MusicWorks Collective cellist Holly Dyer. Photo by Jori Ketten.
MusicWorks Collective member Holly Dyer proposed the repertoire featured in this week’s Season Opening concerts. CMW’s Founder & Artistic Director Sebastian Ruth talks with Holly about how she came to this program, what inspired it, and how reflections on identity have been part of her experience in playing this music.
Sebastian Ruth: Last year you went to a conference and came back with an armful of ideas about MusicWorks Collective programming. Can you share a little bit about what inspired you?
Holly Dyer: I went to the National Guild for Community Arts Education conference and sat in on a breakout session with an organization in Baltimore called Wide Angle Youth Media. In Baltimore racial tension was really high and they really felt the need to address it with their kids and in their mission and their organization, and one way that they addressed it was by creating a year-long unit called Why Black Lives Matter. They talked about a lot of things like ‘what is racism?’ ‘what is white supremacy?’ and the historical imbalance of wealth, a lot of the topics that we talked about at the MusicWorks Network Summer Institute.
What came out of those talks were these short media projects that they made and I watched a few of them and some are emotionally moving. It was around the same time that when we were getting ready to propose ideas for the upcoming season at CMW and it just really resonated with me to follow along that line of Why Black Lives Matter, not necessarily to have a token program, but as a response of ‘hey, this is still a big issue in our country in our society.’
At CMW we have a goal of trying to promote and include more composers of diverse backgrounds that aren’t traditionally in the Western classical tradition and my feeling was just well, how about let’s just do a showcase of all African-American composers because you don’t see that very often…sometimes around Martin Luther King Day or Black History Month but how about just ‘this is how we’re going to start our season.’
Sebastian: You just mentioned the problem of programming one token program of black composers. Sometimes there’s this critique that if you have a show that’s like: this is the black composer show, in some way that’s like segregating them to a featured theme. One of the things that drew me to your proposal was it seemed deeper than that.
How do you reconcile those two ideas: Why Black Lives Matter versus showcasing African-American composers in just a part of the season?
Holly: I was considering the arc of the whole season. This is just one program in the collection of the whole. We see so many programs with all-white composers and no one says anything, right? But then if we do a program by black composers then it’s time to say something.
This is just a start for me. Why Black Lives Matter in this context is just that I feel like these three pieces are really enjoyable pieces of music that don’t get showcased often enough and mainly just to show that yeah, anyone can write really great music. It shouldn’t have to matter what race you are or what kind of background you have. But these are three composers [whose identities] are just underrepresented in the classical tradition. There’s some jazzy elements throughout all three pieces, especially in the Florence Price piece where you also hear some spiritual tunes.
It’s very interesting as I’ve been going through the process of rehearsing this music, you’ll hear very distinct things like, ‘Oh, I don’t usually hear that’ but then you also hear moments that sound like Bach, for instance. In the first movement of the Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson piece, I feel he pays a lot of homage to Bach, and he says that Bach is one of his favorite composers. Also with the Florence Price Five Folksongs in Counterpoint there is a very interesting dichotomy of traditional folk tunes, with very distinguishable melodies, but done in a contrapuntal way, which is something that’s very much like Baroque Western Bach tradition. But she still adds her own kind of a spin with harmonies and voicing and so it’s not like I’m listening to Bach again. It’s okay to have that blend of the Western tradition and other sounds. There’s room for that too.
So it has been enlightening for me as I’m considering, in classical music this kind of showcasing African-American composers that there can still be an homage to the Western tradition, a twist and that kind of blend, or you could say integration, is okay and it’s good. It could be another thing to consider when we are programming music by composers that are more representative of the communities that we serve that there could also just be a theme of diversity.
Sebastian: My teacher talked about studying music in Europe in the 1920’s and 30’s in Europe. Whenever would be playing chamber music, he would talk about the distinctions between a Hungarian tune in a piece of Brahms versus a German tune and or a Viennese and for him those were culturally specific pieces of music, and one of the things that Brahms would do is pull from these different traditions.
In talking about classical music we tend to call all of that ‘the canon’, but really that’s what composers have always done: draw from multiple influences, some of them reflective of their own cultures, sometimes drawing from others like the French impressionist folks who drew from hearing the pentatonic scales from East Asia. And so that sense of combining cultural voice with lots of different voices and the technique of counterpoint is actually the musical tradition, right? So it’s an element of racism that keeps people, black people, women, out of that mainstream, that makes that music stand out, sit outside of the norm. But in fact all the things you’re describing are what the norm has always been: drawing multiple themes, multiple influences, and not trying to sound like everybody else. Trying to sound like your own voice.
Another part of this is that you brought this forward in a moment of exploring these issues of racism and exploring your own identity. I don’t know what, if any, reflections you’d have about how this ties into personal reflection and explorations of blackness, and what this means to you personally.
Holly: [Laughs] This is my introverted side coming out and being like, ‘Oh, I need to talk about how I feel?’
Well, maybe just one thing. Earlier, I was attempting to articulate that I was fascinated with seeing the diversity coming out in each of these pieces, and as CMW has been addressing this programming and what kind of repertoire we’re having our students play, knowing that I was personally having kind of a divide. I’m racially expressed one way, but I still really like classical music. I come from a mixed background, from parents of two different races and two completely different family backgrounds, ethnic backgrounds and societal backgrounds. And just for me personally, I’ve been thinking more about, then what does that make me? I feel like I can’t really swing one way or the other, you know, and I’ve been recently just trying to embrace that.
The mixture is okay because that’s just what I am. I feel like if I stress too much on one side then I neglect the other half of my life, that both sides need to be acknowledged. For me just exploring these pieces and seeing that yeah, Perkinson also really liked Bach, and Florence Price also had influences, for instance I hear a lot of Dvorak in her music as well as other white composers. I guess for me that has been a time to come to peace for me, to be like, yeah this mixture is okay and it’s okay for me to also like classical music. Because in a way couldn’t it also be racism if we think that black people aren’t going to like classical music?
And I was also kind of thinking about: why am I defining for my students that they don’t want to play Bach but they would rather play salsa music? Isn’t that racism too?
Sebastian: At some point a couple of years ago we debated among the musicians the issues of programming for representation and saying well, that’s exactly what we should be doing, that reflects the social justice ideals we hold as a group and we should make noise about it. Like, this is what we’re doing, right? We should say we’re trying to have a program of 50% women composers and program Black and Latino voices and others that are underrepresented in the typical canon and make noise about it because that’s the change we’re looking to make.
And the opposing side is that we should play all that music but we should play it for its own artistic merits and if we make too much noise about it then it risks looking like tokenism. We should just play it because we think it’s great music and stand behind it.
And I brought that question to my student Marieme and she said, “Well it’s the CMW way to do things and talk about it. So why wouldn’t we talk about it?”
Both sides of that debate are interesting to me.
Holly: I also see both sides and feel like it’s a very fine line. If we leave it as it is, we’re missing an opportunity to have some more conversations, even to hear the opposing side.
Sebastian: Maybe it’s a stronger statement not to point it out, as in ‘this is what we did because it’s the way the world should look’ but we risk not having any message about it. And we are trying to send a message. The difference is that we’re making noise not because we deserve the noise for programming the music, but because this music deserves the noise.
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The MusicWorks Collective performs Jessie Montgomery’s Starburst, Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson’s Sinfonietta No. 1, and Five Folksongs in Counterpoint by Florence Price in three concert events this week:
Thursday, September 12, 7pm Mixed Magic Theatre 560 Mineral Spring Avenue, Pawtucket Admission is $20 and tickets are available here. Directions here.
Saturday, September 14, 4pm Southside Cultural Center, SouthLight Pavilion 393 Broad Street, Providence Admission is free to the concert and potluck picnic Directions here. Sunday, September 15, 2pm RISD Museum, Grand Gallery 20 North Main Street, Providence Admission is free Directions here.
Recently, students from music education non-profits Music Haven, Neighborhood Strings, My Cincinnati, and Community MusicWorks came together for the Youth Institute, a weekend of discussion and workshops on the topics of racism, social justice, and the participating music programs.
Natasha Rosario co-led the session with fellow CMW alum Liam Hopkins at Rolling Ridge Retreat and Conference Center in North Andover, Massachusetts, and gave us her reflection on the gathering:
There was a spirited dynamic between the leaders and participants over the weekend. The first session walked through the structures in society which have enabled and supported racism after slavery. Next, we listened to a personal account involving racial profiling and considered the assumptions we have made based on limited information about another person and reflected on them.
In a session on Our Music Programs we asked participants to consider a present need in their community and to brainstorm an organization that would address this need. There was brilliant engagement; we were moved to hear about the issues our peers proposed to address in their hometowns: a transition program for ex-inmates, a space for students outside of school as an academic supplement where students could have meaningful discussions about issues in their communities, a visual arts program, and more.
We worked through some hands-on visual arts exercises with charcoal in the session A Creative Practice, and challenged our creative thinking with awkward and unfamiliar drawing exercises on newsprint – this stretched our creative minds, encouraged us to be loose and left no time to be perfectionists. We talked about the many creative things we do in our lives besides the music programs we participate in and pondered the different things (i.e. specific skills, life lessons, personal experiences) we take with us after graduating.
There was of course time for music-making! We enjoyed jam sessions on Saturday night reading music, improvising, and learning songs by ear. The students particularly appreciated getting to know participants from similar-minded programs, seeing old friends they met last year, and discussing program ideas together.
On our last day we watched a documentary about the protests for the life of Michael Brown Jr. in Ferguson, Missouri. Crimes of this nature – where excessive force by police officers used in black communities results in the physical abuse and sometimes death of the citizens – are of the most viscerally upsetting reminders that to be a second-class citizen means to be worth less in every capacity. This session was emotionally distressing because of how close to home it is for all of us; it feels like a personal attack. The event in Ferguson – with no consequential action for the officer who killed a non-threatening citizen – demonstrates the inconsistency in the expectations for, and the exceptions to the law.
In the afternoon, we focused on our mental and physical awareness in a session dedicated to movement and meditation. This session was meant to address the physical experience of life – everything from trauma through joy – and listen to the way our bodies track our experiences. The students welcomed the curative properties of this hour. After such heavy – albeit meaningful – discussions, it can be difficult to trudge forward with the acknowledged weight we all carry.
The space we shared in discussion as alumni and students from the MusicWorks Network programs felt intimate because we shared certain qualities and experiences in common. It would be particularly worthwhile for this group of students to see what the other programs in the Network are working on at different points throughout the year: it’s inspiring to see other people doing what you do! I was about 15 years old when I went to a summer music camp and met a cellist from a program in Dallas. It was the first time I realized there were other music programs doing similar things as Community MusicWorks, and it was validating. In that same way, the MusicWorks Network and Youth Institute bring people from similar programs together to share and learn with and from each other in a meaningful way.
Natasha Rosario is a cellist and Community MusicWorks and Brown University alum who begins a Master’s Program in Performance at Longy School of Music this fall.
Community MusicWorks celebrates the spirit of collaboration that made Season 22 a success, including a week-long residency with Kinan Azmeh, partnership with Dorcas International, teamwork in our MusicWorks Network Summer and Youth Institutes, and collaborative performances with Black Violin, our Sonata Series duos, and the End-of-Year Student Gala.
Celebrate + Collaborate: Your Gift is MATCHED!
The CMW Board and a close friend have joined hands to help meet our fundraising goals by offering a Matching Grant:
ALL gifts received between now and June 30 will be matched dollar-for-dollar up to $10,000!
Join the collaboration! Celebrate Season 22 with a donation today, and your gift will have twice the impact.
CMW Fellows Quartet Luke Fatora, Holly Dyer, David Rubin, and Zach Hazen
Violinist and second-year Fellow Luke Fatora curated Sunday’s RISD Museum concert and writes about programming music that “abandons traditional notions of what a string quartet should sound like” and adding texture and depth to the experience with spoken word, vocals, and video.
My own musical life got off to a start as a young boy, when I couldn’t restrain myself from stomping to fiddle music in the hills of Appalachia. Many of the pieces I’ve chosen for this Sunday’s program at RISD reflect that affinity and are derived from folk music. The Quartet has partnered with singer/songwriter and CMW Resident Musician Tessa Sacramone to present two American folk songs that capture a sense of optimism and a desire to create a better future. Mary Kouyoumdjian’s arrangement of an Armenian folk song, in which the singer calls out to a crane and pleads for news from their country, is featured. Crane is a haunting rendition of a recording by the Armenian singer Zabelle Panosian, who recorded the piece from New York in 1916 as Armenians were going through genocide in Ottoman Turkey.
Elements of folk, jazz, and rock can be heard in selections from
Scott Johnson’s How it Happens, where
musical ideas are derived from and paired with the rhythmic and melodic
elements of recorded speech. Johnson notes that the piece is “based on the
sampled voice of maverick American journalist I. F. Stone, whose idealistic and
democratic vision of advancement for the human race was kept sharp by a
no-nonsense reporter’s eye, an intellectual’s sense of history, and a delight
in subversive humor. To me, Stone seems to have been cut from the same cloth as
that strain of independent American composers who view their parent culture
with both love and disappointment, turning these conflicting feelings into an
engine driving their efforts.”
Capturing video in the mountains of Colorado
Several pieces on the program are paired with a visual
element: videos I’ve filmed and images compiled that are inspired by and
subservient to the composers’ scores. In John Luther Adams’ The Wind in High Places, the first
movement, Above Sunset Pass, takes me to some of the mountain landscapes
that have been a source of inspiration and perspective since I was first able
to shuffle around on a pair of nordic skis as a kid. The last movement, Looking
Toward Hope, suggests the passing of time on a grand scale. In this, I
sense the inevitable and cyclical passing of the day, feeling this process as
analogous to the passing of life. I’ve paired the piece with time lapse and
drone video of the passing of a day near my own hometown.
The composer dedicated
the piece to his friend Gordon Wright and says:
“Gordon wright was the friend of a lifetime. For thirty years Gordon and I shared our two greatest passions: music and Alaska. Gordon was my musical collaborator, my next-door neighbor, my fellow environmentalist and my camping buddy. These miniatures are musical sketches of moments and places in our friendship. Like Alaska, Gordon was larger than life. He always lived his own way. And he died just as he would have wanted. We found him lying on the deck of his cabin in the Chugach Mountains, curled up against his favorite birch tree, looking across the waters of Turnagain Arm toward the Resurrection Valley and the tiny settlement of Hope.”
Henryk Górecki’s string quartet Already it is Dusk is a wild piece inspired by folk music from the mountainous Tatra region of Poland which I’ve paired with images related to our culture’s relationship with technology and the natural world. The score is centered around an old folk melody, a prayer for children preparing for bed:
“Already it is dusk, the night is near, let us ask the Lord for His help to protect us from evil, to guard us from those who use the darkness for their wrong-doings.”
Górecki’s piece opens with an eerie setting of the folk melody interrupted by strident outbursts, later developing into a driving tempestuous dance. I’ve paired Already it is Dusk with images inspired by the text of the original melody, aiming to bring the words to life in 2019.
This Sunday’s program features music that abandons traditional notions of what a string quartet should sound like, where the quartet itself transforms into different folk ensembles, fuses with recorded speech, and imitates serene mountain landscapes, at times pairing with evocative imagery.
I hope you can join us!
–Luke Fatora Violinist, CMW Fellows Quartet
CMW Fellows Quartet in Concert Sunday, April 7 at 2pm RISD Museum Metcalf Auditorium 20 North Main Street, Providence Map and Directions Admission to the concert and museum is free
Jill Pearlman talks to the acclaimed composer and clarinetist in anticipation of his multi-day residency at Community MusicWorks. Event information can be found here.
Kinan Azmeh is an existential wanderer and a supreme musician who finds homes around the world. He was riding the New York subway, just back from a musical tour in China, when he described the genesis of a piece he’ll perform, along with the MusicWorks Collective, during his upcoming residency at Community MusicWorks.
Azmeh’s composition The Fence, The Rooftop, and the Distant Sea began with a moment. Years ago, Azmeh was sitting on a rooftop in Beirut, Lebanon. He was staring out past a fence at the distant sea. As his mind skimmed the waves, he entertained a series of images from Damascus, the hometown he’d been separated from. How far was home, or how close? He used a mental map to reconstruct ways of getting from his parents’ house to the opera house, where the traffic lights would be, which corners were where. Later, he composed music for the four-sectioned piece in which two characters turn over the complex notions of what is home, when you have it, when you lose it, how you recreate or reconstitute it.
“In the beginning of the piece, the search for home is complicated and fraught,” he says. “As the music continues, one realizes the best are simplest memories; the music ends almost in the form of a lullaby.”
It’s an extraordinary and consoling resolution that he shares in concerts for audiences widely and happily varied – at refugee camps for Syrian and other displaced people, at schools, at prestigious spots like Carnegie Hall. Azmeh’s musical meditations on home/not home have been the product of discontinuity, years of reflection, radical turns of life both by choice and by fate.
Born in 1976, Azmeh began studying clarinet at age six in Damascus. After studies in high school, he left Syria to study at Juilliard School in New York. His musical reach was always inclusive. He was at home with classical greats: “Bach, Mozart and Brahms weren’t staples on the Syrian radio. But as a child I drank it in. Mozart is equally mine. It didn’t matter if he was Austrian or German, he was Syrian too.” In New York, he won prizes for virtuoso playing, performed with the Syrian National orchestra, Daniel Baremboim’s West-Eastern Divan orchestra, Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road. He plays with City Band, a consortium of creative musicians who cross borders and integrate different musical genres.
“Bach, Mozart and Brahms weren’t staples on the Syrian radio. But as a child I drank it in. Mozart is equally mine. It didn’t matter if he was Austrian or German, he was Syrian too.”
When the Syrian uprising began, it caused Azmeh tremendous suffering and an inability to return home. The pressure crushed his creative juices: he couldn’t pick up the clarinet for a year. “What was going on was way deeper than the music I was trying to make. The need for the arts was too complicated for me to address, no less reflect on.”
Azmeh eventually came back to his own tool for self-expression — his playing and composing. “I decided to use it as loudly as possible. Even though I realize it’s a soft form and I realize the limitations of it.”
The haunting refrain, “What is home?” came up again in 2017. Azmeh found himself unable to return to his adopted country, United States, when President Trump issued a travel ban on Syrians, and he was on tour. He felt the outrage, double sting, and fear of being exiled again. This was an irony for someone like Azmeh, who believes so staunchly in the openness of cultures, the shared vocabularies of music. “I don’t see barriers or much difference between musical genres. Of course there are different musical vocabularies, but at heart, it’s all the same.”
Essentially, Kinan Azmeh feels most at home when he’s playing music, and the powerful emotion he conveys through the heart of his instrument. The clarinet is close in sound to the human voice, and Azmeh’s playing is informed by familiar folk musics, for instance, klezmer, Greek, Turkish, big band jazz. He can blow off the roof or go silky and soulful. Listen to the meditative care with which he describes playing a wind instrument: “When I play one note, I feel the reed vibrate. There is sound coming out of silence. Every time I play I’m giving birth to something. I’m fighting silence when I start breathing, then when the breath stops, the sound stops.”
Ultimately, Azmeh’s immersion in music and experience of exploring identity has led to wisdom in liberating oneself from strictures. He tells a story of escaping labels: “First I was called a young clarinetist from Damascus. Then when I wasn’t young, I was a clarinetist. Then a musician from Damascus, then a Syrian musician. The next step would be a musician. Yo-Yo Ma said to me, ‘there’s just one additional step to take: you become a human.'”
Interview by Jill Pearlman
Jill Pearlman is a Providence-based poet and arts journalist and a CMW board member. She writes a blog about art, politics, and aesthetics at jillpearlman.com
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The Events:
Panel Discussion: Music in Times of Conflict with Kinan Azmeh and guests This community conversation, presented in partnership with the Providence Public Library, links the concert to the ongoing Syrian crisis. The panel features composers Azmeh and Kareem Roustom along with representatives from Dorcas International Institute of Rhode Island, which provides ongoing support to Syrian refugees in Rhode Island. PPL’s Programs & Exhibitions Director Christina Bevilacqua will moderate.
Community Concert: A Celebration of Middle Eastern Culture with the MusicWorks Collective, Kinan Azmeh, and guests This event is co-sponsored by Dorcas International Institute of Rhode Island and brings together the music and food of the Middle East in celebration. Join us before the concert for a community dinner!
Friday, March 1 Dinner at 6pm, Concert at 7pm ¡CityArts! 891 Broad Street, Providence This event is free. No reservations are necessary.
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* Voices from Syria: MusicWorks Collective with Kinan Azmeh This culminating concert features performances of works for strings and clarinet by Kinan Azmeh, including the piece The Fence, The Rooftop, and the Distant Sea, along with works by composers Kareem Roustom and Wang Lu.
*THIS EVENT IS SOLD OUT* Call 401-861-5650 if you would like to be put on a waiting list for tickets.
Saturday, March 2 at 7:30pm Granoff Center, Martinos Auditorium Brown University 154 Angell Street, Providence
and The Aaron Roitman Fund for Chamber Music at RI Foundation
In the spring of 1803, the Afro-European violinist George Bridgetower arrived in Vienna and took the city by storm with his daring and brilliant virtuosity, oversized personality, and zest for the city’s famous aristocratic evening parties.
Prince Karl Lichnowsky, the passionate and loyal patron of Ludwig van Beethoven, introduced the visiting celebrity to the composer and the two became fast friends. Many a bottle of wine and pint of Viennese grog were shared between Bridgetower and Beethoven, along with a tremendous amount of respect for each other’s art.
Prince Karl Lichnowsky, Patron of the Arts
Beethoven had been sketching a new violin sonata and was eager to perform with Bridgetower, so a concert was arranged: May 22nd would see the premiere of his Violin Sonata, Op. 47. In the end, the concert was delayed for two days as Beethoven hastily finished the expansive first movements. To further expedite the sonata’s completion, the composer used a discarded finale from an earlier violin sonata as the final movement.
As the legend goes, the ink had not yet dried on the piece and Bridgetower was forced to sight-read over Beethoven’s shoulder for the early morning performance.
What was created in great haste was a work that was unprecedented in its virtuosity, length, and dramatic impact. While many musicologists point to the third symphony of Beethoven’s, the so-called Eroica symphony, as the ushering in of the Romantic Period in western music, the Violin Sonata, Op. 47 ushered in the language and scope of the Eroica symphony.
Violinist Rodolphe Kreutzer
While the sonata should be rightly be titled “Bridgetower,” the violinist and composer had a falling out shortly after the premiere. As the story goes, the pair were out drinking and Bridgetower made a disparaging remark about a woman that Beethoven admired and the dedication to Bridgetower was angrily retracted. Beethoven then hastily and randomly dedicated the sonata to the French violinist Rodolphe Kreutzer, whom he had met in Vienna in 1798. Kreutzer wanted nothing to do with the sonata as he was thoroughly baffled by the work and declined to learn it or perform it.
Join us this Thursday, February 21 to hear violinist Jesse Holstein perform the Kreutzer Sonata with guest pianist Jeff Louie. Also, violinist Tessa Sacramone performs Brahms’ touching Regenlied Sonata.
Johannes Brahms: Sonata No. 1, Op. 78 G Major Ludwig van Beethoven: Violin Sonata No. 9 (“Kreutzer” Sonata)
Thursday, February 21 at 7pm RISD Museum, Grand Gallery 20 N. Main Street, Providence Admission to the museum and concert is free
“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
Mariam, Cellist and Author
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.
Belgian composer César Franck
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
According to a recent survey, almost half of our population feels socially disconnected.
Can this disconnection be remedied? And can a music program be a catalyst for connection in one’s own neighborhood?
Every day the staff at Community MusicWorks asks these questions.
As we begin our third decade, we see our work in music and social justice making transformation in big and small ways. At our opening concert and picnic, students, families and community members listened together as the MusicWorks Collective performed a rediscovered work by African-American composer Florence Price.
A woman passing by with bags of groceries joined the gathering. She turned to me as the audience applauded. “I was overcome by this music,” she said. “I needed this today.”
Small moments of connection like this can be powerful. In a larger sense, we’re seeing how our organization’s work in the West End of Providence has made profound and lasting change:
in our students, making accomplishments as musicians and developing their voices as thoughtful citizens of the world;
in our Resident Musicians, as the MusicWorks Collective draws larger audiences and programs repertoire that represents all voices;
in CMW’s MusicWorks Network, as a national cohort of CMW-inspired and like-minded programs work together to align arts education with anti-oppression practices;
and in our audience members, who engage deeply with the music and the performers to create heartfelt experiences in real time, together.
How does music transform lives? Every day Community MusicWorks asks – and answers – this question in lessons, community discussions, and performances.
Music transforms by creating meaning in moments of connection, and by bringing us together in community.
And isn’t that something we all need today?
We’re looking for you to join this collective effort. Your gift to Community MusicWorks is the catalyst. Together, we can bring the power of music to students, families, and audiences.
Where did the idea for Saturday’s Fellows Quartet concert come from? Practically speaking, it grew from a decision made earlier this year: my colleague Luke & I decided to organize two “fellows” programs this season, with CMW’s blessing. I’d design a small, intimate show in the winter, and he’d plan a quartet recital for the spring, in a larger, more traditional concert space. That’s how we ended up with a December 1st date in Jori Ketten’s beautiful gallery space at 159 Sutton St (7pm! Don’t miss it!).
How did we arrive at this odd mix of notes? Scandinavian folk tunes. Sacred music by a 12th-century mystic. A short, secular tune by a Medieval songster. An aphorism by a severe Hungarian modernist (“by” is a stretch – stay tuned). Four minutes of Mozart. Two minutes of Bach. What a mess! Why a mess?
I can’t say for sure, but my working hypothesis is that this mess came from two unrelated ideas. Two ideas that Ms. Young – my high school history teacher – would have called “Visits to the Planet Non-Sequitur.”
***
First – it came from Schubert, even though there won’t be any Schubert on our program (the atmosphere’s nice on Non-Sequitur, eh?). There’s a moment toward the end of Schubert’s Der Lindenbaum** that I can’t get out of my head. It’s not particularly unusual or profound, really. Just a little expansion of an E Major arpeggio, slipped in between the singer’s final statements (“du fändest Ruhe dort / you’d find peace there”). It shouldn’t be much, but it breaks my heart – a world of regret, in three notes. An arpeggio can be a throwaway gesture – one extra, sugary flower on a wedding cake. Or it can make you cry.
***
Second – it came from a winter day in 2011, when I was thinking about quitting the violin. At the moment, I was preparing a Brahms sonata for a recital – the first one, the Regenlied, it’s a good one, take a listen – and conducting weekly Vibrato Wars, in which my teacher and I would argue about how many notes one should wiggle, and whether the wiggling should continue from note to note uninterrupted, and on and on and on. Did beauty come from the wiggling? What about meaning – did that come from the wiggling, too? I was pretty burnt out from the Vibrato Wars. I didn’t know how I wanted a violin to sound, but I knew it wasn’t the way I was being asked to play. My teacher was and is a brilliant musician, and I am full of admiration for her – but I just couldn’t realize the sounds she wanted from me, because I didn’t believe in them.
And then, entirely by chance, I pressed “play” on a short little iTunes preview, a 30-second clip from a recording by German violinist Isabelle Faust & Russian pianist Alexander Melnikov, and everything changed. They played the opening notes of the Regenlied on an old-fashioned, 19th-century piano, and on simple strings made of gut. Here was a sound that had texture as well as color – it was flawed, and vulnerable, and pure. There was some vibrato – some wiggling – but not much. It was like someone telling a simple story, and telling it beautifully. The words were plain, but the delivery – the grain of the speaker’s voice… a pause here, a sigh there – couldn’t have been more subtle or powerful. That little clip gave me lots of hope, and I listened to it again and again and again, and I decided to keep playing the violin.
***
The pieces we’re going to share with you will be full of moments like that little gasp in Der Lindenbaum. They will lend themselves to that unvarnished sound – sweet and raw – that I first heard seven years ago.
You’ll hear most of Wood Works, a collection of traditional Scandinavian folk tunes, beautifully arranged by the Danish String Quartet. These are storied pieces that sound simultaneously plain and complex, ancient and contemporary, in the way that folk music often does. My favorite is the unassuming, slow Waltz after Lasse in Lyby – you can hear a clip of that on CMW’s Instagram, if you want a taste…
Throughout the night, we’ll drift in and out of the world of Wood Works, visiting disparate yet related voices from a millennia of musical history. You’ll hear a gorgeous transcription of O virtus Sapiente (“O power of Wisdom”), by the 12th-century visionary, Hildegard von Bingen. You’ll hear a lovely, lilting tune – Rose, Liz, Printemps, Verdure – by everyone’s favorite 14th-century celebrity, Guillaume de Machaut. And you’ll hear three of my favorite things…
One, an achingly sweet little melody from Bach’s keyboard Capriccio, BWV 992. If you’ve seen Luca Guadagnino’s Call Me By Your Name, you’ll recognize this – it’s Elio’s serenade to Oliver on a lazy, summer day.
Two, a magical Andante from one of Mozart’s Divertimenti for string instruments. This is the perfect example of Mozart’s magic, in my eyes. We start with a graceful, predictable dance, and it seems you know how it’ll play out. All it takes is a single chromatic inflection, though, to send us to the world of opera in miniature – as beautiful an arioso as you’ll ever hear… but don’t blink, or you’ll miss it.
Third, the conclusion of György Kurtág’s Officium breve in memoriam Andreœ Szervánsky. I worship Kurtág’s music – check out his orchestral masterpiece Stele/ΣΤΉΛΗ, if you’re new to his art – but the irony here is that the Officium breve’s concluding page isn’t even by Kurtág. Rather, it’s a quotation from a string orchestra piece by Szervánsky, the Hungarian composer memorialized herein. The Kurtág/Szervánsky wasn’t included on the Voyager Golden Record (it hadn’t been written yet…), but I like to imagine that it was. I picture that tiny minute of music hurtling through space, a kind of “Interstellar Call.” It has all of the magic of Beethoven’s Cavatina, in twelve measures.
So, join us on Saturday night for a visit to the Planet Non-Sequitur. There’ll be some good tunes waiting to greet you.
–David Rubin, violinist, Fellows Quartet
Fellows Quartet
Saturday, December 1 at 7pm
159 Sutton Street, Providence Get directions here
** About 17:45 into a Winterreise recording by Mark Padmore & Paul Lewis, if you’re curious – https://youtu.be/soDkFNsQMFA.
