Buzzing Reed- Classical Music & Clarinet Culture

This update covers the Columbus Symphony events of the past few weeks, along with a preview of an exciting upcoming concert with conductor George Manahan.

Over the past few weeks we played several short educational concerts in various Columbus elementary schools.

Yesterday we played at West Broad Elementary. At each concert Peter Stafford Wilson, who conducts all these concerts, asks the children to name the “families” of instruments after pieces featuring them. In most schools, the kids had trouble answering correctly, but at West Broad, they nailed all the answers. Kudos to the teachers at W Broad Elementary!

This week we play another set of educational concerts in the Ohio Theater for Columbus children. The kids always seem to love coming to the ultra-fancy Ohio Theater to see the Symphony.

I remember going to see the National Symphony at the Kennedy Center while in Middle School. It was one of my first introductions to the symphony. I remember learning about the radical style of Berlioz through hearing parts of his Symphonie Fantastique. Did that experience help prompt my decision to become a musician? Yes.

Last week we played Ravel’s Tombeau de Couperin along with his G Major Piano Concerto and Brahms 1st Symphony, in the Palace Theater. Guest artist Christopher O’Riley served double duty as soloist and conductor.

I liked O’Riley’s idea of having members of the orchestra make a few comments about the piece we were about to play. It helped the audience connect a face and a personality to the music they were about to hear. I hope we do more of that.

By his own admission he had never conducted an orchestra. Not only did that take guts to admit, it took even more guts to do! He fared well in general, with some help from us. But that’s what it’s about, isn’t it? I think we play better as an orchestra when we have to rely on our best musical instincts, our internal rhythm, and our (remarkably vast) combined experience. Together we pulled it off. O’Riley is certainly an amiable guy, an earnest musician and accomplished pianist.

On May 29 and 30 we perform an all Beethoven concert with conductor George Manahan. I remember his stellar performance of Stravinsky’s Petrouchka here several years ago. Not only did he piece together the notoriously fragmented score into a cohesive whole in the performance, but he conducted in both a three and four pattern beat simultaneously in one spot!

Manahan is primarily known for his successful and seasoned leadership at the New York City Opera. In my opinion, that’s a terrific foundation for dramatic and vivid interpretations of symphonic music.

I look forward to playing the mind-blowing music of Beethoven (including his 5th symphony) with such a seasoned artist.

In his eleventh season as Music Director of New York City Opera, the wide-ranging and versatile George Manahan has had an esteemed career embracing everything from opera to the concert stage, the traditional to the contemporary. He has been hailed for his leadership at City Opera, where he “gets from his players the kind of heartfelt involvement unthinkable in the City Opera orchestra pit 20 years ago…these musicians operate with such consistent energy and involvement.” (New York Times)
George Manahan has distinguished himself throughout the world as one of… more the foremost conductors of our time, and is especially known in the opera world for his musical guidance of diverse productions including productions of ‘La faniculla del West’, ‘Daphne’, ‘Ermione’, ‘Dialogues of the Carmelites’, ‘Cendrillon’, ‘Die tote Stadt’. He has also toured Japan with NYCO’s production of ‘Little Women’.

Mr. Manahan’s guest appearances include the symphonies of Atlanta, San Francisco, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, Charlotte, and New Jersey, where he served as acting Music Director for four seasons.

It’s hard to believe how good the CSO sounds, considering the beating we’ve taken the past year.

Tonight we had our first concert back in the Ohio Theater since last May, and we sounded incredible.

Last week we played Holst’s The Planets in Vets Memorial Auditorium, a cavernous hall with no stage shell, and we sounded darn good there.

During rehearsals at Vets, without the audience, we could hear just enough acoustical feedback from the hall to taper releases of chords together, something we have not been able to do, or had the acoustical security to accomplish to such high degree, in the Ohio Theater.

I was impressed how the orchestra brought together details of performance after so many months apart. With a near full capacity audience during the concert in Vets, the acoustics were drier, and a bit more difficult to hear across the stage, especially with no shell. But many of the rehearsal details stuck.

Tonight’s concert went even better, despite Ohio Theater’s overly booming stage acoustics. (think of trying to whisper an intimate poem to a lover in a crowded subway station)

The Ohio Theater stage is a literal “box”, since the proscenium of the historical 1920s movie theater is much too narrow to allow complex orchestral sounds to blossom from the stage to the audience. This causes two problems. First, the musicians must constantly filter the roar of all the excess sound on stage in order to play with depth and beauty, rather than “shouting” to be heard over each other. Secondly, since much of the sound remains on stage, bouncing around, the audience receives only a reduced portion of the music making from the stage.

But the orchestra sounded as good in the Ohio Theater as it has in years, even better!

At first I thought is was our guest conductor, David Lockington, who holds his own with a crisp ear and heartfelt, intuitive phrasing. But the reason we sounded good was due to more than Mr. Lockington’s care.

It wasn’t until after the concert that I realized the inspiration behind the orchestra’s crisp and unified style.

After only two years of conducting us as Music Director, our beloved Junichi Hirokami has left his mark. The Columbus Symphony is several notches better than before his appointment as our musical leader.

We now play with more stable internal rhythm, better blending of colors and with more intimate phrasing because of Junich Hirokami’s influence.

Junichi Hirokami may not have spoken English very well. He may not have met the ego and image demands of the city’s elite. He may not have satisfied the masochistic tendencies of some musicians who feel that orchestra musicians need a tyrant to whip them into playing their best.

Junichi’s strategy was different from the start. He invited us, in a fun, lighthearted way, to believe in ourselves, to trust our musical instincts and our natural desire to improve, to play better and to enjoy what we do, no matter what political poison seeps into the well water.

Just think of where we could have gone if he had been invited to continue here! (If only all parties had been able to overcome the petty desire for revenge over unfortunate words, events which now appear tragically selfish compared to the music we could have made!)

The great paradox of making music is that it is, on the one hand, a critically difficult task, yet one which requires an optimistic and eager spirt in order to be accomplished to the highest level.

Not to worry, the musicians will carry forward the torch of high quality music making. Hopefully we won’t quickly forget the inspiration behind our step up in quality as an orchestra.

Tonight, the musicians of the Columbus Symphony showed that we have chosen to move to the next level of orchestral quality.

We don’t need anyone to understand what we do and what it’s worth, because we know as much, and much more.

And it shows.