August 10, 2006 Issue                                       

©2006 The Chestnut Hill Local

Area pianist writing musical to memorialize Hill opera singer
by LEN LEAR

Jonathan Miles Freeman, a Mt. Airy native and graduate of the famed Juilliard School of Music who now lives in Glenside, performed last Sunday to celebrate the dedication of the Yamaha Clavinova at the Whitemarsh Parks and Recreation Building.

A local prize-winning classical pianist who performed in an area concert last weekend has a goal in life that many would find admirable but quixotic — to bring acclaim and widespread recognition to a deceased friend. Jonathan Miles Freeman, 54, who grew up in Mt. Airy and now lives in Glenside, both performs and teaches private piano students, some who have been Chestnut Hill residents. He also recorded numerous CDs.

Freeman has both Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in piano from the Juilliard School of Music in New York, the “Harvard of music schools,” where he studied under consecutive scholarships with famed pianists Sascha Gorodnitzi and Ilona Kabos. At Juilliard he was the recipient of the Carl M. Roeder Memorial Prize in Piano and of the Baldwin Keyboard Search.

Jonathan had previously studied in Philadelphia with the highly acclaimed Eleanor Sokoloff and Susan Starr via the Alexander Hilsberg Memorial Scholarship. Freeman appeared with The Philadelphia Orchestra at the Academy of Music and Robin Hood Dell. At that time he also won a Philadelphia Orchestra composition contest.

Classical music critic Donal Henahan once wrote in the New York Times about a Freeman performance in New York’s Carnegie Hall, “Mr. Freeman can throw off Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue with a kind of old-fashioned virtuosity that is absolutely astonishing. The Gershwin piece was ... not only grippingly brilliant but also full of swaggering life.”

And critic James Felton wrote in the Philadelphia Bulletin in 1972 about Freeman’s debut recital in the Academy of Music, “One was fascinated most of all with his ability to spin a melody as if he created it as he went along ... He is a virtuoso but a warm-hearted one. He has all the stuff of a big league pianist backed by a technique that is formidable and a warmth of expression to go with it.”

Last Sunday afternoon, Freeman played George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and many other pieces in a concert at the Whitemarsh Parks and Recreation Building to celebrate the dedication of a Yamaha Clavinova presented by Whitemarsh resident Janice Swan. Freeman was accompanied by violinist Jack Rappaport, who played a violin hand-made by noted Chestnut Hill violin maker Harold Golden.

But Freeman, whose cousin, the late Richard Bryman, was the husband of Chestnut Hill carpet maven Diane Bryman, is currently engaged in his most passionate music project. For many months he has been writing a Broadway-style musical about Judy Swan, a Lafayette Hill resident who was a brilliant singer of both opera and pop standards but who never achieved widespread public recognition.

Swan, who died in 1997 at the age of 47, had been married and divorced. She had one son, now 26, who suffers from Down Syndrome and epilepsy. Judy graduated from Archbishop Kennedy High School, the now-defunct Combs School of Music in Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Musical Academy, which later became the Philadelphia College of the Performing Arts. She studied voice with Eleanor Steber, who had sung with the Metropolitan Opera Company.

Swan often sang at local venues, accompanied by Freeman. “Her talent was incandescent,” exclaimed Freeman. “She taught herself to play the violin, guitar and piano; she had a very high IQ and was a wonderful human being as well as a great talent. We were good friends. She had a huge range, like Eileen Farrell, and was often compared to Risë Stevens. I expect to finish the musical I’m writing in about a year, and I hope that it will help Judy to achieve the widespread recognition she richly deserved.”

For more information, contact Local Life editor Len Lear at lenlear@chestnuthilllocal.com