I went to Wikipedia to find information on my father-in-law, Orlando Cole. Here it is:
Orlando Cole
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Background information
Born August 16, 1908 (1908-08-16) (age 99)
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States Genre(s) Classical Occupation(s) Musical performer Instrument(s) Cello Years active 1927 –
Orlando Cole (born August 16, 1908) is a cello teacher who has taught a generation of soloists and first cellists in a dozen leading orchestras. Among them are Lynn Harrell, David Cole, Ronald Leonard, Owen Carman, Daniel Lee, Lorne Munroe, and Marcie Rosen.[1] In 1986 he received an honorary "Doctor of Music" from the Curtis Institute of Music of Philadelphia, and in 1990 was honored by the American String Teachers Association as "Teacher of the Year". Mr. Cole has also been honored by the Philadelphia Art Alliance and the venerable Musical Fund Society of Philadelphia. In 1999 he was given the first award by the Curtis alumni.
Born and raised in Philadelphia, he entered the first class of the Curtis Institute of Music in 1924 as a pupil of Felix Salmond and graduated in 1934. Along with Jascha Brodsky, Charles Jaffe, and Max Aronoff, he was a founding member of what was then known as the Swastika Quartet, in 1927. When Hitler came to power and adopted this symbol of Apollo (albeit rotated), the fledgling quartet needed a new name and, with the permission of the school's founder, Mary Louise Curtis, they were granted the name of their alma mater. The Curtis Quartet was a pioneer in its time, being the premier group in America during the prewar years and the first American quartet to tour Europe, including a command performance before Mary of Teck, Queen Consort of George V of the United Kingdom. Before disbanding in 1981, the founding nucleus of Brodsky, Aronoff, and Cole remained intact; after Jaffe, the second violin position was held by Louis Berman, Enrique Serratos, Mehli Mehta, Geoffrey Michaels, and Yumi Ninomiya Scott.
During all this time, Cole was as well close with his classmate and friend, Samuel Barber, who first wrote for him the sonata, op. 6. They in fact collaborated on it as students, with Barber writing a page at a time which the two would read through together, until they gave the work its premier in Town Hall in 1934. Barber wrote as well his quartet, op. 11, with its famous adagio, for the Curtis Quartet. Incidentally, the ensemble played this work from manuscript for several years, and it was only when the time of publication arrived that Barber chose to make major changes: the first movement was cut down significantly, with its finale ultimately becoming the finale of what we have now as the third movement; and the original contrapuntal third movement was abandoned entirely for a reprise of the first movement material. In addition, the work Dover Beach, for baritone and quartet, was written for them. This work was originally conceived for mezzo soprano, but after hearing the premiere in Curtis Hall, Barber was dissatisfied and chose to sing it himself for the subsequent recording made with the Curtis Quartet.
Cole has taught at the Curtis Institute of Music for seventy-five years, first as Salmond's assistant while still a student and then succeeding his teacher. There was a brief gap in his tenure at the school, however, during the years just following World War II. The members of the quartet had grown dissatisfied with certain of the objectives and policies of the school and decided to found their own institution for the training of chamber and orchestral musicians, called the New School of Music. This institution, initially located just a few blocks from Curtis, was for over thirty years an important training center. After returning to their duties at Curtis in the mid-1950s, Cole and the members of the quartet taught concurrently at both schools. Not long after the ensemble's violist, Max Aronoff, who was also director of the New School, died in 1981, the school was absorbed into Temple University where Cole and Brodsky continued to teach. Cole also helped to found the Encore School for Strings in Hudson, Ohio, along with David Cerone who had left his position as violin teacher at Curtis to assume the directorship of the Cleveland Institute of Music. During nearly all this time, he has worked with his former pupil and assistant, Metta Watts. .
Cole has held master-classes all over the world. As of 2008 he was retired from the Curtis Institute, but continued to teach at the Temple University in the preparatory division with his assistant Metta Watts. Cole presently resides in Philadelphia.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Wickipedia Entry for Orlando Cole, one source of the character, Henry Harrier
Synopsis:
Ian Kearney, the director of the Kearney Music School, an elite musical training school in Philadelphia, dies after a fall from a balcony during a recital. World-famous cellist, Henry Harrier, recently forced from the faculty, returns to investigate Ian's death when his prized former student is arrested. Henry shows through his brilliant and single-minded pursuit of the truth that, as usual, they have it all wrong. This Sherlock Holmes-type mystery leads the reader through the world of classical music and lays bare the conflicts which dominate the lives of talented adolescents when placed under the pressure of studying for a demanding, stressful, and often elusive career as a classical music performer. Henry Harrier is part John Le Carre's George Smiley, part Arthur Conan Doyle's Holmes, and part Orlando Cole the beloved teacher, renowned chamber musician, and until his own retirement, the premier cellist of the Curtis Institute.Author Profile:
Tim was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, on January 30, 1946. In 1951 he moved with his family to Schenectady, New York, where he lived through high school. He attended Baldwin-Wallace College, Berea, Ohio, from 1964 to 1968. He graduated in 1968 with a B.A. in history and philosophy. He received his Ph. D. in history in U.S. history in 1980 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison after spending 2.5 years in the U. S. Army. Most of his army service was completed in Wuerzburg, Germany, from 1969-1971. In 1972 he returned to Madison to complete his doctoral study. His dissertation, Those Who Moved; Internal Migrants in American 1607-1840, combined the statistical analysis of genealogical and biographical data with the study of traditional literary diaries, letters, and journals.Tim was a market and survey research consultant from 1983 to 2000 and a smoking cessation researcher from 2000 to 2003. His consulting practice focused primarily on conducting community health needs assessment. He authored hundreds of market research reports and published a number of his assessments in Community Health Needs Assessment published by McGraw Hill in 1996 and in a revised volume published in 1999. In 2000 he joined the staff of the Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention of the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he conducted smoking cessation research. He published several articles in peer-reviewed journals and spoke at national smoking cessation conferences.
In 2003 he moved to Philadelphia and earned his real estate license. He now practices real estate, works on publishing his novels, and studies and teaches entrepreneurship.Tim has written a dozen novel-length stories, a volume of short stories, and about a 3-foot stack of pages poetry. He is currently working on earning his 4th million in real estate sales, publishing his novels, and working on an entrepreneurish handbook as a support for his students.
Tim is a trained violist and an experienced string quartet player. He is an avid listener to classical music and regularly attends classical music concerts. He has two grown children by his first wife and a stepdaughter with his second wife. He likes to cook, read, write, entertain, develop relationships, and help other people. Formerly Tim used to travel frequently. He doesn't so much anymore. Now he regards the combination of real estate practice, writing and publishing, and the teaching and studying of entrepreneurship as enough of a trip.
