Hat #3

Another day in my itinerant musician's life, this time in Philly, for a week at the Curtis Institute of Music where I'm staff conductor (even though I'm here only a few weeks a year). It's always interesting for me to move between what are often wildly divergent weeks of work. It strikes me that I wear quite a few hats; there are certain expectations of me as the assistant conductor of a major orchestra, a different set of expectations when I'm guest conducting, and a whole different protocol when I'm in a conducting/teaching role as I am this week at Curtis.

I generally enjoy teaching, although I find it to be the most taxing thing I do. Part of the stress has to do with the responsibility I feel when trying to impart information and perhaps a different perspective to a group of young people. Another part lies in the necessity, when teaching, to not only understand that information and perspective internally, but to also be able to coherently express it. Teaching forces me to both organize and formalize, and in the process I often find that I inadvertently clarify, for myself, my own viewpoints.

I spent 6 years teaching at Curtis (I was hired the Monday after graduation, so for a long time it felt like I had never left the place!), and it's an experience for which I'm tremendously grateful. I taught a conducting class for all non-conducting majors, a required course for a bachelor's degree, which meant I saw almost all of the enrolled students at one point or another in my class. We discussed the history of the art of conducting, orchestration and analysis, as well as the physical aspects of conducting. Teaching analysis forced me to be acutely methodical and disciplined in my own studying; teaching technique pushed me to find a more systematic physical vocabulary. Professional orchestras often thank me for the clarity of my beat; I would in turn thank my teaching years. When a student asks you how to achieve an accent on an off-beat, you need a very compact and specific answer. The absolute understanding and clarity of intent one needs to be a proficient teacher in turn has helped me in my conducting.

The teaching comes back to me in another way as well; many of my students have gone on to successful careers as soloists and orchestral musicians, many of whom I've encountered over the years. And when they tell me that they can still recall from memory the Haydn symphony movement I had them conduct, or that they remember how to give a neutral preparation beat to an active upbeat, I feel that little flutter of pride; something I'd taught had made enough of an impact to remain in their memory, to become a part of them.