Chapter 18 - Juilliard and Beyond

Summary

Now at the end of my formal teaching career, I can safely say that my position at Eastman and then at Juilliard added up to the two best jobs anyone could ever hope to have. I have dealt with hundreds of students who went on to excellent positions in the music world. At Eastman, and then at Juilliard, I have had the privilege of instructing and mentoring students whose lives I hope have been enriched by our work together. Milton Babbitt once said to me: “You know, Sam, I think we have had more composition students than any other two com¬posers in history. If they have not studied with me, I am sure they have studied with you.”

Besides the many wonderful things that have happened to me since 1990 there have been some disappointments that I would like to discuss since they have affected me in certain ways. I would like to mention four of these simply to get them off my chest and because I have learned important lessons from these setbacks.

The first instance I want to mention was probably the strangest for me. After teaching at Brigham Young University, I received an inquiry from Jerry Ottley, the director of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, asking if I were interested in writ¬ing an anthem for them for choir and organ. To me the Mormon Tabernacle Choir has always been one of the finest choirs in the world, and I immediately answered Jerry that it would be the greatest pleasure for me to write such a work for him. He told me that the choir's committee would first of all have to approve of the text and then, after I had written it, that committee would have to approve the work itself. I thought that these were reasonable requests and put together some of my favorite Bible verses and added a few verses written by Yehudah Halevy, a Jewish poet from the Middle Ages. I sent the text to Salt Lake City and within a few days heard from Jerry that the committee loved the text; I should go ahead and set it. I did so and wrote a work with a prominent organ part since the organ as well as the organist of the Tabernacle were superb.