In a previous post, I wrote about my visit to Community MusicWorks and my plans to start a similar program in Cincinnati. Time for an update – there are a lot of things we’ll need help with, but I’ll start with the most pressing:
Wanted – violinist for community-based string quartet.
The ideal candidate will have significant experience with performing chamber music at a high level, teaching violin and chamber music, engaging underserved audiences and students, fundraising, board development, web design and SEO, budgeting, accounting, and social media. Must be willing to to work long hours with no immediate promise of compensation. Independent wealth, lack of social life and family obligations are preferred, though not required.
As the kids today put it: So……um……yeah.
All kidding aside, the person we’re looking for will have to wear several hats – which ones will depend on everyone’s strengths and interests. My hope is to eventually have a paid staff member to handle some of these tasks, but at the outset, we’ll be doing everything. I have two great colleagues already, violinist Sujean Kim and violist Kevin Boden – both are terrific players (and people!) who are committed to building a quartet that will be part of the fabric of Cincinnati.
So if you are or know the violinist we’re looking for, please let me know! Here’sa word document with a fuller job description:
Cincinnati is renowned for its musical institutions – the College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) and the Cincinnati Symphony are both reminders that the city punches well above its weight class, culturally. Chamber music is well-represented, with two well-respected presenting series bringing world-class ensembles to town, as well as a resident quartet at CCM (the excellent Ariel Quartet).
What we don’t have here, though, is a quartet that is part of the community, performing and teaching in neighborhood settings, and that’s what we’re going to do. We’ll be working with kids who otherwise might not have the chance to study string instruments privately, and whose academic work will benefit from the boost music lessons are well-known to give, as well as the mentorship we hope to give them.
Along with private instrumental lessons, the kids will learn to play chamber music themselves, which helps them develops teamwork and leadership skills. As the program grows, we may include an El Sistema-style orchestra program, too.
When we find our fourth, we’ll start rehearsing and developing concert and educational programs. There’s lots more to do, though, and that’s where you come in.
We need to choose a name for the group – ideas that will resonate with Cincinnati residents are especially welcome (to my fellow Reds fans, please note – The Pete Rose Quartet has already been considered and set aside). Seriously, names of streets or local cultural/historical figures are great – please post or e-mail your suggestions.
We will also begin planning house concerts – much of the great chamber music repertoire was first heard in private homes, and that’s a tradition we’d like this group to build on. If you want to host a performance or know someone who would, please let me know that, too. These concerts will help us build a base of support in the community and raise funds for the most important piece of this project, the teaching.
This last part is the most crucial – we will need a home. I have had discussions with schools and community leaders in several neighborhoods, but haven’t yet found the right place. If you know of a community or school where we can be of service, please let me know!
To those readers outside the Cincinnati area, we’ll need your help, too. When we have the pieces I’ve described in place (most likely this winter or early spring), we’ll begin a crowdfunding campaign to help us start the teaching program. I will post again about that when the time comes, along with updates about what else is happening – please stay tuned!
Many musicians, myself included, wear several hats, combining multiple part-time positions as performers and teachers to make a living. When I first heard about CMW ten years ago, the idea of a single place to both play chamber music and teach sounded like a dream come true. I am starting a program modeled on CMW this fall (more about that in an upcoming post), and I went to IMPS to see firsthand the model I’ve admired from afar. It was even more inspiring than I’d imagined.
The significance of CMW goes far beyond the unique balance of work for its musicians. They help create an environment in which they and their students grow as musicians, and, more importantly, as members of their community, and the results are, quite simply, breathtaking.
Sebastian Ruth started CMW in 1997, teaching 15 violin students in his neighborhood in Providence. Since then, the program has grown to include 13 resident musicians and more than 125 students. CMW’s students often perform on the same concerts as their teachers (and guest artists such as Jonathan Biss and the Kronos Quartet), in settings that foster connection between audience and performers.
Sebastian is influenced by the work of philosopher Maxine Greene, who wrote of the need for education that enables students to see new possibilities for themselves and effect social change, and it is in this regard that CMW shines brightest. The IMPS participants met and played music with some of the students in Phase 2, CMW’s teen leadership program, and, frankly, I was floored by these kids.
To hear 14 year-olds speak so thoughtfully about their place in the world was a profoundly moving experience, and spoke volumes about the impact and importance of CMW.
I remember the relationships I had with my teachers and colleagues as a young musician, and they continue to be some of the most important I have had in my life. I didn’t, however, have anything like the sense of purpose and place that CMW’s students displayed this weekend – they’ve been given a great gift, and are the kinds of citizens and leaders the world needs.
CMW’s staff has devoted significant time and effort to sharing their model, through the Institute, as well as through a fellowship program for young professional musicians, several of whom have gone on to start programs of their own.
One former fellow, violist Chloe Kline, is now CMW’s Education Director, and directed the Institute with great poise and sensitivity – her ability to manage a discussion so inclusively and thoughtfully was a perfect example of the culture of CMW, and just observing her in action this weekend was a great lesson in itself.
So to Sebastian, Chloe and the rest of the CMW family, you’ve given us a powerful reminder of what music is really for, and inspired many (myself included) to follow your example – thank you and bravo!
Lately, I’ve gotten a lot of nice reminders about why I play music, and the cello in particular – this photo is exhibit A. On the right is my student Bailey, and on the left, another cellist.
Yo-Yo Ma is one of the few classical musicians everyone’s heard of, and a genuinely nice guy. Bailey asked for tickets to his recent Cincinnati performance as a birthday present, and obviously had a good time! I had a similar experience meeting him after a performance, when I was first starting to play, (redacted) years ago.
He was not yet the superstar he’s become, but already very well known, and certainly could have acted like it, but instead he spent a lot of time talking to the group of young cellists gathered backstage about Bach and practice habits – he was incredibly gracious and engaging, and completely content to talk about what he loved as long as anyone wanted to.
Years later, I was playing in a chamber ensemble at the entrance for my first White House state dinner. Yo-Yo snuck up on me, waiting for me to look up from my music and see he was there. When I finally did, we both burst out laughing.
Anyone who’s spent time around cellists knows we’re all sharers – we will sit and talk about the cello all night, often to the despair of concert organizers, flight attendants, and spouses.
Cellists also tend to believe in the essential goodness of what we do, and organize events to share it more widely. I play cello quartets regularly with my colleagues in ProMusica – it’s one of my favorite ways to make music. Most of the music we play was originally written for orchestra or other instruments – I often joke that we’re playing “improvements” rather than arrangements. Most instruments don’t lend themselves to this kind of ensemble – try to imagine for a minute a violin quartet concert (shudder).
I think we cellists see ourselves as public servants – that our playing our instrument can uplift and transform any location or situation – in that vein, last week, I started playing in a medical center, which I’ll write about in a future post. In the meantime, here are a few more examples of cellists trying to improve things in our impractical, idealistic way.
Vedran Smajlović, the “cellist of Sarajevo,” playing in the ruins of that city’s National Library:
A group of 1,000 cellists performing in Sendai, Japan to support victims of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami:
Iraqi cellist Karim Wasfi, playing in front of a just-bombed Baghdad hotel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tyDtGAGoqI&w=550
Speaking of sharing, I am off today to the Institute for Musicianship and Public Service, at Community MusicWorks in Providence, RI, to learn more about becoming a true community musician – more posts about that (and my plans to build on it in Cincinnati this fall) soon.
The partnership, viewed with unease at first by both the orchestra and the community, has been a great success. Kids and the musicians have lunch together, and the students come to rehearsals, sitting in between the musicians. There’s even been some collaboration:
The BBC article about the Bremen experiment points out the most compelling reason to do things like this: “the school’s test results have improved, its drop-out rates have fallen to less than 1% and the atmosphere in the wider neighbourhood has been ‘transformed.’ ”
In other words, simply by being there, the Kammerphilharmonie has improved the school and its neighborhood. What if every orchestra did something like this?
Now, cramming the entire Chicago Symphony into a high school gym to rehearse might not be such a great idea, but what about smaller orchestras (like ProMusica, for example)? We sometimes rehearse away from our home hall – why not rehearse at KIPP Academy once in a while, or spend a whole week there?
Another example of an orchestra strengthening its connection to the community comes this week from the Houston Symphony, which has created four new full-time positions for string players who will play about 25 performances a year, but whose primary role will be “community engagement and music education in area schools, neighborhood centers and health-care facilities.”
The article goes on to say: “The symphony is seeking musicians with varied ethnic backgrounds and who are fluent in at least two languages.” Orchestras have long been trying to diversify both their memberships and their core audiences, with limited success – this seems like a good way to help.
This hybrid of playing and teaching is something I’d love to see expanded and replicated in every orchestra, with one important tweak – more members should do both.
Someday, I would love to see a “full-time” orchestra whose entire roster teaches as part of their job. What if part of your work as a full-time orchestra musician was to teach one day a week in the same inner city school, week after week, year after year?
I can imagine there would be resistance to this idea from some orchestra musicians, who would view it as a major change to their job description. I can’t argue that point – it would be. However, many orchestra musicians teach on the side already, and I bet the teaching part of the job could be factored into the workload in a way that didn’t raise the service count, at least not much. Maybe the dual responsibility of performing and teaching could be phased in with new hires, or offered as an option with extra pay.
I also think this would help the bottom line. All orchestras, no matter how many tickets they sell, rely heavily on contributed income to survive, and were they to become known for civic engagement on this scale, I bet they’d attract support from individual donors, corporations and foundations who may not have given them much attention before.
Most importantly, it would help orchestras to be seen as essential parts of their communities, and not just something for the rich, which, sadly, is often the image they have.
I am working on starting something combining playing and teaching myself, on a smaller scale with a string quartet in Cincinnati, and to learn more about how to go about it, next month I will be attending the Institute for Musicianship and Public Service, hosted by one of the standard bearers of community arts engagement, Community MusicWorks, in Providence, RI. I’ll post more about that soon.
Till next time,
Nat
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