to the thought process itself, and allows students to reflect on how they think, rather than what they think. When, therefore, are these studies going to become the bedrock of American education, rather than the first sections of the curriculum to be discarded?

The symposium will discuss the education of students in bel canto methods of singing and related questions of tuning. The Schiller Institute has conducted demonstrations showing that the proper scientific tuning at A=432 or C=256 is the most favorable for the Bel Canto voice, as well as for instrumental music, for example producing the optimum resonance of the Stradivarius string instrument.

​A CONVERSATION WITH SIMON ESTES: HOW TEACHERS MAKE A DIFFERENCE

Simon Estes, the great bass-baritone who will sing on the June 29th Carnegie Hall program, and has sung in every major opera house in the world, has an extraordinary life story to share with the symposium participants. Maestro Estes reported that he found, through a conversation with the concert sponsors, that he had something in common with Sylvia Olden Lee, of which he was completely unaware -- although he had worked with her and known her for years. His grandfather, like Sylvia Olden Lee's grandfather (yes, grandfather!) was born in slavery. His father was a coal-miner and his grandfather was a former slave who had been sold at auction for $500. Maestro Estes reported that he had never even heard of opera until his 20's, when, he met a new teacher at the University of Iowa, Charles Kellis. Mr. Kellis heard the young Simon Estes sing, and told him he had an "operatic voice", and gave his new student several vinyl records of operas and classical instrumental music. Now, Mr. Estes has sung in over 80 opera houses around the world, performed for six presidents and two popes. He forced, both through his artistry and his determination, his way eventually into the Metropolitan Opera, which had completely excluded African-Americans from performing there until 1955, and silently continued that practice well into the 1970s.

A NEW NATIONAL CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC?

At the Friday, June 30th symposium, we hope to rekindle a new “National Conservatory of Music” movement in honor of Dvorak, Harry Burleigh, James Weldon Johnson, Hall Johnson, and Sylvia Olden Lee. We hope the audience and musicians attending will become the intellectual and artistic backbone for this "new movement" -- which is really a very old one.

In 1892, Czech composer Antonin Dvorak came to New York City and America and assumed the directorship of the National Conservatory of Music which had been founded and financed by Jeanette Thurber. Almost one hundred years later, in 1993, the Schiller Institute, working with Sylvia Olden Lee, George Shirley, William Warfield, and Anthony Morss formed a movement called the “National Conservatory of Music Movement”. The relevance of this project, was that during Dvorak’s three years in America, African-Americans were given generalized access to the highest level of Classical music instruction made available by Dvorak and Thurber's dedication to the highest excellence in musical composition. The African-American Spiritual became one locus of study and concentration, because Dvorak was able to hear, through the voice and artistry of his student and fellow composer Harry Burleigh, and others, the identity of greatness in those spirituals, and their relation to the European Classical tradition. The Dvorak participation itself, however, was specifically encouraged by Johannes Brahms, Dvorak's friend and sponsor, who was himself conducting a similar project with respect to the German Volkslied. Sylvia Lee's relationship to Germany (she lived there for seven years and worked with the singer Gerhard Hüsch as his accompanist) deepens the reason for attempting something like this. Sylvia's daughter, Eve Lee, a professor of German in California, will also be participating in the symposium.

DEMONSTRATING THE AESTHETIC EDUCATION OF HUMANITY THROUGH MUSIC

Much will have to be “unlearned” from modern culture to again create what Dvorak called "a great and noble school of music". No such school of music will ever exist, without "great and noble" individuals. Sylvia Olden Lee was a rigorous and beloved teacher, unsparing in her insights into how an individual could find within themselves the desire and power to move forward. She offered this gift to the nation as a whole, so the whole nation, and indeed the whole world could progress. Thus is the "aesthetic education of humanity through music" demonstrated. And in this way is the mission described by "the poet of freedom", Friedrich Schiller, in his poem, "The Artists", fulfilled:

The dignity of man is in your hands. Its keeper be!

It sinks with you! With you, it will ascend!

Sponsored by the Foundation for the Revival of Classical Culture: www.fftrocc.org

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​*Sylvia Olden Lee was born on June 29th,1917, and passed away April 20, 2004. The Tribute to Sylvia Olden Lee on her Centennial will take place at Carnegie Hall on June 29th, 2017.The concert invitation states: “The Foundation hopes to bring together for the Carnegie Hall event, at least 1000 youth between the ages of 11 and 18, as well as well over 500 music teachers and music professionals. The Foundation hopes to form, from the response to this concert, a ‘June 29 movement,’ a choral association and network of hundreds of persons devoted to the research, performance and teaching of Spirituals and other elements of the Classical repertoire. This choral movement can then assist in developing a true cultural dialogue in our nation among peoples of diverse backgrounds and outlooks”. For more information, or to order tickets for this Carnegie Hall performance, contact carnegiecharge.org or call 718-709-8722. Also see: www.fftrocc.org/concert-information.