Friday, October 28, 2016
Published on Oct 28, 2016 For all who loved her...here is a place to remember the beautiful, talented, and loving Carol Quimby Heath. Soundtrack/mix includes"Our Town": Grover's Corners: Aaron Copeland and the New Philharmonia Orchestra, The Heaths performing two Contra Dance pieces at a family gathering, with Carol playing the violin, and The Heath Sisters performing a piece that Carol wrote for the text from the Navajo Prayer...and arranged by Fenno F. Heath, Jr.
Youtube Slideshow in memory of, and to honor, Carol Quimby Heath
Tuesday, December 8, 2015
Friday, December 24, 2010
Laura Stanfield Prichard CC '90
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Rehearsal before the memorial service! Alleluia, Randall Thompson
(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
Alleluia is a piece for unaccompanied SATB chorus by Randall Thompson. Composed over the first five days of July in 1940, it was given its world premiere on July 8 of that year at the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood under the direction of G. Wallace Woodworth.
The work was written on a commission from Serge Koussevitzky, director of the Tanglewood Festival. Koussevitzky wanted a "fanfare" for voices to be performed at the opening exercises of the new Berkshire Music Center, and he asked Thompson to contribute such a piece. Instead of the joyous work expected of him, the composer produced a quiet and introspective piece. Thompson was inspired by the war in Europe, and the recent fall of France; given these events, he felt that to write a festive piece would be inappropriate.
The text of the work is simple; it consists of the word "Alleluia" repeated over and over again. The only other word in the text is "Amen", which is used once at the end. The end also divides the choir into seven parts.
Thompson once wrote that the Alleluia is
a very sad piece. The word "Alleluia" has so many possible interpretations. The music in my particular Alleluia cannot be made to sound joyous. It is a slow, sad piece, and...here it is comparable to the Book of Job, where it is written, "The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord."
The piece has become Thompson's most popular work, and is frequently performed today.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Friday, October 1, 2010
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Pride, joy and song
As a Glee Clubber for 3 years and the co-Manager of the 1977 European Summer Tour, I spent a lot of time with Fenno. I treasure the memories and will always remember him with great affection.
One moment sticks in my mind, though. During my senior year the Glee Club’s major performance was J.S. Bach’s St. John Passion. Fenno had a special way with Bach; at a time when choruses and orchestras around the world were reducing their forces in performances of Baroque music, he seemed to relish showing what he could do with 72 singers in Bach’s masterpieces.
No championship football team ever practiced harder than we did on the St. John Passion. At first, his insistence on precision, on phrasing, on repeating certain small bits of music over and over again until we had it right, seemed over-the-top, unnecessary. But Fenno knew better.
One night, maybe 3 weeks before the performance, everything came together in a rehearsal the memory of which still makes my skin tingle. All those hours of rehearsing, Fenno’s insistence on doing things right, suddenly came together in an extraordinary sound, the likes of which I had never heard.
We would be ready.
To this day, 30+ years later, I am as proud of that performance in Woolsey Hall as of any event in my life. It was not just good, it was extraordinary. I have listened to every commercially available recording of the St. John Passion, and I can say that no other chorus matches the sound, the intensity, that Fenno conjured forth.
At times it sounded like a choir of angels; at others it sounded like singers at war. In one short burst, when Bach’s chorus was mocking Jesus, we sounded so diabolical that you could easily envision the Biblical scene.
The piece ends on a quiet note. Many of us were almost in tears because of the emotion we felt, the joy and pride we took in the performance we had just completed. Fenno lowered his arm, and for a split second there was absolute silence in Woolsey Hall. And then pandemonium.
Although I have done many things since, I do not believe I have ever felt quite as proud, quite as fulfilled, as I did standing on the stage in Woolsey Hall that night. For that pride and sense of fulfillment, for those wonderful memories, I thank you, Fenno, and I give thanks that I had the opportunity to know you.
And now, Fenno, please remember one thing: Beethoven is sensitive about being told he is off-key.
Craig Alan Wilson ‘78
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Update
Just writing to let you all know that the Heath children are thrilled to report that our mom, CAROL, as you all know (!), is spending a wonderful summer at her summer home in New Hampshire....the place where generations of her family have lived long, happy lives, farming and making music.....She has been picking four leafed clovers galore (literally!), making catnip toys galore (for sale in Peggy's Farmer's Market tent....), spending lots of time with her children, and also in Peggy's pick your own flower garden (www.songgardenflowerfarm.blogspot.com), and enjoying long, leisurely days in the countryside. She has internet there, high on a hillside, and in the woods, so you can write to her at carol.heath@wcres.org We are all still humbled by the outpouring of love for our father. Thank you one and all for the kind words in the last several months. They have buoyed us through the turbulant times and now the seas have calmed and the light is starting to shine again.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Steven J. White, '81 Manager, 1981 Glee Club
There is only one thing I truly regret about the otherwise very positive decision I made after leaving Yale to become Sabbath-observant. It has become very difficult to stay in touch with the YGCA and the YAC, because so much of the alumnus activity occurs (understandably) on Saturdays. So those who know me from Yale haven't seen me much, I haven't made many Singing Dinners, and I just couldn't manage to get to New Haven for the memorial service. But no one should mistake that for not caring, and I'd like to share just a few thoughts about Fenno with everyone.
To start, Fenno played the single most important role in making music important in my life. I'm sure that's not a novel idea, but since everyone's story is different, I'll share mine. When I came to Yale, I was a decently experienced choral singer, and was a fairly talented cantor (prayer leader) for a teenager. Still, I don't know that I was really a musician, and I do know that I had fairly little contact with the broad canon of choral music, so much of it Christian in orientation. (OK, I could teach the pronunciation of Chichester Psalms. There are compensations.) Under Fenno's tutelage, I became a musician, a singer, and comfortable with music from a broad range of cultures, languages and traditions.
Fenno really took me under his wing. He gave me a semester of tutorial in choral conducting – with me an engineering major! – and using Brahms' Requiem as a launch pad taught me a great deal about what makes choral music – and any other music – really work. He filled in the details (around so much already learned in rehearsals) about how to get a group of singers to do what you want. Most important, he taught me, and all of us, how to work hard at what you want, but also how to live life to the fullest, and to love what you do with your life.
I share many of the memories that others have shared. One I didn't see was about Fenno's eating habits (at least in the 1980s): I never met someone who salted his prime rib before eating it until I saw Fenno do that at Mory's at the officer dinner in the fall of 1980. But to me, that was part and parcel of Fenno – a man who, as conventional and traditional as he was sometimes, marched to the beat of his own drummer. It was hard not to be bound up in that enthusiasm.
I haven't done much choral singing lately, and the posts that I have read about the joy of participating is making me reconsider doing some more this fall. My main musical contributions these days is as a lay cantor in synagogue. Most of my fellow congregants consider me fairly capable at that, and while Fenno obviously didn't teach me the prayers and melodies, he played a part in this as well. I learned from
Fenno how to combine my musicianship with my religious service in a way that did not compromise the integrity of either one, but rather allowed them to work synergistically together. That is a gift which, in my view, is truly priceless.
Carol, Sarah, Lucy, Peggy, Terry and families: I don't pretend to miss your husband, father and grandfather as much as you do. But he had an enormous influence on me and many, many others, and we miss him, too.
May Fenno's memory be for blessing, and may his soul be bound in eternal life.
Yours in friendship,
Steven J. White, '81
Manager, 1981 Glee
