Samuel Adler (composer)

Samuel Adler
Born	Samuel Hans Adler (1928-03-04) 4 March 1928 (age 96) Mannheim, Germany
Citizenship	American
Alma mater	Boston University (BM) Harvard University (MA)
Occupation(s)	Composer, conductor, author, and professor
Years active	1952–2016
Known for	Founder of the Seventh Army Symphony Orchestra
Spouses	Carol Starker ​ ​ (m. 1960; div. 1989)​ Emily Freeman Brown ​ (m. 1991)​
Children	2
Awards	American Academy of Arts and Letters Cross of Merit (Germany)
Military career
Allegiance	United States
Service / branch	United States Army
Years of service	1950–1952
Rank	Corporal
Unit	2d Armored Division
Website	samuelhadler.com

Samuel Hans Adler (born March 4, 1928) is an American composer, conductor, author, and professor. During the course of a professional career which ranges over six decades he has served as a faculty member at both the University of Rochester's Eastman School of Music and the Juilliard School. In addition, he is credited with founding and conducting the Seventh Army Symphony Orchestra which participated in the cultural diplomacy initiatives of the United States in Germany and throughout Europe in the aftermath of World War II. Adler's musical catalogue includes over 400 published compositions. He has been honored with several awards including Germany's Order of Merit – Officer's Cross.

Adler was born to a Jewish family in Mannheim, Germany, the son of Hugo Chaim Adler, a cantor and composer, and Selma Adler who was an amateur pianist.^[1][2] At the young age of ten, Samuel was separated from his father while Hugo was imprisoned in the Netherlands following the Kristallnacht pogrom of 1938.^[3] After Hugo's return to Mannheim, the family was reunited and subsequently fled the Nazi regime in Germany through the Netherlands to the United States in 1939, where Hugo became the cantor of Temple Emanuel in Worcester, Massachusetts.^[1][4] Sam soon followed his father into the music profession and began his musical studies on the violin with Albert Levy. His formal education in composition was initiated under Herbert Fromm in 1941. Subsequently, Adler earned degrees from both Boston University (where he studied musicology with Karl Geiringer) and Harvard University (where he studied with Aaron Copland, Irving Fine, Paul Hindemith, Paul Pisk, Walter Piston, and Randall Thompson and earned an M.A. in 1950).^[5] He studied conducting with Serge Koussevitzky at the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood in 1949.^[6] Adler has been awarded four honorary doctorates from Southern Methodist and Wake Forest Universities, St. Mary's College of Notre Dame and the St. Louis Conservatory of Music.^{[7][8][9][10][11]}

After completing his academic studies in 1950, Adler served as a corporal in the 2d Armored Division.^[12][13] During this time he founded the Seventh Army Symphony Orchestra (1952) in Stuttgart, Germany, which served to demonstrate the shared cultural heritage of America and Europe in the post World War II era through cultural diplomacy.^[13][14][15] For this, he received a special Citation of Excellence from the Army for the orchestra's success between 1952 and 1961.^[16] Subsequently, he accepted a position as music director at Temple Emanu-El in Dallas, Texas, beginning his tenure there in 1953.^[10] At the Dallas temple he formed a children's choir and an adult choir. From 1954 to 1958 Adler conducted the Dallas Lyric Theater. From 1957 to 1966, Adler served as Professor of Composition at the University of North Texas College of Music.^[9][10] Between 1966 and 1995, Adler served as Professor of Composition at the University of Rochester's Eastman School of Music.^[7] In addition, he served as Chairman of the Department of Music at The Eastman School of Music from 1973 to 1994.^[17] Since 1997, Adler has been a member of the composition faculty at Juilliard and, for the 2009–10 year, was awarded the William Schuman Scholars Chair.^[18][9][10]

He is also the author of three books, Choral Conducting (Holt Rinehart and Winston 1971, second edition Schirmer Books 1985), Sight Singing (W.W. Norton 1979, 1997), and The Study of Orchestration (W.W. Norton 1982, 1989, 2001, 2016; Italian edition edited by Lorenzo Ferrero for EDT Srl Torino, 2008).^[7] He has also contributed numerous articles to major magazines, books and encyclopedias published in the U.S. and abroad. Adler also reflected upon six decades of teaching in his memoirs Building Bridges with Music: Stories from a Composer's Life which was published by Pendragon Press in 2017.^[16][8]

Over the decades Adler's musical legacy has been interpreted by several orchestral ensembles including: the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, Esterhazy Quartet, the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra, Brandenburgisches Staatsorchester Frankfurt, and the Bowling Green Philharmonia. In more recent times his works have also been showcased by leading orchestras around the world, including: the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Mannheim National Theatre Orchestra, and the St. Louis Symphony. Performances of his compositions have been recorded on several record labels including: Albany Records, Linn Records, Navona Records, and Naxos Records.^[19][20]

Adler is married to Emily Freeman Brown, who is currently serving as Music Director and Conductor of the Bowling Green Philharmonia.^{[21][9][22][23][24]}

External audio
You may hear Samuel Adler's Recitative 1962 for organ performed by Robert Noehren on the album 20th Century American Organ Music in 1968 Here on archive.org
You may hear Samuel Adler's "Fourth String Quartet" performed by the Pro Arte Quartet Here on archive.org
You may hear Adler conducting excerpts from the liturgical compositions of Hugo Chaim Adler in 1998 Here on Milken Archive

Musicologists have noted that Adler's works incorporate a wide range of compositional techniques including: free atonality, diatonicism, and serialism. In addition, he is recognized for interweaving dance rhythms, folk themes, ostinati, and devices associated with aleatoric music throughout his scores.^[12] Adler does not advocate serialism or atonality.

It has also been observed that Adler's compositions illustrate a "midstream modernism", which is characterized by interwoven contrapunctal musical lines which form the foundation for a tonal harmonic complex punctuated by tangential atonal episodes. In addition, his music is said to be inspired by the liturgical cantilena featured in the Jewish musical tradition as well as oriental inflections.^[25]

Adler has been awarded many prizes, including a membership into the American Academy in Berlin (2004)^[26] and Institute of Arts and Letters awarded in May 2001, the Charles Ives Award (1961),^[27] and the Lillian Fairchild Award (1974).^[28][29] In May 2003, he was presented with the Aaron Copland Award by ASCAP for Lifetime Achievement in Music (Composition and Teaching).^[30] In 2008, he was inducted into the American Classical Music Hall of Fame.^[31] Similarly, in 2001 Adler was honored with a lifetime appointment to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.^[32][33] In 1999, he was elected to the Academy of Arts, Berlin for distinguished service to music.^[28] In 1983, he won the Deems Taylor Award for his book on orchestration; in 1984, he was appointed Honorary Professorial Fellow of the University College in Cardiff, Wales, and was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for 1984–85. He has been a MacDowell Fellow for five years between 1954 and 1963. In 1986, he received the "Distinguished Alumni Award" from Boston University.^{[7][1][28][31]}

The Music Teachers' National Association selected Adler as its "Composer of the Year 1986–87" for Quintalogues, which won the national competition. In the 1988–89 year, he has been designated "Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar". In 1989, he was awarded The Eastman School's Eisenhart Award for distinguished teaching,^[7] and he has been given the honor of Composer of the Year (1991) for the American Guild of Organists. During his second visit to Chile, Adler was elected to the Chilean Academy of Fine Arts (1993) "for his outstanding contributions to the world of music as composer, conductor, and author". He was initiated as an honorary member of the Gamma Theta (1960, University of North Texas) and the Alpha Alpha (1966, National Honorary) chapters of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, and in 1986 was named a National Arts Associate to Sigma Alpha Iota, international music fraternity for women.^[34] In 1998, he was awarded the Brock Commission from the American Choral Directors Association.^[35][28]

External images
Photograph of Samuel Adler at the Juilliard School in 2013 Here on Getty images
Historical photographs of Samuel Adler conducting Here on Milken Archive

In May, 2018, Adler was awarded the German Bundesverdienstkreuz 1. Klasse (Order of Merit – Officer's Cross), presented to him in New York by Consul General David Gill.^[36] On June 1, 2018, Adler was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters,^[37] and presented the graduation address at Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion's Cincinnati graduation ceremony.^[38]

Adler's catalogue includes over 400 published works in all media, including three operas, six symphonies, ten string quartets, at least eleven concerti (organ, piano, violin, viola or clarinet, cello, flute, guitar, saxophone quartet, woodwind quintet), many shorter orchestral works, works for wind ensemble and band, chamber music, a great deal of choral music, liturgical music, and songs.^{[1][7][10][39]}

External audio
You may hear Samuel Adler conducting his composition Summer Stock Overture (1955) with Seventh Army Symphony Orchestra as recorded circa 1958 at 7ASO.org
You may hear Samuel Adler conducting the concert overture The Hebrides, Op. 26 by Felix Mendelssohn with the Seventh Army Symphony Orchestra in 2006 at 7ASO.org
Performance of the String Quartet No 10 (2015) by the Cassatt String Quartet
You may hear "A Prophecy of Peace: The Choral Music of Samuel Adler" Here on Archive.org

Since 1997 he has been a member of the composition faculty at the Juilliard School in New York City. Among his most successful students are composers Fisher Tull, Kamran Ince,^[41] Eric Ewazen, Claude Baker, Marc Mellits, Robert Paterson, Gordon Stout, Chris Theofanidis, Michael Brown, Michael Glenn Williams, Gordon Chin, and Roger Briggs.

Notes

Sources

• Darryl Lyman: Great Jews in Music. J. D. Publishers, Middle Village, N.Y, 1986.
• David M. Cummings, Dennis K. McIntire (Ed.): International Who's Who in Music and Musician's Directory. In the Classical and Light Classical Fields, twelfth edition 1990/91. International Who's Who in Music, Cambridge, England 1991.
• Kurtz Myers: Index to Record Reviews 1984–1987. G.K. Hall, Boston, Ma. 1989.
• Gerry Cristol: A Light in the Prairie: Temple Emanu-El of Dallas 1872–1997. TCU Press, Fort Worth TX 1998, ISBN 0-87565-184-4.
• Marie Rolf: "Adler, Samuel". In: The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition. Edited by S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. Macmillan Publishers, London 2001.
• Don Michael Randel (Ed.): "Adler, Samuel". In The Harvard Biographical Dictionary of Music, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1996.
• R. Winston Morris, Lloyd E. Bone Jr., Eric Paull (Ed.): "Adler, Samuel". In Guide to the Euphonium Repertoire – The Euphoneum Sourcebook. Indiana University Press, IN 2007

• Adler, Samuel (Director) (1952). The Seventh Army Symphony Orchestra (Photograph). Kassel, Germany. Retrieved September 30, 2020.
• Oteri, Frank J. (April 1, 2015). "Samuel Adler: Knowing What You're Doing". NewMusicBox. Video presentation by Molly Sheridan; Translated by Julia Lu. New Music USA. Retrieved September 30, 2020.

• Official website
• Interview with Samuel Adler, January 21, 1991
• Samuel Hans Adler Papers at the Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester
• Samuel Adler - photographs at the Milken Archive of Jewish Music