Musical Chairs

This week, we're playing a richly varied program of music by Sibelius, Grieg, and Mozart - meat and potatoes repertoire - and I'm sitting at the back of the section with Sifei Cheng, who was my very first stand partner when I joined the Minnesota Orchestra. And for some reason, that's got me thinking about the benefits and drawbacks of the way we section string players drift around the stage from week to week.

Back when I first arrived in Minneapolis, in February 2000 (yup, my 10th anniversary with the orchestra comes up next Monday!), every member of the string section had a designated chair where we sat every day, every rehearsal, every concert, unless someone ahead of us was absent for some reason. Technically, all "non-titled" section players were equals, but there was no chance to move closer to the front of the section until someone ahead of you left the orchestra. In some sections, a vacancy would be filled by moving all the existing players up to fill in the gap, then placing the newest member at the back, but in other sections, any existing player wishing to move up would have to actually re-audition. Some members of our violin section actually auditioned 5 or more times over the course of their careers, just to get a better, but still non-titled, chair!

My chair was on the inside of the fourth desk of violas, with Sifei just to my left. It's not a bad chair, actually, despite being nearer the back of the stage than the front. You can usually see both the conductor and the principal viola pretty clearly; you're surrounded by other violists; and on a good day, you can even see the concertmaster, which is a bonus for any string player.

Also, as stand partners go, it probably doesn't get any better than Sifei. (His name is pronounced SEE-fee, by the way - I've heard some amazing butchery of that name over the years.) He's one of the calmest and friendliest people I've ever met, he plays absolutely effortlessly, and almost nothing fazes him. When you're a 23-year-old kid less than two years removed from college and jumping into the first really big job of your professional life, that's exactly the kind of player you want next to you. (It also didn't hurt that we're both obsessive sports fans. You've gotta have something to talk about when the guest conductor's horrible and the music is easy.)

I'd been in the orchestra for a little over three years when everything changed, and we voted to scrap our fixed-chair tradition for a mildly complicated system of revolving seating for section players. It was strictly voluntary for existing members of the orchestra (so as to protect those players who really had spent years painstakingly working their way up through the ranks,) but mandatory for anyone joining up after the system was enacted. The rationale for revolving is simple: sitting up front is better in almost every way. You can hear more accurately, see more clearly, and generally feel far more important to the ensemble blend than you do sitting thirty feet back on last desk.

Then, there's the undeniable fact that not everyone in a fixed seating system gets along as well as Sifei and I did. In my first professional orchestra, the old-timers loved to tell the story of the two bass players who sat together for decades without speaking, each with a single earplug stuffed into the ear that was turned towards the other. So the chance to switch seats every couple of weeks can be a lifesaver.

On the other hand, weeks like this one remind me of just how comfortable I used to feel with Sifei always on my left. It wasn't just that he was (and is) a monster player; it's that the permanence of a single stand partner allows you to build chemistry over time, the same way that members of a string quartet do. When you know instinctively how the person you're sitting with reacts to any musical situation, there's a comfort level, or at least a heightened awareness, that comes over your playing. Basically, it feels more like a partnership, at least when things are going well.

So while I don't quite miss the days when my career as a violist began and ended at "fourth stand inside," I feel lucky that I got a chance to try out both systems. It's still better at the front, but it's nice having a slightly deeper musical partnership that you get to revisit every now and then. Best of both worlds, if you ask me...