By Paul J. Condra
Leonard Lehrman, 52, is the ambitious music director at the Malverne Community Presbyterian Church. And when he's not wandering the holy halls with his effusive smile, he no doubt has his bespectacled countenance buried among mountains of score-sheets.
It may be best to consider a portion of the biography that appears on his Web site:
His works number 142 to date, and have been heard throughout Europe, North America, Israel, and at the United Nations. Editor since 1999 of Opera Today ... he has worked professionally for over three decades as conductor, coach, accompanist, translator, stage director, producer and critic for Opera Monthly, WBAI, the Metropolitan Opera, Bel Canto Opera, After Dinner Opera, the Metropolitan Philharmonic Chorus and the Jewish Music Theater of Berlin (both of which he founded), and various regional companies throughout the United States, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.
Lehrman also holds a B.A. in Music from Harvard and a masters and a doctorate in music composition from Cornell.
Most recently, Lehrman spent a month in Australia on a part vacation/part music tour that sent him into the country's major metropolises as well its arid deserts, lush jungles and endless beaches.
He was there to perform his most recent cycle, An Australian Odyssey, a musical performance of 18 poems by Australian poets.
Like many artists who tend to live life circulating in the winds of creativity, Odyssey was born out of a chance E-mail that grew into a correspondence of novel-like proportions.
Intrigued by Australian poet Alex Skovron's use of the sonnetina (a 10-line sonnet), Lehrman unleashed an E-mail in March of 2000 to the land down under. The result was an electronic conversation that thrived until last Christmas, when Lehrman finished creating musical settings for 18 of the hundreds Australian poems he had discussed with Skovron.
I was inspired by the text and I said I wanted to set it to music, Lehrman said.
In return, Skovron, to whom Odyssey was dedicated, arranged for Lehrman, along with soprano Helene Williams, to play a couple dates in Melbourne and Sydney.
It was electric, Lehrman said of the performances as enthusiastically as if it were the first time he had done such a thing.
Skovron, whose poetry is included in the Odyssey, later wrote Lehrman praising his success: [Odyssey] offered a kaleidoscope of moods and musical styles, which his playing negotiated with remarkable dexterity and a good deal of wit.
Indulging his historical fancy, Lehrman also tried to locate a lover of the American poet Karl Shapiro, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1944. Her name was Bonamy Quorn and she lived in Malvern, Australia, where Shapiro had met her while serving overseas in the armed forces. Though Lehrman wasn't successful, he found the sister-Malvern to be quite endearing, especially the foreign pronunciation, which goes more like mall-vun, he said.
A Jew, Lehrman said he has worked and performed for many denominations, including assembling the first interfaith choir to sing at Malverne Presbyterian, where it seems the congregation has his heart: Presbyterians are the nicest, he said. [And the reverend] James Halsey is the most supportive clergyman that I have ever known. He added the reverend also sings tenor in the choir.
Lehrman is currently completing the last Marc Blitzstein's Sacco and Vanzetti, an opera based on the true story of two Italian immigrants who were executed in the 1920s for crimes they didn't commit. Blitzstein, who some believed invented American Opera, was commissioned to complete the opus for the Metropolitan Opera, but was murdered in 1964. Lehrman is considered to be a leading authority of the works of Blitzstein. Even Leonard Bernstein abandoned the unfinished opera to the man he called Blitz-stein's dybbuk, using the Hebrew word to imply that Lehrman knows Blitzstein's work so well, he must have entered his body to get at it.
In addition to performing at the Malverne Presbyterian Church on Sundays (599-3220), Lehrman is directing the Langston Hughes Centennial on Sunday, April 14, at 2 p.m. at Queens College. Information is available at (718) 997-3626/3802.
