JOHN LANGSTAFF
1920-2005
On December 13,
2005, the Revels community was saddened to learn of the death
of its founder, John Meredith Langstaff. He was born in 1920,
appropriately enough on Christmas Eve, and died shortly before
his 85th birthday, just as the 35th anniversary production of
The Christmas Revels was about to open in Sanders Theatre, Cambridge,
Massachusetts.
As a young boy growing
up in Brooklyn Heights, New York, his childhood was filled with
music. His parents and friends would often hold impromptu performances
of Gilbert and Sullivan and sing Bach chorales, madrigals and
Christmas carols together. At eight years of age, he entered
the Grace Church Choir School in New York City where he was a
boy soprano soloist until his voice changed. He later studied
at Philadelphiaís
acclaimed Curtis Institute of Music and at the Juilliard School
in New York.
After college,
Langstaff, a baritone, embarked in a successful concert career
both in the United States and abroad. He developed
a particularly deep appreciation of traditional music after
attending a concert by Douglas Kennedy, then director of
the English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS). This was
the material Langstaff
focused on when he began making recordings for EMI and
HMV in England.
John Langstaff
had a long and illustrious career in music education. As
head of music at the Potomac School in Virginia for thirteen
years and at the Shady Hill School in Cambridge, MA, for
six, he enriched the lives of thousands of children.
While teaching, he continued to record in Europe on HMV with
producer George Martin, who also produced the Beatles' recordings.
For five years, he hosted the popular "Making Music" program
on BBC-TV in London and was the moderator of an NBC-TV Saturday
morning childrenís program,
"Children Explore Books." A former artistic director
for Young Audiences of Massachusetts, Langstaff was also an
award-winning children's author whose twenty-five books include
the traditional children's tale, Frog Went a-Courtin', winner
of the Caldecott Medal, St. George and the Dragon, illustrated
by David Gentleman, and two collections of African-American
spirituals with Ashley Bryan and John Andrew Ross, one of which
was a notable Coretta Scott King honor book. Langstaff also
produced "Making
Music with John Langstaff," a six-set video series designed
to show parents, teachers and others who work with children
how to involve them in making and appreciating music.
On December 29,
1957, in New York's Town Hall, Langstaff presented the first production
of The Christmas Revels. His unique theatrical concept incorporated
traditional medieval music, dance, and drama into a communal performance
where the whole audience was involved, singing--and even dancing--with
the cast. That early production was critically successful but
not financially. Undaunted, several weeks later, in Washington,
D.C., he sold out all 1500 seats in Lisner Auditorium. Nine years
later, while hosting a program on NBC, Langstaff wrote and hosted
an NBC-TV Hallmark Hall of Fame Christmas Eve special, "A
Christmas Masque," which contained all the elements of his
earlier Christmas Revels. A number of soon-to-be famous actors
appeared in that production, including a young Dustin Hoffman
who played a key part in Langstaff's version of "St. George
and the Dragon"!
In 1971, with the
aid of his daughter Carol, Langstaff presented the first performance
of the Christmas Revels at Sanders Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts,
and The Christmas Revels has been staged there every year since.
And Revels has grown, producing an annual Spring Revels, several
songbooks, teachers manuals and a choral series. In 1978, Langstaff
started Revels Records and has since produced 18 recordings of
traditional children's music, folk and gospel recordings, and
a growing library of seasonal recordings celebrating the winter
solstice, spring and summer, the harvest and the sea.
While Revels began
with just two performances in Cambridge in 1971, this year Langstaff's
Christmas Revels will be performed in 9 locations across the
country: Cambridge, MA; New York, NY; Houston, TX; Oakland, CA;
Portland, OR; Washington, DC; Hanover, NH; Tacoma, WA; and Boulder,
Colorado.
Throughout his
adult life, John "Jack" Langstaff shared his
profound love and knowledge of music with audiences both young
and old. As the phenomenon of Revels continues to grow, so does
the legacy he leaves behind. Revels is based on Langstaff's philosophy
that celebration unites people, no matter how diverse they are.
In an age of technology and progressive alienation, Langstaff
appreciated the need for connectedness, to each other and to
the ancient rituals of our ancestors, rituals that, quite magically,
retain their meaning to this day. In creating the Revels, Langstaff
also realized the importance of participation, particularly in
music. In his words, "Revels extends its open arms,"
and this explicit invitation is the key to the involvement Revels
continues to elicit from audiences of all ages.
