YMF, LEWIS --STEPPING ‘UP LADDERS’

During his growing-up days in Los Angeles in the ‘40s, Henry Lewis was absorbed in music. “I’ve been soaking up stuff since I was 12,” he recalls.

As his abilities developed, so too did an unstoppable self-confidence. His faith in himself, he claims, “was one of my gifts. I wasn’t concerned with my being black or being the first at this or that. Nothing served me except if it moved me one more step up the ladder.”

Lewis’ determination--and budding talent--would soon catch the attention of Sylvia Kunin, founder of the Young Musicians Foundation. It was Kunin who would provide Lewis with his biggest “step up the ladder.”

When the YMF celebrates its 30th anniversary with a season-opening concert at Royce Hall tonight, Lewis will be on the podium. Edward Auer, another successful product of those early years, will be piano soloist.

Now 53, Lewis speaks warmly of the early spirit at the YMF: “They somehow drew musicians with special qualities. Look at their track record: Shirley Verrett, Misha Dichter, Horacio Gutierrez, Christopher Parkening, Michael Tilson Thomas, Lawrence Foster. Tons of people.

“In those early years, almost everybody succeeded. Sylvia was always interested in finding someone who had something special to say.”

At age 17, more than five years before YMF was formally established, Lewis came under Kunin’s guidance. The two, he says, “just got to know each other. She needed someone to lead the back-up orchestra on her television show, ‘Debut.’ And I was not quiet about wanting to conduct.”

It was, he notes, the beginning of a 10-year relationship with Kunin and the YMF. He would serve as the Debut Orchestra’s conductor and as an advisor to YMF during that period. The relationship with Kunin was also a first and significant step in his career, Lewis says.

As a senior in high school, he had already studied with Ingolf Dahl at USC, so baton technique was not a problem. But to be able to conduct for Kunin provided Lewis with the greatest teacher of all: experience. “That experience,” he stresses, “was no small thing.

“I had always wanted to be a conductor,” he recalls. “Back then, I was a double-bass player. I played in every orchestra in the city. I always tried to be very visible, not just one of the crowd.

“I wanted to get into the Philharmonic, but they wouldn’t even let me audition,” Lewis says. He was only 16 at the time. Undaunted, he rented out the Wilshire Ebell Theatre and gave a double-bass recital.

Lewis interjects a footnote to that Ebell concert: “A young kid visited me afterwards--he came up to my waist. He was a double-bass player, too. ‘One day,’ he told me, ‘I’m going to give recitals like you just did.’ ” The youngster was Gary Karr, soon to become an international star on the double-bass.

Soon after that recital, Lewis got his audition. Alfred Wallenstein, then music director of the orchestra, heard him and hired him.

Even with Wallenstein’s blessings, Lewis continues, his problems weren’t over. “The musician unions in this town were still segregated back then. The Philharmonic belonged to the white union.” Eventually, a special deal was made and Lewis was in.

Once a member of the orchestra, the young would-be conductor spent his time looking at more than the music. “Every week, a new conductor would lead us--Monteux, Markevitch, Beecham. I kept my mouth shut, and learned.”

Lewis notes that, after the Philharmonic and YMF posts, the “next biggest thing” was his stint as conductor of the Seventh Army Symphony in 1953-54. Here, the YMF served as “one more step up the ladder”: With the Army orchestra, Lewis “conducted every day for 18 months. That job put me in front of a lot of people, and I wouldn’t have gotten it without that YMF experience.”

While leading the army orchestra in Amsterdam, Lewis came to the attention of conductor Eduard van Beinum. In 1956, Van Beinum became music director of the Philharmonic. “I wasn’t going to return to the orchestra (after the stint in the army),” Lewis says. “But I came back because of Van Beinum, and worked with him privately. He gave me the opportunity to conduct the Philharmonic.”

As Lewis, now a resident of New York, remembers, “The podium was a long way away for a little black kid growing up in Los Angeles.”