Projects
Except for reviews for NPR and music production, most of my projects are many years in the making. Music: A Living Language took five years. Music Kit, although written in several weeks, took three years to bring to the market and is revised at regular intervals. I began research for Trials of Katherina in 1988 and interviews for Chase the White Horse in 1993. Like many authors and composers, I’m accustomed to working on certain projects for many years.
Chase The White Horse
Chase the White Horse is a political memoir about my family. My mother, Marjorie McGregor, was born in Eastern Washington on a large ranch, an “empire” in size, pioneered by her uncles in the late 1880’s. McGregor land was situated on the former tribal lands of the Palouse Indians. My mother’s early contact with the few remaining Palouse Indians in the 1920’s influenced her political views. As an acting student at the University of Washington, she came in contact with people on the left, and became a communist in Hollywood and was later on the HUAC blacklist.
My father, Arnold Manoff, born to Russian Jewish immigrants in New York City, was also a communist. As a blacklisted screenwriter he worked under “fronts” for most of his life. His work was a prominent influence on the emerging styles of television in the 50’s and early 60’s though such shows as You Are There and Naked City. The book deals also with my time in Mississippi as a civil rights worker in 1964 and 65. An excerpt from the book is posted in the “In Depth” section.
The Trials of Katherina Kepler
An opera based on the life of Katherina Kepler, mother of the famous astonomer and mathematician Johannes Kepler. Katherina was tried as a witch in 1619. I began this project when living near Weil der Stadt, the city where Kepler was born. Operas take some time but the work progresses. I have been adapting some of its music for other pieces, notably The Trials of Katherina Kepler for violin and piano performed in 2002. My intention for this work is to create an internet version of some of it, using singers and midi-generated instruments. I’ve worked steadily on this piece for many years. Whatever its time frame, that is what it will take.
The Harmony Kit
Written as the successor to The Music Kit, The Harmony Kit was considered too difficult for the college market. Rather than dumb it down, I decided to wait until a time when I could find a smaller, but higher level of readership. Like The Music Kit, this book is basically the assignments and ideas from the courses I taught at the Third St. Music Settlement and the Manhattan School of Music. It is not a text for everyone, but only for serious students willing to immerse themselves in traditional harmony and counterpoint, culminating in deep study and internalization of Bach Chorales. Projected publication in 2011.
Music : A Living Language
Influential and well-reviewed in its time, Music: A Living Language proved too challenging for college students by the early 90’s, at least according to a number of music instructors. I hope to return it to the marketplace in yet a more challenging form in the next few years. Using web resources, especially for music examples, the book will be offered to students and teachers at a very low price. 2012-13
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