Days That Make It All Worth It
So, as I mentioned a while back, I'm spending a couple of weeks in rural New Hampshire, teaching and performing at the Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music. It's my second summer here, which, as anyone who's ever worked at a summer camp will tell you, means that it's my first summer actually feeling comfortable in my surroundings. Like most other music camps, Apple Hill is chock full of people who've been coming for years or even decades, and it takes a newcomer a while to get his/her bearings. To make matters worse, I spent most of my time here last summer either on the phone dealing with a sudden and unexpected family crisis or rehearsing frantically for a performance of Bartok 4 that seemed to be on an impossible timetable. I left after putting in my two weeks, wondering whether I had come across as an antisocial jerk, and not 100% sure that I'd done a very good job as a coach.
As it turned out, I can't have screwed it up too badly, because I got asked back almost immediately, and judging from the number of Apple Hill people who found my Facebook profile and got in touch over the year, I must have at least been social enough to leave an impression. And that's a good thing, because I'm having an absolute blast this time around. I'm performing a Mendelssohn quintet that I've always wanted to play with four incredible musicians, two of whom I went to college with and have been waiting for the chance to reunite with. (The piece also induces a lot less stress than a Bartok quartet, which is nice when you have only six days to rehearse.)
I'm also coaching three small chamber ensembles - early quartets by Mozart and Haydn, and the Franck piano quintet - and as always, I'm struck by the unique challenge each separate group poses. On the one hand, I've done enough coaching in my life that I've developed a style that tends to stay with me regardless of who's in front of me. But one thing I learned from my college viola teacher was the importance of adapting to the needs of your students, and to me, that's the most challenging aspect of the job. I've had quartets so timid that the slightest sharp word would put them near tears, and others so enthusiastic that it was all I could do to keep them under control. Most fall in between those extremes, and the really fun groups have a mix of personalities in which a good coach can use the strengths of one player to draw out new skills from another.
It's a heavy schedule of teaching, rehearsing, and performing here - I'm actually working many more hours each day than I do back home with the orchestra, and since we live in the same basic area as the participants, I'm more or less always on duty if someone needs help with something. But places like Apple Hill, while they may be exhausting, offer the kind of experiences that professional musicians will often go out of their way to seek out.
When you make your living playing concerts week in and week out, it can become a grind, and grinding leads to cynicism and a lack of real appreciation for what we get to do for a living. Helping a group of teenagers learn how to pull off a single, confident, competent performance of a piece that was flummoxing them only a few days earlier is rejuvenating. More than that, it's a living reminder of similar experiences that made each of us want to play music for a living.
A few minutes ago, as I was writing this, the violist from my Franck piano quintet bounced in the door and flopped into the chair next to me. She's from Bulgaria, and is studying music in Boston. In our first coaching today, I wasn't sure how to approach her - she seemed a bit shy compared to the others in the group, and I didn't want to overwhelm her on the first day of what will surely be a difficult week. But here she was tonight, sitting here and talking a mile a minute about how much she loves viola, how her favorite composer is Shostakovich, and how excited she was to hear that a violist would be coaching her group. And all I could think about was how I used to sit on the porch at my own childhood music camp, talking a mile a minute to my favorite coach about how great the viola was, how Shostakovich was my favorite composer, and how excited I was to dig into the piano quintet I'd just been assigned for that week.
I think tomorrow, I'll try pushing her a little harder for that extra rich sound I need on her big solo in the Franck...
As it turned out, I can't have screwed it up too badly, because I got asked back almost immediately, and judging from the number of Apple Hill people who found my Facebook profile and got in touch over the year, I must have at least been social enough to leave an impression. And that's a good thing, because I'm having an absolute blast this time around. I'm performing a Mendelssohn quintet that I've always wanted to play with four incredible musicians, two of whom I went to college with and have been waiting for the chance to reunite with. (The piece also induces a lot less stress than a Bartok quartet, which is nice when you have only six days to rehearse.)
I'm also coaching three small chamber ensembles - early quartets by Mozart and Haydn, and the Franck piano quintet - and as always, I'm struck by the unique challenge each separate group poses. On the one hand, I've done enough coaching in my life that I've developed a style that tends to stay with me regardless of who's in front of me. But one thing I learned from my college viola teacher was the importance of adapting to the needs of your students, and to me, that's the most challenging aspect of the job. I've had quartets so timid that the slightest sharp word would put them near tears, and others so enthusiastic that it was all I could do to keep them under control. Most fall in between those extremes, and the really fun groups have a mix of personalities in which a good coach can use the strengths of one player to draw out new skills from another.
It's a heavy schedule of teaching, rehearsing, and performing here - I'm actually working many more hours each day than I do back home with the orchestra, and since we live in the same basic area as the participants, I'm more or less always on duty if someone needs help with something. But places like Apple Hill, while they may be exhausting, offer the kind of experiences that professional musicians will often go out of their way to seek out.
When you make your living playing concerts week in and week out, it can become a grind, and grinding leads to cynicism and a lack of real appreciation for what we get to do for a living. Helping a group of teenagers learn how to pull off a single, confident, competent performance of a piece that was flummoxing them only a few days earlier is rejuvenating. More than that, it's a living reminder of similar experiences that made each of us want to play music for a living.
A few minutes ago, as I was writing this, the violist from my Franck piano quintet bounced in the door and flopped into the chair next to me. She's from Bulgaria, and is studying music in Boston. In our first coaching today, I wasn't sure how to approach her - she seemed a bit shy compared to the others in the group, and I didn't want to overwhelm her on the first day of what will surely be a difficult week. But here she was tonight, sitting here and talking a mile a minute about how much she loves viola, how her favorite composer is Shostakovich, and how excited she was to hear that a violist would be coaching her group. And all I could think about was how I used to sit on the porch at my own childhood music camp, talking a mile a minute to my favorite coach about how great the viola was, how Shostakovich was my favorite composer, and how excited I was to dig into the piano quintet I'd just been assigned for that week.
I think tomorrow, I'll try pushing her a little harder for that extra rich sound I need on her big solo in the Franck...
Labels: the traveling musician, the young people
posted by Sam at
10:42 PM
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