TUESDAY, MARCH 5, 197i
N.C. ESSAY
PAGE 3
Freimdlich, Pianist Resigns After Six Years
ByROBDJDREYER
Essay Staff Reporter
Pianist Irwin Freundlich, visiting
associate in music at NCSA, has resigned
from his post here effective in June.
Although he said in an interview that
his resignation is not related to con
ditions at NCSA, he strongly criticized
the music department for inadequacies
in practice facilities and the recruiting
program.
Work Pressure
Freundlich, who is completing his sixth
year at NCSA and his 38th year on the
faculty of The Juilliard School, explained
his resignation, saying, “The pressure of
my work at Juilliard is increasing, £ind
the continued weekly trips after six years
are proving to be too great a strain.”
His contract at the arts school calls for
six studente and he carries 22 at
Juilliard, nine of wiiich received their
preliminary training at NCSA.
Dean of the School of Music Nicholas
Harsanyi said of Freundlich’s
resignation, “It is a great loss to the
school, as I see it, but it is just one of
thoM things.”
Discussing his experience at NCSA
Freundlich said, “When I came to this
Essay Photo
by Marshall Thomas
IRWIN FREUNDLICH
school, the piano department was a
shambles. It gives me pleasure to ob-
^rve how the department has gained in
its standards and disciplining since then.
I have the very greatest respect for my
ArtSy Deaf Students
Join Hands in Morganton
Jk
Plans are underway for a group of
rtudente from the North Carolina School
MOO * ^ interpreter to come to
WL&A this spring for a week to study
their art interests.
. month this new project was
initiated, more difficult, in nature, than
mMy. Eight NCSA students went to the
School for the Deaf
(N«>D) m Morganton to teach in
troductory courses in the arts.
The project developed from last year’s
drama tour “Dark of the Moon” which
played m Morganton. Students with the
. tour and the director, Robert Murray
^ve a ^y of classes at the deaf school,
rae reaction from both NCSA and NCSD
students was very enthusiastic and talk
ot returning the following year with a full
program materialized into a full scale
project.
^NCSA’s policy is to develop students
to their highest professional capabilities,
^e-wise the deaf school’s goal is to help
develop students to their greatest
^tential. Because NCSD has no art
department per se, the correlation
TOtween the two schools was obvious.
were held last spring, summer,
and fmi to fuiahze a joint project. During
plannuig NCSA students took classes in
sign language. One of the participants
conmented “I don’t feel that deaf p^ple
are handicapped in their communication,
but rather that it is the hearing populace
that IS handicapped, because a deaf
pereon has a way to communicate but we
as hearmg people don’t know it...or try
Fuel Shortage
A four-day workshop originally slated
to occur during Intensive Arts was
delayed by the energy crisis, an early
Christmas vacation, and productions and
rehearsals. It was finally conducted
February 21-24. Craig Eubanks, drama,
gave classes in mime, and Katharine
Buffaloe, drama, taught ballet, jazz,
modem and square dancing. Mary Beth
Zablotny, drama, gave drama in
struction through improvisation and
helped the NCSD Drama Club with its up
coming production of Shaw’s “Androcles
and the Lion.” Last year the touring
students helped with “Julius Caesar.”
Jane Stuckenbruck, piano, who has a
hearing impairment herself, taught
master and private classes in piano.
Other music classes were taught by
Elaine Turner, guitar; Ned Winn,
trumpet; and Bo Winn, percussion. Brad
White, drama, taught make-up
techniques. Other technical areas had
been planned, but again the fuel shortage
made transporting equipment and extra
teachers impossible. The students also
went to various classes and talked, or
rather signed, about NCSA and their
work as artists. “All in all, it was a very
rewarding four days for both groups,”
said Marilyn Williams, one of NCSD’s
faculty.
NCSD has a highly complex closed-
circuit television system and video
taping equipment with a captioning
device. The students have access to
many captioned movies, TV programs,
etc., but few plays, dance concerts or
televised art instruction classes. Thus,
this brought about many ideas and plans
for future connections with the deaf
school.
Press releases have been sent to Gov.
Holshouser and Pres. Friday (President
of the University of North Carolina) and
they have shown a highly favorable in
terest in this. Other faculty members
here that have helped in this project are
I^es. Ward, Ron PoUack, Sam Stone,
Michael Byrum and Robert Murray.
Total Communication
The deaf school is a state insitution mat
i^ructs students from age five until
high school. The school has been in
existence since 1897 and has an im
pressive record of over 3,000 deaf
graduates who are self-supporting
citizens just with-in the state of N.C. The
school has instruction in academics
^cher training and T.V. instruction!
The 600 students at NCSD also have in
tensive vocational training in general
shop, shoe repair, printing, leather work,
dry cleaning and pressing, woodworking,
metal shop work, upholstery, auto body
repair, machine sewing, home
economics, typing, teaching, business
machine operating and data processing.
Mrs. Williams noted, “They have no real
arts training, thus many talented
students are untrained...they need art
just as anyone does.” Students graduate
and enter into the business of their
vocational training and some even go off
to colleges. Not all students there are
totally deaf, some are hard of hearing or
Mve some percentage of hearing loss.
They are taught “total communication,”
which IS a signing and lip movement way
of communicating..but lip reading is
i*naWe to talk in
that they have never heard a spoken
voice, but this is slowly being corrected •
by early instruction with a sort of
vibrational phonetics. On the whole, the
deaf are very independent. They have
refund to accept extra exemption or
pensions. ITiey ask for nothing except the
best ^ucation possible and an op
portunity for employment.
Absolutely Amazing
Brad White summarized the project by
believe we really reached
them. They opened to us so easily. Thev
re^y wanted to learn. I’m sure a lot of
this was due to our age similarities. I
watches rtudents play a piano \rtio
comdnt hear a note but felt the
vibrations, and for the first time in their
life they were creating something that
toey thought was impossible, music,
i-hese kids are amazing...absolutely
amazing ” ° j
yomger colleagues, Rebecca Penneys
and Clifton Matthews, and the associates
in Ihe department, Rebecca Barrow,
William Zimmerman and Bruce Moss.”
Department Problems
“However,” he continued, “our
department has problems which I am
assured by members of the ad
ministration will be solved in the years to
come. The problems are basically two
fold: one, woefully inadequate practice
facilities; and two, woefully inadequate
recruiting.”
“I have seen students walking the halls
in the main building unable to find a
place to practice,” he explained. “The
school to my knowledge has purchased
only a few Yamaha uprights since the
inception of the school.”
At our last two dates for entrance
auditions,”^ Freundlich continued, “we
had no applicants whatsoever, a situation
which is not understandable in view of
the mass assault of piano students on
mo^ other conservatories in the coun
try.”
He ^d, “If the school plans to con-
tmue to bi^d a program for serious
young piani^, it must engage in a
vigorous, widely publicized recruiting
program and must make professional
facilities avaUable to the students so that
our small but very fine piano faculty can
achieve maximum results.”
Accomplishments
Freundlich holds a degree in
philosophy from Columbia College. He '
studied piano at Juilliard with James
Friskin and later, with Edward
Steuermann.
He has given master classes
throughout the United States and at the
Vth Festival Internazionale of the
Association “Giornate Musicale” in
Todi, Italy, in 1970.
Freundlich has served as chairman of
the National Screening Commission in
Pi^o for Fulbright awards and has been
a jury member for many national and
international competitions. His students
have won national and international
prizes and have concertized throughout
the world.
He also co-.authored two widely- used
handbooks to the piano repertoire.
Summing up his experience at NCSA,
Freundlich said, “I consider these last
six years at the school a major ex
perience in my professional life and shall
continue to keep in touch with the school
and render every siq)port possible.”
H 1
\K . L M N o
THE MANUAL ALPHABET
The Art Critics’ Views
CRITICS, From Page 1
Ms. Carr is inscrutable. She betrays
little emotion when speaking but
sometimes breaks into a thin smile when
amused. When she cracks a joke it is
usually in the same steady tone of voice
she uses in talking about everything else.
“It is a shame that we aren’t as weli
versed in these things as we should be,”
she said referring to her lack of training
m the arts.
“You’re looking for background in the
fteld, obviously,” said J. Patrick Kelly,
former executive news editor of the
Journal and Sentinel when we asked him
what qualifications he considered
necessary for a reviewer.
Shertzer characterizes his arts
background as that of a “goer” and
estimates that he has seen between two
and three thousand films and has at
tended countless plays, and concerts. He
says he feels well versed in the basic
orchestral repertoire and is confident ia
his ability to review theatre and films. He
feels least qualified to review dance, but
in 1972 Duncan Nobel arranged for him to
attend the West Coast Institute of Dance
Criticism to increase his knowledge in
the field.
Preparation
He stresses preparation for reviewing
and says he often listens to three or four
different recordings of a musical work in
order to acquaint himslef with different
mterpretations and he usually looks up
historical material before attempting to
review a performance. ,
Taggart says film critics are “a dime a
)zen” but beli>vp.c
dozen ’ but believes music critics must
“3ve a specialized background in the
field. He was a music theory and
literature major at Baylor University
and studied piano there.
Shertzer describes himself as “more
tenderhearted” toward amateurs and
semi-professionals in his criticism
“^ere is a nice way of saying the worst
tlMg, he said. He says he hopes readers
will compare and contrast their views
with his.
Ms. Carr thinks a critic should cover as
many elements of a performance as
possible, cite valid reasons for
cnUcisms, and explore the reasons for
lauures.
When we asked Taggart who a critic
should be answerable to he replied, “No
one,” but went on to say that if a
reviewer is not doing his job well, the
editor of the paper should be
knowledgeable enough about the subject
to judge his competence.
Shertzer feels editing is a serious
“ reviews and recently covered
an NCSA dance workshop in which
several paragraphs were deleted,
t^reby slanting the review in a manner
wnich he had not intended. As the review
emphasis was placed
on Sinfonia”, a new work-in- progress-
by Pauline Koner, when he in fact had
favorably mentioned the Brahms piece
and had written a lengthy praise of Kevin
Self s dancing in Duncan Noble’s new
work. Sentinel reporters had no com-
Pi, u editing improvement
through the years.
Asked if he had ever written anything
m a review that he had regretted,
Shertzer rephed “all the time” and
^mted out that a midnight deadline
after an evenmg performance made his
judgements necessarily hasty. Sentinel
wnters have n-p deadline problem
Taggait smd that he had never
regretted a criticism, but sometimes felt
that he could have improved the writing
end of a review. He feels that he has
made peat improvement in that respect
smce he has been at the Sentinel.
Affect Box-Office
Both Taggart and Shertzer believe that
their fUm reviews affect box-office at
local theatres. Taggart thinks that luke
warm reviews of the North Carolina
Smnmer Festival’s “1776” may have
affected box-office on that show.
Shertzer pointed out that most towns
the size of Winston-Salem have no full
time arts reporters. However, unlike
most towns of its size, Winston-Salem has
a large and active arts community in
citing a little theatre, arts school, civic
ballet, symphony, a professional dance
company and various concert and sub
scription play ^ries and was the first
city in the nation to establish an arts
council..
All the reporters had glowing praise for
the work NCSA does, and Shertzer said
that the arte school had “enriched the
arts scene in the community.”