Most orchestra concerts begin with a series of individual entrances- the executive director gives a curtain speech thanking donors, followed by the concertmaster, who tunes the orchestra, and finally, the conductor, who comes in, gets the orchestra up (which is unhelpful – we’ve just gotten settled), and bows (for no good reason – they haven’t done anything yet). This can take several minutes, and often drains much of the energy from the room.
So, we need fire and a cool mascot, maybe some ice – no problem. I can hear the naysayers now – “What about cost?” Remember, each of these items are potential sponsorship opportunities! (“Tonight’s fire is brought to you by Blue Rhino Propane!”) And any safety concerns are easily taken care of, by inviting your county’s fire chief and insurance administrators onto your board and getting their approval as an in-kind donation.
My other big takeaway from the evening – concert halls desperately need a penalty box. In hockey, penalties create the most exciting part of the game – the power play. Maybe the violins could play a movement minus one member if they get called for excessive screechiness when playing on the high E string (which happens all the time, according to ProMusica’s David Danzmayr a conductor who prefers to remain anonymous). Or that one patron who insists on unwrapping their cough drop at the quietest moment in the slow movement – you know who you are. Give them two minutes for unsportsmanlike conduct and seat them directly in front of the trombones – that’ll teach them.
Now the big question is, of course, who decides? Conductors, please put your hands down – you have enough power already. What about members of the orchestra, or maybe a board member? Personally, I’d vote for either the third chair cello (always the wisest person in an ensemble) or even better, an unpaid intern – finally a chance for them to get some payback! Here’s where we need some groupthink – please post your suggestions for concert hall penalties, and who should hand them out, in the comments!
This coming Saturday, I will say Kaddish for my father, to mark the seventh anniversary of his passing. As readers of this blog know, he and I often played and talked about music together, and a set of concerts I just played reminded me how much I miss that.
ProMusica Chamber Orchestra played Beethoven’s FourthSymphony this past weekend. This has always been my favorite of Beethoven’s symphonies – lighter, shorter, and more upbeat than its odd-numbered neighbors, the mighty “Eroica” and the famous Fifth. It is a workout to play – the last movement in particular goes like the wind (especially with David Danzmayr conducting!). However, it’s the slow movement that’s always been my favorite, and there’s one moment in particular that touches me more deeply than any in music. It took me until this weekend to realize why I love this passage so much – it is the most human, vulnerable music I know. In turn, the principal bassoon, principal clarinet and horns are all asked to play very high and softly, while the cellos, basses, and timpani softly echo the movement’s main rhythm, a “heartbeat” figure, miles beneath them in the bass. Have a listen:
For these few moments, Beethoven takes us right to the edge of the abyss, but doesn’t linger too long – the flute solo which follows is the most beautiful, loving part of the piece. And that’s Beethoven in a nutshell, going from the depths to the heights in no time. These are the sorts of passages that I remember talking about with Dad – I hope he still gets to enjoy them as much as I do.
Bravos to my ProMusica colleagues – bassoonist Rachael Young, hornists Stephanie Blaha and Bruce Henniss, and especially clarinetist Ilya Shterenberg – your playing was absolutely wonderful. And a special thank you to my stand partner Joel Becktell, who had to listen to me talk about this passage every time we got to it in rehearsal – sorry, man!
Today would have been my father’s 78th birthday. Last year on this day, I wrote a post about pieces with family connections, including ones I had recently played. Well, it’s happened again – this weekend, I played another piece that takes me back to the beginning of my musical life, and it was my dad who introduced me to it.
When I was about 7 or 8, my dad got me a Superscope cassette recorder (pictured above) and a few recordings of pieces he thought I should hear, including Stravinsky’s Firebird and Mozart’s 39th Symphony. One of them was of Schubert’s 9th Symphony, with Eugen Jochum conducting the Bavarian Radio Symphony.
Last night, ProMusica performed this monumental piece – you can read the review here. Before we played, our music director, David Danzmayr, talked to the audience about how his dad had introduced him to the piece as a kid, too.
Schubert 9 is a massive piece, lasting just under an hour. Its nickname is is “The Great,” but I think it should be called the “Ginsu.” Those of you old enough to remember the TV commercials for those knives will understand – “Now how much would you pay? Don’t answer yet – you also get…” Each movement is twice as long as in his other symphonies, and Schubert makes sure you get your money’s worth. Here’s a link to a recording on Spotify – make sure you’re not in a hurry!
And for those of you to young to who missed out on the commercial, here it is:
And in the spirit of Ginsu – but wait, there’s more! On my way home last night after the concert, I turned on the radio and heard Miles Davis’s remarkable “Godchild” from the “Birth of the Cool” album my father treasured. It was a nice reminder that I can still feel in touch with him, meeting up in the musical world where he spent so much of his life and was my first and most important guide.
Today would have been my father’s 77th birthday. He was a composer and played a big part in my musical development. We often played music together, and talked about music (along with baseball and politics), from when I was in elementary school until he passed away three-plus years ago. I miss him terribly.
My dad wrote works for various instrumentation from chamber works to pieces for full orchestra – my favorite, of course, is the one he wrote for me, which my wife and I recorded for his Albany Records CD, released in 2006. It’s a perfect example of his musical style, which I once described as both intense and subtle. Here’s an excerpt:
You can hear the entire piece here, and learn more about my dad and his music at his website.
Classical music has long been a family business, from the Bachs and Mozarts to more modern examples like Sergei Prokofiev and his grandson Gabriel. I wrote about one of Gabriel’s works in a previous post – sometimes the apple falls a little farther from the tree!
Recently, I was reminded of the extra power music has when it’s inspired by the closeness of family.
Dmitri Shostakovich was known for music that reflected his difficult life in Soviet Russia – nearly all of his works contain sarcasm and harsh writing. However, I recently was exposed to a different side of Shostakovich, in his 2nd Piano Concerto. The piece was written for his son, Maxim, for his 19th birthday, and Maxim performed the solo part at his graduation from the Moscow Conservatory.
Last month, I played this piece with ProMusica Chamber Orchestra. The excellent soloist was pianist/composer Huw Watkins, who has a family musical connection of his own – his brother Paul is the cellist in the Emerson String Quartet. They have recorded several cello-piano works including Huw’s own – you can learn more here.
Our music director, David Danzmayer, reminded us in rehearsal of the story behind the concerto as we rehearsed the slow movement, which sounds nothing like any Shostakovich I’d ever heard. The directness and love expressed in this piece can’t be missed, and it sounds in places like Rachmaninoff:
There are lots more examples of music inspired by the closeness of family, and I’ve put a few of them on a new Spotify playlist, including my dad’s cello-piano piece and a song cycle he dedicated to my mom. As usual, it’s open to additions from you – please add your favorite piece of music that has a family connection!
In closing, I’ll share one more, that was a particular favorite of my dad’s. He was a jazz musician early on, and passed on to me a love for Charlie Parker and Oscar Peterson. One of our favorite groups was the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Band. I remember going to see them at the Village Vanguard when I was about 12 – how he got me into a place like that at that age is beyond me, but it was incredible.
Here’s Thad Jones’s best-known tune, whose title says it all: “A Child Is Born.”
With these words last night, one of the world’s great violinists, Vadim Gluzman, (near right with microphone, above) handed out instruments to children from four Columbus, Ohio charter schools, to launch a program called Play Us Forward, an initiative of ProMusica Chamber Orchestra to bring music education to these schools for the first time. The program will provide violins and instruction to students at these schools free of charge, thanks to the generosity of donors like The Hattie and Robert Lazarus Fund, Key Bank and the Loft Violin Shop.
Vadim had just given a magnificent performance of the Bruch G minor Violin Concerto with us in his role as Creative Partner. ProMusica is lucky to have him, once or twice a year, as our own “in-house” soloist and/or leader, conducting from the concertmaster’s chair. But last night, he played an even more important role, making the kids (and everyone else, myself included) feel both welcome and included in something special.
Before giving out the violins, Vadim spoke of his own childhood in the Soviet Union, and his own first instrument, (a 1/8th size, I believe) which took some doing to acquire in a country where, as he reminded us with a wry smile, even basics like toilet paper were often hard to come by. He also spoke of the doors that have opened for him and the wonderful people he has met playing the violin, and radiated gratitude for the life music has given him.
Our wonderful music director, David Danzmayr (far left, above) spoke of his own good fortune as a young musician – he was born into a musical family (in Mozart’s hometown, no less!) and had a piano waiting for him in his living room. As David pointed out, not everyone has that kind of luck, and that programs like Play Us Forward bring these opportunities to kids who would likely never have them otherwise.
To help launch Play Us Forward, I gave presentations of Bach and Boombox at the four schools (including the KIPP Academy, pictured above). I was really struck by the level of sound in the hallways and classrooms – it was very quiet. At each school, there was great emphasis on self-control and respect for others, and that even extended to how the kids expressed themselves.
When I mentioned that I had worked at the White House, the KIPP kids all began snapping their fingers – I thought I had wandered into a production of “West Side Story” for a second, but their teacher explained that this meant they liked what they were hearing, and would do this in the classroom when someone gave an insightful answer, too.
All this tells me that these kids will make excellent music students (not to mention audience members!) – more on that in a minute.
The kids I met were invited to our concerts this past weekend free of charge, and I bet that for many, the performance was the first orchestra concert they’d been to. They got to see what’s possible on a violin (quite a bit, if you’re Vadim!) and now they will get violin lessons themselves.
With this program, ProMusica is saying, “Here’s what we do, and now you can do it too.” There are so many reasons why this is a great idea, I don’t know where to start, but here goes.
These charter schools tend to serve children with numerous challenges, academic and otherwise – this program will help equip the children with tools to meet these challenges in ways that only the arts can.
There is no shortage of data showing that studying music helps kids in reading and math, and I am sure we’ll see that with these students. Charter schools tend to place great emphasis on academic performance and metrics, and I guarantee that the kids taking violin lessons will exceed their peers in these areas.
So many schools cut their arts programs when they face budget cuts or focus on raising test scores – this will be a strong reminder that they are working against themselves when they do.
We’re also giving the kids a chance to learn something deeply satisfying, but very demanding, too. Anyone who’s studied an instrument knows that instant gratification is NOT what you get.
The experience of doing persistent, sometimes frustrating work in pursuit of incremental but meaningful improvement is a very powerful one, and with the schools’ emphasis on self-discipline and positive, respectful self-expression, these kids will be exceptionally well-prepared to reap the benefits.
Lastly, there’s a benefit (and a lesson) for professional ensembles here. There’s much talk these days about how orchestras need to rethink their place in society – often viewed as elitist and walled off from society as a whole, many performing groups are finding new ways to impact the communities they serve. More on that in my next post.
The Play Us Forward program is a great model for orchestras to follow, and by offering the gift of music to children who otherwise would not have it, it makes a more powerful and longer lasting impact than any concert ever could. It also reminds all of us, both inside the music world and out, that the doors of “the club” can and should be open to everyone.
Till next time,
Nat
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