Kenneth Woods- a view from the podium

I’m a bit sad that the ferociously intense schedule here at the Ischia Festival has made it impossible for me to write more often, as it has been a very interesting and memorable week.

First, for all my friends who had thought about coming here as participants, I can only say that you should definitely come next year if you can. Spectacular views, fantastic food, a friendly and laid-back atmosphere and luxurious facilities- what more could you ask for.

We had our first concert last night- piano trios by Malcom Arnold and Jukka Linkola and the great Mozart Piano Quartet in E-flat, a masterpiece I was playing for the first time (actually, all of the pieces were new to me). Neither the Arnold nor the Linkola are “great’ works, but they are good fun- attractive, exciting and effective. I actually think it was very good programming on Aldo’s part, because it made for a nice, short concert and really put the Mozart front and center, where it belongs.

I’ve coached a lot of repertoire with a lot of new friends- the Brahms C minor Piano Quartet, a Devienne Trio Sonata, the Brahms Clarinet Trio (with two different groups), the Prokofiev Overture on Hebrew Themes and the Shostakovich Piano Quintet, among others. I was actually a little concerned that there were too many groups playing too much repertoire for the number of participants, but, although we will definitely scale it back next year, it seems to have worked out fine. The participants are all so passionate about music that there seems to be no end to their hunger for playing and discovery.  

Speaking of discovery- I think the most memorable moment of the week so far for me was coaching the Intermezzo from the Shostakovich Piano Quintet with a group of musicians who were getting to know the piece for the first time. I can still remember playing that movement with tears streaming down my face at the Clock Tower festival two years ago, so I wasn’t too surprised at the reaction of the players to playing it for the first time. One of the violinists later said that the piece “was like a revelation. I couldn’t breathe or really see for a couple of hours afterward….” That’s how music should affect people.

It’s also been fun to discover some new colleagues like Aldo, David and Peppe (our pianist/director, violist and clarinetist respectively). They’re all great musicians, as is my old friend Byron, who I’m thoroughly enjoying playing with again after a break of over a decade. We haven’t had a lot of time for chitchat, but somewhere in the “so what are you doing the rest of the summer” conversation, one of them told me of the most unusual recital I have heard about in a long time…. He’s doing a very heavy duo program (Messiaen, Mozart and Brahms) at a nudist colony in Idaho. Yes, the audience will be naked! Clothing is very much optional for performers as well. I’ve never turned down a recital gig I could do, but……

From the webstie- alfredschnittke.com

Jen, over at Adventures of an Idaho Violist, has my post of the day on the perils of “wearwotchulike” gigs.

Most gigs are great, because I can just slap on some black clothing, and be done with it, with little to no thought required. But something challenging like ‘whatever you want’ is more pressure filled, and relies on the assumption that I have a closet full of interesting clothing choices. In fact, I have a closet full of black clothing choices. Eventually I settled on black pants and a dressy blouse, but it took about 17 changes of clothing, and a call to a colleague who was playing the same gig.

I long ago gave up ever organizing wearwotchulike gigs, instead going for “smart casual.” The guidelines for a KW “smart casual” gig are simple- no prints, stripes or patterns, no jeans or sneakers and no garments with writing of any kind.

Of course, at every single such gig, I’ve had at least two players wearing sneakers, jeans and a striped t-shirt with the words “Nike Fans 4 Bush” accross the front. Perhaps I should call it “wearwotidonlike” instead….

Day one of my visit to the Ischia Chamber Music Festival is nearly over. I swear, I do not seek extra adventure and uncertainty simply to keep the blog more captivating for readers, but some days it does seem as though someone in the producers’ office of the series that is my life is contriving to keep it interesting.

Today’s plotline is only mildly suspenseful at least so far. I arrived last night after a very long journey. I gripe often in these pages about airlines poor treatment of instrumentalists, but EasyJet, to my compete surprise, were completely professional and polite in dealing with me and my cello yesterday. Unfortunately, we were delayed about 45 minutes on departure from Stanstead, which meant that once I arrived in Naples I had about 40 minutes to get through customs, pick up my bag, grab a cab, cross Naples, buy a ticket and board the last ferry to Ishcia.

My bag seemed take ages to arrive, and then my heart sank when I walked out of the airport and saw a huge line for taxis. Thankfully, the line moved quickly- I was probably 70^th in line, but within 10 minutes I was in a cab, which left me with about 18 minutes to catch the ferry. “Molo Beverello!” I cried to the cabby. “Presto, Presto!” When I told him how much time we had, stepped on it, and we rocked through Naples and eye-watering speed to the port.

My host had told me to negotiate a cab fare of 16 euros, but I’d completely forgotten to do so in my panic, so it was 35, at which point I also realized I’d only taken out 45 euros at Stanstead because I was getting a cash per-diem here. With 2 minutes to spare  I sprinted (there are few sights more undignified than that of a grown man “sprinting” with  a cello and a suitcase) up to the ticket booth, only to see a hand-written sign “sorry, no credit cards today.”

With only 10 euros left, I assumed I was, as they say, screwed. I asked if there was a cash machine, and he just laughed at me. “How much one-way?” I asked in broken Italian.

”9,84.” My heart exploded in joy, I was going to make it to Ishcia with 14 cents in my pocket.

Today started quietly- I met some of my colleagues and had a very tasty lunch, but then there were worrying rumblings of ill-tidings. Byron, our first violinist, is trapped in Paris by a transit strike. I’ve been a union member most of my life, but sometimes you can’t help saying “fucking unions!” especially when Brahms and Schnittke are at stake. As the day went on the news became worse and worse- from a delay of a few hours, it could now be a day to four days.

We read the Brahms and Schnittke without him. The Brahms is so empty without the first violin, it wasn’t very satisfying, but the Schnittke rehearsal was actually quite useful.

I had suggested the Schnittke because I remembered enjoying playing the 2^nd movement, but I hadn’t listened to it since that performance. As I’ve been studying and practicing the whole piece this week I’ve decided it is a great, great, great piece. It seems like Schnittke has fallen out of the repertoire in the last few years since his death. I remember hearing Gidon Kremer and the Kremeratic Baltica play the Concerto Grosso the night Schnittke died- at that moment it felt like the whole world knew the greatest composer in the world had died. As I was working on the score yesterday, it hit me that I haven’t heard a performance of any Schnittke in a couple of years.

The String Trio was written to celebrate the 100^th birthday of Alban Berg. Schnittke’s penchant for integrating styles from different historical epochs is perfectly appropriate for a memorial to Berg, and this trio’s mixture of baroque dances with intense dissonance is both effective and an appropriate memorial to another great composer. I’d say it is a great score for young composers to study- his string writing, apart from one annoyingly impossible doublestop, is both idiomatic and distinctive, and he really achieves a parlando vocabulary of articulations.

I just hope we get to hear it with Byron soon!

By the way, the food is impossibly good.

Ischia Chamber Music Festival Concerts Program

Villa Arbusto, Lacco Ameno - May 11, 13, 16, 2008 - 9 pm

May 11, 2008 - 9 pm

M. Arnold - Piano Trio, op. 54
A. Schnittke - String Trio
Y. Linkola - Piano Trio
W.A. Mozart - Kegelstatt Trio
Byron Wallis, violin
David Yang, viola
Kenneth Woods, cello
Giuseppe Carannante, clarinet
Aldo de Vero, piano

May 13, 2008 - 9 pm

W.A. Mozart - Piano Quartet in E flat K. 493
J. Brahms - Clarinet Quintet in B minor, Op. 115
Byron Wallis, violin
Robert Ellis, violin
David Yang, viola
Kenneth Woods, cello
Giuseppe Carannante, clarinet
Aldo de Vero, piano

May 16, 2008 - 9 pm

Ischia Chamber Music Workshop
Participant’s Final Concert
Program to be decided

Tomorrow morning I set off for the beautiful island of Ischia in the Bay of Naples for my first visit to the Ischia Chamber Music Festival. I’m thrilled at the two programs we’re playing- I’ve always loved the Brahms Quintet, but funnily enough, it is the only major Brahms chamber work with cello I’ve never performed.

I’m a bit nervous about the Schnittke- I played the 2nd movement at another chamber festival four years ago and was heartbroken when the artistic director cut the first movement to shorten the concert. In the end, the Schnittke got the strongest audience response of anything we played that year, so I really pushed to do it here at Ischia. I hope the audience there enjoys and responds to the whole thing.

I’m looking forward to playing with Byron Wallis again, who is a dear old friend and colleague. We played together in the Strelow Quartet in Madison, then in the Taliesin Trio, which was a National Endowment for the Arts Rural Residency Grant ensemble. Between those two groups and several summer festivals, we’ve covered a lot of repertoire together. Amazingly, it has been over 10 years since we played together! Yikes!

Having just ended the OES season, it is good to be playing some cello. One of my resolutions as I approach one of “those” birthdays this summer is to play a lot more cello, especially chamber music, and next year looks exciting from a cello perspective. I’m playing the Brahms Double for the first time since 2001 and doing some exciting chamber music concerts on the East Coast in the fall and another recital.

KW 

There was so much interest in earlier pieces about Jorja’s Elgar Violin Concerto with us in Pendleton and then the Minnesota Orchestra last week, that I thought I would post some reviews.

First, Larry Fuchsberg in the Star Tribue writes-

Though Fleezanis has only lately taken up the Elgar concerto, she seems to have this music in her DNA. From her first perfectly gauged entrance, she managed to sound strong and vulnerable, declarative and reserved all at once; she danced Elgar’s dance of self-revelation and self-concealment with uncanny sensitivity. Her tone was almost corporeal, especially in the violin’s lower register; her ravishing pianissimos drew the listener toward her instrument.

You can read the entire review here. You may also be interested to read Larry’s comment on my last Fleezanis blog post here, which has some very interesting background on early recordings of the Elgar. I’m always excited to find someone who knows Elgar and the performance and recording history of his music well, especially if they’re in America (shameless upcoming performance plug- I’m conducting Elgar’s Symphony no. 1 with the Gulf Coast Symphony next fall on the 100th anniversary of the premiere).

 David Hawley in the Pioneer Press writes-

The performance by Fleezanis is transporting. She produces a wonderfully thick, sizzling sound, especially in the lower register, where the majority of the singing in this concerto takes place. And yet there is a pleasing restraint to her reading, which is welcome. You don’t need to milk the emotion in this concerto; it’s there in abundance.

The highlight is the famous third-movement accompanied cadenza — and here Fleezanis managed to command pin-drop attention in Thursday’s first performance. Her playing was bold — almost assaultive at times — robust and heartfelt.

Read the whole thing here.

I returned from Pendleton last week as always experiencing a combination of euphoria, exhaustion, frustration, gratitude and buzzing from the experience. Every concert has its strengths and weaknesses- I thought this was one of our most coherent and focused performances, good in ways that reflect a long collaboration between conductor and orchestra.

Concert weekends with the OES have become awfully fun- it does feel like a festival these days. Musically, the schedule is intense to the point of being exhausting for everyone- even some of our most industrious revelers were so tired after the Friday rehearsal that they bailed on some of the merrymaking in exchange for sleep. I think this is a very good thing- if players are giving so much of themselves in a single rehearsal or run-through of a Strauss tone poem that they feel physically and emotionally drained, something grand is bound to be happening.

Part of the end of the season ritual is finalizing the planning for the coming season. We’ve had regime change in Pendleton. Michelle Kajikawa, who has been our executive director through two insanely eventful years, (including the birth of her first child, the fire in our offices, the drama surrounding the exploration of the Rivoli Theatre as a possible home, unprecedented media attention and two Mahler symphonies), is moving with her husband (and our principal bassoonist) to Bend, which I hear tell is a horrible place full of right-wing Californians.  Michelle and Reid are dear friends and have been valuable colleagues- we’ll all miss them a lot.

Luckily, we have found a new executive director from within the organization, Christina van der Kamp, who has been running our youth programs with efficiency and passion for the last year or so. This concert was our first project together, and she did an amazing job of taking control of things mid-flight and guiding us to a successful conclusion of this year even while working with me in planning next year.

Planning is actually about my least favorite part of being a music director, because it is the moment you have to come to terms with the gaping difference between what an orchestra could be and what it will be, between what you can do and what you will do, between what you want to do and what there is the will to do. Don’t get me wrong- I know from experience that every concert any orchestra does is a miracle, and I think next year will be good fun, but only when you’ve gone through the budget and know dollar for dollar what you could have done with just another donation here or there can you really appreciate just how incredibly hard it is to build something of artistic merit in the absence of a sugar daddy. Eventually you try to find a compromise you can live with- you wish you could have one more rehearsal or a slightly more expensive soloist or three more string players for a program, but you say, okay, this is the best we can do right now, now  I have to take it on my shoulders to make it as good as it possibly can be.

Ideally, I believe that the true measure of what an orchestra can be is the ability and commitment of its best and most committed members. An orchestra ought to be the orchestra that they deserve, and the conductor ought to be the conductor that they deserve. Such and orchestra led by such a conductor will never disappoint its public. By that measure, I know in my heart what I could and would do artistically to make the OES the best band it can be, but one never gets to have that discussion- instead, we use budgets to express our musical goals in measurable terms, a method that is sloppy and maddeningly unspecific. All too often, the budget measures our will to raise money and to invest resources, but it can’t measure our will to do what is right for the music- to make sacrifices and tough choices when needed.

The old cliché that the best way to avoid socially uncomfortable situations is to avoid conversations about religion and politics- I’ve certainly had awkward moments when I’ve discovered a dear friend has freakish notions about politics.

Another great way to create tension is to talk about money, including each other’s salaries. The OES budget process changes every year- this year, we had the best possible model, which is that Christina and I sat and hashed it out, looking together at the same numbers and presenting something to the board with a unified front. We’re still friends. Hopefully it is a document that measures in tangible ways our goals, objectives and needs for the year to come. It measures what we have to do to have the orchestra and the season that we realistically think we can have next year.  What only I and Christina know is what we would have had to do to have the orchestra and the season we could have had.

How close could we have come to an orchestra worthy of its best and most commited musicians? Is there a sponsor out there I didn’t know about or a foundation we could have written to that could have made real those dreams? The only way to live with a compromise in the world of art is if you honestly believe you’ve done the best you can for the music with the resources available. Have we?