Alan Shulman

Alan Shulman (born June 4, 1915 in Baltimore , † July 10, 2002 in Hudson , New York ) was an American composer and cellist.

Shuman had cello lessons since childhood and performed as a piano trio with his siblings Violet (piano) and Sylvan Shulman (violin) at the age of ten . At the Peabody Conservatory he took lessons from Bart Wirtz (cello) and Louis Cheslock (harmony). When the family moved to Brooklyn in 1928, he became a member of the National Orchestral Association under Leon Barzin and took lessons from Joseph Emonts (piano) and Winthrop Sargent (harmony). From 1932 to 1937 he studied cello with Felix Salmond and composition with Bernard Wagenaar at the Juilliard School .

From 1937 to 1954 he was, with an interruption from 1942 to 1948, during which he a. a. served in the American Navy, member of the NBC Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Arturo Toscanini . During this time he completed his training with Emanuel Feuermann (1939) and Paul Hindemith (1942). As a chamber musician, he played in the Kreiner String Quartet from 1935 to 1938 and founded the Stuyvesant String Quartet with his brother Sylvan , with which he mainly performed works by contemporary composers in the 1940s and 1950s (including Dmitri Shostakovich's piano quintet in Carnegie Hall ). He also wrote arrangements for Leo Reisman , Andre Kostalanetz , Arthur Fiedler and Wilfred Pelletier and gave Nelson Riddle lessons in orchestration during his naval service .

Shulman had his first success as a composer with the Theme and Variations for viola and orchestra, which premiered on NBC in 1941 with the soloist Emanuel Vardi . The work was later u. a. Recorded by Yizhak Schotten , Cathy Basrak , Joseph DePasquale and Robert Glazer . His Suite on American Folk Songs was premiered at Carnegie Hall in 1944 by Eudice Shapiro and Vivian Rivkin . His brother Sylvan played the world premiere of his Pastorale and Dance at ABC in 1944 , which Oscar Shumsky performed with the Baltimore Symphony in 1947 .

For Benny Goodman he composed Shulman's Rendezvous , which was later recorded by Artie Shaw and Richard Stoltzman . His cello concerto was premiered in 1950 by Leonard Rose and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra under Dimitri Mitropoulos . The world premiere of his Laurentian Overture , dedicated to Tallulah Bankhead , took place in 1952 at Carnegie Hall under the direction of Guido Cantelli . In addition, Shulman composed songs with entertainer Steve Allen in the 1950s and wrote arrangements for Skitch Henderson , Raoul Poliakin and Felix Slatkin . In the 1960s and 1970s he made numerous radio and recordings, composed teaching materials, worked with bands such as 3 Faces of Glen Cove , Interstate 90 , The Corn Shuckers and Mazatlan and wrote the arrangements for the debut album of the singer-songwriter Cris Williamson .

From 1962 to 1969 he was a member of the Philharmonia Trio and from 1972 to 1982 of the Haydn Quartet . As a cello teacher Shulman u. a. at Sarah Lawrence College , Juilliard School , Johnson State College, and the University of Maine . In 1987 he withdrew for health reasons. The Indiana University honored him in 1997 as a Chevalier du Violoncelle .

Since 1946 Shulman was married to the pianist Sophie Pratt Bostelmann . His son Jay Shulman is a cellist, his son Marc Shulman a guitarist and his daughter Laurie Shulman a musicologist.

literature

• Paula Mary Krupiczewicz: A Historical and Pedagogical Guide to Alan Shulman's Theme and Variations (1940) for Viola and Piano with an Introduction to Variations (1984) for Viola, Harp, and Strings. ProQuest, 2007, ISBN 9780549459095 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).

Web links

• capital.net - The Music of Alan Shulman
• Jazz House -Alan Shulan, cellist
• The Epoch Times - Alan Shulman - A Musical Phenomenon