Graduation 09

Graduation is a time of mixed emotions: pride of accomplishment, sadness at saying goodbye to friends, hope and fear at facing an uncertain future. For Vocal Ensemble, it is all this and more. About a dozen seniors will be leaving us. There were a lot of tears shed after we sang our last piece at this year's ceremony.

There is a bonding that comes with any team or group activity. We share a commitment, we share the anxiety and excitement of performance, and we share the challenge of rising to the next level. But with a musical group, there is also the shared musical/artistic experience. This is a deep bonding, an unspoken communion that unites us in an intimate and highly personal way.

That bond was most evident with this year's basses. All four are seniors, and three of them had been together for at least a couple of years. High school men's sections are generally smaller and because of that seem to bond tighter. When there are only four of you, you really rely on your neighbor. This creates an added trust that under the best of circumstances develops into an artistic camaraderie.

The basses had that. Without ever verbalizing it, they set a high musical standard for themselves. Even though they were a group of different personalities and voice types, they learned how to blend and work together. They developed a rich, full sound and brought artistry to their singing. Without having to talk about it, they listened to each other's voices and developed cohesive phrasing to the musical line. They were a wonderful section.

There were many individuals from this year's group that I will remember, but two come to mind now. The first is Ashley Quadri. I always knew that Ashley was a solid singer in the alto section. What I didn't know, until she auditioned to sing the National Anthem for graduation, was that she had such an incredible solo voice. I don't ever recall hearing a singer who had such marvelous placement and focus to her sound without ever having private lessons.

Why did it take me so long to recognize the extent of her ability? Probably because she was also a great team player. She knew how to blend and balance within her section.

I don't know if I would have done anything different with the ensemble had I realized earlier what a wonderful voice she has. I don't pick music to feature a soloist; instead I prefer to keep the focus on the group as a whole. But I would have encouraged her more. Get voice lessons. Find opportunities where you can sing solo. The best I can do now is to urge her to join one of the choral groups at college (CSUN). A person with such a lovely voice must keep on singing!

The other individual that stands out in my mind is Oksana Borodyanskaya. If I could clone one person into a choir of singers, it would be Oksana. She is the ideal choral singer. She has a very good voice, blends well in the section, always knows her music, is always watching the conductor, works well her classmates, is reliable, and has a keen sense of musicality that spreads throughout the soprano section.

All of those musical qualities, and this is what makes her special, are visible when she sings. After a while a conductor can tell who is really "in" the music. There is something in the eyes and the body language that communicates a total involvement. When this happens, a symbiotic relationship develops between the conductor and the singer/choir. As singers respond both visually and musically to the conductor's gestures, the conductor feels a greater sense of freedom to explore the music. As the conductor reaches deeper into the music, the choir feels the music more intimately and responds more sensitively.

Oksana was that kind of singer. She led by example and needed no words. She inspired me. I will miss her, but I already see that her musical DNA has been imparted to next year's sopranos. Some of them are allowing themselves to be totally immersed in the music, and it shows in their faces. In this sense, Oksana will be a part of all future Vocal Ensemble soprano sections. Again, in the realm of the unspoken, much is communicated.

The Retirement of Choral Conductor James Vail

I read in the Los Angeles Times the other day that Dr. James Vail is conducting his last concert for St. Alban's Church in Westwood, where he has directed the choir for over 30 years. Dr. Vail was the conductor of the USC Concert Choir when I was singing with that group in the mid 1970s.

I have lots of good memories of Vail and those times. At one concert at Cal Arts we sang in the big hall that opened out to the rest of the campus allowing people (and animals) to wander freely into the area. We were about half ways through a Brahms motet when a dog traipsed in, ambled up to Vail and began sniffing his leg as it might be a fire hydrant. After a few anxious moments, the dog left, but we all wondered what Vail would have done if the dog had done his worst.

I recall the somewhat reserved Vail with an ecstatic look on his face when he conducted the Bach Bm Mass. I remember a completely different look when, on the final cutoff of the last concert of our Northern California tour, we shot off party favors.

But what I remember about Vail the most was that he was (and presumably still is) an exacting conductor and demanded that same attention to detail from his choir. I remember him painstakingly having every tenor sing a particular vowel to find out who was not blending. I don't remember, but I wouldn't be surprised if it had been me! I truly empathize with my singers when I subject them to this embarrassing but necessary torture.

I also recall how in a baroque work (was it Schütz?) he pointed to how on the word God (Gott) there was a sudden shift to a major chord. "Hey, that's pretty cool," I thought. But why had it taken me so long to realize that composers did that sort of thing all the time (and much subtler things)? Why was I so slow in recognizing the art in music?

As a student, I blame myself for being so thick headed. As a teacher, I wonder if my teachers had really done their best in getting us students to understand music at its deepest levels. It is one thing to get a choir to make a nice hairpin phrase. It is another for them to really feel that musical gesture. It is yet another to lead them to discover how carefully a composer constructs a phrase in relation to the text and how a sensitive performer will be able to communicate that emotionally and musically to an audience.

The art of music is the hardest thing to help students to fully comprehend, yet it is the most critical. Once found, it is never forgotten. It becomes the driving force behind all musical growth.

One cannot simply tell students what art is, describe in flowery terms what they are supposed to feel, or point out meaningful musical gestures. At its core, it must be discovered by the student - an "ah ha" moment when suddenly art is revealed in all its subtlety and depth. The challenge for the teacher is to set the stage for that discovery.

Life or Death Piano Tuning

A few days ago we held our Spring Concert at Taft High School. In view of the economic crisis, I decided to save the Los Angeles Unified School District a little money by not getting our piano tuned before the concert. Besides, the piano was accompanying the choir in only one selection, and it had been tuned about six months ago. We'd live.

What I had forgotten, however, was that the piano had a string replaced at the last tuning, and that now it would be very flat. When I tried out the piano the morning of the concert, my mistake became obvious. The D below middle C was excruciatingly painful. I could probably play around the note if I had to, but, piano not being my main instrument, it would be bit dicey.

So, I gave the LAUSD instrumental repair division a call.

"Hi, my name is Tom..."

"Number," the voice on the phone had the monotone quality of someone who had spent far too much time in a cubicle.

"I'm sorry, what was that?"

"Your location code number."

"8880. I was ...."

"Your name?"

"Tom Pease. I'm calling about ..."

"Spell last name."

"P-E-A-S-E."

"Reason for the call?" I could now visualize the form in front of her.

"I need a piano tuned. You see I've got ..."

"When do you need it tuned by?"

"Tonight."

There was a pause.

"Tonight?" She finally blurted with a bit of surprise in her voice. I guess there wasn't a checkoff box on her form for "tonight."

"Yes. You see it's only one string that needs to be tuned, and our concert is tonight."

"We can only get it tuned that quickly if it's an emergency," she replied, back to her drone tone.

"Well, yes it is. The concert is tonight."

"It can only be an emergency if it is a matter of life or death."

Now I paused. "Life or death?" My first reaction was to come up with a scenario that would fit that criteria.

"My pianist is very sensitive and will kill himself if the piano is not perfectly tuned."

"An out of tune piano can trigger a fatal epileptic attack in one of my singers."

"Irate audience members will attack me with machetes and Samurai swords if they hear just one out of tune note."

It seemed impossible, but was there in fact a check box next to piano tuning that said, "life or death emergency?" Had it ever been checked?

After a little discussion, we settled on the term "urgent," which meant that it should be tuned sometime in the next 48 hours. With a little luck, I might get it tuned in time for the show.

Tuned pianos, music, art ... these are not life or death situations. That was tragically clear to me as just a few days before the concert a Taft student was killed in an auto accident on the way to the prom.

But music, art, and perhaps even tuned pianos are life and death situations. We use music to celebrate life, be it "Happy Birthday" sung simultaneously in a variety of keys, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony to mark the reunification of Germany, or the "Wedding March" from Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream played as the bride makes her way to the alter. In death we comfort ourselves with quiet soothing music or contemplate the fate of our soul in a requiem.

Among all else that music is, it is a communal marker of life and death.

The piano tuner showed up that afternoon. The string was tuned; the concert went extremely well; no one died. And, I would like to hope, that in some small way, lives were marked.