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Issue: Vol 2, No 4, Summer 2003
More than just the "Piano man"
Tedrin Blair Lindsay's piano arrangement of a well known Andrew Lloyd Weber song, which opened act two of It's a Grand Night for Singing,
was truly "Music of the Night." So, too, were the various medleys of show tunes he arranged for this popular annual
Lexington musical event presented by UK Opera Theatre. The Singletary Center stage is a far cry from his days providing
music for his father's church services in a small Protestant church near the Vatican in Rome. Oh yes, and he was ten years
old at the time! That's an interesting beginning for a musician so obviously at home with chic Broadway tunes.
Lindsay was born in Lexington but spent his childhood in Italy, the son of missionaries who encouraged his talents in
music and languages (he is fluent in Italian and French). He returned to Asbury College for his undergraduate education,
after completing a Licentiate in piano performance at the Royal Schools of Music in London, England. He was the first
M.A. graduate (summa cum laude) of the new Institute of Performing Arts at Regent University in Virginia, with a double
emphasis in music and communications. While still in graduate school, he worked as an intern for the off–Broadway group,
Lamb's Theatre Company, on national tours of the new opera Gifts of the Magi (by Randy Courts and Mark St. Germain),
based on two of O'Henry's best–known Christmas stories. After graduation, he moved to the Northeast where he spent several
seasons working with various production companies including Bel Canto Opera, Golden Fleece Opera, Westchester Opera,
and Rockwell Productions. He also appeared in several stage plays and films, most notably in the operatic fantasy Luna
by Italian filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci; in his favorite scene, he sang "Happy Birthday" to the actor Matthew Barry,
who played the son of the operatic heroine.
Returning to Lexington in the mid–1990s, Lindsay served as Artistic Director for Lexington Musical Theatre, working with
director–choreographer Billy Breed on productions of Cabaret and Gifts of the Magi. As Music Director for
Actors' Guild of Lexington, he wrote and performed an elaborate musical score for their production of Angels in America:
Perestroika, and won a coveted "Smitty Award" (the Ray Smith Award for Excellence in Theatre) in 1995 for his direction
of AGL's Falsettos.
By the late 1990s, Lindsay had decided that he preferred collaborative work to a solo career, which he found "too isolating";
he commented, "I love the stimulus of language provided by vocal music, particularly by opera". He began working regularly
with UK Opera Theatre, serving as performance pianist/conductor and/or chorus master for The Tender Land (Copland)
and La Bohème (Puccini) in 1999, Amahl and the Night Visitors (Menotti) in 2000 and 2002, and A Little
Night Music (Sondheim) in 2002. In the Spring of 2003, Lindsay was Music Director and performance pianist for A
Streetcar Named Desire (Previn). This complex and surprising score required an intense 3–hour performance at the
keyboard in the new theatre at the Lexington's Downtown Arts Center, a task Lindsay accomplished with considerable panache.
Linday's most recent appearance with the UK Opera Theatre was with the 11th annual performance of It's a Grand Night
for Singing, perhaps the most popular of UKOT's productions each season. This is his fourth appearance as assistant
Musical Director and performance pianist with this show. He has a very full schedule as a professional accompanist for
student and faculty recitals, concerts, and other vocal music performances at UK, at Morehead University, Central
Christian Church, and other venues.
By his own count, Tedrin has given 53 performances in less than four months so far in 2003, and as he says "the year is
by no means over!" But to hear Tedrin play is to sense immediately how deeply he loves music and performance. Music is
quite literally his life's work. He says, "I love to wake up in the morning and think, 'What I have to do today is to
make music.'" But in his view, the true artist must be humble before his art: he recalls the words of the Austrian pianist
(and concentration camp survivor) Lili Kraus: "If you go out onto the stage thinking 'Here I am! Notice what I can do!',
you have already defeated the possibility of giving a moving performance." And he says, "I always think before walking
out on stage, this music is greater than I am able to perform it. Please forgive me."
Lindsay is currently a PhD candidate in the UK School of Music's program of musicology. The topic of his thesis is the
development of American opera at New York City Opera, under the direction of Julius Rudel, and he is keenly interested
in the many directions this venerable Old World art form is taking in the New World. He has taught numerous courses in
music and communications at UK and Lexington Community College, and enjoys putting his extensive musicological expertise at
the service of performance collaborations. This summer Lindsay will again accompany the American Spiritual Ensemble on its
annual concert tour in Spain. He says of this group, "It is absolutely my favorite gig, because of the incredible energy of
the singers and the director, UK Vocal Music Professor (and also UKOT's director) Everett McCorvey."
The gifted pianist does have room in his life for a few other things, however – he is a long–distance runner, an expert
baker of unusual (and delicious!) desserts, and, in his own words, "a formidable foe in the card games Canasta, Hearts,
and Spades".
Tedrin may have cut his teeth on "Onward Christian Soldiers" and other standard hymns, but he's come a long way musically
(as well as literally) from those early days. Lexington is lucky to have him here, and long may his musical odyssey continue!
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