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June 25, 2000 - Baltimore, MD / Atlantic City, NJ
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Dear Readers,
This week I did something new for me: I played the same piece back-to-back with two different orchestras in two different towns, but with the same conductor. The piece was the violin concerto of Edward Elgar, a piece that I just learned this year and had never performed with orchestra -- and the conductor was Jed Gaylin, music director of both the Hopkins Symphony Orchestra and the Bay Atlantic Orchestra. I first worked with Jed when I was 13 and he was fresh out of graduate school, and it was great to work with him again, 7 years later.
First came the Hopkins Symphony Orchestra in Baltimore. The Hopkins Symphony is a "community orchestra," one whose players are mostly professors, students, doctors, lawyers, computer experts, former students, and employees of Johns Hopkins University. They are dedicated amateurs, true "weekend warriors" of music, who come together to rehearse music and to perform simply because they love to. They rehearse most Monday evenings after work, and several times a year they do some extra rehearsals and give concerts in Shriver Hall, the university's auditorium.
Fortunately, they enjoy challenges -- and it's a good thing, because the Elgar concerto is an enormous piece, famously difficult in the orchestral parts, that puts terrific demands of control and flexibility on even the most experienced professional orchestras. That didn't daunt the Hopkins Symphony: they're dedicated and optimistic, looking for new musical experiences wherever they can find them, and they're game for anything. We rehearsed on Monday and Wednesday evenings, and on Thursday night we gave the concert. The performance felt incredibly fresh and lively: it was a new piece to everybody on stage, so there was no way it could be routine for any of us. And in the end, I felt as proud of the orchestra as if I were a member of it myself.
One small story from Hopkins: a married couple who plays in the violin section brought a small stuffed dog named Humphrey to one of the rehearsals. Of course, I was introduced, and I have to admit, Humphrey was awfully cute. He even had his own mini-violin. The next day, his owners showed up with a "dog" for me; a different small stuffed pup, for me to take along on trips and to use as a photo subject. I named him Hobart, and he shows up in one of the pictures here (next to my bottle of cough medicine, which I relied on a lot this week). He may show up in other postcards, too, farther down the road.
At any rate, two nights after the Hopkins Symphony concert, Jed Gaylin and I played the Elgar again with his second orchestra, the Bay Atlantic Orchestra of Atlantic City, New Jersey -- a coastal town several hours east of Baltimore that is famous for its beaches and its gambling houses. (Actually, we played at Stockton College in the nearby town of Pomona, so we never saw the casinos.) This was a somewhat different kind of community orchestra: one made up of free-lance musicians and music teachers from nearby cities -- paid instrumentalists who come together for each concert, then take other musical jobs between concerts. Since free-lancers do lots of different kinds of playing, they specialize in learning quickly -- so we rehearsed the Elgar one day and performed it the next. With that short kind of turn-around, it helped that Jed and I had performed it together just a couple of days before in Baltimore, and all went well.
Now I'm back in Philadelphia for a week or so to rehearse with Natalie Zhu, the pianist who will be touring with me again in October for half of my American recital tour in October. Each summer Natalie and I get together for several days to polish up new pieces for our upcoming programs, and then we play them in a recital in a retirement home before putting them to rest for a while. When that recital is over, it will conclude my official 1999-2000 season of concerts -- though not my musical work for the summer. I'll tell you about that in my next postcard.
Yours from the Eastern Shore,
Hilary
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Building on the campus of Johns Hopkins University
Students playing volleyball on the front lawn
Tower of the library at the University
Dedication plaque outside Shriver Hall
Orchestra cellists and bassists in rehearsal
The whole orchestra during rehearsal
Me, conductor Jed Gaylin, and the orchestra, working through the concerto
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Audience section of the hall, before the concert
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The hall, with people in it
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Post-concert signing
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Me, with my aunt Ellen and uncle Bruce, after the performance
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Me and my friend Ann, a former ballet classmate of mine
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Hobart with my bottle of cough medicine
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A street in suburban Baltimore
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Sidewalk, and flowers on a fence
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Rowhouses near Hopkins
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Alleyway in a Baltimore neighborhood
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View during the drive to Atlantic City / Pomona
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New Jersey tires by the side of the road
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Field and trees near Stockton College
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Entry gates
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Backstage at Stockton College: painted doors to the scenery storage area
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Me, as seen from above during rehearsal
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Playing through the Elgar
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Stage, from the audience's perspective
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Warming up in a dark room, before the concert with the Bay Atlantic Symphony Orchestra
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