Spring Issue 2015
Van Wyck Gazette
The Grand Slambovians Marian Anderson
Rhinebeck • Poughkeepsie • Wappingers Falls • Fishkill • Beacon • Newburgh
Contents Editor in Chief Joseph H. Caplan
This issue is our fantasy interpretation of the path which lies ahead and another path taken so long ago.
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Living a Mindful Live
Diane Lang M.A.
Being in the moment to see clearly.
Making Local Business Local Brands
David McGorry
Every business is a brand.
How To Get Your Groove Back
Meryl Hartstein
Finding love is never simple.
The Name of This Band is.... Mike Jurkovic
A lot of the ways we live is what we’re trying to say.in our music.
Marian Anderson America’s Great Contralto
Peter Rae
From Marianna Farm in Danbury, CT to stages the world over.
Cover by Jonathan Carraher - “The Other Side of the Waterfall” Jonathan is a fantasy artist and illustrator from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. He has enjoyed a passion for art starting at a very young age. Although life led him down a more traditional career path, he continually worked on his artistic skills. Jon is primarily selftaught through intense study of many different artists and has also taken various fine arts classes over the years. The majority of his work is natured-based and fantasyoriented and he gathers most of his inspiration from literature, folklore and legends. Jon says that his art is an expression of his fascination with nature and vivid imagination. More information about Mr. Carraher can be found at: www.joncarraherartworks.com
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Van Wyck Ga ze tte
Wellness
Living a Mindful Life by Diane Lang
prevents this. Show nonverbal hand and facial gestures to show you are listening. Have good eye contact. Pause when the person finishes talking – we don’t need to answer immediately. Summarize what the person said and/or ask questions to show you’re listening.
Mindfulness Living: Being in the present moment, observing your thoughts and feelings without judgment. Being awake to new possibilities, clues or signs of which direction to follow. Being in the moment to see clearly those signs or clues and follow your instincts. It’s awareness of the present moment without judgment. When you’re in a state of awareness you have the ability to respond to what’s going on clearly and to make good choices. It’s noticing and observing all that is around you. Being absorbed in what you’re doing at that moment – being in “flow”. Mindfulness means looking at situations with compassion and kindness.
Practice Self-Care: We can’t feel balanced and calm if our basic needs aren’t met. For a week keep a Journal. I call it the “Journal of Truth.” In this journal keep daily track of four things. How much water did I drink? (Not coffee, tea or soda) What did I eat and when? Did I exercise today? How much sleep did I get? We need anywhere from 8-9 hours a night. At the end of the week, you can see what is missing from your life and what changes need to be made to feel better physically and mentally.
Example: Eating mindfully is when you’re aware of your food, the taste, texture, smells, etc. You’re using all 5 senses. You’re not multi-tasking. You’re completely in the moment and enjoying the meal fully.
Mind-Body Connection: Do you know where you hold stress on your body? The typical spots are: Lockjaw / TMJ, headaches, neck / shoulder / back pain and stomach. Start noticing where you hold the stress in Time to Unplug: We need to disconnect. your body. I hold it in my stomach. Once Technology has its advantages but if we you know where you hold it, you can use it don’t take the time to unplug and relax we as a warning sign. will feel added stress and pressure. Make Example: when I feel the tension in my sure to have “technology free times”. For stomach I immediately stop what I’m doing some clients, it’s during dinner. For others, and ask myself: What is going on? Why am it’s after 7 or 8 pm each night or even on I feeling so stressed out? Are my basic Sunday. Make a commitment to yourself to needs met? What changes can I make to be consistent with these technology-free feel better? times. Pay it Forward: Take a few minutes to Active Listening: If we truly listen we either say to yourself or write down what are in the moment. This means not thinking you’re grateful for. Doing random acts of about anything else while listening. Most kindness gives us a boost of happiness that of us tend to think about how we will answer can last from 24-72 hours while helping the question or we think about something someone else feel good. It’s a win-win totally different. Either way we are not in situation. Stop chasing the material and the moment. When we do this we can cause start focusing on things that truly bring miscommunication and arguments. We can happiness like: experiences, friendships, make the other person feel like we are not love, family, nature, animals, etc. listening and don’t care. Active listening
Spiritual Practice for Mindful Living: Each day take a few minutes just to breathe. When we do this we slow down and clear our mind. Practicing breathing in through your nose, holding your breath for a few seconds and then exhaling through your mouth. Repeat a few times. You will feel a sense of peace and calm. When you feel your attention wander, remember this is completely normal. Don’t judge it. Just go back to your breathing. Live Intentionally: Take some time to reflect on your values, opinions, priorities. Ask yourself some questions for thought. What’s important to you? Are you living that way? What do you value? Are you living in accordance to your value system? Does your career match your value system? Are you setting goals that are in alignment with your value system and your authentic self?
Momentary Moments: Is enjoying the simple things in life. It could be having a cup of coffee in the morning while sitting outside on the deck, going out with a friend, talking a walk, etc. A momentary moment means to savor this moment, be in the present and enjoy it. When we have momentary moments we boost our happiness levels.
Muscle Tension Relaxation: Start from either your neck or toes. Work each muscle group by tensing, holding for a few seconds and then releasing. This releases the tension/stress from your body.
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Spring 2015 Issue
Business Every business is a brand. It doesn’t matter if you are a Fortune 500 company, a one person consulting firm or a family owned business. Although this sometimes presents challenges, managing a business as a brand enables any company to build emotional bonds with customers that can make them more successful. So how can regional and family owned businesses in the Hudson Valley take advantage of branding tools and strategies that often give national chains and global companies a competitive edge? Well despite the marketing advantages major brands have at their disposal, local businesses can establish themselves as brands and leverage branding strategies to attract and retain customers. Local businesses that do this well can protect their customer base and establish a solid platform for growth.
Making Local Business Local Brands by David McGorry If you run a family restaurant, do you want to be known for just serving great food in a nice atmosphere or would you rather become the place your customers trust to help them celebrate the most momentous and memorable events of family life? A restaurant that delivers at this higher level earns a place in the family album and more important, a powerful word-of-mouth recommendation to the customer’s family and friends. Branding a business used to be about distinctive logos, consistent design and catchy advertising followed up with a great product. Those things are still important, but equally as important today is the experience a customer has with your business. Can they trust you to deliver an experience that consistently satisfies or exceeds their needs every time they do business with your company?
While listening to your unhappy customers is valuable, you can also learn from your best and happiest customers. It is through them that you can learn the most attractive things about your brand. They can help you design the most ideal customer experience and you can work to make that real for every customer. Social media provides opportunities for local businesses to learn about their customers and find ways to build better client relationships. Businesses can track Twitter comments about their company and their competitors to learn what customers like best and least about their experiences with both. Social media also creates opportunities to market your business. A local liquor store established a twitter feed and grew their follower base to the point where they could offer impromptu sales to their most loyal customers. They used Twitter in extremely bad weather to let customers know they would be closing early. Location, hours, any part of the customer experience is an opportunity to differentiate your business.
Successful brands leverage every component of their customer’s experience to differentiate their business. And, the easiest way of finding out which parts of the experience are most differentiating is to learn from the customers. For many small Today all businesses are brands. This companies that do not have budgets for can be challenging but if you are able to So how do local businesses build and formal research there are still many ways define a higher purpose and build a deeper manage their brand? If you haven’t done to learn. relationship with your customers a local this already, take some time alone, with There is no cheaper and better way to business can leverage this to differentiate your partners or with key members of your staff to define a broader purpose for your learn how your customers feel than just by themselves from even their biggest combusiness. The purpose needs to reach talking to them. Ask them how they are, if petitors. beyond what you sell to identify the deepest they are getting everything they need and David McGorry lives in Fishkill, NY with level of value you provide to customers. If if there is anything else they would like you his wife and two daughters. He worked for to do for them. Even a complaining customer you are a local insurance agency, are you just there to write policies or do your can provide valuable information. They can IBM for 29 years as a brand and naming customers come to you because no matter help you identify a problem and resolve it. consultant and works now as an independent what their insurance needs are, they trust The worst case is a customer that just goes brand strategist and naming consultant. you to ensure they and their families are elsewhere and you never hear about the problem. protected in any type of emergency.
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Van Wyck Ga ze tte
FRESH NEW CLASSICS, OLD SCHOOL CRAFTSMANSHIP
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Spring 2015 Issue
Love For all the hopeful romantics, for the many people who have found themselves stranded and floating away through life without someone to share it with, it’s time to get your groove back. Finding love is never simple, especially if we start out on the journey with a negative attitude. We have as good a chance as any to be successful in romance, in fact, maybe a better chance.
How to Get Your Groove Back in Mid Life by Meryl Hartstein no one pulling the covers away or watching love. Listen to music that makes your heart late night TV as you try to find your sleep. beat faster. Let yourself dream and fantasize On a cold snowy night as you read a about the magic of love. It does come back. book, there might come a time when you Remember the feeling of chemistry. The will think how nice it would be if there was first kiss and the expectations of more. another body next to you, quietly sharing Don’t let fear and self-doubt prohibit the the same experience. opportunity of falling in love. Many have Here comes the big question. Is it worth allowed themselves to shut down to these the effort, to find your way back to sharing emotions. Love can be a great motivator. a life with someone? We all know what it You will eat healthier, work out more, sleep will be like if we don’t. Nothing changes, much better and enjoy the dance of life goes on and the longer we wait to find romance. out, the harder it will get to discover your Don’t be afraid to join online dating sites. groove. Make sure you are very selective and don’t If we decide to take the leap again, we allow yourself to get pulled in by a handsome need to do it with an open heart and with face. Search deeper and look at this as you open eyes. We know too much this time. would a business deal. You’re in it for the long haul and you don’t want to find any We cannot afford another disaster. hidden secrets. You are investing in your You need to start with a crystal clear list life. of what you need in a person as opposed Continue on your journey with steadfast to what you want. The same list should also intentions and a strong purpose. You’re two have what you absolutely will not accept. empowered people, looking to join together In mid-life, the window of opportunity is in the world as a team. Share your wisdom, smaller and shrinking this very minute. There isn’t much wiggle room for mistakes. your families and your love.
We now know so much more, we’ve acquired a priceless wisdom and a coat of armor that we didn’t possess in our younger years. Our biological clock isn’t driving us crazy and our priorities are much more in check. Many of us have been thrown into the crazy, mixed up world of dating. Not by choice and totally by surprise. Marriages fail and spouses die. Let’s face it, we’re meant to share a life with someone. We don’t like to admit it, but living alone can get rather lonely after a while. In the It’s never too late to find the love of your Go back to when you first dated. Get in beginning, we get used to sleeping in the life. We are all worthy of that one special touch with that person who would find big king sized bed smack in the middle person who will bring you back to your excitement in the possibility of falling in without the lovely sound of snoring. There’s groove!
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Van Wyck Gazette
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Spring 2015 Issue
Music
The Name of This Band is.. Chapter One - After Exile by Mike Jurkovic
“We can give our fans more that way,” Joziah, the First Ancestor, the Architect, enthuses. “So we’re thinkin’ singles instead of albums, y’know Mikey? It takes us a lot of time to make an album. Maybe it’s just us The Grand Slambovians but it takes a lot “Got a very unusual head, (oom-pa-pa, of time. So we’re gonna do a single, unoom-pa-pa) a very unusual head.” Yea, I adorned video and just put it up there.” sing that everyday to keep the existential What did Beatle John say about reality snake oil salesmen at bay. So it’s no surprise again? That it left a lot of room for the to have it rattling ‘round my cranium as I imagination? Yea, well, welcome to the enter the Ancestral hall, leaving the boreal Slambovian Ministry of Myth. Hudson Valley winds to their own hard The slowly unraveled Genesis Narrative blowing devices. truly does go hand in hand with Joziah’s The lady of the band greets me warmly, rambling passage from doo-wop Philly kid finishes the dishes then launches into the with imaginary friends who included Lao to-be-elaborated upon later ‘China Project.’ Tze and Confucius. (Yes! That Lao Tze and She quizzes playfully. “How deep do you Confucius. Why all the surprise?) Who, as wanna go, Michael? There’s layers and a teenager on the edge of Syd Barrett-ville time to our story. There’s a horizontal and (Barrett was the young Pink Floyd jester a vertical. Like the Twilight Zone.” king who fell off his throne) began throwing Believe me. I knew this was going to get the I-Ching and writing songs that many more outside the technicolor Slambovian Twilight Zone-y real quick. There’s positive electrons in the air Airspace need be dancing to. despite Sharkey and Joziah’s encounter with unruly technology en-route to making a video of a new song about Stephen Hawking. “The ghosts threw me the idea of 21 songs for the 21st Century and this is the first one. We thought we’d throw it online in time for the Oscars, y’know. It’ll go viral if we’re lucky.”
important aspects of our artistic mission. America and China have got to wake up and engage. There’s been decades of deliberate duping on both sides and all this collateral negativity affects the whole planet. So we gotta magnify the light outwards and help people to see.” So this is how it is with these guys. Certainly I wasn’t expecting to hear the ancient blues song of scuffling gigs and interminable open mics from the Grand Slambovians. No, that wasn’t in the cards. But this is geo-politics. It’s the source of all our agitation. And they know spiritually that agitation cripples creativity. So they’ve made negating that agitation their core value. Sure, there’s the well known bio: Setting off from Sleepy Hollow with major labels and their attendant major hassles hot on their tail. A triumphant, often anthemic, sometime autumnal mosh of every grand musical tangent and gesture the ghosts have allowed to filter down. Falcon Ridge. Glastonbury. Last year’s signing with Red River Entertainment to distribute A Box of Everything, a collection of greatest hits you should be ashamed not to have heard if you haven’t. Then there’s all the critical exultations: “The hillbilly Pink Floyd!” One of the finest American bands out there!” “The Hudson Valley’s best kept secret!” “A musical slam dunk!”
“I think it’s really good to talk about our history in a way that effects people and the art form we’re trying to make.” Joziah preambles, a tuna sandwich in hand. “Especially in China, where there’s a language barrier. A lot of the ways we live is what we’re trying to say in our music.”
But, like the lady forewarned, there’s layers. And time. And a mouth trumpet chorus that’s irresistible to live audiences when they play “A Very Unusual Head.” There’s Sharkey’s heart-baring flights of guitar fancy and his awesome slide mandolin playing. There’s Alice and the Mummers “China was, and is, one of the most and Tink’s cello and theremin and Eric’s
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Van Wyck Ga ze tte propulsive percussion and . . . I don’t know. Japanese musicians had seen us perform And I sometimes think they don’t either. in a punk club in Tokyo and were fans, so They just let go. . . they gave them OUR contact info and before “In a group you have to know when to we knew it we were in Shanghai New Year’s control and when to let go. Control makes Day 1993, ending a decade long ban on for very boring art and life.” Tink says, and western music.” Joziah picks up the vibe. “Sharkey’s our most pragmatic. He’s the most spiritually balanced. He has a foot in the Spirit and Earth worlds and taps into that when he’s playing.”
“Don’t let his calm demeanor fool ya,” she says. “He’s a Capricorn and they do have a wild side they save for special occasions.” But the most spiritually balanced Ancestor and pragmatic Capricorn has been somewhat silent until now. “If you heard me and Joziah doing “Talkin’ To The Buddha” or “Baby Jane” then yeah that’s around ‘97-’98 before the band was touring.” “We came out of exile as it were disguised as Gandalf Murphy and the Slambovian Circus of Dreams. But we were still the Ancestors underneath it all,” Jo concludes. And the Ancestors were? “Well it was us and Brian Hardgroove (Public Enemy) on bass and Bob Muller (Trey Gunn/Robert Fripp) on drums. That was the band in China, believe it or not.” Jo enthuses. “We were the first American band to play China right after Tiananmen Square,” Tink intones. “The Chinese government officials involved in business and cultural development for Shanghai had a reform plan in the early 90’s,” Joziah clarifies as Sharkey nods affirmatively. “An experiment to see how much freedom they could regulate, I guess.” “They had brought this Japanese band over to play Chinese cover songs and with that success they got braver and the officials asked that band for suggestions of other artists to invite to come play. Something may have gotten lost in translation, but the
“We go over and get off the plane looking like a heavy metal hair band with a pronounced Slambovian presence. Armed soldiers, head-bangers, communist party officials were in the audience. . .they only allowed us three songs for the first show, (which could have gone south very quickly) but the people loved us! Because of that tour we hooked up with legendary musician/ activist Cui Jian (think Chinese Bob Dylan, his legend begins with Tiananmen Square) and other mainland artists. We were told ‘The Ancestors’ were the first English words to ever appear in government controlled media including The Shanghai Daily.
our ‘sound’ as it were. That was enough to inspire Sharkey to move north from Manhattan, finish the whole project and suddenly we’re the fashion plates for the whole alt-folk/Americana scene.” “We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention the ‘ladies of folk’ - Dar Williams, Ani DiFranco and Sloan Wainwright who welcomed us into the world they were creating. Slipping into the open mic/folk circuit, we found fellow travelers and built a real grassroots following. People took to us - fans and their families.” She begins to wind us down. “It’s a tribal vibe, a more organic model we’ve established than we may have earlier in our careers. Because we’re thinking about spending less time on the road and more in the studio, it helps to have that support. That’s where the singles idea we discussed earlier comes in. We’ve been blessed with many things – material, family, friends and an abundance of songs from Joziah’s creative coffers. So we want to put more music out there and because the Slambovian tribe is so great, that accumulation of outgoing richness will flow back to us and establish a deeper connection.”
Tink fast forwards a couple years. “We went on hiatus between ‘95-’97, going back to school to learn production, graphic and multi-media design and all things necessary to become a total DIY band, a bit ahead of the curve. We did some sporadic recording during that time, which ended with drummer Tony Zuzulo entering the picture. He was “Michael,” Joziah confides. “You call me one of our college professors who befriended the Architect, but you know we make it all us, (took pity on our lack of technical up as we go along, right?” expertise) becoming tutor - technical mentor Next time: Theodore Mann! Flapjacks! and quite by chance volunteered his drum More ghosts! More layers! The UK! And in services as a favor one day.” walks Eric! - www.slambovia.com “He and Joziah felt an amazing chemistry immediately, so they did the tracks for The Upcoming shows: Good Thief album which finished the album Saturday, April 18 and essentially gave birth to the band. Our Mexicali Live studio was in the attic, so we picked up 1409 Queen Anne Rd, Teaneck, NY whatever was laying around to record with www.mexicalilive.com - an old mandolin, a rusty one string guitar was the instrument of choice for Joziah’s Sunday, April 19 slide work, and my pawnshop accordion Earthday NY 2015 was the only keyboard on the album. We Union Square Park left our big gear behind and headed for the www.earthdayny.org hills in a way. That was the beginnings of
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Spring 2015 Issue
Culture If you’re out for a drive on the hills in Danbury, Conn e c t i c u t ’s west side, you might come across a residential street called Marianna Farm Drive. Since there are no farms in the area, you might wonder how this street got its name. A little research reveals that before the well kept houses that currently populate the street were built, Marianna Farm was for 50 years the residence of Marian Anderson, one of America’s finest concert singers of the 20th century. How that she came to live in Danbury is an interesting story with two dominant themes: the positive support she received from family, neighbors, church groups, and others for her music, and the difficulties she encountered because of her race. Growing Up in Philadelphia Marian Anderson was born in 1897 in South Philadelphia, one of three daughters of John Anderson, who delivered coal and ice for a living, and his wife, Anna. An African American whose own grandfather had been a slave, Marian grew up in an integrated neighborhood comprised of working class Irish, Italians and blacks.
Marian Anderson America’s Great Contralto by Peter Rae difficult music. Her father died when she was twelve, and her mother took a job teaching school to keep the family together. After completing eighth grade, Marian dropped out of school to help with the family financing – by cleaning houses and by singing.
Penn High School. Three years later she transferred to the newly established South Philadelphia High School for Girls, pursuing an academic course that featured music. One of the school’s oldest students as well as one of its few blacks, Marian graduated in 1921.
Encouraged by her family, her church and others who heard her sing, Marian began professional training. This was not only helpful technically, it also introduced Marian to European classical music. Marian learned the lyrics as well as the tunes,
During her high school years, Marian began to travel for out-of-town performances. These were often in the South, and she experienced for the first time the “Jim Crow” laws that enforced segregation there. Traveling with her mother, she learned about the waiting areas, the train and bus seating areas, and the separate entrances specially designated for “colored only”. Her high school principal continued to be interested in her, and recommended a new voice coach: Giuseppe Boghetti, who had studios in both Philadelphia and New York. Following a one-song audition, Boghetti took her on immediately, telling her that within two years she could be singing anywhere in the world!
After graduation, Marian focused full-time on performing. She teamed up with an accompanist, William L. “Billy” King, and the two toured together, primarily in the South where they had to endure its Jim Crow laws on a daily basis. They persisted, and their fame grew. In 1923, Marian became the first black concert artist to record Negro spirituals for a major American Marian at age 20 recording company, and the first black soloist at the Philadelphia Philharmonic singing them in their original languages Society. Between performances, she (even if she didn’t know all their meanings). continued to train with Giuseppi Boghetti.
Musical talent abounded in the Anderson family, but as early as elementary school, it was apparent that Marian was special. By fourth grade Marian had joined the junior choir at her family’s church, and soon A year later, she was invited to perform At age 18, Marian was able to resume afterward the senior choir, which gave her at New York City’s Town Hall, which had a her formal education by enrolling at William the opportunity to learn more varied and
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Van Wyck Ga ze tte well-earned reputation as a steppingstone for young artists. Her playlist included numbers by European composers in their original languages, but the combination of inexperience with foreign languages and general nervousness led to uncomplimentary reviews. Marian was devastated. It took Boghetti and others several months to help restore Marian’s confidence, but he eventually enrolled her in a contest where she would be one of more than 300 contestants. Boghetti chose the Donizetti aria O mio Fernando for her. She won the contest, and with it an opportunity to perform with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, which she did – to “rave” reviews. Together with Billy King, she continued to perform at some of the top venues in America. Even now, however, others were not open to her; racism, while not so obvious in the North, continued to persist there. That, plus the belief that she could perform in foreign languages better if she heard them on a regular basis, persuaded Marian to test her fortunes in Europe.
Marian at the Lincoln Memorial Two music scouts from Scandinavia were at the Bachsaal that day, and quickly set up a tour of the four Scandinavian countries for her. One of the scouts, a Finnish concert pianist named Kosti Verhanen, became her full-time accompanist. She gave twelve concerts in three weeks and was an instant success in all four countries.
After several more tours in Scandinavia, Marian performed in virtually all of the major capitals in Europe and also toured Italy, Russia and elsewhere. She was now performing a repertoire of over 200 songs in at least eight different languages. At Austria’s Salzburg Festival in 1935, she met Arturo Toscanini, perhaps the world’s most famous music personality at the time. He told her that a voice like hers was heard In June 1930, Marian sailed for Europe once in a hundred years. again, this time settling in Berlin. After Later in 1935 Marian returned home, and several more months of concentrated study, in December performed at New York’s Town she felt she was ready, and booked herself Hall, eleven years after her first disastrous at a concert hall named the Bachsaal, after appearance there. This time was different Johann Sebastian Bach. Black concert – America heard what Europe had been performers were a rarity in Berlin, so many listening to for the past five years, and she in the sold-out hall were simply curious. got rave reviews. She won them all over by performing ten From 1936 to 1939 Marian again toured songs in German, an aria in Italian, and the United States and the world. She also several spirituals in English. became a popular radio performer in the European Triumphs Marian Anderson sailed for Europe in the fall of 1927. She settled in London, where her primary goals were to study German and French, and in her spare time, to attend concert performances by the great artists of the time. Then it was back home and several more years of touring that were successful but not a breakthrough.
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U.S., appearing regularly on top-rated shows such as The General Motors Hour and The Ford Hour. And in 1936, at the invitation of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, she performed at the White House for the President, his family and their invited guests. The Lincoln Memorial Concert On Easter Sunday, April 9, 1939, Marian Anderson performed at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. The weather was cool and cloudy, with both performer and audience wearing coats and hats. But the crowd was large – more than 75,000 heard Miss Anderson sing that day. Marian had hoped to hold the concert at nearby Constitution Hall, the largest and finest concert hall in the District, but the Daughters of the American Revolution, which owned the hall, refused permission for her to perform there. The reason? The D.A.R. policy that excluded blacks from performing at Constitution Hall. That meant Marian Anderson, an African-American, was out. By 1939, Marian Anderson was well into her second decade of acclaimed performances at international concert venues, and Continued on page 12
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Spring 2015 Issue
Culture
Marian Anderson 1040’s
Courtesy of Edwin Pruse Anderson
she had gained some powerful supporters. One was Eleanor Roosevelt, who quickly resigned her D.A.R. membership and galvanized the federal government into finding a replacement location. Another was Harold Ickes, who, as Secretary of the Interior, found that location – an openair concert at the Lincoln Memorial, in front of the statue of a seated Abraham Lincoln looking out over the Reflecting Pool.
Following an introduction by Mr. Ickes, Miss Anderson performed six songs, whose variety indicates the range of her capabilities: America; Oh mio Fernando, from the Donizetti opera La Favorita; Schubert’s Ave Maria and three Negro spirituals: Trampin, My Soul is Anchored in the Lord and Nobody Knows the Trouble I See. The entire concert was broadcast live nationally on the NBC Blue Radio Network. Millions heard Marian Anderson’s vibrant contralto voice, many for the first time, and they loved it.
After the Easter Sunday Concert Marian Anderson continued to perform at the highest level for another quarter century, finally retiring in 1965. During World War II, she regularly headlined at benefits for the troops. One of those appearances was, ironically, at Constitution Hall. The D.A.R. arranged a series of benefits at Constitution Hall and invited Marian to perform at the first one. She agreed, but only if the audience would be completely integrated. After some hesitation, the D.A.R. agreed, and on January 7, 1943, Marian Anderson finally sang at Constitution Hall. The integrated capacity crowd made the night a complete success. After the war, Marian remained popular on radio, performing regularly on the Bell Telephone Hour. She also continued touring, both in the United States and throughout the world. In the early 1950s she became one of the first Americans to perform in Japan. However, in the U.S., many concert venues in the South still maintained segregated seating, and in the early 1950s she decided she would no longer perform at segregated concert halls. And she did not. By 1955, New York’s venerable Metropolitan Opera had gone 72 years without a single African American soloist. That year Marian became the first when she sang the role of the sorceress Ulrica in Giuseppi Verdi’s A Masked Ball. Honors abounded. The United States government named Marian a delegate to the United Nations in 1958. The entire nation heard her perform He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands at the Civil Rights March on Washington at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963. Martin Luther King gave his “I Have a Dream” speech there that same day. In 1984, she was named the first recipient of the Eleanor Roosevelt Human Rights Award. Continued on page 14
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Spring 2015 Issue
Culture Marianna Farm In 1940, Marian and her long-time friend and partner Orpheus “King” Fisher, an architect, purchased a 100acre farm in Danbury, Connecticut. They adapted the existing ranch-style house to their liking, built a separate studio for Marian, and named it all Marianna Farm. Finding the farm wasn’t easy. They were living in New York City but were looking for a quieter life in the country. Orpheus, who could Marian speaking to attendees at the opening easily pass for of Huntington Hall, the main building of the white, looked at Danbury Historical Society and Museum, 1962 many properties advertised by realtors, but as soon as he divulged who his partner was, the properties were suddenly taken off the market. The story goes that following numerous rejections, when Orpheus reached Danbury, the realtor did not ask, Orpheus did not tell, and the sale went through.
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Three years later, Marian and Orpheus were finally married. The wedding was performed at the United Methodist Church in nearby Bethel, Connecticut. They had no children, which Marian always regretted, saying that they should have been more daring earlier in their careers. Marian and Orpheus lived quietly in Danbury. She supported the local chapter of the NAACP, liked to visit the Danbury State Fair, often performed at Christmas tree lightings held at City Hall, and sang at Danbury High School. She was a member of the Board of Directors of Danbury Hospital and supported the Charles Ives Center for the Performing Arts. She also supported the Danbury Historical Society, speaking there at the opening of Huntington Hall, the museum’s main building, in 1962. Following Orpheus’ death in 1985, Marian stayed on at Marianna Farm until she moved to Portland, Oregon in 1991, to live with her nephew, who was music director for the Portland Symphony Orchestra. She passed away on April 8, 1993, one day before the 54th anniversary of her Easter Sunday concert at the Lincoln Memorial. Following her passing, Marianna Farm was sold to a residential real estate developer. The ranch was demolished, but the studio was relocated to property owned by the Danbury Historical Society and Museum. The Society maintains the studio and you can see it there today – a building of simple, yet eloquent design that is entirely representative of the talent and graciousness of Marian Anderson.
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