A Fist Fight at Symphony Center!!

A couple of weeks ago, I went to the Chicago Symphony Center to watch the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) perform and to take a lesson from John Bruce Yeh, assistant principal clarinet.

The lesson with Mr. Yeh was amazing.  We worked on the sonata for clarinet and piano by Martinu.  The two main things he focused on were finger position and phrasing.

Mr. Yeh started the lesson by having me play a little.  he stopped me right after I got through the most technically difficult part of the piece.  He said that I wasn't sealing the holes of the clarinet properly by first landing on them with the tip of my fingers and then flattening my knuckle to cover the entire hole.  Mr. Yeh told me that I had to make sure that my fingers always stayed curved and right about the holes.  I actually keep my fingers flat and farther away from where they should rest on the clarinet.  If my fingers are not right above the holes and my knuckles aren't bent, then the clarinet will not seal right away when I place my fingers on the keys, making technical sections much harder.  Good advice!

The other thing we worked on was phrasing.  Mr. Yeh wanted me to play like a string player.  This means that all of the different slurs or bow strokes need to be made clear with the tongue.  It also means that I have to make each slur in the Martinu its own phrase.  He also noticed that I was giving the long notes a crescendo, and he didn't like that.  Mr. Yeh said I should crescendo on the moving notes and decrescendo on the long notes.  I've not hear this advice before, so it was really good to hear.

After the lesson, I went to the concert.  It was a night of Brahms with Muti conducting.  First, Pinchas Zukerman played the Violin Concerto in D major and then we heard Brahms Symphony no. 2 in D major.  The concert was really cool!  The CSO played the Brahms 2nd Symphony.  I loved the whole thing, but my favorite part was the last movement.  It really ends on a bang.  The CSO brass and woodwinds are so amazing!  I loved the big brass finish at the end.  And Mr. Williamson, the new principal clarinet, was fantastic.

The best part of the Brahms was the last movement, but the most interesting part of the night happened after the 2nd movement.  The end of the 2nd movement is very quiet and dies down into nothing.  The audience was silent -- no one was even coughing, when suddenly two loud thumps were heard in succession.  Everyone looked around to see what could have made that noise.  I could see a commotion in one of the boxes, but I wasn't sure what was happening.  Muti handled it well and moved gracefully into the 3rd movement after making certain that everything was all right.  I thought maybe someone had had fallen or gotten sick or something.

I found out a couple of days after the concert that what we heard and saw was actually a fight in one of the boxes!  A 30 year old man and a 67 year old man were arguing over seats.  Eventually the younger man lost his temper and started hitting the older man!  The thumping was the sound of the older man falling down, I think.  After the incident, the 30 year old ran away.

Other than the disturbance, it was a wonderful evening.  I hope I will have more lessons with John Bruce Yeh in the future.  He is a great teacher.

WFMT Introductions!

This Saturday, I am going to play on WFMT Introductions on the radio station 98.7 with my trio, the Triumvirate.  WFMT Introductions is a program that has a different youth chamber group or soloist come and play in the WFMT studio once a week.  A few weeks ago, the concert master of Midwest Young Artists, Jorie Butler-Geyer, played on this show.

The Triumvirate is a Piano-Viola-Clarinet trio consisting of myself, my brother Ari on viola, and Kevin Xu, a junior at Stephenson high school (My brothers high school), on piano.  My brother and I found Kevin through Midwest Young Artist's (MYA) chamber program.

We are playing the Kegelstatt trio by Mozart and Fairy Tales by Schumann.  The Kegelstatt trio is a piece I love and have been playing for a while.  It is the first piece written for this combination of instruments and has inspired many other composers to write for a Piano-Viola-Clarinet trio.  One of those composers was Schumann.  When Schumann heard the Kegelstatt being performed he was inspired to write for the combination.  Even though Fairy Tales was only written two years before Schumann's attempted suicide it is still very light in most places but, there are signs of agitation in some parts, especially in the second movement.

 I have never played on the radio and I am nervous but, I am also very excited to have this great opportunity.

9th Annual DePaul Concerto Festival for Young Performers

On Sunday (1/22/12), I got to play with the Oistrach Symphony Orchestra.  Earlier this month, I competed in the DePaul Concerto Festival Auditions, and I was chosen one of 13 winners to play my concerto with the orchestra.

For the clarinets they allowed the following pieces:  the Stamitz 3rd Concerto, the Weber Concertino, the 1st Weber Concerto, the 2nd Weber Concerto, and the Mozart Clarinet Concerto.  Since I had been preparing the Rossini Introduction, Theme and Variations for the Walgreens Concerto competition, I chose to play the Weber Concertino for the DePaul audition, because I had learned it the year before.

My brother gave me the good news when the results were published two weeks ago.  I had been in a chamber rehearsal, so he told me in between rehearsals.  I was really excited, because I've never played with an orchestra before.

There was only one rehearsal with the orchestra.  The conductor Mina Zikri spent a long time on my piece.  I was absolutely terrified when it came time to rehearse with the orchestra.  I played pretty badly the first couple of run throughs.  The orchestra was playing a little fast for me, and I was having trouble keeping the technical parts in control.  I was kind of afraid to tell the conductor to slow down.  I was kind of afraid to say anything at all.  Before the final run through, there was a break.  During the break, a few other performers rehearsed, and a friend of mine from my youth orchestra, David Berghoff, arrived for his rehearsal.  He had won for viola.  After talking to David, I felt more comfortable and confident.  They asked me if I wanted to run through the piece again, and I did.  This time it went much better.  I was able to relax, and play my best.  It also helped that Susanne Baker, founder and director of the DePaul Community Music Division, told Mr. Zikri that I would like the Concertino taken at a slower tempo.

A few days later, it was finally time for the performance with the orchestra.  I arrived an hour early, and I warmed up for a while.  Right before the concert, I was called up to play one more run through of my piece with the orchestra before the concert.  I did really well on the run through.  Everything went well, and I thought I totally ready to perform for the audience.

About fifteen minutes later, they called me up for my performance.  I was first on the program.  When I walked up on the stage, I was a little nervous, but mostly I was feeling confident that I would do well.  I started the piece, I hit the first note perfectly, and it is an easy note to mess up.  Things were going well, and then I looked up at the audience, and I forgot what the next note was.  I never ever have this problem!  I'm not sure what happened.  Maybe I was terrified, but I had felt so confident when I walked up on the stage.  I managed to play through the rest of the piece, but it was shaky in a few sections, and I missed a few notes on the runs.  I made mistakes I never make!  I actually did well in the sections I was worried about, and I messed up things that I usually play extremely well.  I couldn't figure out what was happening!

Finally, I finished.  I was kind of glad when the performance was over, because I was afraid that I was totally going to lose it.  I guess playing in front of an audience is something I need to practice at to get better at.

Still, it was a good experience.  I was surprised that a couple of my friends from school, Ally and Rachel, came all the way downtown to watch me perform.  It was really nice of them to come.  The other soloists were amazing, and it was a privilege to perform in the same program with them.  David Berghoff's performance was great, and a 6th grade pianist from my school, Eric Lin, also did a sensational job.

The violinists who played:  Benjamin Ellenbogen, Hanway Wang, Jisun Lee,Serena Harnack and Hanna Bingham were absolutely stunning.  Many of the performances were flawless, and I was pretty daunted.  In the end, it was amazing to be there, and it was amazing to hear all of the performances.  The Oistrach Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Mina Zikri, was fantastic, and it was a joy to hear them and a privilege to play with them.

New York Trip

     Last month, I went to New York with my teacher Dileep Gangolli.  It was an amazing trip!  We flew to Laguardia airport, and we stayed with Dileep's brother Ashok.


     On Thursday, I saw the Metropolitan Opera play.  They did Satyagraha, an opera about Gandhi's years in South Africa.  The opera was very surreal.  It was in Sanskrit with Gandhi's writings in English projected on the wall.  There was also no recitative, which means it was all songs with no explanations or bridges.  It was weird, but also really cool.  I loved Gandhi's solo at the end.  It was incredibly long, and every moment of it was gorgeous.  Anthony McGill's part was kind of boring and supportive, unfortunately for me, because I always love to hear Mr. McGill play as much as possible.  But, of course, he executed it perfectly, like the brilliant and lyrical clarinetist he is.


     After the concert, my teacher and I went outside the Met opera house where we saw a bunch of occupy Wall Street protesters trying to get the musicians of the Metropolitan Opera and the audience members to join their protest.  I guess this was because the opera was about Gandhi, and he was a non-violent protester, like the Occupy protesters.


     On Friday morning, I went to see the New York Philharmonic play Mahler's tenth symphony.  I enjoyed the experience much better than when I saw them last year.  This was an acoustical issue, I think, because everyone knows how great the New York Philharmonic is.  Last year, we sat in the balconies on the side of the concert hall where the sound was really inconsistent, and the solists were almost inaudible.  This year, I sat on the ground level, and the acoustics were much much better.  The horns were great throughout the whole piece (Mahler has the best horn parts).  The violas sounded a little shaky in the second movement when they had their big soli, but again, I think this was a problem with the Avery Fischer Hall acoustics, which isn't able to project the beautiful and subtle sound of the viola section.  There were a couple of parts that didn't sound right to me, but I think this is because the celli and the violas suffer most from the sound issues in that concert hall.  We are lucky to have the Chicago Symphony Center here in Chicago.  In the last movement there was a beautiful flute solo which was executed to perfection by the principal flutist.  He was almost as good as Mathieu Dufour, but not quite, but I have to admit that I am biased, because I am from Chicago, and I support my hometown orchestra.


     After seeing the orchestra play, we went to this wonderful French Bistro where I got a really great sandwich.  Later that afternoon, I had a lesson with Anthony McGill, principal clarinet of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra.  It was an amazing experience, just like last year.  Mr. McGill had some really great insights into playing Rossini, which he shared with me.  He helped me balance the pressure I was placing on the reed when playing the high notes, and it helped my highest notes become more in tune.  He also gave me insight into dynamics.  He said to think of dynamics as a style of playing and not a volume.  This is a really good way to think about it.  We finished the day with dinner at a great Italian restaurant.  I had the lamb.


     On Saturday, I went to see Will, a friend of mine who I met at Interlochen, who lives in the New York suburbs.  Will's dad took us to the natural history museum where we spent most of our time in the jungle and African Peoples section.  It was really interesting tracing the African Peoples through the years and looking at their art.  I spent that night at Will's house.


     On Sunday, Will's dad dropped me back off at Dileep's brother's house.  We went from there to the airport.  When I got back to Chicago, I went straight back to my chamber rehearsal at Midwest Young Artists.  It was one busy weekend!


     I had an amazing time in New York.  I enjoy vising New York a lot, but I think I like Chicago the best.

It's Been Too Long Since My Last Blog Post

December was a really busy month!  I went with my teacher to New York to have a lesson with Anthony McGill again.  My youth orchestra (Midwest Young Artists) played several Christmas concerts in area malls, and I was busy preparing for the Walgreens Concerto Competition and the DePaul Concerto Festival.  Plus I performed a family concert with my great aunt Corean who is a concert pianist.

I won the wind category of the junior MYA division of the Walgreens playing the Rossini Introduction, Theme and Variations for Clarinet, and I won the clarinet category at the DePaul Concerto Festival, playing the Weber Concertino.  I think this means I will get to play the Weber Concertino with the Oistrach Symphony Orchestra later this month.

Also, my chamber trio auditioned for WFMT Introductions, and we were selected to play on January 28.  We will be playing the Mozart Kegelstatt Trio (k. 498) and the Schumann Marchenerzahlungen for viola, clarinet and piano.  I'm really excited about playing, but I'm kind of scared of the interview part.

Scheherazade with MYA's Symphony Orchestra

On October 30, I played with MYA's Symphony Orchestra.  We played Scheherazade, which was my favorite concert that I've ever played in.  It was a busy day.  I played with Concert Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, and Honors Wind Symphony as well as Symphony Orchestra.  I can't think of a better way to spend a Sunday.

http://wmya.fm/2011/11/11/wmya-172-scheherazade/

Master Class with Bill Buchman, Assistant Principal Bassoon for the CSO

Today I attended and played at a master class at the MYA center taught by Bill Buchman, the Assistant Principal Bassoonist for the CSO.  Mr. Buchman has a physics degree from Brown and a music degree from Yale.  How cool is that?

This was a very informative master class.  He covered some of the most important ideas in wind playing and musicianship in general.  He emphasized making the time signature more obvious and playing technical sections more smoothly.

I started the master class with Rossini's Introduction, Theme and Variations for Clarinet.  I've been working on this piece for many months now.  Mr. Buchman stopped me after the first half of the introduction.  The first thing he talked about was making sure that all of your playing is smooth.  This can be hard on the clarinet, because the resistance is very different between some of the notes.  This is because some notes you play with all of the holes on the clarinet open, and some notes you play with all of the holes closed.  Going between these notes is very difficult, so you need to work to make sure that the notes are smooth.  You do this by pushing the air through the phrase and maintaining a steady flow of air.  When you are playing these difficult intervals, and you are playing quietly, it is even more difficult to keep your sound steady and full.  Mr. Buchman said it seems surprising, but you actually need to use just as much or more air on the quiet notes so they can resonate just as much as the forte sections.  He had me play this section again several times with these ideas in mind, and it made a big difference.

Then Mr. Buchman had me play the Theme.  This section is quicker and more technical than the Introduction. I played it, and after I finished, he had me play the very beginning again.  He asked the other kids in the master class guess what the time signature was, and where the downbeat was.  Only one person could tell, and I think that's because he was looking at the music.  The point Mr. Buchman was making was that I wasn't making it obvious to the audience where the downbeat was.  This is a problem, because it makes you sound disjoint and out of tempo, and it makes it hard for your audience to understand the music.  He said it was really to establish this right at the beginning.  He revisited this idea many times during the master class.

Many students played after me:  Julia, Clayton and Marissa played bassoon concertos, Vince played a baroque sonata on his oboe, and Yoon and Steven played the 2nd Weber and the Rossini on clarinet.  And finally Theo, Tamara and Julia played a trio.  Mr. Buchman covered several ideas through the rest of the masterclass.  First, he worked on how to practice a technically difficult articulated section.  He suggested working on the fingering and tonguing separately.  You can do this by slurring the section and slowing it down.  This lets you work on your fingers without having to worry about the tonguing.  He also said it was important to keep your air flowing through the articulations.  You do this by not stopping the air with your tongue, but simply lightly tapping the reed with your tongue to briefly stop the reeds vibrations.  Another point he made was to practice slowly.  He said if you can't play it slowly, then you will sometimes crash and burn when you play it fast.  That happened to me last year at the Walgreens when I was performing the Weber Concertino!  My piano teacher makes this point quite often.  You don't really know a piece until you can play it slow as well as fast.

When Vince played, it was clear to Mr. Buchman that Vince was quite nervous.  He had some advice to help with this nervousness that everybody feels.  He said to acknowledge when you're nervous.  You can use the extra adrenalin pumping through your veins to help you play better.  It all depends on how you think about it.  You can  respond to the nervousness by saying to yourself that you're terrified and you're going to fail.  Or you can see it as an advantage.  You can say to yourself, I'm nervous.  That's good, because I have more energy, and this can help me have an exciting performance..  My concentration will be at a higher level than normal.  However, when you get nervous you see time differently, you will tend to rush.  You need to be aware of this and consciously hold yourself back and play slower than you feel is the tempo you normally play at.  I'm going to try this when I play at the Walgreens next month.

It was a great masterclass, and I'm glad I had the opportunity to attend and play at it.