IT'S MAY - ROBERT SCHUMANN'S ART SONG ~ PAUL WARREN ALLEN CONDUCTOR ~ NORTH CENTRAL COLLEGE CHOIR

MEMORIES WORTH REMEMBERING

Music is my Refuge
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It's May ~ Robert Schumannn's Art Song ~ Paul Warren Allen, Conductor ~ North Central College
Uploaded by me

ilovemylifesblog

This text is from my Youtube sidebar:

This recording was done in the spring of 1968 in Naperville, Illinois, outside of Chicago at North Central College. Three years later the college eliminated the music department.

The women come in for the second Schumann Art Song which follows this song. The second song is Where'er My Tears Are Falling, followed with The Rose and The Lily.

I will be uploading more songs from this long playing (LP) record.

If you were a member of this choir, would you be willing to contact me? I would like to hear from you. If you have a song from the album that you would like posted here at Youtube, please let me know. You can leave a Channel Comment here:
www.youtube.com/user/ilovemylifesblog

or in the upper right corner of my individual video page, find the logo for an envelope and click on it, in order to send me a private message. It is found between "ilovemylifesblog" and "Sign In" or "Sign Out" (whichever is relevant).

Also, you may leave a comment below or email me here at my blog by clicking View My Complete Profile under the text on my sidebar of the About Me section.

I have talked to Maestro Paul Warren Allen's daughter. I sent a letter to him in January 2010 and she called me. He is 96 years old. And later, I received a note that he heard the youtube video. I have since posted another video - The Eyes of All Wait Upon Thee - which I may eventually repost to correct the size. Until then, the link.

The second upload is up.

Here is an excerpt from Naperville Chorus...
In the 1960's Dr. Paul Warren Allen of the North Central College Music Department melded the vocal talents of students, college personnel, and community members into a forerunner of the Naperville Chorus. The NCC-Community Chorus flourished and performed contemporary and traditional choral works until 1971, when financial cutbacks at the college eliminated the Music Department.

Photos, except for ten (4 of children, 4 of birds and 2 of woods' scenes), are from my yard in Rhode Island, nearby where I live on Aquidneck Island and photos of flowers I took at the National Botanical Gardens in Washington, D.C (where I have lobbied four times for Darfur, in addition to several times in the US RI Senators and Representative offices in Rhode Island).

One of my blog posts regarding Darfur:

PROVIDENCE OLYMPIC TORCH RELAY ON BEHALF OF DARFUR AND SPEAKING TO CHINA:
ilovemylifebrothersandsisters.blogspot.com/2007/10

The video portion within the Youtube video is from the movie "The Four Feathers". The actors are Heath Ledger and Kate Hudson.
Other youtube videos of mine featuring The Four Feathers...
HEATH LEDGER ~ THE FOUR FEATHERS ~ TRIBUTE TO FRIENDSHIP, COURAGE AND INTEGRITY ~ BROKEN ARROW

and
HEATH LOVE ~ For the FirstTime ~ Lover's Such As I
(this one is only viewable OUTside the USA)

The picture of me included in the video on my parents' lawn is the day I graduated from college at Huntington College ~ after I transferred from North Central College mid-way through my junior (third) year. Going to Huntington College is what eventually led me to live in New England the whole of my adult life. I love it here.


I am a bit tired as the Youtube video and me were up all night...not uncommon for me, while creating youtube videos...so no sympathy needed .

I just went through boxes of memorabilia I have kept over my lifetime...what a ball! I found some very interesting things. No one should have this much fun. Or maybe, everyone should.

I did find a bonanza....when I was a freshman I got mono in the spring of 1968. And many of the NCC choir members - 39 - signed a "get well" card to me before going on choir tour. And I still have it! The back of the LP album says there are 60 members and I count 61 in the picture on the back of the album (which matches the one in the 1968 yearbook/Spectrum).

I have many terrific pictures from the NCC 1967 music camp of students, Prof Allen and *Prof Izzo, also of **Prof Marian Schapp, and other music people and experiences. And I have a specially typed note to me from Paul Warren Allen asking me to sing in his Swedish Chorus in Chicago,*a personal note in a "get well" card which is precious from Bernard Izzo - a vocal NCC prof and Chicago opera singer, along with **many handwritten notes from Marian Schapp - my piano professor - from when I transferred from NCC to HC near my home in Indiana midway through my junior year.

So special and heart-warming for me.

A special picture of Conductor Paul Warren Allen by the pool at music camp before the freshman year started, standing beside a bathing-trunks-wearing svelte Professor/Chicago Opera Singer, Bernard Izzo. Do I dare post it on my blog?

Hmmm, so tempting....

This student, Paul K. Ferington, conducted while at North Central College for Prof Allen.
Paul is pictured here in this article.

Also pictured in the second picture here. and at Buffalo News ~ Niagara County
now married to Karen

North Central College Choir 1967-68

I am the fifth person from the right in the front row.
Karen is behind me, the sixth person from the right in the second row.
Click on the picture and it will enlarge.

A click on this post's title will take you to North Central College's website and specifically the alumni page.

North Central College Choir ~ Year 1968 ~ Members

38 of 61 members' names were retrieved from a "Get Well" card to me in spring of 1968

By cross referencing my 1970 yearbook which has a list of choir members (though there are some obvious mistakes found when I cross referenced the list with the same yearbook's indexed names in the back of the book), I came up with a list for the 1968 choir as follows:

Choir member list is still incomplete, however.

Laurie Batha

Marsha Benton

Dan Berger

‘Nita Bohnsack

Pat Bruns

Bob Buckley

Cathi Bertram

Mindy Cody

Larry Cooper

Joan Crosby

Sara Ebert

Joe Enich

Paul K. Ferington

Jackson Ferch

Geof. Geither or Guiter

Sandra Kay Hammel

Dennis Huff

Jim Knol

Karen Kosloske

Virginia Marek

Linda Mootz

Al Murphy

Nancy Myers

Lois Newcomb

Verilyn Potthoff

Sandra Schaeffer

Lydia Schmidt, piano accompanist in the video above

Sue Schwen

Barb Shiffler

Bob Stevens

Oliver J. Taylor

Julie Tunison

Sue Wayo

Lois Wedell

Doug Wilkie

Marlene Yenerich

Cindy Young

Eildert Zwart

UPDATE November 6, Friday, 2009 at 7:30 p.m. USA EST

Kim, the North Central College archivist, has tracked down the 1968 Choir Christmas Program's inside and emailed it to me this evening:

and also Kim sent the 1969 Choir Personnel list:

Click on the images to enlarge.

"Big Thanks" to Kim!

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See what was happening in 1968 the year this music was recorded.

Here are some of the things that happened:

* April 4 Martin Luther King, Jr. is shot dead at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Riots erupt in major American cities for several days afterward.


* April 11 U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1968.


* April 20 Pierre Elliott Trudeau becomes Canada's 15th Prime Minister.


* April 20 English politician Enoch Powell makes his controversial Rivers of Blood Speech.


* April 23 President Mobutu releases captured mercenaries in the Congo.


* April 23 Surgeons at the Hôpital de la Pitié, Paris, perform Europe's first heart transplant, on Clovis Roblain.


* April 23 The United Methodist Church is created by the union of the former Methodist and Evangelical United Brethren churches.


* April 23 Thirty Vietnam War: Student protesters at Columbia University in New York City take over administration buildings and shut down the university (see main article Columbia University protests of 1968).


* April 29 The musical Hair officially opens on Broadway.


* June 5 U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy is shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California by Sirhan Sirhan. Kennedy dies from his injuries the next day.


* June 8 James Earl Ray is arrested for the murder of Martin Luther King Jr.


* July 1 The Central Intelligence Agency's Phoenix Program is officially established.


* July 1 The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty opens for signature.


* July 4 Yachtsman Alec Rose, 59, receives a hero's welcome as he sails into Portsmouth, England after his 354-day round-the-world trip.


* July 17 Saddam Hussein becomes Vice Chairman of the Revolutionary Council in Iraq after a coup d'état.