New Year's Weekend: A Retrospective

New Year's Eve at the Dakota with Irvin Mayfield, Artistic Director of Jazz at Orchestra Hall. Great tunes, great band (Vincent Gardner!) and some fantastically funny commentary from Irvin. The show was broadcast live on "Toast of the Nation" on NPR, and Irvin opens with, "Everybody who's out there listening on National Public Radio, we're all butt-nekkid right now at the Dakota, make some noise!!" (No-one was, I assure you - it was -5F outside!!).


New Year's Day at Sam's, a gathering to watch the Winter Classic (oh, Flyers, why do you disappoint me so?). Not pictured; the ridiculously delicious (and gut-stretching) poutine that Sam made. Pictured; Eagles Jenga (I'm not kidding. A shout out to the Philadelphia in-laws for a most creative stocking-stuffer).

And speaking of football...

January 3rd at the Metrodome, watching my first live Vikings game. Had a fantastic time, and particularly enjoyed singing the Vikings fight song half a dozen times. I'm thinking of reharmonizing and resetting the tune, maybe in the style of Schütz. Or perhaps Krenek. (I know, my inner music nerd emerges at the weirdest times...).

Also, check out my Twin Cities entertainment picks for 2010.

4-3-2-1...

Gearing up for what should be an epic New Year's Eve (which I'll - hopefully - post about tomorrow):



In the meantime, a few musings on 2009:

It's been a tumultuous year, by all accounts, and there have certainly been casualties of these troubled financial times (although one could argue that the Honolulu Symphony was in terminal condition long before the current state of the world).

Tough times force a certain amount of navel-gazing; the danger in this is the possibility of becoming stuck in pensiveness, without the possibility of action. In a year predicated on the overarching notion of Change (yup, with a capital "C"), it's encouraging to see that some major organizations have taken some actual bold steps, particularly in choosing artistic leaders; Alan Gilbert began his stint at the helm of the New York Philharmonic, weeks before the Los Angeles Philharmonic welcomed Gustavo Dudamel as its new music director.

Gilbert seems both an unusual choice (a young American less-known in his home country) and a natural fit (as the son of NY Phil musicians) - an interesting direction for a conservative organization that nonetheless seems to concede to the need for a larger cultural relevancy (witness the choice of Alec Baldwin as its radio host). On the opposite coast, the Dudamel PR juggernaut is motoring at full throttle, drumming up the kind of buzz of which other orchestras can only dream. "The Dude's" charisma is unquestionable; whether it will translate into artistic fulfillment or increased ticket sales, only time will tell.

And speaking of new appointments and charisma, that of Yo-Yo Ma as "creative consultant" to the Chicago Symphony is one that has me very interested. It's the kind of outside-the-box thinking - utilizing talent in an unconventional manner - that signals some of the most exciting development in the orchestral field.

But it wasn't the year for change - or choice - for everyone; the Philadelphia Orchestra is still rudderless, heightening concerns about one of the most beleaguered of the "Big Five" (which reminds me, how do we rank orchestras these days, anyway?).

On the personal front, change came in the form of two new jobs and moving my household to Minneapolis, all of which has been simultaneously challenging and enormously satisfying.

On the Inside the Classics front, Sam and I are busy preparing for the next set of concerts (La Mer! I've been looking forward to this one...) while, thanks to result reports from Wallace Foundation-funded focus group studies, we continue to reevaluate and tinker with format and content for upcoming seasons. As much as I like change - as I've frequently said, my favorite quote = "If you don't like change, you'll like irrelevance even less" - there are some constants I've come to rely on, like a co-host/co-writer/cohort whose inventiveness and wit and sense of vision are a constant inspiration to me. Thanks for a great 2009, Sam; now if we could only find a time for our "Four Seasons" initial script meeting...

Happy New Year to all!!

Brief absence

Apologies for the lack of posting this week; as Sam has said, I'm gearing up for a ridiculously busy week.

In addition, I'm having some hand and shoulder problems - a combination of old injuries, a ton of traveling, lots of work and no time off - which makes typing painful, so you can see how my blogging would suffer.

I'll try to post later in the week as we're in the midst of our Inside the Classics concerts. For now, I'm taking some more Advil and going back to score studying!

Notes from the Heartland

I'm leaving Sam and my colleagues to finish out their week of Nordic finger-torture; last night I arrived in Ohio to do a concert with the Columbus Symphony featuring the Kingston Trio. (My burning question about Charlie and the MTA; if Charlie's wife could slip him a sandwich, why couldn't she slip him a nickel??)

The Columbus Symphony has been through some mighty trying times over the last year or so, and the musicians seem relieved to be back at work despite the sizable paycut they've agreed to take. A perception-altering fact; with a population of 747,755 (the 15th largest metropolitan area as of 2007), Columbus now supports an orchestra of 53 full-time musicians playing a season reduced from their previous 46 weeks to 38, while Minneapolis, at 377,392 the 46th largest city, supports a 98-member orchestra for a 52-week season. Which always begs the question; what ideal combination of factors - history, corporate sponsorship, board leadership, community pride, charisma of music director - lead to such discrepancies?

Rehearsal went well this morning (it's a good band), and musicians seemed to be in pretty good spirits; I'm sure many readers join me in saying I'm glad your back, Columbus Symphony!

A few other thoughts:

Regional jets + 66 mph gusts (the Columbus airport was purportedly shut down for awhile. I certainly don't think we should have even tried to land) = one of the scariest flights I've ever been on, and you regular blog readers know I fly 40-60 times a year. I've been on bumpy flights before, but...sheesh...

Now, air travel has, admittedly, been pretty miserable the last few years, what with all the mergers and flight cutbacks, and I understand the frustration of missing multiple connections and taking 20 hours to make what should have been a 5 hour trip. However, I remind everyone, if a reservation agent on the phone or the check-in person at a previous airport has messed up your re-(re-re-, depending on how many connections you've missed) booked flight, please do not scream at the gate agent! It's like yelling at Steve Campbell because you didn't enjoy the performance of Mozart's "Jupiter" Symphony (N.B., there are no tubas in "Jupiter" - yes, Steve's in the orchestra, but did he contribute to that particular performance? No. Is the gate agent culpable for the inadequacy of some other Northwest Airlines employee a thousand miles away? No.) (I witnessed this scene as I was on a cancelled/rerouted/standby-only flight to Columbus via Milwaukee - the screamer made the gate agent cry!)

Finally, as much as traveling has become an enormous pain (and the part of my job I least enjoy), it allows me (and every traveling musician) to experience life somewhere else, firsthand, which I find immensely important. It's easy enough to become so entrenched in everyday life that we start seeing things from a very singular perspective. Being on the road, meeting people from all over, experiencing daily existence in dozens of cities across the country (and around the world) remind me that there are always half a dozen ways to look at anything, and a million ways to approach the basic truths in life (family/community, art/beauty - you know, the good stuff). It makes every day fresh for me, which I wouldn't trade for anything in the world.

Last push

Wednesday afternoon before the first show on "Inside the Classics" weeks is always a bit of a mad rush to the finish line. The hardest part of it for me is to get a feel for the flow of the show before we actually perform it once - when we rehearse these concerts, we rehearse the musical excerpts and the featured piece, but we never get a chance to do it with the script and whatever shenanigans we're up to. So, my afternoon pre-concert is spent running and re-running the show in my apartment - and if there's no-one else home, I'll do the script out loud.

When my brain gets weary of repeating the same complicated paragraph for the umpteenth time, I entertain myself with random YouTube searches; here's my current obsession:



I know, I know, I've got an odd sense of humor...

All's well that ends well

A very long day yesterday which started with a 7 am (EST) flight that went through a bit of rough weather (I hate hate HATE flying! And of course I do much of it. Sigh...). But things calmed down on the final approach to MSP and ended with a flawless landing. You can tell the skill/experience of a pilot in the timing of a landing, which is, from a safety standpoint, probably the most significant part of a flight. And, as the last part of a plane-travel experience, certainly an important ending to the journey.

Which got me thinking about good endings. When my husband is warming up on the French horn (a daily sequence that I’ve memorized – sometimes when I wake up in a hotel room on the road I still hear that warm-up in my head!), there’s an extended section in which he practices long tones. Which are hard, because not only is it to practice sustaining notes, but a way to perfect the very endings of those notes – at the termination of a note, you need to maintain the pitch and tone quality and let it taper to the right point before releasing. Because you'll forget how nicely a note was played if it doesn't end well.

Which made me think about his horn teacher back when we were students at Curtis, Myron Bloon, legendary principal horn of the Cleveland Orchestra during the Golden Days of George Szell’s music directorship. Mr. Bloom (after all these years I still can’t think of him as Myron) was notoriously tough on his students and was the source of such bon mots as “That’s not a sound, that’s a noise!” - or, after hearing a student play a solo passage that was not played to his liking, “No, no, a thousand times no!”. Many lessons ended with students, crestfallen or near tears, slouching out of the studio. Not a happy ending.

I was back at my alma mater last week for rehearsals and concerts with 20/21, the contemporary music ensemble of the Curtis Institute. The centerpiece of the concert was Messiaen’s Oiseaux Exotiques (which I’ve mentioned in a previous post). At the very end of the piece there is a written-out bar of rest, where the composer indicates that “The conductor must keep his arms in the air”. During our final rehearsal, when we got to that point, I did exactly as the composer asked, while several of the students in the ensemble quietly put down their instruments to wait out the silence (it's a really long measure). I reprimanded them – there should be no movement, just an absolute stillness. This should be a moment of uncertainty and suspension, a dramatic moment with the kind of rich silence from an audience not quite knowing what to expect next. It’s a little bit of visual theater worked into a dense and complicated piece, and it was this very suspension, stillness and silence from the assembled mass onstage that created the effect of this particular ending. A silently thrilling ending.

Which led me to a final thought, of my piano teacher back in Honolulu, who took me from my very first Hanon exercises to the F minor Ballade of Chopin. Before I took the stage for a concert or an audition (and it seemed like it was every other week in my formative years) he would remind me, “It’s good to start strong. But no matter what happens in the middle, all can be forgiven with a good ending.”

Backtracking...

...to the season opener concerts here with the Minnesota Orchestra from last week. Fresh off of a fairly recent blog discussion of applause between movements (scroll down to the comments), what did we get during the Friday evening performance of Rodrigo Concierto de Aranjuez but...applause between movements. Anyone out there attend this particular show who'd be willing to weigh in? I'm always curious.

Gone fishin'

Yup, it's real, although pretty unbelievable, no matter how many times I see it (Waimanalo beach on Oahu, an hour or so drive from Honolulu, where I grew up.) I'm in Hawaii for the week visiting my mom, so I probably won't be posting until I get back. I fully intend to work on my tan on this hiatus, and although I have some work to do ("Broadway Rocks" show with the Orchestra next week, and a Pink Floyd show next weekend in Philly - more on that later!), I'll be in vacation mode. Hope everyone out there is getting some vacation time this summer...

Above the din

The Orchestra has just finished up a week of outdoor concerts all over the place, from Hudson, WI to Winona and Plymouth MN, playing the usual July 4th fare - Sousa marches, classics "lite" (think "Toreadors" from Carmen), John Williams movie scores and, of course, the "1812 Overture".

I've always found the ubiquity of this tsarist barn-burner at July 4th festivities kind of humorous; as a piece about Napoleon's defeat by the Russians, quoting both "La Marseillaise" and "God Save the Tsar", it seems an odd choice for concerts celebrating American independence! So how did this particular piece become the expected concert closer to every Independence Day bash?

We have Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops to thank. In 1974 Fiedler positioned the "1812" as the grand finale to a July 4th concert at the Esplanade, complete with real cannon fire, bells pealing from church steeples and a coordinate fireworks display at the end. It was a ploy to increase attendance at the Pop's summer concerts, and it made the desired impression. Never mind that crowds were whooping it up for a piece by a prominent Russian composer in the middle of the Cold War...Fiedler was certainly a savvy showman, and this genius bit of marketing captured the public's imagination (the concert was broadcast nationwide).

Of course, then, other orchestras followed suit, and "1812" has become the "patriotic" staple it is today. I don't think it's coincidental that this is perhaps the only piece in orchestral repertoire that calls for cannon fire (can anyone think of another?). It certainly expands the sonic landscape, and on most night this week I could hear the cheers and whistles from the crowd when the first "boom" occurred - audiences seem to love the noise. Those onstage, not so much - I saw a few dozen pairs of earplugs being inserted by strings and winds at an appropriate moment pre-cannon.

Outdoor concerts are tough in their own way, particularly because you are dealing with far less-than-ideal acoustics. Compounding the problems of players not being able to hear each other is the fact that we are amplified; players then have the problem of hearing their amplified performance a split second after they have heard the live version, wreaking havoc on ensemble. It usually takes a piece or two to adjust to the bounce-back of sound; I try to be extra-clear at outdoor shows, because often players can't trust what they hear and actually need to "trust the stick".

Flying insects don't help - by the encore of "Stars and Stripes" last night, I was doing more of a mosquito-shooing dance than conducting. And I'm still nursing gnat bites from Winona.

All that being said, it's gratifying to play to largely enthusiastic audiences, and to take the Orchestra to communities who might not otherwise be able to hear us. At Hudson, by the end of the concert, there were several dozen children right in front of the stage, dancing and twirling and jumping to the music, which was really sweet (although I was worried about one ebullient twirler who seemed poised to go careening into our cello section!). And for myself, I treasure these concerts because it's another opportunity to chat with audiences from the stage, to bring down the "fourth wall" and engage them with the music in a more personal way. I could think of few better ways to spend a 4th of July...although next time, I'll use more bug spray!

Where You Least Expect It

I'm spending today and tomorrow making the long drive back to Minneapolis from the East Coast, and at the moment, I've stopped for coffee and a nostalgic look around at my old college town of Oberlin, Ohio. From what I've seen so far, not much has changed, although the downtown storefronts look like they could use a lick of paint, and the hummus plate at the coffee shop at the corner of Main and College Streets has gone severely downhill since my time.

I didn't actually intend to write a blog post here, but driving in from Cleveland, I had one of those fun, unexpected on-the-road experiences, and thought I'd share. Back in the day, when I was an idealistic college student obsessed with radio in all forms, I was a secret fan of a talk radio host at Cleveland's WTAM-AM named Mike Trivisonno. Triv wasn't exactly the most erudite guy on Ohio's air - in fact, he pretty much reveled in being the least, filling the familiar talk radio role of championing the uneducated, blue collar white guy (for you Minnesotans, think of an aggressively Italian version of Joe Soucheray.) But he was damned entertaining, for the most part, and captured the spirit of the decaying but scrappy Cleveland perfectly, to my mind.

Anyway. There I am, earlier today, cruising by downtown Cleveland on Interstate 90, when I realized that it was just about the time of day that Triv used to come on the air. Out of pure curiosity, I tuned in AM1100, assuming that his slot was probably no longer his, and that I'd shortly be listening to Sean Hannity, or some other syndicated loudmouth. But there was Triv, right on schedule, and sounding like he was still doing more or less the exact same show he did when I was in college - two parts sour old coot, one part stand-up comic, and about eight parts professional contrarian. Nothing you'd want to listen to for hours on end, but I was happy to stay tuned for a bit.

And then, without warning, it happened. Coming back from a commercial break. Triv told one of his interns to turn on his mic and introduce himself. The kid, who sounded about 19, did, and Triv then asked him to describe what he'd done the previous evening. "Oh!" said the intern. "I was down at Public Square, watching the Cleveland Orchestra!"

I cringed. I've heard hard-boiled talk radio types bring up classical music before, and while it's not always a guarantee that they're about to go on a populist rant against snobbery and boredom, it's a surefire thing that they aren't going to have the slightest clue what they're talking about. So I was shocked to hear Triv immediately come back with, "Now, I heard they had about 80,000 people out there, which is just awesome, 'cause you know, that orchestra of ours, they say it's one of the best in the world!" (Which it is.) He went on to ask the intern about the racial and economic makeup of the crowd, and was audibly pleased to hear that it wasn't "the kind of snobby ties and suits crowd you might probably see when they're playing at Severance Hall."

At this point, one of the producers jumped in to point out that, actually, the crowd at Severance tends to be pretty diverse and casual, as well, and the intern confirmed it. I figured this would be the end of the conversation, but instead, Triv wanted to know when the intern had gotten into listening to classical music, and what he liked about it. This went on for ten minutes, an eternity in drive-time talk radio, as the self-professed "dumb Italian guy" of Cleveland radio extolled the virtues of, arguably, America's greatest symphony orchestra. And the fact that he went right back to talking about his poker weekend in Vegas and the local idiots who think Travis Hafner has been taking steroids after the next break just made the whole thing more satisfying.

One of the toughest things about selling classical music as a general interest entertainment these days is getting past the fact that it's just not even on the cultural radar screen for a large percentage of the public anymore, at least not in the way that movies, pop music, and Christie Brinkley's divorce are. (Many orchestra subscribers would probably prefer that it remain that way, too, which is one of the major reasons that it does.) And while I don't want to imply that ten minutes of relatively lightly informed music talk on a news/talk station equates to progress, it makes me happy.

And, hopefully, it's awakened me enough that I've got another few hours of driving in me before this day is over. Have a good holiday weekend, all, and if you don't have plans for the 4th, you might consider catching Sarah and the orchestra just before the fireworks on the shore of Lake Minnetonka out in Excelsior tomorrow night...

Almost done

As you can see, the tiling is done; all that's left to do is grout, seal and install a door.

Day 3: Dead Milkmen, RC's Mom

Huh? you say. For those of you who aren't from Philadelphia, didn't go to college in the 90's or are not aficionados of the punk rock scene, you probably wouldn't know the Dead Milkmen. Even if you did, you might not remember this track, the second off of 1988's Beezlebubba, which includes the following lyrics:

Gonna beat my wife
Look out!

Wife beatin'
Mistreatin'
Wife slappin'
It happens


(Sung in a soul/funk style).

At first, I didn't recognize the song (or who it was by), and was thus a little horrified (I'm not big on domestic violence, to say the least). And I was a bit confused, as I figured it had to be an ironic commentary on something, but I couldn't remember the context. Then I recognized the deconstructed funk groove and the James Brown-esque caterwauling as the creation of the idiosyncratically humorous punksters that are the Dead Milkmen. And I remembered the context; in 1988, Brown was briefly jailed for, yes, beating his wife (this was in his violent PCP phase), so the song is indeed an ironic commentary.

It made me think of how some music is so topical as to be rendered unlistenable unless it's within a specific context. The Dead Milkmen track is odd, derivative and offensive unless you understood when and about whom it was written (and then you might still find it offensive, but that's just a matter of taste!). So, in a way, it doesn't really stand up to the test of time.

Is the test of truly great music whether it can be taken simply as music, out of any existing context? I thought immediately of pieces like Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique; if we detached the music from the narrative of the artist's opium induced haze and obsession with his beloved, does the music stand up? For me, it certainly does; there is a musical progression that's both organic and logical that takes place over the course of the movements, from the yearning of the first two movements to the ominous rumbles at the end of the third that foreshadow the increasingly violent and macabre expression of the fourth and fifth movements. Sure, it's more fun to listen to that last movement imagining witches cackling and skeletons doing a grotesque round dance, but the music would work on its own regardless.

That's narrative context; what about historic context? Do we need to know that Beethoven had conceived of his Eroica Symphony as an homage to Napoleon (or even that he had Republican leanings) to enjoy the music? I think not. And that is, in large part, what makes that music great; it needs no context, because it is empirically powerful and moving.

As a more modern example, I thought of the film scores and event-specific pieces written by John Williams (and if you haven't figured it out over the last 8 months of this blog, I'm a huge Williams fan). His film music is magic in the context of the movie it was written for, but I find them just as inventive and evocative as pure music. And I don't need to know that "Summon the Heroes" was written for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics; it's just a great orchestral fanfare, however you look at it. It's timeless.

Sinatra is timeless, as are the Beatles; I think Billy Joel is timeless, Elvis Costello. I suppose some of this is a matter of taste, but I feel like it goes beyond that; the best music of any genre has a freshness and an immediacy about it that exists regardless of when or for what reasons it was initially created. I'm not a big reggae fan, but I find a lot of Bob Marley to be utterly timeless. I wonder what music others think have stood the test of time?

Brevia

Saturday, May 10

Random Surreal Moment #1:

LaGuardia Airport, NY, sleepily ambling through the Northwest terminal looking for coffee, who do I bump into but an old friend, violinist Soovin Kim along with pianist Mitsuko Uchida. Of course, because this is a random surreal moment, we are all on the same flight to, of all places, Detroit. Soovin and Mitsuko are on their way to play Messaien's "Quartet for the End of Time" in Kalamazoo. Mitsuko, in her inimitable voice, tells us, "The last time I was there, I received a pen that had written upon it 'Yes, there is a Kalamazoo'!".

Random Surreal Moment #2:

Hungrily ambling down Monroe Street in downtown Detroit several hours later, looking for a meal, I'm assaulted by blaring music. At the intersection of Beaubien and Monroe, in the heart of Greektown, a couple of street musicians are playing drums and sax, riffing on a funk groove, going full throttle. They abruptly stop, and after a moment of silence, the drummer begins an unmistakable ostinato, and four bars later, the sax comes in with...Bolero.

More Random Sports Nonsense (Now With 100% More Osmo!)

Sorry for the sparse posting this week. I've been kept extra busy by my side job as the assistant news editor over at ArtsJournal.com while the site's managing editor is away in Europe, and on top of that, we're playing a pretty big concert this week, which we'll be taking to New York for a Sunday matinee performance at Lincoln Center this weekend.

But I have to confess, another thing keeping me from the keyboard this week is that I'm a huge hockey fan, and as any red-blooded Minnesotan knows, it's playoff time. I'm one of those obsessive fans who actually buys the NHL Center Ice TV package, knows the names of the play-by-play guys on Hockey Night in Canada, and reads John Buccigross's column every week. There are more than a few of us puckheads in the orchestra, and this time of year, we're all more or less giddy with excitement, stopping each other in the halls to lament Martin Skoula's latest horrific defensive lapse or argue about whether Jacques Lemaire (the Osmo Vänskä of hockey coaches) mixes his lines too much.

Osmo's a big hockey fan, too, which is why I'm bothering to bring this up at all. Way back when he first arrived in town, Osmo was asked to be one of the local celebrities who the Minnesota Wild use to lead the crowd in chanting "Let's play hockey!" just before the puck drops. He already knew a fair amount about the game, and since the Wild have always had at least one Finn on the team, he has a natural rooting interest. (One of the highlights of Osmo's life as a fan was sitting in one of the "on the glass" seats down by the penalty box, and getting noted antagonist Ed Jovanovski, then with the Wild's arch-rival Vancouver Canucks, to shout at him while serving a penalty.) He's been known to hand out free luxury box seats to Wild games to members of the orchestra and their families, and I must admit that I've spent many a night sitting next to him at the Xcel Energy Center, screaming at the referees and needling Osmo to explain one more time how Niklas Backstrom can be Finnish when he clearly has a Swedish name.

He was at the Wild's first playoff game of the year last night as well, and he'll reportedly be there again next Thursday for Game 5. And as you can see from this picture I took backstage at intermission of our concert this morning, he's definitely playoff-ready...

That's right. Our music director has grown a playoff beard. See, to me, that's dedication. He's never had a beard in his life, but his team - our team - is in the playoffs, racked by injuries, and fighting desperately to prove they deserve to at least occasionally get mentioned on SportsCenter, and Osmo is showing solidarity in true old-school fashion!

(Okay, fine. Technically, Osmo claims that the beard has nothing to do with the playoffs, and that he just got lazy about shaving while on a composing retreat in the Lapland a couple of weeks ago. I told him that my version sounds better, and he seemed okay with it. So we're going with playoff beard. And if the Wild somehow manage to make it to the Cup finals, you'd better believe he'll be looking for a chance to slip the State of Hockey anthem in as an encore to one of our late-season concerts...)

A personal note

I’ve been struggling over how to begin this post, or even whether to write it at all (an unusual bit of indecision for someone who counts on their ability to make lightning-fast decisions under pressure on the podium as a matter of course!). But as a musician I am as much a communicator as an artist, and if words can illuminate or aid, they are worth expressing. I know that was a bit oblique; bear with me here…

The reason I am a conductor is something my father told me when I was 17. The whole story (or, at least the salient bits) were outlined by Sam in this previous post; suffice it to say, I was a teenage pianist struggling with tendonitis, and it was my father who took me aside and told me that even if my fingers stopped working in the way I wanted them to on the keyboard, I could still hold a stick.

Dad had always been my greatest musical support: he started me on the piano at the age of 5; he was an accomplished amateur pianist who delighted in acting as accompanist in my endless succession of auditions and competitions; he was a supporter of the Honolulu Symphony who took the whole family to every Sunday subscription concert. He helped me incorporate the orchestra I created and conducted during my summers home from college, beamed with pride at my first concerts at Harvard and sent a hothouse full of flowers for my first concerts at Curtis. Despite the differences we had (and there were many), I always knew he believed in what I was doing; and in a way, I was fulfilling his dream of making a life in music (he had taken, after college, what he called the “safe course” and gone to law school, eventually becoming a successful lawyer).

Dad took his own life on March 28, 2001. He was a young 60, in good health, happily married for 32 years with two grown children flourishing on their own, enjoying career success and the love of countless friends and colleagues. In retrospect, perhaps the warning signs were there: the tendency towards deep melancholy; the long solitary trips he took to exotic locales (as if he were trying to find something outside of himself that he couldn’t find within); the insistence, in the year before his death, to get his financial matters into meticulous order.

I was, ironically (at least in my mind), guest conducting as part of a job audition when I heard the news. The phonecall came early on a Friday morning. The concert was that night, and I chose to go through with it rather than fly immediately to Hawaii. Some questioned that decision, but for me there was no other option; for myself, I needed to know that I could still go on as a musician without my father, and I needed to be in that hyperfocused, strangely calm zone that one enters when on the podium before I returned to the chaos at home. I completed what I set out to do that week, and I think my father wouldn’t have expected any less of me.

My life was irrevocably changed. One cannot pass judgment as to whether it is a purely negative change – or maybe I just refuse to contemplate that possibility, because it would be far too painful. Apart from the usual grief that follows the loss of a loved one, there was the nagging sense of both guilt and betrayal, along with a pervasive feeling of abandonment. I never felt as lonely as I did those first few years after Dad’s death, even with my husband holding my hand, next to me on the couch, or in a roomful of friends.

But by the same token, the magnitude of loss and the feeling that I had been blind to the anguish of a person so close to me has made me far more aware of and connected to those around me. I find that I have a greater empathy for other people, for everyone’s struggle to navigate through life, for the inherent connections we all share. And I think that empathy and connection have nourished my musicianship. If anything positive came out of my father’s death, it was that I learned to cast a much gentler, more sympathetic eye on humankind, if not myself.

Suicide is still somewhat of a taboo topic, although it’s becoming less and less so. When I tell my story to people, I still get uncomfortable/stunned silences; few are prepared to respond because we are not taught how to do so, which distresses me. Suicide is the 11th leading cause of death in the U.S., with over 32,000 people a year taking their own lives. Over 80 people take their own lives every day, with nearly 1,500 additional people attempting to do so. It is a part of human society, a part of life; my hope is that by writing about it I can help remove some of the remaining stigma.

I wanted to write this post not just to tell a personal story, but to also reach anyone who may have been touched by suicide, or knows someone who may be contemplating taking their own life, or is thinking of it themselves. Over 60 percent of those who take their own lives also suffer from major depression, which is one of the most treatable psychiatric illnesses (with 90 percent of people having a positive response to treatment). There are a number of excellent organizations who address all aspects of suicide, from prevention to survivor support groups, notably one based in Minnesota, SAVE (Suicide Awareness Voices of Education), and other organizations such as the AFSP (American Foundation for Suicide Prevention).

I fervently hope that no-one will travel down the path that Dad chose, although I know I am hoping beyond reason. The best I can do is to keep at my work, making music, which has the power to provide both deep solace and extraordinary joy, reminding us of the profound privilege of being alive.

Brendel thoughts #3

Part 3 of my trilogy on the great Alfred Brendel, our guest artist for the week. Brendel, at 77, is one of the truly esteemed elder statesmen of the keyboard, and his two concerts with the Orchestra this week will be his last in Minneapolis; he has announced that he will stop performing in public after 2008 and has embarked on what is essentially a "farewell tour" (although he himself does not call it that).

I've been pondering the idea of a musician's career coming to an end. Oftentimes it is logical; particularly for brass and wind players, who rely on the small muscles of the embouchure more prone to the wear and tear of use and age, the decision to retire is purely physiological (although it does not preclude them from continuing to play, just for the pleasure and familiarity of it). String and keyboard players are more likely to be able to maintain their technical skills long into life (I'm reminded of violinist Aaron Rosand whose 80th birthday was feted last fall at the Curtis Institute - as part of the celebration, a bevy of his former students (accomplished soloists and concertmasters from around the world) played together with him and felt as intimidated and humbled by Rosand's playing as when they were his students decades before.) And, of course, conductors are notorious for their longevity - Leopold Stokowski's last performance, in 1975, was undertaken at the age of 93!

From what I heard this week with the Orchestra, there is no discernible diminishment of Brendel's technical skills, and his musical mastery is beyond reproach. Although he does admit that he has a bit of arthritis, he is obviously still an artist in full use of his expressive powers. Why, then, retire? Perhaps to pursue other interests - he is an informed and witty writer, having published two volumes of music essays and a collection of absurdist poetry. Perhaps the rigors of the road have become too much to bear (take a look at his upcoming performances at the "forthcoming events" link - he has a spring schedule that exhausted me just looking at it, with a recital in a different city every 3 days).

Or perhaps he knows that bowing out on a high note - all of his performances have been highly acclaimed - strengthens his legacy in the echelons of great artists. This week has been such a privilege and a pleasure, hearing this extraordinary musician in his last appearances in this city. Every time he began the slow movement of the Beethoven Concerto, it was hard for me not to give an audible sigh of delight - the sound he elicited from the instrument, the stately grace of his phrasing. And the encore, a Schubert Impromptu of poignant simplicity, made more moving, perhaps, by my own thought that this is the last time I will hear him perform live. It reminded me that music is ephemeral - a performance, once finished, can never be duplicated - its very fleeting nature making live music truly an exquisite experience, brief in span but held forever in memory.

Brendel thoughts #2

My second installment of reflections on the Orchestra's week with Alfred Brendel focuses on the relationship between a player and their instrument. Most orchestral musicians (except perhaps for percussionists) own their instruments, as do solo artists (although I suppose you could argue that those who play expensive string instruments provided for their use by wealthy philanthropists, consortiums and various organizations don't actually "own" their instruments - although they play, use and travel with those instruments as if they were their own).

The one exception are pianists, who, by practical consideration, are for the most part unable to always perform with their personal pianos (unless, say, all concerts took place in their living room/studio). It is neither ideal nor really pleasant (sometimes) to show up to a concert venue and play a keyboard which may simply not be suited to you or, worse still, not a good instrument. The mechanism of the piano is easily manipulated so that the keys may be weighted or lightened (affecting the "touch") and certain registers brightened. Soloists have definite preferences as to what works best for them, so of course, the optimal option is to always have your own instrument, which is adjusted to your liking...

...which Mr. Brendel does (and at considerable expense to the presenter!). And what an instrument! With a tone that is crystalline without any sense of brittleness, fluid and honeyed but with the greatest clarity, it is a lovely medium for Brendel's finely-honed musicianship. And it is clearly HIS instrument - you can tell by the way he rests his hands on it for several moments before beginning to play, the sureness with which he draws sound from the different registers. It is an intimate relationship that an artist has with their instrument; it is not enough that an instrument is beautiful or that a player is exquisite - there is an alchemy in the right combination that creates an extraordinary whole.

During tonight's concert I had fleeting thoughts of my childhood instrument - a Baldwin grand, a very serviceable, if unextraordinary, instrument - that, for many years, I faced for at least 3 hours a day. I knew that piano inside and out - the low F# that always spoke a split second late no matter how many times the technician tried to adjust it, the way the pedals engaged about half and inch depressed, the slight pingy-ness of the highest register. It was imperfect, but with a wonderful roundness of sound; it was the instrument that I lived and breathed music with for over 12 years, until I had to turn away from a life at the keyboard. But I still remember the comfort it gave me when I rested my hands on its keys, and the delight it gave me when I knew how to draw its best sound. In an odd way, that Baldwin grand was my first true love, and as they say, true love lasts a lifetime.

Brendel thoughts #1

Alfred Brendel joins the Orchestra tonight as part of a "farewell tour" that caps a distinguished 60-year career. Listening to rehearsals over the last several days, I was struck by a couple of observations which I thought I'd share over the course of the next few days.

Thought for today: why do some instrumentalists vocalise when they play? All players, to varying degrees, make occasional sounds as they ply their craft (and sometimes a loud exhalation can actually help produce the desired sound). Mr. Brendel falls into the category of performers whose "singing" is audible not just to those orchestra members close to him, but to the audience as well.

Conductors, in rehearsal, will sometimes sing how they want something to be played in lieu of trying to explain the desired effect (it's a remarkably efficient way of getting across a point), and sometimes in performance I catch myself humming those very same sections under my breath as the orchestra plays (I trust a first stand string player would tell me if it became loud enough to be distracting!). Part of it, I think, is getting swept up in the moment, and part of it is how external the creation of sound is to a conductor - produced by a mass of other people, not ourselves - and how we occasionally give in to the primal need to participate in some way with that resonance.

That might explain the vocalising of conductors, but what about pianists? I wonder if part of the issue is not the nature of the piano itself, a percussion instrument that, despite its "sustaining" pedal, produces sound that, after the finger-strike, decays immediately. Yes, the best pianists can make the instrument sing, but that is an aural illusion; each note fades exponentially to time, so different from a string or wind instrument that can sustain a pitch as long as a bow or breath will bear. Maybe singing at the keyboard is an attempt to make up for the limitations of the piano.

The other thought I had is how, when we are deep in the music, musicians are communing with something other that our conscious selves. In the best moments of music-making, we are not thinking coherent thoughts, or at least nothing that one could put words to. Instead, we are carrying on a profound discourse with others and the innermost part of ourselves. And when we are so engulfed in this state of musical being, it seems natural to let our voices, the original musical instrument, to lend its sound.

Thought for the day

The first question I ask myself when something doesn't seem to be beautiful is why do I think it's not beautiful. And very shortly you discover that there is no reason.

~ John Cage