Mission Accomplished

I wanted to post this entry sooner, but with all the snow, I spend the weekend digging myself out! I hope everyone out there stayed safe and warm.

I enjoyed my time with all the Rusty Musicians on Tuesday and Thursday. They were all there to play their best, and I just hope that they enjoyed the experience as much as you did, Dianne! Sorry about those day long butterflies. I know other "Rustys" were nervous also, from what they told me. That can come with the territory even for us professionals at times. Sometimes they days that I am the most nervous about a performance are the days I play the best! (Sometimes not.)

Marin is very personable, isn't she? I agree that it was classy for her to come around and shake everyone's hand after each segment, but I'm not surprised. She absolutely believes in connecting with everyone who comes into the BSO's orbit, so to speak. You probably already know that Rusty Musicians, at least for the BSO, is her idea.

I'm glad to hear that you were so excited that you almost floated away! That's the kind of excitement we hope we generate whenever we make music.

By the way, Lorie (my Tuesday 6 pm stand partner,) if you read this: thanks for your generous comments you wrote for B Magazine about sitting with me on Tuesday evening. I strive to let the music "speak through me," so to speak. I'm glad that it seemed that way to you. Because while we pros might have more experience doing this than you "Rustys," we often have the same concerns and fears that you might. "Will I be able to play this difficult passage fast enough? Can I keep a beautiful sound at all times? Can I hit that high note that I have to shift to?" That's life as a musician: the goals are very lofty, and the real life issues are pretty commonplace. Usually when the final note of a concert is played, you can let go of those concerns for a while, but they always return with the next concert or rehearsal.

Rusty in Review!

Tuesday evening the BSO held its first Rusty Musician event at Strathmore Hall. Thankfully I had had my annual physical the day before and my doctor told me that I was due for a tetanus shot :)

Rusty Musicians was fun! The format was a 40 minute chunk of time devoted first to rehearsing, then a short performance of "Nimrod" from Elgar's Enigma Variations and then the 4th movement of Tchaikovsky's 4th Symphony. (We did this 4 times in the course of the evening, with each BSO musician scheduled to play either the first 2 or the last 2.)

My two stand partners were charming. The first, Lori, does research at Johns Hopkins Hospital. She told me that she had played consistently through her sophomore year of high school, so it has been a few years for her since she played with an orchestra, I think. Nevertheless, she was able to hand in there and contribute!

My second partner, Jay from Columbia, was clearly very well prepared. After rehearsing the first few bars of the Tchaikovsky, I said to him "you've played this before, haven't you?" He was getting every note! He nodded yes. As it turns out, Jay plays with the Annapolis Symphony, Concert Artists, and other local orchestras. I wasn't expecting that I would be sitting beside a violinist with as much ability and experience as Jay has. It was a treat!

Overall, the combination of BSO musicians and "Rustys" sounded pretty good. Tonight we do it again; I wonder who I will meet?

Feeling Rusty?

Today we begin our Rusty Musicians rehearsals/concerts. This is new to me in an orchestral setting, though I do something similar a couple of times each year with my family. My two sisters both teach music, but my dad was a pension fund manager and my brother is an architect. The chamber music we play at family get-togethers is sort of a min Rusty Musicians, I guess.

It's easy as a performer to focus on getting the right notes and rhythms, making sure that the quality of the sound is just so, and whether or not you are perfectly in tune. I occasionally have to remind myself that while those efforts are important, it is the expression of music to the audience which is most important. Over the years, I can remember concerts that were technically imperfect but musically extraordinary. A bond of sorts is formed when the music leaps from the stage out into the hall and moves through, bounces off, is absorbed by everyone in the hall hearing and performing the music at the same moment.

I guess that is what should happen tonight with Rusty Musicians, though on a more intimate scale. Having done our "Side by Side" rehearsals and concerts with Baltimore, Anne Arundel, and Harford county high school students over the years, I know that it is gratifying not only for the students, but also for us BSO musicians, to make musical connections by sitting next to each other and by experiencing great music together. So I guess I have done a version of Rusty Musicians with the BSO after all, only with Developing, not Rusty Musicians.

I bet some of the Rusty Musicians will be nervous tonight, not knowing whether or not they will play "well enough," so to speak, to be on stage with us. Don't worry, Rusty Musicians! We'll have fun, probably laugh a little at all the missed notes (ours as well as yours,) and enjoy the camaraderie. (Sometimes, being somewhat perfectionist, we wonder if we are good enough, too!)

Spring Arts Preview in Washington Post

The Washington Post published their Spring Arts Preview yesterday in the Style Section. Although you have to cipher through the other music sections to find the Classical Music list, there's a better view of everything in the hard-copy version (the luxury of paying for print). Anne Midgette's Classical Music and Opera Picks completely excluded the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra's Spring Season, but then again, I'm inclined to think she favors the aura of The Kennedy Center since over half of the events listed occur there. The BSO is listed in the general calendar for

Feb. 11- Dave and Chris Brubeck

April 29- Alsop conducts world premiere of Jonathan Leshnoff's "Starburst";

June 10- Alsop conducts Barber's "Knoxville" and Brahms Requiem,

all at the Music Center at Strathmore (and the Meyerhoff, but that's just too far for the Post to include, of course).

I was pleased to see Midgette finally included the UMD School of Music on her list with the world premiere of Shadowboxer: An Opera Based On the Life of Joe Louis in April, as well as the Kronos Quartet on Feb. 12 at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center.

On another note, it was disheartening that the BSO did not receive the Grammy for their Bernstein Mass recording, but it was nice to see Marin Alsop win for the Higdon Percussion Concerto recording with the London Philharmonic, and the Mass' Producer, Steven Epstein, won as well for Producer of the Year, Classical. See all the Grammy winners Here.

Back in the Saddle

Back in the Saddle. That's how last week felt to me. Not only did we play a Side-by-Side concert with Baltimore County high school students and a very nice baroque concert with Madeline Adkins leading a slimmed down BSO, my quartet had a performance at one of our very favorite venues, Second Presbyterian, last Saturday evening.

Violinist Rebecca Nichols, violist Christian Colberg and I have performed together in the Atlantic String Quartet since our first concert a Second Presbyterian back in September 1995. Bo Li, our cellist, joined us in 2002. Sometimes the ASQ feels like my 2nd family. There is an intimacy in chamber music that can be remarkable. Thankfully, we are all friends and we thrive on the intimacy and on the great repertoire written over the centuries for string quartets.

After our performance of Schumann's 3rd String Quartet Sunday evening, a very enthusiastic fan came backstage to greet us. He mentioned that we performed the piece "with gusto," and that this was Schumann's 200th birthday year. Schumann is this man's favorite composer, so it was very satisfying to me that we provided him with an experience that he savored so much.

This must be Schumann week here in Baltimore as well. Gunther Herbig, one of our favorite guest conductors over the years, is on the podium to conduct Schumann's 4th Symphony, along with the Corialan Overture and the Third Piano Concerto of Beethoven. Garrick Ohlsson is our soloist for the concerto.

I'm excited about the week!

Holiday Tidings

Both my boys (young men, I suppose) made it home for the winter break, although Stephen had quite a time getting out of New York on December 20 because of the snow storm. I finally was able to pick him up after 6 pm from a bus stop at a Best Western in East Baltimore that I didn't know existed.

After the December 23 - 2 pm Holiday Spectacular show, my wife Jeanne and I celebrated our 25th anniversary the way we have celebrated almost all of the others: by driving to Alexandria, VA, dropping our kids off with my parents there, then heading into Washington, D.C., always pretty deserted around that time of year. You can get great rates on hotels there because the city is so empty on December 22, so we have tried many different hotels over the years. We have a favorite though, the Willard. Normally we wouldn't be able to afford it, but on December 23 we could! We had dinner in the round bar there; the bar and the hotel itself are quite historic.

The next day we headed down to Charlottesville to visit my sister Laura and her family, just as we have for the last twenty-some years. It was a beautiful drive; the snow from the storm on December 19 was on the ground the whole way. Christmas was great, then on December 26 before heading home we played string quartets for awhile. Laura is the cellist, her daughter Emily and I played violin, and Stephen (though he is really a violinist) read the viola part with a viola borrowed from Laura's school. She is the director of the Charlottesville High School Orchestra, an award winning and well traveled group of young musicians. Last year they were invited to be a part of the summer program at Loren Maazel's estate in rural Virginia, learning and performing repertoire with older students and professionals. We read through a couple of short pieces by Glazunov, but also more popular fare, including a fun Star Trek arrangement.

My son Eric is still here for another week so he and I will check out the skiing at Whitetail today and catch a Washington Capitals' game Thursday. Eric is a big hockey fan. We don't have BSO rehearsals and concerts until next week, but I am practicing every day as a good violinist should.

The Spectacularness of Holiday Spectacular

About a week ago, I was walking down the hall in the UMD School of Music, on my way to the mail room, and the Opera Studio Coordinator, Laura Lee, stopped me and said "Are you coming Thursday?" "Coming to What," I said. "Holiday Spectacular!" I came to find out she has been stage-managing the Baltimore Symphony's Holiday Spectacular show for several years now. A sneak peak at the final dress rehearsal? Can't really pass that up.
This past Thursday, I beat my way up I-95 in rush hour traffic, and it was well worth it. The host, this year, Ann Hampton Calloway, of broadway fame, has a fierce set of pipes, and opera star, Daniel Okulitch, duos and solos with the deepest bass-baritone voice I've ever heard.
And I'm going to let out a secret about those Dancing Santas (which, by the way, are really something to see): they are high school students from the Baltimore School for the Arts!
I know the BSO musicians might find the music a bit tedious; the level of music does not rank up there with Mozart, Strauss, and other classical greats. I've even heard some of them say it's all a bit chintzy- but you know, chintzy is as chintzy does. And, in this case, they do chintzy well!
There are four shows left: two on Tuesday and two on Wednesday, to accommodate the wee folk. Check it out Here.
Happy Holidays!