Oh my gosh, this is getting so meta. I just realized I could maybe submit a writing sample from this thing with my DMA applications! And now I'm writing about said submission ON this weird outlet that I feel funny about. I've felt about communicating on blogger sort of like how I feel about my myspace and facebook "friends:" it just makes me feel bad for not picking up a pen and paper, or phone, or, for that matter, good old-fashioned email! And now it's going to substitute for scholarly research as well! My head's about to explode. Am I the laziest person on earth? I mean, I'm sure I could find an old paper somewhere. But then I couldn't even scan it in-- I'd have to type it out into the computer for these online applications! See, I'm being encouraged to do it this way. Or my sloth is, anyway.
BTW, Christopher read me a great Thomas Pynchon piece on sloth. I like assignments that have to do with the seven deadly sins. They seem to be tremendously fruitful and inspirational topics.

summer fun

After all these serious posts, and now that it's (finally) starting to get cold, I thought I'd put up some pics from the summer. That's Christopher balancing on the guardrail on the beutiful road to our house in the Catskills. The tubing shot is from the farm belonging to the family of our friends Peter and David (shown, so classy with the glass of wine!), near Oneonta. And the lovely blonde angels in the blue crab and on the boat are my nieces Samantha and Haley. They have an amazing trampoline.

Jewish-Christian dialog about Israel

I started writing this in response to a posting by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on the National Havurah Committee listserve. But once it started getting a bit lengthy for an email, I decided to put it up here so I wouldn't clog folks' inboxes.
Rabbi Waskow wrote about being invited to speak at a conference at Boston's Old South Church titled "The Apartheid Paradigm: Issues of Justice and Equality." The title is obviously problematic for the Jewish community, and especially Jewish officialdom. Waskow is clear about the differences between the two! Anyway, he was invited to speak after two other "representatives of Jewish officialdom" pulled out in protest. They were objecting to the presence of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who has compared the Middle-East conflict to South African Apartheid, and the involvement of Sabeel, a Palestinian human rights group that calls itself an "ecumenical grassroots liberation theology movement among Palestinian Christians."
(***Right now I'm reading Tracy Kidder's "Mountains Beyond Mountains" about the amazing, super-hero Doctor Paul Farmer, and his work with impoverished communities in Haiti and elsewhere. Farmer is inspired by liberation theology, and I've become inspired myself, albeit not in a Christian way! Check out the helpful Wikipedia definition of the philosophy.***)
Anyway, if you like, you can read Rabbi Waskow's full account here. The following is my response.

When I think of American Christian relations with Israel, it's usually the Right-wing/Evangelical devotion, financial and otherwise. It's problematic, especially when I heard that a lot of the money for Nefesh B'Nefesh, which helped fund my Aliyah, came from such Evangelical groups. I can't understand why the Boston Jewish "officialdom" would reject the opportunity to engage a large and progressive Protestant congregation on this issue, especially when the conference in question (and its problematic title) demands a Jewish response. Just what is so controversial about Sabeel? Their call for refugee return? It seems like a perfectly understandable position for a Palestinian human rights group to take, even if it may not be tenable if-- I mean, when!!-- a treaty or agreement between Israel and the Palestinians is forged. I've been aware of the difficulty of Israel's "Right of Return" for Jews since I befriended a Palestinian German many years ago at a music festival. Both his grandmothers lived in the Palestinian territories, yet he had never been himself. "You can go anytime you like," he said to me, not unkindly, but with a kind of wistful smile. In that context, I can understand this statement of Sabeel's on their website:
"Israel's 'Law of Return' which allows any Jewish person to immigrate to Israel while denying Palestinians the right of return to their homeland is immoral and discriminatory."

My only disagreement with Rabbi Waskow is with the statement he suggests Boston's Jewish officialdom should have made in response to the conference:
"And we think it important to point out that applying liberation theology and all the vivid rhetoric about Jesus' crucifixion raises deep dangers in the Israel-Palestine context, strikes a deep nerve of Jewish pain from centuries when Christian charges that the Jews killed Christ, killed God, led to rivers of shed Jewish blood."
I have to say, I don't quite get this. From the little I've read about liberation theology, it seems like a perfect jumping-off point for dialog between Christians and Jews. For me, social justice is one of the defining ideals of Judaism. I don't see anything about liberation theology that suggests the charges that the Jews killed Christ. Is there something I'm missing?

Living in Israel didn't do anything to simplify my feelings about the conflict. I heard the boom of a suicide bomb not far away from me, and the resulting symphony of sirens. I understand the Israeli reliance on the military, and the instinct to keep as far away from "those people" as possible. I rarely saw on Israeli news what life was like on the other side of the Wall (oops, sorry. I mean, the Fence!) even though it was going on less than 15 miles away from where I was living. But American Jews can't keep being so afraid to criticize Israel, and can't keep going on pretending Palestinians brought this upon themselves. Israelis criticize Israel all the time!! Honestly, I feel like our fear of real engagement with the problems of the Occupation and Settlements actually divides the two communities (American Jewish and Israeli) more than if we spoke freely about our concerns. Also, it makes us look hypocritical if we take stands on human rights issues all over the world, and look the other way instead of facing the reality and repercussions of Israel's policies.
Families stage interventions to help each other. I'm not saying we should, or can, do anything like that. What would an intervention look like anyway, especially if we don't believe in military solutions to human rights issues? But criticism is healthy. And admitting to "outsiders," i.e. Christians or- gasp!- Muslims that we, too, see these issues, which are so clear to everyone else in the world, does not mean we aren't committed to Israel's future.

In memoriam Rudolph Hazucha

The transition's hit me. I feel like I'm going through jet lag now, after having been back for more than four months. I remember that number, because right after I got back, I was a sucker and bought one of those salon package specials a guy tried to sell me outside the subway. Haircut, manicure, "hand massage" blah blah blah. I went for the haircut, but of course, after she tried to sell me a fortune's worth of crap and get me to dye my hair, and after she only very reluctantly, rolling her eyes, cut the bangs I was asking for (which I like very much, thank you) I thought, maybe I wouldn't get such a good hand massage here. Anyway, the thing was valid for four months, and I kept trying to use it as incentive to stop biting my nails: that I could get a manicure. But I didn't. And four months are up.
Come to think of it, that story sounds like something that could have happened in Tel Aviv.
Anyway, I don't know why I expected that with a new teaching job- where I've somehow convinced people I could lead orchestra! (Gosh, I hope none of my students are reading this. If so, um, hi! Go practice!) and with being back in the freelance pool, and starting to try- I mean trying to start- my own non-profit... that I could STOP biting my nails.
Things are really good, though. So much has happened and passed that I wanted to write about. Discovering the "Freaks and Geeks" DVDs (it's embarrassing that's the first thing that came to mind), getting really into practicing solo stuff again... Our trip to California for Christopher's brother Bryan's wedding was incredible. I got to spend good time with Christopher's friends and family, and met some wild, super interesting people. He and our niece and nephew and I went out for an 8:30 AM canoe trip our first morning there. Christopher and Riley were rowing in the front and back, Chloe and I were passengers in the middle, all of us in a straight line. Chloe wanted to paddle, so Riley handed her his oar. A few seconds later we were all in the water, and the canoe was upside-down. That's all we know. We tried digging for answers, but there seemed to be none, just shrugs. The wedding was at Lake Zaca, north of Santa Barbara, which is, we were told, the only natural lake in California besides Lake Tahoe. Is that true? And, we were told, no one has ever found the bottom, it's so deep. AND Al Capone "disappeared" some slot machines there in the 30's, or alcohol during Prohibition, or something. AND Keith Richards swam in it. So you can imagine, we were nervous having taken Riley and Chloe out and dunked them into the middle of the bottomless lake, and their grandparents were on the shore, watching. Luckily, the water was warm, and their Dad and Grandpa rowed another canoe out to rescue us. Chloe held on to one side of it, and Riley and I on the other, me trying not to freak out that Riley was starting to shiver all over. Their grandpa and I started singing to boost the morale. I started "Hokey Pokey," which got Riley singing, and "Always look on the Bright Side of Life," whistling and all. David sang "Old Man River." He had a beautiful voice! Poor Christopher stayed in the middle and made sure our canoe didn't sink. They went back and got him after they dropped us at the shore. Since our cabins didn't have hot water (they later turned it on) Olya ran a bath for me an Chloe in her cabin, and Bryan ran a bath for Riley and Christopher in his. So Chloe and I got a sneak peek at the 3 red linen dresses, a traditional Russian wedding gown in pieces I guessed, that would be worn in layers by Olya, later at the ceremony. Bryan, for his part, wore a Scottish dress outfit, with white lace spilling all over the place, and big funny wool socks.
Something about that story just made me think of this great title one of Christopher's students gave to an essay about her summer. It was called "I Was Swimming."
I love that.
I'm dropping off, and there's a gorgeous heavy rain coming down outside that's distracting me. I just had to put this link in for an interesting article about musical blogs in the New Yorker. The best part about it was that it led me to a beautiful http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifdescription of the experience of playing Messiaen's "Quartet for the End of Time" by the pianist Jeremy Denk. That's one of those pieces, like Beethoven piano trios, that makes me angry at the composer for not writing a viola part.
AND I had to pay my respects to a great man. The man who founded "Rudy Hazucha's Suzuki Kazoo School." He also did a lot of other great things, like starting the Suzuki camp I went to in Virginia for nine (!) years. But what I remember best is how at every final concert, there would be a performance by Rudy Hazucha's Suzuki Kazoo School. We all had to play a Suzuki song on kazoo. The faculty got so into it, that was the best part. That camp was so so so so so so fun. It's far away, so I don't get to give it props the way I do Third Street all the time. But I want to get Suzuki-certified, or have a baby quick and make it play Suzuki, just so I have an excuse to go back there. The institute was only a week, but it took several days (or what felt like it to me at the time) to get there. My mom and dad and I would drive through Pennsylvania Dutch country, or down the Maryland coast, and through the Blue Ridge Mountains and Shenandoah Park to get there. And then the week would feel like a month, so much would happen, but it also would be over before you knew it. We'd always do fiddling. One year MR. Hazucha brought Jay Ungar down, and we played "Ashokan Farewell" (which was later the theme song to the PBS Civil War documentary).
I feel funny eulogizing someone I didn't know very well. I was one of (what felt to me like) thousands of other kids there. And Mr. Hazucha definitely scared me; he was a disciplinarian, and we all had violins so we just wanted to make noise all the time. Boy, do I feel his pain now! It's Karma, or something, that now I'm the one saying "you practice at home. Here we play together." But Mr. Hazucha also had a charismatic and warm sense of humor. And that place, that institute, was his baby, and he brought the most wonderful teachers, teachers I still remember with a lot of love. It's good to be reminded of how much there is to aim for, how much you can maybe do from the front of the room.
There's a nice profile of Rudolph Hazucha here.

editorial

I often put links to NYTimes articles, and then they expire and you have to pay to read them. I think the paper has changed its policy, but just in case I'm going to paste in a pretty incredible Editorial. Definitely stuff I struggle with as an over-apologetic person who feels funny and sometimes wrong for keeping a blog.

Politeness and Authority at a Hilltop College in Minnesota

By VERLYN KLINKENBORG
Published: October 15, 2007

Last week I spent a couple of days in western Minnesota, giving a talk and visiting some classes at Gustavus Adolphus College. ...
I sat in on four classes, which were marred only by politeness — the deep-keeled Minnesotan politeness that states, as a life proposition, that you should not put yourself forward, not even to the raising of a hand in class.

Things always warmed up, but those first lingering notes of hesitation were something to behold. I tried to think of it as modesty, consideration for others and reluctance in the presence of a guest — from New York nonetheless. And yet I kept wondering just how such bright, personable students had become acculturated to their own silence. I had grown up in a similar place and knew a little how they felt, but that was a long time ago.

Midway through lunch one day a young woman asked me if I noticed a difference between the writing of men and the writing of women. The answer is no, but it’s a good question. A writer’s fundamental problem, once her prose is under control, is shaping and understanding her own authority. I’ve often noticed a habit of polite self-negation among my female students, a self-deprecatory way of talking that is meant, I suppose, to help create a sense of shared space, a shared social connection. It sounds like the language of constant apology, and the form I often hear is the sentence that begins, “My problem is ...”

Even though this way of talking is conventional, and perhaps socially placating, it has a way of defining a young writer — a young woman — in negative terms, as if she were basically incapable and always giving offense. You simply cannot pretend that the words you use about yourself have no meaning. Why not, I asked, be as smart and perceptive as you really are? Why not accept what you’re capable of? Why not believe that what you notice matters?

Another young woman at the table asked — this is a bald translation — won’t that make us seem too tough, too masculine? I could see the subtext in her face: who will love us if we’re like that? I’ve heard other young women, with more experience, ask this question in a way that means, Won’t the world punish us for being too sure of ourselves? This is the kind of thing that happens when you talk about writing. You always end up talking about life.

These are poignant questions, and they always give me pause, because they allow me to see, as nothing else does, the cultural frame these young women have grown up in. I can hear them questioning the very nature of their perceptions, doubting the evidence of their senses, distrusting the clarity of their thoughts.

And yet that is the writer’s work — to notice and question the act of noticing, to clarify again and again, to sift one’s perceptions. I’m always struck by how well fitted these young women are to be writers, if only there weren’t also something within them saying, Who cares what you notice? Who authorized you? Don’t you owe someone an apology?

Every young writer, male or female, Minnesotan or otherwise, faces questions like these at first. It’s a delicate thing, coming to the moment when you realize that your perceptions do count and that your writing can encompass them. You begin to understand how quiet, how subtle the writer’s authority really is, how little it has to do with “authority” as we usually use the word.

Young men have a way of coasting right past that point of realization without even noticing it, which is one of the reasons the world is full of male writers. But for young women, it often means a real transposition of self, a new knowledge of who they are and, in some cases, a forbidding understanding of whom they’ve been taught to be.

Perhaps the world will punish them for this confidence. Perhaps their self-possession will chase away everyone who can’t accept it for what it is, which may not be a terrible thing. But whenever I see this transformation — a young woman suddenly understanding the power of her perceptions, ready to look at the world unapologetically — I realize how much has been lost because of the culture of polite, self-negating silence in which they were raised.

Mann-Hindemith

There's such an apt description of a Schubert lied in "Magic Mountain" (this book has been occupying my brain this entire summer. I read that when Thomas Mann was asked what the book "meant," if all its implied symbolism was literal, his reply was a suggestion to read it again. that scares me, considering how long this first run is taking me). It comes just after the main character has been introduced to a record player for the first time, and becomes obsessed with it, "letting the fullness of harmony spill over him." Doesn't that make you want to sit and listen to records all day? The song in question is "Der Lindenbaum," and after reading the lyrics, I'm inclined to continue with my hunch that the symbolism is indeed all literal. But anyway, Mann's main character Hans discovers that the magic of this song is in Schubert's tweaking of a familiar folk melody, moving it back and forth between major and minor. Hans learns to love the song more as he devotes more thought to it. Since the beginning of the book, he has become more thoughtful,
"an intuitive critic of this world, of this absolutely admirable image of it (Schubert's song), of his love for it-- (he had become) capable, that is, of observing all three with the scruples of conscience.
Anyone who would claim that such scruples are detrimental to love surely understands absolutely nothing about love. On the contrary, they are its very roots. They are what first add the pinch (the word in my translation is prick, but let's try and be grown-ups here) of passion to love, so that one could define passion as scrupulous love."
As I type this I see just how difficult this book has been for me. Even these phrases and paragraphs that stick in my mind, when I go back to them they elude me. I mean, yes, it's clear he's saying something along the lines of "the unexamined life is not worth living" albeit in much thornier and more elegant prose. But what comes next after this aphorism? Mann basically says that what is underlying the main character's love for this song is love for death. He follows this surprising switch with incredulous questions his readers might ask. Maybe that's what's so time consuming about this book: it often portrays the assumed reader's assumed responses, so that the real reader has all these other points of view, outside of the narrative, to contend with.
Anyway.
I started to write about Mann because I had this little revelation about Hindemith tonight. I decided to play through one of my all time top-10-list favorite pieces to play: his "Der Schwanendreher" (isn't this the post for the germanophiles?) Which was written in 1935, after Hindemith had already been denounced as a degenerate by the Nazis. The piece is a viola concerto based on German folk melodies, but is at turns angular and militaristic, free and improvisatory, and so deeply nostalgic, it's easy to forget what's at the heart of it until one of those folksongs comes back, all humorous and even corny. As I played I started thinking about Mann's assessment of German culture and history in both "Doktor Faustus" and "Magic Mountain": it's cold and harsh, but also clearly nostalgic for something he's almost afraid to admit to because of how it's been transformed by the nationalists of his time. Hindemith seems to not have taken himself so seriously, saying early in his career that he wrote music to be played and then thrown away. Still, thinking about his music as a message from his time, it's almost more meaningful to play it or listen to it than to read Mann. The melodies, the medieval characters, are just as real as ever, as is the sadness and nostalgia for the country he eventually left for good.
So, little non-sequitur, though just as nerdy. I just listened to that amazing recording of Schubert's 15th quartet by the apparently one-night-stand-only group of Gidon Kremer, Daniel Phillips, Kim Kashkashian and Yo Yo Ma. It's a live recording, with coughs in the audience, totally unedited, and sounds like the most compelling concert you could ever be at. The tension is tangible, almost beyond audible. I just thought how sad it was that two of my all time top-10-list favorite string quartets are this group, and the group that Sascha Schneider put together. My Dad loves telling me about how after Schneider left the Budapest Quartet, with whom he'd played second violin for years, he immediately booked some concert halls to play the complete Bach music for solo violin. Then he formed his own quartet, playing first violin this time, with Isidore Cohen, Karen Tuttle and Madeleine Foley. First of all, that he hired two women in the band, in the early 50's, that's just cool. Second of all, the records are out of print. I don't know how lucky I was to be born to a Dad who had those records. The Schneider Quartet recorded all the Haydn quartets, and then split. Schneider went back to the Budapest, Isidore Cohen joined the Juilliard, Karen Tuttle went back to being a bad-ass viola goddess, and Madeleine Foley went back to, I don't know, being a bad-ass in her own way I guess. If SNL were made by music dorks, they'd have a sketch someday about this supergroup meeting up in heaven, with Val Kilmer playing Sascha, Kirsten Dunst as Tuttle, and Tracy Morgan as Izzy. I'm copyrighting that idea, by the way.

4 seasons

I have to admit I've had a block when it comes to writing here lately. I think part of it is that I've joined the 2 other corners of this internet triumvirate: Facebook and MySpace (or as my friend Julia put it last night, MyFace), and those things will suck you in. I was caught on National Public Radio even giving those two places endorsements, or practically anyway. I was put on air the other day when I called into the Brian Lehrer show-- and was so nervous about it I turned into a teenage girl. I called in to volunteer for a "Democracy Club," and Brian (I can't type that friggin name, it always comes out Brain. It kind of is the Brain Lehrer show, though) asked me where, besides the home, did the people I knew talk about the election. My mind literally went, "duuhhhhhh." And then I said Facebook and Myspace. When they're putting those Democracy Clubs together, they're going to be like, "Let's get the 13-year-old's perspective again" every time they call me.
Here's the link anyway. It's the last segment of the show.
More important stuff has been happening than me calling into a radio show. We just had our third Con Vivo concert last night!! They have been going so incredibly well, and I can't even imagine how it's all come together so quickly. It's exhausting- though the other night, Jose, one of our violinists, asked me what I do and once I started listing it all out it didn't seem that bad. I guess it's just the combination of CV and the school year starting. I'm leading the orchestra and teaching strings at City and Country- did I write that in the last post? I forget. Oh, the Last Post (a song from the Juliet Letters- ICSQ's last big project before I left)!! I miss my quartet. I think all this, like, speed-dating chamber music, with a different (albeit extraordinary) bunch of players each time has made me long for those daily 9-1 rehearsals. And the fun bike ride through Tel Aviv too- you can't get around NYC like that. At the same time, I can't even believe how lucky I am to get to play chamber music with all these amazing people, many of whom I didn't know before this summer. After last night's concert, the 4 Seasons with each solo played by a different violinist, we went to a restaurant where a big group of folks from our audience was also eating. I went over to say hi, and they asked me, "Where did you get those violinists?" It was such a cute question, like "where did you get your shoes?" And the answer, of course, was the same: "New York City."
I wonder if part of my selfish mission with Con Vivo is not only to make these chamber music opportunities, but also to try and lure these awesome musicians to live in JC?!

Shaq, LeBron, Dwight Howard All-Star Dance-Off

eating and drinking music

About that good news link from a little while ago. Well, now, the NYT article is only available for those who pay, so I'll just let yall know. The piece was about a movie about composers, including my friend Judd! What was I saying about how the mainstream media's gotta hip itself to the mass-market potential feeding frenzy that is classical music? Just kidding, it's a documentary. I'm embarrassed I didn't get to see it, but meanwhile super-psyched about all the attention these concerts in bars and local hangs are getting. A number of years ago, I witnessed a progenitor of this phenomenon in (of course) Berlin. A bar called Cookies, which apparently at other times is an exclusive, members-only place, puts on chamber music or solo concerts on the first Monday of every month. When I was there, the awesome and intense Kuss Quartet played, while a light VJ (LJ?) spun amazing atmospheres to accompany their Mendelssohn, Mozart, and Webern. Yes, Webern, and the coolest thing was, that was the stuff that suited the bar most. You could just feel the nervous energy of the too-cool-for-school young audience being perfectly captured and fed back to them in the Webern and its accompanying moody and swaying light.
This is what I've found: kids like new music. All this boo-hooing about the greying of the classical audience-- well, yeah, if you're going to keep putting shows on at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, even Miller Theater, which is on a college campus, only people "in the know" come. Yes, there should be money for bringing it into the schools, outreach is super important. But one of the things that bothers me about outreach is this condescending attitude, like, "We have something so splendid and holy and important, and aren't you lucky we're bringing it to you?!"
In Israel, I was lucky to witness a rehearsal led by Sergio Azzolini, who was leading Tel Aviv Soloists from the bassoon(!). He was playing a bassoon concerto, and going on about its composer, Vivaldi, and the musicians for whom he'd written his hundreds of works: orphan girls. "Vivaldi was their only connection to the outside world," Azzolini said, "and everything they learned about love and pain-- and the weather!-- they learned from him and his music!" I know that's kind of outlandish, but I was totally captivated.
What if today a composer was to write all his/her music in that kind of setting? Not for the court, like Haydn, or, metaphorically, like a lot of "commissioned" traditional composers ever since, whose music is enjoyed by subscription-holders?
I'm getting on my own high horse now, I realize. I'm a little panicked about my series out here in Jersey City. What with teaching the last two weeks at the phenomenally fun chamber music camp at Third Street School, and writing the section on Civil War music for a standardized test, I've been lazy with the planning and I'm now in crisis mode. I just see it so clearly as the low-frills embodiment of what I believe about music: that it should be available, and easy to get to, and fun. Right now my big project is to get the Italian Festival to put on our "4 Seasons." Cause what could be a better combo than Vivaldi + cannolis?

two jokes

I was just put on hold when I called my OB-GYN's office. Guess what the waiting music is? "It's Raining Men."
Also, around the corner from my house is an acupuncture place, decorated with videos of people being massaged, or close-ups of needles being stuck into skin. On their sign listing ailments these treatments can cure: Man Dysfunction.
I love how open they leave that to interpretation.

awesome awesome awesome

good news

what's in a name

One of my summer jobs is booking a chamber concert series for Jersey City. I'm on the payroll of City Hall! There's something about it that's very... I want to say Mr. Chips goes to Washington, but I know that's not right. Anyway, the series I had started a few years ago was called Music From Blue Hill, a name I liked for its graphic possibilities: posters had a little row of mountains sitting behind a skyscrapered city, with the name cascading down from one to the other. I called it that because the starting point was Blue Hill, Maine, where I'd met most of the folksI was playing with at Kneisel Hall. Well,I can't call it that anymore. For one thing, there's a restaurant called Blue Hill that seems to have gotten much more famous since I lived in Israel. For another, it seems like the name should be more site-specific. I want this thing to eventually turn into a non-profit foundation providing free concerts for Jersey City. And City Hall wants me to put these shows on all over the town. Not to be lacking in civic pride, but having Jersey City in the title is kind of unappealing to me. I'm thinking "Gazebo Music" since we've been playing in the gazebo in my park, and I think every park in town has one.I looked it up and it has a strange,possibly bastardized etymology, which is cool. Any other suggestions?
And speaking of what do we call it, check out this article from today's NY Times. Actually it's one of those "duh" pieces they periodically put out on the shrinking/changing audience of classical music. This time it's on chamber music, and I can sum up the piece for you with its last two sentences: "Chamber music is dead. Long live chamber music." Zinger. I'm sorry, but it's always seemed a no-brainer to me that improv or jazz groups are also chamber music. Who cares about the purists? Anyway, here's the link. Enjoy. Or don't.

p.s. This morning I saw another NYT article relating to this whole audience issue: about the Welsh tenor who won "Britain's Got Talent." I always thought what the classical world needed was a big teen romantic comedy movie. Isn't a music camp or youth orchestra so perfect for that? All the gossip and dating mixed in with talent and competition? Instead we get Hilary and Jackie, Shine, The Pianist... I have to admit I've only seen the last one of those 3, and I love it. But these movies seem to portray the choice to be a professional musician as a choice to remove oneself from the company of everyone and everything "normal" in the world. So to see a tenor on reality television, where "normal" people can compete to show they're extraordinary, and hear the audience applaud in the middle- gasp!- of an aria, like it's a jazz solo, and then to hear Puccini absolutely bring the house down. It's like, yes, this is the medium to bring it out there. I don't pay attention to those shows at all- until I watched "Dancing with the Stars" with my Great Aunt Dot last month, and had a blast! It was awesome. Before that, were there ballroom dancing critics bemoaning the decline of the art, or audience? Are there any amazing cellists or clarinetists or harpists trying out for America's Got Talent? Am I cheapening the art form by asking?

hope?

I just wanted to correct my former ignorance about Mr. Botstein's amazing Bard prison initiative. Check out what's up on that site, and if you were feeling sort of down that activism isn't having any dynamic effects any longer, maybe this will brighten your day. It was started by someone I went to high school with, which makes me super proud.
Speaking of activism, and the Palestinian/Israeli situation, I had some amazing discussions the last few days on that topic. In Kennebunk, Christopher's hometown, last week, his stepfather John asked me directly what I thought of the future of Israel. I had to admit, that while once I had been somewhat blindly optimistic about it- I felt that it just had to work out someday- now, after living there, and seeing the relative pessimism of Israelis themselves, among other things, I was much more pessimistic myself. I said that the only way I could see progress was if the government revolutionized itself and freed itself of the grip of the fundamentalists: the Zionist settlers and expansionists who refuse to see the effects of their spreading and building. It's well known that former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir said "There is no such thing as a Palestinian People." Can you imagine the reputation of an American president in the late 20th century surviving after saying something like "There is no such thing as a Native American people"??? What frustrates me so much is the complacency of the Israeli and Jewish people, when for me a Jewish government means not a Jewish majority, but government guided by ideals of social justice and "Tikkun Olam," that is, fixing the world. So now, my instinct is to throw up my hands, say I don't know, I'm back in the states, who knows what will happen from now on... Did you know that Israel doesn't have absentee ballots!? A tiny country with a huge percentage of its citizens living abroad!? I wonder if the government would look different if those Israelis could vote. Then again, maybe it's because it's so easy for people like me to become citizens and then a year or two later to return to their home country, my vote shouldn't count. Anyway, the other day I was talking to my Mom about this whole thought process that John's question inspired. We came to the conclusion that no matter how frustrating the situation, we can't give up on Israel, because too many other people with lots and lots of money, are fighting for a country that looks very different from the one we'd like to see. What would happen if all the liberal or secular (slightly or otherwise) Jews in Israel and around the world gave up? If we left Israel to the fundamentalists? If the only Americans I knew who were going over there were on Birthright- instead of my amazing and inspiring friends going over there to work for the Israeli Coalition Against Housing Demolition, or to start programs of witnessing and dialog like Encounter... then I would be hopeless! If you're interested in any of this, check out these links and follow them to more and see how much hope and optimism there is in action. And tell me what you find.

few more

just a reminder, we have hundreds more at www.flickr.com/photos/hollerames

blogs need pictures too

With everything that's falling apart for the Palestinians right now, I wanted to upload some pictures from Christopher's trip to the West Bank. It was after I'd already left Israel; I was in San Diego with the Quartet. I think these children were in Jericho, perhaps the dude in the shades was in Bethlehem. Things are a little easier there.
It's so incredibly ironic that things for folks in the West Bank will get better somehow from all this, that in a way they will benefit while Gazans are starving and terrified. It's horrible for all Palestinians, the division of their country into two parts, and has been these many years since the Intifada and Israel's response has shut so many doors. I hope there will be a solution out of this, somehow, someday, so that Gazans can also receive international help again, and that all Palestinians can acheive some sort of self-determination, peace, and comfort.
The other pics are from my last night in Israel. Mr. Ben Gurion guards his airport with his enormous wings of hair. It's the safest piece of land on earth. And that ridiculously cute baby pulling my hair belongs to our good friends in Tel Aviv, Sonja and Daniel.

Oviedo

I'm blaming this latest silence on Leon Botstein. Christopher's first day back in the US, in my second week back here or so, we drove up to Bard College. It's my Dad's alma mater, and he was attending a memorial service, alumni brunch and board of directors meeting. We went to the brunch with him. I've known my Dad's college friends my whole life, and they're fun to talk to and hang out with both for being so convivial and merry, and for all being so smart. I sort of felt like I was at the wedding of one of their kids or something, the mood and food were both so rich and festive- maybe it was just that it was super nice to get to introduce Christopher to them. Anyway, of course, inevitably the speeches started. And Leon, the head of Bard for the last milennium or so, was entertaining and random, seeming to address every issue But whatever had been asked of him. At one point he went off on blogging and e-mail culture, in that curmudgeonly faux-Luddite tone we all love so much in our college presidents. No, of course, everything he said was right on, but of course I couldn't help but take it personally. Tho when you're sitting in a crowded room like that, and the speaker blasts people who write blogs, you can't help but look around and think, how many others? Twelve? Twenty? Who else is spilling their guts in their pajamas? Leon called blogs "the detritus and cuttings from a publishing house floor" because of their lack of editorial oversight. I got a little satisfaction a few weeks later when he showed up on the Colbert Report and seemed nervous. Ha, Mr Big-Shot International Orchestra Conductor, Prison-Education Initiative Defender, Youngest Ever College President! You got served by a fake conservative on a fake news show!
I have to add to this, on the subject of politically progressive orchestra leaders, big snaps go to Leonard Bernstein. The other night I heard my Dad sing Chichester Psalms with a big group of Jewish choruses. That piece is incredible. I can't believe I never heard it before! In the car on the way home, Mozart's Prague Symphony was on the radio, which meant that I couldn't hold the slightest shred of conversation since I had to sing along with it from beginning to end. I realized the reason there are so many important pieces I have no familiarity with is that I spent all my time listening to the same few pieces over and over. I was the coolest kid in fourth grade.
One story I've been meaning to share: bringing Spinoza to the US. With the officials on either side, remarkably, unbelievably easy. I filled in the circle on my entry form that I was bringing in an animal- which is the same circle that says you're bringing in food. Leaving the last gate of customs in JFK, the guy noticed it was filled in (the first checkpoint noone had noticed!) and asked what food I was bringing. I said, well, I have a cat in here, and some kitty treats for him. The guy glanced at Spin, then asked to look at the package of Friskies treats. The two of us spent a few minutes discussing the ingredients, both of us finding it interesting that while the flavor was "Whitefish-Tuna" the main ingredients were chicken and corn, before I noticed it said "Made in USA," and he passed me off to someone else to look at Spinoza. I showed this guy the paperwork, he took a look inside Spinny's box, saw how cute he looked all knocked out and drugged up, and said, Ok, go ahead. That was it. No physical, he didn't even pick him up.
On the flight, I was given a middle seat, even though I'd asked for an aisle. I was flustered and grumpy about this, and asked the lady to my right if she would switch with me. She didn't understand me and said something about sleeping, and we had a very odd little back-and-forth. I thought she was saying to me she was going to be sleeping very well, and I said, obnoxiously (I'm ashamed of what a brat I was) "Yeah, it's comfortable to be on the end!" Luckily, she realy didn't seem to understand me at all, and after a moment of silence, she asked, "Would you like to switch? You have a cat!" I thanked her profusely and resolved to make up my obnoxiousness somehow in the course of the flight. She was the sweetest, sweetest lady. I could tell she was Asian by her accent, but her face was so wrinkled, it was like the generic mask of a sweet old grandmother. I asked her where she was from after we'd made some more small talk, and she said Florida. Later on, out of the blue, she started telling me about her childhood during World War 2. We had no electricity, no fire, she said. Some soldier would come from the base with a cigarette, and turn his hat (she meant helmet) upside down and we would cook our food in it. I realized she must have been Japanese. I told her how my Mom grew up hearing sirens, which she didn't remember until 9-11 happened. This lady said, "We didn't hate you. All the people, they are the same. War is made by a few people, but the rest, they don't hate each other." She seemed to be worried that somehow I would have some anti-Japanese feeling because of World War 2!! I didn't go into my almost ridiculous love of all things Japanese, from sushi to origami to gardens, but I did tell her how my friend Mayuko had given me a few lessons on the Koto and how much I loved it. Turns out she also plays Koto! And her friend stole her Koto! It got her a little worked up to tell me about it. In case you don't know, a Koto is about 5- 9 feet long. For someone to steal it, especially another little old lady, is incredibly funny.
I'm embarrassed I can't remember her name. I think it was Ayako.
She was so wonderful to Spinoza, and went on about how smart cats are. "If you love them, they love you- and they protect you!" We talked about how much we both love shows on Animal Planet and Discovery Channel (really, that's what TV was made for- pet blooper shows.) She told me she had also flown with her pet, a dachshund, from Japan to the Philippines, to the US. That seemed to put the drama of Spin's and my trip into perspective.
Anyway, when we got near JFK, I helped her fill in the entry form, so I felt at least a little better for my earlier rudeness. The town she was from in Florida was Oviedo, which I'd never heard of before. We landed early in the morning, and she joined up with the rest of her church group with whom she had traveled to Israel. I didn't get to properly say good-by or thank her. But later that day I was walking through Jersey City, and I saw a bronze model of a church in front of City Hall. I looked closer to check it out, and it was from JC's new partner city: Oviedo, Spain.

which cities

I was thinking about why it would be that things in NYC are both so difficult now, with so many good clubs closing or on the brink, and things so apparently bright and fruitful among creative musicians.

I was reminded of a revelation I had a number of years ago. Warning: it's a pretty pathetic, obvious revelation. I was in the back seat with my parents somewhere in Connecticut or New Jersey, and we drove by some projects. I thought, this is the last frontier of the civil rights movement: housing. Having just watched my friend Sara Booth's documentary about Newark "Urban Renewal is People Removal" I am even more convinced. Unfortunately, it seems like in NYC, real estate is the last frontier of all these kinds of "more meaningful" battles. I went to Tonic a bunch of times, for amazing shows it seems like it would be hard to replicate anywhere else. I also went, long ago, to the Wetlands, for their cheap ska and hardcore shows, to Tramps, for 3 + hour (I couldn't take anymore) Ween and Jon Spencer Blues Explosion sets. There was such energy to the audience, it wasn't like the interest was lacking in any respect. But how could we, mere fans, mere musicians, do anything when it comes to facing the machine that is NYC real estate. It was slightly more convenient than, say, Pianos, that Tonic was just off Delancey. It had a big space. It was inevitable that some developer, getting fat off the Lower East Side's gentrification, would be hungry for it.

I write this because at first I disagreed with Judd. I think there is a very similar problem in a lot of cities. It's hard to be a musician and do what you want creatively. The world is messed up and wrong that way. In Tel Aviv, there's one free jazz collective that reminded me of the great stuff I saw in Boston while in school, and it's unpaid and disorganized. That being said, I was much more aware and involved in the cultural life of Boston and Rochester than I am in Tel Aviv. Those are my 3 non-NYC examples, from first-hand experience. At NEC there was a panel discussion with 3 Jazz and Contemporary Improv faculty members, about the music business. I don't remember so many specific questions, but I do remember feeling frustrated that it seemed like everyone was preparing to fight for gigs at the same few clubs. So when I say it's about getting out of the cities, I was thinking sort of about that. About getting out of the same places. But we have to make it pay, obviously. That's the hard part everywhere. Judd and I see NYC from a similar perspective, having grown up here and coming back. And on top of that, like 99% of the folks I went to school with in Boston and Rochester have moved to New York, which makes things very nice and convenient for me when I come home to visit. But it means, again, we're all competing for the same gigs in a city that, as Judd pointed out, isn't interested enough in feeding (literally, not figuratively) its artists. Now that chamber music foundations are funding classical music in bars around town, jazz vs. classical gigs become less of an issue.

I don't know where to take this to make it change. We need radio stations like in Germany, where each one has its own resident ensembles. We need unorthodox philanthropists like the lady who left millions to Poetry magazine. We need to make friends with Larry Silverstein. Ok, I'm not going that far! I was going to mention the good old days when Bernstein and folks were put on the cover of Life magazine, but there's not even Life anymore, let alone (sigh) Bernstein. I guess the point is I have to stop being nostalgic. For my college years, for the 50's, which I never actually experienced... Right now I think the solution is to make a big hit teenage romantic comedy with Hilary Duff and, um, some guy (I don't know the names of any teenage superstars) playing a cellist (everybody loves hot girl cellists) and, say, a clarinetist who meet at an international youth orchestra, and fall in love after lots of snafus and misunderstandings. The movie fades with them playing Brahms together, accompanied by the sarcastic, gay, Asian pianist friend. That will get everybody back in.

Rostropovich

I was just reading my friend Judd's blog, and his writing about the sad closing of Tonic got me thinking. It clearly got him thinking too!
(quick little time-out here- this is what I was talking about in the last post about what's going to be so nice when I get home: to talk to Judd about this in person instead of this weird blogversation...)
I'll quote the big questions Judd got to:

The news of Tonic's closing really has me down these days. I've also heard rumors that the Knitting Factory and Galapagos are facing similarly dire straits. Where are we supposed to play?... The free-market approach is simply going to drive out of the city the people who make it an interesting and exciting place to live. Or will it? Certainly, people like me will have to leave, but will the people who are moving here actually care? I see artists as the Dark Matter that keeps the city going - not financially, but spiritually... Will the 20-somethings who move to New York actually stay here to raise a family? I don't know that they plan to. Will they want an active cultural life? For those who stay, I would think that they would. Does the city want to cultivate that type of long-term relationship with those people? I am certain that it does, but right now, the powers-that-be are relying on the big-ticket venues and establishments to provide that cultural backbone, and I don't think that it's working.

really good points. Christopher and I are moving back because we don't want to raise our family in Israel, for various reasons, and whether that goal will be fulfilled in the city or in the Catskills, or by a Maine beach, only time will tell. It's both the best and worst university town anywhere, but as a destination for grown-up-hood, it is scary. Every day I'm looking for new music education postings online. It doesn't feel safe to move somewhere expecting freelancing to feed you. But I do believe there's so many good initiatives happening. Creative endeavors at least, if not solutions, to the problems Judd writes about, and sees much more clearly than lil ol idealistic me can from way out here. And, then again, maybe it is time for all of us to get over the big cities as the centers of our universe. Maybe if public transportation improves, we can start getting out for cultural events like it's a more normal thing, the way my friend Amalia wanted to take me on a traintrip to Leipzig from her homebase of Berlin, to hear some amazing boys' choir. Still kicking myself for not making that happen. My teacher Joe Morris set up a recording studio in his living room. He lives in rural Connecticut. I could see a whole cool scene springing up around his place, if only we could get out of our NYC-Boston fixation. Actually, I don't know many people with Boston fixations these days! Except Mark Wahlberg. We just watched the Basketball Diaries. How does he always get cast as a New Yorker? Are those people deaf? We love him anyway. Or, because.


Big jump. Two nights before I heard the news of Rostropovich's passing, I had a dream about him. I was in his house with Christopher and two of his best friends, Sid (whom I've never met) and Banjo. We were scoping out the place and his routine for our friend Sol, who was going to make a documentary about Slava. The rooms were all huge, and orange and pink, with fireplaces in each one, reminding me of hearts. Slava would teach all day and late into the night, slumped over in a chair by the fire. I don't know, it's not that exciting a dream. I've just been thinking about that, the weird timing of it. He was such a hero. I played under him twice. Once, at Schleswig Holstein, he was a revelation, an inspiration, and absolutely drop-dead hilarious. He would stay up till almost morning playing cards with the Russian-speakers in the orchestra. He conducted us in Shostakovich 5th Symphony and 2nd cello concerto, and then he played the Dvorak concerto, I think the only piece he kept up till the end, or almost the end. Some idiots in the orchestra made comments about his wobbly playing, which made me furious. We were so incredibly lucky to be in the same room with him, let alone actually putting horsehair to string at the same moment!! And there's something about those old folks who keep playing... I remember my teacher Kathy Murdock coaching us on Bartok, encouraging us to try to get "old-man vibrato" as she called it, a vibrato of the bow. It's so human, like the breaking corner of a voice.

I'm tired of writing so I won't get to the second time I played under Rostropovich's baton. Suffice it to say, it was much less positive. It was, unfortunately, like a different person. I live with that first experience as the real one, also because he actually played.
One line I remember him telling us: "Shostakovich was my master in everything- except! for drinking vodka."
In this little reminiscence in the New Yorker, his capital S Soul is alluded to perfectly.

Speaking of missing cellists. I recently inherited a huge collection of sheet music from a cellist, Alida Winokur, mother to one of my Dad's best friends from high school. I hope to play as much of it as possible, and to dedicate concerts to her. I could never imagine a more fortunate windfall, and I am so, so grateful to her.

future remembering

Let your capital be simplicity and contentment. -Henry David Thoreau
just got that quote in a word-a-day email. Liked it and thought I'd start out with it.
I wish I could say I lived that way! With this decision to leave Israel, I'm faced with the various ways my life is about to get at once simpler, and way more complicated. On the simpler side, taxes. The fact that I won't be running to the tax office to file paperwork I may never see again, every time for the least lowly gig-- that's going to be nice. Being able to actually SEE or HEAR friends and family in the place of this endlessly silent internet connection... I saw an article somewhere recently that said some scientists are thinking of dumping the internet and starting over from scratch. I think we could all use a couple weeks break from being wired in. Definitely makes me cheat way too much on crossword puzzles, which were not invented with Google in mind.

then I think about how life is going to get more complicated, and what I'm going to miss here. My friend Daniel asked me yesterday, "So how do you and Christopher feel about hooking up with that big city machine again?" It reminded me of how on an application I recently filled out for a Music Teacher position at a school in Brooklyn, there was a blank for "how many years experience teaching in an urban setting." and I had to stop and think if Jerusalem counts! Even Tel Aviv- I mean, they're the biggest cities in the country, yet when your vegetable stand guy, Bodega guy, health food store guy, and butcher guy all know you, it does not feel like a city. Or maybe this is how cities used to be. Maybe this is how it will be when we go back to Jersey City. One of my friends from high school (in Brooklyn!), totally randomly, is now living 2 doors down from my parents. There are certain friendly, neighborly things I know I won't find back home, though. You can just talk to people's babies here. And the parents will stop the strollers for you to get some quality face time in. And forget about the puppies. Tel Aviv is a world-class dog city. It will be a nice change to not see sad, scraggly stray cats everywhere, tho I'm sure in a way I'll miss them too.

And then there's the quartet. I moved here to fulfill a dream, to play in a professional string quartet. It's not just because of Christopher's job that it's time for me to go home. There are some clear signs that maybe the quartet and I weren't on the same path... but that's hard for me to even write. I made the decision to leave really for reasons that had nothing to do with the 3 of them. I've invited them many times to come live with us! Either in Jersey City or in the Catskills, where my parents have a house, that now Christopher and I will take over the care of. Ever since I moved here I've joked that scientists have got to get to work on making the distance between Israel and New York smaller. Now I know I'm going to be feeling that same thing, but from the other side of the ocean.
I don't know if I'll ever get such an incredible musical experience handed to me like that again. From now on, back in the crazy scene that is NYC, I'm going to have to make it happen much more, that's how it goes there. I still have my dream of bringing music to my hometown, and that, along with the thought of Christopher and I actually having our own house, makes my heart beat faster. Then there's also the thought of seeing my nieces grow up, and not just in emailed photos. Getting to hear my friends' and my cousin's bands play live. Making dinner for my parents, or for our friends in the neighborhood. Going grocery shopping on Saturday...

today is Yom HaZikaron, the day of remembrance for people who died creating and defending Israel. Last week was Yom HaShoah, the day of mourning for the Holocaust. Both "Erevs" or nights before, stores closed early and the streets were quiet. Last night there was also a siren. There will be one again at 10 AM today, as there was at 10 AM on Yom HaShoah. I walked out to the highway to see all the cars stop, and the people get out of them, standing with their heads bowed on the black asphalt of the Ayalon, Tel Aviv's central artery. It was so intense. The only sound you could hear besides the sirens, were birds singing, and cats fighting. Nothing else human-made. I had this tremendous feeling of vertigo, maybe because I was standing on a bridge overlooking the highway. But I felt like I didn't know where I ended and everyone else in the country began. One of the few moments here when I've felt Israeli. It's getting quiet now;I can tell people are preparing for this next siren. I feel like this day is even more personally felt for more of Israel, since it's pretty evenly divided between Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jews, and while World War 2 affected the lives of people in the Middle East and North Africa, it was a very different experience for the Jews there than for the Jews of Europe. Meanwhile, everyone knows someone who was lost, or injured, or who lost a family member, to the violence that has engulfed this country since the beginning.
I'm going to go stand on the bridge again.

languages of animals

Just got back the other day from a tour with Tel Aviv Soloists to Switzerland and Austria. mostly Austria, actually, only spent the last few days of the tour in Interlaken. It got funner and funner. Started out kind of ok, kind of a drag. The orchestra has this incredibly tightknit social vibe. I specify social because it doesn't always manifest itself musically! Maybe it was the stress of the tour, a city a day, a concert a city, a lot of time in the same bus. All the social stuff, it tends to feel a little bit like high school when you're not super comfortable with the language. But I got less and less stressed about that aspect as I felt more comfortable with more and more folks. I think it was the mid-tour break I took to go visit with Peter and Wendy Moes, my viola family, at their farmhouse outside of Munich. I was only there for a night, but it chilled me out as much as a week at a spa. Good healthy food, good conversation, purring cats and a midday rainbow sprouting out of the middle of a field will do that.
A nice thing for me was being put in the "married" hotel for our first couple nights- the 9 wedded members of the group (none to each other) were put in this adorable little inn outside of Villach. It was nice to get a little bit of air, an early break from the crowd. Hadas and Tali were in that hotel with me, so we had an opportunity to just hang out despite all the weirdness of my impending departure. The hotel was a bit too adorable, in fact: no phones in the rooms. But I did get to use their ancient computer in their office for email. At one point a man with a giGANtic handlebar moustache in traditional south-Austrian costumer stopped by to check that I knew how to use the computer just fine. Later that night I channelsurfed the TV stations and found Full House and the Cosby Show dubbed in German, as well as a comedy about a man in lederhosen and his dachshund. The dachshund had it in for is master and peed on his leg.
Why am I writing about the TV?? Well, I did have one enlightening TV experience (in English). Christopher gave me an amazing book to read on the tour: "A Language Older than Words" by Derrick Jensen. It's hard to describe in even a few sentences what it's about. Basically the author sees his abused childhood through the same lens he sees the abuse of the whole natural and native human world, and charts the destruction Western European society has wrought all across the planet. He ascribes part of the reason this has happened to the fact that humans long ago stopped believing they could communicate with the natural world. He writes about making deals with the coyotes who've been stealing his chickens and finding mouse poop in his sink after he'd destroyed the mice's nests in his garage... Anyway, at one of our little Austrian town stops, I found a movie in English, which made me happy (Germany doesn't subtitle, just dubs, so usually the only English TV is CNN) I don't know the name of it, but it's computer-animated, and about a deer and a bear running away from an evil hunter. I think one of the voices is Ashton Kutcher maybe? The movie felt like a manifestation of this book, about the possibilities of interspecies communication, and how much we miss when we assume we're the only beings on this earth with a language.
I think the book's turning me into a hippie.
Or--- back into a hippie.
I tried asking Spinoza nicely to please stop gnawing on my leg, but we haven't yet found a mutual language.
The best thing of the tour, aside from this book, and the views, and the lovely time with the Moes',-- was getting to know the people in the orchestra. First time in a while I feel I have really good new friends in Israel. And I'm leaving in a month and a half. It's sad I guess. But I've learned over the years, many times, that there is no goodbye in the tiny world of classical music.
I put up tons of pictures of the trip on the flickr site, www.flickr.com/photos/hollerames

slam-bang

I'm randomly moved to write right now because I just remembered this really funny thing that happened while we were in New York in December. It was after the last of the quartet's five concerts (in 6 days!). The show was at noon, in this increidble theater in Rockefeller University. I'd never even heard of the school before we were asked to play there, but it's very cool, tucked away in the very far East Side. The theater is this fifties-ish space-age white bubble, with awesome acoustics. Only thing is, no backstage, just this kind of screened-off corner of the stage that most of the audience can see over anyway. After we'd finished the encore, we awkwardly retired to that "backstage" to grab glasses of water and let the audience leave before they saw us going offstage and out the same way they were. A smiling elderly man with a heavy lisp came to the "backstage" to say how much he'd enjoyed the concert. He was so sweet and complimentary, it took me a second to realize he was Harris Goldsmith, who had coached my piano quartet sophomore year at Mannes! Mr. Goldsmith is brilliant about music, but more than your typical absent-minded professor. I said, "Mr. Goldsmith!" and told him how I knew him, and how honored I was that he'd come to our concert. He stared at me a little, but I could tell he had no idea what I was talking about.
We got offstage finally, after thanking the rest of the folks who kind of trapped us in that corner of the stage to say nice things. I think it was just me and Hadas waiting for the little elevator that would take us to our dressingroom. "Brahms A Major piano quartet!" Mr. Goldsmith exclaimed as soon as the elevator doors opened to reveal him standing there alone, as if he'd expected to see us. "And Mei Ting was the pianist!" I almost burst out laughing, but told him he was correct. That made my day- I remember that little exchange better than anything we played.

But I also should write with the news. Christopher and I will be moving back to the states as of the end of May.
I'm not really moved to write anything more than that now. It's hard to process all the different emotions involved. I should say, just to be clear, that it has nothing to do with my relationship with the girls of the quartet, all of whom I love dearly, and all of whom I hope I will be friends with for a long, long time. But it does have to do with time, and a wonderful opportunity, and homesickness... And needing to get our poor kitten some more space. This apartment's too small for him- North America is more his size.

new CD on Tzadik!

Hey, a project we did with this amazing bayan (kinda like an accordion) player Boris Malkovsky was just released on Tzadik. The album is called "Time Petah Tikva" and it's on Tzadik's website.
sorry to have been reticent recently. big changes afoot, and I promise to chronicle it all soon.

2 new links

I just wanted to call attention to them here before I stick them in that list over there:
one is my friend Carolyn's lovely blog about about the life of a musician in the city.
and the other is for news about my friend William's incredible Music for the People project. A recent post mentions how he read a government paper of cultural diplomacy that had him turning pages like it was a Harry Potter book.

snooze cruise (i'm on it)

It's almost 1 in the morning, and I'm sitting on the floor with a runny nose and bowl of (instant) chicken soup. I never can go straight to sleep after I get home from a concert. Last night I fell asleep hours after the concert and still woke up in the middle of the night with tunes from the program running through my head.
The concerts were with Tel Aviv Soloists, and we were the backup band for this incredible counter-tenor, Andreas Scholl. I'd never been in the presence of a real live counter-tenor, that I know of, certainly wasn't prepared for this big burly German guy to come to the first rehearsal, clear his throat with a deep gutteral growl, and then let loose notes that , ok, enough of the fancy language, are high! Way high. I almost started laughing. Most of the other players were big fans of Mr. Scholl, so I felt very gauche and ignorant. I got used to it, and the performances went well. Maybe the biggest audiences I've seen for this group. Shows the power of opera fans. I thought it would be hard to get big crowds for something this... esoteric. But whatever folks' reaction to a grown man singing in boy soprano territory, the music (Handel and Vivaldi) speaks for itself. And we're very lucky to have gotten to work with him.
I'm just raw, though, worn down from this cold I haven't been able to shake for a week, and stress about my recital, which is coming up in 10 days. So to play this particular music on gut strings with a Baroque bow all felt pretty out of the way for me. This morning the quartet started off rehearsal with our instruments upside down (well, not the cello, the cello's always upside down) to work on the parts of George Crumb's "Black Angels" where we have to play behind our left hands, our bows way up next to the scrolls. Such a cool effect. So disgusting when I can barely play it at all, let alone even close to in tune. The others memorized this piece as their first project as a quartet, and my first time playing it with them will be at another first for me: my first competition. We're playing at the Gaudeamus in Amsterdam, which is just for new music. It's in April. Anyway, after that and work on some sections in the piece in which we imitate insects (musically, not behaviorily) we played through Steve Reich's "Different Trains," another piece the girls put on their first, legendary concert, that I'm doing for the first time. Not for the competition, but at a Kibbutz concert. Playing it through is so intense. It really is a journey, and the viola more than any other instrument plays with the voices on the tape track, all the people telling their stories of where they were during WW2. It's only tiny fragments that are caught ("1941 I guess it must have been," "No more school," and the creepiest one for me to play with, "They shaved us.") and Reich writes out for us his approximation of the voices' rhythms. Speech patterns become melodies that somehow are incredibly, annoyingly catchy. We'll play it with a beautiful video piece, and we'll sit in a row like we're on a train. There are pictures of the quartet's performance of it on the website.
After that, taught. Suzuki, Twinkle, Humoresque. I'm spent now. I'd meant for this to be a musing on the variety of music my day saw. But, really, that's not so remarkable these days. We all are involved in crazy stuff. My friend Judd told me he got a commission from a choir in Rome for a piece involving the Hebrew alphabet. I've gotta hear that one (this is how tired I am- I just typed I gotta here, than I gotta heart) maybe it'll help me actually remember the order.
good night.

2007

In honor of the new year, I have to tell about two of my students' adorable responses to it. Yesterday as I flipped through 9-year-old Dor's notebook to find the next blank page to write his homework, I came to an explosively illustrated "Happy New Year" in pen waiting for me on that very page. So so cute. Dor doesn't speak English is the thing. As I exclaimed at how great that was that he wrote it, he said "In Australia it's already over." And then he proceeded to tell me all about the crazy celebrations in Australia. I understood not a word until he got to "Opera House" and "bridge." So I said something acknowledging I knew he was talking about Sydney, which just encouraged him so he talked even faster about those crazy Australians. I asked if he'd ever been there, and he said, "No, I've never been outside of the country." In Israel, there's a compound word for that: Khool, standing for "Khootz" (outside) La'aretz (of The Land- Aretz is a very important word here). It's often spoken in almost reverent tones. At any rate, Dor was very, very embarrassed he hadn't been to "Khool." I said, don't worry, when I was 9 I hadn't been either. Then I remembered I'd been to Canada. But that's practically the U.S. anyway (I know I'm going to catch some flak for that!) It just made me think again how crazy it is to be living here. Christopher and I have been to Jordan and Egypt, and it's no problem for us with our passports. Israelies can't even go to Jordan without a special visa, forget about the rest besides the Sinai part of Egypt. And this country's the size of New Jersey!
I know I'm stating the obvious, and repeating what's been said many times before. I find myself becoming more Israeli not just as I get more fluent in Hebrew and start to slip slang phrases from it into my English ("I'm dead from that!" = I love it) but more so in terms of distances. I used to have no problem with the back-and-forth to Jerusalem. It's the same as, like somewhere in Long Island or even parts of Brooklyn, into Downtown Manhattan. But now I'm finding it more and more draining. Maybe I'm just tired!
Back to my other student. Reut is my only violist now that Evyotar not only quit viola for violin (shame on me!!) but moved to Zurich. She's also 9, and one of triplets- and her brothers play violin and cello! How cute is that?! IT's a religious family, and Reut is always in long skirt and sleeves, in the brightest, loudest color combinations. She attends a religious school, and laughs whenever I date her homework page in her notebook. "I don't know what that is" she says. She only knows the Hebrew calendar! Isnt that incredible? I don't know why I get such a kick out of it. The idea of people living in the middle of this metropolis, on their own schedule. Anyway, yesterday I asked her, by any chance did she know what today was? "Oh, it's a fast day!" I was shocked. "For what?" I asked her. Again, I didnt quite understand her explanation. Something about one of the temples being destroyed, on top of it being a special Yom HaShoah (day commemorating the HOlocaust) only for the Haredim (that is, ultra-Orthodox). Just confirming my suspicion that every day on the Jewish calendar is a fast-day for something!!
Just want to wish everyone a very happy 2007, full of abundance, explorations, good health, love, and good conversation. Keep in touch.