Stanley Silverman

• Comment: I was actually going to accept this at first but noticed the sources aren't quite what they could be, so please add any more available sources to gain weight and depth. Cheers, SwisterTwister talk 22:35, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

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This article is about the solo musician. For other persons with the same name, see Stanley Silverman (disambiguation).

Stanley Joel Silverman
Stanley Silverman at home
Born	Stanley Silverman (1938-07-05) July 5, 1938 New York
Bildung	Mills College (MA), Boston University (BMus), Columbia University, High School of Performing Arts
Occupation(s)	Composer, arranger, conductor, guitarist
Years active	1958–present
Spouse(s)	Mary Delson (1966-1975), Martha Caplin (1980-1995)
Children	Ben Silverman, Rena Silverman
Parent(s)	Meyer Silverman, Eva Silverman (nee) Kass
Website	stanleysilverman.com

Stanley Silverman (born in New York on July 5, 1938) is an award-winning American composer, arranger, conductor and guitarist.

Silverman's diverse career covers music theatre, film, television, classical and pop music. His work has featured on stages across the world including on and off-Broadway and his collaborators include Richard Foreman, Anthony Burgess and Arthur Miller. He worked with Paul Simon on his musical The Capeman in 1998 for which his arrangements were nominated for Tony and Grammy Awards. His music has been performed by Pierre Boulez, MIchael Tilson Thomas, Tashi, the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio and pop icons James Taylor and Sting.

Across a successful career as a conductor, Silverman worked on the Tony, Drama Desk and Grammy Award nominated 1976 production of The Threepenny Opera which starred in the lead role Raul Julia.

Early Life

Stanley Silverman composing at home in New York

Stanley Silverman was born in New York City and is the son of Russian Jewish immigrants. Silverman grew up in the Bronx attending public school followed by the High School of Performing Arts before completing his BMus at Boston University and his MA in Music Composition at Mills College.

At Tanglewood Silverman studied with Leon Kirchner and at Mills College with Kirchner and Darius Milhaud. Silverman's Tenso: Afternoon Music For Orchestra, composed for a White House concert premiered in 1962 for President John F. Kennedy.

As a young man Silverman played guitar in a western swing band and developed an interest in jazz music which took him to the Brussels World Fair playing with his college jazz quintet.

Upon graduating Silverman became a regular concert guitarist and worked with the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony Orchestra and The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Silverman also played guitar at the Malboro Festival, the Ojai Festival and during this period worked with Leonard Bernstein, Pierre Boulez, Lukas Foss and Gunther Schuller. As a young guitarist Silverman specialized in new music performing and recording many premieres.

Following work as guitarist, Silverman concentrated on his career as a composer and was part of Charles Wuorinen's composer-performer group, The Group for Contemporary Music.

Career

Silverman taught at Tanglewood during the 1960s and in 1965 was appointed music director of The Lincoln Center Repertory Theater before joining Canada's Stratford Festival at the invitation of Glenn Gould. He worked at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival extensively from 1967 when he composed music for John Hirsch's production of Richard III until 1994. His career at the Festival was celebrated in a one off concert in 2013 called Celebrating Stanley which covered the diverse range of material he had composed over almost three decades for the Festival. In 1971, Silverman was a founding member, along with Lyn Austin and Oliver Smith of the Music Theatre Group.

Amongst a range of noteworthy collaborations, Silverman composed the incidental music for Arthur Miller's 1972 Broadway production of The Creation of the World and Other Business and worked with the playwright again on his only musical Up From Paradise which premiered at Miller's alma mater, the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 1973. A recent production took place under the direction of Patrick Kennedy at the New Wimbledon Theatre, London in 2014.

During the 1980s Silverman enjoyed a brief and successful directing career including an Obie award winning production of the Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein opera, The Mother of Us All in 1983.

Aside from his involvement with theatre, Silverman has worked with several musicians as an arranger including a Grammy award winning collaboration with James Taylor on Hourglass.

Stanley Silverman with James Taylor

In recent years, Silverman has been a specialist consultant for Reveille TV, Electus Studios and NBC music Specials.

Influences

Silverman has been influenced by the works of Baroque composers Handel, Henry Purcell, Austrian expressionist Arnold Schoenberg, French guitarist Django Reinhardt, musical composers Rodgers and Hart, and Cuban charanga.

Collaborations with Richard Foreman

In 1968 Silverman began collaborating with playwright/director Richard Foreman resulting in several works of music-theatre. Their first collaboration was Elephant Steps which premiered at Tanglewood in 1968 with the New York Magazine calling it The best piece of new music I've heard in concert all year. and further works include Dream Tantras For Western Massachusetts, Doctor Selavy's Magic Theatre, Hotel For Criminals, Africanus Instructus and Love & Science.

Personal Life

In 1966, Silverman married former VP of BBC America and theatre and television producer and executive Mary Delson (Silverman); the couple had one child, Ben, Electus CEO and former NBC co-chairman. In 1980 Silverman married Martha Caplin, a founding member and 1st Violin, Primavera Quartet and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra; the couple had one child, writer and New York Times journalist Rena Silverman

Theatre

Music Theatre

Elephant Steps

• 1968: Tanglewood
• 1970: Hunter Playhouse, New York & Lake George Opera

The Satyricon

• 1969: Stratford Festival, Canada

Dream Tantras for Western Massachusetts

• 1971: Commemorating the opening of the Lenox Arts Center, Lenox, Massachusetts

Dr. Selavy's Magic Theatre

• 1972: Lenox Arts Center
• 1972-73:Mercer Arts Center, New York
• 1973: Wisdom Bridge Theatre, Chicago
• 1978: Oxford Playhouse, U.K.
• 1985: New York Off-Broadway Revival (Music Theatre Group)
• 2014: New Wimbledon Theatre, U.K.

Hotel for Criminals

• 1974: Lenox Arts Center
• 1975: Westbeth Theatre, New York
• 1977: Berkeley Repertory Theatre, California
• 1977: Lyon Opera, FR
• 2009: Provincetown Playhouse
• 2016: New Wimbledon Theatre, U.K.

The American Imagination

• 1978: Music Theatre Group, New York

Madame Adare

• 1980: New York City Opera, Lincoln Center

Up From Paradise

• 1981: Whitney Museum
• 1982: Off-Broadway
• 1987: Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival
• 2014: New Wimbledon Theatre, U.K.

Africanus Instructus

• 1986: Music Theatre Group, New York
• 1986: Festival d'Automne Centre, Pompidou, Paris
• 1986: Festival de Otono, Teatro Monumental, Madrid
• 1986: Festival de Lille, l'Opera

Paradise for the Worried

• 1989: Lenox Arts Center, Massachusetts
• 1990: Music Theatre Group, New York

Love and Science

• 1990: Music Theatre Group, Lenox, Mass.
• 1991: Music Theatre Group, New York
• 1993: Houston Grand Opera, Houston

Celebrating Stanley (Revue)

• 2013: Stratford Shakespeare Festival, Ontario, Canada

Celebrating Silverman (Revue)

• 2014: London Hippodrome, London

Incidental Music

Broadway

• 1969: The Watering Place
• 1972: The Creation of the World and Other Business
• 1978: Stages
• 1980: Bent (Nominated - Drama Desk Award)
• 1981: The Little Foxes
• 1982: Othello
• 1983: Private Lives
• 1992: Saint Joan (National Actors Theatre)
• 1993: Timon of Athens (Nominated - Drama Desk Award)
• 1994: The Government Inspector
• 1995: Uncle Vanya

Off-Broadway

• 1958: The Golden Six
• 1962: Ten Nights in a Barrom
• 1983: The Lady and the Clarinet
• 1986: Black Sea Follies
• 2007: Fugue

Repertory Theater of Lincoln Center

• 1965 The Country Wife
• 1966 Yerma
• 1967: The Little Foxes & Galileo
• 1968: St. Joan & Tiger at the Gates
• 1970: Beggar on Horseback
• 1971: Mary Stuart
• 1972: Narrow Road to the Deep North

Stratford Festival, Canada

• 1967: Richard III
• 1968: Midsummer Night's Dream
• 1969: Satyricon
• 1970: School for Scandal
• 1981: A Comedy of Errors
• 1982: The Tempest, Arms and the Man & Mary Stuart
• 1983: Love's Labour's Lost & Much Ado About Nothing
• 1985: King Lear
• 1989: The Merchant of Venice
• 1991: Timon of Athens
• 1992: The Tempest & Measure for Measure
• 1994: Twelfth Night & 2 One-Act Plays by Moliere

Guthrie Theatre. Minneapolis

• 1971: Taming of the Shrew
• 1972: Oedipus
• 1973: School for Scandal

New York Shakespeare Festival

• 1979: Julius Caesar & Coriolanus
• 1984: The Golem
• 1994: The Merry Wives of Windsor

Mark Taper Forum. Los Angeles

• 1979: The Tempest

Long Wharf Theatre. New Haven

• 1982: Two by A.M. (Arthur Miller)
• 1983: The Lady and the Clarinet

Royal Exchange Theatre. Manchester U.K.

• 1987: The Bluebird of Unhappiness

Seattle Repertory Theatre

• 1987: The Caucasian Chalk Circle

Hartford Stage Company

• 1992: Heartbreak House

Lincoln Center Theatre. New York

• 1998: Ah, Wilderness!

Royal Shakespeare Company

• 1999: Timon of Athens (adaptation)

The Berkshire Theatre Festival

• 1966: The Skin of Our Teeth
• 1966: The Cretan Women
• 1966: The Merchant of Venice

Wolf Trap Theatre

• 1981: The Columbine String Quartet Tonight

Classical Compositions

Principal Performances

Tenso

• 1962: White House & Carnegie Hall
• 1962: Broadcast, ABC
• 1963: Broadcast, Brazil Television and Japanese Television

Canso

• 1964: Tanglewood (de Varon)
• 1965: Town Hall, New York

Planh

• 1966: Festival de Musique Americaine Contemporaine, Radio diffusion Television Francaise, Paris
• 1968: Monday Evening Concerts, Los Angeles; Tanglewood; Stratford, Canada
• 1969: Stratford Festival, Canada
• 1971: New York Philharmonic Encounter Series (Pierre Boulez)

Crepuscule

• 1974: Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center
• 1984: Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center
• 1987: Y Chamber Soloists, New York (Jaime Laredo)
• 2004: Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center

The Charleston Concerto

• 1976: Bicentennial performances in Charleston and New York

New York Shakespeare Festival Fanfare

• 1978: Delacorte Theatre, New York

Birthday Variations for Avery Fisher

• 1986: Avery Fisher Hall

Psalm 100

• 1990: Fairmount Temple, Cleveland, Ohio

Khlestakov's Lullaby

• 1994: Dayton Philharmonic, Dayton

Eridos

• 1999: European Cultural Centre of Delphi, Greece, (Antigoni Goni)
• 2000: Concert Gebouw, Amsterdam, Holland
• 2001: Royal Academy of Music, London, England (Antigoni Goni); Carnegie Recital Hall, New York (Antigoni Goni)
• 2001: Prague, Czech Republic, (Antigoni, Goni)

Shakespeare and Our Planet

• 2001: Lincoln Center Institute (2 concerts & tour)
• 2002: (Gala) Walter Reade Theater, Lincoln Center

Trio No.2 Reveille

• 2011: Performed by Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio with Sting at the 92nd St. Y, New York
• 2013: Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio, Kennedy Center, Washington DC (& U.S. tour)
• 2013: Ensemble Chameleon. Grosse Halle Gewurzmuhle, Zug, Switzerland. Saal Hofmat, Oberagi, Switz.

Principal Performances as Guitarist

• 1961: Ojai Festival, California
• 1962: Los Angeles Philharmonic
• 1962-69: Tanglewood
• 1962-62: Pierre Boulez Tour
• 1965, 1966, 1967: Marlborough Festival
• 1966, 1967: Boston Symophony Orchestra
• 1966-72: New York Philharmonic
• 1966: Stravinsky Festival, Lincoln Centre
• 1966: Festival de Musique Americaine Contemporaine, Paris
• 1971, 1974, 1978, 1981, 1984, 1985: Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center
• 1987, 1993: Chamber Music at the Y, New York

Filmography

Composer

• Great Performances (1 episode) (1975)
• Nanook of the North (1976)
• Simon (1980)
• Eyewitness (1981)
• Strong Medicine (1981)
• I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can (1982)
• The Tempest (TV Movie) (1983)
• Behind The Scenes with David Hockney (1992)

Consultant

• Charles Munch Final Concert with the Boston Symphony, WGBH (1962)
• Nashville Star, NBC, USA Network (2003-2008)
• Michael Buble’s Christmas in New York (with Justin Bieber), NBC (2011)
• Casanova, Amazon Studios (2015)

Discography

Composer

• Doctor Selavy’s Magic Theatre (1974, 2011)
• Elephant Steps (1974, 2013)
• New American Music Vol. 2. Planh (1975, 2004)
• Sweet Airs That Give Delight, Shakespeare songs (1992)
• Legacies: Piano Trios by Zwilich, Pärt, Kirchner & Silverman (1996)
• Age of Influence, Variations on a Theme of Kurt Weill (1996)
• Kinematic, In Celebration (2002)

Guitarist

Selected credits include:

• Mahler Symphony No. 7 (Leonard Bernstein, 1967)
• Footlifters (Gunther Schuller 1975, 2005)
• Threepenny Opera, guitar, banjo, Hawaiian guitar (1976, 2010)
• Marlboro Music Festival 40th Anniversary (1984, 1990)
• Brasileirinho (Paula Robison, 1993)

Arranger

Major credits include:

• Songs From The Capeman, Paul Simon (1997)
• Hourglass, Another Day, Enough To Be On Your Way James Taylor (1997)
• You're the One, Darling Lorraine, The Teacher, Paul Simon (2000)

Conductor

• Threepenny Opera LP (1976) CD (2004)
• Timon of Athens, Duke Ellington (1993)

Awards

• 1970 - Obie Award for Outstanding Achievement, Elephant Steps
• 1973 - Drama Desk Award for Most Promising Composer, Dr. Selavy's Magic Theatre
• 1977 – Grammy Award nomination for Best Opera Recording, Threepenny Opera
• 1979 - Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Incidental Music, Bent
• 1983 - Obie Award (Special Citation) for The Mother Of Us All
• 1993 - Grammy Award nomination for Best Classical Performance Soloist, Concerto
• 1997 – Grammy Award winner for Best Pop Album, Hourglass
• 2000 - Grammy Award nomination as arranger for Album of the Year, You're The One

External links

• BMI Database
• IMDB
• IBDB
• Official Website