WHAT MADE ME LOVE MUSIC: STEVE GLADSTONE, ACTOR

ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

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The music that first made me love music came in a variety pack.

My earliest memories of the music wafting through the living-room included my father’s big band collection, most notably the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, in particular, “Song of India” and “Marie.” My mother’s playlist included Nat King Cole, Judy Garland and Tito Puente. I also wore out her LP of Oscar Levant playing Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue.”

Our low-fi Zenith and RCA record player consoles were constantly in use. On my stack of 45s, I first recall Elvis’s version of “Hound Dog”, and “Red Rubber Ball” by The Cyrkle.

My gateway musical was “Carousel,” prompting my lifelong love affair with musical theatre, consuming everything Rodgers and Hammerstein, Lerner and Loewe and Stephen Sondheim produced.

I was a little slow picking up on the British Invasion, and I began to cotton to opera in college.

Music! Such a language!

Steve Gladstone, actor, writer, a.k.a “The Blind Dude”

http://www.insightfortheblind.org

Published by ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

Rafael de Acha has enjoyed a distinguished career in the arts as a performer, stage director, producer, and educator. He was born and grew up in Cuba. At the age of 17 he moved to the United States to study Drama at the University of Minnesota, and later Languages at L.A. City College, Music at the Juilliard School of Music, at the University of Cincinnati’s College Conservatory of Music, and at the New England Conservatory of Music, from which he received the Master's degree. He has taught courses on the History of Music at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music and at Florida International University, and contributed writings and reviews to Seen and Heard International (www.seenandheard-international.com ) and to this blog. He co-founded the award-winning New Theatre in Coral Gables, Florida, where he produced and staged twenty seasons of classical and contemporary theater, including fifty world premieres of plays that went on to have international and national productions on and off Broadway, including Ana in the Tropics by Nilo Cruz (Pulitzer Prize for Drama 2002 and Tony Nomination 2003.) In 2006 he was presented with a citation from The Dade County Cultural Affairs Council for “trailblazing contributions to the arts in South Florida.”