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Robert Starer was born in Vienna in 1924 and entered the State Academy of Music at the age of thirteen. Soon after Hitler's annexation of Austria in 1938, he went to Jerusalem and continued his musical studies at the Palestine Conservatoire. During World War II, he served with the British Royal Air Force. In 1947, he came to New York for post-graduate study at Juilliard and also studied with Aaron Copland at Tanglewood in 1948. He became an American citizen in 1957. He taught at Juilliard from 1949 to 1974 and at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York from 1963 to 1991. He was named a Distinguished Professor in 1986. Among his honors are two Guggenheim Fellowships and grants from the National Endowment and the Ford Foundation. He was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1994.
His works for the stage include three operas and several ballets for Martha Graham. His orchestral works have been performed by major orchestras here and abroad under such conductors as Dimitri Mitropoulos, Leonard Bernstein, William Steinberg, Erich Leinsdorf and Zubin Mehta. Interpreters of his music include Roberta Peters, Leontyne Price and Janos Starker. The recording of his Violin Concerto (Itzhak Perlman with the Boston Symphony under Seiji Ozawa) was nominated for a Grammy award in 1986. His book CONTINUO: A Life in Music was published by Random House in 1987. Excerps from it have appeared in the New Yorker, Musical America, and the London Times. His complete works for solo piano (1946-1991) have recently been published in one volume.
Robert Starer's Quintet for Clarinet and Strings was commissioned by "Music in the Mountains," a summer series of concerts in the Catskill Mountains of Upstate New York, and premiered on July 24th, 1992 by the players who have now recorded it. To honor the organization that commissioned the work the composer wrote in the third movement a set of variations on a slightly modal tune he found in an old book of Catskill Mountain Folksongs. The theme is played unaccompanied by the strings and is followed by eight variations.
The Duo was commissioned by the McKim Fund of the Library of Congress and premiered there on November 18, 1988. The work is in one continuous movement, although there are several discernible sections. The thematic ideas presented by the violin in the unaccompanied opening permeate the entire work; other sections have their own musical ideas and can be described in turn as improvisatory, lyrical, energetic and noble. In the coda the mood of the opening returns, altered by the changes its material has gone through by the other musical themes it has encountered.
ELEGY FOR A WOMAN WHO DIED TOO YOUNG
In the published score of this work, the composer provides the following note: "When Samuel Sanders, director of the Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival, asked me to write a Duo for Violin and Cello to be played by Jaime Laredo and Sharon Robinson, he said that his sister, Marjorie Visner, had died recently and that he would like the work to be dedicated to her memory. That same week Smadar Levin, a young niece of mine of whom I had been very fond, had died after a long battle with cancer. I was deeply moved by her death and began to write the Elegy almost immediately. As I proceeded, it occured to me that a musical tribute to the dead should have some consolation for the living and I chose a traditional Jewish melody which was surprisingly "majorish" and positive near the end of the composition."
EPISODES FOR VIOLA, CELLO AND PIANO
Episodes for Viola, Cello and Piano was written for FIDELIO and premiered by them on January 23rd 1993 at the Museum of American Art in New Britain, Connecticut. They have since played it in many places including Carnegie Recital Hall, the Tel-Aviv Museum and the Rubin Academy in Jerusalem. Episodes is in four contrasted sections, played without interruption.
MUSIC IN THE MOUNTAINS FESTIVAL PLAYERS
Peter Alexander (Clarinet) is Dean of the School of Fine and Performing Arts at S.U.N.Y. in New Paltz. He has degrees from Columbia University, the University of Wisconsin and the Eastman School of Music. He has performed before the Congress of the International Clarinet Society and has received numerous awards for educational and creative projects. Peter Alexander gave the world premiere of Kli Zemer, Robert Starer's Clarinet Concerto, with conductor Leon Botstein.
Carole Cowan (Violin) has been concertmaster of the Hudson Valley Philharmonic since 1978 and is an active performer in a wide variety of musical venues. For the last twenty summers she has performed at the Aspen Music Festival as soloist and in chamber music concerts. She holds the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Yale University.
Emily Faxon (Violin) holds a Bachelor and Master's degree from the Juilliard School. She was a three-time recipient of fellowships to the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood.
Valentina Charlap-Evans (Viola) received her Bachelor of Arts degree from S.U.N.Y. Albany. She is a regular participant in the Casals Festival and a two-time fellowship recipient to the Tanglewood Festival.
Susan Seligman (Cello) studied with Janos Starker at Indiana University. She is Artist-in-Residence at The College of New Paltz/SUNY and principal cellist of the Hudson Valley Philharmonic. She has participated in festivals in Brazil, Italy, Switzerland, and France.
William Terwilliger (Violin) and Andrew Cooperstock (Piano) have performed Robert Starer's Duo in many concerts in this country and all over Latin America on their recent tour as "Artistic Ambassadors" of the United States Information Agency. William Terwilliger is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music and is currently on the faculty of the University of Toledo. Andrew Cooperstock, a graduate of the Juilliard School and Peabody and Cincinnati Conservatories, is Assistant Professor of Piano at the University of Oklahoma. He gave the world premiere of Starer's "Twillight Fantasies" in his New York recital debut.
Harry Clark, cellist, and Sanda Schuldmann, pianist, have played, commissioned and premiered a number of Robert Starer's works including his Piano Trio, Cello Sonata, Remembering Felix and, most recently, the chamber version of NISHMAT ADAM (The Soul of Man).
Lois Martin, viola, is a founding member of FIDELIO. Her continuing commitment to contemporary music includes performances with many chamber groups. She is also on the faculty of the Composers' Conference at Wellesley College and has taught at Princeton University.
Music in the Mountains Festival Players
Duo for Violin & Piano (14:39)
William Terwilliger, violin · Andrew Cooperstock, piano
Elegy for a Woman Who Died Too Young (10:16)
Carole Cowan, violin · Susan Seligman, cello
Episodes for Viola, Cello & Piano (9:35)
Lois Martin, viola · Harry Clark, cello · Sanda Schuldmann, piano
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