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My name is Nori Guthrie from the Woodson Research Center at Fonder Library Rice University. I am interviewing Isabel Ganz. Today is Wednesday, July 18th, 2018. This is part of the Houston Folk Music Archive, oral History project. Can you tell me about your early life? It started

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when I was born. Um OK, early life. It's always been music. Always. My mother was a graduate of the Institute of Musical Art which has became come Juilliard. So I was exposed to music very, very early and um started piano when I was five years old

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and practiced and practiced and practiced and worked my way to an engagement with the New York Philharmonic when I was just 10. Although they told me to lie and say I was nine, which is where I learned how to lie. And um then realized right after

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that, that I was not fulfilling what I wanted to do. I wanted to go outside and play with the other kids and this was my mother's dream and not my own. So I started rebelling and stopped practicing and then went to the flute, which was a

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much more social instrument. And then I went to the high school of music and art majored in flute and it was a nice social thing rather than sitting alone at a piano for four hours. Um What did you do next? After high school? I went to

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college, like most people do but not everybody. Um I went, I got a New York State scholarship and went to Eastman and New University of Rochester which at, in the fifties was a shock. Um, the shock being that it was for guitars and sororities and football

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and not at all that, what I was used to, which was singing Madrigals down Fifth Avenue and going to school with torn jeans, et cetera, it was very different. And so in order to avoid the sororities, I hid under the bed, knocked the door were the

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sororities, um, with the sororities, they are, um, were there Jewish people, Jewish women that were a part of those or were they still pretty? Um, you know, it's interesting because they put, they gave me a roommate who was the only other Jewish girl and we hated

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each other. We did not want to room and I just dug up the money for a single room. Um, how did you meet Peter Gardner? Really? There? It was my freshman year of college because we had a rebellious group and we met in that apartment, Peter

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had a key for the apartment under a can of black bean soup in the hall and we all gathered in his place and he had a roommate who was a classical musician and, and a composer and I started singing his stuff and, but we weren't romantically

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attracted. I was romantically attracted to Peter. And we started singing folk songs with guitars and that's how it began. What were some of your favorites at the time to sing? Gosh, can I remember the songs? Um In high school, I was singing a lot of political

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songs like, namely there once was a union maid who never was afraid. Unions are in the news now. Um And then I went to General American folk songs, Joan Baez stuff and Judy G Carlin's stuff. Judy Judy Collins. Yeah. Both of whom we worked with. Um

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So I started singing the songs that I heard. Um So kind of relate to this. How did you and Peter select music? And what was your role? He was a folk singer. He was five years older than I was. So, he was a folk singer before

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we met. And so I learned a lot of songs from him. And that was the beginning of my career as an arranger and composer because it got very boring to sing the same tune. 36 verses. So I made intricate arrangements which the folkies were not really,

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really cotton, they didn't cotton to them. Um We were very popular in intellectual circles like Cambridge, Massachusetts and Aspen, Colorado. The Aspen is, is a surprising one. Um Can you talk about the clubs that you played early on? The, what that I played earlier? The clubs

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that you played clubs early on? Yeah, I made a list of them because it was so hard to remember them. Um First of all New York was the center, of course. Um And we played Gerdes Folk City many, many times with Simon and Garfunkel with uh

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John Lee Hooker with, um um after I came back from Houston, I was a solo act and I opened for Bob Dylan and all of these managers were coming to see Dylan. And I said, you know, he doesn't have a very good voice, but, oh my

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God, the songs. Um so that, that was the center of the folk music revival and there was a place called the Village Gate, Art de Lugo. Art de Lugo was a Jewish guy who had to fight like mad to get licenses from the Italian mafia who

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controlled everything there. Um But he, he finally did it. It was a big place. It's, it's now called Le Poisson D which is uh uh in the same location and specializes in not only folk music but really avant garde classical music as well. Um Funny because

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when we played with Simon and Garfunkel, they knew seven songs and they sang them for every set and I just remember why you wouldn't believe it. This is before they started writing. Uh When I was just a wee wee ta, they took me from my wee

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wee cuts. Uh, put me on my wee wee pot to see if I would we or not. You wouldn't believe that Wassim in your. And they sang it over. There's more verses, but I'm not going to do it. Um, we in Houston we played the jester,

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which, you know, is, was the center of folk music in Houston. And as you probably know, sadly, I'm one of the few survivors of that era of the sixties. I mean, I'm, uh, relatively still have my mind and my body because they're all gone. Um, can

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you talk more about the jester? Uh, thinking about, um, what it looked like on the inside other people you interacted with. Hard to remember that far back. It was, it was dusty, it was, you know, it was kind of grimy. You, you know, there was wood

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everywhere and when you did that, you got your fingers all dirty. Um, so it was, it was folky, but it was an oasis because we were in the deep South. This is the beginning of the sixties and it was a terrible shock to come here. I

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mean, hideous. Uh, for example, um, speaking of Italians, they, there was a menu in a luncheonette and it said wop salad on the menu. I said, whoop, that was anti pasta. That was their way of saying it. Um, Foley's department store had four bathrooms and white

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ladies and colored women were separated. I said, I'm not gonna survive this and it was, you know, really a horrible shop for a, for a northern person to come here. Um So the gesture was, as I said, an oasis, it was wonderful because you had people

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like, like Guy Clark and Frank Davis with his daddy. Banjo Ed Beau Sarah Wiggins, Carolyn Terry Davy Jones, Sharon Steinberger, Nance Lips and Howie Parker, who, who was the head of the folk music. He was one of the, he was one of the founders, he was

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one of the founders. OK? And he was a good pal. We, we hung out with him and his wife Dasha a lot. What, what was he like? He was very funny, big lumbering guy with a beautiful high tenor voice. Um When we sang, you, you probably

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hear on the tape that I gave you the JCC concert. When he sang in Hebrew, he could never memorize the, the Hebrew words. So he put the guitar in front of his face so nobody could see that his lips are saying the wrong words, but his

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voice was gorgeous. Um But when he did his solo stuff, I mean, that's when he shined. Lovely guy. Cool. I, no one has talked about him. I just know him as a name. So it's nice to have a little bit more fleshed out and you know,

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he was a very familiar type. He and his, his wife, Dasa were New Yorkers and we had a lot in common. Um, anybody else that you can talk about from that time period, that gesture time. Um How is the one we knew the most? Um Frank

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Davis I adored. Um, he was always smoking. You know, this was the era. If you go back to films, you see everybody smoking in films and it's a horror now. And I think so. If you got close to him you had to breathe all that cigarette

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smoke. Um, but dear man, I saw him a few years ago and I hear that he's not doing well mentally. Uh, I'm not even sure if he's in Houston anymore. He's not. Yeah, he's not. Ed Beau died recently. Guy Clark is gone. I don't know anything

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about Sarah Wiggins, Carolyn Terry. I know Sarah Wiggins has passed. I, I haven't been able to track down Carolyn Davy Jones. It's a hard one to find. It's such a common name. Right. Exactly. Exactly. Sharon Steenbergen. Uh, that's a new name to me. Uh huh. That's

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a new name. Yeah, I don't know the only one that, um, she did not hang around the jester but Carolyn Hester, we played in folk clubs and, and, you know, she was in basically a Texan and, and she was, but she sang nationally. Uh, then there

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was Gate of Horn in Chicago. I cannot remember whom we performed with, um, in Denver. We mett Judy Collins. And, um, we're in her book that is Peter and I roomed with her with our Weimaraner and in, in folk festival. And, uh, she had a guitar

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at this Denver club. She had a guitar that had a hole in the back. So when you saw her playing, you could see her dress through, through the back edge of the guitar. Um, it was a funny scene because I remember singing with Peter and in

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came a five very pregnant women like out to here and I started, I was pregnant and we were making our way back from Los Angeles at that time. So I started kibitzing with them about formulas and, you know, and being pregnant, et cetera, et cetera. And

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then I get a note from the bartender saying, shut up, they're from a home for unwed mothers. And I said, oh, God, I've done that. So, um, sad story with Judy. Um, I saw her a few years ago and she came to Austin and we had,

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uh, around 1961 shared a babysitter because she had come to New York and, and her son and our daughter were both around a year and a half and we shared a babysitter and went out that night. And so we really knew each other well. And then

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we roomed at that folk festival and when I saw her four years ago, five years, no, it was more than that. I'm sorry. It was at least six or seven years ago in Austin. And she kind of tuned me out. And the only reason I could

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think of was that her son had committed suicide and this was too painful, a memory of acknowledging me. So that was a sad tale boy. She sings so beautifully, so beautiful. Um, Los Angeles, the Ashgrove. Uh, we sang with Odetta. It was a powerhouse powerhouse. Um,

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I remember sitting with her voice teacher while she was warming up and he said she's doing terrible things with her voice. I said, don't argue with her. You can laugh all the way to the bank. Um Boston the Turks head with Joan Baez. Um She was

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a shy little 18 year old man and with that gorgeous, gorgeous floating high voice. Um also in Boston, uh the year I was divorced, which was 1965 played all of these coffee houses with Joel Cohen who became the head of the Boston Camerata and we did

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lute and voice and lute and flute. So that was my process of sort of going back to its classical music. It's always been a juggling game like that. And my idol in this juggle who is also a crossover person is David Amran. Do you know him

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who is a wonderful composer and a flower child? He's now about 8586 something like that. I saw him recently at the Cornelia Street Cafe in New York. And um he plays a multitude of instruments. He just takes the this out, sits down and starts playing jazz,

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incredibly talented guy and he goes from classical to folk to world music. Same the same thing that I've been doing. Um You also played um abroad? Yes. Um Can you talk about that experience? One more? Um uh American place was the limelight in Aspen because when

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we were working our way back from Los Angeles and I was pregnant, we had a three month gig in as at the limelight in Aspen. So we played every single night. Uh and the limelight owned it and it was, it was a tough time because I

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couldn't ski because I was pregnant. So, what do you do during the day? Ok. Um Ireland, first of all, I have to go back in time to 1957 and the Troubadours and the Troubadours um was a group that Peter introduced me to. I had recently met

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him in, in University of Rochester. And then he said that summer they were having as this to American Youth hostel tour when it was Coral. And so I auditioned for the leader of it and I was supposed to be an alto. They needed an alto and

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I was a high soprano at that time. And so Peter gave us drinks and gave Bob drinks and he was auditioning me and he got drunk and I got drunk and as I got drunk, my voice got higher and higher, but he couldn't hear it anyway.

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So I got, got on the tour and it was a group of wonderful people um mostly in New York and New Jersey. And um Frank Llo, the famous actor who always said he wanted to be an actor and by God, he did it. He's anytime he's

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on Broadway and if I can get there, I go to see him because it, it is powerful, powerful. Um We had uh somebody who was in the um metropolitan opera chorus and twin sisters who had organized all this. So, so we were folk singing tour and

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we started in Ireland, we landed in Cork. We of course traveled by ship and, and we met every lord mayor of every town and they got us drunk on Irish whiskey at 10 o'clock in the morning. And so in Dublin, we mett Lord Mayor Briscoe who

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was the compromise candidate between the Catholics and the Protestants. He was Jewish. And so he's very famous in Ireland. So I pinned the, the uh American youth hostile pin on him. And you will have a photo of that. So um we started in 1957. I forgot.

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Oh yes, Ireland met the Clancy Brothers and we saw them again in New York. Clancy Brothers and Tony make them. And the mother of all the Clancy brothers said that Tommy Macomb was her most talented son, although he wasn't related. Um And then on that tour.

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We also, after uh we went through England, we bicycled from London to, from, sorry, from Wales to London. Rained every day. We were very wet. Um In Wales, we, we um competed in the uh eisteddfod. Then lo spelled LL O NGO Llen. So the double L

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is and I got second prize in the classical singing competition Singing di Fella by Schubert in German. As it was written. Every other singer sang it in Welsh. Then um Peter got first prize in the folk singing category. So we both took home prizes and it,

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it was very exciting. And then I guess the following on is that we went on to Germany and, and we played a folk festival in Schleswig Holstein, which was um gosh, what can I say about it? It was kind of creepy because we stayed in people's

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houses and uh this lovely woman gave us food and I, I assume they reimbursed these people who, who wanted to put up the, the talent. And there I saw a photo of a man in a Nazi army uniform and she said to me, for them, for

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them, we are, we are on their rights, which means that was before the war. We were in Switzerland. I said everybody was in Switzerland must have been really crowded. Yeah. So was it after that, that then you came through and started playing the Borscht Belt? Yeah,

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we came back uh Well, that was 1957. Then I went to University of Chicago, got rid of those sororities and fraternities. And University of Chicago was the place where we studied Plato and Aristotle. In every course, this was the, the great books, Hutchins courses. And um

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went there for two years and at the end of those two years in 1958 Peter and I were married and I went to GE for one year. Wow, we were our first year of marriage and then we, I never did get a degree because I had

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transferred so many times. I had now had four years of college, but that didn't matter. So we took off and started performing and than all of these places, these clubs that I mentioned and we played the Bush Belt and the Borscht Belt were these hotels throughout

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the Catskills and the Adirondacks and famous people started their careers there like Danny Kaye and all those famous comedians and they were what you called Tumblers. They, they provided entertainment for the guests, you know, including sports and comedy and music and everything. Um, we played not

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the big ones like gross singers. We were more, uh booked in Adirondack places where they were very left wing hotels that would love folk music. Um, we had an agent who was so funny. I mean, he, he was a New York agent with a Twitch. So

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he'd get on the phone all the time. Oh, yeah, I got, I've got, oh, my God, I've got a great act for you, you know, felt sorry for the poor guy. So we toured the Borsch Belt with uh a duo called um uh Moni and Mina

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Yaqui. And they were Israelis who had studied Mime in France and they were beautiful mime artists. And Moni is still teaching at Juilliard now in the theater department and in Mime and Mina does equal things. She does masks and, and Mime. So they were the theater

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and we were the music we got along wonderfully miss them. Um Was the audience different for those shows? How would you describe the audience actually at the shows in those in the Adirondacks in, in the Adirondacks, as I said, they were left wing, left wing pol

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politically, left wing crowds. Um you know, very, very loose clothing, shorts, jeans, et cetera, you know, nothing dressed up. It wasn't the kind of place that, that the board circuit is known for, namely women who are going alone for the week and having a brief fling

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with a young waiter till their husband comes on the weekend. Wasn't those kind of places. So we all those things you're describing to me just sound like dirty dancing. Um OK. Um So then, um let's talk about the recordings that you both did together. Um I

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wasn't actually sure which one came out first because one is dated and one is not dated. OK. Uh The first one called Peter and Isabel the Gardener with I, you, I know you're gonna put up a picture, but this was the picture that I asked them.

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Please don't choose this one because it's awful. They did. Uh, that was the 1st 1, 1981 I mean, 1961 losing decade and the second one was the next year. Ok, 1962. Can you talk about the recording process? Well, our first recording it, it was so tense

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because it was, we wanted to get it back. So three o'clock in the morning take 37 we're gonna get this perfect and of course, it gets worse and worse and worse and worse. And it would second recording. We learned our lesson that you can be a

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little looser. It doesn't matter if you have a mistake, you know, communicate. Um Bill Lee is the, is the bass player on that second recording. Bill Lee is the father of Spike Lee, wonderful bass player. Did you for that first album? Did you have a hard

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time? Wasn't it expensive? Um using up that extra studio time to kind of work towards the perfection or where is it? Ok. Yeah, but of course, the studios were not as expensive as they are now. Uh This was done in New Jersey. Uh The engineer was

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a very famous Rudy Van Gelder. I just saw his obituary about two years ago. Um He was the jazz engineer and this was the jazz label. Prestige international. So while I was there, they asked me to um do some studio work with Bonnie Dobson and Ed

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mccurdy. Ed mccurdy was famous for Lyrica erotica. So he wrote the words, I wrote the tunes and played the flute. So it was, it was like um a classical gig even though I was still doing folk music. So how, how long did you spend um working

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with him on that? I don't remember how long it was, how long however long it took to make LP S right. I just didn't know if it was something you guys kind of did in the moment. Yes. Yes, I was sitting backstage scrawling tunes saying, can

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you read this? You know, we did, we didn't have finale and any of those music copying that must have been, was it stressful to do that or did you feel comfortable? I kinda liked it. I kinda, you know, I kinda like the yy, you, you're fully

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alive. Um uh Were there any other um times that you did that sort of work? Uh studio work? No, only for our own? Yeah, I've made tons of C DS after that, you know, like 30 C Ds and of course, I played flute on them like

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Gershwin album and I sang and played flute with superb pianist named Ed Murray who is my classmate. Um But in, in recording is always stressful, but it was never as stressful as that first one. And, and that makes, that was just horrendous. Um So in 1962

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you moved to Houston. How was it different from your past experiences? You've talked a little bit about that. Um encountering the kind of just easy racism. First, we had, my aunt and uncle had moved here and they were the family members who were the pioneers. They

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left New York and um my aunt was a real go gutter and she got Peter and me uh engagements at the JCC and um Cullen Auditorium at the U of H and TSU. And we made $750 in one week and I had never seen so much

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money. So, uh then Peter was offered a job as adult activities director, cultural Arts at the JCC. So we moved and that when we moved, well, we, when we were there first to perform, it was April and it was 70 degrees and gorgeous and it was

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snowing in New York. And when we moved here, it was August as everyone, you know, all academics move here in August and, and it was 100 and two degrees for endless. And I'm, I it was like sensory deprivation cause I was so used to opening the

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windows and hearing the bongo drums and, and the ice cream salesman and all these noises and nothing, nothing, just gentle hum of air conditioners. And twice a day, the train went by and I waited for that noise. Who it was hard until I finally learned how

00:28:53.239 - 00:29:07.030

to drive. I New Yorkers don't drive because you don't need to. So I took, my aunt taught me how to drive and then I took a test and flunked it because the cop said, well, you're gonna drive around block and then you're gonna make a left

00:29:07.040 - 00:29:27.859

turn and then, you know, I can, by any questions. I said, I didn't understand a word. You said. Flunk doesn't understand English. So I went across town and took it again so then I could get out of the house at least. So that was the first

00:29:27.869 - 00:29:48.630

shock, of course, the weather and the second shock I talked about, you know, the racism. Um The interesting thing about the institutionalized racism, namely the science on the bathroom, et cetera was that by 1965 it had all changed and those signs were gone and there was

00:29:48.640 - 00:30:04.319

racism, of course, but it wasn't institutionalized. And I learned about a year and a half ago, I heard this talk by the Reverend Bill Lawson of the Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church. And he said around that time, all the city fathers and the mayor had gotten together

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and they said we are going to quietly integrate all these, take down those signs and no big blowups just do it. And that's, that's how it changed. Um Can you talk about being at the JCC? I don't know if you hung out there very much or

00:30:25.030 - 00:30:41.369

you were there for some of the, I was actually hired to uh accompany the Golden Age Club, which were senior citizens and I, they sang and I played the piano and accompanied them and I had to, you know, find the key and, and get to know

00:30:41.380 - 00:30:55.890

their songs. So they taught me some of Yiddish songs that I hadn't known. Um So I, so I was there a lot and of course, because Peter was working there, it was there a lot. It was funny because Peter was born a Quaker and he had

00:30:55.900 - 00:31:12.619

converted to Judaism. So my father wouldn't have a heart attack or kill himself. Um And so he had, he grew up with a Christmas tree. So here he was working for the JCC, couldn't have a Christmas tree showing in our window in our home. So, uh

00:31:12.630 - 00:31:32.800

we had a, a little hutch with um space underneath and you could open the, the doors in front and he hung Christmas lights inside the hutch. And our daughter, Debbie grew up under there with those Christmas lights looking at the lights there. And Forevermore, her New

00:31:32.810 - 00:31:57.000

York apartment had these little flickering lights above the bed. It made her feel secure. Um What did the performing space look like there in the JCCCC? The one where we were performing um uh on the recording that you'll hear uh was like a huge social hall.

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It was the same place where I accompanied the Golden age club. Big, big, big room and a, a stage. I think that was movable. I think they could take down that stage. So, and they would just take it down and it wasn't fixed seats at all.

00:32:13.969 - 00:32:34.209

Just folding chairs. How many do you think it sat the whole room? Yeah. Mm. Maybe 300. Fairly big. And the thing is that the JCC in that time was uh the center of culture, the Bach Society met there. Um So I was there all the time

00:32:34.219 - 00:32:53.250

to hear events and I actually met Abby Lips with my second husband at a piano recital there where we filled three programs of cons comments on the pianist and the music. And I said, who is this? And I think you had told me you um, before

00:32:53.260 - 00:33:10.239

that you had seen John Avery Lomax junior perform there. That was a color auditorium. Oh, ok. And I guess it was the folk music society that brought him and he was singing working songs with a Pickaxe and he had a big huge log and he was

00:33:10.250 - 00:33:33.849

going and every time he did that, all of these woods, wood flecks would bounce into the audience and we're all going like that. How would you describe his performing style? Like his voice? So like, you know, imitating the phone, his grandson was here recently, right. John

00:33:33.989 - 00:33:53.449

Lomax the third. Yes. Yes. Yes or well, that's his, that's his son. That's his son. Yeah, because there's Well, there's John. So there's John A Lomax, which is the one who was the ballad collector. And then there's his son, which is John Avery Lomax Jr. And

00:33:53.459 - 00:34:07.380

that was the one I saw with the pick and that's the one that you saw with the Pickaxe and who was another co founder of the Houston Folklore Society, right? And then there's his son, John Lomax the third that also had his own history with music

00:34:07.390 - 00:34:33.879

and everything. I got that. It's I i it's always confusing for people like figuring out where is Alan Fit in there. Alan's the brother Alan's, the brother of John Junior. And we met him along. So going back in time to the Village Gate era when Peter

00:34:33.889 - 00:34:53.149

and I were uh performing, this is about 1959. And um there was a man named Skip Wesner who had a radio show. So he brought in folk musicians of various kind and he loved the fact that we were doing international songs, which is now called world

00:34:53.159 - 00:35:13.770

music. It's got a new category. And um we performed on the same bill with, with Theo Bikel who's, you know, very famous. And in fact, we saw Theo in Los Angeles after that time and Ron and Nama who were an, an, an Israeli duo, very well

00:35:13.780 - 00:35:35.889

known in Jewish music circles. And Skip was going with a young woman named Lynn Taylor. Lynn Taylor was one third of the rooftop singers. And you probably know this tune. Walk right in, sit right down, baby. Let your mind roll on. I think those are the

00:35:35.899 - 00:35:57.689

words. Anyway. It, it became a huge hit. She was, she was gorgeous woman. And, um, I recently found their daughter whose name is Holly Wilson, who lives in California and because I was looking for Skip and found out that he had died. And Lynn Taylor, I

00:35:57.699 - 00:36:19.840

couldn't get much info about her And, and Holly told me that I had signed their marriage certificate. I had no idea. But she sent me a copy of that said, that's me. And right after they got married, about a month later, Lynn gave birth to Holly

00:36:20.310 - 00:36:36.760

and Lynn then went crazy. They took her to Bellevue Hospital and she just went off the deep end, completely lost track of them. And this is the next thing. So I talked to Holly on the phone and I said, what happened to your mom? She said

00:36:36.770 - 00:36:57.340

she had shot herself when uh when um Holly was 17 years old and she found her, you know, sad, sad, sad story. So Skip had this rec program and we all gathered in the Village Gate when I told you about Art Deluga Fed. So now we

00:36:57.350 - 00:37:15.129

go forward in time, we go forward in time. Um So your marriage started to come to an end in 1965. Um And you began to perform solo, right? 64. We were divorced. 64. 0, ok. Ok. Yeah. And then I moved to Boston and, and worked with

00:37:15.139 - 00:37:35.050

Joel Cohen, as I told before. And then I moved to New York and became a school teacher, took quick summer courses at New York University and Education courses and got to work in a ghetto junior high, which is now called middle school. And it was kind

00:37:35.060 - 00:37:53.629

of up the down staircase. Horrible. Uh, they set the chemistry teacher on fire that year. Um I had to keep my official class for two hours even though the kids couldn't read, you know. So I brought my copy of West side story played office Crop. Key

00:37:53.639 - 00:38:10.860

crop you and they play it again, play it again. So we kept them quiet for two hours. Um brought my guitar and we sang every, everyone loves, everybody loves Saturday night in Spanish and in Chinese because that's where they were from. And um the Chinese kids

00:38:10.870 - 00:38:31.320

were always sitting docile and uh a lot of the kids ran down the hallway. Um Can I use bad words on this video? Hm. Yeah, you can. Yeah. So the one kid had written F UK you on the blackboard and ran down the hall. So I

00:38:31.330 - 00:38:50.500

ran down after him, grabbed him by the collar, brought him back to the room. I said you're gonna write that 200 times spelled correctly. Start writing if you see K and there it was covering the board 200 times. So that was teaching in New York that

00:38:50.510 - 00:39:10.979

after that, I uh I started um substituting and with the first school I got was my own high school music and art. And after this horrible experience, I walked into a classroom and this kid said, could we listen to Gregorian chant? I said, I've died and

00:39:10.989 - 00:39:28.550

gone to heaven. So then I took a job in, at a high school in Brooklyn and there's more space, you know, you don't have 12 kids in a room with one mother. Uh, so it was much easier and then you started to tour again and perform

00:39:28.560 - 00:39:48.010

music, right? And while I was teaching, I was, you know, doing solo stuff at night. So that was when I did G's Folk City and opened for Bob Dylan. All right. And then, um, when did that, you also were soon after this because I know that

00:39:48.020 - 00:40:07.120

your education is kind of here, here, here, here, here, here, here all over the place. Um Sorry, if you are, you cannot see that. I'm moving my hands around from place to place to place to place. Um, let's go ahead and explore that real quick. I

00:40:07.129 - 00:40:22.780

know that you had other things going on at the same time, but we can at least make that chronology clear. I had four years of college ending with one year at Juilliard and then Peter and I took off and toured and then we settled in Houston

00:40:23.020 - 00:40:43.679

when we settled in Houston. I finished my degree at the University of Houston and got a Bachelor's of Bachelor of Arts. And I finally graduated with 200 credits after transferring all of all of it, they had no idea what this University of Chicago course, organization, methods

00:40:43.689 - 00:41:04.750

and principles of knowledge. What's that? I said it's philosophy and they said nine credits for philosophy. We'll give you six. So that's when I finished that. And then you then went on to graduate school and then when I came back to Houston after marrying Abby, um,

00:41:04.959 - 00:41:22.600

I went, I got a master's and that started in the se did that start in the seventies? That was, I, I finished my master's in 1968. So it was like 66 to 68. Ok. Ok. Ok. Um, all right. Then can you talk about, I guess, can

00:41:22.610 - 00:41:41.500

you talk about maybe that time that leads up to meeting your second husband and then starting your, uh, your master's degree? Uh, a specific question. Um, I came back 66. Ok. Abby. And I married them. Ok. And then you were here in Houston, I was here

00:41:41.510 - 00:42:01.870

in Houston performing. Ok. And then you started in 68. Ok. Um, what did you end up studying at University of Houston for your masters? That was voices. Yeah. Ok. Um, and theory voice in the, that's, that's a long story. Why I had two degrees. Do you

00:42:01.879 - 00:42:21.179

want to say the whole thing? Well, uh I, I became very friendly with a genius composer, pianist named Ivar Makashov. He, he had started out life as um oh God, what was his original name? He had a standard American name and he changed it to this

00:42:21.189 - 00:42:38.209

Russian sounding thing because it sounded more classical. A lot of American performers did that in the classical world. Um Ron mckay, his name was Ron mckay and so he changed it to Ivar mccaa. So anyway, we were very, very friendly and there was a voice teacher

00:42:38.219 - 00:42:52.370

on the faculty who had been singing his songs. And when I came along and Ivar and I bonded, she was kind of out. So she made sure that my life was miserable. So she said, brought up at a faculty meeting that I did not have a

00:42:52.379 - 00:43:09.909

good enough voice to get a degree at the University of Houston, having been to Juilliard. And so they told me this and I said, so what do I do? I auditioned here, that means since I've come here, they ruined it, right? They said, don't be logical.

00:43:11.040 - 00:43:29.360

Um You're gonna have to get two degrees, one in theory and voice. So I had to write an enormous thesis and a supporting paper for the voice degree. So I wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote. And uh one summer when I was finishing this enormous

00:43:29.709 - 00:43:49.280

thesis, 1968 what happened Robert Kennedy was killed, Martin Luther King had just been shot and I had driven to New York and stayed with a friend who was also finishing her thesis. So every time we left the apartment we put it in the refrigerator just in

00:43:49.290 - 00:44:11.899

case this was the days before computers, of course. And if you lost one copy, it's gone just in case, just in case. So we have very cold copies of our piece. Frozen theses. Well, you know, uh many archives, even some of our materials that go off

00:44:11.909 - 00:44:30.000

site do go to a place that's colder. So you were, you were preparing? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Um, so I finished the degree there. Boy, what, what was your question? Because I lost the thread of it. That's ok. I was trying to kind of map out your

00:44:30.010 - 00:44:50.679

education. So now we're into 1968. And then what did you do after? Um, then I applied for jobs. Ok. Um, and one very interesting thing I applied for a job at Prairie View and they had interviewed me and they had even given me my schedule and

00:44:50.689 - 00:45:08.659

everything was, you know, set and they walked me out to my car and I never heard from them again. Like, what happened? And the only thing I could guess at is that when they all walked me out of my car, they saw Eugene mccarthy sticker on

00:45:08.669 - 00:45:32.100

the bumper and they figured a leftist she's gonna make trouble here. So that was, that was one shock, right? Um, and then, where did you, you, then eventually ended up at University of Houston? Was that around that time or? Um, I've taught it. God. So many

00:45:32.110 - 00:45:53.949

places you've got my CV CV. Um, and then what was the first place I talked? I can just enumerate all of them and I forget which one was first. So, 68 we have HISD school district. Um, and then 71. Yeah. 71 I started teaching at um

00:45:53.959 - 00:46:19.889

University of Saint Thomas. OK. And that was 71 to 79. Yeah, I have here 7078 and then from 78 to 81 is the high school, high performing and visual art and visual arts. So um at the University of Saint Thomas, um that was when I was

00:46:19.899 - 00:46:41.100

going back and forth for my doctorate and traveling and they, when I came back after doing my doctoral exams and uh they said that I had been away from my job and they were firing me. I said, are you firing me for getting a doctorate? And

00:46:41.110 - 00:47:03.300

I taught all my students before I left, made sure I had everything so very suspicious. I got a lawyer and it was very suspicious because they fired three Jewish professors at the same time, one of whom uh Zimmerman opened um Zim's liquor across the street. Then

00:47:03.310 - 00:47:19.889

he opened the column door, he became a millionaire inside of the administration building of the University of Saint Thomas. And one funny incident there. I was in the cafeteria and a priest came up to me and he said, are, are you a Protestant or Catholic? I

00:47:19.899 - 00:47:42.510

said, I'm a musician, looked funny and walked away. Did you, did you like working at, uh at Saint Thomas during that day? I did, I had some excellent students still friendly with several of them. Yeah. And then um high school for performing in visual arts. Gosh,

00:47:42.520 - 00:47:57.780

that started in the mid seventies, correct? So you were in the late seventies? Oh, the school started in the mid seventies, mid seventies. Ok. So you, but you were still an early instructor there? Um, what was it like in the beginning? Um, interesting because my daughter

00:47:57.790 - 00:48:19.810

went there and she graduated in 1978. So she was one of the, the first ones I always say, you know, you're old if your daughter belongs to a ARP. Um, you know, where it met, it was the, the old Beth Israel Synagogue and Caroline Street. Um,

00:48:20.530 - 00:48:41.120

it was always wonderful. I, I loved that place. Um, I had, um, early music ensemble and class piano, class piano. I couldn't stand because you have electronic pianos and you didn't really have a live human being. You, you tuned into piano seven. your right hand is

00:48:41.129 - 00:48:58.570

too loud. You know, it was, it was not music and they asked me what they thought they should do with those electronic pianos that we called funky, funky. And I said, you ought to throw them in the bayou and get one piano one at a time.

00:48:58.580 - 00:49:18.040

You cannot teach piano this way. Um, and early music ensemble. I had some brilliant kids and they had all of these instruments they had bought and I don't know where they went now, but copies of Renaissance and even a few medieval instruments. So one was called

00:49:18.050 - 00:49:33.370

The Racket, which is like a cookie jar and it has a bassoon read. So I gave it to the bassoon player in school and I said, I don't know how to play this. And there are too many holes for the human hand. And here's a fingering

00:49:33.379 - 00:49:51.939

chart. And if you figure it out, we put you in the ensemble the next week I came to school and I heard the opening to Stravinsky's Rite of Spring on the Racket. This is the famous bassoon solo. And I said, oh my God, talented kids, you

00:49:51.949 - 00:50:13.939

know, they really get you so excited, you know, the way we're excited now about the, the kids at, um Marjorie Strong, the survivors of that and what they're doing, they're all drama majors. Um OK. And then, um I guess let's take a step back from, because

00:50:13.949 - 00:50:28.219

we're kind of starting to go into the eighties. Is there any other kind of couldn't understand? I said, let's take a step back from your teaching career. Yeah. Um because we're about to go into the eighties since you're there from 78 to 81. And let's just

00:50:28.229 - 00:50:49.639

think of go back to living in the seventies in Houston. Um What were your experiences here performing et cetera? OK. The, that wonderful genius pianist that I told you about Ivar Makashov. He and I started Cambia soloists. Cambia means changing because the personnel kept changing and

00:50:49.649 - 00:51:06.239

people were moving. And so that was, that was the name of the group and we put on uh concerts of chamber music and vocal chamber music and a lot of stuff that were premier in, in Houston that had never been done before. And a lot of

00:51:06.250 - 00:51:30.739

pieces that Eva wrote as well. So one of our engagements was at the Music Guild. The Music Guild was a group of River Oaks, um very, very wealthy people and, and well, the, the head, the guy who was working for them, he was not one of

00:51:30.969 - 00:51:47.580

the very wealthy people. He was trying to get into River Oak Society by teaching piano to the kids. And he came over to my house to pick up the program notes. And he said, I hope you know that we do not allow Negroes at these concerts.

00:51:47.959 - 00:52:08.399

I said, you what? We hold these concerts in private homes for discriminating people. So I didn't know what to do. I was in everything except the harps. Good solo. I couldn't back out of the concert. Neither could I involve my group in any kind of protest?

00:52:08.659 - 00:52:25.429

So I let out a press release to the two reporters because Houston Post existed at that time as well as Houston Chronicle. I said, this is what this representative has told me knowing this, I could never perform for this group again. By the way, my husband

00:52:25.439 - 00:52:43.439

had come to that concert and he said, I walked in the door and slipped in a pool of blue blood. So by the time I got home, the phone was ringing off the wall, the comments were we have a right to exclude anybody. We want to

00:52:43.449 - 00:53:03.280

in our own homes. You have a right to be a Jew, don't you? Um One woman later had called up when I auditioned for the Tuesday musical Club, which used to be very different from what it is now. Now it's brave, but then it was um

00:53:03.290 - 00:53:21.620

the same ilk. Um And she said, why do you wanna join this club? I said, because I'm a performer. I like to perform. She said, I found out about you, you're a half *** and you wanna integrate us. I said, how, how ignorant can you get?

00:53:22.949 - 00:53:42.330

It was, it was um, the really the old south coming out of the wood wick and these people are all gone. Now, we outlasted them. Oh, there was one moment I have to tell you about and that is when everything changed. Um There was a meeting

00:53:42.340 - 00:54:07.239

of all the arts groups in town because the proposal was to have 1% of the hotel motel tax given to the arts. So the, the symphony, the ballet, the uh the all, all of the major groups um met with urban theater. Gorilla Theater, all of the

00:54:07.250 - 00:54:26.919

little tiny groups. The proposal was for 85% of that 1% tax to go to the biggies and 15% to go to the smaller groups shared by them and everyone was yelling and screaming about the percentages. Suddenly this woman from the Tuesday musical club stands up and

00:54:26.929 - 00:54:44.560

said, y'all been talking nothing about money all evening, nothing about money. Now we Tuesday musical club existed for years with no money at all. Everyone turned around and said, who the hell is that? And I said, this is the moment in Houston history when everything is

00:54:44.570 - 00:55:08.959

changing because it's no longer only the wealthy individuals who are supporting the arts. We now have business and we now have um government, government money going into it. And then it started changing as far as the balance of power is concerned because River Oaks really controlled

00:55:08.969 - 00:55:34.379

everything once upon a time. And about what time was that? What year is that? You think it was around 73? Oh, ok. About that. Ok. I'd have to look it up. Um I have to tell you a story about H SPV A and the, the River

00:55:34.389 - 00:55:53.649

Oaks crowd because we were at the early Music Ensemble was asked to perform uh for River Oaks uh group that was giving money for $20,000 for scholarships. So we, we had performed at the Spaghetti supper and they wanted us to perform there. So brought the kids,

00:55:53.659 - 00:56:11.790

brought all of these early instruments and everybody was drunk already. And I said, um, do you have any chairs? Gotta get, we have to get the kids to sit down. Oh, honey, I'll get you some chairs. She disappeared. Uh ask the host, can you give us

00:56:11.800 - 00:56:28.510

some chairs? Oh, honey, girl, I get you some chairs. Nothing. I said kids go get the garden furniture. And so they sat down and next door, they had a jazz ensemble going and I said, you know, are we gonna perform at the same time? He said,

00:56:28.520 - 00:56:45.350

yeah, we have, we have no break here. OK. So we had this cacophony going on and we were singing Monteverdi Madrigals and apparently uh uh the head of, of the Arts Council of Houston and I was on the first advisory board. Um John Blane, his name

00:56:45.360 - 00:57:02.340

was and he was standing behind me and I was conducting the singers. He said the hostess was going and imitating the singers. Her daughter said, mother, that's rude. She said it's my house. I can do what I'm planning but please in my own damn house. So

00:57:02.350 - 00:57:16.800

that's the scene. Then, then a dancer from the dance department came on and apparently she went into the bedroom to change and there were two people wrestling on the bed. So she went to the bathroom, she came down the stairs and some man said, honey, with

00:57:16.810 - 00:57:37.219

a body like that, you don't need to dance. This was like a nightmare. And we had a boy playing the crumb horn which is a curved um instrument you play like that, but it has a hook on it and the hostess was grabbing him. So he

00:57:37.229 - 00:57:50.629

took the hook and he just went like that. It was like nightmare of nightmares. So John Blane said, can I help you out with the instruments? I said, no, I can do it. He said, please let me help you. I gotta get out of here. I

00:57:50.639 - 00:58:05.129

said, OK, help me. So the next day I met the kids at H SPV A I said, put your instruments away. We're gonna have a talk about funding in the United States. OK? So you've got government and you've got, and you've got business and you got

00:58:05.139 - 00:58:19.310

private individuals, you have just met the private individuals now who could do this. Uh Cause if I hadn't gotten out of there, I would have blown your $20,000. So one kid said, well, I got home and my mother said, what did you do? He said, I

00:58:19.320 - 00:58:39.169

kissed ass. I said, can you take it? He said, yeah, I can take it. I said, OK, next year you're going. Um One girl said, you know those people uh those women, they look so empty. I said this is really a good lesson for you. What

00:58:39.179 - 00:58:54.300

you need in life is you need love and you need meaningful work and they don't have either. Yeah, they go to the hairdresser and to feel somebody touching their scalp, it's set. So this is what you need in life. But it was a great lesson for

00:58:54.310 - 00:59:16.310

the kids. Yeah. It's sad that they kind of had to walk into basically a bacchanal. That's right. That's right. You got, you put the word. Yeah. Um So around the early eighties, um you formed or one of the members who formed Alhambra? Can you talk more

00:59:16.320 - 00:59:46.350

about that? Yeah. So um around 1981 I was feeling like nothing but stone walls. I couldn't do anything and the residue of this whole music guild thing still was on my back. Um So I, I went to New York, my husband, thank God could take, take

00:59:46.360 - 01:00:06.360

care of. Uh We only had one child at home now, Debbie was now in college and she was actually in New York. Um And Gaby was 12 years old and, and in New York everything everything exploded. So this was 1981 there was money for anything you

01:00:06.370 - 01:00:26.699

wanted. Um If you wanted to start a group, there were funds at the same time, mysterious things were happening. Um I was li I had a one year sublet in West Beth, which was artist housing, uh which is in the West Village. And in that artist

01:00:26.709 - 01:00:48.510

housing was the gay Synagogue of New York and, and Merce Cunningham Dance Studios and you know, all kinds of artists living in everywhere. And it was great. It was, it was wonderful at the gay synagogue where I performed like every after every service on Friday night.

01:00:48.530 - 01:01:01.750

Well, I just tried out a new program for the most sophisticated audience in New York. Science started appearing on the bulletin board. Gay men are getting sick. We don't know what this is, but there seems to be an epidemic and that, that was the beginning of

01:01:01.760 - 01:01:22.439

A I DS. So it was, it was a strange time of boom and tragedy and the whole generation, your whole social life was funerals. So how did, how did the group come together? How did you guys end up meeting and deciding I had made a recording

01:01:22.449 - 01:01:46.989

which you will show, it's called uh the Spanish Roman cro So made this recording in Houston before I went to New York. So this was 1980 and I had discovered sephardic music by accident even though I'm my, I am Ashkenaz branch of Judaism. Um But I

01:01:47.000 - 01:02:04.070

always drifted to the Mediterranean. And when I was at the University of Saint Thomas, they started the Renaissance Festival and they asked me if I'd put a group of kids together and I said, I don't have anybody of professional caliber, but I could put a group

01:02:04.080 - 01:02:22.110

together. So I put this group together and we started performing and we were doing s 12th to 16th century Spanish court music. And I said, discovered Sephardic, uh this famous singer named Victoria de Los Angeles had made recordings of sephardic music and I did all this

01:02:22.120 - 01:02:42.939

research in Rice Library. Uh um And I said this is gold mine of stuff, you know, because it now and it was a synthesis of my classical and my folk background because it was so complex meters kept changing. Every bar. You had not, you, you in,

01:02:42.949 - 01:03:02.899

in sephardic music, you have complex melodies, complex rhythms, but not much harmony. Whereas in western music, you have very complex harmonies. Um And in the melodies, you have quarter tones, you have eight tones, you have big challenges. So I started researching when I went to New

01:03:02.909 - 01:03:25.020

York, it was with the idea of find founding a group that could perform it. So I sent this recording to a very famous player named George Mega and who was revered in the Armenian community. And he performed with many, many, many groups. And so after I

01:03:25.030 - 01:03:40.870

had sent in about three weeks later, I called him up in great trepidation. Uh I'm the woman who sent you a recording of sephardic music. He said, yeah, I said, and I wanna form a group and I'd love to have you play. He said, oh, that's

01:03:40.879 - 01:04:00.100

great. I said, you'd like to play and I was amazed, but we had the greatest dude player and uh a woman who is d does early music named Rosamond Morley. So that was our first group. It was only a trio. At the same time I met

01:04:00.110 - 01:04:19.040

John Cage. So I was doing avant garde music and he heard me do one of his pieces called Aria and he said, I'd like to write a piece for you. So these two things happen, you know, working with John Cage and forming Alhambra and that was

01:04:19.050 - 01:04:41.439

81. Anyway. Um Did you continue your relationship with John Cage after that until the end of his life? Uh we recorded Rio Energy together and we performed all over the place I remember performing um the aria that I told you about, which is all colors and

01:04:42.590 - 01:05:03.469

it's 10 minutes long. And we were in Washington in the National Building Museum where Grover Cleveland had his inaugural ball. It's two city blocks long and we were doing it with David Tudor who was a very famous Cage specialist. He was performing a piano concert. So

01:05:03.479 - 01:05:24.760

piano concert is a half hour long. My job was to sit on stage, do nothing for 20 minutes, get up, do Aria and we would all finish together. Videotape camera is has its red light focused on me. Um I, we had been traveling for three nights

01:05:24.770 - 01:05:45.429

and I fell asleep on stage. It just went waiting for this and then I woke up and said, oh my God, three minutes to go. Thank God. And I thought that I had horrible thoughts. Was I drooling. Was I snoring? What was I doing? So I

01:05:45.439 - 01:06:06.120

stood up do the rao. We were fine. I came off stage, there was John Cage in the, in the wings. I said, John, I fell asleep on stage. He said, oh wonderful. He loved things that just happened. And when we were recording a plane went overhead

01:06:06.129 - 01:06:25.959

and makes a big, big noise. He said, it's beautiful. Leave it in the recording. So whatever happens happens and that was, that was John Cage. Chance. That makes total sense. Um Can you talk about um you know, Alhambra started in 1981 and just how that has

01:06:25.969 - 01:06:47.189

grown and changed to know. Um So mm oh God, there's, there's so many fields I was in while I was in New York. I also became a cantor to a soloist really? Because um I went to Hebrew Union College for one year, but I was um

01:06:47.199 - 01:07:04.629

doing some Yiddish and Saric and Hebrew songs with my guitar. And this man came up to me and he was the head of the Hebrew Union College School of Sacred music. And he said, why don't you become a cantor? I said, I don't know anything. He

01:07:04.639 - 01:07:18.239

said, you know music. I said, oh yeah, I know music. I don't know the Hebrew alphabet. He said, look, we need cans for the high holidays, uh come see me in my office. So I went to see him in Hebrew Union College. He handed me five

01:07:18.250 - 01:07:35.379

pieces of music. He said, learn these. I said, ok, not a problem. I learned them. He said, now we got two synagogues that I want you to apply for, go contact them. So I contacted the two synagogues. I had my five pieces to sing. I got

01:07:35.389 - 01:07:57.580

both jobs called him up. What do I do now? I don't know anything he said. Would you take this job? Let this one go, go to Israel and learn Hebrew. Oh my God. So that summer seven hours a day at Pan Akiva in Netanya, Israel, I

01:07:57.909 - 01:08:15.320

studied Hebrew and I got enough of it. And um I went to see this cantor who is named Vicky, a whom I just saw last week at the North American Jewish Choral Festival where I was teaching sephardic music and we renewed and I reminded her that

01:08:15.330 - 01:08:36.830

she had gotten my binders together because once all the musics in the binder, I feel secure anyway, because I can read. So had the binders together, had my basic Hebrew now done and then made it through the first job. My first job was in Sag Harbor,

01:08:36.839 - 01:09:00.419

Long Island with a rabbi who wanted to use a very old prayer book, very sexist. And so we're up there and he starts to, he starts to tone, we pray to the God of our fathers Abraham Isaac and Jacob Row five was Betty Friedan glaring at

01:09:00.430 - 01:09:20.270

him and he looked at her and he said, and to the God of our mothers, Rebecca Leah and Sarah. And then she went like that to me and Forevermore for the whole high holidays, we pray to the God of our parents. It was a funny scene.

01:09:22.089 - 01:09:41.049

So then I continued doing it, you know, every Shabbat and the high holidays. And um I had, I had gone to Hebrew in college for one year and that I had enough, I had already a doctorate and voice and they were trying to infantilize me and

01:09:41.060 - 01:09:59.229

I really couldn't take it. They said I couldn't go on this. I had a tour of Romania and they said I couldn't go because I couldn't miss class. I said, I don't know if you noticed grown up. So got what I needed. And then I've been

01:09:59.240 - 01:10:21.450

a canter of in Munich and Amsterdam Winnipeg and all over the United States. So that was all during that period. From 81 to 86. I was at Hebrew Union College from 83 to 84. Um I was doing all these different fields. Yeah, Alhambra was performing, uh,

01:10:21.640 - 01:10:50.109

Alhambra made a lot of um foreign tours. We were, we were uh in England, we were in Lithuania. Uh We were in Quebec. Can't even remember it's on now. I'm sure. Um can do you wanna talk about um I guess, you know, if we take it

01:10:50.120 - 01:11:06.729

into like the nineties and into the two thousands are, there are things about your career that you want to talk about a little bit more, whether it's with the teaching or with Alhambra or other, um, things that you had going on. Let's see, I'm trying to

01:11:06.740 - 01:11:32.180

think chronologically. Um, well, I started com, you know, when, when I was arranging all of the folk music for the Gardeners, I started arranging and through the years I've been composing and uh for instance, the last piece I did was for the international voices, Houston Choir,

01:11:32.399 - 01:11:51.319

international voices. Houston choir is a place I love because there are 40 nationalities. And when we break, you hear this babble of languages and it's, it's composed of amateurs and professionals and the conductor is Mark Vogel and he's fabulous and delightful human being as well. So

01:11:51.330 - 01:12:07.759

we sing pieces from all over the world. So we're singing in Chinese and Arabic. It's all of these African languages, et cetera and mastering them. Um So I wrote a piece for them and for one of my students who is from Damascus. So it's an Arabic

01:12:07.770 - 01:12:26.339

song which she solo. Um And I had Koon, which is a like a zither, which is an Arabic instrument and very, very complex woman named uh Aaron Foster in Houston plays it magnificently and you have finger pics on your right hand and you flip levers with

01:12:26.350 - 01:12:47.029

the left him and those levers are changing the strings to half tones, eighth tones, quarter tones. So to western ears, it sounds out of tune. But these are what we call the Maks of Arabic and Turkish music. So I wrote an, an Arabic song and with

01:12:47.040 - 01:13:09.979

the Koon and a violin, I played flute um and percussion and it morphs into a sephardic song which was in the same Macal and it's all about springtime. So the chorus sang that and it's called Springtime in Syria and Salonica. And, you know, I've been writing

01:13:09.990 - 01:13:29.859

a lot of synagogue music throughout the years and submitting it to something called uh the Shale Festival, which is for Jewish music, New New Jewish music and composers. And they have recorded it and published it and then I got published by Boozy and Hawks for one

01:13:29.870 - 01:13:46.569

piece which I had written in Hebrew and they asked for it in English. So I got a few Psalms but the same rhythm and now it's in English called, oh, Clap Your Hands. Was that hard to, to take, to do the translation or did it kind

01:13:46.580 - 01:14:06.680

of work? It wasn't a translation. It was a totally different, but it fit the rhythm of the music of the music. Ok. Ok. Um, ok. Um, I guess is there, I know that you still are doing, um, you still are teaching voice. Um You do that.

01:14:06.689 - 01:14:27.080

I'm not at any institution anymore. I do not have to go to any faculty meetings, uh, teaching private students, anywhere from, from seventh grade through older adults. And do you still find that rewarding? Yes. Yes. Especially for the really good students when, you know, one of

01:14:27.089 - 01:14:41.370

my top students just came back from Italy where she was in a program and she is now going, going to go to the U of H and she had gone to a school in Utah that she really didn't like. And, you know, she's got it together

01:14:41.379 - 01:15:00.799

now and I have one student who is, who is in the, uh HDO chorus and she's superb soprano and I just judge the lowest, all the vocal competition. And I'll be doing that again next year. So you hear fabulous young singers and sad because, you know,

01:15:00.810 - 01:15:23.939

the sopranos have such a battle. They're too many sopranos and they're so good base baritone antennas have it easier. Um So do you have any other big projects that are on the horizon? Just composing? You know, uh I, I had the idea and I haven't started

01:15:23.950 - 01:15:43.700

it yet of composing a piece about the separation of families at the border. And I'm looking for a poet who could give me something in Spanish and English. Yeah, I mean, by the time we get it done it won't be in the news anymore, but it's

01:15:43.709 - 01:16:03.540

such an emotional issue. Have you reached out to the creative writing department at U of H? That's what I'm gonna do? Yeah, that's precisely what I'm gonna do. Um, I might, uh, you got an idea. Ok. Um, well, if there's anything else that you want to

01:16:03.549 - 01:16:22.799

cover or talk about that we haven't anything else you want to explain, I'll probably think of things tonight. It's what happens to everybody. Yeah, that's good to hear that. Yeah, everybody says the exact same thing. Ok. Well, Isabel, I want to thank you so much for

01:16:22.810 - 01:16:31.310

coming in. Thank you. Thank you. And um this was really nice and relaxing. Good. I'm glad. Thank you so much.