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  A detail of the score from Cohn's Clarinet Concerto No. 2

THE ZEN OF JAMES COHN

With Dana Paul Perna

PART TWO

DPP:   Well, getting back to your life though, when did you realize that you were going to start composing music? Not just playing those records and playing along with them, but, now you're going to start expressing yourself as a composer, or pianist — or any of whatever your musical activities were pre—college?

JC:   Well, I figured that — this is, we're going back to, maybe when I was maybe 9 or 10 years old. I was standing outside the house, standing near the driveway. We had some garden plot near us and I was looking at plants and everything. It was a beautiful, warm day and I was thinking about what the heck I was going to do with my thought. I felt all kinds of pressure. I came to realize what I did not want to do, that I did not want to become a pianist, I did not want to become a trumpet player or a magician. So what were the alternatives? I guessed that the only place where I could escape from this pressure, I will have to become a compoer.

DPP:   Gotcha! Right! A story that's not uncommon, by the way, or not dissimilar to other composers.

JC:   Later on in my life, I looked up the word composer and I found this somewhere in a dictionary. I found that the word composer is related to the word compositor. A compositor is a person who works for a printer and puts together a number of different blocks of lettering, and puts them into a sort of a frame. They could put the frame into a printing press and you come out with something, which could be read that is not gibberish, it is definite words. So a composer is really a person who is not a magician who waves a wand and music appears. A composer is a person who takes little bits of things which don't have very much meaning individually, puts them together and, as he/she assembles these pieces together, they acquire more and more significance and meaning. Eventually, you have words, and then you have phrases, and then you have sentences, and then you have paragraphs, and, if you are lucky enough, you will eventually wind up with plays of novels, or dramas or movies or what have you. So I don't think of myself as being a master magician or with a magic wand. I regard myself as the person who puts things together. The things that I put together are, eventually, notes of music.

What I am aiming for is to create musical compositions that are meant for people to enjoy. I am not trying to preach to people. I am not trying to tell people what to do. I am saying here is something that I have put together, please, give it a try. Hopefully you will enjoy it. I hope that you will get something out of this. If I have disappointed you, I'm sorry — I can say that in all honesty. This is the best that I was able to do at this particular time. I sincerely hope that you will be able to get something out of it which will give you some pleasure, or satisfaction, or comfort.

DPP:   When did you start to study composition? Formally, or —?

JC:   I must have been around 8 or 9 years old. I know that I was sent, before I was 10 years old, to Interlochen, to the National Music Camp. I bunked with a number of the other students my own age and we had counselors. It was by a lake —

DPP:   — Right! It still is! —

JC:   All of the youngsters were boys because there was another camp on the other side of the lake which was — — JC/DPP: all girls!!!

JC:   I did not understand, at the time, why this arrangement was that way. I know now, being an adult, I underst This is a part of the philosophy “lead us not into temptation.” But, anyway, I learned over there, ah —

DPP:   Do you remember who some of the people who were there teaching at that time, by any chance?

JC:   The one person that I remember who was there, who was an instructor, and he gave me the rudiments of drumming — and his name was Frederick Fennell.

DPP:   He was one of a kind.

JC:   He was a very nice guy.

DPP:   Oh, yeah, what a prince!

JC:   Then, later on, when I was a teenager, and at that time, first, the family had lived in Newark, New Jersey, but, later on, we lived in a rented place on the Upper East Side of New York. I was studying with a wonderful musician named Bernard Wagenaar.

Bernard Wagenaar had been born in the Netherlands in the town of Arnhem. He felt that, from what I showed him, that I was weak in the area of form. To help me, he would sit down at the piano with me and pull out various keyboard sonatas by Franz Joseph Haydn and play thru them, saying “Now this is what he did with this problem.” He solved this problem. This is an illustration of what Haydn used to solve this, and what he did to solve that — and so forth. So I was learning form, the rudiments of form, the necessities of form primarily from Haydn.

Bernard Wagenaar was a personal friend of Arturo Toscanini. I think that he had written some things and Toscanini introduced some of Wagenaar's music. A good way of describing Wagenaar's music is French Romanticism thru a Germanic lense. I still remember some of it. I remember visiting him in his apartment. He had a place on Riverside Drive, near Columbia University. He liked to play recordings of, I think it was Spike Jones.

DPP (laughing): Spike Jones!?!??!!

JC:   Oh, yeah.

Most readers will not be familiar with Bernard Wagenaar since none of his work has appeared before the public in decades. Wagenaar taught numerous composers who went on to achieve success, among them being Norman Dello Joio, Bernard Herrmann, Ned Rorem, Alex North, Alan Shulman, Jacob Druckman, Jean Coulthard, William Schuman among others. See, Mr. Cohn is in excellent company

DPP:   Well, I had a feeling that there must be a sense of humor in his music, too, 'cause you can sense that, you know.

JC:   Bernard Wagenaar married an American lady whose family had come from New England — from Boston, I think. Wagenaar was a very sweet and gentle man. I think his instrument was the violin. What knew about his music, I would say, the music that I heard could be like, the closest to it I and think of is the music of Ernest Chausson.

DPP:   Another composer I like very much — and you do, too, I can print that —

JC:   Oh, yes. Chausson, I believe, was a pupil of Caesar Franck and Caesar Franck was one of the anchors of my early musical experience.

DPP:   Well, you can clearly hear the echoes of Franck in Chausson's Symphony in B Flat Major.

JC:   Yes — also, there's that specific recording which I treasure. I don't think I have the recording anymore, but it was the ChaussonSymphony in B flat Major” as recorded by Paul Paray and the Detroit Symphony.

DPP:   So, you went to Juilliard, or?

JC:   I was Juilliard for three or four years. My teachers there were, my main teacher was Bernard Wagenaar. I also studied with Vittorio Giannini.

DPP:   Now, your music has always remained in what we would consider a conservative style, even though you have lived thru periods of dodecaphony and minimalism and all that. How early in your career did you realize that you had already found you musical voice?

JC:   I would say, probably, between 10 to 15 years old.

DPP:   Really?!?!? So, very early on.

JC:   And, in addition to the Caesar Franck recording, a recording which I played which fascinated me in which I kept playing again and again? The Prokofiev — and that was, specifically, his Third Piano Concerto.

There was something about the modulations in the piano solo part and I kept listening to it. I couldn't figure out how, what notes were there. I kept thinking to myself how did put that together? What are those specific notes in that part in those few measures of modulation when we go from this key center to that key center? How did he do that? What I did; I kept playing that section of the recording over and over and over again.

DPP (monotone): Until you got it.

JC:   Until, eventually, something in my mind — it — something clicked into place in my mind and I could say to myself THAT'S how he did it !!! It was thru the device of repetition that I had arrived at the ability to comprehend what it was that I had been listening to.

There was a Russian Scientist who was trying to understand Logic. He could not figure out what it was. It was very late at night and he was afraid that he was going to forget something and wake up without remembering it. He was trying as hard as he could to write down what it was before he fell asleep and he fell asleep. When he woke up, he looked at the piece of paper he had left a message on for himself which read “think in different categories.”

This is what I had to learn how to do as a composer — to think in other categories; that there might be two paths that were close to each other, but not quite touching. One path might go into the other eventually, but maybe I was not at that point on the path yet where the two paths would come together. I had to get some kind of an inkling — I had to get somehow or another — since I could not see my way there yet. I had to figure out where I was, on what path I was on, and how far along I was, and whether I was ever going to get along to a junction, and so forth.

One of the important things in a composers' list of needs is the ability to understand, to anticipate, and to comprehend what lays ahead for them. Not just to know, but to try to understand, ideally, where he is, where he is going and, sometimes, if that's not either of those things, he has to go back to figure out where he's been. That will enlighten him as to where he is and where he had gotten to, and where he is going.

In all cultures, there are echoes of this kind of thing. Dante, in his 'Preface' to “The Divine Comedy,” starts out by saying, in essence, I was on a path, I has lost my way. I was trying to find out where I was going. This is an idea which I would highly recommend to any student of music, or poetry, or painting, or anything else; like a hint, this will — like a key to where you were, where you would like to be, where you are going.

DPP:   As a composer, I know you worked with Paul Paray. What was it he did of yours, the Third Symphony? —

JC:   — It was my Third Symphony —

DPP:   — 'cause you had mentioned Paray and I wanted to get back to that. Some of our readers may recognize that name since his records are still played on the radio.

JC:   Paul Paray was a conductor. He was, I believe, a cellist, and he was also a patriot during the time of the Second World War. He realized that the Germans were going to arrest all of the Jewish musicians in the orchestra and deport them all to concentration camps. Paray found out about this in advance of what was going on. This was during the Vichy administration, during the Occupation of France by the Germans. He decided he was not going to put up with this so he notified all of the Jewish musicians in the orchestra about what was going on and what was going to go on. He scheduled a concert and, in defiance of the authorities, he conducted some patriotic French music which had been forbidden by the Germans. Before the Germans could do anything, he got himself and the French musicians out of the country.

Paray was a man of great courage and great conviction. He was a patriot in the best sense of the word. He wrote a Mass in memory, or commemoration of Joan of Arc, I think, the 500th anniversary of her trial and conviction. As a conductor, he was very intense. I remember the way he conducted orchestras. He exhorted his orchestra. He did everything by gesture, by facial expression and everything by his hands and motions of his body. He impelled them; he exhorted them into a response.

DPP:   You had two pieces performed by him? Your Third Symphony was one and your “Wayfaring Stranger,” right?

JC:   The “Variations on the Wayfaring Stranger,” Well, first of all, these two works. The Third Symphony was important in my life. I was making a statement and the three movements — there were four movements, but one of the movements Paray — it was in 5/8 time and he explained that the orchestra did not have enough time to rehearse the movement sufficiently. He asked me if I would allow the performance to occur with just the three movements being performed without the scherzo. I told him that I would not mind at all as long as the other movements would be done. And that's the way they did it and it was beautifully done. And the concertmaster of the Detroit Symphony then was Mischa Mishakov.

DPP:   That's a good alliteration.

JC:   He was a very nice man, also.

DPP:   And they also did “Wayfaring Stranger.”

JC:   Paray did. There were two performances in Detroit, one was the Third Symphony and, a year or two later was my set of “Variations on a Wayfaring Stranger.”

The idea of writing the piece was a set of variations was written in memory of two of my friends, a physician and his wife. The physician was a doctor named Ernest G. Abraham who had been, in his youth, a cellist.. He had been born in Europe and came to the United States. His wife, Michelle Janos was a pianist. She had been born in Warsaw. Her father had been a physician. They were all trapped in Europe when the Nazi Regime came into power. They managed to get out of there. Madame Janos had a sister who had immigrated to Brazil and she and Dr. Abraham — the way I met them is a long story which I am not going to go into now, but the essential thing is that this were like an Uncle and Aunt to me. They were very lovely people. I was very distraught when they died.

First of all, he had circulatory problems. What happened was, he became sick and hospitalized. While he was in the hospital, she died.

DPP:   Unexpectedly?

JC:   Yes. She was home. She woke up in the middle of the night, apparently to get a drink of water. When she came back to bed, her heart gave out and she lost consciousness. When they found her body in the morning, she was on her knees with her hand against the mattress on top of the banner. She had fallen forward and she was on her knees, like she were in prayer. Apparently, God had taken her. Boom, like that, she was gone.

DPP:   At least she didn't suffer.

JC:   I wrote the variations in her memory. I chose that particular melody because of the meaning to the words. The song was to be sung at the close of religious camp meetings in the United States, and the first verse is:

I'm just a poor wayfaring stranger that's traveling thru this world of woe; and there's no grief. sickness or danger in that bright world to which I go. I'm going back to see my mother I'm going back, no more to roam. I'll just be traveling over to Jordan, I'll just be going over to home.

So, that's why I wrote this. It's a set of, I think, 12 variations, which begins with just the melody, played as an oboe solo, and then it goes thru various variations and permutations and so forth

DPP:   It's one of my favorite folksongs. It's one of my favorite of your works, too, by the way, if I can interject that to the readers — with no shame in saying that as I can say it in front of the composer, which is always a nice thing to do, too, as opposed to privately. How was the performance under Paray's baton? Were you happy with it?

JC:   I was extremely happy with it ! It was a wonderful performance. First of all, the Detroit Symphony is a magnificent orchestra and I'm sure it still is. At the time when Paray was their conductor, it was beautifully performed. I was very, very happy. This performance was at the Ford Auditorium.

NOTE — it will please readers to be made aware of the fact that a recording devoted entirely to some of the orchestral works by James Cohn is set for release on the Naxos label a little bit later this year. Along with two of the Master's symphonies, a recorded performance of his “Variations on a Wayfaring Stranger” is among the works included on this forthcoming release. WATCH FOR IT AND RUN OUT AND A GET A COPY !!!

DPP:   Something the readers may not know about you is that you worked for ASCAP. I am just wondering if you could share with us some of your ASCAP memories. What kind of job was it that you had there?

JC:   I worked for ASCAP, I think, it was close to 30 years.

DPP:   WOW!

JC:   I believe that I got there around 1950. I graduated from Juilliard in 1948 or 1949. I got my Bachelor's there and I got my Master's degree in 1950. They did not have doctorates yet at Juilliard. I was living in Manhattan and I was answering classified ads, which I had found in the newspapers. At that time, I was doing general office work as a trainee for a wholesale fruit and vegetable company located in lower Manhattan, along Chambers Street — what they call the Washington Market area. It was one block east of Franklin Street on the lower west side. I was traveling by subway. I used the IRT between 125th Street all the way down to Franklin Street. It was “the Local,” and I needed something to read.

One of the classified ads read “Music Job,” dial this telephone number and so forth. I dialed the phone number and somebody answered and they said, “This is ASCAP.” I went there and filled out an application form. I found out what ASCAP stood for — the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. It had been founded in 1914, and one the founders had been Victor Herbert.

DPP:   That's correct YEAH!!!

JC:   Herbert was one my favorite composers.

DPP:   Absolutely, One of mine, too!

JC:   And a person of great sensitivity.

DPP:   Great craftsmanship.

JC:   Oh, absolutely. I remember the operetta called “Babes in Toyland.”

DPP:   Yes. Great!

JC:   and this wonderful episode — the ballet music from the operetta called “March of the Toy Soldiers.” (DPP starts singing it) — even the introduction is also (DPP switches gears and starts singing the intro) — YES!

DPP:   I just love that. That's just great music, man. Absolutely!

JC:   and to consider that that operetta dates from 1903 and STILL has this relevance even today, that it still has the ability to inspire. To me, this composer, well, there are many composers in my life whom I greatly revere, not only Victor Herbert, but Dvorak has tremendous power. The Seventh Symphony, the Eighth Symphony — there is the opera “Rusalka,” 'the Song to the Moon.'

DPP:   Oh, is incredible. Oh, Rusalka that's another level of genius, yes.
So you answered the ad for ASCAP?

JC:   I answered the ad for ASCAP. I needed a general clerical job. That's what was opening there. I was working there for quite a long while. First, I was in a department that needed to put together information that came in from the radio stations — typed information, lists of music that was performed on various stations. These were known as “cue sheets.” I was assembling things for these cue sheets. I was doing my job, it was interesting. I was able to make a living from it, at the same time, it was somewhat repetitious and a bore, but I was making money by being bored. I figured it is better being bored and I have bread on the table than to go to something glamorous with no salaries being available, so I stayed in there. I was there from 1950 until 1987.

DPP:   You would have retired before age 65.

JC:   I decided to take an early retirement because of some kind of political thing that I did not want to have to put up with. I don't remember the circumstances but I am not a mercurial person. Rather than expressing my opinion with a hasty word that you can't recall, I decided to tell somebody that I decided to take an early retirement. I did not insult anyone and, therefore, everybody was happy. Everybody said so long and God's speed and so forth. I walked out without any black and blue marks on my skin. They took me to lunch and I had an early retirement party — and that was it!

DPP:   So you were there before Morton Gould's years.

JC:   No, no, I met Morton Gould when I was still working there. I was working for, originally what they called the Foreign Department. Part of ASCAP was cooperatively owned by writers and publishers of music, hence its full name. I was working for, originally, the Program Department which did the scripts, then I was transferred to what they called the Foreign Department which dealt with licensing performances of music which had taken place in Europe and the rest of the World outside of the United States.

I was working for a gentleman named Dr. Rudolf Nissim. Dr. Nissim was a very, very bright and scholarly man who had a Doctorate in Law and a Doctorate in Music from the University of Vienna. He was a very, very bright, learned and musical person.

He was also a personal friend of the composer, Franz Schmidt. I was lucky enough to hear a recording of the Fourth Symphony of Franz Schmidt. At one point, we had it on LP. It is a lovely symphony, cyclical work in four movements. I should recommend that to American listeners. I think they will love it. It is, basically, a Romantic symphony in a style similar to that of Richard Strauss. It starts and ends with an unaccompanied trumpet solo which expresses the very first thing, and the very last thing that a mortal person hears, or will hear during ones' lifetime. Very, very sweet and evocative.

DPP:   Yes, you're right. So, you're working Nissim and?

JC:   I was at ASCAP working for Dr. Nissim's Program department. We were all working, at that time, in a building which is still there which was at 575 Madison Avenue in New York City and I was on one floor. Every once and a while, we were allowed a coffee break and I would sit near the vending machine where they had a couple of chairs. I would sit down and get into a conversation with people.

One of the people that I knew was a guy named Joel Newman who was working for Dr. Nissim. I said, “Joel, if you are ever going to leave ASCAP and you have the opportunity to recommend somebody to take your place, I hope that you will consider recommending me.” Joel said, “I will certainly do that” — and, eventually, that happened. Somebody came to my desk and said we received a message from Joel Newman. There's an opening in another department, he would like you to go and talk to the supervisor there.

That's how I got transferred to that department. I was at that department quite a few years. Part of my duties; I became, officially, thru a decision by one of the executives of ASCAP, I became, officially. the “Musicologist of ASCAP.” I was told that I had to put some kind of a position after my name, that I couldn't just sign it. First of all, I was just typing reports. They said, “NO, you have to put your name at the bottom of the report.” Later on, he said. “You also have to put, after your name, your position.” So, I said, “What's my position?” So, the “in—charge” said, “Say MUSICOLOGIST.”

Alright, so now I am a Musicologist.

I had that position for many, many years and I would have stayed there indefinitely but there was some kind of a thing that was cooking up and I decided to take an early retirement.

There was something by Confucius, like the Golden Rule. He said, it's the opposite of the Golden Rule. The Golden Rule says, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” What Confucius said was, essentially, “DON'T do to other people anything that you don't want them to do to you” — and his is my philosophy.

DPP:   Probably a better one, yeah.

JC:   I take my cue from Confucius in this thing. He was a scholarly man and he had a wit. Confucius had a wife. Because of the things she said to him, he was not happy. He had his revenge on her that, when she died, there had to be a place where she should be buried. He told the people who would be in charge that she should be buried by a crossroads called “The Crossroad of the Five Fathers.”

DPP:   Yeah, I like that.

JC:   That was his revenge.

DPP:   After you left ASCAP, you started a record label called XLNT records. As far as I know, you've still got it going, right ? Could you tell the readers a little bit about that.

JC:   Alright, where the name came from. I realized that I, and my wife Eileen, had to have a publishing entity to collect performance royalties because we did not have that thing yet. We had to have performance royalties to register as members of ASCAP. I couldn't register in my own name because I was already registered as a writer member, but, to register as a publisher member, we had to have a name. So I called up ASCAP and I said I would like to register our name. I would like people to get the idea, understand that our work is excellent, so I would like to be known as “Excellent Music.” They looked it up and then said, well, it's not possible because somebody else is already using that name. I said, “Already? In the United States? ” They said, “No, not in the United States, but in another part of the world.” ASCAP is affiliated with other performance rights societies in a lot of other countries, and one of them is using it, so we cannot do that. I said, “Alright, if we cannot use the name “Excellent Music“, is anybody using the initials X L N T ? ” They looked it up and said, “Nobody's using that.” I said, “Then fine, so we will register as a publisher member XLNT Music.” It went thru the hopper, and the gears ground, and everything meshed and, finally, it came up — DING — your firm is now, officially XLNT Music, and we have been there ever since.

JC:   And we are still in business as XLNT Music and we have been rewarded. We are getting royalties now from all over the world that the music I have written over the years is showing up in international movies. A movie starring Bette Midler, with a series in France called “Alo, Alo,” showing the countries where the royalties are coming in, Japan and Slovakia, and Australia and all kinds of things, all this thru the magic of television. Music backgrounds, all of these are thru radio and television, all thru electronics.

DPP:   What are some of the concerts coming up this year in commemoration of your 80th anniversary?

JC:   There is a quintet of five young ladies based in California who call themselves “The Laurel Ensemble.” There will be performances of my music in San Francisco and, or Berkley, and also one in Santa Clara University in California.

I intend to keep writing. The most recent work that I have done was inspired by their name. The “The Laurel Ensemble” gets their name from Greek mythology, from the legend of Daphne who was pursued by the God Apollo who wanted her very, very urgently. She, being very, very maidenly, did not wish to be caught. She prayed for diving assistance and some of the Gods upstairs took pity on her and they turned her into a Laurel Tree.

Just before Apollo was able to get his fingers upon her, Apollo was able to get his fingers upon her, he said, “Oh, Daphne, although I had not been able to get my fingers upon you because your skin has turned to bark, I would like to have you anyway, one way or another. Whenever somebody wins a contest in Poetry or in Song, I will crown the victor with a wreath made from the leaves from your branches.”

DPP:   How did you meet your wife, Eileen?

JC:   There was a weekly newspaper that posted personal ads. I read one that caught my eye, so I inquired by finding out where to send a response, which I did.

The letter I wrote in response read and was printed like this:

Dear Classical music lover I am a Juilliard trained composer (concert stuff, no 12-tone), live in Manhattan and do musicology work near Lincoln Center. I am healthy, unattached, nice looking, age 51, and enjoy music, cats, travel, children, museums, movies, books, Scrabble, swimming, woman-kind, food, and drink, etc. I would like to hear from you. The best time to call is in the evening, Cordially, Jim Cohn

One night, I got a call, in response to the letter. It was Eileen and we talked for about 2 hours. We agreed to meet in New York, which we did.

Just for the record, Eileen included additional details to this story. Jim and Eileen met on April 29. While she was awaiting his arrival, across the street from where she was standing was a diner with its dessert carousel in the window. Eileen was watching the desserts go round and round when she heard Jim ask: “Are you enjoying the view?”

As soon as her eyes met Jim's, she saw his heart and heard the music and stars that you read about in romance novels.

Both James and Eileen share one other aspect of their story, which is important to include. At their first meeting, Jim asked Eileen that, if it were not too forward of him, would she like to come to his apartment to listen to some of his music? Eileen agreed, sighting the fact that, what would have happened if I did NOT like his music ? You cannot establish a relationship that is built upon a lie. The first work of his he played her a tape of was “Variations on a Wayfaring Stranger.” She fell in love with it immediately and knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt that this was the man for her and that they were going to be married.

James and Eileen were married five months later. The date of April 29th is inscribed on her wedding ring to commemorate the day they first met.

DPP:   We also have a disc of Mirian Conti to look forward to, performing your piano works forecast as a recording, too, along with a forthcoming Naxos release devoted to a selection of your orchestral works. It looks like you are going to have a really great year coming up for your 80th.

JC:   I am looking forward to it. I am very grateful for the kindness of everybody.

DPP:   You're welcome, and, any last words you want to share with me before the tape rolls off?

JC:   I can close with a piece of Jewish Philosophy.

DPP:   You opened with one, we'll close with one. Good, go ahead.

JC:   The piece of Jewish Philosophy comes from a cartoon called “The Nebbishes.” There was a picture there with an illustration, which I will not go into verbally, but the caption under the illustration is:

“Two can live as cheaply as one, BUT, for only half as long.”

DPP:   Well, I think that's a good one and congratulations on your 80th year.

JC:   Thank you.

For the recording of various concerti, James Cohn required a trumpet soloist for his Trumpet Concerto, which was placed in the hands of trumpet virtuoso Manon Lafrance. Due to the fact that the sessions for this disc occurred in Riga, Latvia only weeks following the events of September 11th, 2001, the story behind Manon's journey from Montreal to Riga will be withheld by this writer in order to permit her to divulge such details should the time come for her to write her memoirs. Let it suffice here that her international journey was truly SOMETHING !!!! Nevertheless, she managed to arrive at the sessions without getting arrested where she met James and Eileen Cohn, all three of whom developing an almost instantaneous friendship.

Unfortunately, due to her busy schedule, it had not been possible for the Cohn's to see her, and visa versa. That changed in 2007 when a phone call came to her that she was appointed to become a member of Canadian Brass. Manon called various people to inform them of her great news, which meant that, among their annual stops, was one set for December when the group joins forces with the principle brass of the New York Philharmonic for their Holiday Concert (some of you may have attended this concert, or read about it here on Classical Domain Long Island afterwards.)

This meant that, finally, a reunion could occur.