Last Sunday afternoon I rehearsed the Sibelius Violin Concerto with the Berkeley College Orchestra of Yale University. My 21 year old son Stephen conducted. It was a wonderful experience for me!!!! The orchestra members were good musicians and very supportive. The Sibelius is a complicated piece to put together, especially if many of the musicians are playing it for the first time, as was the case on Sunday. Fortunately, we had a 2 and a half hour rehearsal to work on everything. By the end of the rehearsal, Stephen and I felt really good about all that we had accomplished.
The orchestra rehearsed again last night. Today I drive to New Haven, this time with my wife Jeanne. We have the privilege of staying in the guest suite at Berkeley College, at the invitation of the Berkeley Master, Marvin Chun. Then tomorrow, we will rehearse a little around 6 pm for the 8 pm concert.
I'm very excited, thankfully not too nervous, that the concert is almost here. I've worked really hard on the piece this fall, and I am enjoying the results to this point. I look forward to sharing the piece with tomorrow night's fellow performers and the audience.
Wish me luck!
Oh, here is the link to the BCO's website, if you would like to learn more about my concert and my son's orchestra. Above is a picture of my son Stephen.
Got a tip-off about this from Tim Smith's noteworthy blog: the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra received a Grammy nomination for their recording of Bernstein's Mass yesterday in the Best Classical Album category. I suspected this recording would get this level of notoriety soon. Listen to clips or purchase the CD Here. And Marin Alsop got another Grammy nomination for the recording she did with the London Philharmonic with her pal (We can assume they are friends, right?- since Higdon's pieces and premieres are all over the BSO's lineup every year), Jennifer Higdon's piece, the Percussion Concerto. So, in other words, congrats to the musicians, Marin, and the staff who put this together!
My son Stephen was home for Thanksgiving last week. He brought his orchestral score to the Sibelius Violin Concerto. He and I spent several hours studying it, mostly in the form of me playing the solo part as he followed the score, singing and conducting. We discussed how Stephen should conduct some parts where the meter of the piece is somewhat confusing, as the violas are in 4 while the rest of the orchestra is still in 6. We discussed tempos and how to make transitions.
Not only was he learning how to conduct this particular concerto, and how I want to perform it; I too was learning again what it is to play a big romantic violin concerto with an orchestra (in this case the Berkeley College Orchestra of Yale University, an undergraduate group.) Despite the fact that the soloist gets most of the audience's attention in any concerto, there is a lot of give and take between soloist, conductor and orchestra. It is one thing for a soloist to know his notes, and quite another for him to understand where he must play as loudly as possible because the horns are playing at the same time, to know where there can be rhythmic freedom, and where he must play strictly in tempo to avoid causing the orchestra to have a train wreck!
The last time I played a big solo concerto was 1993, so this is a reawakening of sorts for me. It truly is satisfying to practice one of the great masterpieces, to learn more and more about a piece that I have loved for decades. And the chance to perform it with my son conducting his orchestra makes it even more special than it would already be.
I go up to New Haven this Sunday to rehearse with the orchestra, then the concert is the evening of December 11.
Thanksgiving week. FINALLY a break! It has been a great 5 weeks of BSO classical concerts, with 2 guest conductors and 3 weeks with Marin. Mix in a couple of November chamber concerts, and I am a little tired out. One day away from the violin, then back to practicing. In two and a half weeks, I go to New Haven to perform the Sibelius Violin Concerto with the Berkeley College (of Yale University) Orchestra with my son, Stephen conducting. I'm excited about this project, as I haven't performed any concerto with any orchestra for over 10 years. And the Sibelius is my favorite of many favorite violin concertos. There is nothing like it: it is a virtuosic workout for a violinist, but it is too great to call it a "showpiece." The orchestral writing is superb; after all, it is Sibelius.
Making music with my family goes back a very long way. When I was quite young, I used to play violin while my dad accompanied me on the piano. My brother took up the violin, and my sisters, pianists to start, eventually also learned the cello and the viola. So a least once a year we like to get together and play great string quartets. Now that there is another generation of string players, we can expand that to string quintets, etc. when we want to.
Meanwhile, I'm grateful that both my boys, Eric and Stephen, are home this week from law school and college. We'll have a nice Thanksgiving with my parents and my sister's family, who will all drive up from Virginia Thursday.
And if this weather would just clear a bit, we could manage one more outdoor tennis match this fall!
Tonight I'm going to see Maryland Opera Studio's L'elisir d'amore (Elixir of Love) at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center. (Yes, tonight is the last performance-not fabulous on the timing!) I've heard some great things about this year's opera students, so I'm hoping to thoroughly enjoy myself (as you will too, if you come.) And now, similar to the Baltimore Symphony's multimedia for events, you can further engage with with the performance before and afterwards by going to the Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library Previews page to find books, recordings, and scores relating to the event. With so much cyber media these days, there's no excuse not to be an educated concertgoer!
Here's a funny story to follow up on the performances of Beethoven's Symphony #4 that the BSO performed a few weeks ago, and that the Berkeley College Orchestra of Yale University also performed, with my son Stephen conducting, the same weekend.
We were comparing notes that week, and I asked how the violins were doing with the very difficult last movement. Stephen said the violins were really cooking, then he told me about the notoriously hard bassoon lick midway through the last movement. It is a few bars of very fast 16th notes more suited for violins than for bassoons! In the dress rehearsal, Stephen looked up at the bassoonist to give him a cue for this passage, but the bassoon was sitting on the musician's lap, and the musician just shook his head "no," as if to say "you gotta be kidding me."
In the end, Stephen and the bassoonist worked out the version of the passage to play for the concert. Seems like an effective technique; maybe I will try the instrument in the lap, shaking my head thing the next time we have an impossible passage! lol.
The beauty of the leaves on the trees, and especially the crispness of the air. I think I also love fall because, though a nice vacation at the end of the summer is always welcome, we get back to work on great music.
It's also perfect time for tennis, usually. A bunch of BSO guys play often on Monday: David Coombs, Ken Goldstein, Ivan Stefanovic, Chris Williams, Karin Brown's husband Dan. Jon Carney sometimes plays too, though not lately. We always whoop it up onthe court, pretending for a day that we are athletes, not just musicians.
Fall seems to be the only part of the year when I remember to ride my bike. I have a mountain bike, though I discovered that rough trails weren't exactly kind to the muscles in mmy forearms, which get enough wear and tear playing the violin. I live fairly near Worthington Valley, north of Owings Mills/Reisterstown, so it is easy for me to ride through a couple of neighborhoods and get into the great part of Baltimore County that is still horse farms, etc. Great vistas from my bike!
Mahler's Symphony No. 4 is on the program this week, conducted by Marin Alsop. There is such a great sense of peace in the work, less of the overt drama characteristic of most of his symphonies. It has been a long time since we performed it, so I will savor the rehearsals and performances of it.
he invitation of the Berkeley Master, Marvin Chun. Then tomorrow, we will rehearse a little around 6 pm for the 8 pm concert.
