Klarinet Archive - Posting 000476.txt from 2000/09

From: "Lacy, Edwin" <el2@-----.edu>
Subj: RE: [kl] Fred Alston
Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2000 12:27:39 -0400

> From: sdh902@-----.net on Thursday, September 14, 2000:
>
> In his Hans Moennig story, Sfdr@-----.com mentions a student of Leonard
Sharrow's
> named Fred Austin. For the record, his name is Fred Alston and, in my
opinion, he was
> one of the great talents ever to play the bassoon. He was principal
> Bassoon in the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra in the early
> seventies. He took a leave in the fall of 1976 and never returned to
playing.
> Last I heard, he was the superintendent of an aparment building in
Manhattan.

In 1965, I entered Indiana University as a master's degree student, studying
bassoon with Leonard Sharrow, and Fred Alston was a freshman in the same
year. In the IU Philharmonic that year, the top orchestra, the bassoon
section consisted of: alternating on principal were Don DaGrade, now
bassoon professor at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California
and Bob Mottl, now associate principal of the St. Louis Symphony orchestra;
Fred Alston was second; the third bassoon was Gordon Skinner from New
Zealand, who was for many years principal bassoon of what was then called
the New Zealand Radio Broadcasting Orchestra; and I was fourth and contra.
The amazing thing about all of that was that Fred was a freshman, and all
the rest of us were graduate students. There were about 25 bassoon majors
that year, including several others who have had good careers as performers
and/or teachers. When the IU Philharmonic went on tour, Fred and I were
roomates.

I remember the situation with Sharrow's added high E a little differently.
I happened to be in Sharrow's studio for a lesson when he was on the
telephone with Hans Moennig, begging and pleading for Moennig to agree to
add the high E key for him. Moennig complained that he was too busy, and
would not have time to install the key. Fred was from Philadelphia, and had
not planned to go home during that time. However, as I recall it, Sharrow
agreed to buy an airline ticket so that Fred could have a weekend at home,
on the condition that he would take the bassoon to Philadelphia and deliver
it to Moennig in person. Eventually, Moennig agreed that if the bassoon
could be hand-delivered to him at a specified time and then picked up later
the same day, he would install the key. I also was with Sharrow just after
he had gotten the bassoon back and had a chance to try the new key, with
which he was very pleased, despite the added cost of the ticket.

Before coming to Indiana, Fred had studied with Sol Schoenbach, then
principal bassoonist of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Sol regarded Fred as a
major talent. In addition to being an amazing bassoonist, he was also an
outstanding pianist. Later, there was some kind of falling out between the
two of them, and Sol was quite bitter about it in later years. I tried to
encourage him to talk about the situation, but he declined to do so.

Fred turned up in the national news a few years ago. The family was from
South Carolina, and was a rather unusual one in that there were Alstons who
were white and others who were of African-American heritage. They had
sorted out the relationships, and there was at least one family reunion
which all of them attended. This was reported in the national press. I
read about it in the New York Times, and Fred was prominently quoted in the
article.

Ed Lacy
el2@-----.edu

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Unsubscribe from Klarinet, e-mail: klarinet-unsubscribe@-----.org
Subscribe to the Digest: klarinet-digest-subscribe@-----.org
Additional commands: klarinet-help@-----.org
Other problems: klarinet-owner@-----.org