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Hi, my name is Sarah Davidson and I'm a student intern with the Houston, jewish history archive at Rice University today is february 15 2022 I am joined by rick kelly, cooper, Coachella, how are you today? Just great thank you Sarah, Great. I'm so excited that you're

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joining me today to talk about your upbringing in South Africa and the many years you spent in Houston. So let's start by talking a little bit about what it was like to grow up in Johannesburg. What was your family like? That's great, thank you. Well, I

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grew up in Johannesburg actually, I was born in Bloemfontein, a little town in another province and but growing up in Johannesburg was was a very interesting time. My parents, my father was from Lithuania, arrived in South Africa when he was 16 months. My mother was from

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Romania, her parents from Romania and Austria and London and she arrived in South Africa when she married my dad. And so growing up in, in Johannesburg was growing up in a segregated community several times, there was the jewish community, there was the british community, there's the

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africana community that was the other whites and then there was the british english South African community and of course the black community. So growing up in South Africa take all that into consideration, It was quite mixed. However, it was very separate. Mhm. So what was apartheid

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like and kind of, what was your experience growing up in that environment. Well I grew up in a family that was very liberal if we can use that word meaning that we were inclusive human beings or human beings. And so I got a different perspective than

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a lot of South Africans. Um but the the, the experience of growing up in Johannesburg was like growing up in a white community with all the privileges, but we had servants and they lived on our premise premise is right in the back in a little small

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house and was hardly a house, it was a servants quarters it was called and they came and worked in our home from morning till night every day except for sunday afternoon. And so I experienced this discrepancy between the privilege of the whites and the the extraordinary

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deprivation uh for the black community, there were about five million white people in South Africa and 30 million blacks all the whites had a vote. The black people did not, we had the ability and freedom to walk wherever we wanted to. The blacks did not, they

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had to have a passbook in order to move from one client side of the street to the other. So I'm trying to set up a scenario where it's hard to describe how extraordinary difficult it was for the black community who were not allowed to own homes,

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couldn't buy house, didn't have money enough to buy homes were not allowed to get an education like the whites. And then on the other hand, we had this privileged life of beautiful homes and swimming pools and tennis courts. So growing up in in Johannesburg was was

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an interesting experience from my background. I went to an all white girls school for high school and we played tennis and sports and and I started my music when I was very young when I was five and I was taking music lessons and so on. My

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father was head of the department of the maxillofacial and oral surgery at the University of Witwatersrand, which is a very big medical center in Johannesburg. My mother was a very excellent pianist, went to the Royal Academy of Music in London and was the director of theater

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for 30 years. So I had this kind of a background in in terms of the arts. Hm. Um Growing up was there, did you experience any anti Semitism? Well, yes, you know there's anti Semitism everywhere in the world to the state, it's no different in South

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Africa than here in Houston. Um there's anti Semitism everywhere. And so there was a very strong active jewish community in South Africa. And when I was there um and young my aunt encouraged me to come to reform synagogue with her, which is where I got my

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first real experience of being jewish because my parents, although they were very jewish and and identifies as jews, they did not attend any religious um activities. So my aunt gave me that aspect to my life and in fact my brother went to King David School which

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was a jewish high school. So it was a very active um, community contributing as they always do and, and working hard to help change the, the political atmosphere in South Africa. Wow, yeah, that's great to hear. Um I know you spent some time in Israel as

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the first flute at the Haifa Symphony Orchestra. Um why did you end up choosing to go to Haifa? And what was that experience like? Well, let me go back back to when I was 16 year old in, in Johannesburg that were tied in nicely. Um, I

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heard about this two week farm exposure for jewish teenagers and I thought it would be fun to do that. So I went off for two weeks to work on a farm and was called and are a, is the training of young jewish Children all over the

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world to come to Israel to work on the kibbutz in there And I didn't know much about all of that, but I went for two weeks and I was mesmerized by working on a farm and inoculating chickens and picking apples and getting up at 5:30 AM

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and it was wonderful. And I came home and my mother was in production in our house, they were having rehearsals and it was all this craziness going on and I went to my bedroom and I thought I don't want to stay here, I want to go

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to Israel. No, I didn't have a very happy home. I will tell you that my mother and father were not very happy together. But they remained together for a very long time. So there was this strife in my home plus this wonderful experience with other jewish

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Children who were picking grapes and whatever. And now my mother, when she heard that I wanted to leave then she really got very upset and she had to orchestrate how she was going to persuade me not to go. And she said to me, you have a

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wonderful talent, your musical, you're gonna go to university next year to music School in Cape Town. Why don't you go to Israel when you've got a degree and something to really give. And she was successful in persuading me not to go to Israel. So I didn't

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went to Cape Town, got my degree in music with distinction and honor, double major Piano and flute. And then immediately thereafter I went to Durban to play in the orchestra, 2nd flute. And I was there for six months getting experience as a second flutist. And that

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was my chosen career and I decided that I didn't want to sit there the rest of my life as second flute. So I packed my bags and I went to the Royal Academy of Music in London and shortly thereafter to paris to study there with a

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flute teacher, monsieur, rene rato and also with Nadia boulanger and the Conservatoire music and I chair, I was studying chamber music and flute. And so I was gaining experience there. And for one other reason I returned to South Africa and um I couldn't go back to

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paris which is a whole another story. So I thought what am I gonna do now? And I heard about this position in Haifa for a first flutist and it was like made in heaven if you like, but an opportunity finally to go to Israel, which I

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did. And I went to Israel and I played in Haifa Symphony orchestras the first roost for several months. And I would I witnessed the 10th anniversary was 1958 and it was an extraordinary experience. We played four concerts every week, same concert, one in Tiberias and another

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one in Haifa and one in um you know various cities. It was a wonderful experience. That's amazing. Yeah, kind of going off from there. How did you meet your husband and how did the two of you end up in Houston? Well, that's a very interesting story

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because it ties in. Okay, so six weeks before I was supposed to go to Israel january the 15, I met this very attractive doctor dr Ben cooper and he pursued me and for the next two weeks we became very close and we fell in love and

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we started our journey together. However, I had told him when I met him and this looked like that was going in further. I said you know I have I have a job that I'm going to at the end of february in Haifa and he said I'm

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not gonna let you go. And I said I'm going and he tried to persuade me not to go and I had signed a contract and I wanted to go to Israel and I wasn't sure whether this was relationship was forever, but as it proceeded over the

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next six weeks it became more difficult to leave. And so he took me to the airport and he said if you want to come back I'll marry you. So off I went to Haifa and spent four or five months there and I wasn't very happy for

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various reasons and he called and I got on the plane and I came back To South Africa to Johannesburg and four weeks later we were married. So that's how I met Ben and how I married him and then the future was opened up for us. What

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a story. Um then how did the two of you end up in Houston? How did the two of you end up in Houston? So the two of us went after we were married, where we decided we did not want to stay in South Africa for both

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of us for the same reason we didn't want to live in the atmosphere, there was apartheid. I didn't want to bring Children up there and what was the opportunity. So he as a neurologist and already a consultant. um I wanted to go to London to walk

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the steps and learn from the the largest names in the neurological field, Russell Square and the queens Queens Square Hospital I think that was called. So we got on a plane and we went to London and he went off to every day to to learn from

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the Dwyane of his of his chosen career. And I went off to support us and I was in pickup orchestras and taught in an elementary school. And so I was, I was playing my flute and then we met this couple from from America who also were

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there for a year doing the same thing as we were. And we got him, we got along with them and and became quite friendly and then they left but they knew we wanted to come to America. Shortly thereafter when they got back to America we got

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a letter which said there is a position at Baylor College of Medicine for a neurologist. Are you interested in Houston texas? And we looked at each other and said, where's that? We got a map, looked on the map to see Houston texas and then had to

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confront the fact that we as South Africans couldn't get into America because of a 10 year cap. There were sanctions against South africa and those were some of the sanctions unless you had a letter from the employer. So we wrote back and said could we get

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a letter from the employer And the employer was the dean of the chair of the department of neurology at Baylor College Events. We got the letter to say, nobody else in America could do what Ben Cooper could do. And we took it to the consulate, the

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embassy in London. And nine months later we were on the QE two sailing into new york harbor with a statue of liberty and a five month old baby and got on a plane and landed in Houston texas. Huh, wow. So what were your first impressions of

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Houston Lake? How do they compare to South Africa? Well, I felt like I was back at home. It was kind of interesting Because Houston in 1961, there were separate restaurants, Black White, there were separate restrooms, there were separate water fountains and I almost felt like I

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was back in South Africa. However, I felt that America at that time was on the right path towards equal opportunity for all. So we settled in Houston and we eventually, after about three or four years renting, I designed a home and I built a home for

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us in Southampton near the medical school and then went off to to his work every day and I by then was having let's see two or three little boys got involved with Amanda's story, became very involved, became the principal of the school of the Woods and

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grew that school quite quite a lot during the following seven years, Ben then opened his own practice as a neurologist and was on the staff at Baylor College of Medicine for the rest of his time on this earth. Hm. Um I know around this time you

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also got involved in the Houston arts and culture scene by, you know, creating art. So was that a welcoming space for you? Well, yes. And it was very interesting because I continued with my music. I played flute with the Symphony Orchestra as a soloist in 1961

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when I arrived. But there was no work for me because there were two flute players in that orchestra. There was no opera, no ballet, no pickup orchestras. So for a few years I continued to make music in chamber music with with colleagues. And then, but with

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three Children and monastery and everything else, I put the flute on the shelf. My piano continued throughout my life. I've played chamber music, piano and I do still to this day. And, and so then Ben and I began to looking at the galleries and becoming acquainted

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with the artists in Houston and and uh my whole previous exposure to arts was through my, my family music and opera and the visual arts. And and then I finished with one story, I decided that I wanted to do something else and I started weaving and

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started making fiber sculpture And many of my works are now on in private collections and in corporate collections. And by that time we was around about 1978 79. And the boys were now well in school and unfortunately I decided with my husband that we would separate.

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So we got divorced and I was looking for a job now during that last few years of that period I was active on the Chamber of Commerce Arts Committee and I was involved with whatever was going on in the city in the arts. And they decided

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they were going to spin off a nonprofit organization called the Houston Festival Foundation. And they were looking for an administrator. And so I applied and I was told quite gracefully that I was too creative for the job. So I said, well I can, I can type

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and I can, you know, I can take notes and I can file and do all that and straight of things. So he said, well let's give it a try. So I quickly went over to the University of Houston one oh one engineering typing for engineers because

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I didn't know how to put the paper in the typewriter. And so I learned to type and then I went to work for the Houston Festival Foundation. And at that time there was a small festival which was called Main Street Festival. And the Chamber of Commerce

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wanted to spin this off into its own nonprofit to make it grow with a mission to bring the community downtown during weekends in in March april and to attract people to downtown and to expose the Houston Culture scene International to show what we have. So that

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was the mission. And so well into the 1st and 2nd year, we were already expanding the Houston festival. Mhm. So um tell me a little bit about the 1986 rendezvous Houston that the festival foundation put on and what personal memories you have of that? Yes. Well

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during that time I was there for seven years. Um we we developed first, I wanted to establish a non profit that would be functioning. So we had committees Um and we worked year round to produce this festival which included in the beginning to stage is one

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of the city hall and one in uh-market square. And we had a few crafts booths and we had a few other things in the festival in 1979, 80. By 1983 we were now with six or 7 stages, performing arts stages throughout the downtown like 20 blocks,

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350 crafts, professional craftspeople. We had coca cola and I think Miller Beer was providing all the, the drinks and we had lots of restaurants who had their boots downtown. It was a fabulous festival. It was free and people would bring their whole families and sit in

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the parks and listen to wonderful music, watch wonderful music. And we also then added a sculpture exhibition down the Bayou. We hired people to to manage all of those things. And I had about 20, committees that put together this festival. So by 1983 we were up

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and running and expanding. And so I said to the board, um, 1986 is coming up, it's the sesquicentennial of Houston and of Texas and the 25th anniversary of NASA. What are we gonna do? And they said, we have no idea what you suggest. So I said,

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well, first let's find out what the other major arts organizations are going to do. The opera, ballet, museums and so on symphony and theater. And so they said they had subscription series during that time, they weren't planning anything special. So I suggested that we do a

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review and of of what Houston is all about. And they gave me a small budget and I hired three people who went out into the city to find out what is Houston all about. And then we wrote it up and presented a wonderful report with financial

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uh supporting documents of how we could do a big a big performance during 86 festival. And the bottom line was that Houston is, is arts and technology. So you could almost fit anything that we do in Houston into those two categories in the expanded and so

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with that in mind, I thought what could we do for 86, I heard about this young man who had done something in China, small kind of light show. His name was Jean Michel Jarre and I looked him up and heard about him and so I have

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suggested to the board that we go get him and see if he'd be interested in coming and doing a show with us. And so they agreed and we sent an emissary and Jean Michel Jarre arrived in 1985 um and we took him all over the city

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by helicopter and he wanted to meet people down in um, at the NASA and so we agreed upon what we were going to do. We would supply all the services of the city to support a an hour long, hour and a half long presentation by jean

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Michel show which would would have a stage downtown and with images Um projected onto eight buildings. Could be seen if you were anywhere down the Bayou and Memorial Drive Allen Parkway. So if you were looking at downtown you could see the show and he would compose

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the music. He also would have a place for a children's choir on the stage and um, and then this whole thing burst on the scene in 1986. Now, prior to that, um, first of all, he named it rendezvous Houston Akon city in concert. But prior to

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that, when he first came, he wanted to meet some astronauts. So I arranged for him to go down to Nasa and he met several astronauts, one of whom was Ron Mcnair. He asked Ron to take a piece of music that jean Michel had written and perform

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it on his saxophone in the space shuttle and then bring back a video of that and that. We would then project it onto these buildings at big show. So that was in april the 3rd 1986 and on january the 16th, the the Challenger blew up and

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Ron Mcnair was on that ship. So it was devastating because we didn't know what we were going to do, how we could honor his memory and so on and whether we should even go forward. But we did and we replaced him with a wonderful saxophonist, Kirk

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Whelan, the Houstons Children choir were were asked to join and on March on april the third saturday night downtown, there were 1.3 million people in the audience. They had slept overnight to wait for this big this concert and they slept on the bayou up and down

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the bayou and camped out. And then it started at 8:00 that night with this incredible show of the stage. It was, it was simulcast on a radio station so everybody could hear it no matter where, but there was broadcast there. Um and there was lights, track

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lights on the top of the buildings, there were fireworks coming off the buildings. There was music on the stage. There was a heart that he made music by putting his hands on the light heart. I mean it's extraordinary. You can see it on Youtube by the

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way and, and it was the most exciting night in Houston and if you were there you will have remembered it forever. It was an extraordinary time. There was no crime that night and people talked to each other in the grocery line or wherever and talked about.

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Were you there? What did you see? And we came together as a community like never before and I'm not entirely sure that it wasn't a one time experience for everybody and that was rendezvous Houston, a city and concert, wow, what an experience. That's amazing that you

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were part of that process and putting that on. Um, I want to shift gears a little bit. Tell me more about what it was like to be jewish in Houston and how you engage with the jewish community. Okay, let me just add one more thing about

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that, that festival, I was the initiator of all these things, but it took hundreds of people, volunteers and staff to put it on who worked very hard and worked wonderfully together. We had several teams, logistics, etcetera, etcetera, a performing arts committee, a visual arts committee and

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literary arts committee. I just want you to know that, you know, it was an idea that I got came up with and the board agreed, but the rest was done by the community. Yeah. So yeah, so interestingly enough, when, when we arrived and had these three

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little boys, we became members of british along the background story is that Ben grew up in an Orthodox home and and he would walk to synagogue with his dad in Johannesburg and I on the other hand, did not have all of that in my home, but

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my aunt introduced me to, to the reform synagogue. And while I was a while I was a music music degree in Cape Town, I played the organ at the, at the synagogue there, the reform synagogue. Um and so when I, I found myself here in Houston

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um and wanted to become part of the jewish community, um we decided that we would um join brit shalom. It was kind of between the reform and between and the orthodox, it was a conservative. And then as the boys got towards age 13 came the subject

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of Bar Mitzvah and I knew Ben had this Orthodox background, but I'm not sure that he was really practicing any of it anymore. Not that I'm not sure he did not, but I wanted to be sure that the boys had some exposure and some some insight

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into their religion and their ancestry. So we had Rabbi Kahane at the brit shalom do our 1st 1st bar mitzvah for Charles in the synagogue and then the next one, Rabbi Connor was no longer with brit shalom and so we wondered what we're gonna do for

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Andrew and and rabbi said um he said we could have it in the Rothko chapel and I thought that was a fabulous idea. And so we did. We had Andrews promised in the Rothko chapel and mrs Damen Neil was there and she came specifically to that

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that celebration and afterwards she came up to Andrew, she said Andrew I want to thank you for having a celebration jewish celebration in our in our Rothko chapel because it broke the spell that had hung over the Rothko chapel. We never had a jewish ceremony before

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this which was absolutely wonderful. And then Jonathan followed with the same, he had his promise in the Rothko chapel. I then continued to To be involved with music. I've sung with Houston Masterworks course for 35 years now. But then I went on to sing with the

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Emanuel after I got divorced, the kids were gone, I joined the manual and so I sang in that choir and I did some sectional rehearsals for them. So um the the next, the other thing I want you to know is kind of interesting recently my brother

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who's nine years younger lives in England in Sheffield and has for ever since, he's a doctor there now retired. He just did an ancestry research about our family on my father's side and discovered that in Jerusalem We during the 1800s had relatives. Our great great grandfather

00:31:19.380 - 00:31:44.080

and great great great grandfather were rabbis in what was in Palestine and they are buried on the mount of Olives with their wives. One of whose name is Rachel, after whom my name. And we have pictures of these gravestones from somebody who actually verified and so

00:31:44.080 - 00:32:08.880

on. So I mean to discover that so late in life it brings home the fact that that history is extremely important and we continue to discover every day of our lives something new about ourselves and our ancestry and those around us. Yeah, that's, wow. It's really

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interesting to hear. I that's amazing that you found you know that family uh kind of family history back in Israel. Yes, I wanna talk a little bit about. I know you build a few houses in Houston and kind of what was the process of designing those

00:32:26.040 - 00:32:42.510

like? And where were these houses? Okay, well first house we walked was out in um in Memorial Bend in that time. People thought we were crazy to drive that far for Ben to come into the medical center. But you know if you come from London 40

00:32:42.510 - 00:32:55.510

minutes in a bus, it's no big deal. So we bought a little house out there so we could afford and we were there for three years and he would leave at 6 30 in the morning and come back maybe 10 at night. And I thought this

00:32:55.510 - 00:33:14.990

is not gonna work. So I decided we're going to move back into Houston, so to speak as close as we could get to the medical center. So we rented a little house in Southampton which was the neighborhood I wanted to be in and found a lot

00:33:14.990 - 00:33:32.750

that was available and we purchased this lot and I designed the home and found a builder and built it. And that was in Southampton on Roxton was the first contemporary house in the neighborhood. And so now Ben could go off in the morning, didn't have to

00:33:32.750 - 00:33:53.910

drive so far, could come home for dinner if he had to go back. So it was much better for the family. So we lived there for 30 years. I was married for 23 years and then then left the boys all went to Kincaid and post school

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elementary and then went off to university is all very successful young men not so young anymore, 61 59 57 and have lovely families. And so then after I lived in this house in Southampton for a while I realized that I didn't need four bedrooms and three

00:34:14.930 - 00:34:38.500

bathrooms and the house was probably worth some money. So I sold it and I moved to Rice Military which is near Memorial Park. Um and Memorial Drive And I bought two lots there. Um and very interesting little neighborhood, little bungalows, very mixed, which is what I

00:34:38.500 - 00:34:55.250

was looking for. There was african and African american woman living across the street. There was Hispanics around the corner. There was some asian people up the street and there were lots of empty lots and little bungalows and one or two contemporary homes. It was also the

00:34:55.250 - 00:35:15.060

place where the first metal building metal home was built. So I I interviewed three architects. One said I'm not in competition with anybody. I said thank you very much. The other did not give me much feedback from what I had asked her. And the third was

00:35:15.070 - 00:35:35.340

so fabulous that I hired him frank Xeni artist and sculptor and architect. And we built a fantastic house together. And and it was the one lot was the hum and the other lot was a beautiful garden which became a sculpture gallery after I had gotten it

00:35:35.350 - 00:35:57.420

up and running as a wildlife habitat, texas, certified native plants and all that good stuff. So then I began to ask artists to come show in my new gallery which was called The Artful Garden. And the sign for the garden was a mosaic that sandy Bryant

00:35:57.430 - 00:36:16.880

salsa made an artist very well known in Houston. And I invited artists to to show twice a year, once in March for 23 months and then again in the fall and had different themes and it was a gallery and I sold the work for the artists.

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It was a wonderful time. Really wonderful. So I really got to know the art scene through many different aspects of my, my life and my work. And then when I went to Virginia for some other reason which she would not be discussed here, but I fell

00:36:36.790 - 00:36:51.290

in love with the man and we moved to Virginia and it didn't work out. And so I came back after 56 years by which time I had sold that house and then I decided I was going to buy, gonna build my last home and that was

00:36:51.300 - 00:37:10.770

in the Heights. I found a lot again And again. I asked Frank to come and help me design and build this house. And so there I was in Scott's there for another 7, 10 years I thought it would be my home forever and it just got

00:37:10.770 - 00:37:33.550

too much for me. And so here I am back in Southampton in the village of Southampton living right back where I started kind of a nice, nice synchronicity of life. Yeah, definitely. So now that you're living in Southampton again, how do you express your creativity today?

00:37:34.120 - 00:37:56.180

So I have always play the piano every day. So my piano is part of my life and as a fiber artist, I've always been interested in art making art. So here in this building, I decided with my beautiful schimmel piano behind me to give a house

00:37:56.180 - 00:38:15.230

concert. So I invited 12 people to hear to my living room and I gave a lovely house concert, I can do that downstairs in the living room. We have a beautiful Steinway grand. Um and we will be singing here to masterworks courses coming actually next week

00:38:15.230 - 00:38:39.550

to sing here for the community. Um there is a wonderful community here that many artists and art collectors. So with another woman in this residence, we agreed that we would invite two other apartment owners. This is a independent living, and we would have a show. So

00:38:39.560 - 00:39:08.050

my place and Doreen's Place and Delores Place and one other, um sorry, it doesn't matter. We opened our apartments to the residents there, about almost 100 residents in this independent living high rise. So we had a show of our work and our collections. So I think,

00:39:08.060 - 00:39:30.850

as I said, I'm sung for 35 years. I'm on the board of Houston mass works of course, with planning to bring of course here a big concert coming up in March, so my life continues wherever creativity presents itself. Hm, wow! Um that was a great line.

00:39:30.860 - 00:39:46.870

Yeah. Coachella, thank you so much for your time and your participation. We were so happy to have you. And this is really you. Thank you very much, Sarah, It's been wonderful to get to know you and josh and to share what I have and hopefully we

00:39:46.870 - 00:39:52.030

can continue the relationship. Yeah, thank you so much