Don Shirley

Synopsis

On today’s date in 2013, the Jamaican-American pianist and composer Donald Shirley died at age 86 in New York City.

His death set into motion a plan that had been long in the works: a movie based on Shirley’s concert tour to the deep South in 1962, accompanied by Tony “the Lip” Vallelonga, a bouncer at the famous Copacabana night club who Shirley hired for protection.

In the 1960s Shirley was at the height of his popularity as the leader of a jazz trio he founded after being told by the great concert impresario Sol Hurok a career as a classical pianist was impossible due to his skin color.

In the 1980s, Vallelonga’s son Nick told Shirley and his father he wanted to make a movie about the indignities they suffered during that 1962 tour and the life-long friendship that developed between them. Shirley agreed, but said only after his death. "'You should put in everything your father told you, and everything I told you,” said Shirley. "'You tell exactly the truth, but wait until I pass.'"

In 2018, five years after Shirley’s death, the film was released, titled GREEN BOOK, after a guide for Negro motorists listing hotels and restaurants open to them in segregated states. Fact-checkers confirm the film is largely accurate, and, yes, for over 50 years Shirley did live in an elegant apartment over Carnegie Hall, where his jazz trio often performed.

Music Played in Today's Program

Richard Rodgers (1902 – 1979) arr. Don Shirely (1927 – 2013) “This Nearly Was Mine,” from “South Pacific” Don Shirely, p; Juri That, vcl; Ken Fricker, db. Cadence LP CLP-25046

On This Day

Births

• 1660 - German composer and organist Johann Kuhnau, in Geising Erzgebirge; He was Bach's predecessor as cantor at St. Thomas Church in Leipzig;

• 1672 - Baptismal date of French composer André Cardinal Destouches, in Paris;

• 1815 - German composer Friedrich Robert Volkman, in Lommatzsch, near Dresden;

• 1885 - French-born American composer and harpist Carlos Salzedo, in Arcachon;

• 1887 - Rumanian opera composer Nicolas Bretan, in Nasaud;

• 1921 - American composer Andrew Imbrie, in New York City;

• 1929 - Soviet composer Edison Denisov, in Tomak; His engineer father named him after Thomas Edison;

• 1929 - German-born American composer, pianist and conductor, André Previn, in Berlin;

Deaths

• 1971 - Russian-born American composer Igor Stravinsky, age 88, in New York City;

Premieres

• 1731 - Handel: opera "Rindalo" (2nd version), in London at the King's Theater in the Haymarket (Gregorian date: April 17);

• 1735 - Handel: Organ Concerto Op. 4, no. 5 (Julian date: March 26);

• 1797 - Beethoven: possible public premiere of the Quintet for Piano and Winds, Op. 16, at a Schuppanzig concert in Vienna;

• 1892 - Dvorak: Symphony No. 4 in d, in Prague;

• 1900 - Amy Beach: Piano Concerto in c#, by the Boston Symphony with Wilhelm Gericke conducting and the composer as soloist;

• 1945 - Randall Thompson: "The Testament of Freedom" (to texts by Thomas Jefferson) for men's chorus and orchestra, by the Boston Symphony, Serge Koussevitzky conducting; This was the first performance with orchestra; The world premiere (with piano accompaniment) had taken place at the University of Virginia on April 13, 1943;

• 1964 - Stravinsky: "Elegy for J.F.K.," in Los Angeles, conducted by Robert Craft;

• 1967 - Miklós Rózsa: Piano Concerto, by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, with Leonard Pennario as soloist.