Teachers

Teachers:

6 Degrees of Separation: Here are some of my mentors, with some of their teachers and some of their students. Some of these connections make a lot of sense, and others are absurd. I hope you find these wierd associations as interesting as I do. Please click on the pictures to read more about them.

Martha Blackman taught me Baroque guitar when I was 11. I REALLY wanted to learn to play guitar for my rock & roll group. As a result, I was a TERRiBLE student. She forgave me later and said: "It's all right... you were only 11." She was a wonderful teacher. I have written quite a lot of music for guitar since then. During her long career, she played and recorded many instruments with the prestigious Pro Musica and started the early music program at Stanford University, California. She studied 'cello with Leonard Rose at Juilliard; but her career was mostly built on her performances on the viola da gamba. Through the years, she remained a dear and close friend to me. She helped me decide on the period dance titles for my opera "Edward II.

Merton Brown was more of a collaborator and best friend. He studied with Wallingford Riegger and Carl Ruggles, and collaborated with the choreographers, Martha Graham and José Limón. I premiered several pieces with Mr. Brown in the music collective that we joinly ran: Music Now (& later Music Now & Now Dance): "3 Songs to Poems by James Joyce" with alto saxophone, 'cello & piano; as well as several vocal
duets for soprano, bass-baritone & piano. All of Mr. Brown's compositions are housed at my residence.

David Del Tredici was one of my composition teachers at Boston University. He studied with Roger Sessions, Leon Kirshner, Earl Kim and Seymour Shifrin (who studied with William Schuman, Otto Luening, and Darius Milhaud). Along with his college room-mate and my mother's significant other, Rolv Yttrehus, Del Tredici studied with Roger Sessions, John Adams, Milton Babbitt, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, John Harbison, Earl Kim, and Leon Kirchner also studied with Sessions. Sessions studied with Horatio Parker. Charles Ives was a student of Parker. Parker studied with George Whitefield Chadwick, who studied with Carl Reinecke. Reinecke's students include: Edvard Grieg, Ferruccio Busoni, Charles Villiers Stanford, Leoš Janáček, Isaac Albéniz, and
Max Bruch. Reinecke studied with Robert Schumann & Felix Mendelssohn. Mendelssohn studied with Muzio Clementi. Chadwick also studied with Salomon Jadassohn. Jadassohn's students include Albéniz, Busoni, Frederick Delius, and Grieg.

David Diamond was one of my composition teachers at Juilliard, also studied with Roger Sessions, as well as with Bernard Rogers. Rogers studied with Arthur Farwell, who studied with Engelbert Humperdinck. Humperdink studied with Johann Gottlob Friedrich Wieck, who taught his daughter, Clara Wieck Schumann and her husband, Robert Schumann. Humperdinck also studied with Josef Rheinberger and Franz Lachner. Lachner studied with Simon Sechter, who may be the most prolific composer who ever lived. Sechter's students include Franz Schubert and Anton Bruckner. Rogers also studied with Percy Goetschius (student: Howard Hanson) and Ernest Bloch, who studied with Eugène Ysaÿe. Ysaÿe studied with Henri Vieuxtemps and Henryk Wieniawski. Vieuxtemps also studied with Charles Auguste de Bériot who studied with Jean-François Tiby. Tiby studied with Giovanni Battista Viotti. Both Diamond, and his teacher, Rogers, studied with Nadia Boulanger, whose sister, Lili, was one of the greatest child prodigies who ever lived. Nadia Boulanger studied with Louis Vierne (assistant to Charles-Marie Widor. Marcel Dupré studied with Widor). Nadia Boulanger's students include: Aaron Copland, Roger Sessions, John Eliot Gardiner, Virgil Thomson, Gian Carlo Menotti, Marc Blitzstein, Rolv Yttrehus and nearly everyone else, including my father, Dr. Sam Walter, and my teachers: Joyce MeKeel (see below), Lester Trimble (my orchestration at Juilliard), and Robert Moevs (taught me contemporary counterpoint). Moevs studied with Walter Piston. Boulanger studied with Gabriel Fauré. Fauré studied with Camille Saint-Saëns, who studied with Fromental Halévy. Georges Bizet was a student of Halévy.

Dr. Marilyn Keiser: My first composition teacher: from ages 12-15 I studied one year each of private harmony, counterpoint and composition with Professor Keiser. At the time she was the assistant organist at The Cathedral of St. John the Divine in NYC, under under Alec Wyton, who performed my unison mass, written on my 12th birthday. Professor Keiser taught for many years at The University of Michigan and, according to Steven Elger in The Diapasan, she is "one of our country's foremost concert organists."

Otto Leuning: one of my compositiona teachers at Juilliard, studied with Ferruccio Busoni. Busoni's students include: Philipp Jarnach, Percy Grainger, and
Edgard Varèse. Busoni studied with Reinecke and Salomon Jadassohn.

Joyce Mekeel was one of my composition teachers at Boston University, studied with Earl Kim who studied with Arnold Schoenberg. Schoenberg's students include Alban Berg, Anton Webern, John Cage, Lou Harrison, and Leon Kirchner. Schoenberg also studied with Alexander von Zemlinsky. Zemlinsky studied with Anton Door. Door studied with Carl Czerny. Czerny studied with Ludwig von Beethoven. Beethoven studied with Franz Joseph Haydn (one lesson!) and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Ms. MeKeel also studied with Sessions, Bloch, and Boulanger (see above under Diamond).

Dr. John Moriarty is a great teacher, accompanist, coach and director. He taught me more than he will ever know about about opera, and I am eternally grateful. He studied French vocal literature with Pierre Bernac, and piano with Carlo Cecchi (who studied with Busoni and Arthur Schnabel).. He is the artistic director emeritis of Central City Opera, and was the chairman of the Opera Department of New England Conservatory. He ran a program with New England Conservatory and Boston Conservatory which I attended.

Vincent Persichetti was my main composition teacher at Juilliard. His students include Einojuhani Rautavaara, Peter Schickele (P.D.Q. Bach), Phillip Glass, and Leonardo Balada. Persichetti studied conducting with Fritz Reiner. Leonard Bernstein was also a student of Reiner. Reiner studied piano with Béla Bartók. Bartók studied with István Thomán. Ernő Dohnányi was also a student of Thomán. Thomán studied with Franz Liszt. Liszt studied with Carl Czerny and Johann Mepomuk Hummel. Felix Mendelssohn was a student of Hummel. Liszt also studied with Anton Reicha, as did Hector Berlioz. Reicha studied with Johann Georg Albrechtsberger who studied with Ludwig von Beethoven. Both Liszt and Reicha also studied with Antonio Salieri. Salieri studied with his own brother Francesco Salieri, who was a student of Giuseppe Tartini. Persichetti studied piano with Olga Samaroff. William Kapell and Richard Farrell also studied with Samaroff. Samaroff's husband was Leopold Stokowski. Stokowski studied with Antoine Francois Marmontel. Georges Bizet, Vincent d'Indy, Edward MacDowell and Claude Debussy were also students of Marmontel. Marmontel studied with Élie Halfon Halévy. Samaroff also studied with Pierre Zimmermann who studied with Luigi Cherubini. Samaroff also studied with Ernst Jedliczka who studied with Anton and Nikolai Rubinstein. Alexander Siloti was also a student of Nikolai Rubinstein.

Kyriena Siloti was one of my piano teachers.
She studied with her father, Alexander Siloti.
Sergei Rachmaninoff, and Marc Blitzstein were
also students of Alexander Siloti. Alexander Siloti studied piano with Nikolai Rubinstein, and Franz Liszt, and harmony with Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. She also studied with her mother: Vera Tretyakova, who was a student of Rimsky-Korsakov; and she studied composition with Aleksandr Glazunov at the Imperial Conservatory in St. Petersberg, Russia.

John Thow was one of my composition teachers at Boston Univeristy. He studied with Ingolf Dahl. Michael Tilson Thomas was also a student of Dahl. Thow also studied with Earl Kim and Luciano Berio. Berio's students include Steve Reich and Phil Lesh
of "The Grateful Dead." musician: He was a lovely person,a great teacher,and is truly missed.

My father, Dr. Sam Walter was a brilliant conductor, composer, and concert organist, who gave 52 concerts a year. He was also professor of organ at Rutgers University and the organist at Marsh Chapel, Boston University. He also taught at New England Conservatory and is a published author of choral music & a book on service playing. He encouraged, promoted, and performed my music from an early age.

Does the music of Luigi Cherubini somehow remind one of thw music of Vincent Persichetti? Does the music of Franz Joseph Haydn somehow foreshadow that of Joyce Mekeel? Other than Phil Lesh does anyone else on this list have anything at all to do with "The Grateful Dead?" Probably the answer is no in all cases!

Luigi Cherubini Franz Joseph Haydn Phil Lesh

Here are are the biorgraphies of two people who are
perhaps the greatest influences on my life and music:

Dr. Sam Walter, my father, was a brilliant conductor, composer, and concert organist, who gave 52 concerts a year.He was also professor of organ at Rutgers University and the organist at Marsh Chapel, Boston University. He also taught at New England Conservatory and is a published author of choral music & a book on service playing. He encouraged, promoted, and performed my music from an early age.

Janet Wheeler, my mother, had a deep, rich soprano voice. She was a graduate of The Eastman School of Music and New England Conservatory. She studied with Olga Averino (Longy School of Music) & Jennie Tourel (Juilliard). She had a long career as a soloist, singing works of Bach, Mozart, Britten and Puccini and later, premiering and recording "Angstwagon" by Rolv Yttrehus. She was a professor at Bard College where she co-founded an innovative opera and acting department with theatrical director, William Driver.

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