Franklin High School - Post Yearbook (Portland, OR)

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Mr. Jacob Avshalomov This year's Forum had as its final speaker Mr. Jacob Avshalomov. He was born and reared in China, and completed all of his British and Amer- ican secondary schooling before he was fifteen, He came to America in 1937 and throughout the years has proven time and again his talents as a composer and director. Mr. Avsh- alomov has studied at Reed College, the Eastman School of Music under Bernard Rogers, andhas taught at Co- lumbia University, Reed College, and the University of Washington. He has been director of the Portland Junior Symphony since 1954. Among his many honors have been an Alice M. Ditson Fellowship in composition, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the New York Critics' Circle award in 1953 for his Tom O'Bedlam, andthe Naum- berg Recording Award for 1956. MUSIC . . . The last forum dealt with Music in a Technological World and featured actual excerpts from recent works in synthetic music. M.r. Avshalomov outlined the history of this modern, technological, technique, and em- phasized the fact that much of the standard music theory which has per- sisted for ages is now being discarded to the puff of a freight train, and the whine of a transistorized tube. Mr. Avshalomov also emphasized that music today, in our technological age, is being heard and noticed more than ever before. As we step into an elevator, or a bus, or a public build- ing we hear piped music. Ameri- cans are becoming more music con- scious and more critical of what they hear. One of the highlights of this hour was aselectionrecordedby a Mr. Hodeir, a Frenchman, entitled Jazz on Jazz This isa catchy number performed by this man's jazz combo. First they played a number and taped it, and then played it back at some varying multiples of its original speed, and improvised against it--an interesting and entertaining example of music in a technological world.

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ACADEMICS Only the educated are free. EPICTETUS