Micah Levy
began his musical life playing the horn (often called the "French"
Horn). He took to the instrument quite naturally, winning many prizes and
honors and performing professionally by the time he was in high school. After
graduating from California State University, Fullerton he made his living as a
free-lance musician in the Los Angeles area.
As a
lark he took some conducting lessons and was magnetically drawn to the podium.
Soon he entered and subsequently graduated from the New England Conservatory
where he received his Master's in Orchestral Conducting as a student of Richard
Pittman. For eleven seasons he was the music director of the Orange County
Chamber Orchestra as well as a guest-conductor of orchestras in the U.S. &
abroad.
As a way
of gaining deeper insight into orchestral scores Micah started writing music.
What began, however, as an academic exercise grew into a passion. These days he
devotes his time to composition.
The Probably Untrue Story of Mary
(Who) Had a Little Lamb
When The
Probably Untrue Story of Mary (Who) Had a Little Lamb is put in a CD
player, watch a child become quiet. Then hear the child's gleeful laughter when
Mary Had a Little Lamb is eventually played in western hoedown style,
complete with fiddles and banjos.
At that
point on the CD, the child would have listened to about 25 variations of the
song and, without knowing it, have learned about classical music and the great
breadth of music in general. “If kids really like and find that education is
entertaining, they will be absorbed by it and they won't want to put it down,”
said Micah Levy, the Maryland-based musician who composed the music. Levy, a
former orchestra conductor who now teaches piano and composes music, didn't set
out to create a CD for children. He embraced composing to sharpen his
conducting skills. Later, he fell in love with composing. Finally, he got the
idea of using his composing skills to make classical music fun for children.
The result was The Probably Untrue Story ($13, Sonus Novus). Levy gives Mary
Had A Little Lamb, one of the most simple and universally known songs, a
Broadway spin, then a sacred spin, like music heard in a medieval cathedral. A
child just might say, “That sounds like church, Mommy.” During Levy's Mary
Had a Little Lamb story, in which Mary and her lamb get lost in the woods
during a snowy winter and take refuge in the house of Mary's uncle Antonio
Vivaldi, Levy creates moods with dramatic treatments of the song. Every moment
in the plot gets a musical illustration. French horns play as a hunting party
passes by and almost shoots the defenseless lamb. Timpani boom as Mary and the
lamb trudge through the snow. Levy narrates. The Mary Had a Little Lamb
melody is stretched, slowed, quickened and turned on its ear as Levy shows how
a major chord here or a minor chord there can manipulate your emotions. What
fun to realize that an endless number of songs are in the air, unplayed, and
all you have to do is reach out for the notes and put them together in just the
right way. Parents may be intrigued that you never hear the tune Mary Had a
Little Lamb performed on the CD in the traditional way. “The whole point of
the CD is that classical music should be fun,” Levy said. “Everything that
makes us human can be expressed in music. Why shouldn't fun be expressed in
music, especially classical music, which is often seen as serious?” Levy was
music director of the Orange County (Calif.) Chamber Orchestra for 11 years and
received a master's degree in orchestral conducting from the New England
Conservatory. When he was a junior in high school, he played French horn
professionally with the Long Beach (Calif.) Symphony. Now Levy teaches piano,
does some commercial composing and hopes one day to make a living as a
composer. The Mary Had a Little Lamb CD has been a fun project for him,
something he never knew would consume so much of his interest, he said. He also
took the extra step of including a teacher's guide on the CD, written by music
educator Barbara King. One can stick the CD in a computer, print out the guide
and get more out of the CD listening experience. And what of Uncle Antonio
Vivaldi? Turns out he can play a mean version of Mary Had a Little Lamb
on the violin. He also introduces Mary and the lamb to his newest composition, Spring.
You gotta love Levy's sense of humor. He eventually turns Spring into a
bar mitzvah number