A Sonic Prisms Presentation -- Or Why I love LA
Sun_Fortune
1,374 Posts
I was in LA this weekend and while doing some "diggin" came across this vanity/private issue record by Beatrice Menger:
OK, whatever right. Inside the sleeve was a letter written by the artist, Beatrice Menger to Ralph Grierson. Twenty one years ago.
It turns out that Beatrice Menger was a retired school teacher, who at age 69, started a new career as a composer and singer. She opened a 4 track studio called "Sonic Prisms" in Corral Canyon and started learning about different keyboards and harps and whatnot. The album is your typical folky new-agey stuff.
Twenty one years ago she wrote a letter and sent her album to Ralph Grierson. I can only assume this record was in Grierson's collection until recently. And I don't think he helped her out at all as Beatrice has dissapeared from the records. Here's who Ralph Grierson was:
Grierson, Ralph (Edwin). Pianist, harpsichordist, keyboard synthesist, composer, b New Westminster, BC, 23 Jun 1942; B MUS (Southern California) 1966, M MUS (Southern California) 1968. His teachers 1948-62 in New Westminster, BC, and in Vancouver were Priscilla Eastman, Glenn Nelson, and Glenn Geary. By 1958 Grierson had appeared in 12 children's concerts with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. Before and during studies 1962-8 at the University of Southern California with John Crown and Ingolf Dahl he played in Vancouver nightclubs with Fraser MacPherson, Dal Richards, Dave Robbins, and others, and on such CBC programs as 'Sound of the 60s' (radio, 1964-5) and 'Chorus Gentlemen' (TV, 1965, 1966). In 1968 he settled in Los Angeles, establishing parallel careers as a studio musician for TV and film (playing all the electronic keyboard instruments and also piano, organ, and harpsichord) and as an interpreter of contemporary music. With Michael Tilson Thomas he made the first recording of Stravinsky's own four-hand piano reduction of The Rite of Spring. Grierson frequently has been a soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, playing in Pierre Boulez' ??clat multiple (under the composer's baton), Messiaen's Turangal??la-Symphonie, and works by Bach, Gershwin, and Gottschalk. He has performed in chamber music series in Los Angeles, often with Tilson Thomas, in programs which have included music by Bart??k, Cage, Copland, Gailliard, Kraft, Lanza, Mozart, and Subotnick. He has performed Subotnick's Liquid Strata in several US cities. In 1974 he visited Vancouver to give a concert and lecture on ragtime for the CBC. Grierson has performed on the sound tracks of hundreds of motion picture productions and TV shows. He composed the music for the TV films To Find My Son and Red Earth, White Earth, and a four-movement video performance, Sometimes... Not Always (Music and Health) premiered at the Los Angeles Theater Centre in 1984.
OK, whatever right. Inside the sleeve was a letter written by the artist, Beatrice Menger to Ralph Grierson. Twenty one years ago.
It turns out that Beatrice Menger was a retired school teacher, who at age 69, started a new career as a composer and singer. She opened a 4 track studio called "Sonic Prisms" in Corral Canyon and started learning about different keyboards and harps and whatnot. The album is your typical folky new-agey stuff.
Twenty one years ago she wrote a letter and sent her album to Ralph Grierson. I can only assume this record was in Grierson's collection until recently. And I don't think he helped her out at all as Beatrice has dissapeared from the records. Here's who Ralph Grierson was:
Grierson, Ralph (Edwin). Pianist, harpsichordist, keyboard synthesist, composer, b New Westminster, BC, 23 Jun 1942; B MUS (Southern California) 1966, M MUS (Southern California) 1968. His teachers 1948-62 in New Westminster, BC, and in Vancouver were Priscilla Eastman, Glenn Nelson, and Glenn Geary. By 1958 Grierson had appeared in 12 children's concerts with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. Before and during studies 1962-8 at the University of Southern California with John Crown and Ingolf Dahl he played in Vancouver nightclubs with Fraser MacPherson, Dal Richards, Dave Robbins, and others, and on such CBC programs as 'Sound of the 60s' (radio, 1964-5) and 'Chorus Gentlemen' (TV, 1965, 1966). In 1968 he settled in Los Angeles, establishing parallel careers as a studio musician for TV and film (playing all the electronic keyboard instruments and also piano, organ, and harpsichord) and as an interpreter of contemporary music. With Michael Tilson Thomas he made the first recording of Stravinsky's own four-hand piano reduction of The Rite of Spring. Grierson frequently has been a soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, playing in Pierre Boulez' ??clat multiple (under the composer's baton), Messiaen's Turangal??la-Symphonie, and works by Bach, Gershwin, and Gottschalk. He has performed in chamber music series in Los Angeles, often with Tilson Thomas, in programs which have included music by Bart??k, Cage, Copland, Gailliard, Kraft, Lanza, Mozart, and Subotnick. He has performed Subotnick's Liquid Strata in several US cities. In 1974 he visited Vancouver to give a concert and lecture on ragtime for the CBC. Grierson has performed on the sound tracks of hundreds of motion picture productions and TV shows. He composed the music for the TV films To Find My Son and Red Earth, White Earth, and a four-movement video performance, Sometimes... Not Always (Music and Health) premiered at the Los Angeles Theater Centre in 1984.
Comments