BIOGRAPHY
Marshall Yaeger grew up in Minneapolis, and graduated from the University of California-Berkeley with a major in theatre arts. He also attended UC-Los Angeles and UC-Santa Barbara, where he was a tutorial student of Aldous Huxley. He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Mensa, and (as a great-grandson of Raphael Oreckovsky) the Oreck Foundation (as is his second-cousin, of vacuum-cleaner fame, David Oreck).
AUTHOR & VIDEO ARTISTAs a fiction writer, Marshall Yaeger has had stories and poems published in various literary magazines and publications.
He is also the author of Microplays, Volumes I & II (short plays that were used as texts in acting classes throughout the United States), and Harmonic Mandala.
In 2000, he co-authored and edited Virgil Fox (The Dish), the definitive biography of the most successful organist in history, about which The American Organist wrote, "a fascinating..., outstanding, and definitive portrait of a master artist and his circle."
Another reviewer wrote, "I doubt that biographer Doris Kearns Goodwin or historian David McCullough would have produced a work as touching or as provocative.... This book is a great read, and I recommend it highly -- simply reading the Table of Contents tells you that you are in for a great ride."
The first two editions of "The Dish" sold several thousand copies. The third "Special Edition," released in 2004 at a Barnes & Noble (Lincoln Center) book signing, included a DVD with music and animated video artwork, which Marshall Yaeger also created. As one reviewer wrote, about his visuals:
"The video mandalas are delicious, simultaneously visceral, tactile, radiant, an eclectic gyrating satellite of sound and sight in a rhythm that catapults us ever forward. This fourth dimension, an interactive experience, is a domain of sonic, visual and spatial shapes, panoramic visions that bloom and dance like sparkling brisés, a cascading sonic cloisonné. This deep and powerful wash of seductive sound, as well as its captivating Yaeger canvas, stimulates our neuronal system with its high-impact visuals, a soul-searching, stunning recording that thrills from beginning to end, a must!"
Since 2003, Marshall Yaeger has created visuals for seven DVDs (comprised of more than 80 individual works) based on artwork created by the Kaleidoplex Digital Light Organ (which he invented). The CD/DVD albums available from SEEmusicDVD for which Marshall Yaeger has created video art so far include: "Sonic Bloom," "Virgil Fox - The Bach Gamut, Volume I," "Heavy Organ," "Virgil Fox Plays the Wanamaker Grand Court Organ," "Mars & Venus" (visual available only on the Internet), "Virgil Fox - The Bach Gamut, Volume II," and "Pictures at an Exhibition." Downloads and viewings of the visuals are available at www.VirtualPerformances.com. Visuals accompanying works by Hector Olivera (in his "Schedule") are also available on the Internet.
The year following publication of "The Dish," Marshall Yaeger wrote Acting Well, and later published a subsequent edition (with contributions by Dr. William Rodman Shankle) called Acting Well to Age Well. One noted cardiologist claimed that this revolutionary preventive health program, based on acting techniques that were taught by Konstantin Stanislavski, "....could be the magic bullet that doctors can prescribe for effective behavior modification."
Marshall Yaeger has made two video documentaries: "Acting Well: The Magic Bullet," starring Roy Scheider; and "Documentary," about the making of the DVD "Pictures at an Exhibition," starring Cameron Carpenter.
In 2003, as "Mark Hunter," Marshall Yaeger was the Editor of The Hampton Sheet. He began to write daily blogs in October of that year, and has since written more than 200,000 words, which are available at www.w8mgt.blogspot.com.
PLAYWRIGHT & CRITIC
Marshall Yaeger studied acting with (among others) Herbert Berghof, Steven Strimpell, William Hickey, Alice Spivak, Aaron Frankel, and Lee Strasberg. He has directed his own work in New York at the Assembly Theatre and the French Cultural Embassy.
He has acted onstage with Stacy Keach, Maureen Stapleton, and Walter Matthau; has written scripts and speeches performed by Christine Lahti (in her professional acting debut), Katherine Harrold, Faye Dunaway, Joan Rivers, Elizabeth Taylor, Austin Pendleton, Gary Merrill, Lois Smith, and Greer Garson; co-produced the original New York off-Broadway production of Umabatha: The Zulu MacBeth (which returned to New York in July, 1997 at Lincoln Center); and wrote more than 100 reviews for OOBR, the Off-Off-Broadway Review, a theatrical journal that was the subject of a featured theatre news article in the June 20, 1997 edition of The New York Times.
His reviews have appeared regularly on this website and on the OOBR Internet website at: http://www.oobr.com/
Click here for a complete list of reviews on this website.
More than a dozen of his plays were produced at the Actors Studio, the Lee Strasberg Institute, the French Embassy in New York (his own translation of Phaedra), the Ensemble Studio Theatre, the Assembly Theatre, the University of California, Performing Arts of Woodstock, and the HB Playwrights Foundation (a reading with Gary Merrill; "Sue Drinkwater Thinks So Too!" directed by Uta Hagen, starring Christine Lahti in her first professional acting role; "Across the Lake," directed by Herbert Berghof; and a full-length evening of one-acts called Happiness Is No Laughing Matter!).
In 1972, Marshall Yaeger was invited to participate in CBS's Writer Development Program; and in the following year, during a Writer's Guild of America strike, he was appointed Head Writer of CBS's The Secret Storm.
His play Pavilion, which was written while he was a member of the Playwrights Unit at the Actors Studio, was produced off-Broadway at the Provincetown Playhouse by Xander Productions. The Bishop's Head received three productions in New York: at The Assembly Theatre, the Ensemble Studio Theatre, and the Carter Theatre.
His writing projects in 1999 included a production at the 42nd Street Workshop of his play The Wirecutters; and the book and lyrics for a Broadway musical based on the Hindu classic The Ramayana, commissioned by Crystal Theatre Productions.
MUSIC
In the music field, Marshall Yaeger has written many articles, liner notes, and marketing materials for various artists. He provided the concepts for many record albums (including the titles of Paul Winter's best-selling album On Common Ground, and Virgil Fox's Heavy Organ), and became a member of ASCAP after the lyrics he wrote for the patriotic song "I Love America" were recorded by Centerline Records. He has been a career consultant to many distinguished performers, and conceived and co-founded The Albert Schweitzer Music Award -- the most important recognition of humanitarianism given to performing musicians -- as well as The Frank Lloyd Wright Creativity Award. Winners of the Schweitzer Award include Isaac Stern, Catherine Dunham, Van Cliburn, Mstislav Rostropovich, Leonard Bernstein, José Carreras, Placido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti, and Anna Moffo. Winners of the Wright Award include Buckminster Fuller (given by Mrs. Frank Lloyd Wright at Taliesin West) and Edwin H. Land.
As president (from 1976 to 1983) and co-founder of Performance Marketing Corporation, Marshall Yaeger was a co-producer (of such attractions as Heavy Organ: Virgil Fox at the Fillmore East) and a concert manager of such distinguished artists as: Virgil Fox, Eartha Kitt, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Keith Jarrett (Far East), the Erick Hawkins Dance Company, the Paul Taylor Dance Company (Far East), Pierre Cochereau, Martha Schlamme, Earl Wild, Marni Nixon, Don Shirley, Samuel Lipman, the Paul Winter Consort, and the Columbus Boychoir.
INVENTOR
Marshall Yaeger's background in science includes a U.S. and British patent on the "Kaleidoplex," a special effects projector that creates symmetrical images that promote meditation and synchronize to music. The Kaleidoplex's unique arrangement of lenses and mirrors was the first mechanical improvement to the kaleidoscope since the invention of the projecting kaleidoscope in the 1920s. As a result, in 1989, Marshall Yaeger was first listed in Marquis's Who's Who in Finance and Industry as well as Who's Who in Technology Today. He performed with his invention at New York's Bottom Line in a program starring Claude Bolling and flutist Ransom Wilson, who performed four concerts with the Kaleidoplex in a Frank Becker work for flute and synthesizer. The concerts were repeated on the West Coast in San Francisco's Great American Music Hall. In 2001, videotapes of the Kaleidoplex, as well as projections from the machine itself, formed the visual centerpieces of a special event at the Whitney Museum. Beginning in 2002, he completed the visual components for seven DVD albums using the Kaleidoplex, the first of which ("Sonic Bloom") was released in June, 2003.
Marshall Yaeger was also the author/programmer of Timeworx, a QuickBasic computerized billing system for the Macintosh, commissioned by Microsystems, Inc. He has also created and managed a number of websites for the Internet.
FUNDRAISING
As president of The Creo Society from 1983 until 1990, Marshall Yaeger independently raised $1 million from Joan Kroc on behalf of Elizabeth Taylor for the American Foundation for AIDS Research (AmFAR). (As a result of the gift, Mrs. Kroc contributed another $1 million to AmFAR the following year.) He wrote and published 9 quarterly newsletters, and co-produced many large fund-raising special events including the first Rockefeller University Founders Ball (which he conceived and named); Dancing for Life, featuring 13 leading ballet and dance companies; a Los Angeles benefit starring Bette Midler, Manhattan Transfer, Melissa Manchester, and Barry Manilow; the Twentieth Anniversary production of Hair at the United Nations (the first and only paid-admission benefit ever held in the General Assembly Hall, which raised more than a half-million dollars for UNICEF and the Society's charitable programs); as well as a private concert series, The Bach-Gesellschaft of New York, broadcast over American Public Radio from the homes of such prominent society leaders as Mr. and Mrs. Louis S. Auchincloss, Mr. and Mrs. Sid R. Bass, Mr. & Mrs. William F. Buckley, Jr., Oscar de la Renta, Mr. and Mrs. Ahmet Ertegun, Mr. and Mrs. Gordon P. Getty, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas L. Kempner, Hon. Edward I. Koch, Mr. and Mrs. Samuel P. Reed, and Mr. and Mrs. Steven C. Rockefeller, Jr.
Marshall Yaeger also represented Michael Jackson's family's charitable enterprises as a fundraiser and press representative for an event scheduled to take place in Atlantic City (which was moved to Las Vegas after the first Michael Jackson scandal emerged). While fundraising for the Stella Adler Studio of Acting (for whom Circles International created the Studio's annual fundraising event, "Stella by Starlight," Marshall Yaeger sought to recruit Marlon Brando's participation in an "Acting Well" DVD on behalf of the Studio. (Michael Jackson had offered to finance such a production for Brando.) "If I want to lose weight," Brando said, after receiving Marshall Yaeger's 30th faxed appeal, "I know how to lose weight!" Since Brando lived until he reached 80, who can argue he was too fat?
CORPORATE
As Creative Director of Advertising for the Rodgers Organ Company from 1971 until 1976, Marshall Yaeger shared two awards for marketing and advertising from the American Marketing Association. He wrote up to three national ads per month as well as brochures, audiovisual scripts, and radio commercials; and he was responsible for all advertising concepts and the naming of new products and product lines.
Marshall Yaeger is currently the president of Circles International, which was executive producer for two St. Petersburg, Russia film festivals; and for five years was the international agency for the St. Petersburg Partnership -- a large-scale investment, development, and fund-raising project founded under the direction of former Mayor Anatoly A. Sobchak, and reporting to the then First Deputy Mayor, and currently the President of Russia, Vladimir V. Putin.
Circles International is currently the management firm responsible for running all of the charitable programs (such as medical trials, scholarship programs, and CD, DVD, and book-publishing projects) of Anchor-International Foundation. All after-tax profits of these programs accrue to the foundation.
In 2004, Marshall Yaeger joined Richard Torrence in a partnership division of Circles International Corporation called "Torrence & Yaeger" to represent Marshall & Ogletree electronic organs. In New York, the partnership produced a series of six concerts at Trinity Church Wall Street on the M&O organ that Marshall Yaeger named "the Virtual Pipe Organ." In its review of one of the concerts, the New York Times established the name "Virtual Pipe Organ" as the newest addition to the two-thousand year old instrument.
Torrence & Yaeger is a division of
Coleman Special Events Incorporated
d/b/a "Circles International."
All after-tax profits of Circles International
will be donated to Anchor-International Foundation, Inc.
