Memoirs of a Mentor

Memoirs of a Mentor

John Heiss (1938-2023)

When I began as a freshman at New England Conservatory, I was experiencing massive audio-visual overwhelm. I had no idea what to expect, nor what I was really doing other than playing the saxophone. I realized that I knew very little, and the coming weeks, and months, I’d realize I knew even less than I thought.

In those first few days, I heard the name John Heiss mentioned in hallowed tones a few times, but I had no idea who he was or what he did.

During a meal in the school cafeteria, I remember one of my friends exclaiming “look, it’s John Heiss!” and I quickly looked up and saw an unassuming man, 50ish, with horned-rimmed glasses, looking like he came out of a film like “12 Angry Men,” or from a 1950’s medical documentary. I remember several students—perhaps his inner circle of private students—gathering around him and jockeying for a seat near him. They were discussing the Steve Reich album release of “Desert Music,” which I hadn’t heard of until that moment. One of my freshman classmates exclaimed “he eats…like us!” which, needless to say, although ridiculous at the time, made me try and figure out who this was.

At the Conservatory, I was a saxophone major. I really always wanted to be a composer, but I didn’t know exactly how to do that—I didn’t even realize until the end of my senior year in high school that one could get a degree in it. I assumed everybody wrote music as part of the curriculum, but I was very wrong. I had written and arranged music in various styles since about the age of 16, which I assumed was commonplace.

I eventually had the first of many classes with John— “Music of the 20th Century” (because, you know, it was the 1980’s, although the class pretty much stopped somewhere in the 60’s because supposedly nothing after that was considered worth discussing, I was to learn). That was my sophomore year, it rapidly expanded my mind, and I decided I needed to study composition privately with John.

I remember my first lesson. I was so proud of the fact that I was working on my first symphony, and I was ready to show it to him (The “Eros” Symphony, which I wrote for a then girlfriend…cute in an adolescent kind of way…I think we broke up the next week). He took a few glances at the first couple of pages and just kept muttering “oh dear, oh dear…” and mind you, not in a good way…he said “you have absolutely no knowledge or understanding of what it means to be a contemporary composer…we’ve got a long way to go…let’s start with writing a chorale in the style of Bach…”

In essence, I left my shattered ego in shards on the floor, and got to work.

During my undergraduate studies, and later my masters, I was to have multiple classes with John, studied private composition with him, and played in the Contemporary Ensemble, which he directed. Years later, when I became faculty teaching evening classes at the Conservatory, John and I taught next door to each other (he was teaching modern contemporary music history, I was teaching jazz composition and popular song). We would hang out during breaks; he called me “Big D.” We shared a love for Stravinsky, which I gained from his passion for this composer whom he taught in every class, and we shared a spiritual connection to the music of Charles Ives and the writings of the New England Transcendentalists. He was a flutist who played some jazz saxophone; I was a saxophonist who played jazz flute. John taught performance, music history and theory, composition, and conducted ensembles. Basically, and I admit this freely, I wanted to be him.

He was an American composer, heavily influenced by the French aesthetic. At that time, the Conservatory was divided between the “French” and the “Germans.” These are all Americans, but the schools of study they emerged from were in vast contrast to each other (this was due to the massive immigration of intellectuals from Europe to the US during WWII, and into the American conservatories and universities). He, as well as another of my conservatory teachers Bob Ceely, studied with the French composer Darius Milhaud, who had escaped the Nazi occupation of France and settled on the west coast. Coincidently, Milhaud was also the teacher of jazz musician Dave Brubeck and the brilliant songsmith Burt Bacharach; all of their music had a special “Frenchness” in common (je ne sais quoi) and you could always tell a Milhaud student regardless of genre. Another of my Conservatory teachers, Daniel Pinkham, studied with the great Nadia Boulanger at the Paris Conservatory, while my other great teacher and mentor, Chinary Ung, came through the influence of Edgar Varese (who also influenced Frank Zappa, mind you) through his teacher, Chao Wen-chung at Columbia. My colleagues in grad school would tease me and call me “Claude” because my own music sounded so much like Debussy; I was firmly in the French camp. The “Germans” studied with folks like Arnold Schoenberg and Paul Hindemith, who also escaped the Nazi regime, and had strong studios in Boston and NYC (Hindemith was in-residence at Yale). There was not a lot of love lost between these groups, and this made taking classes from the “Germans” occasionally uncomfortable, and at times, combative.

One of the most important moments of my life came during a period of great difficulty for me. It was during my first master’s degree studies—I was at Arizona State, and I was miserable. I had been recovering from spinal meningitis, so I couldn’t really walk, let alone play the saxophone at the time; due to this, I lost my scholarship. I was denied entrance when I tried to transfer into the composition program because my undergraduate studies were in performance (on paper, even though I studied composition privately intensely). I had also just broken up with my then girlfriend, who was the reason why I was still there. My parents had just divorced, and we lost our house and everything else. I was alone, 3,000 miles from home, at an all-time low, and feeling a massive failure in life.

I was speaking to a graduate school advisor about transferring into the music theory program (because I was good at it and didn’t need to walk or stand on-stage, although to be honest, I was pretty much ready to give up…), and I glanced at his desk and saw a letter.

The letter was from John Heiss, as was part of my recommendation package for graduate school. I hadn’t seen it before, of course.

Why was that letter there? At that moment? There was no reason for it to be there.

The letter said nothing about my saxophone playing, other than in passing, which was odd considering that I was a saxophone major. It did however focus on my composition, which he said was very special and unique, had an indescribable character that could only be defined as a “Spaneasian quality” and that I was a brilliant and exceptional artist…

What?...REALLY?...he thought that about ME?...

…THAT saved me. That letter, seen by circumstance or by the Grace of God, gave me the strength to keep going. I ended up studying with composition with Chinary Ung, which tremendously matured my concepts, eventually went back to Boston (and soon moved to NYC), enrolling for master’s degree x2, and plowed along for the next 20 years into an excellent and unique career which took me all over the world as a performer and composer and teacher. All because of THAT LETTER from the man I held in the highest regard.

I retired as a full-time performer and college professor in 2014 at the ripe old age of 45—due to both many years of physical toll on my body (from playing and conducting), and the opportunity to be with the most amazing woman I have ever known in JoAnn Kalogianis Spaneas and go into business with her. My composing never stopped, and I am grateful that I still have many professional opportunities writing music. Every day when I am in front of the keyboard (piano, not computer…I am very old school and prefer writing with pen and paper) sitting down to write, I think about those two days with John: when as a sophomore my ego was shattered, and as a graduate student when it became something new and special.

John, now that you have passed into the unknown beyond (for us, anyways…I’m sure YOU have it figured out already) I know you can hear me when I give my most heart-felt thank you for your teachings, your mentorship, your belief in me, and most of all, your friendship.

Forever your student,

Demetrius

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