MICHAEL RABIN IN TUCSON

posted by James Reel

    A scholar who is writing a biography of Michael Rabin has asked me for help in confirming or denying a couple of rumors relating to Rabin in Tucson, and I’m striking out (I suppose means that the lack of evidence constitutes denial of the rumors). If you’ve lived in Tucson for at least 35 years, perhaps you know something that my other sources don’t.
    First, the biographer has a tape of Gregory Millar introducing a performance of Paul Creston’s Violin Concerto, followed by a performance of same with Rabin as soloist and Millar apparently conducting the Tucson Symphony Orchestra. Now, the TSO’s files show performances of Creston’s music but not the concerto, and performances with Rabin but not the Creston. Do you know of any circumstances under which Millar and Rabin presented the Creston concerto with the TSO, perhaps in a concert outside the orchestra’s normal activities?
    Second, it seems that in the early 1970s Rabin had a contract to teach at the University of Arizona for a year, but the agreement fell through. My guess is that Rabin was supposed to fill in during a sabbatical year for the usual violin prof at that time, John Ferrell. But UA records no longer exist from that period, and I can’t find any old-timers from the music school who remember anything about it.
    If you can confirm or deny either of these stories, please contact me by clicking the e-mail link in the right-hand panel.
    While you’re cogitating on that, I need to get to work on a project concocted by another scholar-pal of mine: the index for Caryl Flinn’s forthcoming biography of Ethel Merman.