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Cellist and
composer raised in Chicago who started playing the
church organ professionally when he was only thirteen years old and studied
piano in high school until the conductor of the school orchestra encouraged
him to take a crack at the cello.
Before long, he was playing cello in the orchestra and was not long
out of high school when he was doing the same for the Indianapolis Symphony
Orchestra. He went on to
perform with the Cleveland Orchestra, The Philadelphia Orchestra, and the
San Francisco Symphony Orchestra.
While living
in Chicago, he helped found the New Music Quartet; Later, in New York City,
he was a founder member of Columbia University’s Composer’s
Quartet, dedicated to bringing to light contemporary American compositions,
and New York Pro Musica, intended to revive the
music of the Baroque Era and Renaissance.
He is also a
teacher, and has molded young minds at Black Mountain College, New England
Conservatory of Music and Rutgers University.
A WWII
veteran, he honed his compositional skills in Paris, where he wrote more
than 200 songs.
His
songwriting acumen was a perfect fit for the stage, and he drifted toward
musical theatre and opera. The
Central Opera Service said his operas were performed more than any other
composer’s in the 1988-1989 season. He made history when Little Red Riding Hood became the
first opera by an American composer to be produced in post-isolationist
China. Philip Marshall, an opera about the U.S. Civil War, received a
Pulitzer Prize nomination.
His works have
been presented at Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center, including The Toy Shop and excerpts from The Pied Piper of Hamlin,
concomitant with Seymour receiving the National Opera Asscociation’s
Lifetime Achievement Award.
One of his
most recent projects was Cosmos
Cantata, a work commissioned by the Manhattan Chamber Orchestra, with
words by none other than Kurt Vonnegut. A CD is available on the Helicon
label. For more on this
multi-talented artist, please peruse the site below, from which this
information was culled.
Sources:
- http://www.seymourbarab.com/
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