Miriam Rosenblum
The first kind of music I fell in love with was classical music. One of my earliest memories involves lying on the rug as a toddler and listening to a recording of classical guitar music by Andres Segovia. I still love that recording! But somehow I gravitated to wind instruments and started taking recorder lessons at age 7. A few years later I fell in love with another recording, this time of oboe music, and began playing oboe.
I continued playing oboe and recorders throughout high school. At Yale University I studied classical music and also played in several fun and diverse groups, including the Carilloneers, who rang the huge set of bells that hangs in the university tower, and Sheep’s Clothing, an avant-garde group which favored improvisational, sometimes all-night concerts. (One performance I remember involved each musician sitting on the floor in a map-like formation while singing the names of various New England mountains.)
During college I took a semester off and hitch-hiked to San Francisco, where I fell in with some shady street musician types who introduced me to the wonderful world of Irish music. I think I might have been the only oboe-playing busker in San Francisco at the time!
I figured out a way to combine my attraction to double-reed instruments
and my newfound love of Irish music when I first heard the mesmerizing
uillean pipes (Irish bellows-blown bagpipes). While in graduate school
at Stony Brook NY, I got a set of pipes (much to the dismay of my housemates)
and began taking lessons with Bill Ochs, a fantastic piper and teacher
in New York City. Bill also taught me to play tinwhistle, and a lot more
about folk music in general.
After graduate school I moved back to San Francisco and worked in the 1980’s as a freelance oboist, playing with many Bay Area orchestras and chamber music groups, and working odd jobs on the side. My favorite of those involved dressing up as a clown and delivering balloons to people all over the city. I loved that job! (Maybe I missed my calling?)
When I moved to Denver in the late 1980’s, I freelanced with the (then) Denver Symphony Orchestra, Denver Chamber Orchestra and the ballet orchestra, but was frustrated with what seemed to be increasingly narrow options in classical music, and went back to school to get a computer science degree. In the meantime I was introduced to the folk music scene in Denver and began teaching tinwhistle and recorders at Swallow Hill’s music school and playing in various contradance, ceilidh, and Irish bands, including Roisin Dubh and a duo with multi-instrumentalist Jim Anderson. Because it seemed like tinwhistle was not taken very seriously in some circles, I took up the button accordion (now there’s irony for you!).
Through our synagogue I met Hal, who invited me to join his band, Los Lantzmun (www.hotjewishmusic.com). Playing with Los Lantzmun has introduced me to the rich and wonderful tradition of Jewish world music, which I had known very little about. In a real sense, it has put me back in touch with my heritage. Sherman Jacobs, Los Lantzmun’s amazing fiddler, inspired me to learn to play Klezmer clarinet. And last but not least, playing with Los Lantzmun gave me the chance to play with Hal, who is a mind-blowing musician, as well as a true mensch.
I got to know Carla when her family joined our synagogue “havurah,” though I had been in complete awe of her from afar for a long time. (I could happily sit and listen to Carla sing all night long!) Getting to know her better has been a real joy and an inspiration.
In my copious spare time, I love to hang out with my family, read, and hike in the beautiful Rocky Mountains and in the canyons of Utah. (If you also love the redrock country, please support one of my favorite grassroots groups: www.suwa.org).
