ROBERT MCBRIDE

posted by James Reel

    Tucson-born and -based composer Robert McBride died a couple of weeks ago. As far as I can tell, neither daily paper saw fit to note his passing, although they fall all over themselves to eulogize young traffic-accident victims who've had far less importance in the larger community. I never met McBride, but I did talk to him on the phone a couple of times. About 10 years ago, he told me something remarkable: He no longer listened to music, because he heard everything about a half-step off, and it drove him nuts. Here's the paid obituary (supplied by family and funeral home, not by journalists) that appeared in the local papers; the memorial service was July 14:

Robert Guyn McBride, University of Arizona Music Professor Emeritus, died July 1, 2007. He was born in Tucson, Arizona Territory, on February 20, 1911. Robert is survived by Carol, his wife of 66 years; their daughter, Marion of Irvington, NY; their son, Lawrence (Barbara) of Arlington, VA; and by grandchildren, Karin Sosis, Andrew Sosis, Lindsay McBride, and Graham McBride. Bob's musical talents matured at the UA, where he received a Master of Music degree in 1935. This "desert rat" then taught at Bennington College in Vermont, where he met and married Carol. In 1945 he moved to New York City to write music for films. As television supplanted short subjects at the movies, he returned in 1957 to Tucson and the UA to teach composition. Skilled as an instrumentalist (oboe, English horn, clarinet, and saxophone), Bob performed widely at colleges and with orchestras. His compositions were played by major orchestras and chamber groups, and were published and recorded. His music, often with catchy titles, ranged from serious to whimsical: opera, jazz pieces, modern dance scores, instrumental solos, chamber pieces, and orchestral works. He received a Guggenheim Foundation grant in 1937, and in 1942 the American Academy of Arts and Letters awarded him a prize for "writing a new idiom and expression" in modern American music. Later, the UA honored him with a Medallion of Merit. Bob was a true gentleman whose great patience and wonderfully agreeable nature endeared him to his family, friends, and students. An achievement Bob especially enjoyed was scoring 11 holes-in-one at the local par three course, the last at age 92. The family wishes to thank all those who have cared for Bob recently; we are grateful for their help.

DOG DAYS

posted by James Reel

    I've been absent from the air for the past two days because I indulged in Lasik surgery yesterday, which, aside from a recovery period when it felt like I was chopping onions for two hours straight, has gone quite well, thank you. Anyway, yesterday I neglected to post a link to my latest contribution to the Tucson Weekly, which begins:

    The dog days of summer arrive early this year, as Arizona Onstage Productions presents a July run of the musical Bark! It's a family-friendly but not childish show in which all the characters are dogs. No, not real dogs--you can hear that on a notorious old Sinatra record--but people singing life stories from the canine point of view.
    Think of it as composer David Troy Francis' way of lifting his leg on Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats.

    You can find the full article here. I use the term "dog days" as a joke, by the way. Recently, I've seen many references to the "dog days of summer" as if the period were synonymous with all of summer. It isn't. One dictionary definition tells us that the dog days are the "hot, sultry period between mid-July and September," and some sources would limit them to August. The term is a translation of the Latin canis caniculares, referring to the time when the Dog Star (Sirius, not XM) rises with the sun.

KUPBEAT

posted by James Reel

    I just stumbled across something unexpected: Kupbeat, an archive of interviews conducted by Edward Kupperstein, KUAT's former radio boss and, before that, program director and, before that, music director. According to the home page, "KUPBEAT is a celebration of Edward Kupperstein's dedication to the the arts community in Tucson, Arizona. KUPBEAT presents a series of nearly 700 Arts Upbeat interviews of local arts personalities between 1976 and 2000 for KUAT Radio." There's also some biographical material about Kup, but it doesn't mention that he passed away a few years ago, not too long after he retired from KUAT.

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.

LAZY BLOGGING

posted by James Reel

    Recycling is the key to making a living as a freelance writer; write an article for one publication, then contrive to sell a modified version of it to another. It works well for lazy bloggers, too. When you’re too lazy to post an original blog entry, link to something you’ve written elsewhere. So here are a couple of items I contributed to the current issue of Strings magazine.
    First, a profile of an unusual string foursome:

The section quartet consists of two violins, a viola, and a cello, but please don’t call it a string quartet. “We’re a rock band,” insists first violinist, arranger, and founder Eric Gorfain, allowing, however, that “we’re playing classical instruments and we’re classically trained, so we kind of straddle the line.” Cellist Richard Dodd is less willing to compromise. “We play electrified instruments, really hard and loud, like a band,” he says. “I try to play with very little vibrato, and I get a solid bite into the string all the time. It’s a very aggressive style that probably wouldn’t go over too well with many orchestras.”

    Then, because you really desperately want to know about the mechanics of getting a bow from one string across to the next, a technical article for beginning and intermediate players on string crossings:

    If you could attach little lights to the frog and the tip of your bow, darken the room, and play in front of a mirror, you’d see that bowing, and especially crossing, is a matter of geometry as well as artistry. If you were playing well, you’d see those lights make precise little circles and arcs, and every motion at the frog would be mimicked in reverse at the tip.
    It’s what William J. Dick and Laurie P. Scott call the geometry of string crossing. Dick teaches at Southwestern University in Texas and Scott is a professor at the University of Texas at Austin. Their version of geometry doesn’t require you to brush up on Euclid or memorize the value of pi. But it does put bowing and crossing into the context of planes, lines, and arcs. And if your geometry is symmetrical, your string crossings should be clean.

    That’s how it begins. Now go be fascinated by the rest of it, while I retire to some nice, shaded hammock.

BAG IT

posted by James Reel

    Newsman Robert Rappaport and I both rolled our eyes at the funding credit for the 8:01 NPR news this morning: The NPR Shop is hawking the “Nina Totin’ Bag,” an accessory decorated with Warhol-style images of NPR legal-affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg. I guess you can use it to carry another popular NPR Shop item, the “emergency crank radio,” because you never know when you’ll need to hear a crank on the air.
    Surely KUAT Radio could raise the profile (though not the credibility) of its news team with similar promotions:
      The Robert Rappa-port, a tawny after-dinner wine.
      The Julie Bierstein, for those who prefer ale.
      And, if you’re unwise enough to use those products while driving, you’ll need the Bill Mortuary.