ARLENE COLE: A CELEBRATION OF LIFE
May her memory be a blessing
There are few people who have made a tremendous impact on both my life and career quite like Arlene Cole As Professor Emeritus Shep Shapiro knows, when I was taking his summer high school class in 1998, I was so homesick that I left after the first week, went home for a week, and then completed the course on the third and final week. I did not know how I would deal with my homesickness when I was accepted to be a student at Brown. I looked for different people and ways to enhance my experiences and new life, and I found a true educator, friend, support-system, and mensch… This person was Arlene Cole.
I met Arlene in the Fall of 2000. I was immediately taken by her encouraging and friendly personality. If my other wonderful professors were the bricks that adorn and unite the Orwig façade, Arlene was the foundation and mortar: always present, always ready to make sure things were going correctly in our lives and education, always challenging us. I have a visceral memory of that fall, 22 years ago, when my homesickness quickly shed being in a lovely New England city, and working with people like Arlene who made me feel that I had a new home in Providence.
Arlene was a master teacher of piano, theory, sight reading, dictation, rhythm, melody, harmony, and everything else one could possibly think of that music students would want from a Professor . She made each of our experiences a unique one, one that would cater to how we each learned. I had my own antics and humor and routine with Arlene, and I sensed it was mutual. She would deliberately trick my pitch and dictation abilities by saying: “The following dictation passage is in the key of E, as in Elgar” (she always used a composer’s name to clarify what letter key she gave us). This time, though, I thought the infallible Arlene made a mistake. She proceeded to play a piece in the key of B (“as in Bernstein”). I stopped her right then and there to complain, and she said: “I’m doing this specifically for you. I’m not letting you rely on your ear anymore to do dictation. You have to learn the intervals and note relations.” I got back a quiz that said: Aurally: A+, Enharmonically: F. Needless to say, she taught me to do it correctly, which advanced my career as an artist, educator, and writer.
I remember Arlene fondly especially at this time of year. She always loved us to do “projects” outside the music theory lab classes. We always had a big Halloween presentation. I remember writing a song one year with a pretty easy rhyme to guess: “Halloween with Arlene.” One year, I danced (yes, actually danced) to Michael Jackson’s, “Thriller.” Once I played a duet with a classmate – piano and classical guitar – a jazz arrangement of “Lacrimosa” (we hid the fact that we played it reading out of a book called “The Classical Fakebook”). What fun we had, and what a discovery I made: Arlene did not need to make classes which catered to everyone’s education and enjoyment to the extent she did, nor did she have to avail herself to her students as much as she did. She was always “on call” for a review session, or one-on-one help. Arlene once had to reschedule a review session we asked her to have with us… we found a time, and then hilariously, Arlene said, “Oh wait… that’s no good… that’s when SVU is on. But I can come in when it’s done.” I loved that honesty, humility, and personability of a teacher. I thought it was so cool. I thought the streak of purple in her hair was cool. I thought any teacher who had constant candy on her desk, and was constantly offering it, was cool. I thought tapping one foot in duple-meter, one foot in triple-meter, conducting with one hand, playing with the other, and singing in the tenor clef was absurd… but we all did it… and it was cool too. And she didn’t have to attend every musical I was music directing, but she did. She was that coolness that defines Brown.
When I became a teacher at Brown, Arlene and I would catch up on a regular basis. She loved meeting at Rue d’ Espoir. She helped me tremendously when I was putting together a curriculum/syllabus when I was asked to teach what was known as Music 40. She relieved me when she told me she writes in the note names on sheet music (if they were very high off the staff) if she missed it 3 or more times while playing. I do the same now. I emulate much of Arlene’s technique and what I received from her tutelage, 20 years later, and am happy to announce that I’ve done quite well, musically, because of her.
I don’t know what force of nature caused Arlene to move to the forefront of my mind and make me smile, fewer than 24 hours before I learned of her passing. I immediately went back to what had made me think of Arlene the day before: (Bach’s) 101 Chorales (see below). I somehow ended up with Arlene’s book, and I’m going to keep it, because there is no one I’d rather have an autograph of on this book than Arlene (Apologies to J.S. Bach). I glanced at the foreword. Walter Buszin who compiled and edited the Chorales said, “May the study and use of these chorales bring into the lives of many a better understanding of the Bach genius and spirit.” They did, Arlene (and Walter). But it was the Arlene Cole “genius and spirit” that I will never forget, and neither will my classmates, the Department, and Brown University as a whole. The school has lost a treasure. We will miss you.
Addendum:
I think it is of tremendous importance that something gets named for Arlene in Orwig, Steinert, the new concert hall, etc. I would personally spearhead the effort.
