The Sinatra Competition
During my first year, I sang with the UCLA Concert Choir, conducted by Roger Wagner. By agreeing to conduct the choir, Roger secured a facility where could rehearse his Master Chorale. The Roger Wagner Chorale performed throughout the United States in addition to regular tours in Europe and Asia. The group also had enormous success with recorded albums. With over 100 members, the Master Chorale was a much larger group with a subscription series at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. The Los Angeles Philharmonic also used the Master Chorale when works required a choral ensemble.
I eventually ended up singing in the Master Chorale. I didn’t have a great voice, but I have perfect pitch and can sight sing about anything. If I got a bass to come in on the right note and at the right time, I had accomplished my mission. Through this group I experienced a wide range of repertoire, soloists, and conductors. I also got to experience what a professional group can really be like; and years later, some of the approaches came in handy with working with less than professional groups with little or no rehearsal time.
Roger generally showed up for final rehearsals and performances; though it was not uncommon for him to arrive at a dress rehearsal announcing that he only had an hour or less and was going to go over the hard parts. He was often conducting things he had never rehearsed. An assistant had the task of rehearsing the group. For the Master Chorale, Roger used Paul Salomovich for many years, and Paul had a well deserved reputation for his musicianship and conducting skill. An assistant also rehearsed the UCLA Concert Choir, though this was typically a graduate student subject to the tirades and wrath of Roger.
With the parts Roger actually rehearsed, he often gave the impression (at least to me) that he had never looked at the music. Also, when he wasn’t indulging a tirade with a soloist, or about a music critic he liked to entertain the group. At the time, Martin Bernheimer, the new music critic for the Los Angeles Times, was ripping him to shreds. With the previous critic, Roger could do nothing wrong. With Martin, he could do nothing right. Typically, less than half the time was spent in actual rehearsal.
However, for the actual performance there was a transformation that is difficult to explain. Roger maintained absolute and total control over a full orchestra, soloists, and the Chorale. There was never the slightest doubt that he knew what he wanted; knew every detail and nuance in the music; and had the conducting skill to pull it off. The end result was far beyond the reading of the score (something that can happen with too little rehearsal time). It was a superbly polished product.
When he actually rehearsed, Roger was often critical with the ensemble and an absolute tyrant with soloists – especially young ones. I have one particular recollection of a young soprano who was having some rhythm problems in the War Requiem (something he was actually rehearsing). In front of the entire group, while the ensemble churned along, he was screaming at her that she was stupid, and she could have the greatest voice in the world and it wouldn’t be worth anything if she couldn’t count. (His exact words were much more colorful). She went on to become a famous opera star that still performs. In her younger years she also toured with the Chorale. While he was a tyrant, he also protected the physical instrument of his soloists. He wouldn’t let them continually sing ‘full out’. He made them practice discipline and conserve their voices.
This experience was quite different than any ensemble I had ever performed with up to that time – where countless hours would be spent in rehearsal – trying to perfect the performance. I have sometimes heard it said that a major difference between an amateur and professional is the amount of time it takes to prepare something. The amateur’s performance can sometimes approach the artistic success of the professional performance, but it is often a time-consuming process; a process that will quickly bore a person with a high level of technical competence and low tolerance of musical mediocrity.
I think the same thing is true as one increases in technical competence on an instrument. There is a growing stage where the student is expanding his technical and musical capability. Learning a Beethoven Sonata or a Chopin Ballade or Scherzo might take several weeks, or even months. However, Aube used to say that a pianist should be able to learn the notes of either a Beethoven Sonata or Chopin Ballade or Scherzo in an evening, though it would take time to become comfortable with the musical intent. I took this philosophy to my study of accordion.
Later in my musical journey through UCLA, Roger asked me join the Chorale on an upcoming tour to Japan. I would perform as a soloist and also accompany certain parts of the choral repertoire when there was an ‘Americana’ or folk theme. I got to interact with Roger numerous times, and it was quite an experience. Once we were at his home in Bel Air, and he wanted to show off his portative organ (used to accompany the Chorale on tour). It filled the back of a truck, but when he was home it was housed in the bath house for his pool. He fired it up and proceeded to tear through the Widor Toccata. Needless to say, in that room the organ was absurdly loud and more resembled a calliope than an organ; but it was great fun. Unfortunately, the Army cut my participation in that tour. Also, the War Requiem was cancelled by the promoters. It had been scheduled for the Shrine Auditorium rather than the Music Center given the revenue potential of the increased seating. Someone had done the math and figured that if every single seat was sold, they still wouldn’t make any money. So they cancelled, and Roger was not happy.
Toward the end of my junior year, UCLA announced the commencement of the new Frank Sinatra Musical Performance Awards. The head of the Music Department claimed that Frank was trying to obtain recognition from an academic institution (such as an honorary PhD), and thought this might be a start. Perhaps it is urban legend, but it was suggested that he would have a better chance had he been willing to donate the funds necessary to expand the music building. One part is that is not urban legend was the school’s requirement that Mr. Sinatra personally participate in the awards concert. And he did that. In any event, UCLA has never been known for passing out honorary degrees, at least in music. In fact, it is probably has some of the highest requirements of any school, especially in musicology. This can be seen from the relatively few number of PhD’s that the school has awarded in its history.
I was encouraged by numerous members of the faculty to enter the competition. The rules and philosophy of the intended outcome for all participants were different than any of my previous competitions.
First, the competition was designed to support for people who intended to make a career in musical performance. But this was not limited to classical music – it could be in any genre. It was also expected that competitors be versatile, they could perform in different styles and adapt to requirements similar to what they would encounter as a working musician. Finally, it was intended to provide an opportunity for all finalists to get exposed to some of Los Angeles’s top professionals. The judges included Zubin Meta (then conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic), Sonny Burke, and other top musicians and producers who were often in the position to actually hire the contestants. Ultimately, many were hired for studio and movie gigs within days after the finals.
Competitors were required to provide a list of repertoire. From that, they would select something for an initial performance (though the judges could stop them at any time). After that, the judges decided what they wanted to hear, and again, this may or may not be the entire piece.
By this time I had a good variety of repertoire and styles. For original material I included the Trojan, Schmidt and a couple works by Gregory Stone. The non-original included two Scarlatti Sonatas, several Preludes and Fugues from WTC I, the Liszt #19, the Rachmaninoff Humoresque, and a Chopin Etude. I also included several jazz pieces and was prepared to improvise.
There were many competitors in the initial round; some excellent players with a wide variety of approaches and styles. The entire process extended over several weeks. The group was reduced to about eight or ten players for the final elimination (when the heavyweight judges showed up). We started in the afternoon and went quite late into the evening.
Everyone had to stay around as the judges called different people back in to play. There seemed to be no particular order. Finally the winners were announced. I was second prize in the instrumental category – second to Gary Gray, an extremely talented clarinetist who was in grad school. The first prize in vocal was Xxxxxx and second prize was my good friend, Andrew Belling, who was more a pop arranger and composer than a singer. I considered it quite an accomplishment and it certainly demonstrated on the open-mindedness of the University.
With the demands of preparing for the competition and the other academic tasks, I was ready for a break. My grandparents always loved Las Vegas and made regular trips there for as long as I could remember. In later years, it became custom for me to drive them there during school and performance breaks as the drive had become a bit too much for my grandfather. Granny had stopped driving when the Packard was traded for the 1951 Cadillac. In any event, I picked them up in my 1964 Dodge Dart GT and we were off for Vegas for a short break.
We had been there for less than a day when we got the call that we needed to return home immediately. Besides learning that I needed to return home, I also learned that having the same name of an emerging comedian could be problematic. When my folks called the casino and asked them to page Bill Cosby, they said they couldn’t do that. It would cause too much commotion. Though I don’t remember exactly, I believe they paged my grandparents. In any event, we were scheduled for a press conference with Frank Sinatra and needed to come home immediately.
One of the purposes of the competition was to provide opportunities for young musicians. The press conference was another part of that process. It was held at UCLA and was quite different than the greeting at the Malta Airport. Mr. Sinatra had a high level of security. He also had no trouble handling the press. When it was over, he waved his hand and said, “That’s it, guys,” and it was over.
Next was the concert. In that we were the young up-and-coming musicians, it was only appropriate that we did all the preparation. Arrangements needed to be written, there was coordination with the school musicians that would make up the show orchestra, and we needed to plan the actual program – all of it. With Mr. Sinatra attending to make the actual presentations, tickets would be at a premium. Guest lists and the post-concert reception were planned by the Music Department.
Each contestant was allowed so many tickets. Each person on your list received a personalized letter of invitation from the University. My guests included my parents, grandparents, GallaRini, Irena Monter (a soloist from Antonio and the Ballet de Madrid that I had been dating), and Florence Merzlac, one of my favorite Instructors from El Camino College who taught German but was also an accomplished pianist.
The concert was an event. I played the Trojan and the Schmidt as solo pieces and did a couple jazz selections with Gary Gray and a small combo that included Rand Forbes, an acoustic and electric bass player who later became a member of the rock band United States of America and after that was a fellow band member at the United States Military Academy. One of the highlights of the evening was meeting Mia Farrow who made it a point to say how much she liked my playing. The event received pretty good National press.
I planned on entering again the following year, but the University decided that they wanted winners to take a year off. It is my understanding the competition continued for about ten years.
I brought my accordion to the party, but no one asked me to play
Trojan -- Cathedral in Ruins
Music at UCLA offered the advantages of a small department at a major university. The University of California also required a wide range of course work in disciplines both within and outside the College of Fine Arts. With the large number of activities on campus, there was always something to do.
It was more convenient for me to practice at home than at school. It was a very long walk to the parking lots with many stairs. Carrying my accordion that distance would have been impractical.
As an undergraduate student, my area of concentration was music history and literature. UCLA was known for its faculty in both historical and systematic musicology (music related to anything other than music). Even though I wasn’t a performance major and UCLA didn’t ‘officially’ recognize the accordion, there were still many opportunities to perform. By the time I graduated, I am sure I had performed there as many times as I would have as a performance major anywhere else.
