University City Symphony Orchestra Conductor Leon
Burke III presides over a recent rehearsal at Brittany Woods Middle
School. Burke and his musicians present free classical music concerts to
the public. The 2015-16 season has been dubbed "Black Art Matters."
photo by Diana Linsley (click for larger version)
James Price Johnson, featured at AfriClassical.com, composed Yamekraw: A Negro Rhapsody, orchestrated
by William Grant Still, which will be performed by the University City Symphony Orchestra on March 6, 2016.
By Susan Fadem
February 10, 2016
Shame-faced
recording industry tycoons, well aware their groovy disks were draining
the incomes of musicians needing live gigs, eventually sought penance.
To put more dough in musicians' pockets, the industry began funding
community orchestras.
That,
according to Dr. Leon Burke III, is how the University City Symphony
Orchestra, as well as countless other such groups nationwide, got their
start.
In
University City, however, two other driving forces were pianist Lily
Kaufman, wife of the municipality's longtime mayor, Nathan Kaufman, and
Norman Goldberg, owner of the legendary Baton Music Co. and MMB Music.
The
U. City orchestra they helped found, presently in its 55th season and
one of the area's older such community groups, is now led by Burke. He
came onboard 21 years ago.
Fittingly,
in a city known for connections and roots, Burke took the place of his
mentor, Dr. William (Willie) Schatzkamer, the U. City group's founding
conductor. An educator, pianist and Juilliard-trained musician,
Schatzkamer taught music for three-plus decades at Washington
University.
One
of his adult piano students happened to be U. City symphony co-founder
Lily Kaufman, who likewise gave piano lessons. From the symphony's other
co-founder, Goldberg, youngster Burke would buy musical scores.
Yet
beyond coincidence and shared goals, it's the tale of 6-foot-4 Burke's
untiring leadership – all while still simultaneously juggling a
half-dozen music-related jobs, including funeral organist – that's as
richly layered and often, as surprising, as the music the U. City
orchestra presents..
A Prodigy's Life
First
off, Burke was a child prodigy. At age 3, he could recite every TV
commercial he'd ever seen. With an IQ tested between a gifted-level 144
and what educators labeled "an extraordinary genius" rating of
160-something, in third grade he started high school chemistry. Yet
pondering oxidation reduction reactions didn't exactly make him
teacher's pet.
"I had to study these things on my own," he says. Race was another factor.
"You're black. You're too young," teachers would tell him.
Undeterred,
Burke would read more, aided by the fact that since his mother, Angela,
was a librarian at Washington University, he received on-campus library
privileges. His dad, Leon Burke Jr., a special-education teacher and
eventually, a job-placement consultant, stressed the value of education,
too.
As
a teen, Burke enrolled at Clayton's Mark Twain Summer Institute for
gifted youngsters. He took both science ("I wanted to design
spaceships") and music. For the latter, Schatzkamer was his teacher.
Forever
after, the musical backdrop of Burke's life would be expanded. Although
raised on jazz recordings by a dad who'd played saxophone at Sumner
High School, the younger Burke fell in love with the classics, with
Beethoven, Bach, Stravinsky and others, whose recordings he bought and
whose scores he rapturously followed.
As a requirement for camp graduation, Schatzkamer made each student conduct "The Star-Spangled Banner."
Burke excelled, to the extent that Schatzkamer told him: "You have a flair for conducting."
"Thank
you," an energized Burke replied, then dashed to Washington University,
where he proceeded to devour the contents of "every book on orchestral
conducting, on conducting period. I read them from cover to cover."
While
the Burke family lived in the city, Leon attended McBride High School.
The family moved not long before the school was shuttered in the
mid-'70s, to unincorporated St. Louis County. There, Burke went to John
Burroughs School.
With
a straight-A average, perfect SAT exam scores, steady rounds of piano
lessons, classes and a position as keyboardist for the St. Louis
Symphony Youth Orchestra, Burke also had a singular accomplishment. He
had composed and orchestrated his own symphony, which Leonard Slatkin,
then with the youth orchestra and later, maestro of the St. Louis
Symphony Orchestra, had him conduct.
Paraguay Beckons
Paraguay Beckons
Heady
stuff, for sure, but not enough to keep Burke in St. Louis, at least
not then. Instead, he went to Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio and
earned a doctorate in music at University of Kansas. As a Fulbright
Fellow, he studied in Paraguay.
***
"The Seeds Continue to Flower"
Free concert
Sunday, March 6
John Burroughs School
755 S. Price Road
Pre-concert talk at 2:15 p.m., concert at 3 p.m.
Program Highlights
George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue," James P. (Jimmy) Johnson's "Yamekraw – Ebony Rhapsody" and contemporary composer Clovice Lewis Jr.'s "The Score," with Lewis playing cello and drawings by area schoolchildren projected.
Comment by email:
Free concert
Sunday, March 6
John Burroughs School
755 S. Price Road
Pre-concert talk at 2:15 p.m., concert at 3 p.m.
Program Highlights
George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue," James P. (Jimmy) Johnson's "Yamekraw – Ebony Rhapsody" and contemporary composer Clovice Lewis Jr.'s "The Score," with Lewis playing cello and drawings by area schoolchildren projected.
Comment by email:
Exciting news, which is the best kind! At 12:30 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 29, tune into KWMU radio (90.7 FM), where Don Marsh will interview Dr. Leon Burke III, conductor of the U. City Symphony Orchestra, about Leon's multi-faceted career.
Among items on his incredibly patchworked career chart: conductor,
Belleville Philharmonic Youth Orchestra; assistant director, bass
vocalist, St. Louis Symphony Chorus; choir director, Kirkwood’s Eliot
Unitarian; cover conductor; St. Louis Symphony; and (yep! this, too, is
long-running), lecturer, trainer in the asbestos-removal industry, where
he does his own lab work! Catch up with Leon, if you can, at 12:30 p.m.
Feb. 29 on 90.7 FM!.
Dear Bill, WOW! Just checked the post. Magnificent!!!!!! Thank you! Leon and others will be thrilled. Again, really appreciate!, Gratefully, Susan Fadem
Dear Bill, WOW! Just checked the post. Magnificent!!!!!! Thank you! Leon and others will be thrilled. Again, really appreciate!, Gratefully, Susan Fadem
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