When the patients and staff at Payne Whitney Westchester file into the on-campus auditorium in White Plains Dec. 10, their seats will come with a pencil.
After listening to Jeremy Stone perform, everyone”™s a critic.
The ratings on liking or disliking Stone”™s performance of a Chopin waltz, a Joplin rag or a Lloyd Weber showstopper run the gamut from “loved it” to “hated it.” Works by those three composers and five more also face deeper scrutiny and the pencil-wielding audience is asked what feelings, say, Scott Joplin”™s “Maple Leaf Rag” evokes: happiness, anger, calm, sadness, agitation, fun, love, wistfulness or the catchall “other” box, which leaves the door open to feelings like nausea (unlikely) and street-cred righteousness (hey, you never know).
“Looking back, which piece or pieces did you enjoy the most?” concertgoers will be asked, and there”™s ample space for a full paragraph to respond. “Why?” follows with an equal amount of space for either a stinging call for Stone”™s early retirement (most unlikely) or high praise for a man at least some in the audience will know as their doctor (that”™s more like it).
“I especially enjoy the comments outside the checkmarks,” Stone said. “The main thing that surprised me was the variety of responses; they were surprisingly varied.”
The coming “Music and Moods” piano concert is his fourth. It is presented by the Healing Arts Committee, Payne Whitney Westchester. But Stonee also tickles the ivories regularly for friends and neighbors at home on his 102-year-old, 7-foot Steinway grand. He also wants to take the “Music and Moods” series to a broader audience. “I would love to do this a little more frequently in places beyond the hospital,” he said.
Jeremy Stone wrote commercial jingles from 1980 to 1992, his musical strains urging you into Olive Garden, or to chew Trident sugarless gum or to quench your thirst with Kool-Aid. “All the world loves M&Ms,” he rhapsodized.
Stone also played in the orchestra pit for “Phantom of the Opera,” of note because Stone had clashed professionally with “Phantom” composer Andrew Lloyd Weber years earlier (won the battle; lost the war). His piano work is available on YouTube owing to a piano competition he entered and lost. (The sheer athleticism of his Moszkowski opus is worth clicking in for. A tin-ear can tell the doc”™s got marquee talent, even if he didn”™t win.)
Stone is director of Dialectical Behavior Therapy for Self-Injuring Teens ”“ the Adolescent DBT Program ”“ at New York Presbyterian Psychiatry, a force on the parklike White Plains Campus, along with Weil Medical College, Cornell University and New York Presbyterian Hospital, all of which appear on Stone”™s business card in a medical galaxy around his name and listed profession: “assistant professor of psychology in psychiatry.”
Stone sees about 12 patients through the outpatient clinic of New York Presbyterian Hospital. For self-injurious teens, Stone said, behavior such as cutting is “a way of coping, like alcohol consumption.” He termed it “a manifestation of emotional dysregulation.”
Stone earned his undergraduate degree at Yale ”“ music theory and pre-med studies ”“ in 1971. He earned his psychology Ph.D. in 1999 from N.Y.U., though much of his clinical work was conducted uptown at Columbia University. Â
He had planned on going to medical school after Yale, but stayed with music instead. From 1975 to 1980 he was musical director for “Grease” on Broadway. He rearranged “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” for the 1982 David Cassidy production ”“ a big hit ”“ winning the day over composer Andrew Lloyd Weber, who had wanted his original score left intact. The show ran with the Stone arrangement, but has since reverted to the original for all performances.
Stone was later a pit musician for “Pippin,” “Aspects of Love” and “Phantom.”
Stone is married to Susan Appleton Stone. They have a son, Seth, a recent Ithaca College graduate whose degree in music and a minor in psychology may say something about apples not falling too far from trees. (Or, recalling some historic mental health schisms, maybe not.) Their daughter Jamie is studying writing at Vassar; her father said she is very good. The couple lives in Briarcliff Manor.
Seth and Jeremy Stone collaborated in the orchestra pit for the Briarcliff High School production of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Weber four years ago. It was then that Stone realized Lloyd Weber had not completely erased Stone”™s contributions to the show ”“ a catchy Egyptian flourish that was not part of the original score that Stone had inserted remained. “I pointed it out to my son,” he said. “That was a neat moment. It was quite a thrill to sit at side-by-side keyboards with my son playing this particular show.” Â
Those interested in arranging a “Music and Moods” performance can call 997-4347. To watch the YouTube video of Stone, type in “Jeremy Stone piano” at the popular video site.
