Margie King Barab,
Poet, Musician, Mother of Sarah Barab, and wife of Seymour Barab \, passed away January 3rd, 2018 at the age of 85.
Margie from Marie McCann on Vimeo.
SEYMOUR BARAB,
American composer of opera and cello soloist, passed away June 28th, 2014 at the age of 93.
Seymour Barab from Marie McCann Barab on Vimeo.
Mr. Barab was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1921, and began his professional career as a church organist at the age of thirteen. “I was preparing for a career as a pianist when the conductor of the high school orchestra persuaded me to study the cello. I later became a cellist in the orchestra and after graduation auditioned for the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. I was accepted and have since appeared with principal orchestras throughout the country such as the Cleveland, San Francisco and Philadelphia.”
Mr. Barab’s interest in contemporary music led to a close association with American Composers, whose music he began to perform while he was still in high school. Before leaving Chicago, he became a founder of the New Music Quartet, and then in New York City of the Composer’s Quartet, the resident quartet of Columbia University, whose primary purpose was to promote contemporary music. On the other end of the spectrum, he played the viola da gamba and helped form the New York Pro Musica, one of the first contemporary ensembles to reintroduce baroque and renaissance music. He was a member of the faculties of Rutgers University, Black Mountain College and the New England Conservatory of Music, although he was mainly self-taught in composition. He was fond of saying that he never went to college but taught college. Mr. Barab’s musicianship included a stint at Birdland, playing in a small string orchestra accompanying Charlie Parker and Stan Getz. In the 1970s and 80s, Mr. Barab was a recording studio musician, performing on hundreds of popular music records with everyone from Elvis Presley to Frank Sinatra and John Lennon, as well as for television commercials and movie scores.
Following military service in World War II, he took advantage of the G.I. Bill to spend a year in Paris, where he explored his own talents for musical composition. In this one year alone, he produced over two hundred art songs and other works. Vocal music became his favorite means of musical expression. “It is less abstract,” he observed, “The words of a poem immediately suggest music to me.”
Barab’s proclivity for musical theatre has made his operas consistently performed, especially his comic one-acts and those for young audiences. According to Central Opera Service, during the 1988-89 season, he was the most performed composer of opera in America. His fellow composer, Miriam Gideon, called him “the Rossini of our time.” His Little Red Riding Hood was the first American opera performed in China during the post-isolationist period. His highly praised full-length Civil War opera Philip Marshall, which uses Dostoyevsky’s THE IDIOT as a point of departure, was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.
The Toy Shop, commissioned by the New York City Opera, was performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, and in 1998, scenes from the Pied Piper of Hamlin were also performed there, where he was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the National Opera Association.
Mr. Barab’s Cosmos Cantata, was set to a text by the novelist Kurt Vonnegut and commissioned and performed by the Manhattan Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Richard Aldon Clark. Of their collaboration, Kurt Vonnegut said: “Barab’s music is full of magic. He proved to an atheist that God exists. What an honor to have worked with him.” Mr. Barab himself remained an athiest. But to those who knew him, his life and music proved that God exists.
Mr. Barab is remembered by his family as a man of extraordinary generosity and integrity who always kept his word. Concern for others was always a priority. He was known for his acts of generosity and kindness to family, friends and strangers. He was adored by his family and will be deeply missed.
He is survived by his wife, Margie King Barab, his children, Miriam, Jesse and Sarah Barab and his two grandsons, Graham McCann Barab and Alec McCann Barab.
Mr. Barab’s interest in contemporary music led to a close association with American Composers, whose music he began to perform while he was still in high school. Before leaving Chicago, he became a founder of the New Music Quartet, and then in New York City of the Composer’s Quartet, the resident quartet of Columbia University, whose primary purpose was to promote contemporary music. On the other end of the spectrum, he played the viola da gamba and helped form the New York Pro Musica, one of the first contemporary ensembles to reintroduce baroque and renaissance music. He was a member of the faculties of Rutgers University, Black Mountain College and the New England Conservatory of Music, although he was mainly self-taught in composition. He was fond of saying that he never went to college but taught college. Mr. Barab’s musicianship included a stint at Birdland, playing in a small string orchestra accompanying Charlie Parker and Stan Getz. In the 1970s and 80s, Mr. Barab was a recording studio musician, performing on hundreds of popular music records with everyone from Elvis Presley to Frank Sinatra and John Lennon, as well as for television commercials and movie scores.
Following military service in World War II, he took advantage of the G.I. Bill to spend a year in Paris, where he explored his own talents for musical composition. In this one year alone, he produced over two hundred art songs and other works. Vocal music became his favorite means of musical expression. “It is less abstract,” he observed, “The words of a poem immediately suggest music to me.”
Barab’s proclivity for musical theatre has made his operas consistently performed, especially his comic one-acts and those for young audiences. According to Central Opera Service, during the 1988-89 season, he was the most performed composer of opera in America. His fellow composer, Miriam Gideon, called him “the Rossini of our time.” His Little Red Riding Hood was the first American opera performed in China during the post-isolationist period. His highly praised full-length Civil War opera Philip Marshall, which uses Dostoyevsky’s THE IDIOT as a point of departure, was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.
The Toy Shop, commissioned by the New York City Opera, was performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, and in 1998, scenes from the Pied Piper of Hamlin were also performed there, where he was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the National Opera Association.
Mr. Barab’s Cosmos Cantata, was set to a text by the novelist Kurt Vonnegut and commissioned and performed by the Manhattan Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Richard Aldon Clark. Of their collaboration, Kurt Vonnegut said: “Barab’s music is full of magic. He proved to an atheist that God exists. What an honor to have worked with him.” Mr. Barab himself remained an athiest. But to those who knew him, his life and music proved that God exists.
Mr. Barab is remembered by his family as a man of extraordinary generosity and integrity who always kept his word. Concern for others was always a priority. He was known for his acts of generosity and kindness to family, friends and strangers. He was adored by his family and will be deeply missed.
He is survived by his wife, Margie King Barab, his children, Miriam, Jesse and Sarah Barab and his two grandsons, Graham McCann Barab and Alec McCann Barab.