Music2Win -
[Cached Version]
Published on: 2/19/2002
Last Visited: 4/18/2007
"The music is the base," said Alex Goldstein."It goes first."
It is Goldstein, working in his New Jersey basement studio barely five miles from Hughes' Hackensack, N.J., training rink, who spliced together chunks of "Ave Maria" by Gounod for Hughes' short program tonight, as well as Ravel's "Daphnis and Chloe," which will be played Thursday night for her long program.He re-edited the Ravel piece just weeks ago, to juice up the ending's speed and dramatic effect.
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Goldstein, 53, brings years of experience to this project.A graduate of the Moscow Conservatory of Music, he had been writing movie scores in his native Russia when a screenwriter he knew informed him that a top ice-dancing coach in the then-Soviet Union was looking for a music cutter."I started," he said, "at the top level.It happened that I was the first real professional musician in the field."
He became instantly known in the skating profession, preparing music for top Soviet athletes, giving seminars for coaches, eventually being named the USSR's honorary coach of figure skaters."But," he said, smiling, "I never took skates to my feet."
His father had been a French horn soloist in the Bolshoi Theatre's orchestra, and once played with the New York Philharmonic when it traveled to Moscow.But for Goldstein, being a Jew had its glass ceilings in his homeland.He had watched his father repeatedly lose jobs and end up working as a freelance musician.To get work on TV or radio was so tough that he tried taking on a "nickname," Goldstein said.He called himself Alexander Borisov-using his father's second name for his surname-"but when I heard my nickname, I didn't like it.I did that just once."He couldn't bring himself to do it again.
Because of personal connections, he was able to find work in the movie industry.
His growing prominence in the skating community brought him assignments with the Soviet teams in Summer Olympic sports, gymnastics and synchronized swimming, and Goldstein began to travel to championship competitions.But, he said, "My life with the teams was not so pleasant.Russian coaches were very jealous, and if I did something good for one, I'm the enemy of the other."
A decade ago he was able to immigrate to the United States, just as the Soviet Union began to crumble, stayed with friends in Jackson Heights and, "from zero," restarted his career.He worked in Russian- language radio and TV in New York City, everything from talk shows about opera to writing background music for videos.As former Soviet coaches began to resettle in America, since the government support for their sports had dried up, they rediscovered Goldstein on this side of the Atlantic.
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"I think, yes," Goldstein said.