Missouri Classical Music News and Notes

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When it rains, it pours: On the one hand, you have Bruckner, Brahms, Beethoven and more; on the other, you have Hungarian music times three. The long drought has been broken for new recordings by the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. . . .

The Vonk recordings are the first of eight; the remaining four will be released in the spring. Vonk, who died in August 2002 of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease), listened to tapes of his concerts with the orchestra in his last months, and chose the performances for this project. . . .

Meanwhile, a group of Symphony musicians rescued a fine recording with Leonard Slatkin from undeserved oblivion.

In the early 1990s, Slatkin and the St. Louisans made four or five recordings each year for RCA. In 1992-93, they made some that were never released. RCA was bought by BMG, which was bought by Sony; then the project was killed.

But the musicians recalled those recordings . . . "Some of us remembered they were fine recordings," says Marc Gordon, the orchestra's retired English horn player. "We thought it was a shame they were never released."

The Anthology of American Folk Music is a compilation of eighty-four folk and country music recordings that were released as 78 rpm records in the 1920s and 1930s. The compilation was originally released in 1952 as a collection of six LPs. The collection is famous due to its role as a touchstone for the US folk music revival in the 1950s and 1960s.

Liner notes and other information about the collection are available on the Smithsonian Folkways Recordings web site.

You can hear several selections from the collection online:

• The Butcher's Boy (The Railroad Boy) by Buell Kazee
  
• Dry Bones by Bascom Lamar Lunsford
  
• White House Blues by Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers
  
• The House Carpenter by Clarence Ashley
  
• Country Blues by Dock Boggs

Gerald E. Kemner, age 74, passed away January 26, 2007 at Sweet Life at Rosehill, Shawnee, KS. He was born September 28, 1932 in Kansas City, MO to Louis Webster and Mabel (Huhn) Kemner.

Dr. Kemner attended Paseo High School, University of Kansas City (now UMKC), and Yale University. He received his doctorate from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY, where he studied under Howard Hanson. He taught music at Augustana College in Sioux Falls, SD, and the Conservatory of Music and Dance at the University of Missouri-Kansas City until retirement. . . .

As a prolific composer, Gerald Kemner has received frequent commissions to compose, and his music is performed throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. In addition to his choral and instrumental works, he composed the original score for the Missouri Repertory Theatre's production of Brecht's Good Person of Szechuan and Shakespeare's Macbeth. He also wrote the score of the western world's premiere of The Family, translated from Chinese and directed by Ying Roucheng for the UMKC Department of Theater in 1982. The Family has since been televised throughout Mainland China. With James Mobberley, Kemner wrote the music for the made-for-TV movie, Copperhead, entered in the Cannes Film Festival. Other commissions include the score for Brecht's Mother Courage for Santa Clara University and the score for an original opera, Duze and D'Annunzio, based on a play written by UMKC theater professor Felicia Londre and funded by a University of Missouri Weldon Spring grant.

As a pianist and harpsichordist, Kemner has performed as a soloist throughout the Midwest, with the Kansas City Philharmonic (now the Kansas City Symphony) and with the Klausner-Kemner Duo.

Kemner earned a bachelor of arts degree in piano in 1953 at the Conservatory of Music. He entered Yale University School of Music and received a bachelor of music degree in 1955 and a master of music degree in 1956. In 1962, he graduated from the Eastman School of Music with a doctor of musical arts degree.

Some of Kemner's compositions are available online as sheet music or recordings:

Now Shout

Several compositions

The Mormon Tabernacle Choir recording of Now Shout (audio
sample in RealAudio format)

Verbum Supernum Prodiens

Organ arrangements