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Wishing a very happy eighty-fifth birthday to the legendary American baritone Sherrill Milnes! A native of Downers Grove, Illinois, he also was a member of the Chicago Symphony Chorus in the beginning of his professional singing career.
Milnes auditioned for Margaret Hillis in 1958 and became a member of the Chicago Symphony Chorus in time for the beginning its second season. “I was knocked out by Margaret’s personality and musicality,” he said in a March 1976 interview with Winthrop Sargeant for The New Yorker. “Singing under Fritz Reiner could only be a great thrill for an amateur singer, and I was an amateur. It was pre-career. She had all the techniques of a modern choral conductor. For example, ‘staccato du.” It was the first time I had encountered it. To make sure you know the notes, you sing them ‘du-du-du’—each note very short. Also speaking the words to rhythm—in a monotone, with the rhythm of the music but without the melody. She was the first choral conductor I’d ever know who molded the sound of the chorus, making it change color, and so on. She had everybody sing the soprano part where there was a melody, and the same with the bass and other parts. She opened up a whole new world of musical ideas and rehearsal ideas. . . . I’m on the recording of Reiner’s Beethoven Ninth in the chorus [and] Alexander Nevsky with Reiner too. . . . I was hearing phrases thrown at me for the first time, and it was opening up a whole new world.”
Milnes has been a soloist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on a number of occasions, both in Orchestra Hall and at the Ravinia Festival, all listed below.
December 16, 1961, Orchestra Hall
BACH Magnificat in D Major, BWV 243
HAYDN Mass in D Minor, Hob. XXII:11 (Lord Nelson)
Margaret Hillis, conductor
Maria Ferriero, soprano
Teresa Orantes, soprano
Lili Chookasian, contralto
David Paige, tenor
Sherrill Milnes, baritone
Chicago Symphony Chorus
Margaret Hillis, director
February 15, 1964, Orchestra Hall
MENDELSSOHN Elijah, Op. 70
Margaret Hillis, conductor
Lillian Garabedian, soprano
Marion Vincent, soprano
Julia Diane Ragains, soprano
Robert Johnson, tenor
Sherrill Milnes, baritone
Chicago Symphony Chorus
Margaret Hillis, director
December 19, 1964, Orchestra Hall
BERLIOZ L’enfance du Christ, Op. 25
Margaret Hillis, director
Jennie Tourel, mezzo-soprano
Seth McCoy, tenor
Sherrill Milnes, baritone
John West, bass
Chicago Symphony Chorus
Margaret Hillis, director
HAYDN July 18, 1965, Ravinia Festival
ORFF Carmina burana
Seiji Ozawa, conductor
Julia Diane Ragains, soprano
Pierre Duval, tenor
Sherrill Milnes, baritone
Alfred Reichel, baritone
Chicago Symphony Chorus
Margaret Hillis, director
Chicago Children’s Choir
Christopher Moore, director
August 7 and 9, 1969, Ravinia Festival
VERDI Aida
Giuseppe Patanè, conductor
Sheldon Patinkin, stage director
Robert Hale, bass-baritone
Lili Chookasian, contralto
Martina Arroyo, soprano
Richard Tucker, tenor
Sherrill Milnes, baritone
Ara Berberian, bass
Herbert Kraus, tenor
Carolyn Smith-Meyer, soprano
Chicago Symphony Chorus
Margaret Hillis, director
July 15 and 17, 1971, Ravinia Festival
VERDI Rigoletto
István Kertész, conductor
Sherrill Milnes, baritone
Patricia Wise, soprano
John Alexander, tenor
Robert Hale, bass-baritone
John Walker, tenor
Bernard Izzo, baritone
Edna Garabedian, mezzo-soprano
Susan Lutz, mezzo-soprano
Eugene Johnson, bass
Phyllis Kirian, soprano
Julia Diane Ragains, soprano
Chicago Symphony Chorus
Margaret Hillis, director
July 1, 1972, Ravinia Festival
PUCCINI Tosca
James Levine, conductor
Teresa Kubiak, soprano
John Alexander, tenor
Sherrill Milnes, baritone
Bernard Izzo, baritone
Charles Anthony, tenor
Andrew Földi, bass
Eugene Johnson, bass
Joseph Caccamo, boy soprano
Chicago Symphony Chorus
Margaret Hillis, director
Glen Ellyn Children’s Theatre Chorus
Doreen Rao, director
July 24, 1976, Ravinia Festival
WALTON Belshazzar’s Feast
André Previn, conductor
Sherrill Milnes, baritone
Royal Scottish National Orchestra Chorus
John Currie, director
July 9, 1978, Ravinia Festival
MENDELSSOHN Elijah, Op. 70
James Levine, conductor
Jessye Norman, soprano
Kathleen Battle, soprano
Beverly Wolff, mezzo-soprano
Isola Jones, mezzo-soprano
Philip Creech, tenor
Kirk Stuart, tenor
Sherrill Milnes, baritone
John Cheek, bass-baritone
Philip Kraus, bass
Chicago Symphony Chorus
Margaret Hillis, director
June 26, 1981, Ravinia Festival
VERDI Macbeth
James Levine, conductor
Renata Scotto, soprano
Giuliano Ciannella, tenor
Sherrill Milnes, baritone
John Cheek, bass-baritone
Timothy Jenkins, tenor
Gene Marie Callahan, soprano
Michelle Harman-Gulick, soprano
Sharon Graham, mezzo-soprano
Duane Clenton Carter, baritone
Rush Tully, bass-baritone
Terry Cook, bass
Chicago Symphony Chorus
Margaret Hillis and James Winfied, directors
June 27, 1992, Ravinia Festival
SAINT-SAËNS Samson and Delilah
James Levine, conductor
Denyce Graves, mezzo-soprano
Plácido Domingo, tenor
Sherrill Milnes, baritone
Bryn Terfel, bass-baritone
Sergei Koptchak, bass
David Anderson, tenor
John Concepcion, tenor
Paul Grizzell, bass
Chicago Symphony Chorus
Margaret Hillis, director
Milnes also gave one recital under the auspices of Allied Arts (now Symphony Center Presents):
February 14, 1987, Orchestra Hall
Jon Spong, piano
MONDONVILLE Eole’s Aria from Titon et l’Aurore
LULLY Bois épais from Amadis
GRÉTRY O Richard, O mon roi from Richard Coeur-de-lion
SCHUBERT An die Leier, D. 737
SCHUBERT Die Liebe hat gelogen, D. 751
SCHUBERT Kriegers Ahnung from Schwanengesang, D. 957
SCHUBERT Die Allmacht, D. 852
SANTOLIQUIDO Le domandai
SANTOLIQUIDO Quando le domandai
SANTOLIQUIDO Io mi levai dal centro della terra
SANTOLIQUIDO Riflessi
MOZART Rivolgete a lui lo sguardo, K. 584
McGILL Duna
COPLAND The World Feels Dusty from Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson
TRADITIONAL/Copland At the River
arr. Dalway Love Trapped Me
arr. Dalway Killiney Strand
DUKE Luke Havergal
SAINT-SAËNS Qui donc commande from Henry VIII
Encores:
MOZART Fin ch’han dal vino calda la testa from Don Giovanni, K. 527
TRADITIONAL Shenandoah
TRADITIONAL/Britten Oliver Cromwell (sung by Spong with Milnes at the piano)
GIORDANO Nemico della patria from Andrea Chénier
Happy, happy birthday!
The Chicago Symphony mourns the loss of Robert Rada, a member of the Orchestra’s trombone section from 1954 until 1957. He died in Hilton Head, South Carolina on February 17, 2019, at the age of 88.
Born on the south side of Chicago on August 14, 1930, Rada began playing the cornet in grade school, later adding the trombone in high school at the Farragut Career Academy. He performed with the Youth Orchestra of Greater Chicago and studied with Chicago Symphony Orchestra members David Anderson (trombone, 1929-1955) and Arnold Jacobs (principal tuba, 1944-1988). While attending the University of Chicago and Chicago Musical College, Rada was a member of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago from 1948 until 1950.
During the summer of 1950, Rada was a member of the Denver Symphony Orchestra, performing on several occasions under the baton of Igor Stravinsky. Later that same year through the fall of 1954, Rada attended the United States Military Academy as a member of the West Point Band. While at West Point, he studied with Neal DiBiase, principal trombone of the NBC Symphony Orchestra, and he also performed as an extra with the ensemble on two occasions under the baton of Arturo Toscanini. During his years at the academy, Rada met his soon-to-be wife Lindsley Burnham, and he also developed a strong interest in aviation.
In 1954, Rada was invited by Fritz Reiner to join the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, where he would serve through the 1956-57 season. His love of airplanes eventually led him to start his own aviation company, in which he sold corporate business jets. Rada occasionally subbed with the Philadelphia Orchestra and performed with the Kennett Symphony in Pennsylvania, and later he also was a member of the Hilton Head Orchestra. He was a longtime member of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Alumni Association.
When interviewed for the Rosenthal Archives’s oral history project in 1995, Rada reflected on his years in the Orchestra under Reiner: “He made phenomenal music and he did it in a demanding way. He may have ruled with fear, but he produced a quality of music that I have never experienced before or since.”
Rada is survived by his wife of nearly sixty-four years, Lindsley; his three children; David (Sally), Paul (Anna) and Gretchen Willingham (John); and six grandchildren, Pamela, Michael, Molly, Madison, Sawyer, and Payton. A memorial service will be given on March 9, 2019, at the TidePointe Clubhouse (arrangements through Island Funeral Home and Crematory). An obituary also is posted here.
We received word over the weekend that Edward Kleinhammer, a legendary member of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s trombone section from 1940 until 1985, died on November 30 at his home in Hayward, Wisconsin. He was 94.
Born in Chicago in 1919, Edward Kleinhammer started his musical training at age ten on the violin and switched to trombone when he was fourteen. He studied with David Anderson (CSO trombone and bass trombone, 1929–1959) and Edward Geffert (CSO trombone, 1921–1941) and joined the Civic Orchestra of Chicago in 1938 and served for two seasons, and in 1940 he joined Leopold Stokowski’s All-American Youth Orchestra following a nationwide competition. Later that same year—at the age of twenty-one—at the invitation of Frederick Stock, Kleinhammer joined the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as trombone and bass trombone.
Kleinhammer’s tenure with the Orchestra was interrupted by military service in the U.S. Army during World War II, when he served in the 447th Army Air Forces Band from June 1942 until August 1945. His book The Art of Trombone Playing was published by Summy-Birchard in 1963, and he also was the inventor and originator of the optional E attachment for bass trombone, manufactured by the Frank Holton Company. Kleinhammer also co-authored Mastering the Trombone with Douglas Yeo, a former student and retired bass trombone with the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
After forty-five years in the Orchestra—serving under seven music directors: Stock, Désiré Defauw, Artur Rodzinski, Rafael Kubelík, Fritz Reiner, Jean Martinon, and Sir Georg Solti—Kleinhammer retired in June 1985.
He is survived by his wife Dessie. Services will be private and plans for a memorial service in Hayward are pending.
In November 1985, Jay Friedman, principal trombone of the CSO, provided a tribute to Kleinhammer in The Instrumentalist following his colleague’s retirement. Friedman wrote: “What a joy it is to work with Ed; he is the most conscientious musician I have ever met. He is a fanatic about practicing and preparing material, taking great care to get something as simple as an attack absolutely perfect. He arrives hours before rehearsals and concerts to make sure his preparation is as good as it can be. Because his personal standards of playing and conduct are so high, Ed never tries to compete with anyone but himself. He is humble about his own talents and generous in praising others. Shortly before he retired I asked Ed if he would continue playing after he left the Orchestra. As I expected he said no. I knew there was only one way he could be a musician, and that was by giving 110% of himself. Things will never be the same without Ed Kleinhammer.”