Word: ethan
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...ETHAN FROME...
...Douglas Allanbrook '48 played the piano reduction of his Ethan Frome for Aaron Copland, who tentatively promised to give the opera a New York premiere after requesting a second play-through. Soon after, however, Copeland finished his own Tender Land, which he produced instead. "Immensely proud" and wanting "the Met or nothing," Allanbrook shelved the score and moved onto other projects, not wanting to waste time selling the piece when he could be writing others. So, for nearly 50 years following its composition, the opera lay unproduced and unpremiered while Allanbrook wrote other pieces and carried on his busy life...
John Allanbrook first heard Ethan Frome fragmentally on a demo tape his father had recorded in the '50s. After hearing the tape and reading the score, Allanbrook Jr. became convinced, that "it was a good piece and meant to be preformed." Ethan Frome is hardly a simple musical undertaking, demanding not only a well-appointed string section, but also a full brass section, concert bassoon, bass clarinet. English horn and piccolo. After informing his father of his production plans, Allanbrook Jr. spent 12-hour days throughout the summer entering the score into the computer program Finale in order to produce...
...paying the orchestra members for their time, creating a new standard in the Harvard pits which is usually staffed by under-rehearsed, if generous, volunteers. Likening parts to "the romantic climaxes of West Side Story" and others to "Jaws 20 years before its time," Allanbrook Jr. emphasizes Ethan Frome's unique ability to "bring down the idea that opera is a rarified musical form" because it is "accessible and unified--as music and theater should be when put together...
...CORN IS GREEN, Produced by Ethan Katz '00 Oct. 22 - 31 Aggasiz Theater...