Photograph courtesy of the Missouri History Museum
It has perfect acoustics and, some say, a ghost: that of Louis Spiering, its École des Beaux-Arts–educated architect, who designed the 1904 World’s Fair grounds—and died of appendicitis almost immediately after the Sheldon Memorial building for the Ethical Society of St. Louis opened its doors.
From 1912 to 1964, Spiering’s auditorium amplified the voices of speakers like Albert Einstein, President Dwight Eisenhower, Martha Gellhorn, Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, and Margaret Mead (and Spiering was said to make himself known by fiddling with the lights and the elevators). Then, after the Ethical Society moved to Ladue—relocating to a building designed by another notable
St. Louis architect, Harris Armstrong—the Sheldon became a music venue, which, with its acoustics, it seemed destined to become anyway. The list of artists who’ve played there is kind of mind-blowing: Joan Baez, Dave Brubeck, Judy Collins, Renée Fleming, B.B. King, Lyle Lovett, Wynton Marsalis, Willie Nelson, Doc Watson…
To celebrate the 100th birthday of Spiering’s building (which expanded in 1998 to accommodate the Sheldon Art Galleries), not to mention all of those musicians, the Sheldon Arts Foundation has put together an especially impressive 2012–13 season, with performances by Bucky Pizzarelli, with St. Louis’ own Denise Thimes; The Magnetic Fields; Nick Lowe; and Rosanne Cash.
“It’s a great season,” Chris Peimann, the Sheldon’s director of marketing and publicity, says. “But our thinking is that we’re going to go forward and do a good season after that, and for the next 100 years!”
To kick it off, the Sheldon commissioned a 30-minute piece of music, “This Present Past,” written by St. Louis–born jazz pianist Peter Martin, which premieres on October 11 (to coincide as closely as possible with the building’s dedication date of October 8, 1912). Working off of a poem by late Washington University creative-writing professor Howard Nemerov, Martin wrote parts for specific musicians: soprano Christine Brewer, saxophonist Branford Marsalis, bassist Christian McBride, drummer Ulysses Owens Jr., and violinist and St. Louis Symphony concertmaster David Halen and a string quartet from the symphony. He says he put together a “dream team” of musicians to query when he began planning the piece—and all of them said yes.
“To write it for the musicians who will be performing it is a real luxury,” Martin says of the composition. “Normally, you’re writing a piece and you don’t know who’s going to play it—you’re writing it more for specific instruments, or a particular style. So to imagine Christine Brewer’s voice, and to write specifically for her range, on the stage on the Sheldon—I’m very familiar with the acoustics, and how things sound and what works… It just made it a lot more exciting to me that it’s written for those musicians, for that event, for that space.”
Martin plays at the Sheldon every other month, bringing in top-notch jazz musicians from around the country to play on the bill. But he says that though this piece has jazz influences, it’s not jazz per se. “I wouldn’t call it a classical piece, either—it’s a hybrid,” he explains. “There’s a lot of blues in it as well. I intend it to work on its own, though. The intention is to make it not sound like it’s jumping from one style to the other, so the hope is that it will sound like one seamless piece.”
About a month before the concert, on September 7, the Sheldon unveils its first piece of centennial programming: “Al Hirschfeld’s Jazz and Broadway Scrapbook,” an exhibit in two wings of the Sheldon Art Galleries. “Scrapbook” pulls together more than 100 original drawings, paintings, prints, and collages, plus posters and ephemera from this St. Louis–born artist, who is best known for his loopy, calligraphic caricatures of music and stage artists for publications like The New Yorker, The New York Times, and TV Guide. Peimann says that curator Olivia Lahs-Gonzales wanted not only an illustrious St. Louis–born artist, but also one who “had a music connection, to tie it in with the aspect of what the Sheldon does there, too,” she says. “That led her to Hirschfeld, who drew all kinds of actors and Broadway stars, but also a lot of musicians, like the Gershwins and Liza Minnelli, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, and some of the other classic jazz singers of that era.” (His Josephine Baker illustration is pictured at left.)
The other major piece of this fall’s anniversary programming is the Sheldon Music-To-Go series, which takes place in September and October. It’s the Sheldon’s first outdoor music series, and it will feature local musicians in a diverse range of genres—folk, pop, jazz, blues, and indie rock—playing in public parks and at festivals.
“We thought it would be fun to go to unexpected places, too,” Peimann adds. “We’re hoping to also be in shopping malls, college cafeterias—places you normally wouldn’t expect to see a music ensemble playing. And a lot of them will happen as we go along. We’ll announce them on the website, on Twitter and Facebook, but part of the fun is in not knowing exactly where they are going to be. So the element of surprise is part of it as well.”
During the Sheldon’s 2011–12 season, photographers Ray Marklin, Jennifer Silverberg, Katie Sanker, and Odell Mitchell Jr. quietly lurked behind the scenes, gathering images for an as-yet-untitled coffee-table book, which will include essays on the Sheldon’s history by Robert Duffy, Carol Porter, and John Wright. (Those photos will also be on display next spring in the Sheldon Art Galleries.)
“It’s the concerts and the exhibits, but it’s more the smaller moments and little details you don’t always see,” Peimann says. “It’s more a slice of life...what we do on a daily basis to keep the arts alive.”
As for Spiering’s ghost, perhaps all of the birthday fanfare will finally put his soul to rest—and convince him to stop playing with the fuse box.
The Sheldon is located at 3648 Washington. “This Present Past” premieres Thursday, October 11, at 8 p.m.; for more information on this and other 2012–13 programming, call 314-533-9900 or visit thesheldon.org.
