Singing Along with the Choirs Invisible Now

[karlhenning]

He graduated cum laude from Rochester's Eastman School of Music in 1932, joined the CBS Orchestra in New York in 1935, and was one of the finest oboists of his time, with solo recordings of works by Bach and Mozart.

Mitch Miller dies at age 99.

RTWT here.

[Debated whether to open the topic here or in the Diner; ultimately I decided that anyone who could so sharply alienate Sinatra had the critical mass of taste needed to be kept out of The Diner] ; )

[kishnevi]

99?  To be honest, I had assumed he had joined the Celestial Orchestra years ago.

But he was, possibly, the musician who most influenced me ever.  When I was six years old, my mother purchased a cheap record player and one LP album:  Mitch Miller Conducts The 50 Greatest Composers.  (I may be wrong on the number and the exact title--this was over forty years ago.)  It went through the whole canon of "Great Composers" and had a very short excerpt or piece from each one, starting with Bach, and moving forward chronologically.  The only piece I remember explicitly to be on the record was Gounod's Funeral March of a Marionette, which was then popular due to its use by Alfred Hitchcock.
I played the record over and over, fascinated by the music.  So began my love of classical music.

Ave, Mr. Miller, and thank you for the gift you gave me without even knowing who I was.

[karlhenning]

Lovely story, thank you!

I just remember the occasional short stretch of TV . . . trailers for the show, perhaps.

[petrarch]

And I opened this thread thinking you were singing along Stockhausen's Unsichtbare Chöre...