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William L Kahrl
Classmates: I am hoping to persuade many of you to help me correct an oversight that we members of the Class of 1964 should have addressed long ago.
Nominations for the Shaker Alumni Hall of Fame are now open. A great many of our classmates have enjoyed distinguished careers in their chosen professions. But so far as I know, none of us has achieved nearly as much fame and international acclaim as Thomas Young. And yet he is not in the Hall of Fame.
Some of my many happy memories of life at Shaker High were afternoons after school working on a duet with Tom in the back of Burton Randall's classroom while we struggled to master the intricate wordplay and furious pacing of Lambert, Hendricks and Bevan's jazz styling of the song Cloudburst. How pathetic my poor efforts to keep up now seem in relation to his subsequent achievements in classical and popular music.
Thomas Young today is a Grammy and Clio-award winning lyric tenor who has performed as a principal soloist in the great operas and major concert halls around the world under the batons of such leading conductors as Zubin Mehta, Roger Norrington, Simon Rattle and Esa-Pekka Salonen.
In addition to classical roles, he has been at the forefront of the development of contemporary opera, having made his Chicago Lyric Opera debut as the Trickster God in the world premiere of Anthony Davis' Amistad a role written for him by Mr. Davis. Similarly, he made his debut with the New York City Opera in the world premiere of Davis' X, The Life and Times of Malcolm X, in which he sang the dual roles of Street and Elijah Muhammad in what the New York Times called, "a brilliantly chameleonic performance." With the same company he performed Aron in Schoenberg's Moses und Aron and Desportes in Zimmermann's Die Soldaten.
My wife Kathleen and I saw his San Francisco Opera debut in John Adams' The Death of Klinghoffer, where he created the role of Molqi. In his debut at Covent Garden he performed Schwalb in Hindemith's Mathis der Mahler. In other major productions around the world he has appeared in the title roles of Tan Dun's Marco Polo, Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex; and Gounod's Faust. He was Sportin' Life in Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, the Celebrant in Leonard Bernstein's Mass, and Sam Kaplan in Kurt Weill's Street Scene.
His other major North American concert appearances include performances of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and Missa Solemnis, Mozart's Great Mass in C, Bach's Mass in B Minor, Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde, Duke Ellington's Sacred Songs, as well as Too Hot to Handel, which was written for him.
After one of his performances, the music critic for the Washington Post remarked that Thomas Young possesses "one of the most exquisite voices I've ever heard. The music seems to well up in some cavernous place within him, then floats effortlessly forth -- now in majestic torrents, now in a feather light, impossibly clear upper register."
These are only a few of the highlights from his Wikipedia and other internet entries. You can find more about his many other starring performances, as well as a complete list of the 17 CDs in his discography, at his website thomasyoungtenor.com.
But wait, there's more. On Broadway in Ragtime and on national and major regional tours, Thomas Young has sung Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar, the Wiz in The Wiz, Che in Evita, Daddy Brubeck in Sweet Charity, and he received widespread acclaim for his work in Stand Up Shakespeare, directed by Mike Nichols.
As some of these titles suggest, Thomas Young has been a leader in bringing the worlds of classical and contemporary music closer together. His concerts also include appearances with legendary jazz artists Tito Puente, Clark Terry, Nancy Wilson, Phil Woods,among many others. He also performed in Las Vegas and Lake Tahoe with Ann-Margaret.
Over his long career, Thomas Young has become more than an innovator but also a model and master teacher for aspiring young people in music. Fans of public television saw him with Victor Trent Cook and Rodrick Dixon in the original production of Three Mo' Tenors which they brought to PBS' Great Performances series following its triumphant debut on Broadway. In the years since, PBS has transformed the Three Mo' Tenors model into a broadening avenue that has expanded the professional opportunities for numerous young classically trained African-American tenors.
And to top it all off, Thomas Young is the singing voice of Mighty Mouse in Ralph Bakshi's television cartoon series.
Today, Thomas Young teaches voice as a tenured faculty member in the Department of Music at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York. He and I came close to arranging for him to attend our 50th high school reunion in 2014, but we couldn't make it work with his busy international schedule. I tried to link up again when my wife and I attended her 50th college reunion at Sarah Lawrence in 2019, but reunions happen in the summer, when the students and faculty are gone. And so the closest we came was visiting the plaque on the door to the room at the music school that's been named for him.
How is it that a classmate with such an extraordinary range of accomplishments is not already in the Shaker Alumni Hall of Fame? The staff of the Shaker Schools Foundation has kindly offered to assist with this effort. But as you can tell from all of the above, Thomas Young's many qualification overflow the margins of a conventional application.
That's why I wanted to bring this suggestion to your attention. I believe that with your support, Thomas Young's leadership in music and in the advancement of opportunities for African-American young people could provide an inspiring example that would benefit the entire Shaker community.
You can help by sending a message to the Shaker Schools Foundation, 15600 Parkland Drive, Shaker Heights, Ohio 44120. Or call 216-295-4329.
Please act now. The deadline is April 16.
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