“Ms. Lisa! I’m writing a story, and you’re in it!” 

Amid the hubbub of our routine Daily Orchestra Program dismissal, I heard this voice emerge somewhere near me. I looked to see one of our young cellists, Mariam, smiling and enthusiastic as usual, awaiting my response to her announcement.

Admittedly, the first question that crossed my mind was whether I was a good guy or a bad guy in this story, but I think in the moment I responded to her with something like “Oh really?! That sounds so interesting. I’d love to read it sometime.” Thanks to the convenience of modern technology I was able to write down my email address for Mariam, and sure enough a few days later, a story about a fox appeared in my inbox. 

Mariam’s story, shared below, is not only entertaining, it also offers a small glimpse inside the Daily Orchestra Program, as seen from the perspective of one of its students, with a little imagination thrown in for good measure. And thankfully the teachers are not the villains. The Daily Orchestra Program makes its appearance in the Middle section of the story, but I share the entire story here because it’s well worth a full read-through.

–Lisa Barksdale, CMW Resident Musician

Exotic Pet
by Mariam

“Ahhhh…” I thought as I slept through the morning.

“WAKE UP! WAKE UP! WAKE UP!” My little brother (Raphael) yelled in my ear. He just had to wake me up.

“TODAY’S A SPECIAL ONE!!!”
 
“What makes this day special?” I asked as I walked to the bathroom.

“Mommy bought us a fox!”

“Ha ha,” I chuckled sarcastically. But when i ate my breakfast, and was leaving, a big, orange, fox named Stella, jumped right on me. “AWW!!!” I admired. “Look at that cutie!”

But then Stella took right off towards school. “Hey!” I shouted. I chased her all the way to school, were I got there right on time.

“MARIAM…” I knew that voice; it was Ms.Strattner.

“S s sorry m m Ms.Strattner.”

“WHY IS THERE A MUTT IN HERE?” Ms.Strattner shouted.

“I was just chasing her when..”

“NO excuses!”

But Stella had other plans. She wrote: “Ms. Strattner is sooooo sassy ooooo ”, on the whiteboard. Everyone laughed.

“Oh no!” I thought.

And then Ms.Strattner already saw it. “I think you will be losing your dojo party, for the whole week, miss.”

“Back to class, everyone!” Shouted Ms.Williams. But math wasn’t so bad. Ms. Johnson was starting a new unit on negative numbers. “So class, what is 22-33?”

A few people raised their hands but Stella shot right to the whiteboard and instead, wrote the square root of 16.0000000. Everyone’s jaw dropped down like a falling meteor.

“Who’s fox is this?” Ms. Johnson asked. I raised my hand and she immediately said: “This fox is brilliant! She is my new helper for the rest of the day.” I was so relieved to get her out of the classroom I almost fainted!  

After school, the chase was still on. I chased Stella all the way to music. “Grr!!” I shouted. But there was a bunch of fragile instruments. So I carefully stepped into the room; tip toe tip toe.

But then Ms. Tessa came right in front of me. “Mariam, I’m gonna need you to go in line,” she said calmly. “But uhhh…”

I was trying to make an excuse to go in there because she will never believe me that a fox is in her rental room for orchestra. So I said; “Ms. Lisa said that I could help her set up the room.”

“Oh, I’m sorry Mariam, go in.” My orchestra teachers always say things calmly because they are very nice.

As I entered the room, Ms. Lisa said,”Why are you in the room?”

Now I had to tell them the truth. “There’s a crazy fox in here!”

“Mariam, you can tell us your funny jokes after music, ok?” Ms. Tessa whispered. 

But Stella Just did parkour on the instruments.

“Woah!” Amelia and Ariella shouted together (they’re twins).

“What did you do Mariam?” shouted Shalom with that funny accent she always uses.

“Oh my goodness!” shrieked Serena. “My ‘ship has evolved! Well maybe evolved. Mariam, can your fox be apart of our ‘ship?”

“Maybe…” I replied.

“Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, protect the instruments!!!” Said Ms. Tessa. “That animal maybe has been in the forest! It might get us a disease!”

“Or the animal might just need to get back to its habitat,” said Ms. Lisa.

“Wait,” I said. I’ll keep a hold of Stella.”

“With what?”

“With…” I was stumped. But then I looked and found… “This cage!” “Ok!” “That will do!” So I put Stella in the cage.

“Everyone, enter music quietly,” whispered Ms.Tessa.

So we found the pulse of the music then went on to playing a piece of music but while we were doing that, Stella broke out of the cage, went to CMW (Community Music Works (the program that I do to play the cello)) office and took one of the very small paper cellos they made and ran back. As she interrupted the class, she played a very beautiful song.

“Mariam, is this your fox?” Ms. Lisa asked curiously. “If it is,” she continued.

“It is.” I responded.

“Then…. she is brilliant!” she shouted. “She will help me and Ms. Tessa teach!”

“Whatever you say, Ms. Lisa..” I was very nervous then but, Stella did great! A little pushy but, great! After music, I ran off to my friend (Sophia)’s house. “I hope you get that red panda off your arm!” I hollered. Then I went to my other friend (Michael)’s house. “I hope you can solve your talking tiger problem!”

After that, I was exhausted. I went straight to bed but Stella was in my face. “Seriously?” But then Stella ran off and almost knocked down and my mom was on the phone under the tree. “Watch out!” I shrieked and caught the tree.

“We have to get that fox out of here!” My mom yelled.

“But, even though she gets in trouble, I still like her.” I whispered. Suddenly I got an idea. “We can build a transporter!” (A transporter is something I made up that it is a very long tube and a little door at the end and a lot of space at the beginning.) So we made the transporter and it successfully worked! So now a days, I can visit her and she can go to the forest (where she lived), whenever she wants with no problem. So, me, Stella, and my family lived a normal life until we found the wolf!

But that story is for another time.

THE END.

Mariam, the author of “Exotic Pet,” will perform with the Daily Orchestra Program on Saturday for the CMW Student Performance Party.

Stella the Fox has not yet been confirmed as a performer.

Student Performance Party
Saturday, January 19 at 2pm
Calvary Baptist Church
747 Broad Street, Providence
Map and directions here
Admission is free; Bring a dish to share for the potluck!

The Sonata for Violin and Piano by César Franck was originally written in 1886 for the violinist Eugène Ysaÿe, and presented to him on the day of his wedding (which,  after a quick rehearsal with a pianist friend, he performed for all of his wedding guests!). Ysaÿe was a champion of this piece for 40 years afterwards and, not only has it long outlived the violinist’s career, it is a piece that has become a revered and central piece of the violin repertoire.

This piece holds a special place in my heart, as it was a piece that I learned and studied with my late teacher, Eric Rosenblith.  I learned many things from Rosenblith, but one of the larger takeaways that has stayed with me was the utter commitment to exploring and understanding the composer’s intention and attempting to bring that to life in the performance of a piece. Rosenblith lived and breathed every piece he played and always tried to understand a piece to its very core. I had the chance to hear him perform the Franck Sonata several times while I was a student and I strongly associate this piece with him, even as my own interpretation of it has continued to evolve over the years.

Why is it so great? There are exquisitely beautiful and heart-wrenching melodies in both violin and piano lines throughout the piece; also the way the two lines interweave and play off each other is frankly, brilliant. My friend and collaborator Eliko and I have been talking about how different this piece feels from pieces of the more Germanic Romantic era composers like Brahms, Rachmaninov or Chopin because of the special way Franck writes and uses harmony.  The piece is in cyclic structure, which simply is a compositional technique where movements are tied together by common thematic material. Themes return in successive movements throughout the piece, though often slightly varied.  The way that Franck brings back themes whether in direct quotes or in shades of the original is ingenious, and ties the whole piece together.

While there are very clear emotional climaxes in the piece and a strong form and structure, there is also a layering that is nuanced and subtle and it calls to mind the qualities of French Impressionism: blurred, soft edges and colors in so many hues that you almost don’t notice or realize how the colors have changed as you look at an image.

Franck is able to capture an awesome range of emotional states–from the most innocent and ruminative to the brightest joy and passion to the dejection and hopelessness of our darkest moments.

In that way the sonata captures something so familiar to the human experience–where you can encounter the most carefree optimism, joy, and innocence and then in an instant be struck down or caught by the unexpected storms that are inevitably thrown our way. 

A special quality of musical study is understanding the lineages that are passed along by our teachers. For a time, Rosenblith studied with the great Polish violinist Bronislaw Huberman, who himself was a contemporary of Ysaye’s. Huberman was known to have called the Franck Sonata “a metaphysical piece,” which captures another dimension—that while the music has a great human and emotional range, perhaps its meaning also lies in its simple wholeness.

–Minna Choi

Join us Thursday as Minna and Eliko perform this piece as part of our popular Sonata Series Event. Also on the program: Violist Chloë Kline and Eliko Akahori perform Marcelle Soulage’s Viola Sonata Op. 25.

Thursday, January 17 at 7pm
RISD Museum, Grand Gallery
Admission to the museum and concert is free