Jewish Women In America; Caroline Stoessinger Pianist, Artistic Director and Impresario

This show was made possible by a grant from the Jewish Women's Foundation of New York. Welcome to Jewish Women in America, a television series that celebrates the contributions of Jewish Women to U.S. Society. I'm Blant Wheezing Cook and my guest today is Caroline Stessinger, an acclaimed musician and musical director in New York City and throughout the world,

a wonderful, on-prosario and a great friend. Welcome, Caroline Stessinger. Thank you. Thank you. Caroline, you have done so much. And currently, you are organizing, producing, I think, of you as the ombre-sario of the planet, concerts here in New York called Great Music for a Great City. You are also the producer of a concert series at the Tillis Center on Long Island. You produce a concert series in South Carolina. And for many, many years, you were the director, the artistic director of concerts and events at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. And I want to know how you got to be, Caroline Stessinger. That really is what I want to know. And so in checking things out, I found an article that you had written about 10 years ago

for the Arkansas Democrat Gazette. Democrat Gazette. The Arkansas Democrat Gazette as a former president of the Republican Club at Barnard, you have become, you didn't think I'd remember that. Oh, I would hope not. But those were the good days when there were liberal Republicans. But we won't, we won't get into that. But I found this article that you wrote. And it begins, my grandmother said, raised children with beauty and they won't go bad. She was a farmwoman sent to school only through the third grade and lived her whole life without the convenience of indoor plumbing or electricity. She never traveled more than 50 miles from home. Yet her imagination dictated a reverence for the arts. She transformed her old house into an aesthetic environment filled with the beauty of quilts, pieced together from feed sack material,

crocheted table covers, bright braided rugs, and wild flowers gleaned from the Ozark hills. Her exquisite taste stemmed from a profound sensitivity to the life of the earth. She worked. My grandmother managed two or three years of music lessons. I'm skipping these some. My grandmother managed two or three years of music lessons for most of her 12 children, including my mother, by paying with vegetables cured meats and regally tall, angel food cakes. Now, Caroline, walk us through some of that journey as you grew up in the Ozarks. I mean, I have tasted some of your grandmother's very regal and high angel food cakes. How did you

get to be the opposite area of the planet, a great pianist and musician? My parents believed first and foremost in education. I can't say they knew what it was, but they wanted us to have whatever education. My father said, a girl can never have too much education and don't stop until you can get all you can get. Now, my father really didn't go to school much at all, and my mother was a teacher, but she wasn't really educated. She started in one room schoolhouse at the age of 16 at the age of maybe earlier, I'm not sure, because they were sometimes embarrassed about their past, and my father's English grammar was embarrassing, and so some issues were not exactly precise, I suspect. But we started music lessons my sister and I very, very early. There were two piano teachers in my town. One could read music and one couldn't, and my father said it caused 25 cents more to

have the teacher that can read, but she's educated, so that's who my children will have, and my parents actually continued often paying also with vegetables that they grew. They did. They also paid at least at least the 50 cents, but then they may have paid with the vegetables they grew, and very soon I did what I was told, I practiced, and I became the town musician. So whenever there was a meeting, a ceremony or anything, I was expected to play, and I did. You did. I did it from the age of, you started from at least by the age of nine. That was actually my first official job was at nine. The local funeral home bought an electric organ and no one else could play it, so I was the official funeral home organist, and I got a dollar a funeral. Now, here you are in the Ozarks. You're in Arkansas, and you, at some point, you wind up at Barnard. How do we get Caroline Davis from the Ozarks to Barnard? Was it music?

It was music, music was my escape route. And everything occasionally, it was serendipitous, there was actually a library in my town. It was a room. The school didn't have a library, but we had a town library, and I guess people at some point had donated books, and I just found odd bits and pieces from, I found a little Kafka, a little Thomas Mann, a little of this, a little of that, and magazines, and it began to piece together what it might be. And when I was 10, I heard Rubenstein for the first time. I had read in a newspaper, somehow someone had left behind a commercial appeal from Memphis, which was the closest large city, about 130 miles away. And Rubenstein was playing. Arturo Rubenstein, the pianist. Yes. And I insisted I had to go, so we had a railroad pass, and my mother arranged for somebody to take me, because we couldn't afford to buy more than one ticket. And how old were you? I was 10. And we went to Memphis, and I heard Rubenstein,

and I insisted on meeting him. I was not afraid of things like that, because I didn't know enough to be afraid. And I wanted to meet him, so I dragged the lady who took me to the hotel, where I was told he was staying, which was the only hotel town that he bought a hotel. And there he was in the lobby, and I sat, and I talked with him. What did you say? I don't remember very much about it, but I asked him how I could be a pianist like me, so embarrassing. And he said, find a good teacher, practice, and read lots of books, and you did, and I did. And you did. And you are a fabulous pianist. Well, thank you. And you've put together some of the greatest concerts many of us have ever heard. And most recently, Thomas Sinning in The New York Times says about your concert series here at the City University of New York, the Graduate Center, that it is an invaluable series of free concerts. This program offers some truly bracing and unusual fare. Thomas Sinning,

the lead music critic of The New York Times, where I mean you do. I remember some spectacular concerts that you put together. When Mandela Nelson Mandela first came to New York City, you were then musical director at St. John the Divine. We have you a 10-year-old girl, you went to Barnard, because you did practice. How many hours a day did you practice? Oh, I practiced a lot. I mean when I was nine, I was already putting three, four hours a day. But remember, I didn't have much else to do in the US Heart Mountains. Okay, in the Ozark Mountains. So at St. John the Divine, you organized and one doesn't say organize, politicians organize, but you didn't organize. You put together, you produced this exquisite evening of Nelson Mandela with music and actors and some of the most amazing people. How did you get to conceive,

which is really what you have contributed to the music concert business, the spoken word. The spoken word and poetry is a very important music song is based on poetry. Shove all the great composers were reading poetry and new poetry to choose for their songs, and I've always loved poetry. But I also realized with the time I was in New York very early on, the concert world was not what I imagined it, and it was much harder. And I thought one had to take a different road. It was such a strict format. You come out, you bow, you sit, you play, you go away. And more and more I met people, including students at Barnard, including some faculty members too, who were not musically educated, and they didn't go to concerts, and then also the prices were increasing all the time. I couldn't afford to go to concerts when I was at Barnard,

but I knew ushers at Carnegie Hall who let me sneak into the balcony and I sneaked into the top balcony at the Metropolitan Opera those days. And I felt the only way to make this immense human and spiritual resource available was to create another kind of venue, another kind of atmosphere, as well as hopefully to make it free. And it seemed to me that people who would come for a cause, whether it was AIDS, whether it was a political cause, whatever it was, that if you had actors reading beautiful words that would inspire people, that the people who came for the only for the cause would get the great music and suddenly realize, and those who came for the great music would be exposed to the cause. And it seemed to really work, and I have continued it for a very, very long time. So really it's a convergence of a cause, the music, the poetry, the stars, and you have this amazing

harmonic convergence. I mean the people that you put together and the places you go, I mean at the Tilla Center you had that wonderful series from China, from Shanghai, the Shanghai quartet, the Shanghai quartet has been playing so successfully this season we invited them back for next season. Okay, so just walk us through it. You did a concert in Oslo, an extraordinary concert that was sponsored by the Nobel Institute, the University, at Oslo. You had Gregory Peck, and Audrey Hepburn, and reading from James Baldwin, and then Sir James Galway, Frederica Panchtada, saying, also Philharmonic, and Mandela, and Mita Ron, and Hopple were the audience. Hopple spoke at that program. Whoever debates his others is debasing himself, James Baldwin wrote,

the glorification of one race and the consequent debasement of another always has been and always will be a recipe for murder. If one is permitted to treat any group of people with special disfavor because of their race or the color of their skin, there is no limit to what one will force them to endure. If we do not falter in our duty now, we may be able to end the racial nightmare and change the history of the world. If we do not dare everything now, the fulfillment of that prophecy recreated from the Bible in a song by a slave is upon us. God gave Noah the rainbow sign, no more water, the fire next time.

One thing leads to the next. One thing I must say in music, there is no path that you can follow as you would have most disciplines. When Hopple came on his first state visit in 1990, I had the opportunity and the honor and I am still humbled by it to put together a program to celebrate democracy in Eastern Europe shortly after he became president. In fact, it was Washington's

birthday in 1990, which I thought was an interesting day that had happened to be. It was also the easiest program I ever put together because everyone wanted to participate. The difficulty was not having people participate. There were more people in the audience who would like to have been on the stage. But it was everybody from Paul Newman and Plusitor Domingo to Tissik Al-Svi, Maximilian Schell flew in from Europe. It was James Taylor. It was Paul Simon. It was an unbelievable evening. During the Revolution in Prague, which also made this, I think very moving, and one as a musician, you need to be sensitive to what the program is in order to make it work. And during the Velvet Revolution, when the people gathered in the square, they would bring those tiny little bells that sometimes people tie on their cats, their children's shoes, or if they didn't have bells or another little bell to ring, they would jingle their keys together.

So I thought it would be appropriate when Hopple entered the cathedral to ring bells, and I rounded up over 100 English hand bell readers in New York, plus we had the great medieval trumpeters playing. And everyone that had a seed and had a program over 5,000 people also had those tiny little bells. So as he entered the cathedral, the bell's ring. And many of the pieces we performed that evening were based on bells. And that program led directly to going to Oslo. The Professor Elie Wiesel and his wife asked me to direct a program for Oslo for that concert. So among your many friends, Edie Wiesel, Bernstein, it was really Bernstein who became your sort of co-conspirator at St. John the Divine. Isn't it? Yes. Do I have that right? You have that absolutely right. Tell us about you in. Well, I first met Lenny if I may. Yes. When I was during my first job, while I was in graduate

school, I taught at the Briarly School. And I had his children of the girls. And Lenny was the one father you could count on to be at a school program at 8, 30 in the morning, probably the only time in his life you ever got up that early. But he was there whenever his children were in something. And then he would go to the classroom afterwards and talk or sing or play with the children. And I got to know him then. I was very, I was extremely fortunate. And in 83, after we'd already started the cathedral concerts. And there were times when we did 100 concerts a year. And I wanted to do something under your sleeve. And I felt there will always be a need for peace in the world. So why don't we start the concert for peace? And first it was going to be very small. We had a small little chamber orchestra then decided, well, we have an orchestra. We should have something else. So I asked Freda Rick a bunch of data to sing. When she said, yes, I got scared. I thought, well, now we need to fill the place for her. And we'd better do a little more. So the only thing I could think of, and it was getting late, it was already December.

I called Lenny one day and I said, Lenny, I need a favor. He said, how much does it cost? I said, Lenny, I don't want money. He said, well, you can't have my body. I said, I'm not even asking for that. I know it'd be a sacrifice. I said, I want you to pray. He said, well, I pray every day. And I said, no, you don't understand. I want you to come to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. I promise you we will have maybe 10,000 people. And remember, there was a lot of, it was the height of nuclear fear at that time. And I said, I want you to give a prayer for peace. And he calmed down and said, what a good idea and came and that started this tradition. And sure enough, the police estimated over 12,000 people that night because no one thought people would come. And they just kept coming. And it was packed with the gills and everyone that has to see lights the candle at the end. And it's very, very moving. Lenny that night, his prayer for peace was about Yom Kippur and the meaning of New Year's Eve. And so he didn't really like to celebrate that we

need to think about the past year. So he turned it into a Jewish cathedral that night. Well, all of your concerts are so ecumenical and so multiracial. And I think the other, I mean, it's kind of interesting to me. You know, sometimes my students say nothing's ever changed. And I think of all the heroes of the South who have made such great changes. And your insistence on great music for a great city and all of your series being so multiracial. And of course in Oslo, you had the great baritone, Simon Estes, and you always have absolutely the very, the voice of the century, Camille Johnson. Camille Johnson is part of, you know, what I think of as Caroline's gang, never go anywhere without your gang, or Terry Cook, or Terry and Camille singing, venture-wise at the at the graduate center for great music for great city and Lynn Redgrave will be the

narrator. But it's so difficult for African American musicians, classical musicians. They have a very, very hard time. And when someone is talented, I believe we have an obligation to promote them in any way we can, and we need to hear their voices. And Terry Cook just goes with you very often to South Carolina, to the Tillas Center, wherever I have the opportunity, because I don't know of greater voices, and I don't know if people who should be heard more and who need help with their careers because they deserve it. One of the things that amazes me about you is folks have actually written music for you. I mean, many, many people have written music for you, but there's an elegy for Anne Frank that Lucas Fos wrote for you to play the piano, but I think for you to organize the elegy because everybody knows that you do that. Also, as well, it was approaching

Anne Frank, what would have been Anne Frank's 60th birthday. And I had now were approaching her 75th birthday, and I had very sad thoughts that if my child had been born in the 30s somewhere in Europe, it wouldn't be here, and she wouldn't either. And I really wanted to celebrate Anne's life and to remind people because we have such a short memory of history and encouraged a few people, and we did put together a program celebrating her birthday. Jose Ferreira, remember that actor was the narrator, and live all men, red, clair bloom, red from the diary at Brooklyn Philharmonic, a lot of musicians, and Lucas was conducting and he said, I'll write a piece. And it turned out to be one of the lovelies. It's a very short, small piece for piano and orchestra, but one of the lovelies pieces that he ever wrote,

and it tells the story of Anne Frank's life. And the most important part of the story it tells is that the child's voice continues to sing and be heard. In you, for several years, you were a musical director at Henry Street where you brought the

the children's opera, Brundabar, to the U.S., and tell us about Brundabar. Brundabar was an opera written just before the formation of the Terecienstadt concentration camp. It was written for the Prog Jewish Orphage, just before the war started. But before they could perform it, the composer, the teachers, the players, and the children were shipped to the concentration camp. And the Jewish musicians felt that if the children performed this, it would help to keep their

minds distracted, give them a little something to do. The Nazis didn't care. This was good for them, and they could use it for propaganda, which they did. In fact, it was featured in the 1944 propaganda film that was directed by Kurt Garron. We have a little bit of footage left. It's a very sweet story of good overcoming evil. And the last song is, we've won a victory. The tyrant is dead. We're back home with mother and homeland. And I've often thought, how is it? The Nazis allowed this 55 times under the noses in a concentration camp. It was a protest piece, it was a song of hope. And I think the answer is simply, they thought it was a scruffy little thing for children. So it didn't matter. And it was in check. And they never bothered to translate it. And they didn't know what they didn't know. They didn't know what they were singing. Now today, Brundabar is performed all over the world. And through the university we produced it,

the first professional performance in New York City, and it was at the Henry Street Playhouse. You know, we have so little time left. One of your passions is to restore music and art

to the public schools. And one of the great tragedies of our current moment, which is this testing punishment society, is that the kind of music lessons that you receive for some money. But I received free in the public schools of New York City so that I could be the first violinist of Mr. Stone's children's orchestra. All of that's gone. And you're working very hard to raise consciousness about this and get this back. And in maybe 30 seconds, can you tell us what folks should be doing to get music back in our lives? First, we must insist on music in public ceremonies. We must insist on great music. It's not enough. We don't put on

music. We have great music so that it affects people and appropriate music. If the national anthem is sung, have a great singer sing it. And demand music in the public schools, at least singing. That doesn't cost very much. People can sing together. And that's the beginning of building community through music. And we should all write to mayors. To write the mayors. It must be done because it has a humanizing effect on society, unlike any other. It teaches one to live in one's own skin. And you have this wonderful sentence about how children who practice music and who hear their own music, they're not going to get into trouble. They really don't. They really don't. You're not going to find people that are popular. The prison population has not studied music. Thank you, Caroline Stessinger. I can't believe it. And I'm really sorry. But we are out of time. Thank you, Caroline Stessinger, for bringing us some of the most beautiful music. This is

Blanche Weez and Coke for Jewish women in America. Thank you, Caroline Stessinger. Thank you, Caroline Stessinger. Thank you.