Arts and Letters

How does one pay tribute to a colleague and avoid platitudes and clichés? A truly proper and meaningful tribute is the ongoing and continuing recognition of the artist's work itself—in the case of music, the performance of the creative output, live or recorded. However, posterity or durability is beyond our control and not guaranteed for any of us (the "time will tell" syndrome). In the meantime, our personal memory serves as memorial, and continues the presence of a colleague, and the sights and sounds of the work left with us. We use the formality of a tribute as ritual to perpetuate and continue this memory, and in some cases to enhance it. It is our way, as the living, to relate to the dead, and we who stand here today in ceremonial stance, are part of the endless cycle of memorials, ultimately for ourselves as well. Therefore I will avoid a recitation of bio and catalogue, and an analysis of the music itself. Rather, permit me personal thoughts and reminiscence, because I was a longtime friend and neighbor as well as colleague of Elie's, going back many years.

We shared almost a century together, and though our younger years were worlds apart—Elie in academia, I in the professional music marketplace—our paths crossed and crisscrossed through those turbulent restless years of the thirties and forties to the recent present. Elie was a very audible and visible part of that traveling creative group of composers who found their way to Paris and Boulanger pre-World War II. He maintained friendships with the Coplands and the Thomsons, and with the writers and poets and the varied burgeoning artists of the time. He was also, early on, what was known as "socially conscious." In the context of the thirties, "socially conscious" was synonymous with "left winger," "radical," "pinko." Yet, typical of that time and the American cultural climate, the sound of our concert and symphonic music was being "Americanized" not by the conservative entrenched creative establishment, but by the "subversive" un-American "lefties!" Elie was part of this intellectual and musically creative explosion, as exemplified by Aaron and Virgil and all the others. There is a strange twist to all these composers returning from Paris as Boulangerites and almost en masse promptly turning into "Americanites"—at least for a while. Here are some of Elie's titles from those early years: American Holiday (1933), Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight (1937), Prairie Legend (1944), and Western Suite (1945). You hear what I mean. He also left a sizeable body of distinguished symphonies (five in all), solo pieces, choral works, and operas. His textures ranged from the complex and astringent to the direct and simple, but in all, communicative. In 1967 he wrote a cantata, I Have a Dream, commemorating Martin Luther King. This work was very close to Elie, not only as music but because it reflected his lifelong commitment as a human being to social justice and the betterment of society.

Elie was also an inspiring teacher and educator, and author of a number of important textbooks about music and music makers. He enjoyed a long tenure at Hofstra and I am continually impressed by his former students who all speak of him with affectionate remembrance.

Early on Elie was a key founding member of the American Composers Alliance. Subsequently he became a writer-member of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) in 1952. In 1977 he was elected to the ASCAP Board of Directors, on which he served until his death. I served with him as a fellow board member, and when I became President of ASCAP he took over some of my duties on the Symphony and Concert, and Special Classification committees. I can attest to his dedication and devotion to the responsibilities of improving the recognition and wellbeing of our creators.

Elie was a family man—a loving and tender and devoted husband, father, and grandfather.

Elie was a friendly man, with compassion toward his fellow beings, and a concerned citizen throughout his life. He had a dream—and he lived it. To the very end he sustained a vitality about the act of living: a curiosity about new plays, and new books, and new music, and new young composers and artists. I found it difficult to keep up with his many enthusiasms, but I admired him for his ongoing involvements—even when they seemed unfeasible! There is one aspect to Elie of which I am critical. Those who have heard this before will forgive my repeating it. I must report that along with his manifold virtues he had a potentially lethal failing. That was his driving! Those among you who had the experience of driving with him and surviving know what I mean. People have commented to me that I seem to be a relatively calm person, even under stressful or threatening conditions. What they don't know is that "I rode with Siegmeister!" Some people are toughened by marine boot camp but I developed my muscle by Elie driving me home to Great Neck, Long Island, where we both lived. He would exuberantly talk to me sitting next to him while driving facing me instead of the windshield, and veering from one lane to another the few times he would look ahead. As Elie got older, so did I, and I suggested that after ASCAP board meetings he take a Long Island Railroad train home with me. He rejected this idea out of hand. Finally, after living dangerously with this mobile form of Russian roulette, I begged off driving home with him saying I had to stay on until later. Then I would go home in the safety of a subway and the train. If there is a heaven, I trust Elie is driving alone!

A final comment. The century closes, and many who have lived it are gone. Elie is one more. In his final years nothing meant as much to Elie as his election and induction into this Institute and Academy of Arts and Letters. It turned out to be a precious final honor that he cherished. He wore our emblem proudly. And because being a member was so important to him, being remembered here today, in this room, by all of us, is what he would have wanted.