Profile; Interview with Robert DeCormier

A year long celebration of his 80th year has included commemorative concerts with Peter Paul and Mary. The Vermont Symphony Orchestra and the New York Choral Society at Carnegie Hall next month will receive the governor's award of excellence in the arts. Join me in a conversation about a lifetime of significant work few can match with proper decorum EAA. Next on profile. I will venture that every one of you has heard the work of this prominent arranger and composer if not sung it in school. Robert Dick or me is reach into the worlds of folk pop and classical music is deep and significant. A graduate of Julliard School of Music Dick Armey has written works for everything from ballet to Broadway conducted and arranged for opera and numerous concert tours including his own decor me a singer's and Harry Belafonte. He was the beloved music director of The New York Choral Society for 17 years and has been a music director of the popular trio Peter Paul and Mary for the last 20. Television credits include a folk song series for the BBC a

Christmas show with Thames TV and the number of PBS specials with colleagues including James Lavon Andre Previn Kathleen Battle and Jesse Norman and his retirement years here in Vermont. He founded and still directs the VSO and VSO chorus and the professional ensemble counterpoint. We caught up with him in the midst of rehearsals. Welcome. And I I love what you do in your retirement. I really been nonstop. It has really. It's great. Now you grew up in Poughkeepsie New York. Was your family musical Was it a musical upbringing. Not really my mother it was my mother was musical and she played the guitar as a young woman. But I was the only one. I was the only child of five of us that pursued a career in music. And you you know pretty well on you went to school in New Mexico but then you were taken off to World War 2. How does how did you serve in the war. I was actually when I was drafted they asked me what I did I said I played the

trumpet. I was clearly states thinking I get into an Army band. And they noted down sent me off to Fort Dix in New Jersey. And that week they decided that all white males over six feet they would send to the NPF in Washington D.C. So I was sent there for my basic training right next to the Army Band school by the way it was. I could hear them every day practicing as I was taking my basic training. And then I was an MP in Washington for just a very short time when I was sent to Georgetown University and from there to Rutgers University a program called the Army specialized training program in French. I was sent in French language. Spent I think nine months at Rector's being primarily not even directors teachers but by refugees from friends from the Sorbonne and etc.. And it was an incredible program. We graduated in April the general came in gave us a great speech of

congratulations and sent us off on three day passes and we came back in the ship to sort of the hundred 4th Infantry Division and out in Colorado. So when you put a rifleman in the infantry. Wow. And you were all over Europe and I actually got wanted in Germany yeah. We came in I don't know maybe about three or four weeks after D-Day into France and we were just guarding the Red Ball Express and then went actually into combat in northern France and Belgium and then up into Holland to with the British first army clearing out the shelled estuary. We already had where but the Germans still held the estuary and then down into Germany and I was wounded. November 18th 1940 for your war experience didn't seem to have done anything about your passion for music. You know you came back and you went to Juilliard for your bachelor's and your master's degree and you studied under Robert Shaw What did was the focus on song and choral music are it clear right away.

Yeah it was I mean. I decided that I really wanted you choral music and you put the arsenic are you I did put this somewhat aside I I played actually even in the army I played so we had a regimental we had a dance band in our regiment and I played in that for a while but I put it down and really concentrated on voice and also on theory and composition. Also folk music seems instead of even though Juilliard is very classical and I want to imagine it was then you seem to have this bent for folk. Was there a dissonance around. No not really I was passionate about the folk music. And I actually when I was in the army in the hospital I joined the C o chorus which was a union chorus in New York City. It was it was conducted by Simon Reddy who isn't in our person at the Decca Records a really wonderful musician and I met Pete Seeger Pete came to sing at one of our rehearsals he was just back from Japan and.

It became you know get to know Pete and was around the whole beginning of the folk music revival took place during those late 40s early 50s and Haribo that's where I first met Harry Belafonte he was an acting student it's a rhotic workshop and he was also here on the folk music circles and we met each other there and my first job when I was in Chile I got a job conducting a Jewish youth corps in the Bronx which was called the Jewish young folk singers and he wanted to do folk material. And that's where I first started arranging that really generations for that chorus. And Harry was a soloist as a matter of fact for one of our concerts we got him to do that when he was this is before of course he became very well known right. Right now it seems that you know everyone at this you know the the beginning of a sense of popularity of folk and blues and even rock music you were right there and worked with. What he got 3 in the Weavers and Pete Seeger and where you all social mission driven.

Yeah we were actually that's the reason I really decided to do choral music part I mean I loved I loved vocal music but part of the reason I decided to do it was that the idea of the Union chorus I was in a people singing together meant a lot to me and that was really part of the reasons I decided to become a girl director. Ha. So the music wasn't important but you all did you believe in the power of popular music. We did. We did and proved to be right so excellent I mean you think about what we shall overcome that means to the whole world not sure sure what it what it's time how were the Belafonte folk singers form. Well when I first went to work for Harry in 1907 we decided that we wanted to have a chorus to work with a male chorus and not just as a usual kind of backup role but we were doing a lot of work songs and spirituals. And so they were

very important to those performances. And they were so good that Harry decided he decided to go they should have a life of their own as well as working with him and so they began to concerts I was on their own and we went on tours for Columbia concerts and they recorded for RCA Victor as a group. All right well one of the albums that they were on lead led by you on one of Harry Belafonte's albums I think my lord what a morning for which Langston Hughes wrote the liner notes. You appear as Bob Korman. Yeah well that again goes back to that whole McCarthy period I mean I had been very involved in a lot of listening activities and I said to her you know I'm perfectly willing to change my name. So this is not going to really hurt you. And he said not at all don't change it but I said look I'm going to change it. And so I change it to Korman for a little while. A very funny story about that. We were out in San Francisco at the. It was in the late night club.

It's escaped me but it was a very popular town hall was it was a headliner there and all kinds of folk acts came into this club and I was there with Harry we're doing a concert but I went to the club one night just to see some people and there was a guy I seen Ernie Lieberman who who I knew from New York and we embrace each other and he said My name is and I can't remember what it was I said My name is Bob Cormier we whispered into each other's ears that's. The kind of thing that is going on you know rhymes is terrible right. But then you went back and you had the Dick Armey singers not not that long after that. Well so you must have felt more comfortable. What what changed. Well Harry decided that he really wanted to drop the Belafonte singers it was just too much of it is too too hard to have to remember is the whole another thing. Yeah. So I said well OK then I'm I'm going to leave because you know that's my that's my first love. Columbia conscious of whom the Belafonte singers

have been touring for us me if I would form a group to tour. And so that's how the repartee career singer started. And that mainly focuses on folk music it was they want to do to do the kind of thing I've been doing with Harry. And so we did basically did folk music and I think still in existence really the last album we did I think was a. In the early 90s maybe without him. So it's been a while. Yeah. Well clearly your history reveals that a continuous sensitivity to injustice in issues of civil rights and even you put together this amazing opera written in a concentration camp. That whole project this is a this is a string in your life. Is there political power behind this I mean do you still believe I get do I do it in many ways I mean I think that the songs themselves can carry

messages which I think are really important because I think that that in particular I think I would use singers there are so many singers involved in choral music all over the world. I mean millions of them. And in the act of singing together can be a very a human experience a experience of community which which is the kind of thing I I always dreamed would someday happen in this world you know that we would be a community all of us together. So I've also heard other people saying that being in a course is something very special and often pivotal in their lives. What is it that people in a chorus get out of it. Probably not money. No. I think the thing to get out of it I think is that is that shared experience of creating music whatever that is I you know I ensure music is I mean it's such a bore for saying but that is a shared experience of creating it is just something very special.

It's hard to describe it but it's a very very special defense of this political piece you also served on the New York State Council on the arts and where a member of the choral panel of the National Endowment for the Arts. What is the state of the arts in the political standpoint of government support. And it's terrible I mean it's you know it's awful I mean it just goes down down down and so we probably I mean of the industrialized countries would probably give the least amount of support to the arts of any country in the world and this is now. How different is it to work with folk or popular singers as opposed to classical and operatic singers. Well the folk singers are much looser in their performances I think you know. But in the final analysis is not much that much difference I mean you make music you make music you know it's amazing you've been with Peter Paul and Mary for 20 years just that

long and I mean as an industry to kind of stick with something that long and a lot and I think other writers you know they find that in the 60s longer and actually my relationship with them goes back even almost before that I mean I've taught at all those high school in New York in 1051. It's a private school a wonderful school. And Mary Travers was a student there so I've known Mary since she was 14 15 years old when they got together in the 60s. I was working with Harry but I was also doing other things too. And their their manager Al Grossman asked me if I would work with them and I was just too busy and so I suggested that Mills oaken who was working with me with Harry my system with every work with time he became a music director. But when they disbanded for about 10 years ago when they got back together again they asked me if I would work with them and so I wouldn't hide because it's been a wonderful experience being with them and you continue to do that you understand. You've done quite a bit of work for television certainly lately with there was an

award winning Harry Belafonte's special holiday concert with Peter Paul and Mary and Jesse Norman. It goes on and on meant many recently and many in the past I'm wondering how how is the kind of the proliferation of the electronic media changed your world and what you do. Has it changed my really very much. Oh I'm very I'm not really very involved in any of that kind of thing. For example I still I don't use a computer to write the music down I still do it in manuscript. I don't know I just it has really changed what I do or early on things were really focused on the stage and how things would come across on stage. Do you still kind of have that attitude even if you're doing a special because it's often these are live or so it might as well be stage absolutely I mean you know even if it's sort of a taped program the result or always in my case is

always a chance to go back and correct things when they go wrong but which is what is exciting about the Bligh performance is that if it goes wrong it goes wrong. Right. But but my my point of view is just do it. You know I hear there's a strange technology were where certain microphones can actually even pick up if a singer is off key and adjust it. I know that can be done. I don't know if the no that can be done in performance it can be done in editing that's for sure. I mean you can correct pitch in anything which is a shame you know. But don't let it be what it is right. I have here so I just want to have your commissions or even the state of arranging there is so much you arrange so much and Robert Shaw arranged a lot is arranging still happening in the same boat is it. You know I think this is a great I mean there's a lot of arranging Yeah on all this. Yeah OK. When you work with kind of forces of nature like Jessie Norman Kathleen Battle or Frederick of OnStar. Are there special

adjustments. Sometimes you need to make. I mean not only to their personalities but possibly also blending their voices with the choir or no. That's a concern because you don't really have any control over that really I mean there with a or. My problem is to is to make the choir blend with each other. But but dealing with the personalities of course is always tricky tricky. Everyone that I've talked to about you says that you are a pleasure to work with you're positive and that that's what's possibly made you so successful what what it what is your take on that cause some people are very harsh and to get out of their singers what they need to but you have a very different pleasant style. I don't know. I really don't know if I have what I have. You know I I think I'm I think I'm quite demanding I mean I don't I think my standards are high.

But I don't generally scream or yell at people. I mean I don't think that reproduces very much right if you go it goes against the whole idea that I have of the people should should live together in peace and harmony and love you know. There you go. You had one very special collaboration much of your life with it which is with your wife Louise who is an actress and a singer. Does it work to have your spouse in the business. For us it works very very well. We spend so much time together particularly since the early days when our kids are growing up we report a lot because I was on the tour a great deal. And she would come and join me. But so well for a week here a week but she really took care of the kids while I was away. It's kind of a one regret I think I have that I I miss some of that but sensitive growing up. We spend all of our time together just about the time it works fine.

Actually speaking of your family you lost a son to cancer almost 24 years ago when he was in his 20s. How did that influence your work or did your work help move you through that. We were a tragic I think work work did help move us through it. Definitely. He died while we were on tour. We broke up our tour and spent some time with him. And when he died I'd be rescheduled to right after that to combine forces was Belafonte and do a tour in Canada this is the rubber career singers with Harry's group and he wanted to do a tour of the symphony orchestras of Canada to sort of benefits for you know to pay Canada back for all that he felt they had given him in the years and so we did a series of concerts all across Canada with your orchestras and Harry called me and said let's cancel it and I said Luis and I talked about it and said. Let's not cancel it it was

probably the best thing for us to do. We we went in joining him in Canada just shortly after Chris died. And we did that tour we were just for about two or three weeks three weeks I think. And then we went home where ourselves and it was it was it was good to have those three weeks working it helps you all right. Yeah that was a wonderful scholarship and his honor at SUNY Albany. Another I think it amazes me among the many other things you have written and arranged for ballet including the Alvin Ailey Dance Company. How is that collaboration unique. Well it started actually before the valleys were done by Alvin Ailey. Donald McHale who was a great choreographer. I worked with Donny on a couple of ballets one was called a Moses a story of Harriet Tubman and the other was rainbow around my shoulder which is the one that Alvin Ailey has done for all these years

both black oriented stories one about the chain gang and the other about of course Harriet Tubman's reading the slaves to freedom to write it. And I've known Johnny and I have known each other during those early years and we work together on these things and what wonderful working with him. So you kind of have taken folk music you into into a deli to score at a ballet. So I think you're wonderful. What makes a great song. Oh certainly certainly the TX is a very important part of it musically. How do you how do you how do you describe it I don't know. I mean there are trite songs in there are there are great songs. When you're working with lyrics do you do the lyrics make. A lot of choices about the arrangement or is it really the music the

lyrics the lyrics make an enormous amount of difference I mean because you're trying to tell the story that it is in the lyrics and even the original whoever compose the song be it folklore or the known composer. Obviously it had to be part of that experience you know the lyrics dictating your feeling of the thing and I think it's the job of the arranger then to try to enhance or bring that out. You've conducted concerts at Carnegie Hall and ily ily ily Cathedral many community Louis Cathedral outdoors. How does space play a role in your performance as well. An enormous role I mean. The space really Dick has a lot to do with what the sound is going to be and what the acoustics are makes a big difference to what the reform misses and if you do it working in a place where it's hard to hear and its sound is not working correctly it just makes it makes you very tense about the whole performance and when the sound is when you know that it's a wonderful sound and you're hearing it and the and the

instrumentalist of the singers are all hearing it then they can obviously perform much better. He's big difference in the performance. So are there some adjustments that you make or are you just trying to do it in great places that work you know that's that's the main thing. What's amazing about here is that the midi cathedral is course a wonderful place to perform in Carnegie is a great place. It's amazing here in Manchester is that the rowdy rink. It's really a good a good venue to perform great and even with the they do amplify the sound for the for the long of course. But it really works very well there. That's a pleasure. Speaking of Manchester you moved to Vermont some 30 years ago why Vermont and what does that do for you and your life. Well it actually came goes back to the red schoolhouse it was right there when high school the director of the school where I was teaching how to have been brought up near Belmont where I live and had bought a house there and I think in 1036 and some of the teachers the school had bought houses there. Farmers were having such a hard time that even

teachers could afford to buy these places and we spent the summer at the drama teacher's house. 1954 Mary Van Dyke the writer of house and spent the summer there and just fell in love with her mother. And 56 we found the house which we now live in. We bought it for $3000. We had put down fifteen hundred. Took us a year to say that fifteen hundred dollars. But it's the best fifteen hundred dollars we ever spent and Vermont has meant so much to us. The physical beauty of the state the size of the state and the feeling that you you really belong here and that you can make a difference here. It is a wonderful feeling and you can't do that in New York state I don't think it's you know it's very hard yeah. Well you certainly made a dent in New York City but there there is a different feel. Yes a very different feeling if you like you know people here. You taught a couple places obviously live around the schoolhouse and you were Professor at Eastman.

You had didn't stay a long time in academia but what did you like or not like about teaching or what's what's important about education. But I love working with the students and I love the little red schoolhouse is an incredible place it was. It was started as an experiment by the Board of Education in 1936 as a a big experiment in the Dewey philosophy of of Education Progress or education. The Board of Education gave it up. But the teachers and students loved parents so much that they decided to make a teacher parent cooperative. That's how the school existed and it was a great school to work in. I mean both in terms of the the feeling of community again with the with the faculty and with the students and then that Easton which was a very different kind of a situation of the conservatory at Rochester. There I had difficulties with it with the administration of a university but the students were wonderful and I had a great five

years there. But while I was there I was commuting every week I'd fly to New York and rehearse New York Choral Society fly back to Eastman on the next day try to come over to Vermont sometimes on the weekends and it was it was a crazy life. And so we decided in nineteen seventy seven that we would just we were going to live out of our house in Vermont and that's been our only home since then. I'm sure you have mentors many from at that point of view. We have to end it but I'd I'd love to. And at least finish up hearing your music and you've chosen a piece today could you talk about. How to yank your counterpoints this wonderful new groove that I'm working with professional small professional group are 11 singers at this point and all Vermont people. And this piece is a piece by Leonard Bernstein that he wrote for mass. It's a wonderful little round called the warm up.

And it's so to being to Bangor being devalued. OK all of those it's a wonderful. Let's listen to it I hope you're ready if yours continues to be joyous and congratulations on all your well-deserved accolades. Thank you so much for that. Thank you for having. And thank you for being there was there. To meet or beat that game.