Lorna Cooke deVaron, Jan. 17, 1921- Oct. 6, 2018
The New England Conservatory of Music was among the most expensive Ivy League schools in the nation, and I needed money. My parents had sacrificed everything to help me. Mom flew with me to Boston for my big audition, and I was accepted. Dad had already used his retirement bonus to pay my personal costs for the Geneseo Chamber Singers 7-week European tour, which had just ended that Summer of 1971. I transferred my credits from the State University in New York, in Geneseo, where I had been a Drama/Music major for two years, and somehow it was arranged with Mrs. deVaron that I would receive a choral scholarship. A dramatic twist, an unexpected plot development: I thought my days of ensemble singing were behind me! As it turns out, and largely because of her, I remained for many more years dazed by some exotic spell brought on by the charms of choral music and chamber choir music under the guidance of the musical legend, Lorna Cooke (“Cookie”) deVaron.
How could I possibly describe the heady atmosphere of those morning rehearsals of our Boston days? Rigorous and yet fun, we enjoyed the enthusiastic complicity of all the very talented music students from various specialties, horn or string players, organists, anyone who loved to sing really, which was the magical concoction of Cookie. She was an institution. We drilled our parts in the wonderful acoustics of our sacred home, Jordan Hall (once memorably called by Eleanor Steber when she graced that platform “diesen heil’gen Hallen”), section by section, for the next project with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, which at one particular time was the symphonie dramatique ‘Roméo et Juliette’ by Berlioz. We received amazing insight from Cookie about that piece, for example from when she had prepared it with none other than Charles Munch and the BSO in the past. Priceless lessons of musical history, legend, tradition! I felt particularly privileged to be just one of the guys in the back row, in Symphony Hall in Boston or in Carnegie Hall during those years. It was also my duty, thanks to Cookie, to give the vocal cues of Père Laurence for several rehearsals, before the arrival of an up-and-coming young Belgian bass-baritone. What a beautiful role for me to discover! These were very exceptional and memorable concerts under the direction of newly-appointed Seiji Ozawa, recorded as well for Deutsche Gramophone.
Another time, Cookie selected me to audition for Michael Tillson Thomas, which was one of my first important auditions, when we were to perform Monteverdi’s ‘Vespers’ with the BSO. I was chosen and got the contract, and in several ways it marked for me my destiny, my self-awareness. Partly because it was my first engagement of several, at a very early age, as soloist with the BSO (and I loved working with and knowing that passionate young conductor), and also among the many times I would perform in this masterpiece, and other works of Monteverdi, which were to so characterize my career. But it also marked me in a cynical way, and was a heads-up for me. They thought they needed someone with a strong low D, and so I sang it and I got the job. The BSO administrators had failed to notice that the part also requires several high Fs, which I fortunately have as well, and this demonstrated to me that the people in power can goof things up, and that my special gifts would always be in demand somehow. Cookie and I had a good laugh about that later.*
Cookie talked to us passionately about musicality and accuracy, and her example was always impeccable. She was thoroughly rigorous in preparation, demanded accuracy in language pronunciation, perfect intonation, and expressed musical phrasing with her elegant gestures and great skills of communication. She told us one day while rehearsing the ‘Mass in C’ by Beethoven, a story about preparing Bach cantatas, and among the guest singers was none other than Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, one of my personal favorites in those days. She pointedly said that on one occasion DFD sight-read, to perfection, a recitative that was not planned. This simple example of his skills made me determined to get to where I could accomplish that same feat myself. I’m almost there, proud to report to Mrs. deVaron…
She cared for every one of her chorists, and no one was left behind. Here’s another story: I made the decision that for one summer I had better stay home to work, to make money for the next school year, and refuse the NEC European tour to Paris, the South of France, to Berlin and Luzerne. One afternoon that spring, in Recital Hall, Cookie took me aside to talk. “Greg, I know you’re a little threadbare right now, so I’ll see what I can do, I really want you to come” and the next day it was announced that I would receive the required 800 dollars from The Benevolent Society of NEC, of which I had never heard. The conditions were to pay the money back “someday, if possible.” That very memorable tour of Europe was one that none of us will forget (we sang Monteverdi’s ‘Vespers’ in double choir and double orchestra formations in the vast spaces of St. Mark’s Cathedral in Venice!) where lifelong friendships were solidified, newly discovered realms were opened to us. Ah, to recall discovering the abbey and courtyards in Sion, walking along the walls of medieval Carcassonne, the memories of gathering and tasting fresh figs from the tree in the garden in Mazamet, France! For me, it was just a couple of years before I came here to begin my personal adventure, with a Master of Music diploma from NEC in my pocket, and those wonderfully enriching and inspiring experiences with Cookie in hand and in my heart forever. My turn to say thank you, and join in the applause for a wonderful human being.
My sincere condolences to Tina, and to all the loving family of Lorna Cooke deVaron.
*I used to have a nice Polaroid snapshot of me, taken by my proud teacher Mark Pearson just before that first professional concert with the BSO, in my new set of tails. I threw it out years ago, thinking it made me look “too thin.” For such vanity there is no cure.