Classical music has been important in my life since I was small, and I have some vivid early memories, like when my Dad took me to hear Toscanini conduct the NBC Orchestra in New York. Conductors in those days were unapproachable icons and Toscanini was the most regal, rigid and remote of them all. His all-male orchestra was obviously terrified of him. A few decades later Leonard Bernstein changed all that, was ‘Lennie’ to audience and orchestra, wore casual clothes, and was equally at home on Broadway and in Carnegie Hall. That tradition is now well established among conductors. We also attended Tanglewood regularly; it was close to our summer house on Lake Buel in the Berkshires. And when I met Eric the summer after my freshman year his passion for classical music was a big attraction. His mother, Erika Zastrow, was a novelist and a church organist, and he inherited her love of both literature and music. His father left when he was an infant so she and her mother raised Eric. Thus she was a single mom before the term was invented. When Eric was in high school Erika got an advance for a novel and treated them to season tickets at the Met. By the time we met, he already had an impressive collection of recordings and introduced me to composers and music that I had never even heard of. One was Hector Berlioz, whose ‘Symphony Fantastique’ became imbedded in our relationship. We heard it many times over the years, and one memorable performance was at USC when Jenny was concertmaster in the grad school orchestra. Now, on hearing it I am flooded with memories of those first months in our 70-year relationship. It will be performed here by the Rogue Valley Symphony in their final concert in April and I am experiencing both eagerness and some trepidation at hearing it again. This time Jenny is Principal Second Violin and Martin Majkut is the conductor. I am looking forward to hearing Martin’s interpretation of this magnificent work.
Music in southern California was as rich and varied as anywhere in the world. Our kids were all schooled in Long Beach where there was an outstanding music program, and they all started instruments in 4th grade. Heath played flute and Lolly violin, but both went on to other careers. Jenny stayed with music, and has been a professional violinist/violist all her adult life. She has recently renewed her professional career here in Ashland as Principal Second Violin in the RVS and the Repertory Singers.
I can’t seem to write without digressing, the result of having lived so long, sorry – back on track. We attended the Long Beach Symphony regularly when JoAnn Falletta was the pioneering female conductor, and subscribed to the L.A. Philharmonic when its conductor were Zubhan Mehta and Essa-Pecca Salonen. and its New Music Series for many decades. The San Francisco Opera came to LA in our early years in California, then the N.Y. City Opera and finally L.A. got an opera company of its own. Our kids were introduced to all these musical experiences early on, and read many opera librettos before attending percformances When we left for Ashland in 1999 we had known only the best music for years.
Our first classical experience here was a Rogue Valley Symphony (RVS) concert, and it was so bad we walked out at intermission. It was about the level of a high school orchestra, and for a decade we relied on the Britt Classical Festival for the kind of live music we so loved. Jenny joined the Britt as a violist a year later and how we l0ved that, but that was it – 3 weekends of great live classical music per year. Then things began to change and one was the RVS, which acquired a new conductor in 2009 after a country-wide search. Martin Majkut has effected a transformation in the orchestra and now it is simply great. He is young and dynamic, his programming is wonderfully imaginative, and the orchestra is rich in first-rate players. In January the major work was Vaughn Williams Symphony #5, a beautiful and challenging work not often heard. (In every concert there is a piece that gives Jenny angst and the scherzo in this symphony won that spot.) Dinner at the Farnhams after the last concert (a matinee in Grants Pass) has become a fixed engagement and usually the guest artist is also there, but this time I stole the show with a spectacular blackout as dessert was being served, which required an emergency ambulance call and gave all dinner guests a huge fright. Except me. I was out for 5-10 minutes and woke up on the couch in the livingroom just before the EMTs arrived and said “What’s going on”. Apparently drinking two glasses of wine without any attendant water was enough to cause a reaction that lost me 10 minutes of my life but from which I stood up and walked to the table to eat dessert! My reputation has taken a great leap somewhere and the next week I got an email from Martin entitled ‘Take it easy with wine this weekend’.
Then came a Saturday morning at Tinseltown in Medford and the Met’s HD broadcast of ‘Carmen’. Margi Mee was my companion and another memorable musical experience. These broadcasts are so good I have no envy of the attendees. You are THERE. And the casts, orchestra, conductor, sets and dances leave nothing to be desired. Micaela, especially, was spectacular, sung by Aleksandra Kurzak, a Polish sooprano new to us, but not to the Met. And the dancing was genuine Flamenco.
We have a rich and full Chamber Music series in Ashland and I went to several concerts, the most memorable being David Finkel (cello) and Wu Han (piano) played 5 sonatas that spanned the historys of the form – Bach, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Debussey and Britten. Thay have been here several times, buit stopped touringv whenthey tookthejob ofDirectorat Lincoln Center. It was thrilling to have them here again. Their musical duo is unique, and so is the music,for me at least. And they stayed with Gary and Coralie Farnham, who found them absolutely delightful guests.
And then it was RVS time again, and Jenny was here again and Peter Serkin was the soloist. He is apparently morbidly shy and did not do any of the things our soloists usually do like pre-performance talks and post-performance outings. The program was two not-often played Stravinsky works – ‘Dumbarto Oaks Concerto’ and ‘Concerto for Piano & Wind Instruments’ with Peter Serkin as soloist, followed by Schubert’s Symphony in C major. The Symphony swamped the small SOU Music Hall and so I went to the Sunday concert in Grant’s Pass to hear it in a much larger venue. And that was a good call. Music filled the hall and it was glorious.
Jenny stayed an extra week to play with the Repertory Singers who were doing an all comtemporary program called ‘New Lights’, sponsored by our local Angel Jim Collier. (I could write a whole blog about him and what he has done for classical music in the Rogue Valley.) Jenny now has another regular gig here with them. They do a 4-concert season and two are orchestral works. Paul French is the best choral conductor here and his wife Jody is a well-loved pianist and composer. The music was lovely and Jody’s piece was everyone’s favorite. Jen and I had a final dinner at Sesame afterwards and a special cocktail (with WATER). Here is a photo taken of Jenny for the RVS program brochure by Chris Briscoe, who does the unique photos for the RVS, and another of her with NuNu.
These are not all the events in my great life here this winter but enough to convey the richness of the music. And having Jenny come 6-8 times a year is such a treat. She loves her new musical life here, it is so special for her and me, and she has become a ‘person’ in the music circle and will be playing with the Repertory Singers again next year.