Composer James Cross at his work table near
his piano in his apartment in Manhattan, NYC

Dr. James Cross, a retired physician who is also a composer, parts company with Alexander Borodin when it comes to self-definition.

The great nineteenth century Russian composer was also a distinguished chemist. He was so busy at that profession that his musical output was modest, and he considered himself a “Sunday composer.” Dr. Cross' musical output has also been limited by his profession. He was a family physician for 35 years in the High Sierras of California and in the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia. But he never considered himself a “Sunday composer.” He calls himself “a composer who also practiced medicine.”

Now, at the age of 76, he lives in Manhattan with his wife, Barbara, and he is writing new compositions, expanding and improving some already written, looking for opportunities to get them performed, and pursuing other activities in music, full time.

Even before his retirement and move to Manhattan in 1998, however, Dr. Cross managed to produce a one-act opera, which he later expanded into four acts, as well as a three-act ballet, a string quartet, a musical called Vive le Louvre, produced by a regional company in Bristol, Tennessee, and about ten works for concert choir.

There were performances in far-flung locations around the country, and there have been more since his retirement: the piano etude Sacred Rain, by the pianist Christopher O’Riley at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.; the String Quartet No. 1 by the American String Quartet at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, and by the Astrum String Quartet in New York City; and portions of his three-act opera, Knossos: House of the Double Ax, by the One World Symphony Orchestra, with soloists, in New York City. The opera was written over many years, and its New York performance was its first. It is based on the myth of Theseus and Ariadne and the Minotaur.

Dr. Cross with busts of Ariadne and Theseus,
characters in his three-act opera, Knossos

Dr. Cross studied the piano when he was young but never had formal training in composition. He taught himself to compose in the traditional harmonic, classical style. His music would probably sound dated to many contemporary composers, yet it has impressed some of America’s leading composers and performers.

The composer Richard Danielpour has been a friend and mentor since Dr. Cross arrived in New York, and provided some formal training at concerts and rehearsals. “There is not a lot of twentieth century in his writing,” said Mr. Danielpour. “It’s of another time. But he does it extremely well. There’s something passionate and individual in it. He’s an extraordinary man, and an excellent vocal composer.”

Another admirer is Daniel Geber, dean of performance at the Manhattan School of Music and formerly the cellist of the American String Quartet. Mr. Geber described the Cross musical style as “late Elgar Romantic.”

James Allerton Cross – he has been known since childhood as “Jack,” because of his initials – was born in Jacksonville, Illinois, on May 1, 1933, the son of an organic chemist. Later the family moved to New Jersey, and Dr. Cross grew up in the town of Belvidere in the western part of the state. He focused on pre-med courses at Lehigh University, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and went to medical school at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.

It was the late 50’s, and medical students got draft deferments until their internship was completed. Dr. Cross served his military tour with the division of foreign quarantine of the United States Public Health Service in El Centro, California, on the Mexican border, examining immigrants who were legally crossing the border for seasonal farm labor. “We were two doctors reading 350,000 X-rays a year,” he said.

The beauty of the mountainous countryside captivated Dr. Cross and his wife. After Dr. Cross’ military service and a subsequent residency at the University of Oregon, the Crosses returned to rural California in 1966, with three children, two daughters and a son. The family lived first in Julian in heavily forested country where cattle-raising was the main industry, and Dr. Cross was the only physician within 40 miles.

Later they moved to Lucadia and Escondido, where Dr. Cross joined a group practice. He also received faculty appointments at the University of California at Davis and in San Diego, teaching family medicine. And he joined the chorus of the San Diego Opera. “I needed to learn about opera from a backstage point of view,” he said.

At home in Manhattan where Dr. Cross works
full time at his second career as a composer

But he was frustrated by the lack of time for composing. So he hired a headhunter and told him to “advertise me as a composer who also practices medicine.” That led to a job with a medical group based in Wise, a town in the heart of the Appalachian coal-mining region of southwestern Virginia, where physicians were in demand.

Pittston Coal was the main operator at the time, but labor costs ultimately put the company out of business. “Eighty percent of my patients were miners when I arrived and 20 percent were miners when I left,” Dr. Cross said. He was there for 22 years – from 1976 to 1998, again traveling around a district.

Much of his writing during that period was for voice, including the setting of Psalms 8, 57 and 42 to music for the Emory and Henry Concert Choir in Emory, Virginia. In 2001 the New York Choral Society performed the Psalm 8 setting in New York City. He also entered Knossos in a one-act opera contest sponsored by the New York City Opera, and emerged as a finalist. It was his second try at opera. In 1975 he completed one in three acts called Demeter, based on the goddess of agriculture and mother of Persephone in Greek mythology.

There have been performances of his work from one coast to another – at Yale and the University of North Carolina; in Bristol, Virginia and San Diego, California; in Vienna and Budapest on a tour by the Emory and Henry Concert Choir.

With his retirement from medical practice, there have been more performances in the Northeast. One of these was by the One World Symphony, a seven-year-old New York orchestra led by the Korean-born conductor Sung Jin Hong. Its performances of scenes from Knossos took place at churches in Brooklyn Heights and Manhattan in November 2002. Two sopranos, a mezzo, two tenors and a baritone sang the vocal parts.

The opera tells the story of Theseus on Crete in Minoan times when Minos was king. Theseus, prince of Athens, had volunteered to join the annual tribute of Athenian youths and maidens that King Minos demanded as retribution for the death of his son Androgeus, who was killed in Athens. Once in Knossos, the Greek youths meet their fate in dangerous dances in the presence of bulls or in the Labyrinth, home of the Minotaur. Theseus manages to overcome these challenges and have a love affair with Minos’ daughter Ariadne as well.

“It’s emotionally engaging music, it’s lush and it’s accessible for the audience,” said Mr. Hong, the conductor. “He doesn’t write for his colleagues the way many composers do, he writes for himself.” During rehearsals, Mr. Hong said, “he knew what he wanted.”

Dr. Cross has never been in doubt about that. He has always hoped to focus on music single-mindedly. Retirement has enabled him to do it.

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