Obituary
Evan Harlan, gifted accordionist, pianist, composer, teacher and music director, died at the age of 60 at home in the presence of his wife and brother on February 27, in Cambridge, MA, after a courageous battle with brain cancer. He was known for his enthusiasm for crack-of-dawn swims at Walden Pond, his relish for a real breakfast at the Deluxe Town Diner, his killer home-grown pesto, and the sweetness of his love for his wife of 30 years, Renée Caso.
Born and raised Mark Evan Harlan in Los Angeles, California, he honed his chops early on playing the party circuit in Los Angeles and went on to complete his classical piano training at UC Santa Barbara. He then completed his Master of Music at the New England Conservatory in “third stream” composition. He found his way back to his first instrument, the accordion, noting pragmatically that while there were countless brilliant pianists, the same could not be said of accordionists. His main squeeze was a honey-toned instrument he found in Castelfidardo, Italy.
His musical genius combined the rigor of his classical training and an irrepressible creative imagination and expressive reach. His own musical projects – the Evan Harlan Quintet, Excelsior, Klezperanto, Andromeda4, and Women in Love – broke the boundaries of Irish, klezmer, gypsy, jazz, rock, classical, tango, Americana and world music. He practiced radical surgery on Shostakovitch and Barber, transforming them with style and wit. As one person noted, his accordion could “swing hard like a bebop Hammond B-3 or coast on ambiguously voiced harmonies across a Buenos Aires dance floor.” The lyrical transcendence of his music shone in the tunes “Coco Eyes” and “Coach”, dedicated to his wife.
His fans had the luxury of seeing him at numerous Boston and New York jazz and night club venues in addition to the more intimate settings of private homes, churches, arts centers and even a Persian rug store, where his audience lounged about on mounds of carpets as his music transported them, as one said, ‘on metaphysical journeys to distant lands’.
He played nationally and internationally with several jazz and world music ensembles including Dave Douglas, the Klezmer Conservatory Band and the Von Trapp Singers. He performed with numerous Boston-based bands, among them Alma, Brasileirinho, the Claudio Ragazzi Band, John Stein and the Mili Bermejo Group. He produced six recordings of original music and played on the soundtracks of Sidney Lumet’s A Stranger Among Us and John Sayles’s Lone Star. He began his Boston composing career writing for the dance companies Zellsworth Dancers, DanceWorks and Dance Collective and went on to compose scores for film and theater, serving as musical director for Snow in June and Schlemeil the First at the American Repertory Theatre, and States of Grace and Einstein’s Dreams with Underground Railway Theatre.
A tall and confident presence, he was a life-long athlete, ever eager to hike, bike, swim and play pick-up volleyball. He was also a man of style: he owned one suit that he wore to gigs around the world including the Sydney Opera house, Krakow, Moscow, Munich, Jakarta, Seoul, Symphony Hall, and the Fleet Center in Boston, where he accompanied Luciano Pavoratti. He was observed, at least once, to have paired a tuxedo with Birkenstock sandals.
Enormously talented, the power of music flowed into him and through him like a determined river. He was a remarkable prism who bent the light with love and humility. Evan will be deeply missed by his wife, Renée Caso; his mother, Dale Taylor; his brother Paul and sister-in-law Valinda of Lakeland, FL, and their children Rebecca, Scott, Miranda and Jessica; his step-sister Allison Lawrence and her husband Mark of Charleston, SC; and two beloved cats. He is pre-deceased by his older brother, Steven Harlan. He is mourned by a host of friends, colleagues, students and fans.
A celebration of Evan’s life will be scheduled for May and posted on EvanHarlan.com. Gifts in memory of Evan may be sent to VNACare Network & Hospice, and to the following address at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute:
Adult Brain Tumor Research Fund
c/o Patrick Wen, MD
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
450 Brookline Ave.
Boston, MA 02215
Born and raised Mark Evan Harlan in Los Angeles, California, he honed his chops early on playing the party circuit in Los Angeles and went on to complete his classical piano training at UC Santa Barbara. He then completed his Master of Music at the New England Conservatory in “third stream” composition. He found his way back to his first instrument, the accordion, noting pragmatically that while there were countless brilliant pianists, the same could not be said of accordionists. His main squeeze was a honey-toned instrument he found in Castelfidardo, Italy.
His musical genius combined the rigor of his classical training and an irrepressible creative imagination and expressive reach. His own musical projects – the Evan Harlan Quintet, Excelsior, Klezperanto, Andromeda4, and Women in Love – broke the boundaries of Irish, klezmer, gypsy, jazz, rock, classical, tango, Americana and world music. He practiced radical surgery on Shostakovitch and Barber, transforming them with style and wit. As one person noted, his accordion could “swing hard like a bebop Hammond B-3 or coast on ambiguously voiced harmonies across a Buenos Aires dance floor.” The lyrical transcendence of his music shone in the tunes “Coco Eyes” and “Coach”, dedicated to his wife.
His fans had the luxury of seeing him at numerous Boston and New York jazz and night club venues in addition to the more intimate settings of private homes, churches, arts centers and even a Persian rug store, where his audience lounged about on mounds of carpets as his music transported them, as one said, ‘on metaphysical journeys to distant lands’.
He played nationally and internationally with several jazz and world music ensembles including Dave Douglas, the Klezmer Conservatory Band and the Von Trapp Singers. He performed with numerous Boston-based bands, among them Alma, Brasileirinho, the Claudio Ragazzi Band, John Stein and the Mili Bermejo Group. He produced six recordings of original music and played on the soundtracks of Sidney Lumet’s A Stranger Among Us and John Sayles’s Lone Star. He began his Boston composing career writing for the dance companies Zellsworth Dancers, DanceWorks and Dance Collective and went on to compose scores for film and theater, serving as musical director for Snow in June and Schlemeil the First at the American Repertory Theatre, and States of Grace and Einstein’s Dreams with Underground Railway Theatre.
A tall and confident presence, he was a life-long athlete, ever eager to hike, bike, swim and play pick-up volleyball. He was also a man of style: he owned one suit that he wore to gigs around the world including the Sydney Opera house, Krakow, Moscow, Munich, Jakarta, Seoul, Symphony Hall, and the Fleet Center in Boston, where he accompanied Luciano Pavoratti. He was observed, at least once, to have paired a tuxedo with Birkenstock sandals.
Enormously talented, the power of music flowed into him and through him like a determined river. He was a remarkable prism who bent the light with love and humility. Evan will be deeply missed by his wife, Renée Caso; his mother, Dale Taylor; his brother Paul and sister-in-law Valinda of Lakeland, FL, and their children Rebecca, Scott, Miranda and Jessica; his step-sister Allison Lawrence and her husband Mark of Charleston, SC; and two beloved cats. He is pre-deceased by his older brother, Steven Harlan. He is mourned by a host of friends, colleagues, students and fans.
A celebration of Evan’s life will be scheduled for May and posted on EvanHarlan.com. Gifts in memory of Evan may be sent to VNACare Network & Hospice, and to the following address at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute:
Adult Brain Tumor Research Fund
c/o Patrick Wen, MD
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
450 Brookline Ave.
Boston, MA 02215