Good morning, all! I am spending a quiet day doing as little as possible beyond the work on Kip Wilborn's chart. This afternoon I will be attending a farewell party for my friend Charlei Harmon, who is giving up his Brooklyn co-op and moving to Alabama to be an orchestra librarian. I've known Charlie since the mid-1980s when he was the editor for Amberson, Bernstein's publishing company, and he hired me to do several choral arrangements as well as work on 1600 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE. In 1997 or so, he asked me to orchestrate ON THE TOWN for the Public Theatre production and I had to turn him down because I was too busy with a couple of Rodgers&Hart projects. I recommended Bruce Coughlin since Bruce had worked on other Bernstein projects and our paths crossed occasionally in the Bernstein apartment at the Dakota. In 1999, Charlie asked me to score the National Theatre of Great Britain production of CANDIDE and I said yes. For all intents and purposes, Charlie hired me, faxed my resume to the National Theatre and went on a vacation of several weeks. When he returned, he notified me that Bernstein's executor Harry Kraut had overruled him and hired Bruce Coughlin, who scored the London production. The title of my next book will be TWO TOADS IN CAHOOTS.
Charlie left the Bernstein world shortly thereafter although he had a lot of work invested in the Encores! WONDERFUL TOWN, and I notice that his name is either missing or hard to find on the vocal scores to WONDERFUL TOWN and ON THE TOWN, a pity since he had a lot of work in both of them, and as far as I'm concerned they're mostly his work, and with his departure, the plans to publish the full scores to the two shows seems tohave vanished.
At any rate, Charlie's a great friend, and I will miss him. The last time I saw him, he came to last year's NYMF and laughed enormously through THE BRAIN FROM PLANET X.
And now for a nap.
