Muse Mentors

Muse Mentors host Karen Kevra is your guide in Flute Stories--These  short episodes weave performances of flute music with the stories behind them. 

All performances by Karen Kevra

Georg Philipp Telemann, Fantasie #12 in G minor
Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov, Flight of the Bumblebee
Joachim Anderson, Etude in G major, #3, Op. 15
Louis Moyse, Pastorale
Claude Debussy, Syrinx
Jules Mouquet, Pan and the Birds
Edgard Varèse, Density 21.5
Carl Nielsen,  The children are playing

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Nicholas Kitchen, one of the country's leading violinists is a founding member of the Boston-based Borromeo String Quartet. Nick is perhaps the most important protégé of the great Polish violinist Szymon Goldberg. Nick has been loaned his teacher's violin-- the Giuseppe Guarneri, Cremona, ca. 1730, "Goldberg-Baron Vitta" to play throughout his career. In his musical life, Nick was first nurtured by his musically hands-on parents and later through his mentorship with Goldberg.  Nick's rich and profound musical life is a beautiful paradox of old and new technology.
Music credits:
Schubert, Death and The Maiden String Quartet, Borromeo Quartet
JP Sousa, Semper Fidelis, The President's Own Marine Band
Beethoven, Violin Sonata, Op. 24 "Spring", Szymon Goldberg-violin, Lili Krauss-piano 
JS Bach, Toccata and Fugue in D minor BWV 565, Hans-André Stamm-organ
Beethoven, Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 61, mmt. 3 Rondo,  Henryk Szeryng-violin, Hans Zender-conductor
Schubert, Mass No. 5 in A Flat Major, D.678 - 4. Sanctus Choir of St. John's College, Cambridge
JS Bach,  Fantasia and fugue in G minor BWV 542 - Van Doeselaar
Beethoven, String Quartet, Op. 18, No. 1, Borromeo Quartet
JS Bach, Adagio, BWV 1110, Nicholas Kitchen
Kreisler, Liebeslied, Fritz Kreisler
Handel, Op. 1, No. 13 mmt. 1 D Major Sonata, Szymon Goldberg-violin, Gerald Moore-piano
Polish folksong for mandolines
JS Bach, Violin Concerto in E Major, BWV 1042: I. Allegro, Syzmon Goldberg-violin
Beethoven, Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 61, mmt. 1, Syzmon Goldberg-violin
Mozart, Sonata for Piano and Violin in E Minor, K.304 - Tempo di minuetto, Syzmon Goldberg-violin and Radu Lupu-piano
Mozart, Violin Concerto No. 5 in A Major, K219, mmt. 1
Beethoven, String Quartet, No. 13, Op. 130,  Borromeo Quartet
Louis Moyse, Second Sonata, Scherzo, Karen Kevra-flute, Paul Orgel-piano
Strauss, Don Juan, Op. 20, Berling Philharmonic, Von Karajan
Beethoven, Symphony No. 9, mmt. 3 , Adagio molto e cantabile, Furtwängler

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Tony Barrand was born in England in 1945 but has lived most of his life in southern Vermont in the vibrant town of Brattleboro—a place that shines all the more brightly because of him. This Cornell PHD and Professor Emeritus of Boston University is not just an academic, but also a singer, dancer, and story-teller. What first grabs you is his way with words—he can give them weight, or make them sparkle depending on the point he is trying to make, but he uses words to greatest effect when he sings. His handsome  tenor voice really shines when joined by his singing comrades (John Roberts, Fred Breunig and Andy Davis) from the band Nowell Sing We Clear. This is top-notch exuberant music-making in a traditional style that will have you singing along, dancing, and entranced by the magic of the story-telling. Tony Barrand offers tales of his mentors and mentees, and plenty of music in this episode. Guaranteed to brighten your days during this darkest time of year. This is an encore episode from Christmas eve 2020.

Special thanks to:
Andy Davis, Keith Murphy and Becky Tracy, Amanda Witman, Peter Amidon, Sue Dupre, Kari Smith, Carol Compton, Carole Crompton, and Rachel Bell

Music, courtesy Golden Hind Music
Click here to order  Nowell Sing We Clear: Songs & Carols for Midwinter & Christmastide

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In this short anniversary episode, Muse Mentors host Karen Kevra looks back on a year with a podcast, and a year without concerts.  She previews an upcoming concert by Boston's Borromeo Quartet and discusses Beethoven's transcendent Op. 132 A minor string quartet with Nicholas Kitchen, the first violinist of the Borromeo quartet.

Credits:
Kuhlau, Fantaisie in D major, Adagio - Karen Kevra-flute
Big Yellow Taxi - Joni Mitchell
Beethoven, Hymn Of Thanksgiving (String Quartet Op. 132, Movement III) - Borromeo Quartet  - Nicholas Kitchen, Violin; Kristopher Tong, Violin; Mai Motobuchi, Viola; Yeesun Kim, Cello)
Beethoven party hat image:  Sharon Su 

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Encore episode:  Rob Mermin ran off to join the circus in 1969 at the age of 19. He clowned with renowned European circuses, including England’s Circus Hoffman, Sweden’s Cirkus Scott, Denmark’s Circus Benneweis in the famous Circus Building by the Tivoli, and many more. It was his long mentorship with the iconic French mime Marcel Marceau that shaped him as a performer and inspired him to dream and make plans.  In 1987 he founded Circus Smirkus, the embodiment of Rob -- the touch of wonder, the charm, the story line, the mime and the humor. An enthralling story-teller, Rob Mermin  make you laugh and he'll make you cry with his stories of discovery and loss, and of course mentoring--first as a protégé and later through his own rich legacy of mentorship of some of the greatest circus performers on earth.   

*****
The accordion music was provided by Rachel Bell and includes Susan Kevra-clarinet, and Karen Axelrod-keyboards.

Mozart PianoConcerto #21 licensed by Creative Commons.

Rob Mermin's Parkinson's Pantomime Project.

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In this encore episode of Muse Mentors, pianist Jeffrey Chappell reflects on his life and his formative relationship with his mentor the legendary Leon Fleisher. He addresses overcoming challenges and adversity through the lens of his teacher's career-altering medical condition. The episode closes with the voice of Leon Fleisher who offers powerful words to live by. 

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Kerrin McCadden's new collection of poems called American Wake is made of the stuff of life --subjects like family, divorce, raising children, love and even her brother's tragic death by drug overdose are poignantly bound together by her strong Irish Heritage and her family's immigrant story. American Wake, is an actual term that refers to a kind of "Irish wake-style" farewell party that was thrown for Irish families the night before before they set sail for America. A lot of us dabble in ancestry and build family trees, but Kerrin McCadden has made it a way of life.  Kerrin is a National Endowment for the Arts fellow and has received the Sustainable Arts Foundation Writing Award, the Vermont Book Award, the New Issues Poetry Prize, and the Button Poetry  Prize.  Her poems have appeared in Best  American Poetry, American Poetry Review, New  England Review, and more. Her books are American Wake (2021), Keep This To Yourself (2020), Landscape with Plywood Silhouettes (2014).  Her mentors are poets David Budbill and Ellen Bryant Voigt.

MUSIC CREDITS:

Liz Carroll, The Drunken Sailor

Liz Carroll, A Day and An Age

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Lou Kosma was a bass player in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra for 36 years. He grew up in Philadelphia in the fifties in a blue collar Italian American family - a loving home where the sound of Italian tarantellas  played on guitar and accordion spilled from the windows, and the smell of frying meatballs and Roma tomato sauce filled the air. Little did his working class family know that their son would one day ascend to one of the greatest orchestras in the world! But that full-time job wasn't quite enough for Lou Kosma who has been, for his whole life, a generous teacher, conducting an array of youth and community orchestras with warmth and passion. Lou was shaped by his mentor Edward Arian, a Renaissance man who had  three remarkable careers including a 20 year tenure as a bass player with the Philadelphia Orchestra. Arian lead an eight-week strike that got the musicians their first guaranteed 52- week salary. Lou  Kosma learned a thing or two from his mentor--determination, integrity, generosity, and love of music.   

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James Pease Blair, one of National Geographic's legendary photographers  talks about love, life, and legacy. 

Jim began his 32 year career at the National Geographic Society with a splash as staff photographer on board Jacques Cousteau's Calypso in 1962. As a photography student in the fifties at the Institute of Design in Chicago, he studied with Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind, but it was his years as a summer intern with Roy E. Stryker, at the Pittsburgh Photographic Library that made the biggest impression on Jim. Jim Blair's artistry and empathy brought a new kind of humanity to National Geographic which went from being a travel and culture magazine to a  journal which included social and environmental images that revealed the soul of planet and its inhabitants.

Now in this late chapter of his life, Jim is contending with a lung condition that his reduced him to 35 percent breathing capacity, and yet he continues to live life with eyes and heart wide open. Don't miss this powerfully moving episode.

MUSIC:
Taps- Bugle Call: USMC Drum & Bugle Corps
Happy Birthday-Jazz Piano Arrangement by Jonny May
Chicago- Frank Sinatra 
Juke- Little Walter
Government Camp Song-Mary and Betty Campbell, Shafter FSA Camp, August 9, 1941
There's a Pawn Shop on The Corner -Guy Mitchell
PittsburghTown-Pete Seeger 
The Aquarium, Carnival of the Animals-Camille Saint-Saens
Calypso-John Denver
National Geographic 1964 - 1987 Full Theme

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It can sound hyperbolic to make the claim that a person has changed the world and made it a better place. In the case of Eli Newberger, it is utterly true.

Eli Newberger is equal parts music man and medicine man. He was the key prosecution witness in the trial of Louise Woodward, the British nanny convicted of second-degree murder in the death of an 8-month-old in Boston in1997. Later during the Archdiocese of Boston sex abuse scandal, he offered his expertise on the effects of abuse on children and their families. Eli Newberger's ground-breaking work resulted in the formation of the child-protection program at Boston Children’s Hospital, and he's the author of many publications including an important and accessible book on the development of character in boys called The Men They Will Become.

Before Eli became a doctor, he was a musician. And perhaps it's because of music, that he became a doctor...Hear his inspiring origin story about his mentorship with the late New York Philharmonic principal tuba William Bell; his professional career in music, including his long tenure as a founding member of the New Black Eagle Jazz Band, and work with pianists Butch Thompson and Bob Winter; and his inspiring and generous work developing an El Sistema music program in the Berkshires.  

MUSIC:

Carolina Shout: James P. Johnson, piano  
Cyrus the Great: US Air Force Band  
Overture to Candide: New York Philharmonic  
Yankee Doodle: Vivian Williams, Phil Williams, Howard Marshall, John Williams  
Franck: Symphony in D minor: Berlin Philharmonic  
Vaughan-Williams, Bass Tuba Concerto in F Minor: II. Romanza: Walter Hilgers  
I'm Just Wild About Harry: Butch Thompson, Eli Newberger, and Jimmy Mazzy 
Carnival of Venice Variations: Carol Jantsch  
Issa Keita, balafon (marimba) virtuoso, Bamako, Mali  
Bugle Boy March: New Black Eagle Jazz Band  
Arturo Márquez: Danzón Nº 2: Gustavo Dudamel at the Proms   

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