The Music Committee Makes Us Unique

Muriel Fox

“We’re so lucky to be living here!” I hear that comment often during Kendal concert intermissions . I reply with this comment: “We’re like nobility in the old days, with great musicians coming to play for us in our home . ”

Thanks to the KoH Music Committee, we enjoy an average of two world-class concerts in our Gathering Room every month . They vary from classic chamber music featuring trios, quartets, and quintets to pianists, jazz ensembles, Broadway cabaret, and steel drum bands .

While some musicians return year after year, the committee seeks to host new groups each season, such as the New Camerata Opera and the New York String Quartet, who were introduced in February and March of 2023 .

Most programs are offered on Sundays at 3 p .m . But occasionally the schedule might vary to meet the needs of an especially desirable performer or group . Concerts are generally followed by a tasty reception arranged by Luis and Jorge This gives our community an hour of companionship with the musicians .

Bert Pepper and Fran Kelly have served on the committee for many years; they were co-chairs until Bert’s “retirement” in 2020 . Fran is now the chair of this hard-working committee, which meets monthly to select performers . Nowadays it’s easy to “audition” musicians because most of them have websites and can be heard on YouTube .

How can KoH afford these top-drawer concerts? Donations from grateful residents . KoH resident Peter Cohn underwrote early programs . Then, in his 2010 bequest, he left a generous donation to the Residents Association for “concerts, cultural courses and activities, and social gatherings and receptions .”

In addition, other residents have donated funds to underwrite concerts that especially interest them . And some resident-sponsored concerts have served as memorials to deceased relatives .

You are welcome to contact Fran or Bert if you’d like to underwrite a concert or if you have an idea for future performers . For instance, Gene DuBow suggested a delightful program of Mountain Music in 2022 that was much appreciated by the audience And Peter McCuen put us in touch with David Shenton, whose Empire Trio has performed twice and will return on May 7 for another program of popular music .

Musicians say they love playing for KoH audiences, who are “warm, knowledgeable, sophisticated and welcoming .” (Bert estimates that 75% of us had some form of music education when we were children .) Also, our 100-year-old Steinway piano attracts special compliments . It was bequeathed by Clara Loomanitz and is meticulously maintained by the Music Committee .

Since its inception in 2007, our Music Committee has presented more than 260 concerts featuring over 1,000 musicians. The first committee chair was Henry Marasse. You may not know this, but Henry enabled our first New Year’s Eve show in 2010 with committee money for an accompanist, before donations could make the programs self-funding .

Committee members include Art Brady, Sheila Darnborough, Gene DuBow, Naomi Gross, Ed Hanin, Linda Mahoney, Michael Rapaport, Uriel Schlair, Janet Schloat, Bob Singleton, and Jody Spellun . They have diverse tastes and experiences . For instance, the newest member, Naomi Gross, is a cantor .

In 2019, the committee created an annual scholarship given to a Sleepy Hollow High School senior planning to pursue a career in music . To date, eight students have shared over $3,000 in awards .

Bert Pepper points out another KoH exclusive: We’re the only CCRC with its own harpsichord . A group of musical residents rehearse every Thursday evening with chamber music they dub “MOB,” or “Music on the Balcony .” This instrument (plus a personal contact by Janet Schloat) enabled us to attract world-renowned harpsichordist Anthony Newman, who has concertized several times in our Gathering Room .

Committees run by and for our residents are a unique phenomenon at Kendal on Hudson . The Music Committee is a proud example of neighbors joining with neighbors for a shared communal experience .

Magical, Wonderful, Awful, Different –India… Late Sixties

Edith Litt

My husband, Arthur, and I had long wanted to visit our friends in India . In the middle of November one year in the late sixties, we both realized that we could take three weeks off, starting in mid-December . We had passports, rushed the necessary shots and visas and airline tickets, and off we went .

We had been reading for years about India — Hinduism, the Raj, Gandhi, the caste system, the art, the history, current events, everything — but we had no plans or reservations beyond our first stop, no time to make contacts, reservations, even think about what we’d do when we got there .

It was a 23-hour trip, tourist class from JFK to Hamburg, changed planes to Delhi, and changed planes to Pune, a “hill town” of a few million people southeast of Mumbai . We were met at the airport at seven in the morning by Philly Karani, our friend, and his parents and sister Zareen, all overflowing with hospitality. They came in two cars, one for each of us . Going from the airport to their compound, exhausted and exhilarated, I was aware that the early-morning air was different, smelling of dust perfumed with spices . The roads were curbless, overflowing with rickshaws, bullock carts, bicycles, elephants, cows, people. The few cars, including ours, were all Ambassadors, the Indian car . The women wore brightly colored saris with bare midriffs but no leg showing, the men, a variety of clothing from loincloths to jeans, but no suits . We were not in the West . Everything was different . It was magical, like Oz . (Two of Llyn Clague’s poems about India, one more auditory, the other more visual, capture the excitement . See p . 15 .)

When we got to the Karani home, they gave us a full English breakfast, instructions, and put us to bed in a large, lovely ground-floor room. The instructions included the following: keep your belongings in your luggage, and keep your luggage locked whenever you leave the room. If so much as a pin drops on the floor, return it to the locked luggage. Do not drink water from the tap, do not brush your teeth with water from the tap . The only potable water is in the refrigerator, having been boiled and strained and purified several times.

The Karani establishment was a compound surrounded by a brick wall . The family lived in the main house — General Karani and his wife, Philly and his wife, Yasmin and their two children, and Philly’s divorced sister Zareen and her son — all lived in four bedrooms on the second floor. At the back of the compound were one- or two-room homes for the servants and their families .

The Karanis were Zoroastrians, Parsis, a group that migrated from Persia/Iran in the sixth to eighth centuries . They considered themselves “the Jews of India” because, despite their meager numbers, they were prominent in every aspect of India’s government, economy, and cultural life .

Zareen, a psychologist trained in the U . S ., had returned to Pune to set up a practice in one of the small houses on the property . The Zoroastrian ceremony to bless her practice had been arranged for the evening of our arrival I don’t remember much of it, being disoriented from the flight and the time change (13.5 hours). But I remember a small fire on the floor, centerpiece of the ceremony, and much chanting . The priest conducting the ceremony waved his hands over the fire many times.

We went to bed that night knowing that we were in a different world .

General Karani, Philly’s father, was the retired Surgeon-General of the Indian Army . Philly, also a doctor/surgeon, invited us to see his office/surgery. As we walked toward the surgery on a downtown street, a beggar propped against a building called out to us . She was hideously deformed with thick flaps of skin covering her features. Philly told us that she had elephantiasis (this was before there was a cure) and that he had offered to remove the flaps free of charge but that she had refused the surgery — it would have destroyed her livelihood. She was a Dalit (Untouchable), born to beg . If she was a successful beggar, her next life would be better . If she was not good at begging (even if successful in some other career), she might be reborn as some lowly animal or bug . Deformed beggars were the most successful . At tourist locations throughout the trip, we saw mutilated beggars .

We had been prepared for the poverty, the beggars, the caste system and understood that NOTHING that we could do could change it . (Even Gandhi couldn’t eradicate it, and he tried hard .) But the impact was so strong that I remember this poor lady far more vividly than the many famous monuments we saw .

December 25th arrived, and we joined the Karani Christmas party . There was a wonderful variety of little kids — not only Zoroastrian, but Hindu, Jain, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, and probably others . Santa Claus (aka Philly) arrived, red-coated and white bearded, pillowstomached, precisely as he ought to look, and distributed presents and sweets to the assembled little ones I stepped onto the driveway to take a picture of this marvelously diverse group of youngsters and there, at the far end of the driveway, were the servants’ children, somberly watching the festivities . The Dalits . Not invited to the party .

Being Parsis, the Karanis were not in the caste system, nor did they believe in it . The staff, probably all Dalits, lived on their property . But it never occurred to the Karanis to invite the little Dalit kids . Only the rich upper-caste kids . But what I remember most about the party was those little kids at the end of the driveway . I hurt for them .

General Karani arranged the rest of the trip for us . Our next stop was Ajanta and Ellora, the famous caves of India (cf E .M . Forster’s A Passage to India) . After dinner, the Karanis dropped us off with our luggage at a Bollywood film (not in English, but dreadful in any language). When the film was over, across the street was an overnight bus for Maharashtra. We were almost the only passengers, and normally could have stretched out and slept across the seats . But between each seat was an immovable, ornamental metal armrest . And the seats were narrow . So we sat up all night and arrived at our hotel stiff and achy just in time to drop off our luggage and take the tourist bus to the caves .

The hotel was AWFUL!! Our room had filthy grayish sheets. The bathroom floor was flooded, disgusting. No toilet, just a messy hole in the floor. (The room cost $3.50 a night.) I told Arthur that I wasn’t going to touch anything there and would stand up all night rather than lie down on the bed . I was panic-stricken . On the way to the caves we picked up other tourists at the most beautiful hotel I thought I had ever seen in my life — modern, even elegant, certainly clean .

The caves? I remember little of them, though they were most impressive . I was exhausted and worried about the coming night . On the return trip, I jumped off the bus at that gorgeous hotel while Arthur collected our luggage from the dump . We didn’t know if we could get a room, but figured we’d bribe them to let us sit in their lobby chairs all night if necessary. We did get a room, a wonderful clean room with a toilet, a shower, a real bed .

We went to Khajuraho, where there is a group of Hindu temples unlike anything that could exist in the U . S . (It’s a World Heritage Site .) Astonishing to us Americans is their exuberant approach to and appreciation of sex . Extraordinarily rounded women and well-equipped men (porno stars would be jealous) engaged in athletic sex — yet the detailed statues are not pornographic . And the visitors were not smirking or embarrassed . Gods and goddesses are often exaggerations of normal people — think Zeus and Hera and their philandering. Sure, the Hindu gods had sex — and thoroughly enjoyed it.

We had a few hours to kill in Khajuraho and decided to take a walk . As a city planner, I love to just walk in cities, see how people live, get away from the “sights ” L eaving our hotel, there was a lineup of Indian cabs, i.e., rickshaws. For a few dollars, we could have one all day — but we wanted to walk . Unheard of . But we did . And maybe half a mile from our hotel was a bridge over the railroad station . We stood there for hours, watching . Families camped out on the train platforms . A crippled man (no, not “handicapped,“ severely crippled) crossing the actual tracks His legs were useless, skinny, twisted; he “walked” on his hands, his butt high in the air . Only one train came, severely overcrowded, but the families on the platform piled in .

We also took a walk In Madras, now Chennai . Walking down a path in a small park I spotted some rupees on the ground and picked them up . There was nobody near us, nobody had just passed us . I showed them to Arthur, hidden in my hand . Immediately, a crowd of men gathered, shouting it’s mine, it’s mine, no it’s mine . Arthur asked them how much money it was — all kinds of wild guesses. Gradually, the crowd thinned to a group of about half a dozen young men . When Arthur suggested we go to the police station to let them sort it out, the last of them disappeared . There were 35 rupees in my hand, worth a few pennies in America . We carried them with us until we reached Delhi and gave them to our friends to give to charity . Somehow it seemed wrong to spend them . They might have bought some poor soul a meal .

A rupee was worth only a fraction of a penny, but we had to think of its purchasing power as $1 . We had been told always to bargain, except in government-run shops . A woman was selling bananas on the street in Madras (not Chennai) . Arthur was hungry . She wanted 10 rupees and Arthur started bargaining, partly to hone his deficient skills. I finally had to remind him that he was getting worked up over a penny .

It was a strange world . Many times, in the cities or larger villages, we’d just stand on a corner, watching the incredible sights (and listening to the horns blaring) It was strange, awful, beautiful .