Born on March 2, 1912, baritone Mordecai Bauman is one of Juilliard's
oldest living alumni. He was granted a fellowship to the Juilliard Graduate
School of Music during his freshman year at Columbia College in 1930, the
first student to attend both institutions concurrently. He went on to
introduce many important works of the 20th century, to champion the music of
his contemporaries, including Ives, and to found the innovative summer arts
school, Indian Hill, with his wife, Irma. He also produced a significant
documentary about Bach.
Mordecai Bauman (Photo by Shelley Seccombe)
It is clear when speaking to the 91-year-old Mordecai Bauman that longevity
has not dimmed his dedication to and passion for music. Though his parents
hoped he would become a lawyer, he discovered while at James Monroe High
School in the Bronx that he wanted to major in music, an extra-curricular
activity. Leading roles in productions of Gilbert and Sullivan operettas and a
gold medal in the New York Music Week Competition convinced him to make music
his vocation. Bauman credits his many performances of G&S to his later
reputation as a great interpreter. "Performing Gilbert and Sullivan helped me
learn to express the text of the songs I sang."
His voice teacher at Juilliard was "the remarkable" Francis Rogers. It was the
Harvard-educated Rogers who encouraged Bauman to continue his studies at
Columbia. He starred in varsity shows every year, and sang leading roles in
Juilliard operas, including Figaro in Mozart's The Marriage of
Figaro. While still in college, Bauman sang a part
in a Broadway play, Sean O'Casey's Within the Gates
.
Columbia in those years was home to an active theatrical scene, and Bauman
would return after graduation for starring roles in a variety of Morningside
Players' productions (including MacHeath in John Gay's Beggar's
Opera, Pepys in Martin Shaw's Mr. Pepys
, and the Impressario in Pergolesi's The Music Master
). He also was the Narrator in the 1941 premiere of Benjamin Britten's first
opera, Paul Bunyan , in New York. Britten
and the opera's librettist, W. H. Auden, were living in the United States at
the time and were present at the production. Among Bauman's fellow
Bunyan cast members was Irma Commanday, whom he
later married.
In 1935, a fellow Juilliard student, Elie Siegmeister, introduced Bauman to
composer Hanns Eisler, and, Bauman says, their resulting relationship changed
his life. He went on tour with Eisler, under the auspices of the Anti-Nazi
Federation. Eisler opened Bauman's eyes to the atrocities in Europe, and this
gave shape to the baritone's political convictions, which found voice in his
dedication to songs with potent political content. During this time, Bauman
was chosen to record the first group of songs by Charles Ives for Henry
Cowell's New Music Recordings.
After serving in the European Theater of Operations while in the U.S. Army,
Bauman was hired to head the opera department at the Cleveland Institute of
Music. Frustrated by the limited opportunities to present opera at the
Institute, he was challenged by one of the trustees to start his own
school—and Indian Hill, in Stockbridge, Mass., was born.
The list of Indian Hill alumni is impressive, including Ruth Laredo, Julie
Taymor, Frank Rich, Jacob Brackman, and Nora and Arlo Guthrie, among many
others. The early faculty included Seymour Lipkin, Sidney Harth, Henry Cowell,
and Wallingford Riegger. Bauman and his wife established a unique atmosphere
dependent upon dedicated teachers and students living together, and everyone
starting their day with a choral rehearsal. "This was a very important
component, because there is something different in making
, rather than listening to music," says
Bauman. In 1976, after running the institution since 1952, the Baumans donated
the property to Brooklyn College.
In 1978 Mr. Bauman was invited to a symposium in Berlin, in honor of Hanns
Eisler. While there, the Baumans visited Leipzig and the St. Thomas Church.
Mr. Bauman was so moved when he entered Bach's church that he was inspired to
create a documentary about the composer even though, at 66, he had never
produced a film. He collaborated on this project with his son, Marc (named
after Marc Blitzstein, a close friend). The Stations of Bach
was the first documentary about a musician funded by the N.E.H. and was
telecast nationally on PBS in 1990.
Two of Bauman's early recordings were among the 50 selected last year for
inclusion in the National Recording Registry at the Library of Congress, an
archive established recently to maintain and preserve significant American
sound recordings spanning the 20th century. Mr. Bauman's archive is in the
Tamiment Collection at New York University, and the Indian Hill material is in
the Stockbridge Library in Massachusetts. All give evidence to a passionate
commitment to the arts whose influence will continue for generations.
