Power of the internet department: someone posted to the Guestbook of my website last night, which is nothing that unusual, except this person posted to tell me that my wonderful composition and theory teacher from college, Bruce Reich, had passed away. I was stunned. Bruce wasn't much older than I--he was probably still in his late 20s when I was in college (I started, due to testing and college level courses in high school, as a junior at age 17). He evidently kept his cancer secret, and returned to teach at UCLA for the last year or so before his death. He was a very funny, unbelievably intelligent guy, to wit:
My first day of classes with him, he came up and quietly said (with a twinkle in his eye), "What's a Jew doing taking music classes at the University of Utah?" To which I responded without missing a beat, "What's a Jew doing teaching music classes at the University of Utah?" I later earned his mock enmity after he had spent a semester trying to scare us with how we were going to "define" the Tristan chord once we saw it. He handed it out the last week of class, and of course I blurted right out with whatever definition it was (I want to say French augmented 6th with some flatted element, but I can't recall right now--Jose? Elmore?). Bruce just glared at me. It was hilarious.
