New England Ragtime Ensemble Explained

The New England Ragtime Ensemble (originally The New England Conservatory Ragtime Ensemble) was a Boston chamber orchestra dedicated to the music of Scott Joplin and other ragtime composers.

History

Conservatory president Gunther Schuller created the 12-member student ensemble in 1972 for a festival of romantic American music, at which the group performed some of Schuller's own editions of orchestrated versions of Joplin's piano rags. These period arrangements from the collection "Standard High-Class Rags", commonly known in early accounts as the Red Backed Book (later shortened to The Red Back Book), had been preserved by New Orleans musician Bill Russell and forwarded to Schuller by pianist and music historian Vera Brodsky Lawrence.In 1973 the group's performance at the Smithsonian Institution[1] led to a recording for Angel Records.[2] Orchestrations for later repertoire included oboe, bassoon, French horn and guitar and banjo, a routine period practice."The Red Back Book" earned a Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance of 1973.[3] [4] It spent 54 weeks on Billboards Top 100 Albums List; 84 weeks on the Top Classical Albums List, including 6 separate appearances at #1; and 12 weeks on the Top Jazz Album List. It was the magazine's Top Classical Album of 1974.[5]

The ensemble's second recording, "More Scott Joplin Rags", spent 26 weeks on the Top Classical list, earning a #7 ranking for 5 weeks.

Beginning in 1973 the ensemble began a tour of major American and Canadian venues, including sold-out performances at Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts,[6] [7] where they would play seven more times; Tanglewood;[8] [9] the Blossom Music Center[10] [11] [12] and the Ravinia Festival;[13] the Newport Music Festival;[14] [15] [16] [17] the Saratoga Performing Arts Center[18] [19] as well as headlining the inaugural Scott Joplin Ragtime Festival in Sedalia, Missouri.[20]

Following a series of performances in The Netherlands,[21] [22] in September 1974 they performed at a state dinner at the White House for President and Mrs. Gerald Ford.[23] [24]

The group continued to concertize extensively after 1974, becoming independent of the conservatory when Schuller left the school in 1977. He expanded their repertoire, adapting existing arrangements as well as arranging and transcribing the music of James Scott, Joseph Lamb, Louis Chauvin, Arthur Marshall, James Reese Europe, Jelly Roll Morton, Zez Confrey, and Claude Debussy. Schuller later incorporated contemporary rags by William Albright, Stefan Kozinski, Kenneth Laufer, Rob Carriker, David Reffkin, and one of his own compositions, Sandpoint Rag.

Subsequent travel took the ensemble to 38 states and included performances at Symphony Hall, Boston;[25] Alice Tully Hall;[26] Carnegie Hall; the National Academy of Sciences (as part of the Jimmy Carter Inaugural Series); the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts; the Ambassador Auditorium; Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall; the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center; and Stanford University, Temple University[27] [28] and UCLA.

They appeared on WGBH-TV and WNAC (now WHDH) in Boston; WETA-TV in Washington DC; WTIC-TV in Hartford; KENW (TV), Portales, New Mexico;[29] and performed live on NBC Today (Nov. 1, 1974) and A Prairie Home Companion (Jan. 18, 1986).

During these years tours took them to Canada, Italy,[30] Norway, Portugal and the former Soviet Union.[31] [32]

Their final performance on July 16, 1998, brought them back to the stage on which they had debuted, Jordan Hall at The New England Conservatory.[33]

On November 19, 2018, members of the original ensemble were joined by later players and students for the second annual Gunther Schuller Legacy Concert in Jordan Hall - a joint presentation of New England Conservatory and the Gunther Schuller Society.

Members

The original ensemble

(* at the first performance only; Myron Romanul was the pianist for The Red Back Book and in ensuing concerts)

Other notable players

Discography

As The New England Conservatory Ragtime Ensemble

Reissues of The Red Back Book

As The New England Ragtime Ensemble

Bibliography

Notes and References

  1. News: Bringing Back Ragtime. The Washington Post. February 12, 1973. B 1.
  2. Web site: Scott Joplin - the New England Conservatory Ragtime Ensemble Conducted by Gunther Schuller – the Red Back Book (1973, Vinyl). Discogs. 1973 .
  3. News: Schuller's kinetic kids win Grammy. The Boston Evening Globe. March 5, 1974. Robert A. McLean.
  4. Web site: Awards Nominations & Winners. 30 April 2017.
  5. Web site: Search the Billboard Magazine Archives Billboard.com . www.billboard.com . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20100626172944/http://www.billboard.com/archive . 2010-06-26.
  6. News: Joplin. The Washington Post. June 24, 1974. Joseph McLellan.
  7. News: Ragtime Keeps Off the Chill. Boris Weintraub. The Washington Star-News. June 24, 1974. C-4.
  8. News: New England Newsclip. The Boston Globe. August 12, 1974.
  9. News: Tanglewood weekend spans musical gamut. Jay C. Rosenfeld. The Berkshire Eagle. August 12, 1974.
  10. News: Joplin's rags coming to Blossom Tuesday. The Plain Dealer. July 11, 1974. Robert Finn.
  11. News: Scott Joplin is paid lively tribute. The Plain Dealer. July 17, 1974. Wilma Salisbury. 6–C.
  12. News: Young Ragtimers Pound Out Some Instant Euphoria. The Akron Beacon Journal. July 17, 1974. John Von Rhein. D2.
  13. News: The New England Conservatory Ragtime Ensemble. The Chicago Tribune. June 18, 1974.
  14. News: The Ragtime Revival-A Belated Ode to Composer Scott Joplin. The New York Times. August 11, 1974. D 1.
  15. News: Ragtime at The Breakers. The Providence Journal-Bulletin. July 29, 1974. Peter D. Lennon. B 1.
  16. News: Ragtime Brightens Breakers. The Providence Journal-Bulletin. July 29, 1974. Edwin Safford.
  17. News: A Bright Evening at 'The Breakers'. The Boston Herald-American. July 31, 1974. Rose Walsh.
  18. News: Rain fails to dampen spirits of small crowd at SPAC show. The Saratogan. June 18, 1974. Greg Johnson. B 1.
  19. News: Scott Joplin's 'Entertainer' Finally Reaches Hit Parade. KITE Guide to Art and Entertainment. June 26, 1974. Steve Hirsch. 2.
  20. Glad Rags. Newsweek. August 5, 1974. Hubert Saal. 60.
  21. News: Ragtime, de nieuwe rage. De Telegraaf. September 10, 1973.
  22. News: Melancholiek accent bij ragtime-concert. De Volkskrant van Vrijag. September 13, 1973.
  23. News: New Englanders at the White House. The Boston Globe. September 27, 1974. 42.
  24. http://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/library/whphotos/19740925whpo.pdf |Pp.17-19, 21-23
  25. News: Ragtime sells out symphony. The Boston Globe. March 11, 1975. Ray Murphy.
  26. News: Joplin's Red Back Book at Alice Tully Hall. The New York Post. May 5, 1974. Speight Jenkins.
  27. News: Troupe Revives Ragtime At the Temple Festival. The Philadelphia Inquirer. June 22, 1974. Daniel Webster .
  28. News: Schuller's Ragtime Ensemble Joyously Plays the Music of Joplin. The Evening Bulletin. June 21, 1974. 27.
  29. News: Ragtime sounds performed on Channel 3 this Sunday. The Portales News-Tribune. February 20, 1987.
  30. News: Il rag del New England. La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno. September 27, 1983.
  31. News: Schuller makes rags the rage of Russia. The Boston Globe. July 16, 1978. George McKinnon.
  32. News: Soviets sample ragtime rhythm. The Christian Science Monitor. June 26, 1978. David Willis.
  33. News: Schuller charms with the lilt of ragtime. The Boston Globe. September 16, 1998. Susan Larson.
  34. Recordings. Esquire. August 1974. Martin Mayer. 30.
  35. The Lively Arts: Rags To Rip-Offs. "The ensemble is marvelous; you know that every member is a superb technician, and yet together they have worked out an insinuating way of slurring and sliding - like the Vienna Philharmonic playing Johann Strauss - that gives the music marvelous warmth.". New York Magazine. June 10, 1974. Alan Rich. 80.

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