The work is for four percussionists playing numerous instruments and solo trumpet. It's in three movements. Parts of it play with time, greatly influenced by years spent creating pre-digital electronic music in which music tends too float free of the beating of time.  I played with the impression that simultaneously different tempi were, at times occurring at the same moment.

Concerto for Trumpet And Percussion (1972)

I heard the poet Rivka Kashtan in a radio interview on WBAI in 1986. So taken was I by the musicality of her work that I called the station to find out how I could contact her. Soon we met and she introduced me to her prolific outpouring of poetry. Soon after that I set That Man, That Song to music. In subsequent years her writings inspired many other songs, a cantata and an opera, Wild Variations. Kashtan lives in Israel and for many years would visit the U.S. annually. She writes poetry in hebrew, english and spanish. Christina Rovics is the singer and I am accompanying her. This song is included on an independent release called In Recital, Vol 1 on CD Baby released in 2008.

In Recital, Vol. 1

That Man  That Song (1986)

Mr. Rabbit is a children's book set to music. It was recorded at Weston Woods Studios in Connecticut on August 25, 1967. The book is still readily available but my musical version of it, originally for film strip media has long been unavailable. My musicians were Tony Pagano on flute, Humbert Lucarelli on oboe and Ryohei Nakagawa playing bassoon. The director of the studio disliked this work thinking it was too dissonant but my wonderful editor at the time, Cynthia Freitag went to bat for me and the work was released as composed. At that time I was very aware that Paul Hindemith's concepts of pan tonality were at work in composing this piece.

Mr Rabbit And The Lovely Present (1967)

The Tomten and the Fox is by Astrid Lindgren and the book is still available in several editions. This was recorded on May 11, 1970. The story, so beautifully told has a dark, mysterious mood throughout. My musicians were Mitchell Weiss on clarinet and Michael Rudiakov on cello. I contributed some quiet piano effects to blend the sound together. The only copy I still had was on a monaural cassette. I applied EQ to minimize the low tones that were used in those days to trigger image changes for slideshow presentations. Admittedly the sound is somewhat deteriorated with age but I'm still fond of this little work.

The Tomten &  the Fox (1970)

The Great Big Enormous Turnip is another classic tale that is still available. Its a tale by Alexei Tolstoy and Helen Oxenbury. Not much happens in this story but a single, repeated struggle to uproot a turnip so my music doesn't do much until the very end when the turnip is uprooted. I personally delight in the last 10 seconds or so of celebration.
I used a small brass ensemble with piccolo added. Somehow the names of the players never made it into my  notebook.

Great Big Enormous Turnip (1968)

One of the first scores that i recorded for the Weston Woods Studios was Fish in the Air by Kurt Wiese. We did it on June 26, 1967. This once popular book now sells on Amazon for $449 as a hardcover collectors item.  It was recorded in NYC at the National Studios. The book is a Chinese legend, fun and exotic. I hired the New York Baroque Ensemble consisting of Bonnie Lichter on wooden flute, Humbert Lucarelli on oboe, and Gerold Ranck, one of New York's premiere young harpsichordists.  Ray Desroche, new director of the New Jersey percussion ensemble joined the session to provide lot's of percussive color.  I remember getting a panicky call from the director of Weston Woods an hour before the session worried that recording in NYC would run up a huge bill. He sounded ready to cancel but finally gave me the go ahead.  Most of our sessions were held in Connecticut after that one in New York. That I insisted on filing a union contract and paying according to union protocol was a sore point of contention throughout most of my early experiences in composing commercially.

Fish In The Air (1967)

Alexander and the Car with a Missing Headlight was recorded February 14, 1969. It took 4 hours to record. The performers were Joseph Venuto, Edward K Daniels & Bob Keller on winds, David Izenson on bass and Paul Gemignani on drums and xylophone. These New York professionals were among the most experienced studio and jazz players. They learned the music right on the spot, no rehearsal in advance and there were moments of freedom to come up with brief improvisations. I told them what the music underscoring at times and we laughed a lot. The story is so nonsensical. I was well into my second contract with Weston Woods and this piece was recorded shortly after recordingv my version  Where the Wilds Things Are which was to win a prize from the Columbus Film Festival that year. Paul Gemignani, then a young man and a established conductor in Broadway Musical Theater went on to became a major force specializing in the music of Sondheim. I think of him and this session every time I run across his name.

Alexander And The Car with a Missing Headlight (1969)

In the early 1960s, fresh out of college, I joined a trio -- singer Lee Dougherty, flutist Tony Pagano and myself at the piano. We were aware that skilled musicians were finding opportunities in the Greater New York area to perform in the city's public schools so I wrote us a setting of the well known fable The Emperor and the Nightingale.  Three more stories followed giving us two programs to present in schools. This track was captured live, no editing, while on one of our little tours to parts of New Jersey and Maryland, the result of countless performances. Our program was called Colors in Music.

The Emperor and the Nightingale (1964)

This is a setting of an original children's story by Seymour Chamberlain.  He improvised versions of it to tell to his four daughters when they were young.  Inspired by my setting to The Emperor and the Nightingale he  carefully wrote out his story  so that I could add my musical version of it to the set of musical stories that we called Colors in Music.  This is an unedited performance that was recorded while we were on tour with our children's programs. It features Tony Pagano's  adventurous  flute playing, Lee Dougherty narrating and me at at the piano.

The Walla Walla Walla Boo (1966)

This is the original, live performance version of the story The Loudest Noise in the World as we performed it numerous times in our Colors in Music concerts. 
In 1964 through 1966 I composed four settings to children's stories for a trio consisting of myself, singer narrator Lee Dougherty and flutist/saxophonist Tony Pagano. It was this recording that caught the attention of the Weston Woods Studios that owned the rights to this book to turn it into a multimedia presentation, in those days sound filmstrip sets.

Loudest Noise - Concert Version (1966)

I composed the music to Journey Cake, Ho! by Ruth Sawyer July 19, 1967 at  Weston Woods In Connecticut. It was the first of many scores that i did for this studio. It happened that a well known folk musician, Bill Crofut lived in the adjoining town, Wilton. His dynamic banjo playing perfectly suited this tale. Other players in the session were violist Jack Glick, flutist Tony Pagano and cellist Nancy Streetman.

Journey Cake, Ho! (1967)

Little Bear's Visit was only the third score that I composed for the Weston Woods Studios. I had the most superb New York musicians, Anthony Pagano on flute, Humbert Lucarelli on oboe and Ryohei Nakagawa on bassoon. Little Bear and Mr. Rabbit were done in the same session. I conducted (so to speak) from my pencil draft having prepared pen and ink parts for the musicians myself. We would rehearse and record in small segments, each carefully logged for assembly with the prerecorded voice track as I worked with the editor. Recording in 1967 was reel to reel, 15 ips, monaural. Now in 2018 all that remained in my possession was the original LP that had been played countless times on whatever record player was readily at hand. Cassettes by the way, didn't reach the U.S. market until 1964 and now in the 21st Century they are almost extinct.

Little Bear's Visit (1967)

A Horse of Another Color was the second score that I wrote to a children's book that I found back around 1964. I couldn't find the author's name in a recent search. Our trio consisted of myself at the piano, Lee Dougherty narrating and Tony Pagano playing flute and piccolo. We performed it for school audiences as part of two young audience shows that we created that we called Colors in Music.

Horse Of Another Color (1964)

Transactions was composed for Billy Taylor with The Aelian Chamber Players.
Billy Taylor and his trio, Lisle Atkinson, bass & Bobby Thomas, drums worked with the mixed ensemble of Lewis Kaplan, violin, thomas Hill, clarinet, and Erich Graf, flute. The conductor was David Gilbert. The cellist was Jerry Grossman. 
This live recording took place at The C.W.Post Center of L.i.U. on April 21, 1974. The New York State Council on the Arts helped to support the event. For more information about the composition visit https://www.howardrovicscomposer.com

Transactions - Third Stream Jazz (1973)

Howard Rovics: Restrospective

Do You Not See (1978): 1. South Wind

Do You Not See (1978): 2. Planting Flowers On The Eastern Embankment

Do You Not See (1978): 6. To Him I Love

Concert Ives Hall 1989

Inside This Clay Jug (1985)

There are four keyboard pieces and two art songs. The keyboard pieces are in the style of Bartok's Microcosmos,  based on the intervals of the 19 tone scale.  The songs are The Guest and The Harp from translations by Robert Bly as found in The Kabir Book published by Beacon Press, Boston. 
This is a live recording done at a Festival of Electronic Music at the Mark Twain House. Christina Rovics was the singer.  I played on a Dx 7 -D  also using a 61 note Korg model M synth.  Go to my website HowardRovicsComposer.com for detailed information and scores.

Six Microtonal Pieces (1991)

Insde This Clay Jug on poetry by Kabir was performed at Ives Hall in 1989. It's for one piano four hands, cello and soprano. It was premiered at the Westport Unitarian Church in 1985. The pianists were Anne Chamberlain and Howard Rovics. https://www.howardrovicscomposer.com

The Loudest Noise in the World is a musical version of a children’s story.  I brought Weston Woods a musical version of this story that I had been performing with a trio (Colors in Music) in public school performances in the Tri-state area around New York.  It was this work that gained the attention of the studio, Weston Woods that held the rights to Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are, later recorded  as part of a series of children’s recordings. Intended for a monaural sound filmstrip medium widely used in schools at the time the studio requested that percussion be added to the score. The session took place on December 7, 1967 with saxophonist/flutist Anthony Pagano, percussionist Ray Desroche and Howard Rovics (the composer) at the piano.


The Loudest Noise in the World (1967)

Where the Wild Things Are in this version is a musical setting of the original book by Maurice Sendak. It was commissioned by the Weston Woods Studios in Connecticut in 1967 and recorded on December 21st of that year at New York's National Recording Studios by 8 of New York's top flight musicians. The conductor was Efrain Guigui. Tony Pagano and Lewis Del Gatto played winds, Ronald Anderson played trumpet. Other musicians included Arnold Fromme, Alvin Brehm, John Bergamo and Ray DesRoches. I played piano in the session. The music won the Chris Award from the Columbus Film Festival for the outstanding educational score of the year in 1969.  Over the years several other versions were done by other composers but I'm proud of this being the first one.
The recording at that time was monaural and designed for a sound filmstrip medium.  

Where the Wild Things Are (1967)

Charlotte and the White Horse  is a children’s story with music. The music was commissioned by the Weston Woods Studios in Connecticut in 1967, intended for a monaural sound filmstrip medium widely used in schools at the time. The session took place on December 7, 1967 with Anthony Pagano playing flute and alto flute. The composer (Howard Rovics) is at the piano.  This gentle and imaginative story inspired  a piece of music that I often used in concert without the story being narrated. I called it Serenade for Flute and Piano.


Charlotte and the White Horse (1967)

Just Me is a children’s book set to music. It was recorded at Weston Woods in Connecticut on November 26, 1968 by clarinetist Mitchel Weiss and bassoonist Maurice Pachman with myself (Howard Rovics) at the piano. The recording at that time was monaural, intended for the medium of sound filmstrips. It was a favorite bedtime story which my own children David and Bonnie listened to when they were very young. I completed some 28 settings like this for Weston Woods in the late 60’s and early 1970’s. I’m putting some of my favorites here for another generation of children to enjoy. 



Just Me (1968)

Umbrella is a children’s book set to music. The story of Momo and her umbrella needed an imaginative music with a Japanese flavor. The oboist is Humbert Lucarelli with Bonnie Lichter playing wooden flute. I was at the piano. The raindrop sounds on the umbrella were prepared piano sounds processed at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Studio in New York where I was studying at the time with Vladmir Ussachevsky and Mario Davidovsky. This monaural recording was done at Weston Woods in Connecticut and intended for the medium of sound filmstrips. The recording session dates from Jan 24, 1969

Umbrella (1969)

The music to this charming little story was recorded in Connecticut at Weston Woods on December 23, 1968. The music is for flute and guitar. The flutist is Tony Pagano and the guitarist James. Raney.  I frequently collaborated with Tony on musical projects years before composing for Weston Woods. This particular score needed a guitarist who could read well, learn fast and turn in a clean performance to my exact specifications. At that time I was hiring musicians whose regular gig was in the Radio City Music Hall orchestra and they highly recommended Raney who they worked with in that orchestra. He came out to Connecticut to record two scores. Afterwards, as I drove him back to New York we happened to stop briefly in the little town of Weston. Suddenly he called out and ran across the parking lot to embrace his old friend, the jazz musician Jerry Mulligan who lived in Weston and who he hadn’t seen in years.  My musical setting of Peter’s Chair was intended at that time for a sound filmstrip medium, recorded monaurally. Subsequently the exact same score and recording was used for an animated version.  The score worked so well even without the story that several flutists included it on concert programs under the title Serenade for Flute and Guitar. 


Peter's Chair (1968)

The Hare and the Tortoise was recorded at Weston Woods on January 24, 1969 in the same session as The Lion and the Rat and Umbrella. Two instruments play the role of the lively Hare -- the Flute (Bonnie Lichter) and the oboe (Bert Lucarelli). The sluggish Tortoise are played by the French horn (Howard Howard) and the trombone (Arnold Fromme).  As a chamber ensemble it seemed like an impossible group to balance but these were virtuoso musicians. Bonnie was the flutist with the New York Baroque Ensemble, Lucarelli a renowned soloist, Howard Howard a member of the Metropolitan Opera orchestra, and Fromme every a top flight musician equal to the others. We had a great time telling the story musically. The ensemble never got to hear the narration though in the session. The music and narration was pieced together afterwards in the editing process.  Often, earlier versions of the narration were rerecorded after the musical score was completed since the music inspired the narrator. 

The Hare and the Tortoise (1969)

 Charley, Charlotte and the Golden Canary was recorded  on December 23, 1968. It’s the most jazz influenced of all of my children’s music scores. Anthony Pagano played flute and saxophone, James Raney guitar, David Izenson bass, Randy Brecker trumpet, and Paul Gemignani drums.  Tony Pagano who was very active on the New York scene as a doubler, equally at home in both the classical and jazz worlds put me in touch with some wonderful talent. Randy Brecker, young at the time went on to have a major career and Paul Gemignani, then early in his conducting career on Broadway became the leading conductor of Sondheim’s works. I just remember that they whole group clicked and was a joy to work with.

Charley Charlotte and the Golden Canary (1968)

The Lion and the Rat was recorded at Weston Woods Studios in Connecticut on January 24, 1969 during the same recording session as The Hare and the Tortoise. Bonie Lichter played piccolo and Bert Lucarelli oboe. The two winds musically symbolized the little rat while Howard Howard on the french horn and Arnold Fromme on the trombone played the part of the lion. 


The Lion and the Rat (1969)

Gilberto and the Wind was recorded at Weston Woods Studios on November 26, 1968 along with the story Just Me. I was the pianist, Maurice Pachman played bassoon and Mitchel Weill played clarinet. I typically would meet them a day or two beforehand between shows at the Radio City Music Hall where they played in the orchestra at that time rehearsing the two scores for about an hour prior to the recording session. The session for both scores took a little more than four hours. They were superb musicians, rendering everything that I wrote with such clarity and style. They never did hear the narration. Piecing the music together in the editing room was a separate task that I did with my editor, Cynthia Freitag. Together we worked out many timing strategies to get beginnings, endings and high points in the story to click and by this time we had been working together on numerous such scores for almost a year and a half.

Gilberto and Wind (1968)

I am a retired college teacher (1965 to 2000) at the School of the Arts on the C.W.Post Campus of Long Island University. I hold a Masters Degree from the Manhattan School of Music having done postgraduate studies at the NYU Film School  and the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Centre. I work regularly as  an organist and freelance as a pianist while  continuing to do some private teaching of piano, composition, and theory. 

Back in the 1960s I  wrote 30 film scores to children’s books during a five year period of commercial composing early in my career. My score to Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are won a major award from the Columbus Film Festival for the outstanding score of the year in 1969.  In addition to these scores I wrote numerous concert works for solo instruments, and chamber ensembles as well as vocal works from 1959 to the present. I'm attempting to post on SoundCloud everything that I've created over the course of my career.

Howard Rovics, Composer

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