Cogito ergo blog

Cogito ergo blog – or – when one’s paterfamilias is in peril one tends to ponder … In 1906, my grandfather was at a conference for missionaries in Shanghai (I have his notebook with expenses), a Pacific Rim sister city to Dunedin, my new home. In 1912 (my parents were 2-year-olds) Fenway Park was built … so, drinking Thai beer out of a souvenir Fenway 2012 mug starts to stir the memory banks of life. How did I get to New Zealand from Watertown, NY? In my first year at Crane School of Music, SUNY Potsdam I was apportioned to a sabbatical replacement teacher, Irene Rosenberg Grau. One of the first triggers for these reminiscences is her departure from this world on May 12th, last month. [GRAU--Dr. Irene Rosenberg, died in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida at 85. A renowned pianist, composer, music professor, and Brooklyn native, she inspired appreciation for artistic expression as the highest form of human endeavour.] Irene was from the big world of music. A student of the venerable Vengerova in New York (with whom she had a famous falling out), Irene was a wunderkind and attended the first Marlboro festival as a student of Serkin with her sister, Sylvia Rosenberg, violinist. (The Marlboro Festival, founded in1951 and the Aspen Festival, 1949, roughly celebrated the centenary of Bach’s death (1750) and Goethe’s birth, 1749.) [Irene pegged it for me, saying to my parents, “I doubt that he would have a career as a solo pianist, but he might be have possibilities as an accompanist”.] Van Cliburn’s passing, visits to NZ at the end of last year by Eastman/Interlochen friends and now Ida Kavafian coming to eNZed and Dunedin trigger even more of the past. Irene had opened my eyes a bit, inspiring me to transfer to the Eastman School of Music. Eugene List, my new teacher there, suggested that I come study in the summer with him at Interlochen. That summer introduced me to the gamut of the wide world of music: phenoms from New York who could play already (David Oei, Alan Marks, Pamelia Paul), the wise elder (Joseph Knitzer, violinist), the sage visiting composer (Zoltan Kodaly), a man in a white suite dashing down the aisle to acclaim (composer Norman Della Joio) and the musical hero of the Cold War, pianist Van Cliburn. (My friend Cary Lewis ‘prepared’ the orchestra for Van by playing the Prokofiev 3rd Concerto. My bit was doing the same with the Brahms D minor.) It was my first brush with such celebrity too, shaking hands with the legend (who thanked me for helping him out … !) The last of this gamut, the wunderkind of the next generation, were the young Kavafians. Eugene List’s wife, violinist Carroll Glenn taught Ida and Ani just across form Eugene’s studio! Oh yes, the paterfamilias, Prof/Dr. GB Petersen, (my father-in-law) just had open heart surgery … so far, all is well. He survived the surgery and continues to gather strength. I wish the same for you – to gather strength (and possibly wisdom), to survive and thrive.