QtP I/II in Houston, TX!

What a weekend! At this moment I'm sitting in Houston Bush Intercontinental Airport awaiting my flight back to Atlanta. On Friday Meredith and I performed our duo recital in Houston as guests of LONE STAR COLLEGE-MONTGOMERY (where one of our composers, DOMINICK DIORIO is Associate Professor of music) and last evening I played my solo recital at Avant Garden, a funky Houston bar with a penchant for artistic weirdness.

Lone Star College Music Hall

The weekend has cemented my desire to perform like this at a high level. I just love traveling, seeing a new place, and playing for lots of awesome people! I left Athens on Friday morning around 4:00 AM to catch my 7:30 AM flight from ATL to IAH. MEREDITH had flown in to Houston the night before, so she and Dominick fetched me from the airport and we scampered off to Lone Star College. Once there we played a teaser performance for a class and had some time to ourselves in the recital hall (which, at only fifteen months old, is a stunning place to perform).

So much food!

After our work was completed for the morning/afternoon, Dominick treated us to a late lunch of amazing Tex-Mex food in a palatial, Texas-sized, restaurant. With a performance only hours away, I look back and think that I never should have finished the massive dish (spinach enchiladas). The bottomless chips and salsa didn't help either! But, alas, I not only licked my plate clean, but finished long before my companions. *Gold Star for Justin*

Nap time!!

Following lunch, we returned to the music hall to prepare for our performance. I took a brief nap while Meredith prettied herself and we helped each other find our way in to our respective concert clothes (note to future contractors: Meredith and I must have separate dressing rooms - we simply cannot be in such close proximity to each other ::wink:: Nothing gets done in a decent amount of time without a ridiculous amount of laughter!!).

The Queering the Pitch: music for soprano and cello performance was just wonderful. The fantastic audience held on to every beautiful note that our astounding composers provided. There was an audible gasp from the room when Meredith hit her first high C-sharp in STEVE KNELL's Anthemoessa and a little laughter in the fourth movement of the DiOrio piece thanks to Meredith's wonderful dramatic acting! Of course, Dominick's work received a rousing ovation from the home town crowd.

After the performance, Meredith and I were privileged to meet with some of the audience members and students at Lone Star College. It is so great to meet students who are early  in their music education and who are so motivated and in love with what they're doing! They adore their professors (shout out to D!) and teachers. I promised that I wouldn't mention the bugs flying around the lobby of the recital hall, but I must say: I've never seen such large mosquitos!!! (except in Charleston, SC)

MORE delicious food!

Saturday, after shoving Meredith out the door for her super early flight back to NYC, I was able to see much of the city and fun things of Houston. We had a wonderful lunch at a restaurant on Westheimer, BRASIL, before the tour began. After another much-needed nap, Dominick and I had a great dinner at Monica Pope's restaurant T'AFIA. I had some fantastic food, including a delicious dish of brussel sprouts in a caramel miso. Just incredible! The vegetarian in me didn't know what 'SPECK' was when ordering, and ended up with a plate full of pasta and meat. I ate it anyway!  Ooops.

Saturday evening, as I mentioned, was another performance of a different program at AVANT GARDEN. This time it was my ongoing Queering the Pitch: music for solo cello recital program. It was incredibly exciting to play in a new type of venue. Classical musicians don't often get outside the bubble of the concert hall, so this was a new experience for me. I maintain that some compositions belong in a concert hall, and Britten's Third Suite for Cello is one of them. The other works that I played, Rorem's After Reading Shakespeare, Muczynski's Gallery, Julie-O, and a little Bach, seemed to fit fine, but the emotion of the Britten and the nuance that is necessary throughout didn't come through for me. Alas, it was an enjoyable performance with a number of very interested and awesome audience members.

So many boarding passes!

All-in-all, this was a really thrilling weekend. I've been gone from Georgia for about 48 hours and I'm only mildly ready to be back. It was really great to - again - fly to a city the day of a performance, perform two different recitals of two different programs on two different days in two different venues. It's such a thrill to be able to bounce around the country and make a living playing the cello. It's enough of the "freelancer" lifestyle to keep things interesting but not so much that I worry about eating. 

Of course, it's always great to meet new people at concerts. Hopefully we'll get to keep in touch with some of those we met this weekend! Meredith and I were so happy to be staying with Dominick for two nights and to see Houston. I was certainly pleasantly surprised with the city and the state of Texas! In another happy coincidence the flight crew for my flight to Atlanta was full of attendants who I've had on numerous flights before! It's always nice to see some friendly faces! Their kindness (and the fact that they recognized me!) is why I fly DELTA almost exclusively! All this flying is catching up with me, though. I'm getting a bit sick, I think! (EDIT: As I post this, I'm sick as a dog!)

The next round of recitals for my 2011-12 season will be the last weekend of April in Georgia (Athens and Atlanta). After that, I have an entire summer to learn some brand new works! The next Queering the Pitch: music for solo cello recital will be in September and will include a world premiere by EMILY COOLEY, and works by MARCOS BALTER, Dominick DiOrio, and Robert Maggio (perhaps one other short piece, if I can find something I like). Also - more details soon - I'll be re-learning Tchaikovsky's Variations on a Rococo Theme for performance with a few orchestras next year as well as Tavener's 'Svyati' and perhaps a concerto for cello and wind instruments! Details forthcoming!

Until then…

JD

Queering the Pitch: music for soprano and cello

Penn State School of Music

This has been quite the exciting week!  From March 12-16 MEREDITH MECUM and I were in residence at the PENN STATE SCHOOL OF MUSIC where, on March 16, we premiered our program of four commissions for soprano and cello. This concert is the first in a line of performances of these pieces that we will give over the next year and we were terribly excited to make the premieres at the school where we began our musical education!

Rehearsal break

For those dedicated readers of my little blog, you know that Meredith and I began performing together a number of years ago and had our duo debut at The Boston Conservatory in 2010. This soprano and cello iteration of my Queering the Pitch recital project began to take shape last year and became official in August of 2011 when we commissioned four awesome composers (read about them HERE) to write for us.

Over the past few months, Meredith and I have received the four works that we commissioned, put in some dedicated work on our individual parts (while learning the other part as best we could - I'm no singer, after all!), and came together this week for nearly thirty hours of concentrated and intense rehearsals and miniature performances.

With Dominick DiOrio

In the midst of the week we were joined by DOMINICK DIORIO who composed the massive song cycle And the barriers had vanished, the centerpiece of our concert.

On Dominick's first day in State College we put him to work! After  an early-morning flight from Houston, he arrived at Penn State just in time for lunch with the always wonderful LYNN DRAFALL. From there we went in to rehearsal and spent two hours going over And the barriers had vanished before dashing downtown for dinner with BENJAMIN BLOOMFIELD. Dinner didn't mean the end of the day for us, though! Immediately after finishing our meals we were back at the School of Music presenting an open forum for Penn State students where we discussed the things we have learned (both successfully and through failure) about life in the music world! When the forum finally ended around 8:45 PM, Dominick had been awake for nearly seventeen hours!! Needless to say, it was an early bedtime!

Thursday was a bit quieter, but began early with a lecture to students in Penn State's 'music as a business' class at 9:00 am. The only other work for the day was our dress rehearsal in Esber Recital Hall. After running and recording our entire program and tweaking some small things, Meredith/Ben and Dominick/me parted ways for relaxing evenings.

Veggie green curry

It's been a while since I've been in State College, PA, so it was exciting to head out to dinner. Dominick and I decided on COZY THAI in downtown State College. We BYOB'd with a nice bottle of Zin and enjoyed a delicious (spicy!!) dinner! We stopped at THE TAVERN for dessert and drinks before heading back to our comfy hotel room for a good night's rest!

Trying to take some photos together

Friday was the big day for all of us with the evening's main event! But before we could get in front of a concert audience we had to drum up some interest in our recital amongst the students and faculty! We began with a Common Hour performance for School of Music students. Common Hour is a mandatory weekly concert from 2:30-3:20 PM on Friday. We used this short concert to excerpt some movements from our evening recital, including two movements from Dominick's piece, one movement from STEVE KNELL's Athemoessa, and one from BRUCE TRINKLEY's Marsden Hartley Songs. Additionally, I performed Dominick's Tarantella for solo cello and Meredith and I played Akhmatova Songs by John Tavener, which we've performed a number of times before. Again we put Dominick to work to talk about his works and encourage folks to join us that evening. After Common Hour, we spent 5 minutes each in the School of Music voice forum and cello seminar classes to continue our publicity push.

Dominick and I had dinner at another Asian restaurant, this time a Korean place across from our hotel before heading off to prepare for the concert.

Performing And the barriers had
vanished

The evening concert was well attended with many folks who we weren't expecting to see in the audience! All of the pieces received a warm reception from the audience and Meredith gave a stunning performance of each. The first, Anthemoessa, is an attacca work which includes some trickiness throughout. Meredith describes it as "half-steppy", and she's correct: often I'm sustaining a note and she sings the pitches one half-step on either side of my pitch. It's a very effective style but incredibly difficult to work out (which we had lots of fun doing)!

The second piece on our program is Trinkley's Marsden Hartley Songs which has been a thrill to work on. Bruce was a composition/conducting professor at Penn State during our first year in school before retiring. His setting of poetry by Marsden Hartley was really very beautiful and the home town audience enjoyed hearing a work by a familiar musical voice.  We hope that Bruce will be able to join us for an upcoming concert in Houston if he gets some time off from his current residency and work in Taos, NM.

Penultimate note of
Brian D. Kelly's Futility

After intermission was Brian D. Kelly's Futility. The piece begins with some awesome and affectual harmonics across the range of the cello. I love the way this piece begins, and not only because it's all by my lonesome without a voice to sing over top of me! (kidding!) In the midst of the piece is a rather cacophonous section with a raucous cello part and sustained ascending pitches in the voice. The setting is text by Wilfred Owen. Coincidentally, Benjamin Britten (himself a gay composer) set this text in his masterwork War Requiem. The piece ends as it began, with a beautiful harmonic.

The final piece on the program is Dominick's And the barriers had vanished. I can't say enough about this work and I'm certain that it will be heard for many years to come! The piece clocks in at twenty-five minutes in length over seven movements with two solo movements (the opening prelude is solo cello, the sixth movement, Alexis, is solo voice). Having Dominick in residence with us at Penn State this week was a joy. His insights in to not only his own composition but our interpretations of the other three works was incredibly helpful in a time when we were packing two months of work in to one week.

With Dominick and Meredith
after performing And the barriers
had vanished

And I can't even begin to say how much fun it is to play this wonderful piece! It's also an incredible workout. Each movement is distinct and each fits beautifully in to this piece. I would be remiss if I didn't mention my favorite movement, the fifth, titled Clifton and a lad's love. Perhaps it's selfish, but it's my favzies because Dominick has completely lifted a movement from Britten's Second Suite for Cello and layered it with the voice, singing a beautiful triad with each verse.

All-in-all, this has been an outstanding week. As I sit and type this on Sunday, I'm feeling that bit of emptiness that usually follows such a successful performance. Often, these performances are a once-and-done event. This time, Meredith and I will be taking the show on the road and performing in many different places! We hope to book some other performances next year in addition to the five or so performances we'll do before June!

Up next, Houston! If you know anyone in Houston, let them know that we'll be in town March 30 at LONE STAR COLLEGE-MONTGOMERY! I'm also performing my original Queering the Pitch: music for solo cello recital in Houston at AVANT GARDEN on March 31, 8:00 PM!

Until then...!

My grandmother, Anna Jean Hershey Myers (1926-2012)

I sat down to write this blog and I can't help but find myself drawn to a personal event that recently occurred in my life.  I meant to write about my upcoming concerts with Meredith Mecum and the practice that is going in to learning four new pieces in a short amount of time, but I'm drawn back to this recent event. I had trouble typing the first sentence without spontaneously bursting in to tears.

On February 15, 2012, my grandmother, Anna Jean Hershey Myers, died. She was 85 years old.  Anna Jean was an incredible woman. She was born in western Pennsylvania, grew up in York Springs, PA where her father, Moses Samuel Hershey, began a chain of stores, Hershey 5-10¢ (five and dime), which eventually grew to cover a large portion of northeastern states.

After graduating from Penn State with a degree in Home Economics (she could butcher a cow and sew a dress, probably at the same time) she married my grandfather, whom she grew up with and who was, himself, a Penn State grad (and one of the first Penn State tailgaters -- so there ya' go) and who became an executive in the Howard Johnson hotel/restaurant chain. They raised their four children (two sets of two, ten years apart), Cindy, Rick, Candra (my dear mommy), and Mark in cities all over the east coast: Philadelphia, Syracuse, Atlanta, Mechanicsburg, to name a few.

Anna Jean with her ten grandchildren.

She had ten grandchildren, Alysia, Allyson, Allan, Ben, Kate, Brennan, Cullen, Hannah, Mia, and me. Just before she died, Ben and his wife Beth had a daughter, Claire, which finally put a stop to her incessant, "I sure would like a great-grandchild soon," talk.

My grandmother loved to sew, knit, and make all of the things. For one, each grandchild received a knitted Christmas stocking. Sometimes Anna Jean was a bit slow getting these things done.  You see, she had a lot on her plate, what with her crossword puzzles, Jeopardy watching, newspaper reading, and…nope, that's it.  I'm not sure that Hannah and Mia (the youngest of the grandchildren) ever received their own stockings from grandmother. Or maybe they were half-finished? When I needed to make a small pad that protects the back of my cello, Grandmother helped me pick the fabric, make a pattern, and sew it together.  I use that small, maroon, velvet pad when I play the cello today. My mother and Cindy like to joke that she never vacuumed because she was "allergic" to the dust (really, she was just allergic to vacuuming) and when Cindy came to visit, the vacuum cleaner was sitting in the foyer, plugged in, ready to go, so that Cindy could vacuum her way in to the house.

In my own mind, Anna Jean is the reason that I'm a musician. Before I began playing the cello, I played the violin, and I tried desperately to fit my tiny little arms and fingers around my grandfather's full size instrument. That didn't work so well, and I eventually switched to the cello. In fourth grade, I picked up the saxophone to play in the band. My grandmother thought this was just wonderful as she had played the saxophone in the York Springs elementary school band, sometime around 1930. Somewhere in my apartment is a photo of this band, with both my grandmother and grandfather clutching their instruments.

The thought of Anna Jean honking away on a saxophone is one of the more hilarious images of her that I have in my mind. The other (which demonstrates how sheltered and protected she was as a child) is of her roller skating: Grandma Hershey, Anna Jean's mother, would only allow her to skate with one skate on, afraid that she'd fall and hurt herself if she wore both.  For those who know my mother, aunt, and uncles, it's clear that Anna Jean "protected" the first set of children (Cindy and Rick) in this same way, and left it up to fate with the second set (my mother and Mark), figuring, "hey, we got it right with the first two, the second two should turn out fine...?" For those who don't know my mother, aunt, and uncles: the first set are responsible and thoughtful, and the second set are wild and CUH-RAAAZY!  (and mildly responsible, harharhar)

All of that said, Anna Jean wasn't always wild about the music I was playing.  My youngest brother, Cullen, has been telling a story all weekend about a recital that I gave at Penn State that Grandmother came to. First, I should give some back story: Grandmother was never rude, she was always the perfect guest.  Usually, when she was out visiting with friends or family, she was was dependent on someone else to drive her home. When she was tired and ready to leave, she simply picked up her purse and held it on her lap. That was the signal.  Grandma was ready to go. Though I don't remember this, Cullen claims that I walked out on stage, sat down, and began to play my first piece (I know that this would have been the Hindemith Solo Sonata, which wasn't the easiest piece for my dear Grandmother to listen to).  About ten seconds in, Grandmother reached down, picked up her purse, and set it on her lap. She was ready to go.  Cullen claims that I saw this, and there was a noticeable sigh from the stage while I was playing.

She's a pirate!

Anna Jean was never unsupportive of any of her grandchildren.  She was always thrilled with our many accomplishments and eager to brag about us.  She was always so incredibly happy to see us when we stopped by.  Because the ten of us are spread out across the country, we didn't always make it to Mechanicsburg to visit.  A few years ago, we organized a Myers family reunion on Seabrook Island near Charleston, SC.  For the first time in a long while, Grandmother, her four children, and her ten grandchildren were visiting together at the same time.  As was usually the case, Grandmother was dressed up in some embarrassing outfit, a hula skirt or a pirate's garb.  She smiled the whole way, and only worried that her hair was mussed.

Anna Jean's entire family.

At her funeral, my uncle Mark said that in her last few months, when she was feeling worse and worse, she would still get her hair done, and when you came to visit and compliment her new hair-do, she would smile, strike a pose and just beam with delight.  One week before she died, Cullen and his girlfriend, Taryn, stopped in while home from Penn State.  Though she was exhausted and weak, she managed to gather all of her strength to smile and say hello, tell them how happy she was to see them, and ask them to come back soon.

My grandmother was an extraordinarily calm, patient, and kind person. I will miss her tremendously.

The Fifth Floor Collective and Queering the Pitch

What an exciting few weeks and months I’ve had! I haven’t updated this blog since Thanksgiving and life has been a roller coaster!  This post won’t be so “instructive” or hypothetical as my last few posts. Instead, I want to share what I’ve been up to and what I’ve been working on for the last two and a half months!

My first concert of the new year, 2012, was in Boston performing a special engagement concert on The Fifth Floor Collective’s second season. The program was a mixture of works that will be presented on my next Queering the Pitch (solo cello) program and two premieres for solo cello by Joseph M. Colombo and Andrew Paul Jackson, both members of The Collective.

Preparing these works was fascinating as these were the first pieces that I explicitly commissioned to be premiered as the part of a pre-determined concert. The two premiere pieces, Not I by Mr. Colombo and You are missing here. by Mr. Jackson, are starkly different in character and compositional style. Take a listen to both pieces on my SoundCloud page.

Joseph Colombo’s Not I is a work that I believe is very affectual, different for each person!  About the piece, Joe writes:

Not I plays with and is consumed by small melodic fragments that build up to larger structures of varying degrees and contours. Its primarily quiet dynamic plays against the intense and obsessive character of the music while momentarily giving way to shouts of hysteria. Instead of conveying a narrative, Not I expounds upon a single manic affect throughout its roughly ten minute duration.

From a cello standpoint, the piece is ridiculously difficult to both practice and perform. Though the composer notes call for the piece to be performed from memory with some small theatrics, I chose to perform the work with the score displayed on my computer screen with page turns made by the click of a foot-controlled pedal. This always seems like a fine idea, but never seems to work out perfectly in the end.

A quick aside: When I perform from my computer screen, I first learn the music from a paper score, so that it’s easier to make notes, add fingerings and bowings, and generally remind myself of the paper-ness and the organic nature of the score. Once I’ve learned the piece, I create a PDF of the marked-up document and read that document from my computer. Unfortunately, the timelines for many of the performances that I’ll be playing this winter/spring are quite short, and I never have more than a week to learn to play a piece from the computer. Tapping a pedal to turn a page is surprisingly difficult - it’s a motor skill that I didn’t learn in school!  Many things are bound to go wrong!

excerpt from J.M. Colombo's Not I

Back to Joe’s Not I: the piece moves consistently. It is obsessive and manic (which Joe marks in his instructions) and doesn’t let up more than a handful of times during the entire piece!  This makes it doubly difficult!  Not only is the piece extraordinarily difficult to perform from a right- and left-hand perspective, one must be extremely focused for the entire length of the performance. And this brings me back to the computer!  Pedal clicks which are too early or too late, unintended page skips (turning more than one page at a time and needing to quickly turn backward!), or a computer skipping to screen saver are all potential obstacles. I had to deal with some of these issues at multiple points during the Colombo work. That said, the piece was incredibly well received and was a mental joy to work on. I am a more focused performer having played this great piece. 

Andrew Paul Jackson’s piece, You are missing here., is quite different. The piece utilizes different sound worlds that split from the Colombo work (which is exactly what I wanted commissioning the guys to write these pieces)!  You are missing here. is a personal piece for Mr. Jackson:

Like most pieces I write, You are missing here, is not simply drawn from a single impetus, but is a confluence of strands as the piece was conceived during a long period of time in which the person most dear to me, my wife, was absent for long stretches of time due to her own exciting artistic pursuits.  In her absence, I found myself dusting off my cello and re-familiarizing myself with the instrument. After brushing up on solo works that I had once played, works by Hindemith, Rachmaninov, and of course, Bach, I began to view my time playing on the instrument from a creative guise. I started to communicated not just a feeling of solitary melancholy in her absence, but also capturing moments of joy and exhilaration that I wished to capture and share after the fact, like my trip to St. Petersburg that she unfortunately couldn’t join.

In effect, the piece became a deeply personal journal in which I was conveying a myriad of emotional states through the more visceral vantage of performer, rather than my more typically cerebral role of composer. In the absence of one partner, I became reacquainted with another and wrote a piece about - what else?...the absence of my other.

Practicing Andrew’s piece was not as “straightforward” in practice principles as the Colombo. There are many different techniques and tricky spots that one must execute - strings of false harmonics, strummed pizzicato in perfect fifths and extended positions, driving rhythmic sections that include tricky (but not nearly impossible) string crossings, fast finger changes and replacements, and strong chords which can’t be over-played, but still must be extremely present.  Breaking down sections in to smaller bits, and doing very little “full-piece” work makes learning a piece much faster and makes the learning more permanent. 

The two concerts that I played in Boston for The Fifth Floor Collective were a wonderful experience. I was able to be back at The Boston Conservatory for a performance in one of my favorite places, The Concert Room. The next night, I played a salon style concert at Carroll & Sons Art Gallery. This kind of concert is something that I’d like to do more of. In fact, I’ll be playing in another alternative venue in March, at Avant Garden in Houston, this time, my Queering the Pitch recital program.

My cello is happy to be in
Florida!

And what a wonderful transition (and shameless self-promotion)! This week I was a guest artist at the University of South Florida (USF) School of Music in Tampa, FL.  I arrived mid-week for a Queering the Pitch concert which featured the typical program that I’ve performed around the country over the past year, plus a new addition, the fantastic Tarantella for solo cello by the awesome composer, Dominick DiOrio (and played an encore by Marcos Balter)!

USF School of Music - yes, that's
my finger in the upper left

USF has just built brand-new facilities and their concert spaces are outstanding! I performed in Barness Recital Hall, a small recital space which has the best acoustics of any hall that I’ve had the opportunity to perform Queering the Pitch in! I was able to spend time with the cellists in Scott Kluksdahl’s studio after the performance and hear a number of them play the next day (I probably shouldn’t mention the beer garden they took me to after my performance)!

These young musicians were amazing to work with and talk to. Part of my time at USF was a lecture, something that terrified me to no end!  While I’m good at talking about myself (har har har!), who I’ve performed with, and what I’ve been doingI wasn’t sure if students who didn’t know me would be interested in hearing all of that talk!  They had some fantastic questions about commissioning new works, establishing a concert series locally and nationally, and how one promotes oneself in a world that is saturated with talented musicians. I was also privileged to hear a number of students in masterclass and individual lessons. Their responsiveness and musical maturity were astounding and I will be looking for a number of them to show up on my cellistic radar in the near future. To put it simply, the students at USF were a joy to work with and I look forward to returning next year!

With Scott and USF cellists

The past few weeks have been stressful and, simply, terrifying for me as a performer. I have jumped a few hurdles in a few short weeks that were daunting and unprecedented in my own young performance career.  I was able to reconnect with a dear friend at USF, get to know a few colleagues better, and meet new friends and colleagues in the cello studio!

OMG - That's my face!

Up next is the second round of Queering the Pitch recitals, this time with Meredith Mecum. We will be permiering new works by Dominick DiOrio, Brian Kelly, Steven Knell, and Bruce Trinkley. All of the works are in, all of them fantastic, and I am tremendously excited to begin practice this week. But not before a few days of well-deserved (if I do say so myself) relaxation - and classwork that I need to catch up on...doctorate, be damned!!

Some Yogi tea wisdom of the day: Be kind and compassionate and the whole world will be your friend.

Until next time, y'all!

Justin

Deciding What to Play

One of my favorite things to do - besides actually performing - is to dream up potential recital programs. Because I have interests that encompass many different areas of classical music, I’m always striving to satisfy both my own artistic palate and that of the audience that is paying to hear me play. Easily the most difficult part of programming repertoire - for me - is to come up with a recital that is diverse in style, character, era, and sound world but is cohesive enough to keep audience members interested throughout.

I don’t have specific steps that I go through when I program recital music. Often I think about three things:

1. What do I want to play?
2. What do I want to say to the audience?
3. Is the music that I’m choosing accessible to even the newest classical music audience member?
4.  Will anyone leave at intermission? (So, I don’t really ask myself this question, but I do wonder...) 

from Brian Kelly's Sonata for solo cello

Sometimes, a simple theme is enough for the casual audience member.  For example, when I was in graduate school, I developed a program that I called “Face à Face: music for duos.”  The repertoire include Zoltan Kodaly’s Duo for violin and cello, John Tavener’s Akhmatova Songs for soprano and cello, Beethoven’s Duo for viola and cello “with two eyeglasses obligato” and Brahms’ Sonata no. 2 in F Major.

By purposefully programming music for eclectic duos, I was hoping that the audience would find interest in the different sonorities presented - obviously, cello and piano is much different than cello and soprano! For all intents and purposes, it worked! Talking to audience members after the performance reinforced my belief that interesting music results in interested audiences.  

from Joseph Colombo's Not I for solo cello

In subsequent recitals, I’ve sought to mimic the idea of a unifying theme, even if that theme is known only to me!  A recent performance was titled - in my head - Op. 6 and included three works: Samuel Barber’s Sonata, op. 6, Richard Strauss’ Sonata, op. 6, and Ludwig van Beethoven’s Sonata in F Major, op. 5, no. 1. Certainly someone must have realized the subtle play with numbers. With these three pieces, what was actually on display was the early compositional method of three recognized masters.

from Andrew Paul Jackson's You are missing here
for solo cello

It would be difficult to talk about programming without discussing my current project, Queering the Pitch.  This project is the largest planed recital series that I’ve undertaken to this point in my young career.  In my mind, I see it as four separate but united parts: two for solo cello, one for cello and soprano, and one for cello and piano. The first challenge in programming such a project was first finding composers who were openly queer during their lives or, in the case of living composers, who are wiling to be known and potentially pigeonholed as a gay composer.

from Benjamin Britten's Third Suite for Cello

This was not nearly as difficult as I originally thought it might be. Throughout history, there have been a huge number of gay composers. There are countless composers currently living who are not only openly gay, but more than willing to be known as such.  The first challenge arose when searching for works for solo cello by these composers.  Solo cello repertoire between Bach and the 20^th-century is mostly non-existent (an exaggeration, but not entirely...) and some of the more prolific gay composers from the pre-20^th century wrote nothing for the genre.

Crazy fingerings from Ned Rorem's
After Reading Shakespeare

The three works that I settled on satisfy my three (non-mandatory) bullet points from above. I love playing Benjamin Britten’s Suites for Cello and I’ve been trying to find a reason to play Ned Rorem’s After Reading Shakespeare for a while.  I was worried that my fourth bullet point would come in to play, and that people would leave after hear the Rorem - I’ll be completely honest, it’s not the easiest piece to listen to at times.

from Dominick DiOrio's Tarantella for solo cello

Programming is not easy.  Music has a different influence on each individual. One person, who is dear to my heart and who has heard me play countless times, has told me on more than one occasion that a lot of the music that I play makes him uncomfortable and that he finds himself sitting on his hands during performances.  Sometimes, that’s the goal.  Discomfort is just as much a part of music as the music that they put on those Classics for Relaxation CDs. When programming recitals, I often stick to an infallible rule: would my mother still love me after she heard the piece I just played?  If the answer is no, then I should probably jettison that piece from the program. But if the answer is yes, well, then it’s a go!

Where I practice

Recently, I’ve been considering why I practice and how I practice.  This seems to be a semi-annual event, typically near the end of academic semesters or the conclusion of a large project.  Something that I never thought of before, however, was how I can make my time in the practice room more enjoyable for me -- more soothing, even.  There are dozens of resources on how to practice, but very few on where to practice.  I really enjoy looking at peoples’ practice rooms/spaces.  Maybe I’m the only one!  Regardless, I thought I’d type a little bit about the place that I sit six days a week for hours on end.  

Musicianly items

So welcome to my apartment in Athens, GA, a roomy-two bedroom abode that I currently call home. For much the same reason that I don’t want to eat my dinner in bed, I don’t have much desire to practice where I relax.  That said, I’m lucky enough to have a spare room that I am able to devote entirely to practice.  I furnished my practice room with the necessities that every musician needs to practice: a chair and a stand.  Also here is my modest library of music, both parts and scores, in hard copy and digital versions (kept on DVDs).

So much music...and a Dr. Beat

Additionally, I moved in an old IKEA desk that I’ve had since my days as an undergrad living in the dorms. The desk is quite large, and takes up a lot of space in my 11’x12’ practice room.  Over time, I realized that I could slightly modify this desk to suit my practicing needs.  Shown here is the final result: a drafting table styled as a large music stand.  

Balter, Colombo, DiOrio, Oh My!

With this huge table, I’m able to spread my music out (something that is necessary when playing some new music) and keep all of my things (pencils, metronome, tuner, rosin, etc) organized and in one place.  

Diplomas and a Memory shadow box

Adorning the walls of my practice space are various decorative and functional items.  Of course I display my diplomas - one sometimes needs the reassurance that goals can be met when the practicing isn’t going so well - and some concert posters from the past five years of performances.

Traditional practice rooms, the windowless boxes - sometimes soundproof, sometimes not - that adorn the hallways of music schools around the world, are very depressing.  I have never found myself inspired by a practice room.  Certainly, if a musician isn’t inspired, it becomes difficult to practice, and practicing is how we get better.  There are some practice rooms that are more technologically advanced than my humble practice space: Boston University, for example, has practice rooms that record and play back, and can replicate the particular acoustic of different spaces (from a small concert hall to a large airplane hanger).  This isn’t really necessary for me.  Northwestern University has practice rooms that look out over Lake Michigan.  Beautiful view, but drab and boring on the inside.

"Hanging" cello

Besides functioning as a large music stand, my big IKEA desk is a low-tech cello stand as well.  Using some picture wire strung through the holes in the modular desk legs, I fashioned a “cello holder” that allows me to begin practicing less than 30 seconds after I walk in to the room.  Just pick up and go!

Mirror

The most important thing - after the music and the cello - in my practice room are the multitude of mirrors hat I have placed in strategic places around me.  Through these mirrors, I take away the need for a person watching over my posture, bow position, contact point, finger height, etc.  I am now totally accountable for all aspects of my playing.

When it comes to technology, the best part of my practice space is the quick and easy recording device.  Atop my practice desk is my miniature Zoom H2 recorder.  When necessary, I can press the record button, stop when necessary and then listen to the section I just played as it is pumped out over the surround sound system that I use for various purposes.  This eliminates the need for a critical ear during my practice.  Constant analysis of the sound and musical gestures that I produce make for faster, more intelligent practice.

Should I be practicing? Yes.

Also around my practice space are some interesting “funnies” that I’ve come across over the past few years.  Many of them I’ve given to students to encourage them to practice; others are musical keepsakes that I just can’t pack away.  My favorite of these is the flow chart that hangs next to one of my mirrors.  It simply says, “Should you be practicing right now?”  Also hanging on the wall is the cover of my old International edition of the Popper Etudes.  During auditions for graduate school, I spilled a glass of wine on the cover after an unfortunate audition.  The cover subsequently fell off and now hangs in a frame, constantly reminding me that wine is bad and etudes are good...wait, I think that’s backward!

So this is my practice room. There is where I sit and get better at what I do.  This is where the music that I love comes alive and hopefully becomes a work of art.  I’d love to see where everyone else practices - or composes - and what things are similar to my space and what are very different!  Below is a quick video tour of my practice room and a few more photos!

Another view of the "hanging" cello

Practicing Commandments

I can't practice without tea!!

Daily Practice Schedule Cards

We Are. Penn State.

I am a Pennsylvania State University alum.  The University absolutely shaped me in to the person that I am today.  The University is bigger than the abuse scandal that has engulfed it’s hallowed grounds this past week.  The University is better than the person who perpetrated the alleged crimes.  The University is shamed by those who were complicit in the apparent cover up of these crimes.

Joe Paterno was integral to the evolution of Penn State over the past 60 years - from a small agricultural college to renowned research university.  Joe Paterno’s principles were the moral compass of the Penn State community.  But Joe Paterno is not Penn State. Former Penn State president Graham Spanier is not Penn State.  A few thousand student “rioters” are not Penn State.  The image of Penn State that ESPN and other media outlets have portrayed is certainly NOT Penn State.

Penn State is THON, the world’s largest student-run philanthropy, which has raised more than $78 million for the Four Diamonds Fund since 1973.  Penn State is a top 10 research and development university.  Penn State is a top 15 research library system.  Penn State is the largest alumni association in the world.  Penn State is a system of alumni that give more and more frequently to their alma mater than any alumni group in the Big 10.  Penn State is Nobel Prize winners, Tony- and Emmy-winning artists, renowned researchers, educators, and the first person to ever ‘see’ the atom.

Penn State is Fisher-Price, Ben & Jerry’s, and the Slinky. Penn State is Paternoville, the tent city of students outside of Beaver Stadium, camping each week to get the best seats in the stadium - all the while raising money for cancer research while they sacrifice their beds for a tent.  Penn State is the Proud to be a Penn Stater grassroots cause that has raised $270,000 (and still climbing) - EDIT: this total now sits at more than $458,000 -  in less than two days for RAINN, an abuse charity network.  Penn State is 96,000 students across 24 campuses in Pennsylvania.  Penn State is more than 500,000 living alumni.  Penn State is Making Life Better.

WE are Penn State.