Neal Paul Hefti and The Odd Couple Theme

Neal Paul Hefti (October 29, 1922 – October 11, 2008) was an American jazz trumpeter, composer, and arranger, who wrote music for The Odd Couple movie and TV series and for the Batman TV series. Hefti was born October 29, 1922, to an impoverished family in Hastings, Nebraska, United States.  As a young child, he remembered his family relying on charity during the holidays. He started playing the trumpet in school at the age of eleven, and by high school was spending his summer vacations playing in local territory bands to help his family make ends meet.  Growing up in and near Omaha, Hefti was exposed to some of the great bands and trumpeters of the Southwest territory bands and some of the virtuoso jazz musicians from New York that came through Omaha on tour.  These included Count Basie, Harry Edison, Buck Clayton, Dizzy Gillespie, and Cab Calloway.  His early influences all came from the North Omaha scene.  These experiences seeing Gillespie and Basie play in Omaha foreshadowed his period in New York watching Gillespie play and develop the music of bebop on 52nd Street and his later involvement with Count Basie’s band.

     Heffti began arranging professionally in his teens.  In 1939, while still a junior at North High in Omaha, he got his start in the music industry by writing arrangements of vocal ballads for local bands, like the Nat Towles band. Harold Johnson recalled that Hefti’s first scores for that band were “Swingin’ On Lennox Avenue” and “More Than You Know,” as well as a very popular arrangement of “Anchors Aweigh.” Some material that he penned in high school also was used by the Earl Hines band. Two days before his high school graduation ceremony in 1941, he got an offer to go on tour with the Dick Barry band, so he traveled with them to New Jersey. He quickly was fired from the band after two gigs because he could not sight-read music well enough. Stranded in New Jersey because he did not have enough money to get home to Nebraska, he finally joined Bob Astor’s band. Shelly Manne, drummer with Bob Astor at the time, recalled that even then Hefti’s writing skills were quite impressive.

     Hefti would not focus on arranging seriously for a few more years. As a member of Astor’s band, he concentrated on playing trumpet.  After an injury forced him to leave Bob Astor, he stayed a while in New York. He played with Bobby Byrne in late 1942, then with Charlie Barnet for whom he wrote the classic arrangement of “Skyliner.” During his time in New York, he hung around the clubs on 52nd Street, listening to bebop trumpet master Dizzy Gillespie and other musicians, and immersing himself in the new music. Since he didn’t have the money to actually go into the clubs, he would sneak into the kitchen and hang out with the bands, and he got to know many of the great beboppers.  He finally left New York for a while to play with the Les Lieber rhumba band in Cuba. When he returned from Cuba in 1943, he joined the Charlie Spivak band, which led him out to California for the first time, to make a band picture. Hefti fell in love with California. After making the picture in Los Angeles, he dropped out of the Spivak band to stay in California.

     After playing with Horace Heidt in Los Angeles for a few months in 1944, Hefti met up with Woody Herman who was out in California making a band picture. Hefti then joined Herman’s progressive First Herd band as a trumpeter. The Herman band was different from any band that he had played with before. He referred to it as his first experience with a real jazz band.   Even though he had been playing with swing bands and other popular music bands for five years, this was the first time he had been immersed in the music of Duke Ellington, and this was the first music that really felt like jazz to him.  First Herd was one of the first big bands to really embrace bebop. They incorporated the use of many bebop ideas in their music. As part of the ensemble, Hefti was instrumental in this development, drawing from his experiences in New York and his respect for Gillespie, who had his own bebop big band.  He composed and arranged while working as a trumpeter for Woody Herman.

     During these years with Herman’s band, as they started to turn more and more towards bop ideas, Hefti started to turn more of his attention and effort to writing, at which he quickly excelled. He composed and arranged some of First Herd’s most popular recordings, including two of the band’s finest instrumentals: “Wild Root” and “The Good Earth.”  He contributed to the band a refinement of bop trumpet style that reflected his experience with Byrne, Barnet, and Spivak, as well as an unusually imaginative mind, essentially restless on the trumpet, but beautifully grounded on manuscript paper.  He also wrote band favorites such as “Apple Honey” and “Blowin’ Up a Storm.” His first hand experience in New York, hanging around 52nd Street and listening to the great Dizzy Gillespie, became an important resource to the whole band. His bebop composition work also started to attract outside attention from other composers, including the interest of neo-classicist Igor Stravinsky, who later wrote “Ebony Concerto” for the band. What first attracted Stravinsky to Herman was the five trumpet unison on “Caldonia,” which mirrored the new music of Gillespie

     Hefti’s work successfully drew from many sources. As composer, arranger, and as a crucial part of the Herman ensemble, he provided the Herman band with a solid base which led to their popularity and mastery of the big band bebop style. While playing with the First Herd, Neal married Herman’s vocalist, Frances Wayne. Playing with the band was very enjoyable for Hefti, which made it doubly hard for him to leave when he wanted to pursue arranging and composing full-time. The Heftis finally left Woody Herman’s band in late 1946, and Neal began freelance arranging. He wrote charts for Buddy Rich’s band, and the ill-fated Billy Butterfield band. He wrote a few arrangements and compositions for George Auld’s band, including the composition “Mo Mo.” He joined the short-lived Charlie Ventura band as both sideman and arranger (arranging popular songs such as “How High the Moon”). He also arranged for Harry James’s bands in the late 1940s. Hefti occasionally led his own bands.

     One of the serendipitous highlights of Hefti’s work in the late 1940s was the recording of his Cuban-influenced song “Repetition” using a big band and string orchestra, for an anthology collection called The Jazz Scene intended to showcase the best jazz artists around at that time. Hefti had written the piece with no soloist in mind, but Charlie Parker was in the studio while Hefti was recording, heard the arrangement, and asked to be included as soloist.   Now concentrating on writing music only, he began an association with Count Basie in 1950 to arrange for what became known as “The New Testament” band.  According to Hefti in a Billboard interview, Basie wanted to develop a stage band that could appear on The Ed Sullivan Show. Although the New Testament band was never a show band, it was much more of an ensemble band than Basie’s previous orchestras. Hefti’s tight, well-crafted arrangements, like “Little Pony,” “Sure Thing,” “Why Not?” and “Fawncy Meeting You,” resulted in a new band identity that was maintained for more than twenty years.

     Hefti’s compositions and arrangements featured and recorded by the orchestra established the distinctive, tighter, modern sound of the later Basie.  His work was welcomed by both the band and with audiences. Basie said: “There is something of his on each one of those first albums of that new band.”  What has become known as The Atomic Mr. Basie was one of the Basie Orchestra’s most successful recordings of the 1950s. Formally titled Basie and subtitled “E=MC²=Count Basie Orchestra+Neal Hefti Arrangements,” the album features eleven songs composed and arranged by Hefti, including the ballad “Li’l Darlin” and “Splanky,” now standards.  Also on the album were “The Kid from Red Bank” featuring a gloriously sparse piano solo that was Basie’s hallmark, and other songs that quickly became Basie favorites, such as “Flight of the Foo Birds” with Eddie Lockjaw Davis’ flying tenor solo[citation, “Fantail” with Frank Wess’s soaring alto solo, and the masterpiece ensemble lines of “Teddy the Toad.” These pieces are evidence of both Hefti’s masterful hand], and the strong ensemble that Count Basie had put together.

     During the 1950s, Hefti did not get as much respect as a musician and band leader as he did as composer and arranger.  Much the same way that Duke Ellington matched his scores to the unique abilities of his performers, Hefti was able to take advantage of the same kind of ‘fine-tuning’ to bring out the best of the talents of the Basie band. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that when the same charts are played by a different band, even the composer’s own, that the result is not as strong.  As composer, Hefti garnered many accolades.  Hefti won two Grammy awards for his composition work on Atomic Basie including “Li’l Darlin,” “Splanky,” and “Teddy the Toad.” The reception this album gained had Basie and Hefti in the studio six months later making another album under the title of “Basie Plays Hefti”. Hefti’s influence on the Basie sound and his writing for the band was strong enough for Basie to use his talent for arranging even when recording standard jazz tunes with the likes of Frank Sinatra.  Overall, Basie was very impressed with Hefti’s charts, but was perhaps too proud to admit the extent of his influence.

     Outside of his work for Basie, Hefti led a big band of his own during the 1950s. In 1951, one of these bands featured his wife Frances Wayne on vocals. They recorded and toured off and on with this and other incarnations of this band throughout the 1950s. Although his own band did not attain the same level of success as the bands he arranged for, he did receive a Grammy nomination for his own album Jazz Pops (1962), which included recordings of “Li’l Darlin,” “Cute,” and “Coral Reef.”  Later in the 1950s he abandoned trumpet playing altogether to concentrate on scoring and conducting. He had steady work conducting big bands, backing singers in the studio during recording sessions, and appearing on the television shows of Arthur Godfrey, Kate Smith, and others. He worked with Della Reese to adapt and arrange 12 songs for her 1960 album Della, which was nominated for a Grammy Award. In 1961, Hefti joined with Frank Sinatra on his Sinatra and Swingin’ Brass album, where Hefti was credited as arranger and conductor of the album’s 12 cuts.  Also in 1961, Hefti composed a big band arrangement of Sir Edward Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance for Don Everly, who released it under the pseudonym Adrian Kimberly on The Everly Brothers’ Calliope Records label.

     Hefti moved back to California in the early 1960s. During this time, he began working for the Hollywood film industry and he enjoyed tremendous popular success writing music for film and television. He wrote much background and theme music for motion pictures, including the films Sex and the Single Girl, How to Murder Your Wife (1965), Synanon, Boeing Boeing (1965), Lord Love a Duck (1966), Duel at Diablo (1966), Barefoot in the Park (1967), The Odd Couple (1968), and Harlow (1965), for which he received two Grammy nominations for the song “Girl Talk.”  While most of his compositions during this period were geared to the demands of the medium and the directors, there were many moments when he was able to infuse his work with echoes of his jazz heritage.  He also wrote background and theme music for television shows, including Batman and The Odd Couple.  He received three Grammy nominations for his television work and received one award for his Batman television score. His Batman title theme, a simple cyclic twelve-bar blues-based theme, became a Top 10 single for The Marketts and later for Hefti himself.  His theme for The Odd Couple movie was reprised as part of his score for the television series of the early 1970s, as well as in a more R&B urban style for the 1982 updated version, and a jazzier version for the 2015 updated version. He received two Grammy nominations for his work on The Odd Couple television series.  Following his wife’s death in 1978, Hefti gradually withdrew from active music making. In later years, he concentrated on “taking care of my copyrights.”  He was added to the Jazz Wall of Fame in 2005.  Hefti died of natural causes on October 11, 2008, at his home in Toluca Lake, California, at the age of 85.  Neal Hefti was survived by his son; his daughter Marguerita, a physician, predeceased him.

       My CD collection includes the following work by Neal Paul Hefti:    

            The Odd Couple (1968): Theme.

Number 18 School in Marshall, Marshall, VS

OLD SCHOOL OF THE DAY

Number 18 School in Marshall

7592 East Main Street

Marshall, VA 20115

Number 18 School, a little, wooden, public schoolhouse, is the only unaltered one-room schoolhouse surviving in Fauquier County, VA. Built in 1887 on a one-acre parcel of land, which had once belonged to the estate of Civil War General Eppa Hunton, donated by Samuel Fisher Shakelford, the school was operated for white children until a new school was built at Marshall in 1907 as part of the move towards consolidation.  Typical of one-room schoolhouses, children of all ages shared lessons in the single space. Enrollment varied between 10-60 students per school year.

     From 1907 on, No. 18 served the town’s African-American community until closing its doors in 1964.  It served as one of 31 elementary schools for African American children, and was the last African American elementary school in Fauquier County to close in 1964. Only seven of the 31 one-room buildings were left in 1964. Most likely one of the few schools of this age and size left in the state, the Number 18 School illustrates the concept of free public education introduced during the Reconstruction Era. The building is undergoing restoration spearheaded by the Fauquier Heritage Society.

Bob Harris and the Theme from Lolita

J. Robert “Bob” Harris (September 27, 1925 – February 13, 2000) was an American composer, notably of the much covered 1967 Spider-Man television cartoon show series classic theme song “Spider-Man” with Paul Francis Webster and is also credited with writing the theme for the film Lolita in 1962.  Harris was born on September 27, 1925, in New York City, NY. His brother is the director, producer, and screenwriter James B. Harris.  Lolita is a 1962 psychological comedy-drama film directed by Stanley Kubrick and based on the 1955 novel of the same title by Vladimir Nabokov, who is also credited with writing the screenplay. The film follows Humbert Humbert, a middle-aged literature lecturer who becomes sexually infatuated with Dolores Haze (nicknamed “Lolita”), a young adolescent girl. It stars James Mason, Shelley Winters, Peter Sellers and, as the titular character, Sue Lyon.

     The music for the film was composed by Nelson Riddle, but the main theme song was by Bob Harris. This recurring dance number first heard on the radio when Humbert meets Lolita in the garden later became a hit single under the name “Lolita Ya Ya” with Sue Lyon credited with the singing on the single version. The flip side was a 60s-style light rock song called “Turn off the Moon” also sung by Sue Lyon. “Lolita Ya Ya” was later recorded by other bands; it was also a hit single for The Ventures, reaching 61 on the Billboard Hot 100. A review in Billboard stated, “There’ve been a number of versions of the title tune from the hit film Lolita but this figures the strongest to date. The usual Ventures guitar sound is neatly augmented with voices.”  Harris  died in Westbury, New York, on February 13, 2000, at the age of 74.  His music was also used in the films Spider-Man (2002), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014).

     The following work by Bob Harris is contained in my CD collection:

            Lolita (1962): Lolita Ya Ya (Theme). 

Fletcher One Room Schoolhouse, Fletcher, VT

OLD SCHOOL OF THE DAY

Fletcher One Room Schoolhouse

84 North Road

Fletcher, VT 05444

The 1849 one room schoolhouse in the town of Fletcher, VT, is a piece of Fletcher’s history. Owned by one family since 1964, it was converted to a seasonal retreat by the current owners that has been loved and enjoyed by multiple generations for almost 60 years, and the property has been for sale only two times in 171 years. The private .25 acre lot is located on a quiet country road.

     There are two bedrooms/sleeping areas and a ¾ bath. It has a sunny open floor plan with 10+ foot ceilings. The kitchen, dining and living areas are one large open great room with a wall of schoolhouse windows. The back side of the lot is surrounded by maple trees, and three apple trees line the front yard. There is a large side yard, and a new roof was put on in the summer of 2021. It has woodstove heat, and there is a woodshed.

Pete Moore and “Asteroid” (Pearl & Deane Theme)

Peter “Pete” Moore (August 20, 1924 – December 1, 2013) was a British composer, conductor, and arranger for a string of famous artistes from the 1950s onwards, with a career spanning six decades, whose music was and is known to millions the world over, but his name is less familiar to the average person.  Born on August 20, 1924, in Essex, England, Moore studied composition and arranging privately for approximately ten years with three teachers. These were Alfred Nieman, who was on the staff at the Guildhall School of Music, London, Henry Geehl, and a certain “Dr. Cook” who was probably another staff member at one of the London music colleges.

     Beginning in 1958, Moore worked at providing orchestrations and accompaniments for such greats as Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Peggy Lee, Frankie Laine, Connie Francis, Peter Sellers, Ella Fitzgerald, Julie Andrews, Rosemary Clooney, Slim Whitman, and Randy Crawford – to name but a few amongst others, on all manner of broadcasts and recordings. He frequently collaborated with record producer Ken Barnes. As a composer, he wrote themes for many TV commercials, including such famous brands as Coca-Cola and Lux Toilet Soap, in addition to numerous songs recorded by such artists as Crosby, Lee, Laine, and Astaire. However, it is his composition “Asteroid” – the famous theme for Pearl and Dean’s cinema advertisements, composed in 1968  – that remains his most familiar and most successful composition. Apart from being heard every day on cinema screens in the UK, it is constantly featured around the world in commercials and documentaries. For many people, the very sound of its “pa-papa-pa” fanfare spells “cinema,” It has also been “sampled” by modern-day pop artists and enjoyed chart success on more than one occasion. Pearl and Dean’s signature tune is one of the most famous tracks played in British movie houses. 

     The Pearl and Dean anthem “Asteroid” is just 28 seconds long. The original screen titles featured graphics intended to emulate advertising panels flashing past as if the viewer was being sucked into the very screen. By the early 1990s, commercials and trailers were given the full stereo treatment, but the original “Asteroid” was only ever produced purely as a mono track. Remarkably, not only was the original composer/producer tracked down, but Moore was also able to locate two of the three original male singers who could still replicate their vocal parts three decades later.  In 1995, Goldbug, fronted by ex-Beatmasters man, Richard Walmsley, sampled the Pearl and Dean anthem recorded at the Abbey Road Studios by Moore and a 30-piece orchestra.

     But that is only a small portion of Moore’s career.  His orchestrations can be found in the repertoires of such world famous musical units as the London Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Pops, and the Rochester Symphony Orchestra – in addition to writing scores for such luminaries as Burt Bacharach, Marvin Hamlisch, and Liberace.  In retirement, Moore would travel by motorcycle from his home in Ealing to Waterloo each Saturday to assist in directing the famous Morley College Jazz Orchestra. He would bring his own handwritten transcriptions of modern big band repertoire, most often by Rob McConnell. A quiet, soft-spoken and unassuming man, cockney-raised and academy-trained, Pete Moore usually declined to do interviews because he was always ‘too busy.’ In fact, it would seem that he never actively sought work, it just came to him, which is why he was often referred to as ‘The Invisible Genius.’ As a person and as a musician, he was liked and admired by everyone who knew him. While he may not be a household name, Pete Moore’s music remains alive and well, as it has for the past half-century.  Pete Moore died in London, England, on December 1, 2013, aged 89.

       My CD collection includes the following work by Pete Moore:

            Asteroid (1968): Pearl and Dean Theme.       

Panton Schoolhouse, Panton Town Highway Department, Panton, VT

OLD SCHOOL OF THE DAY

Panton Schoolhouse

Panton Town Highway Department

2163 Panton Rd.

Panton, VT 05491

Can you spot a one-room schoolhouse as you’re driving by?  The ca. 1895 school in Panton, Vermont, sits next to the town garage and serves as town storage. It appears as though it was the former home of the town offices, and the town bulletin board is still in use on the wing of the rear addition. Current fliers are posted there.  These one-room schoolhouses were called “District Schools” because each town was divided into districts and each district had its own school. This was before the days of school consolidation. 

      There is a bank of 6 windows on this school.  Unlike most schoolhouses, this one has windows on both sides. Perhaps they were added when the building was no longer a schoolhouse.  A view into the schoolhouse shows storage and original features such as doors and beadboard.  Peering into the back windows, one can see town highway department storage. The rear addition was added after the original construction date.  While this schoolhouse is sort of in use, there is so much more potential to it.  It’s a common case for these schoolhouses, even though one room schoolhouses would be fairly easy to rehabilitate to modern uses.

Arno Babadzhanian and his Heroic Ballade

Arno Harutyunovich Babadzhanian or Babajanian (January 22, 1921 – November 11, 1983) was a Soviet Armenian composer and pianist who was made a People’s Artist of the U.S.S.R. in 1971.  Babajanian was born in Yerevan, Armenia, then part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, on January 22, 1921. By the age 5, his musical talent was apparent, and the composer Aram Khachaturian suggested that the boy be given proper music training. Two years later, in 1928, Babajanian entered the Komitas State Conservatory of Yerevan. In 1938, he continued his studies in Moscow with Vissarion Shebalin.

     Babajanian later returned to Yerevan, where from 1950 to 1956 he taught at the conservatory. In 1952, he wrote the Piano Trio in F-sharp minor. It received immediate acclaim and was regarded as a masterpiece from the time of its premiere. Subsequently, he undertook concert tours throughout the Soviet Union and Europe. In 1971, he was named a People’s Artist of the U.S.S.R.  His compositions include piano works, chamber works, orchestral works, concertos, ballet pieces, film scores, and songs (over 200 in total).

     Babajanian wrote in various musical genres, including many popular songs in collaboration with leading poets such as Yevgeny Yevtushenko and Robert Rozhdestvensky. Much of his music is rooted in Armenian folk music and folklore, which he generally uses in the virtuosic style of Rachmaninoff and Khachaturian. His later works were influenced by Prokofiev and Bartók. Praised by Dmitri Shostakovich as a “brilliant piano teacher,” Babajanian was also a noted pianist and often performed his own works in concerts.  He died on November 11, 1983 (aged 62), at Yerevan, Armenian S.S.R., Soviet Union.

     The following works by Arno Babadzhanian are contained in my CD collection:

            Heroic Ballade. 

            Nocturne. 

Notre Dame Academy and High School, Hamilton, OH

OLD SCHOOL OF THE DAY

Notre Dame Academy and High School

926 2nd St.

Hamilton, OH

Notre Dame High School opened up in the late 19th century on South Second Street across from St. Joseph’s Church in Hamilton, Ohio. In 1924 due to increasing enrollment, the school built a new building that replaced two previous buildings on the same site.  The school served as a Catholic high school for young ladies until 1966. The school’s students were transferred to the newly opened Father Stephen T. Badin High School. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places February 2, 2001in 2001. It has since been refurbished and is currently a senior citizens apartment complex.

Loris Tjeknavorian and his Piano Concerto Op. 4.

      

Loris Haykasi Tjeknavorian (born October 13, 1937) is an Iranian Armenian composer and conductor, who has appeared internationally as a conductor, serving as the principal conductor of the Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra from 1989 to 1998 and later from 1999 to 2000, and as a composer has written 6 operas, 5 symphonies, choral works, chamber music, ballet music, piano and vocal works, concerti for piano, violin, guitar, cello and pipa, as well as music for documentary and feature films. Tjeknavorian was born on October 13, 1937, in Borujerd, Iran, to immigrant Armenian parents.  His father came from Eastern Armenia and his mother had fled from Western Armenia during the 1915 Armenian genocide.  Influenced by three cultures, Armenian, Iranian and Western, he benefited from a cosmopolitan upbringing. His grandfather, a doctor, liked to play the violin, and as a boy Loris enjoyed listening to professional string-players (Russian, Armenian or Polish immigrants) in local cafés. Although not themselves musical, his parents wanted all three children (one boy, two girls) to play musical instruments.      

     Eight-year-old Loris was given a violin. Despite the lack of a teacher, the boy began to study in earnest; before long he had composed a number of piano pieces, with no formal instruction whatsoever. At 16 he formed a four-part choir and organized and conducted his own orchestra in Teheran. A year later he was ready to leave for the Vienna Academy of Music as a violin and composition student. While there, he wrote a violin concerto, which received the ultimate endorsement from his teacher, Hans-Joachim Drevo, who was the soloist in the work’s première. Tjeknavorian graduated with honors.  Shortly after his graduation, the Austrian music publisher Doblinger published four of his piano compositions as well as his Ballet Fantastique for three pianos, celeste and percussion in Vienna.  Following this fruitful period of education, Tjeknavorian went back to Iran in 1961, where he taught music theory at the Tehran Conservatory of Music. At the same time, he was appointed director of Tehran’s Music Archives and put in charge of collecting and researching traditional and modern Iranian folk music and instruments. He mounted the first Archives exhibition to great success, and began work on an opera based on the epic poem of Rostam and Sohrab.

Tjeknavorian returned to Austria in 1963 to further his studies in Salzburg at the Mozarteum. There, he met the renowned composer Carl Orff, who was to become the young musician’s mentor and enthusiastic supporter. On hearing Tjeknavorian play sections of his opera Rostam and Sohrab, Orff offered him a full one-year scholarship to stay in Salzburg to complete the first draft of the opera. In addition, Orff commissioned Tjeknavorian to compose piano music based on Armenian music for the Schulwerk, Orff’s system for teaching music. Tjeknavorian composed over 130 short pieces for beginning to advanced students. These are collected in two volumes called Kaleidoscope for Piano, portions of which were also published by Schott as Bilder Aus Armenia (Pictures from Armenia).  Tjeknavorian moved to the United States in 1965, where he began to study conducting at the University of Michigan. From 1966 to 1967 he was appointed composer-in-residence at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, and from 1966 to 1970 head of the instrumental and opera departments at Moorhead University in Minnesota.

     In 1970, the Cultural Ministry of Iran offered Tjeknavorian the positions of composer-in-residence and principal conductor at the Rudaki Opera House in Tehran. While there he conducted a number of major operas, including his own Pardis and Parisa.  Tjeknavorian’s extensive study of the technical aspects of traditional Iranian instruments culminated with the composition of the dance-drama Simorgh, the first polyphonic composition scored entirely for Iranian instruments and based on themes from Zoroastrian myth and Persian mystical poetry. Following sold-out performances of the ballet in Tehran, the suite from Simorgh was recorded and released as an LP in London by Unicorn in 1975 to great critical acclaim. Writing about his unique compositional style, Gramophone praised the piece as “strangely beautiful.”

     In Tehran Tjeknavorian’s talents found huge demand, and he soon became the leading composer of film music in Iran, scoring some 30 scores for documentaries and short and popular feature films, many of them classics of pre-revolutionary Iranian cinema. Among them was the award-winning film Bita, starring Iranian singing and acting legend Googoosh, released in 1972. That same year Tjeknavorian received the Homayoun Order and Medal for Persepolis, his score for the spectacular Son et Lumiere show at the ancient Persian capital. The audience consisted of dignitaries and heads of state from around the world that had gathered in Iran for the 2500th anniversary of the Persian Empire. The show was a highlight of the unprecedented event, and was followed by the release of the score by Philipps.

     In 1975 Tjeknavorian relocated to London where he signed an exclusive conducting contract with the RCA recording company.   His groundbreaking First Symphony (Requiem for the Massacred) scored for trumpet and percussion was released in London by Unicorn in 1976. In 1978 Tjeknavorian organized Music Armenia, described in Gramophone as “the first Armenian Festival on foreign soil.”  Taking some of the medieval chants he had rediscovered, Tjeknavorian composed the vocal work Life of Christ, first performed during the Festival at the Queen Elizabeth Hall by the Ambrosian Singers. Many of Tjeknavorian’s most important compositions were written in this fruitful and personally difficult ten-year period culminating with, and immediately following, the Iranian Revolution in 1979. Foremost among his works during this time are his Second Symphony (Credo) and the oratorio The Book of Revelations, the second and third parts respectively of his trilogy on the Armenian genocide begun with the first symphony.   Another key work towards the end of this period was his ballet Othello, commissioned by the Northern Ballet Company and premiered in London in 1985 with Princess Ann in attendance.      

     Soon after settling in New York City in 1986, Tjeknavorian’s destiny was diverted by the devastating Armenian earthquake of December 1988. In response, Tjeknavorian organized a benefit concert at Carnegie Hall to raise relief funds for the victims. Ticket sales for the event raised $500,000 that was sent to Armenia, where Tjeknavorian relocated a few months later, having been appointed Principal Conductor and Artistic Director of the Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra (APO) in Yerevan.  Tjeknavorian was also instrumental in the 1991 campaign for Armenian independence. Through his tours in various Armenian cities and an all-night televised performance on national television two days before the measure passed on September 21, 1991, Tjeknavorian managed to increase the “Yes” vote for independence from 30 to 96 per cent.  Following independence, Tjeknavorian served on the committee to reinstate the pre-communist Armenian flag and the national coat-of-arms. He was especially influential in the adoption of the national anthem, “Mer Hayrenik” (Our Fatherland), for which he rewrote the words for the first stanza.

     During his eleven-year collaboration with the APO, his recordings with the orchestra for ORF (the Austrian radio and television station) and ASV (an English recording company) achieved worldwide recognition; they frequently toured Europe, the United States, Canada, Iran and Lebanon. For three successive years, from 1991 to 1993, the APO was the resident orchestra in the ORF benefit program Licht Ins Dunkel in Vienna.  In 2000, Tjeknavorian resigned from the APO in order to devote more time to composing. During this period he also conducted the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, and performed at the San Francisco Opera House, the Contemporary Music Festival and at the Vienna Music Festival in Hong Kong and Bangkok. He conducted the Austrian premiere of his opera Rostam and Sohrab at the Festspielhaus in St. Pölten. On December 20, 2008, Tjeknavorian recorded Hafez Nazeri’s The night of Angel (yet to be released) with the London Symphony orchestra.[

     From 2009 to the present, Tjeknavorian has continued to devote his time to composing, as well as painting and writing short stories. Among his most recent works are the operas Zahak (libretto based on Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh) and Mowlana and Shams-e Tabriz (libretto based on the poetry of Rumi), as well as the chamber opera “The Final Hour of Sadegh Hedayat” (libretto based on “The Blind Owl” and other works by the Iranian writer Sadegh Hedayat). Other works include his second concerto for violin and chamber orchestra, a work for solo piano titled “1915”, and two major symphonic suites: King Cyrus, about the ancient Persian king, and Takhti, dedicated to the celebrated Iranian wrestler. Tjeknavorian’s paintings were exhibited at the Gallery Shirin in Tehran, Gallery Maryam Seyhoun in Los Angeles, and twice at the House of the Artists in Tehran. His series of short stories, written in English, will be published in the near future.

     Tjeknavorian’s recent performances include benefit concerts in Tehran and Los Angeles for the organization MAHAK on behalf of children with cancer, a series of concerts with the Armenian Chamber Orchestra at the Talar Vahdat Hall in Tehran, a performance of his Ararat Suite with the Sacramento Symphony, and the world premiere of his King Cyrus symphonic suite with the San Francisco Philharmonic Orchestra in August 2013. In 2011 the Iranian BARBAD recording company issued a 20-CD box set of Tjerknavorian’s major works (symphonies, choral works, ballet, chamber music, operas, etc.) plus 2 DVDs of his opera Rostam and Sohrab.  He has made some 100 recordings with RCA, Philips, EMI, ASV, and others.  Among his best known works are the opera Rostam and Sohrab, based on the story of Rostam and Sohrab from Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh, and the ballet Simorgh.  His early compositions evoke the work of Aram Khachaturian, while his oeuvre as a whole is heavily influenced by Armenian folk and sacred music.

       My CD collection includes the following work by Loris Tjeknavorian:    

            Piano Concerto Op. 4. 

District School No. 1 (Panton, Vermont), Panton, VT

OLD SCHOOL OF THE DAY

District School No. 1 (Panton, Vermont)

Lake and Spaulding Rds.

Panton, Vermont  05491

The District School No. 1 is a historic one-room schoolhouse on Lake Road in Panton, Addison County, Vermont. Built about 1818, the year the town divided its territory into four school districts, the stone building is one of Vermont’s oldest district schoolhouses. This school and the other district schools were built out of limestone quarried from outcrops found on the west side of Dead Creek. Panton’s former district 1 schoolhouse stands at the junction of Lake and Spaulding Roads in the rural western portion of the town. It is a single-story structure, built out of locally quarried limestone. It measures 25 by 31 feet, and is covered by a gabled roof.

     The window bays have tooled white marble sills and lintels, which contrast with the roughly finished gray stone walls. Triangular marble stones are also set at the peak of each gable. The interior of the building is a large single chamber. The school saw regular use into the first quarter of the 20th century, and was sold in 1932 to a local farmer. He converted it into a chicken coop.    It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. At the time of its listing on the National Register in 1980, it was vacant and in dilapidated condition, having been much altered due to its 20th-century use as a chicken coop.