Last week my wife, Marsha and I reconnected with the New Hampshire Music Festival where I am Conductor Laureate. It was so great to make music again with my friends in the orchestra. As always, they played beautifully and it seemed like it was just yesterday when we last were together. Jay Buckley, the Festival’s treasurer was away on a trip to Iceland and he kindly made his lovely home on Lake Winona available to us. We had a wonderful time and it was my first chance to conduct Ginestera’s Variaciones Concertantes and De Falla’s El Amor Brujo, so the week had a nice balance of peaceful relaxation at the lake and new musical discovery. Bravo to our New Hampshire friends!!

There is an interesting angle on orchestra contract disputes at the top level. Currently there is one raging in San Francisco where the players insist that they be compensated as well as their peers in Los Angeles. Here it is: it is important when putting forth a goal to be accomplished that you keep your attention directed on the exterior environment. All goals have opponents and they should be selected from outside your own organization. The SF players want to compete (play a game against) the L..A. Phil. As long as they are permitted to play that game they will be relatively content with their home circumstances and conditions. But the minute they are not permitted to compete with the outside world in their own estimation, they will start to select targets/opponents/enemies from within their own ranks–managers, Board members, Music Director, even fellow musicians. It is true that there are differences in cost of living, demographics and philanthropic traditions from city to city and these have to be factored in but the desire to be competitive is a healthy thing and whatever is done to harmonize all this must include an understanding of this dynamic: YOU MUST KEEP YOUR ATTENTION AS AN ORGANIZATION DIRECTED OUTWARD, NOT INWARD. YOUR OPPONENTS MUST NOT BE SELECTED FROM WITHIN YOUR OWN RANKS.

I just got back from conducting a wonderful orchestra and chorus in Seattle called Orchestra Seattle/Seattle Chamber Singers. It's unique in that the organization runs both an orchestra and a chorus so there is a choral component on every program they do.

My concert began with J.S. Bach's 3rd orchestra suite, followed by John Adams's "The Chairman Dances." After intermission was Mozart's great Mass in C minor.

 

I remember playing my 1st professional engagement as the 3rd D-trumpet in Bach's Christmas Oratorio. I was all of 14 years old. It was thrilling to be able to play loud and blow my notes over the whole orchestra!. The Bach Suite on this program has three D-trumpets and they were marvelous. Janet Young played all the high stuff brilliantly. The concertmaster, Fritz Klein played lovely ornamentation in the "Air" movement.

When I was 15, I played violin in a performance of the Mozart Mass. I will never forget the magical mood that instantly reaches out as the opening Kyrie sings its somber yet deeply moving music. I still get chills whenever I hear it and the chorus in Seattle captured that magic beautifully.

I stayed with my old friends, Ron and Roxanna Patterson. They have a home on a serenely wild lake with geese, ducks, herons and even bald eagles! I met Ron in 1961 when we were both teenage violin students at the Aspen Music Festival. Our paths separated for decades until we were united again at the New Hampshire Music Festival. Ron had just resigned from his post as concertmaster of the Monte Carlo Philharmonic and I was looking for someone new so it was a perfect alignment of circumstances. Roxanna became my Principal Viola and the three of us were a dynamite trio for 10 summer seasons.

So it was really great to be able to live with them and deepen our friendship.

Ron teaches violin at the University of Washington School of Music, has a full roster of students at home,and  plays chamber music concerts and solo engagements. Roxanna has numerous viola students, coaches the Seattle Youth Symphony, and also plays chamber music and solos. They are the best!

Seattle is a dramatic city, with its mountains, lakes, ocean, 1000s of Asian restaurants, vibrant downtown and Mount Rainier rising majestically to the south.  It is rather overcast and drizzly but the sun would poke its head out occasionally for a few hours!

Fun!!

maestro p