Music and youth: Ernest Stires 1925-2008
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Composer Ernest Stires, who died Sunday at the age of 82, is pictured at his Cornwall home. Jim Lowe/Times Argus |
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By Jim Lowe Times Argus Staff - Published: May 9, 2008
On Sunday, Vermont lost one of its most beloved musicians. Not only was Ernie Stires a fine man and an outstanding composer, he was an inspiration and mentor to the younger generation of musicians – particularly those in the popular music world who wanted to learn more about the inner machinations of music.
I met Ernie some 20 years ago, when I first started writing about Vermont's contemporary music scene. From him I learned about the relationship between jazz and classical music, and about an American music tradition that I was virtually unaware of. More importantly, he, along with his wife Judy, offered me friendship, which I accepted gratefully.
Since moving to Vermont in 1967, Ernie has been an integral part of the Vermont music community, touching all he met with warmth and a wry wit. He took administrative positions with the Vermont Symphony Orchestra in its early years to keep the state orchestra going, as well as with the famed Bennington Composers Conference. He was a founding member of the Consortium of Vermont Composers.
But Ernie also volunteered his services to many community music organizations. He mentored young musicians, particularly pop and jazz, never charging for his time, teaching them the basics of theory and composition, as well as introducing them to the great composers. Vermont musicians Trey Anastasio, formerly of the band Phish, and Jamie Masefield of the Jazz Mandolin Project are among his longtime students – and friends – whom Ernie and Judy regularly welcomed to their Cornwall home.
Trey premiered Ernie's "Chat Rooms," an electric guitar concerto written for the rock musician, with the Vermont Youth Orchestra under Troy Peters in 2001, earning composer, soloist and the VYO national television recognition.
"To have Ernie write something for me, that was a dream," Trey said at the time. "When I first met Ernie, it really knocked me out."
Ernie not only wrote for Trey, he helped the rock star write his own music, classical as well as rock. Trey said after hearing of Ernie's death that he considered Ernie his big inspiration and a friend, not only for himself, but for Phish and his later projects.
Peters and the VYO premiered Ernie's Violin Concerto, with Ruotao Mao, first violinist of the Amabile Quartet, as soloist, in 2004 at New York's Carnegie Hall. (It was actually written for Ernie's close friend, New York violinist Alvin Rogers, former VSO concertmaster, who summers in the Middlebury area.)
Troy commented, "I was really struck when I first got to know his music by his unique synthesis of swing rhythms and timbre sensibilities with a harmonic language that is like later post-bop jazz. He was, of course, greatly influenced by 20th century classical music."
Ernie's jazz-based classical music has been performed throughout the United States and abroad. In Vermont, it has been introduced by the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, Vermont Philharmonic, UVM Orchestra, Vermont Opera Theater, Vermont Contemporary Music Ensemble, pianists Michael Arnowitt and Diana Fanning, organist Emory Fanning and cellist Dieuwke Davydov, among many.
Ernie was born on Dec. 17, 1925, in Alexandria, Va., to a musical family. His grandmother was Metropolitan Opera mezzo-soprano Louise Homer his grandfather, American art song composer Sydney Homer, and composer Samuel Barber was his cousin. He graduated from Episcopal High School in Virginia, going on to study at Harvard and Dartmouth before graduating from Trinity College in Hartford, Conn.
Ernie was trained as a U.S. Navy pilot during World War II, going on to a business career as a television advertising executive, first for NBC in California, then CBS in Boston. He began improvising jazz on piano at the age of 4, but it wasn't until 1962 that he left the business world to devote his time to music. He studied composition with composers Nicolas Slonimsky and Francis Judd Cooke.
Ernie's wife of 41 years, Judith, was by his side when he died. He was 82. A memorial service will be scheduled at a future date.
Ernie will be missed.
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