Seymour Barab facts for kids

Seymour Barab (born January 9, 1921 – died June 28, 2014) was an American composer. He wrote operas, songs, and music for instruments. He was also a talented cellist, organist, and pianist. Barab was most famous for his fairy tale operas, which were made for young audiences. Some of his well-known works include Chanticleer and Little Red Riding Hood. He was also a long-time member of the Philip Glass Ensemble.

Early Life and Music

Seymour Barab was born in Chicago, Illinois. His parents, Samuel and Leah, came from Poland. Even though his family didn't have much money, his parents thought music and art were very important. Seymour started taking piano lessons when he was very young. His aunt, Gertrude Yablunky, was his first teacher.

When Seymour was thirteen, he got his first music job. He played the organ for a church that his aunt attended. In 1935, he started high school at Lane Tech High School in Chicago. This school had a four-year music program. Students had to learn an instrument that was part of an orchestra. Seymour chose the cello. He later said, "They happened to need cellos. If they had needed a French horn player, I’d be a French horn player."

At Lane Tech, Seymour became friends with Ben Weber and George Perle. Both of them later became famous composers. In 1938, the three friends started the New Music Group of Chicago. They wanted to play new music from the 20th century. They performed their own songs and music by other modern composers. They even performed a famous piece called Béla Bartók's First String Quartet for the first time in Chicago. Seymour always supported new and modern music throughout his life.

Performing Around the Country

After high school, Seymour Barab became a professional cellist. His first job was with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. After that, he played with many other orchestras in cities like Cleveland, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Portland, Oregon. He also played with the Chicago Civic Orchestra and the Brooklyn Philharmonic. Seymour remembered that it was common to move between orchestras back then. He said, "You stayed in one, one season. Then, you moved up to a better orchestra."

During World War II, Seymour joined the Navy as a musician. He was stationed in Philadelphia. There, he learned to play the clarinet and played in the military band. He also played with the famous Philadelphia Orchestra. During this time, he studied cello with Gregor Piatigorsky, a very well-known cellist.

After the war, Seymour moved to New York City. He played for big broadcasting companies like the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) and the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS). He also helped start new music groups. He played in the Galimir String Quartet and helped create the New Music Quartet of New York. Later, with Noah Greenberg, he helped start the New York Pro Musica Antiqua. In this group, Seymour played the viola da gamba, an old string instrument.

Becoming a Composer

Seymour Barab started composing music when he spent a year in Paris, France, from 1950 to 1951. He worked there as a recording producer. He recorded operas and symphonies. When asked why he started composing, Seymour said he thought composers had a better life. He felt they could create music anywhere, while he was tied to his job as a performer. He also mentioned that his relationship with a singer, Pat Neway, and a piano in his apartment helped him start writing music. He would play, and she would sing. At first, he only wrote songs in Paris. But soon, he began to write other kinds of music too.

When he returned from Paris, Seymour became a cello professor at Black Mountain College in North Carolina. There, he met his second wife, Mary Ann. They had two children, Miriam and Jesse. While there, he finished one of his first song collections called A Child's Garden of Verses. This collection became popular. Its success helped Seymour get a job as a composition professor at Rutgers University. He later took another job at the New England Conservatory of Music. There, he started the Composer's Quartet. This group played only new and modern music that other groups might not play. He loved playing music that wasn't well-known.

In the mid-1950s, Seymour Barab started writing operas. He worked with a writer named M. C. Richards on a short opera. This piece became his first opera, called Chanticleer. It was first performed in Aspen, Colorado, on August 4, 1956. People liked it a lot. A reviewer said it was "humorous" and had a "delightful, light touch." They also said Barab's music was "tuneful" and "fresh." Seymour Barab became known for this simple and melodic style in his music. In 1957, his second opera, A Game of Chance, was also well-received.

Barab's opera of the fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood (1962) is his most famous work. It is also the most performed opera by any American composer! This opera led to many more fairy tale and children's operas by Barab. He wrote Little Red Riding Hood for a program called "Young Audiences." This program toured public schools. For this opera, Barab wrote the story himself. He added a special part at the beginning where the actor playing the wolf puts on his makeup on stage. This helped children see that the wolf was just a person in a costume. In his other fairy tale operas, Barab often made changes to the stories. He would make them less scary or change them to teach a moral lesson.

Seymour Barab continued to compose new music throughout his life. His longer opera, Phillip Marshall, was even nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. A reviewer said that Barab's story for the opera was "packed with power" and had "characters with depth."

Barab kept composing until he passed away at age 93 in New York City. He wrote operas, songs, and music for instruments. In 1998, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Opera Association.