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May 03, 2009
Colburn Miscellany
Click here to view the embedded video.
Above, video excerpts from 8bb’s rehearsals with students at the Colburn School, showing some of the amazing work they did with us last week in LA. I recommend that you click “HD” once it starts playing, which enables you to watch it “in HD”.
Our concert with a collection of Colburn School’s improbably talented students last week didn’t get a newspaper review, but noted LA critic (and former writer for the LA Weekly) Alan Rich wrote a very positive blog entry about the show. He began by praising the Pulitzer-Prize winning Double Sextet, writing that it “deserved the award, every teeming, pulsating note. This is music that sweeps you up; its sound spectrum is grand and irresistible. You hear it the way you hear the “Eroica,” as unfolding melodic material pushing forward from idea to idea.” Rich declared the Colburn contingent “a handsome group, if I may say so.” The concert was ”the last of an excellent series of Sunday afternoon chamber concerts at Zipper, nicely organized by Colburn, free to the public and mostly jam-packed.”
I worked most closely with the group that performed Stephen Hartke’s Meanwhile. As with all three pieces on the concert, duties were evenly divided between 8bb and Colburn students. In the Hartke there were three 8bb-ers (the Alb, the Mac and me) and three Colburn-ers (Louise McKay, cello; and David Fung, piano; and Stan Muncy, percussion). Louise and David were proud, if perhaps overly patriotic Aussies (Louise with an Aussie flag sticker on her cello case, David beginning one rehearsal with our forgettable national anthem, “Advance Australia Fair”), so rehearsals were peppered with unintellible slang (”Waddayareckon”, “Bloodybewdiful”, ”Oimofftathadunny”) and our poetic note values (”hemi-demi-semi-quavers”).
Below, the Alb with Aussies David Fung and Louise McKay.
We performed Meanwhile from memory, with the choreographed stage movement that 8bb has been touring for the past few couple of months. I think it is fair to say that, prior to arrival, this scared the crap out of the Colburn folks.
The impossibly even-tempered, easy-going percussionist Stan Muncy walked into the first rehearsal with the entire hulking, sprawling, complex Hartke percussion part completely memorized. Typically, he shrugged off his achievement, suggesting that it was 8bb’s percussionist (the Duv) that had frightened him into action. Having such a solid foundation helped make the rehearsal process much easier. Louise and David (bloody lazy Aussies) hadn’t reached Stan’s level, but proved to have incredibly quick musical minds, so they did manage to squeeze all of the notes into their heads (despite some miniscule cheat sheets nestled inside the piano; David: “Dya reckon anyone’ll see’m?”).
We worked on the Hartke for three hours a day over an eight-day period, which is intense, but pretty typical for 8bb’s working method. We’re very lucky to be able to afford to do that, because it allows us to do the crazy things that we do, and it was nice to be able to bring a microcosm of the high concentration, diligent “8bb experience” to students.
Below, Louise attempts to strum the cello like a guitar for a section of the Hartke while Stan looks on:
The Colburn model is unique. It is a degree-granting institution, but also includes an apartment building (where students live at no cost), a cafe (where students eat for free), more than enough glorious- (or should I say, properly horrendous-) sounding practice rooms, two gorgeous halls (one seating just 100, the other more like 500), a fitness room (and a fabulous, good-natured but ass-kicking, take-no-prisoners, please-let-me-sit-this-one-out-for-the-love-of-god-! personal trainer). It doesn’t cost a cent to attend. And it’s sunny and 80 degrees all year round. Numbers? There are enough students to fill an orchestra, plus there are a number of pianists.
The Mac: “I’m gonna take a 6-month sabbatical and come study here!”
Like all conservatories, it is a close-knit community, but somehow living together seems to bring everyone even closer. Hence the obsession with things like the Colburn Table Tennis Competition, which students and faculty alike mentioned with great reverence, in hushed tones. At the the Championship Match, to be held after we left, there was to be a half-time band (one student: “the best marching band ever created!”), complete with fake press quotes:
One afternoon we took part in a “business of music” class led by the wonderful Edna Landau, who is one of the most experienced managers in the music world (in 2006 New York Magazine named her as one of the six most influential people in New York music and dance). I couldn’t quite believe that Colburn had managed to nab such a high-level person, but what an absolutely amazing opportunity for the students!
I found our Colburn visit inspiring. Seeing the high level of professionalism and skill in these young players has given me a right royal kick in the arse, and I’m now reaching for the books of etudes and technical exercises that were gathering dust in my library. Fabulous flute student Martha Long reintroduced me to the baroque flute and taught me at least a dozen “fake” fingerings I didn’t know about (OMG, really! How have I survived without that…bloody hell), while fellow Colburn-er, the totally-job-ready flutist Leah Arsenault gave me pause for thought about my place in the musical world, which I too easily take for granted these days. Some Colburn students even came with a brilliant plan for 8bb to start a brewery and name the beers after composers that the group has played. (Reich? An easy-drinking but very well crafted lager; Hartke? A complex and bizarre experimental ale in the tradition of Dogfish Head; Schoenberg? A heavy, sipping beer that can be tough-going but feels very worthwhile by the end.)
Below, more photos, from the week’s Double Sextet rehearsals:
Oh, and I just had to include this, a brewery/fitness center down the road from Colburn. Weird, and, um, VERY LA:
Originally posted by Tim from thirteen ways, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on May 3, 2009 at 08:12 PM