Stanley Joel Silverman | |
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![]() Stanley Silverman at home | |
Born | Stanley Silverman July 5, 1938 |
Education | Mills College (MA), Boston University (BMus), Columbia University, High School of Performing Arts |
Occupation(s) | Composer, arranger, conductor, guitarist |
Years active | 1958–present |
Spouse(s) | Mary Delson (1966-1975), Martha Caplin (1980-1995) |
Children | Ben Silverman, Rena Silverman |
Parent(s) | Meyer Silverman, Eva Silverman (nee) Kass |
Website | stanleysilverman |
Stanley Silverman (born July 5, 1938, in New York City) is an American composer, arranger, conductor and guitarist. [1] [2]
Silverman's diverse career covers music theatre, film, television, classical and pop music. His work has featured on stages across the world including on and off-Broadway and his collaborators include Richard Foreman, Anthony Burgess [3] and Arthur Miller. [4] [5] He has also worked with renowned directors Mike Nichols [6] and Arthur Penn. [7] Silverman worked with Paul Simon on his musical The Capeman in 1998 for which his orchestrations were nominated for Tony and Drama Desk Awards. [8] His music has been performed by Pierre Boulez, [9] Michael Tilson Thomas, [10] Tashi, [11] the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio and pop icons James Taylor and Sting. [12]
Across a successful career as a conductor, Silverman worked on the Tony, Drama Desk and Grammy Award nominated 1976 Joseph Papp production of The Threepenny Opera which starred in the lead role Raul Julia. [13] [14]
Stanley Silverman was born in New York City and is the son of Russian Jewish immigrants. [15] Silverman grew up in the Bronx attending public school followed by the High School of Performing Arts before completing his BMus at Boston University and his MA in Music Composition at Mills College. [16]
At Tanglewood Silverman studied with Leon Kirchner and at Mills College with Kirchner and Darius Milhaud. Silverman's Tenso: Afternoon Music For Orchestra, composed for a White House concert premiered in 1962 for President John F. Kennedy. [17]
As a young man Silverman played guitar in a western swing band and developed an interest in jazz music which took him to the Brussels World Fair playing with his college jazz quintet. [16]
Upon graduating Silverman became a regular concert guitarist and worked with the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony Orchestra and The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Silverman also played guitar at the Malboro Festival, the Ojai Festival and during this period worked with Leonard Bernstein, Pierre Boulez, Lukas Foss and Gunther Schuller. As a young guitarist Silverman specialized in new music performing and recording many premieres. [18]
Following work as guitarist, Silverman concentrated on his career as a composer and was part of Charles Wuorinen's New York composer-performer group, The Group for Contemporary Music. [16] [19]
Silverman taught at Tanglewood during the 1960s and in 1965 was appointed music director of The Lincoln Center Repertory Theater before joining Canada's Stratford Festival at the invitation of Glenn Gould. [20] [21] He worked at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival extensively from 1967 when he composed music for John Hirsch's production of Richard III until 1994. [22] His career at the Festival was celebrated in a one-off concert in 2013 called Celebrating Stanley which covered the diverse range of material he had composed over almost three decades for the Festival. [23] In 1971 Silverman, along with Lyn Austin and Oliver Smith, was a founding member of the Lenox Arts Center, later the Music Theatre Group. [24]
Amongst a range of noteworthy collaborations, Silverman composed the incidental music for Arthur Miller's 1972 Broadway production of The Creation of the World and Other Business and worked with the playwright again on his only musical Up from Paradise which premiered at Miller's alma mater, the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 1973. [25] A recent production took place under the direction of Patrick Kennedy at the New Wimbledon Theatre, London in 2014. [26]
In 1976, Silverman joined Joseph Papp's production of The Threepenny Opera as musical director. The show premiered at the Vivian Beaumont Theater under the direction of Richard Foreman. Of Silverman's musical direction, Alan Rich of New York Magazine said, "This is strong, intelligent music-making, and it clarifies, more than any version I have heard live or on records, the stature of this dazzling score." [27] The production received critical acclaim and went on to earn Tony, Drama Desk and Grammy Award nominations. [13] [14]
During the 1980s, Silverman enjoyed a brief and successful directing career including an Obie award winning production of the Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein opera, The Mother of Us All in 1983. [28] [29] He also conceived and directed the 1986 music-theater piece Black Sea Follies at Playwrights Horizons [30] [31]
Aside from his involvement with theatre, Silverman has worked with several musicians as an arranger including a Grammy award-winning collaboration with James Taylor on Hourglass.
In recent years, Silverman has been a specialist consultant for Reveille TV, Electus Studios and NBC music Specials. [16] [32]
Silverman was honored by the Lincoln Center Institute for the Arts in Education in 2004, having served for over thirty years as one of its founding board members.
Hotel For Criminals by Richard Foreman and Stanley Silverman had its UK premiere in October 2016 at the New Wimbledon Studio directed by Patrick Kennedy. The show garnered positive reviews from critics, including British Theatre's Critics Choice 2016, [33] in particular for Silverman's score:
"The music is immensely more tuneful and memorable than the great majority of scores currently to be heard in the commercial scene." [34]
"The score is filled with rich vocal harmonies and elegant melodies dappled amongst chromatic recitative and horror film discordance." [35]
"Silverman’s score is a rich combination of haunting, discordant phrases and sumptuous melodies that reflect the other-worldliness of the narrative." [36]
"Stanley Silverman’s score is beautiful, enigmatic and embraces the show’s disjointed narrative with its smooth and impressive melodies." [37]
On 26 February 2017 BBC Radio 3 broadcast Anthony Burgess's Oedipus the King with Silverman's score. [38] It was rebroadcast on 19 May 2019.
On January 12, Sting recorded the vocals for Fear No More composed by Silverman performed by the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson trio.
In 1968 Silverman began collaborating with playwright/director Richard Foreman resulting in several works of music-theatre. Their first collaboration was Elephant Steps which premiered at Tanglewood in 1968 [39] with the New York Magazine calling it "The best piece of new music I've heard in concert all year." [40] A musical recording of the same name was released on LP by Columbia Records in 1974. "A mere Chuck Berry expert cannot judge the quality of the 'classical' music herein contained, although he can mention that he does not intend to investigate it further", wrote rock critic Robert Christgau in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981). "The 'rock,' however, was apparently concocted by David Clayton-Thomas's heir covert and the pit band from the Oslo production of Hair. And any English major can see through the 'libretto.'" [41]
Other collaborations include Dream Tantras For Western Massachusetts, Hotel For Criminals, Madame Adare, The American Imagination, Africanus Instructus, Love & Science and Dr Selavy's Magic Theatre [42] which led to the New York Times describing Silverman as "the brightest talent in this medium to come along since Leonard Bernstein... he could turn out to be the later day Cole Porter." [43] [44]
Silverman has been influenced by the works of Baroque composers Handel, Henry Purcell, Austrian expressionist Arnold Schoenberg, French guitarist Django Reinhardt, songwriters Rodgers and Hart, and Cuban charanga. [45] [46]
To celebrate Silverman's 80th birthday on July 5, several concerts and productions are being staged around the world in 2018/9.
Private birthday celebration hosted by James Taylor and Kim Taylor
Songs from Up From Paradise, Book & Lyrics by Arthur Miller [47]
Elephant Steps (opera), Libretto by Richard Foreman . 50th anniversary production directed by Patrick Kennedy
Six Saudades do Brasil for String Quartet (Premiere) Guignard Quartet
American Friends of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra to Honor Stanley Silverman. The Israel Philharmonic will perform a program including works composed by Stanley Silverman.
The Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio with Guest Artist Sting
In Celebration, Trio No. 1 is included on Chamber Music America's list of 100 best chamber pieces written by an American.
Trio No. 2 “Reveille”
In 1966, Silverman married former VP of BBC America and theatre and television producer and executive Mary Silverman (née Delson); the couple had one child, Ben, chairman and co-CEO of Propagate and former NBC co-chairman. [48] With Mary, Silverman also raised artist and illustrator Sarah Delson. [49] In 1980 Silverman married Martha Caplin, [6] a founding member and 1st Violin, Primavera Quartet and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. [50] The couple has one child, Rena, a journalist and photography writer.
Elephant Steps
The Satyricon
Dream Tantras for Western Massachusetts
Dr. Selavy's Magic Theatre
Hotel for Criminals
The American Imagination
Madame Adare
The Columbine String Quartet Tonight
Africanus Instructus
A Good Life
Paradise for the Worried
Love and Science
Celebrating Stanley (Revue)
Celebrating Silverman (Revue)
Broadway
Off-Broadway
Repertory Theater of Lincoln Center
Stratford Festival, Canada
Guthrie Theatre. Minneapolis
New York Shakespeare Festival
Mark Taper Forum. Los Angeles
Long Wharf Theatre. New Haven
Royal Exchange Theatre. Manchester, England
Seattle Repertory Theatre
Hartford Stage Company
Lincoln Center Theatre. New York
Royal Shakespeare Company
The Berkshire Theatre Festival
Tenso
Canso
Planh
The Midsummer Night's Dream Show
Oedipus The King (Oratorio)
Crepuscule
The Charleston Concerto
Variations on a Theme of Kurt Weill
New York Shakespeare Festival Fanfare
Chaconne in D minor (Arranged for Brass Quintet)
Birthday Variations for Avery Fisher
Trio No. 1 In Celebration
Psalm 100
Khlestakov's Lullaby
Eridos
Shakespeare and Our Planet
Trio No.2 Reveille
Saudades do Brazil for String Quartet (after Milhaud)
Selected credits include:
Major arranger credits include:
The Threepenny Opera is a German "play with music" by Bertolt Brecht, adapted from a translation by Elisabeth Hauptmann of John Gay's 18th-century English ballad opera, The Beggar's Opera, and four ballads by François Villon, with music by Kurt Weill. Although there is debate as to how much, if any, contribution Hauptmann might have made to the text, Brecht is usually listed as sole author.
Leonard Bernstein was an American conductor, composer, pianist, music educator, author, and humanitarian. Considered to be one of the most important conductors of his time, he was the first American-born conductor to receive international acclaim. Bernstein was "one of the most prodigiously talented and successful musicians in American history" according to music critic Donal Henahan. Bernstein's honors and accolades include seven Emmy Awards, two Tony Awards, and 16 Grammy Awards as well as an Academy Award nomination. He received the Kennedy Center Honor in 1981.
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts is a 16.3-acre (6.6-hectare) complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It has thirty indoor and outdoor facilities and is host to 5 million visitors annually. It houses internationally renowned performing arts organizations including the New York Philharmonic, the Metropolitan Opera, the New York City Ballet, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and the Juilliard School.
Seiji Ozawa is a Japanese conductor known for his advocacy of modern composers and for his work with the San Francisco Symphony, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Vienna State Opera, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, where he served as music director for 29 years. He is the recipient of numerous international awards.
Renée Lynn Fleming is an American soprano, known for performances in opera, concerts, recordings, theater, film, and at major public occasions. A recipient of the National Medal of Arts, Fleming has been nominated for 18 Grammy Awards and has won five times. In June 2023, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts announced that Fleming will be one of the five artists recognized at the 2023 Kennedy Center Honors. Other notable honors won by Fleming have included the Crystal Award from the World Economic Forum in Davos, the Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur from the French government, Germany's Cross of the Order of Merit, Sweden's Polar Music Prize and honorary membership in England's Royal Academy of Music. Unusual among artists whose careers began in opera, Fleming has achieved name recognition beyond the classical music world. In May, 2023, Fleming was appointed by the World Health Organization as a Goodwill Ambassador for Arts and Health.
John Harris Harbison is an American composer, known for his symphonies, operas, and large choral works.
Tanglewood is a music venue and festival in the towns of Lenox and Stockbridge in the Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts. It has been the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra since 1937. Tanglewood is also home to three music schools: the Tanglewood Music Center, Tanglewood Learning Center, and the Boston University Tanglewood Institute. Besides classical music, Tanglewood hosts the Festival of Contemporary Music, jazz and popular artists, concerts, and frequent appearances by James Taylor, John Williams, and the Boston Pops Orchestra.
John M. McCollum was an American tenor who had an active singing career in operas, concerts, and recitals during the 1950s through the 1970s. As an opera singer he performed with companies throughout North America, mostly working with second tier opera houses. He was much more successful as a singer of oratorios and other works from the concert repertoire, and enjoyed a particularly productive and lengthy relationship with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. As a concert singer he sang a wide repertoire but drew particular acclaim for his performances in the works of Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel.
Jaime Laredo is a violinist and conductor. He was the conductor and Music Director of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, and he began his musical career when he was five years old.
Joanna Elizabeth Simon was an American mezzo-soprano and journalist. The daughter of publisher Richard L. Simon, Joanna was an elder sister of singer and songwriter Carly Simon, singer and musical theatre composer Lucy Simon, and photographer Peter Simon.
Sharon Hall Robinson is an American cellist. She has had a highly successful performing career, both as a concert solo artist and as a member of the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio, and has recorded extensively.
Sheila Browne is an American-Irish concert violist from Gladwyne, Pennsylvania with dual citizenship. She is a concert and recording artist and Associate Professor at the University of Delaware. For ten years she was on faculty and Associate Professor of Viola at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. Named the William Primrose Recitalist of 2016 in conjunction with the Primrose International Viola Archive (PIVA), Ms. Browne has played solo, concerto and chamber music concerts and has played principal of orchestras on six continents, performing in major venues in Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, Australia, and the Middle East. She is in the Fire Pink Trio and principal of the New York Women's Philharmonic, making her Carnegie- Stern Hall concerto debut in 2011. Browne is the Director and faculty member of the January Karen Tuttle Viola Workshop, founder in 2015 and faculty member of the first European Karen Tuttle Viola Workshop at NYU- Prague 2016, and has served on the Executive Board of the American Viola Society Ms. Browne was the violist of the Gotham, Arianna, Pelligrini and Serafin string quartets. She has served on the faculties of Duke and New York universities, University of Missouri- St. Louis and of Tennessee- Knoxville, and Juilliard's Music Advancement Program.
The Virginia Arts Festival is a Norfolk-based non-profit arts presenter which serves southeastern Virginia, offering dozens of performances during the spring and throughout the year. Virginia Arts Festival performances have included international ballet companies, along with modern, contemporary, and ethnic dance companies; world-renowned soloists and ensembles in musical genres including classical, jazz, world, folk, rock, blues, bluegrass, country, and pop; opera; theater and cabaret; and collaborative productions with local arts organizations like the Virginia Symphony Orchestra.
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Chamber Music Detroit, formerly the Chamber Music Society of Detroit, was founded in 1944 and is the tenth oldest chamber music series in the United States as recognized by Chamber Music America. It is widely respected as metropolitan Detroit's anchor organization for chamber music.
Joseph Kalichstein was an American classical pianist who performed in the concerto, solo recital and chamber music repertoire, the latter mainly with Jaime Laredo and Sharon Robinson in the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio. He was also a professor at the Juilliard School in New York.
The Kalichstein–Laredo–Robinson Trio is an American piano trio consisting of violinist Jaime Laredo, cellist Sharon Robinson, and pianist Joseph Kalichstein. The trio is one of the longest-lasting chamber ensembles with all of its original members, having debuted in 1977 at the inauguration of president Jimmy Carter. In 2001 it was named by Musical America as Ensemble of the Year, and in 2011 it was awarded the Samuel Sanders Collaborative Artists Award from The Classical Recording Foundation. In the 2003-2004 season, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts appointed Kalichstein–Laredo–Robinson Ensemble in Residence. The trio is widely regarded as perhaps the most seminal piano trio performing today, and are noted for the high quality of their interpretations of the trio repertoire.
Samuel Krachmalnick was an American conductor and music educator. He first came to prominence as a conductor on Broadway during the 1950s, notably earning a Tony Award nomination for his work as the music director of the original production of Leonard Bernstein's Candide. He went on to work as a busy conductor of operas and symphony orchestras internationally during the 1960s and 1970s. He was particularly active in New York City, where he held conducting posts with the American Ballet Theatre, the Harkness Ballet, the Metropolitan Opera, and the New York City Opera. His later career was primarily devoted to teaching on the music faculties of the University of Washington and the University of California, Los Angeles.
John Duffy was an American composer who created more than 300 works from symphonic music and operas to music for the concert hall, theatre, and film and television. In 1974 he founded the organization Meet The Composer under the auspices of the New York State Council on the Arts and the American Music Center. The organization helped to create platforms for contemporary composers to discuss new works with audiences; notably coordinating summer festivals of contemporary music for the New York Philharmonic and helping to fund composer-in-residence programs with 32 symphony orchestras throughout the United States among many other successful projects. He continued to lead the organization until 1996.
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