Hi all:
I want to say that when I saw that the Cohen book on George Crumb had won an ARSC award, I had to see a copy. Steve Ramm suggested I share this with the group.
When George was at Michigan (57-59), I was at Eastern Michigan University at Ypsilanti, a few miles away, and as luck would have it, the Musician's Union sent me George as my piano player for my combo. We became great friends (although losing contact after 1970.) We used to bring favors and balloons back with us from fraternity parties for his daughter (although memory is faulty, I have always held that at the time he had two daughters, but the Bio says his second child was born in 1962, sometime after we parted.) Our band used to ride together to gigs in my 1939, 9 passenger, Chrysler New Yorker, which George later bought and I had to borrow back a few times to get to my out of town orchestra rehearsals.
Indeed the Cohen work is remarkable and deserves the award (and perhaps many more.)
Some of those in ARSC and in MLA will remember that we heard the Premiere of Ancient Voices of Children there at the Library of Congress Coolidge auditorium when we were meeting there in 1970. George Crumb was there at the time...I remember talking to him briefly as he was being whisked to the airport to be somewhere else...and of course, my memory seems not to serve well, I kept thinking it was part of the ARSC 1966 program. The Cohen book, documents that performance and Lowens' review; (W1a; PB1) Irving Lowens and wife were long time members of MLA, and close friends of my late wife Violette.
Cohen's work is well worth a look, and certainly all music libraries should have this if they don't already...probably the whole series.
In finding the book, I also see that Emma Lou Diemer is profiled in the series by Greenwood. She was organist at Central Presbyterian Church in Rochester, NY when I was singing in that choir and conducting the youth choir (1958-59.) She did improvisations on the organ during the offertory that the ministers were often reluctant to end. I'm wondering if any were recorded. Unlike George, I have been in contact with her recently, but she didn't mention the book...now I'll have to have a look at that one as well.
Thanks for letting me share.