Some timely thoughts from our diarist, Anthea Kreston of the Artemis Quartet:
With the recent upheavals of the Pittsburgh Symphony and Philadelphia Orchestra, Norman Lebrecht asked me to address the differences between a life as a chamber and orchestral musician. So, here goes!
As a student at the Curtis Institute of Music, I was constantly rotating between being completely overwhelmed, inspired beyond my wildest dreams, dejected and convinced that I could never reach the level demanded of me, and soaring with a musical abandon never anticipated. In hallowed halls, which have historically and currently hold the legends of classical music (both as students and teachers), I shared Wednesday teas with students who already had enviable solo careers, management, and recording contracts. Teachers, most of whom had arrived from Europe in the 30’s and 40’s, were most often octogenarians with storied pasts, with incredible careers and direct links to the great composers and performers of Europe. Alumni are amongst the front ranks of soloists, conductors, chamber musicians and hold leading positions in top orchestras the world over.
It was here that I saw the vast career opportunities available to musicians, and as most of my friends joined top 10 orchestras immediately after leaving school, or simply continued their incredible solo successes, I was adrift with indecision. In search for a deeper meaning, my first quest post-Curtis was to buy my first car (a used Buick Skylark) and drive solo cross country to temporarily join a commune in Oregon and assist in the home birth of a dear friend from high school. From there, I moved to Oberlin to have a musical detox, finding a house (which was immediately condemned and destroyed after I left 6 months later) in which, to get from the bedroom to the kitchen, a person would have to take a running jump across a disturbingly sagging floor to cook their rice and beans.
All the while, old friends would be in contact – I would drive to visit them in their posh apartments and swanky homes – they had adult clothing and matching dishes – leased cars and international touring schedules. Although no one challenged me directly, they would ask my plans – why didn’t I audition for an orchestra? I didn’t know the answer, but I did know that orchestra wasn’t the answer.
I moved to Cleveland soon after, started a degree in Women’s Studies, and began to experiment with effects processors and foot pedals. Before long, I had a steady gig with a rock band, and I considered the evening a raging success if I left the bar we were performing in not drenched in beer.
One day, my “a” string broke, and I decided to go to the Cleveland Institute of Music and see if they had a music supply store. As I wandered the halls, a tentative voice said “Sarah? Sarah Kreston?”. This was before I changed my name to Anthea. The voice belonged to Nicole Johnson, an incredible cellist I grew up with, and daughter of the esteemed cellist and teacher Mark Johnson of the Vermeer Quartet. She could barely recognize me – in my outsized black army boots, red kilt, white t-shirt with a hand-lettered political statement, and a nearly shaved head, she had to do a double take.
She wondered what I was up to – no one knew I lived in town. She had a string quartet which was going to Norfolk for the summer and their violist just dropped out. Would I like to read with them? We exchanged numbers, and my obsession with chamber music began.
The first 10 years were difficult in every way, but I loved the challenge and didn’t mind being poor. As my focus eventually broadened to Piano Trio and university teaching, my financial portfolio grew. I had variety, stability, a beautiful farm house in Connecticut, a wonderful partner and friends.
It was during this time that the first break-downs of the American Orchestra machine began. First one orchestra and then the next folded, went on strike, took multiple pay-cuts. Suddenly the diversity of my life offered a financial stability which did not exist for orchestral musicians who were locked into a one-salary position.
In 1996, a landmark study was published by Harvard Psychology Professor Richard Hackman. It detailed his study of the most and least satisfying jobs in America. A surprise to most, but certainly not to me, was the placing of an orchestra musician low on the list, just after that of a federal prison guard, and sharing the top spot with cockpit crews was the job of a string quartet musician. I guess it was all worth the wait.
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In the erratic rhythm of my life, the weekly writing of this diary offers me a calming and thoughtful personal reflection on both the micro and macro of my life. More and more people have been asking specific questions of me, via email, Facebook and through the comment sections, and I try to answer as many as I can, and incorporate big topics into the diary. I would like to invite readers to directly email me at GeigeBerlin@yahoo.com (the hotline email I began immediately after my violin was stolen earlier this year) with questions or topic suggestions.
A celebrated mezzo makes the wedding page of the parish paper.
The lucky guy is an old college pal called Clay Brakeley.
The wedding took place three weeks ago in Santa Fe.
This may seem a little retro, but Australian composer Andrew Batt-Rawden, 31, thought his new string quartet might seem cool if he turned up naked on stage.
In his first work of criticism since suffering a brain injury 15 months ago, Tim Page shows in a single paragraph why he’s still one of the best. From his review of the John Cage Letters in the NYRB:
If I rarely listen to John Cage, I listen through him constantly. I teach a graduate course in writing about music at the University of Southern California. At some point, late in the semester, after the traditional exercises are finished, I ask my students to walk out into the sunshine, to find music of any kind (if they call it music, I’ll accept it as music), to write a couple of paragraphs about what they’ve heard, then to come back to the classroom and read their work aloud. The subjects may vary from the sounds of a guitarist playing under a tree to the tintinnabulation of the practice rooms to the sounds of fountains, birds, and the cars and buses turning from Hoover Street onto Jefferson Boulevard. After listening to the world for half an hour with music in mind and pouring the experience into a narrative, the students are eager to read, talk, dispute, defend, and wonder about the very nature of creation. Such a question is Cage’s gift to us and it is a very real one.
The diva’s looks back with Toronto Symphony music director Peter Oundjian.
Here’s what we find attached to the incredibly detailed contract of The MozArt Group:
Dear partners, promoters, colleagues,
This technical rider is the most important tool for all MozART group shows and productions. The MozART group is a string quartet with a respectful but very different approach to the so called “classical” music. Therefore some things might be very different from “usual” setups.
All MozART group shows run without intermission and have a duration of approximately 75 to 90 minutes.
No printed program will be provided. Any printed information about the MozART group needs to be approved by the management. Please read carefully and ask us if you have questions or if any parts of this rider are not understandable.
It is absolutely needed and expected to cooperate towards an ideal result and make every show a great experience for audience and artists. The requirements below are MozART group standard. Absolutely all changes need to be approved by the management. Please avoid “we have never done this before” or “this is not possible”. It is always better to talk and work together on the best possible solutions.
The MozART GROUP performs only with its own sound and light technician. He must have the possibility to change light & sound during the concert from his FOH position. The control/mixing tables must be placed inside the concert hall, behind the audience and next to each other. One person will work on both tables. Stage must be absolutely ready upon arrival of the artists following the requirements below.
The MozART group technician, Mr.Jurek Drozda will setup our own wireless microphone system (MIPRO ACT- Series) upon arrival. Also further sound and light setup will be done upon arrival. In case of an unprepared stage, the MozART group will not start setup and sound check. Local technicians must be available upon arrival at the venue and remain available until the end of the show. Only publicity materials sent by MozART group management can be used. No other materials are approved at all.
PR materials can be downloaded via http://www.mozartgroup.net/images/upload/riders/main.zip No recording, video taping, recording “just for archives”, taking pictures is allowed during rehearsal, setup and show without written approval. The management will not tolerate any of this. The purchaser will make sure, the audience is well informed about it. Open Air shows are possible and need a special agreement. The MozART group signs DVD’s after the show. Please provide one person for the merchandising stand.
Got that?
Principal doublebass player in the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and fonder of the Chineke! orchestra, Chi-chi Nwanoku has been named Black British Business Person of the Year, 2016.
She has been congratulated by the prime minister and the Mayor of London. Go, Chi-chi!
From the Lebrecht Album of the Week:
It is so rare to hear the Gurre Lieder live that most of us are acquainted with it only on record — in memorable interpretations by Rafael Kubelik, Pierre Boulez, Riccardo Chailly, Claudio Abbado and others. The work employs a vast orchestra and chorus for an unbroken duration of ninety minutes, much of which occupies a zone of uncertainty as to whether what we are hearing is ancient or modern.
Schoenberg began composing the cycle in Wagnerian modalities in 1900, abandoned it three years later, finished it in 1911 as a provocative atonalist, and achieved the greatest triumph of his life at its 1913 Vienna premiere, turning his back on the cheering audience and acknowledging only the participant musicians. Austere Arnold was not cut out for popular acclaim….
Message from the Austrian violinist, Daniel Auner:
The Auner Quartet are on a concert tour through Brazil, playing in several cities. Before we left Austria, the Austrian Ambassador to Brazil, Marianne Feldmann, contacted me regarding a children’s orchestra ‘Reciclando Sons’.
They contacted the Embassy as they need strings for their instruments.
So I went in Vienna to the Thomastik-Infeld Factory and explained the situation, they were asking for 100 sets of violin and 50 sets viola strings for the kids. Two days ago the Embassy organised a concert for us to give the orchestra its Strings.
Thomastik Infeld did not send 150 sets. It sent 1000 sets – 4000 individual strings. We will now be able to support several other music institutions in Brazil, Venezuela and Colombia. It was unexpectedly very generous.
We have received sad news of the death of Anne Pashley, who sang soprano roles at Glundebourne, Covent Garden and across Europe. Anne died of cancer in a south of England nursing home, aged 80.
Before she took up singing, she won a silver medal in the 4 x 100 relay in the 1956 Melbourne Olympics.
Among many roles, she sang a beautiful second niece in the epic Colin Davis recording of Peter Grimes and was soloist in one of his seminal Berlioz sets.
Anne was married to the tenor Jack Irons, who died in 2005. She is survived by a daughter, Cleo.
