Going Back To Mexico version 2

The Music of Blair Weille

     Music was always part of Blair’s life.   As a child in Boston,   he studied piano from a young age and attended the New England Conservatory for further studies where he excelled,   and considered a career as a concert pianist.  Having decided not to continue,  he entered Harvard College from which he received a Bachelor of Arts with a major in music in 1953.

    While at Harvard,   Blair was the rehearsal pianist for the Hasty Pudding Show in 1952,   and wrote the music for that show in 1953.   His show was called “Strike While it’s Hot” and it can be heard on this website.

     After graduation,   Blair moved to New York City planning to involve himself in the musical theatre scene,  his greatest love.   At the same time,  he worked toward a Master’s degree in music composition at  Columbia University under the tutelage of Otto Luening and Jack Beeson, among others. While at Columbia,  he wrote most of his classical music which was performed and recorded at the Bennington Composers Conference .   Much of this music is on the website as well as his “Short Symphony”,  his masters thesis,  which was performed and recorded by the Rhode Island Philharmonic in 1960.  A Brass Quintet written at Columbia was published by Theodore Presser in 1965. Blair received his graduate degree from Columbia in 1957.

     Other classical compositions were written and performed  occasionally after graduation.  In 1959, a beautiful song,   “Annabel Lee” was performed and recorded by the Long  Island Little Orchestra Society under the direction of Clara Roesch in 1959.     Blair wrote incidental music for a theatrical production of Shaw’s “Man and Superman”  in 1960.    A setting of “Psalm 100″, written in 1971,   was performed by the Gregg Smith Singers in 2007.   These can all be heard on this website.

     Blair also wrote some hymn tunes submitted to the Episcopal Church for their new hymnbook,   and some gospel songs for which we have music but no recordings.

     Over the following years,   Blair was prolific in producing single songs with various lyric writers,   looking for a partner to write a complete musical.  The first show,  “Casanova”,  had book and lyrics by Bruce Williamson,  written in 1968.   Efforts to have this performed were not successful.

     In 1978-79,   Blair met Eben Keyes,   a prolific writer of witty and clever lyrics.   They had much in common – a Boston upbringing and Harvard College. Blair and Eben worked closely together until  until Eben passed away  in     —-   . Their first result was a musical based on a French play,   translated by Norman Shapiro, entitled “So Many Ladies”.   This musical was produced in summer theatre in Fitchburg , Massachusetts in 1979,   and is recorded on this website.

     Their next effort was a musical based  on a children’s story by Joseph Schranck entitled “The Plain Princess and the Lazy Prince”.   Eben surprised Blair by adapting the whole story in verse,  thus inviting Blair to write a “through composed” musical,   entirely sung.  They called it “Dragons Everywhere”.  There is a recording of this on the website.

     During the 1980′s,   Eben and Blair,  both members of the Amateur Comedy Club,   wrote four cabarets,  or musical revues,  for performance at the Club. They were : “Have a Happy” in 1985, “Manhattan” in 1986,  “Natural Fibers” in 1987 and “Urban Renewal” in 1988.   These were so successful that songs and singers went on the road,  performing in various college clubs,   and ultimately at Palsson’s “Forbidden Broadway”  as “The Big Apple Cabaret” in 1986.

     Eben and Blair collaborated with James Guiher  who had written the book for a show entitled “Candoo”,   an ingenious and entertaining story about the cavortings of a Texas oil magnate drilling for oil on the Acropolis,  for which they provided lyrics and music.

     After Eben’s passing,   Blair wrote with Rosalie Calabrese,   a poet and lyric writer he met through his association with Composer’s Recording Inc. of which he was President for four years.    They wrote “C.R.”,  (consciousness raising) in 2009,  and later revised it with the title “Moving On” which was given a staged reading  in upstate New York by “The Two of Us Productions” the summer of 2013.    Blair wrote his last song in August of that year,   the title song finale for the show.    He was then not well enough to see the show and died on February 12, 2014.

     In addition to  the music on this website,   we have some sheet music and scores. If you would like to perform  any of the music,   you can contact Patsy Weille at 212 831 1167 in New York City to talk about the piece in which you are interested.   You can also reach her at highlandmb4@gmail.com.

Patsy Weille,
November, 2014