The Great Neck Choral Society
Performing musical masterpieces for Long Island audiences for more than 50 years
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PROFILE Claude Springer: |
Claude Springer grew up loving classical music, and as a boy he studied both violin and piano. But he never sang in a chorus.
Then, in 1966, a 37-year-old dentist who liked to bowl, he developed a bad back. He quit bowling and decided to join the Great Neck Choral Society. As he recalls,
bass Bob Serating (since deceased) asked him whether he sang tenor or bass. Claude said he didn't know, whereupon he was told, "You’re a tenor," tenors
being in short supply from time immemorial. Claude's tenor career lasted half of one rehearsal, and he has been a bass for the last 39 years.
"The start was tough," he recalls. The first piece he had to learn was Poulenc's Gloria. The notes, he says, were not as predictable as in Bach or Mozart.
"I’ve never been a great sight-reader," he says. "I rely mostly on perspiration, not talent." He persevered and, a natural leader, served as president of GNCS for four years in the mid-1970s.
Many years later, after retirement, Claude’s artistic bent led him in an entirely new direction. He enrolled in a poetry workshop at the Adult Education Center,
and, he says, "I fell in love with it." For the last 10-12 years, Claude has been turning out poems at an average rate of more than one a week. "I usually write
quickly," he says, "but the editing and rewriting can be endless." He finds his topics in the things and events of everyday life--"writing poetry makes me
look at things differently," he says. His observations are thoughtful, and his style is simple. To date, 160 of his poems have been published in the Great Neck Record. Click here to see five recent poems.
His appreciation of the arts is not confined to the sound of music and words. The walls of his apartment in Kensington are covered with paintings
and prints--good ones--that he and his wife, Marcia, have collected for nearly 50 years.
A lucky escape from the Nazis
Claude’s interest in music came naturally: his mother was an accomplished pianist. But we would never have seen Claude, as tenor or bass, were it not for the determination of his father, a dentist, who was both lucky and clever. The Springers, German Jews, were living in Wiesbaden, Germany during the early 1930s when Nazi strictures on Jews were becoming more and more intense. The Springers decided to leave for the U.S., and they succeeded in 1938 because Claude’s father had been fortunate enough to be born in Alsace-Lorraine, then under French administration, and so he could emigrate as part of the French quota under U.S. law. Jewish emigrants were not allowed to take any money out. But Claude's father concealed a large supply of gold dental foil in the stems of two brass floor lamps. When the family settled in Washington Heights, the foil supported them for two years while Claude's father pursued the dental degree he would need to practice in the U.S.
Though he arrived speaking only German, Claude says, he was speaking English easily within a couple of months. After attending Bronx High School of Science,
he entered the pre-dental program at New York University. There, in a sophomore chemical laboratory class, he met Marcia Schwimmer, his wife-to-be.
Four years later, while he was attending dental school at the University of Pennsylvania, they married, and Marcia parlayed her chemistry degree into jobs at
local drug companies and a cancer institute.
Upon graduation, with the Korean War still underway, he entered the Army as a 1st Lieutenant, soon to becomc a Captain. Given his choice of several posts, he
picked a small town in Germany called Baumholder--home to 5,000 residents and 15,000 U.S. troops. The food, the sounds, and of course the language were
all reminiscent of his childhood, which, despite the Nazis, had been a pleasant one. But he worked with German dentists hired by the U.S. Army, and he could not help wondering, he says,
"which of these guys had been Nazis."
A dental career, then a busy retirement
When he left the Army, Claude cast about for the right opportunity to establish a dental practice. He paid $18,000 for a house at the
intersection of Horace Harding and Little Neck Parkway, and constructed a dental office on the first floor. The Springers, now with two young boys, lived upstairs
for five years before moving to a house on Polo Rd. where they lived for the next 40 years. That was the year that Claude joined the chorus.
And a few years later the Springers added two adopted daughters to the family.
Writing poetry and singing in GNCS have not been enough to fill out the days of retirement. Before he retired Claude had served four years as president of
Temple Isaiah, and he continues to be active there. For about a decade he worked with Public Access TV--as a cameraman, director, stage manager, interviewer,
and writer. Once a month he devotes a full day to teaching a defensive driving course for the AARP. For 15 years he has been working out in a gym with a personal trainer. He and Marcia participate in Elderhostel programs. And twice a week they play bridge.
With all the variety in his life, singing with GNCS remains one of his most important pursuits. "Thirty-nine years," he says, "speaks for itself."
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