Sigma Alpha Iota

PAN PIPES Summer 2019 7 SAIS IN THE NEWS Dr. Jerry Kracht, Pacific Lutheran University emeritus professor of music and SAI Friend of the Arts, presented a program entitled "Sound Leads O'er All" at the November 2018 meeting of the Tacoma Alumnae Chapter. Kracht spent 33 years at Pacific Lutheran University as clarinet professor, conductor of the university symphony, and founding member of Camas, the faculty wind quintet. He was also a founder of the Regency Concert Series and for 25 years the principal clarinetist and artistic director of the Second City Chamber Series in Tacoma. The program "Sound Leads O'er All" related Kracht's latter-day journey to composing and recounts his long-time friendship with the late William Doppmann, SAI National Arts Associate. In particular he discusses the music he wrote for Doppmann and the music Doppman wrote for him. After retiring, an undeniable urge to make music remained with Kracht. He finally decided to try composing although he had previously never composed anything. Since beginning in 2010, he has seventeen works to his credit—for orchestra, choir, band, solo voice and instruments, and various chamber ensembles. He confessed that these works were composed under the influence of "other people's music" while searching for his own voice and enjoying a premiere performance, some publications, a broadcast, and a recording. Kracht first met William Doppmann in the early 1960s while an undergraduate student at the University of Iowa where Doppmann was a member of the piano faculty. His outstanding piano performances made a lasting impression on Kracht. In the mid-1990s the Doppmanns moved to Tacoma and in 1977 founded the Second City Chamber Series inviting Kracht to play on the first concert. Five years later they invited Kracht to be the artistic director of the series. When Doppmann asked Kracht to conduct the premiere of his composition Riki-Tiki-Tavi, he learned for the first time that Doppmann was also a composer as well as a pianist. After that Kracht would show his early compositions to Doppmann, always saying, "Of course you know, I'm not really a composer." Doppmann would reply, "Jerry! If you write music, you are a composer. It's as simple as that." In August of 2012 William and Willa Doppmann moved to Hawaii where they would spend their final days. Shortly before William Doppmann's death, Dr. Kracht wrote a piece for him entitled Sound Leads O'er All for solo baritone, SATB choir, piano and string orchestra. The text of Sound Leads O'er All comes from Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass." Whitman traces his joy of music from early discovery to eventual realization. Of all the senses that lead to his soul, indeed "sound leads o'er all the rest." Kracht made use of both tonality and a 12-tone row with a prevailing D Major tonality. Doppmann received and perused the score the last days of 2012. He died one month later on January 28, 2013. The work was premiered at Pacific Lutheran University on October 14, 2014. On that same program William Doppmann's Elegy for solo clarinet and orchestra was performed. The original form of this piece had been set for clarinet and piano as the slow movement of a much larger chamber work. Kracht and Doppmann performed that earlier version at the SAI Province Day celebration in Tacoma in 2007. Doppmann later extracted that movement to give it orchestration. The composer's notes state "Elegy is a grave dance of spirits, some incarnating as others fade into the past, of tears, shed and suppressed." — Submitted by Dr. Evangeline Rimbach, Editor, Tacoma Alumnae Chapter Sound Leads O'er All Friend of the Arts Jerry Kracht speaks on his collaborations with National Arts Associate William Doppmann, below. BOLD NOTES continued from page 6 e Boulder Alumnae Chapter also worked on a piece. Won't you join our project? It gives one great joy to serve musicians with special needs through this very worthy endeavor. Imagine the joy a visually impaired person must receive when he/she can finally see the music and be able to perform the piece. eir perseverance to overcome physical or visual handicaps to create and make music is a great inspiration to all. Being a music major, or even a music minor, is not a prerequisite for working on the Bold Notes Project. It is a significant way to make a serious and meaningful contribution to SAI Philanthropies, without having the angst of performing on stage. It is a collaborative process and can be a social activity, especially for chapters. Make use of your musical talents in a different way. You can be sure that your work will be carefully preserved and circulated by the Library of Congress. e result will be a permanent expansion of musical opportunities for visually impaired students, teachers, and performers.

• Cover