www. Music In Summer .com

Concert Calendar / JLNotes 2011.12

2011-12-18T09:41:00.001-05:00

Here are the details of some Toronto concert organizations’ websites:

Toronto Symphony Orchestra
http://tso.ca/

On Saturday, May 19th the great Russian Pianist Evgeny Kissin with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra performing Edvard Grieg. *Highly Recommended!
On Thursday, May 31st the great Yo-Yo Ma performing the Elgar Cello Concerto with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra *Highly Recommended!

Canadian Opera Company
http://www.coc.ca

From January 21 to February 25, 2012 Puccini’s tale of Tosca at the Four Seasons Center
Jacque Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann from April 10 to May 14, 2012 at the Four Seasons Centre. *Highly Recommended!

National Ballet of Canada
http://www.ballet.ca/performances/season1011/

Roy Thomson Hall
http://www.roythomson.com/

Royal Conservatory Concerts
http://performance.rcmusic.ca/viewallconcerts...

Please pay special attention to the following concert:
Thursday, February 23, 2012: Great Russian violinist and conductor Vladimir Spivakov in Recital, with pianist Olga Kern performing works by Brahms, Stravinsky and Frank.* Highly Recommended*!

Tafel Music Baroque Orchestra
http://www.tafelmusik.org/concerts

Scarborough Philharmonic Orchestra
http://www.spo.ca/

York Symphony Orchestra
http://www.yorksymphony.ca/

News from Examinations and Competitions | 2011/12

2011-12-17T21:52:00.005-05:00

Here are the results from the recent competitions:

Arts Richmond Hill Music Festival 2011

Anastasiya Baranova- 2nd Place
Clarence Cheng- 1st Place
Jonathan Chung- two 2nd Places
Matthew Chung- one 1st place, one 2nd place and one 3rd Place
Timothy Lam- one 1st place, one 2nd place and one 3rd place
Michelle Lee- 3rd Place
Julia Mirzoev- three 1st Places
Araz Tokdjian- 2nd Place
Jessica Wei- three 1st Places and one 3rd Place

York Region Music Festival 2011

Leo Jarmain- one 1st place and one 2nd place
Timothy Lam- 3rd Place
Davin Ma- one1st place and one 2nd place
Jessica Wei- three 1st places

Congratulations to all students that participated at both Festivals! Everyone has achieved excellent results! I am proud of you!

Here are some dates and deadlines for RCM examinations and for festivals and competitions:

RCM Examinations
Spring Session Registration Deadline: March 6, 2012
Theory Examinations: May 11 and 12, 2012
Practical Examinations: June 11-30, 2012
http://www.rcmexaminations.org/

Kiwanis Music Festival
February 21-March 2, 2012
Registration Deadline: Too Late!
http://kiwanismusictoronto.org/

North York Music Festival
April 17-25, 2012
Registration Deadline: February 17, 2012
http://www.northyorkmusicfestival.com/

Peel Music Festival
March 19- April 29, 2012
Registration Deadline: Too Late!
http://www.peelmusicfestival.ca/Main.aspx

Canadian Music Competition
May-June, 2012
Registration Deadline: Too Late!
http://www.cmcnational.com/en/cmc2012/

News from JVL Summer School for Performing Arts - 2011/12

2011-12-17T13:05:00.000-05:00

The registration for 11th season of the JVL Summer School for Performing Arts International

“Music in Summer” Festival is now open and in full swing, and I look forward to seeing everyone again in 2012!

The videos of the 2011 season are added weekly and I would like each one of you to check the site regularly. All concerts are recorded and I’m sure that you will find yourselves in those recordings frequently. By the way, all the videos are courtesy of Mr. Mikhail Mirzoev, and I am very grateful to him for taking time during the camp to record these!

The first round of registration is coming up quickly! For those of you that are interested in scholarships, please apply before the February 20th, 2012 deadline.

Participation in the camp is very valuable for musicians of all ages and levels, and it is evident that students have benefited from tremendous learning opportunities and have experienced a lot of personal growth as musicians and as people.

Please don’t forget to check the website www.MusicInSummer.com often for updates of information.

You could also find us on our Facebook page at: www.facebook.com/MusicInSummer
I would ask and encourage you to visit it and to “like” it as much as possible!

JLNotes - December 2011-January 2012

2011-12-17T12:57:00.002-05:00

First of all, I would like to wish all my students and their families and the entire JVL extended family a very happy Holiday Season! May everyone have a truly healthy, happy, and successful New Year!

There were many events that took place in the last few months that are worth mentioning. Students who competed at the Arts Richmond Hill and York Region Music Festivals showed great results. In the competition section of this newsletter, you will find all the detailed results. Congratulations to everyone that participated and keep working towards other forthcoming festivals and competitions, as well as towards our annual Student Recital.

This season, our annual Students Recital will be held on Sunday, February 12th 2012 at the Christian Community Church, 901 Rutherford Rd, Thornhill, L6A 1S2. Exact times of the recitals will be posted in January. Shortly, rehearsals with piano accompaniment will commence. I would like to thank our accompanists, Ms. Rozana Koren and Mr. Michael Berkovsky, for taking care of our students.

Both concerts performed by David Lakirovich playing the Barber Violin Concerto with the York Symphony Orchestra were very successful and I would like to thank everyone who attended.

In Mid-January, I will be on examination duty for RCM and this time, I will be located in Kitchener, London and Windsor, as well as examining locally in Toronto in the second week.

In this issue of JLNotes, you will find updates on the preparation JVL Summer School for Performing Arts “Music in Summer” International Festival 2012, and some interesting articles as well you will also find a recommended listening of various violin repertoires with links to YouTube. There is also vital information regarding violin competitions and festivals, RCM examinations dates and deadlines and some information about upcoming concerts in Toronto. Also in this edition, you will read about one of the greatest violinist of the new generation,
and of course much more!

So enjoy reading and hopefully the next instalment of JLNotes will appear in the near future. I certainly would encourage and invite any comments and suggestions that you may have.

Jacob Lakirovich

Important Dates

2011-11-05T12:27:00.000-04:00

David Lakirovich with the York Symphony Orchestra performing Samuel Barber violin concerto on Saturday, November 19 at 8:00 pm at the Trinity Anglican Church, 79 Victoria Street in the town of Aurora, 1 block east of Yonge Street south of Wellington Street and on Sunday, November 20 at 7:30 pm at the Richmond Hill Centre for the Performing Arts 10268 Yonge Street (West side of Yonge St. 3 lights north of Major Mackenzie at Wright Street.)

For details please visit the YSO site: http://www.yorksymphony.ca/concert.html.

Annual Students Recital Sunday, February 12th 2012 at the Christian Community Church, 901 Rutherford Rd, Thornhill

News from JVL Summer School for Performing Arts - JLNotes 2011-11

2011-11-01T10:03:00.000-04:00

What a season! I really was taken by the commitment, attitude and discipline that our students displayed during these gruelling 11 days of music-making. More than that; now, in September (more than 2 months after the camp) I can clearly see the benefits and effects of this rigorous work in my own students, who despite the long summer months, have managed to carry through their excellent skills and love of practising (yes, I am not kidding: LOVE) that they acquired at JVL, into their regular practicing routine at home, and I have no doubt that my colleagues from JVL would report similar successes. It is heartening to see kids being so passionately involved in all musical activities (even those that they don’t see as practical for their instrumental skills, but incredibly important, such as ear training etc) let alone their instrumental or voice studies, ensembles, orchestras and of course the Musical Theatre!

According to countless phone conversations, great many letters and e-mails I have received from parents, students and the faculty, the 10th Anniversary Season of JVL SSPA was a great success, and as both parents of one of our piano students put it: “It was a concentrated blast of musical enthusiasm and encouragement in the middle of a slow hot summer”. And I would like to take the opportunity and to congratulate everyone involved for the great success we have had in 2011.

Everyone has benefited from tremendous learning opportunities and have experienced a lot of personal growth as musicians and as people.

We are now updating the information for the new 2012 season and I would like to invite you to frequently check for the updates, both in content as well as in new videos of performances from students and faculty from 2011. The slideshow, made by Alexandra Lakirovich, which was supposed to be played on the last day of camp, is now posted on the JVL website in the VIDEOS section.

The registration for 11th season of the JVL Summer School for Performing Arts International “Music in Summer” Festival is now open, and I look forward to seeing everyone again in 2012!

Please don’t forget to check the website www.MusicInSummer.com often for updates of information.

I also would like to share with you that we finally have caught up with the latest innovation and now have our own Facebook page! I would ask and encourage you to visit it and to “like” it as much as possible! (I am still learning the correct jargon associated with all of this!)

http://www.facebook.com/MusicInSummer

JLNotes September-November 2011

2011-10-31T18:42:00.000-04:00

Welcome back! I’m very happy to see each one of you and many new faces in the 2011/2012 school year. According to student’s and parent’s reports, this summer has been very productive, both musically and recreationally. I’m also happy to report that my summer has been extremely busy with many diverse activities such as RCM examining, JVL music camp and travelling to Australia and the United States.

Now fully reinvigorated, I’m back into the full-time teaching mode, and of course, ready to take on the position of President-Elect of my Rotary Club and one of the board directors of the Scarborough Philharmonic Orchestra.

There are a lot of music festivals and competitions that students are preparing for, and you’ll find the detailed information in the music competition section of this newsletter.

David Lakirovich will appear as a soloist in two concerts with the York Symphony Orchestra on Saturday, November 19 and on Sunday, November 20, performing Samuel Barber violin concerto. For details please visit the YSO site: http://www.yorksymphony.ca/concert.html. I hope to see you all at least at one of these concerts.

This season, after receiving many grievances over the timing of the annual student recital being always on the same day as the Super Bowl, I have finally bowed to this enormous pressure and moved the concerts to the following week. Therefore, our annual students recital will be held on Sunday, February 12th 2012 at the Christian Community Church, 901 Rutherford Rd, Thornhill, L6A 1S2. Exact times of the recitals will be posted in January.

On the other note; many of you have noticed a wonderful landscaping job done by our wonderful contractors. At the same time they gave us plenty of advice of maintaining a great looking garden. One of them is to ask everyone not to park their cars on the driveway. So I guess it would be just fair for me to ask everyone to park your cars on the curb side of the street, there is plenty of space on either side of the street, and to refrain of driving into the driveway.

As well, we have dedicated a special phone line to be exclusively used for lesson-related matters or any other inquiries regarding JVL SSPA. Here it is: (289) 597-3434. Please try to use this line first and you could always leave a message. However, if the matter is urgent, you can still use (416) 735-7499 and (905) 882-7499.

In this issue of JLNotes, you will find updates on the preparation JVL Summer School for Performing Arts “Music in Summer” International Festival 2012, and some interesting articles as well you will also find a recommended listening of various violin repertoires with links to YouTube. There is also vital information regarding violin competitions and festivals, RCM examinations dates and deadlines and some information about upcoming concerts in Toronto. Also in this edition, you will read about one of the greatest violinist of the new generation, Vadim Gluzman and of course much more!

So enjoy reading and hopefully the next instalment of JLNotes will appear in the near future. I certainly would encourage and invite any comments and suggestions that you may have.

JVL 2012 Season Announcement

2011-10-31T18:36:00.000-04:00

Dear Students and Parents,

We are back at this time of the year where I’m very proud to announce the new 11th season of JVL Summer School for Performing Arts “Music in Summer” International Festival 2012 that will take place July 5-15, 2012. The registration for the 2012 season is now open and I invite you to visit our website

www.MusicInSummer.com

The 2011 season of JVL Summer School for Performing Arts “Music in Summer” Festival was a great success. There were faculty and students from various parts of the world. The experience and skills that were developed during these 11 days helped all students not only to become better musicians, but also to appreciate the art of music.

JVL 2012 is going to be the 11th season, and we will have many great new activities, surprises and hope to have back many of the faculty that have been a part of the festival for the last 11 years.

The application is now open and the deadline for the first round of applications for the JVL Summer School is February 20. Early application is very much appreciated, as it will only help us to find the appropriate program and repertoire for your child. I can’t stress enough how important this event is for young musicians. For 11 days, students are involved in an extensive musical training where they attend private lessons with internationally renowned teachers, participate in master classes, orchestras and chamber music groups where they learn to play together in a various combinations of instruments and groups and in different styles of music: from Baroque to Contemporary as well as having a lot of exciting recreational activities. Some of the students will have an opportunity to play solo with the orchestra. JVL SSPA's remarkable faculty - gifted and creative master teachers and musicians dedicated to the fine art of teaching, supports all of this musical activity. This is a marvellous opportunity for children to explore the world of music and to have an incentive for continuous interest in music.

For detailed information please visit the JVL website:

www.MusicInSummer.com

I also would like to share with you that we finally have caught up with the latest innovation and now have our own Facebook page!

I would ask and encourage you to visit it and to “like” it as much as possible:

http://www.facebook.com/MusicInSummer

Once again, application close is February 20.

Truly yours,
Jacob Lakirovich
Director, JVL SSPA

P.S. The website is updated on a regular basis, and more videos will be posted from the 2011 seasons shortly!

Winners of the 2011 Music In Summer Scales Competition:

2011-10-15T23:21:00.000-04:00

Preliminaries

Piano

Group 1
First Prize: Timothy Lam
Second Prize: Jimmy Nguyen
Third Prize: Harrison Jarvis
Group 2
First Prize: Tiffany Wu
Second Prize: Nathan Draissinower
Group 3
First Prize: Esther Byun

Flute

Group 1
First Prize: Jenna Ashley
Group 2
First Prize: Irine Byun

Cello

Group 1
First Prize: Isabella DiBlasi
Second Prize: Emma Fisher
Group 2
First Prize: Daniel Archer
Second Prize: Linnea Kornhauser

Violin

Group 1
First Prize: Alex Volkov
Second Prize: Julia Mirzoev
Group 2
First Prize: Jonathan Chung
Second Prize: Matthew Chung
Third Prize: Timothy Lam
Group 3
First Prize: Jennifer Jeong
Second Prize: Aurinjoy Gupta
Third Prize: Arjav Gupta

Finals

Grand Prix winner

Julia Mirzoev (violin)

JL Notes - May-June 2011

2011-05-16T13:50:00.002-04:00

Time flies by very quickly! It was an awfully long winter, with unexpected snow storms, and now since spring has arrived, we are all in a very upbeat mood, and are all getting ready for the summer days ahead. We are already in May and this is a very busy time for everyone. The June RCM examination session is fast approaching and a number of students preparing for this, as well as my duty as a RCM examiner will keep me busy for the first part of June. There is lots of great news regarding successes of my students that I would like to report. There have been countless achievements at various competitions and Festivals, as well as the winning of the RCM silver medal for grade 10 by Julia Mirzoev, which keep me very proud of my students and their achievements. I also would like to wish Alex Volkov great success at the upcoming National Finals of the Canadian Music Competition that will take place this June in Montreal.

In this issue of JLNotes, you will find updates on the preparation JVL Summer School for Performing Arts “Music in Summer” Festival 2011, and some interesting articles, especially the one on the importance of practicing without the instrument by David Lakirovich.

You will also find a recommended listening of various violin repertoires with links to YouTube. There is also vital information regarding violin competitions and festivals, RCM examinations dates and deadlines and some information about upcoming concerts in Toronto. Also in this edition, you will read about the Grande Dame of the Violin, Ida Haendel and of course much more!

So enjoy reading and hopefully the next installment of JLNotes will appear in the near future. I certainly would encourage and invite any comments and suggestions that you may have.

Jacob Lakirovich

Download and print this issue of JL Notes (PDF file)

News from JVL Summer School for Performing Arts 2011/05

2011-05-16T13:45:00.000-04:00

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! The official preparation for the music camp is now in full swing! Everyone that is helping to prepare are extremely busy! I am very thankful to Alex Lakirovich, who is probably the most involved in this preparation. All of the accounts, statements, printing, e-mails, organization of activities at camp, and of course selecting the right cabins for the right students, are all her responsibilities, and she does them all with flying colours. When you see my name at the end of a letter or e-mail, it is probably written by her (so you know who to blame!).

I would also like to thank David Lakirovich for the invaluable help and advice that he has given me for the preparation of orchestral and chamber music material.

I should not forget Moti (those of you who never met him yet, he is my delightful, ever thankful miniature poodle) who is shadowing me 24/7.
This season shapes as a very interesting one, both in student activities as well as in the representation of various continents that the students and faculty are coming from. This year, JVL welcomes its members not only from Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba and Saskatchewan, but also from California, Michigan, and Illinois and from oversees countries such as Austria, Italy, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.

We are introducing ear training classes (mandatory for string players), as well as new this year, is guitar lessons for beginners. As part of the Festival, we will have daily concerts, given by the Faculty, both in classical and jazz genres, as well as countless student concerts and recitals.

We have chosen wonderful music selection for each orchestra and chamber music groups and the highlight of the final concert will have Mozart’s “Eine Kleine Nacht Musik” Viennese Style!
In any case, we are all extremely excited and work tirelessly to prepare the 10th season of JVL that we hope will be the best one ever!

By now, everyone has received the updated requirements for Scales Competition and please start practicing now for great cash prizes and fun! Ensemble, chamber and orchestral music will be available for download directly from a specific site that will be shared with you as soon as the process of selection has been completed.

Please don’t forget to check the website www.MusicInSummer.com often for updates of information.

The Importance of practicing without the instrument

2011-05-16T13:40:00.002-04:00

By: David Lakirovich

Often considered the father of classical guitar, Andrés Segovia once said, “The advice I am giving always to all my students is above all to study the music profoundly. Because the music is like the ocean, and the instruments are little or bigger islands, very beautiful for the flowers and trees, or the contrary.” This is advice that every musician should follow and live by religiously.

When I first played for Shmuel Ashkenasi (my current teacher), the very first comment from him, after I finished playing the last few notes of a Paganini caprice, was actually an unexpected question that really caught me off guard. He asked, “How many hours a day do you practice without the violin?” It took me a little while to decipher this very perplexing question. What does he mean by practicing without the violin? How is one supposed to practice without the violin? Why would someone practice without the violin? I could not get my head around this question. Little did I know that this seemingly simple question, and its subsequent answer, would completely change my perception of practicing the violin, playing the violin, and above all, playing the violin to serve the music, and not playing the music to serve the violin. Mr. Ashkenasi taught me the invaluable lesson that it is just as important to practice without the instrument as it is with it, if not even more.

What does it mean to practice away from your instrument? How does one do that? Quite simple- take the score of the piece that you are playing and study it, study it intently, study it until you are familiar with every little dynamic marking and nuance. If playing a concerto, familiarize yourself with every orchestra part in the score. If playing a sonata, acquaint yourself with the piano part. Know the music backwards and forwards. Know that, for example, in measure 54, the marking is “stringendo.” Know the harmony, and how it moves within each phrase and section. Know the background of the piece, and why exactly it was written. Moreover, act like a military general; strategize and plan every little and miniscule detail. Sketch and plan out how you want to play each phrase, and how each phrase should sound. Make a mental note that in the climax section, for example, where it is marked ff and molto espressivo, use more bow, and a different and varied vibrato from the previous section etc. Such strategies and planning of the execution of the fine details in music go a very long way into culminating in a mature and superior performance. To reiterate, how does one practice without their instrument? Analysis/study, and strategy/planning.

Now to the all encompassing question of why does one need to do all of this? The most practical answer to this is simply: efficiency. The more one practices away from the violin, or from their instrument, the less they actually have to practice on it. Quite the paradox and irony! If you already plan out everything you need, and familiarize yourself with the score, then all that is really needed and required is the actual application and practice on the instrument, and that in itself should not take up all that much time. The great violinist Jascha Heifetz always claimed that he did not practice a minute over three hours on the violin every day. What he always neglected to mention though is how many hours he spent practicing away from it! Another essential reason for practicing away from your instrument is that when it comes to the actual performance, nothing is left to chance. A big reason why performances do not go as well as they should is the very simple fact that the performer simply does not know what he/she is doing, or they are just uncertain about a wide array of things. Studying and planning away from the instrument ensures that everything runs smoothly in the performance, and if there should be an accident or a slip, it is most definitely not because of the lack of certainty or knowledge of the performer. Before each flight, the pilot inspects every little part of his aircraft, everything from the engines, to the suspension in the landing gear, thus doing everything to ensure the safest possible flight. And us performers should do the very same, except on our “aircraft”- our instrument. The most vital reason though for practicing away from the instrument is for music’s sake. I alluded to this earlier- one plays the violin to serve the music, and not the other way around. The goal that every instrumentalist should have, first and foremost, is to be the best musician, and only then to be the best instrumentalist. A violinist should not only play the Paganini Violin Concerto to show off his/her technical prowess, or their impeccable bow strokes and intonation, but also to convey Paganini’s deepest and most profound musical intentions and genius. A well rounded musician is created by studying and knowing the music to the absolute fullest. It is what separates the soloist from the artist.

Interview : Ida Haendel

2011-05-16T13:35:00.002-04:00

"She plays with such simplicity, directness and emotional force that it tears your heart out...." "Haendel still plays with undimmed (and currently unrivalled) assurance and authority... fresh, youthful inspiration still animates everything she does."

The Boston Globe

Ida Haendel 2005 Interview

Real or Fake? The Story of Giuseppe Gaccetta

2011-05-16T13:30:00.001-04:00

Are these two sets of recordings of the famous masterpieces made by the same violinist? You decide!

As part of the ‘Real or Fake?’ theme in Strad’s December issue they told the bizarre story of Giuseppe Gaccetta. The carpenter from Genoa claimed to be the inheritor of the Paganini school of violin playing. However, several people have cast doubt on this claim and questioned whether his 1931 recordings of the Paganini Caprices are in fact the work of Cornelia Vasile, a talented player who recorded the pieces in 1969 but whose career subsequently declined.

Below are links to both sets of recordings by Gaccetta and Vasile. Are they one and the same? Listen for yourself and tell me what you think.

Paganini’s Caprice no.5 - Giuseppe Gaccetta
Paganini’s Caprice no.5 - Cornelia Vasile

Paganini’s Caprice no.7 - Giuseppe Gaccetta
Paganini’s Caprice no.7 - Cornelia Vasile

Paganini’s Caprice no.11 - Giuseppe Gaccetta
Paganini’s Caprice no.11 - Cornelia Vasile

Paganini’s Caprice no.13 - Giuseppe Gaccetta
Paganini’s Caprice no.13 - Cornelia Vasile

Paganini’s Caprice no.15 - Giuseppe Gaccetta
Paganini’s Caprice no.15 - Cornelia Vasile

Paganini’s Caprice no.19 - Giuseppe Gaccetta
Paganini’s Caprice no.19 - Cornelia Vasile

Paganini’s Caprice no.22 - Giuseppe Gaccetta
Paganini’s Caprice no.22 - Cornelia Vasile

Paganini’s Caprice no.23 - Giuseppe Gaccetta
Paganini’s Caprice no.23 - Cornelia Vasile

Paganini’s Caprice no.24 - Giuseppe Gaccetta
Paganini’s Caprice no.24 - Cornelia Vasile

Londoner breaks violin speed record

2011-05-16T13:25:00.000-04:00

Oliver Lewis plays fastest ever Flight of the Bumblebee on live TV

A violinist from London has broken the record for the fastest performance of Rimsky-Korsakov's Flight of the Bumblebee. Oliver Lewis played the piece live on BBC children's show Blue Peter in a time of 1 minute 3.35 seconds, knocking nearly a second off the previous record. A Guinness World Records official was in the studio to witness the performance.

Dog called Angel finds missing bows

2011-05-16T13:20:00.001-04:00

Greyhound sniffs out stolen bows worth £110,000

A case of antique violin bows that was stolen from bow maker Peter Oxley has been found. A greyhound called Angel discovered the collection of French and English bows while being taken for a walk in a park in Ipswich. The eleven bows, including examples by Charles Peccatte and Etienne Pajeot, and a very rare 1870 Pierre Simon, were stolen from a London-to-Norwich train on 4 October.

http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/8464937.Top_dog_Angel_finds_Oxford_man_s_stolen_bows/

Some music quotations 2011/05

2011-05-16T13:15:00.000-04:00

"Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life."
Ludwig van Beethoven

"Music is the shorthand of emotion."
Leo Tolstoy

"Music produces a kind of pleasure which human nature cannot do without."
Confucius

"Music, once admitted to the soul, becomes a sort of spirit, and never dies."
Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

Some funny stories 2011/05

2011-05-16T13:10:00.002-04:00

• A man (call him Horace) went on a safari in darkest Africa with a bunch of other people and some native guides. They traveled on foot, going deep into the jungle where they could hear the screeching of birds and howling of wild cats and other fierce wild animals. After a few days of travel, Horace came to notice that there was a constant drumming noise in the background. He asked the leader of the guides what the drumming was. He got no answer, just a stony silence. The drumming continued all day and all night for the next several days. In fact, as they traveled deeper into the jungle the drumming got even louder. Horace tried again to find out what the drumming meant by asking the other native guides, but he still got no answer. Finally one morning, after days of marching to this drumming (which by now was sounding quite ominous), the drums suddenly stopped. The native guides screamed and ran into the jungle to hide in the undergrowth. The leader remained behind with his charges, but he was trembling with fear. Horace asked ”What is wrong? Why have the drums stopped?” The native guide replied “Very bad.” “What?” asked Horace, who was expecting the worst. The guide answered “When drum stops, very bad -- next comes viola solo!”

• FOR SALE Viola: German, 19th century, 405mm. Excellent condition. Recently tuned.

• If you're lost in the desert, what do you aim for? A good viola player, a bad viola player or an oasis? The bad viola player. The other two are only figments of your imagination.

• What do a viola and a lawsuit have in common? Everyone is happy when the case is closed.

...and not so funny:

Skydiving violinist's sound of silence
Australian musician's parachute stunt goes quiet when bow breaks

Sydney concert violinist Kym Staton hoped to achieve an Australian first by playing Vivaldi's Winter Concerto as he parachuted into Stuart Park yesterday.

He prepared for the feat by modifying his spare violin, gluing on the shoulder rest and putting on strong strings.

However, the forces of nature were stronger and Mr Staton's bow broke before he could play a note.

His jump was designed to promote a concert at the Opera House on Sunday.

Some funny videos: Being John Sebastian Bach (with John Malkovich)

2011-05-16T13:05:00.000-04:00

http://youtu.be/9A95yzVgBTs

Featured Artist - Ida Haendel

2011-05-16T13:00:00.001-04:00

Ida Haendel, CBE (reportedly born 15 December 1928) is a British violinist of Polish birth.

Ida Haendel was born in Chełm, a small city in Eastern Poland. She took up the violin at the age of three and as a seven-year-old was admitted at the Warsaw Conservatory. She later studied with Carl Flesch and George Enescu in Paris. During World War II she played in factories and for British and American troops. Her career developed after the end of World War II. Her autobiography, Woman with Violin, was published in 1970. She was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1991. Haendel has lived primarily in Miami, Florida for many years and is actively involved with the Miami International Piano Festival.

She has the reputation of being as accomplished and brilliant a violinist as Yehudi Menuhin and Isaac Stern; but has said that had she been more photogenic, she would have been as famous.

Ida Haendel's recording of the Sibelius Concerto, with Paavo Berglund and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, is a highly acclaimed interpretation of that work.

Ida Haendel has said that she has always had a passion for German music. In 1948-49 she recorded Beethoven's Violin Concerto, with Rafael Kubelik conducting the Philarmonia Orchestra. In 1993 she had her concert début with the Berlin Philharmonic. Germany's female star virtuoso Anne-Sophie Mutter craves her opinions and Maxim Vengerov regards her with awe.

Other acclaimed recordings are her renditions of Brahms' Violin Concerto (including one with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sergiu Celibidache) and Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto with the National Symphony Orchestra conducted Basil Cameron.

In June 2009 Haendel appeared on a Channel 4 television programme entitled The World's Greatest Musical Prodigies in which she advises 16 year old British composer Alexander Prior on which children to choose to play his composition.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_Haendel

The Grande Dame of the Violin

“The distinctive quality she brings to her performance is soul. Just listen to the intensity, the passion, the eloquent phrasing and the rich, brooding tone, and you will experience an emotional frisson of devastating proportions.” So wrote Geoffrey Norris in London’s Daily Telegraph, distilling in just two sentences, the essence of the art of Ida Haendel. Though written recently, it is typical of the extraordinary effect Haendel’s performances has had upon generations of concert goers.

Ida Haendel was a child prodigy, but unlike many prodigies, she didn’t burn out. Quite the contrary, her flame grew ever stronger as the child matured into a fully-formed artist while still in her teens. Competition wins opened the doors to study with such esteemed pedagogues as Carl Flesch and Georges Enescu. With her incandescent performances of Enescu’s challenging Sonata for Violin and Piano, Ms. Haendel has paid tribute to a teacher she has described as “spellbinding---one of the world’s great geniuses.”

Ida Haendel has performed with most of the world’s renowned orchestras under numerous star conductors on several continents. Her major label recordings have earned critical accolades –particularly her unsurpassed performance of the Sibelius Violin Concerto which elicited a fan letter from its composer.

From the moment the three-year-old picked up her father’s violin and played note-perfectly a song her mother had been singing in another room, Ida Haendel has never stopped performing. She supplants performances with master classes which are filled with wisdom and inspiration. Her protestations that she doesn’t really want “to tell anybody how to play” should not be taken seriously. Results prove otherwise.

Ida Haendel has been traversing concert stages for more than 70 years and has no intention of slowing down. A new DVD of her performance opening the 2009 Miami International Piano Festival with the collaboration of Serbian pianist Misha Dacic is slated for release by VAI this fall. It amply demonstrates that Ida Haendel has lost none of her ability to connect with listeners in a very special way.

Mrs. Handel lives in Miami, Florida and is represented by Patrons of Exceptional Artists.

Miami International Piano Festival
http://www.miamipianofest.com/artists/haendel.html

Recommended listening 2011/05

2011-05-16T11:50:00.000-04:00

Ida Haendel - Ilya Itin Poem Op.25 E. Chausson

Ida Haendel, Pablo De Sarasate Gypsy Airs Zigeunerweisen Israel 2006

http://youtu.be/uGXArQJA3Po

… and of course Heifetz!

Wieniawski : Scherzo Tarantella

http://youtu.be/ju9ODQ2suKo

JLNotes 2010/12 - 2011/01

2011-01-30T15:34:00.000-05:00

Volume 3 December-January 2010/2011

First of all, I would like to wish everyone a very Happy Holiday Season and a happy and healthy New Year filled with much joy and success!

On a sad note, there was an unexpected emergency travel to Australia (my wife's father passed away), and we also had to miss the wonderful concert given by David Lakirovich with the Scarborough Philharmonic Orchestra. By all accounts, it went extremely well!

On a happy note, by now, most of you have met the newest addition to the Lakirovich family! Moti, our miniature poodle, has enriched our lives with happiness and great joy! He is the sweetest puppy that greets all our students with great enthusiasm and delight!

So far, he does not show any special gifts for violin, but I am working on it! ;-)
He very much loves the sound of voice and I’m seriously considering organizing some voice lessons for him! ;-)

The school year is well on the way and there are already many successes that have been recorded by your fellow peers. All the students that performed in the Richmond Hill Music Festival performed extremely well and many have received the top awards and prizes. Congratulations!
I hope everyone that will perform in the forthcoming competitions will gain a huge experience and will enjoy their participation. As well, every student will be performing at our Annual Student Recital that will be held on Sunday, February 6, 2011 on the premises of A.C.E. Daycare Inc. Thornhill at 941 Rutherford Road, Thornhill L6A 1S2 (1 block west of Bathurst St. on the south side). As usual, the concert will consist of three parts, as there are some students of Ms. Rozana Koren who will also participate. The first concert will at 3:00 pm, the second at 4:30 pm and the third at 6:30 pm. Of course the parents and students are most welcome and actually encouraged to come and listen to all three parts as it is extremely important for everyone to listen and to learn from each other. So, where possible, try to stay! The rehearsals with piano will commence in January, and I am extremely grateful to our accompanists: Ms. Rozana Koren and Ms. Irisa Purens who agreed to participate in this event.

In this issue of JLNotes, you will find some interesting articles, especially the one about how to take care of your instrument. You will also find a recommended listening of various violin repertoires with links to YouTube. As well as vital information regarding violin competitions and festivals, RCM examinations dates and deadlines and some information about upcoming concerts in Toronto. Also in this edition, you will read about the great Russian violinist and conductor Vladimir Spivakov and of course much more!

So enjoy reading and hopefully the next installment of JLNotes will appear this time next month. I certainly would encourage and invite any comments and suggestions that you may have.

News from JVL Summer School for Performing Arts

2011-01-29T15:45:00.001-05:00

The registration for the 10th anniversary 2011 season of JVL “Music In Summer” is well under way! The deadline for applications is February 14, 2011. So far, we have received a great number of applications and inquiries and I hope that this 2011 season will indeed be a very special one. Just a reminder, for those of you that are considering to apply for a scholarship, please do so ASAP as the scholarship fund operates on a first come first serve basis.

For full details regarding the 2011 season, please visit our website. www.MusicInSummer.com

I hope that you also will enjoy watching students and faculty performances, and if you do, please direct your relatives and friends through Facebook, Twitter or email to our website.

Don't Try This at Home

2011-01-28T15:55:00.001-05:00

Turpentine, garlic and warm beer were all ingredients in instrument cleaners of the past. Are modern cleaners any better? Padraig ó Dubhlaoidh examines a far from spotless history
My dictionary defines ‘accessory’ in two ways: firstly, as ‘an additional or extra thing – contributing or aiding in a minor way – dispensable’ and secondly, as one who ‘incites or assists another to commit a crime’. This is perhaps a useful starting point for an examination of instrument cleaners. Are they just dispensable extras, contributing in a small way to our instrument’s upkeep, or are they more insidiously our partners in the crime of damaging our precious instruments?
The patent instrument cleaner is certainly not just a thing of the past, and although their labels may suggest that Ye Olde Instrumente Cleanser comes from an ancient traditional recipe, the vigorous market for these products could not have been sustained at any other time than the present era, with its obsession with cleanliness and hygiene, despite the fact that modern forms of pollution tend not to be the larger particulates of soot, grease, mud and crumbling buildings of the past. The modern equivalents are more dangerous but less tangible materials, such as diesel particulates, agrochemical pollution, ozone-depleting gases, microwaves and other electromagnetic radiation, as well as microscopic biological contaminants. Dust, of course, hasn’t changed. Earlier societies, of necessity, placed less emphasis on cleanliness. There would have been plenty of dirt about, mainly large particulates, and without efficient means of dust collection, there would have been quite a layer on undisturbed surfaces, although this was much less noticeable by candlelight.
In Restoration of Musical Instruments, Charles Beare gave an insight into historic standards of violin hygiene by comparing the current appearance of certain violins with their illustrations in a catalogue of 1872: ‘The surfaces of the instruments look dull when compared to the customary shine of modern times, and it was normal to find a build-up of dirt and rosin in a dark mass between the bridge and the fingerboard.’
You might wonder whether or not the customers of Stradivari carried small vials of instrument cleaner in their cases. Luckily, we have some clues to this question. Beginning in the second decade of the 18th century, a vast number of manuscripts and recipe books on varnish making and related matters were published, not for professionals, but for amateurs to read as a pastime. One such book was published in Cremona in 1747 and is preserved in the Trivulziana Library in Milan as Varnishes and Very Curious Secrets. In this book, which is inclusive enough to include a recipe to ‘soften horns to be put into a mould’, I feel sure that an instrument cleaner would have been included, had such existed. The nearest are a number of recipes for cleaning paintings:
‘To clean paintings. Take ash, clear water or urine or white wine and apply to the paintings. Or whisk albumen in urine and rub over the paintings. They will look like new due to the brightness of the albumen.’
Another example recommends using different materials when cleaning:
‘Secret for cleaning paintings. First of all, wash your paintings with spring water using a fine sponge. Once dry, take fat which must not be salty, i.e. pork fat, and grease them, rubbing well to make fat penetrate. Protect from dust.’
It is doubtful that the violin cases of the Medicis carried small bottles of urine or pork fat, but such ingredients were not unusual in the early history of the care of paintings, which is the nearest discipline with recorded data on cleaning. Early cleaning methods seemed to consist of trying the nearest material at hand, often bodily fluids. Other materials included wine, ammoniated solutions, solutions of potash or lye, sliced potatoes, onions and garlic. Primitive solvents included blood, bile fluids, saliva, warm milk, hot turpentine and warm beer. Physical methods included stroking the dirt off with a foxtail, using carpenter’s glue as one would use leg wax, and scouring with sand or ashes. One method of Pythonesque eccentricity involved exposing the artwork to be cleaned to the moon, ‘whose rays revive the colours no less than the Sun’.
It would be safe to assume then that 18th-century musicians did not carry instrument cleaners in their cases. However, in the late 19th and 20th centuries, industrial chemical research provided a more scientific basis for dealing with cleaning problems, and the petrochemical industry increased our arsenal of solvents. This was an era when lethally radioactive materials were unwittingly used for public entertainment, while at the same time a theory of conservation was beginning to form based on the -scientific understanding of the nature of materials and the forces of decay.
A popular book of this period, also with secrets in the title, was Henley’s Twentieth-century Formulas, Processes and Trade Secrets. This book’s recipes for cleaning varnished surfaces range from the imminently lethal to the insidiously harmful. One recipe consists of linseed oil boiled with additions of lead acetate, litharge and minium. Lead acetate is now known to be carcinogenic and to cause mutation, while litharge is lead monoxide, a skin irritant and a possible carcinogen. Mutation data has been reported for litharge, and incredibly it may ignite spontaneously when mixed with linseed oil. Minium is red lead oxide, another toxic substance that is an oxidising agent. It can ignite, combust and explode on contact with various materials. It is also used to decrease the explosion temperature of TNT. The purpose of these dangerous additives is to turn linseed oil into a ‘drying oil’, that is, to speed up its rate of polymerisation, the end result of which is linoxyn, the basis of linoleum. Many violin cleaners and polishes from this period on contain similar products that over time cause a physical build-up on the violin, often trapping dirt within and beneath it and strongly resisting removal.
This brings us to the present day, in which a great deal of effort goes into protecting ourselves from unseen and unidentified germs and pollution by using chemicals about which we often know nothing. We are still dealing with secrets, yet we are more reassured by brand names than we are disturbed by the lack of information on the ingredients that they use. Given that effective cleaning is dependent on a number of factors such as the differential solubility of the dirt and the varnish, the nature and age of the dirt, the nature and condition of the surface, the skill of the cleaner, the materials used for cleaning and the suitability of the environment, it would seem remarkable that cleaner manufacturers have discovered not one but many formulations that take all these factors into account in order to provide effective cleaning with no risk of damage to any of these surfaces. In truth, they could not possibly have done so.
Based on average data, manufacturers have combined a number of solvents for various types of dirt with one or more oils in order to restrain the action of the solvents and to leave behind a sheen of oil imparting a synthetic gloss, even to varnishes on which such a gloss is inappropriate. If this oil is non-drying, then it will attract dust, becoming mat and requiring further coats, which can migrate beneath varnishes with crazed surfaces, and enter open cracks, rendering them unglueable. If the oil is a drying or polymerising oil, then it eventually forms a skin over the instrument. Few of these cleaners have a use-by date, so that inevitably the solvents evaporate, leaving the oils to be dispensed and smeared over our instruments, to trap dust or to solidify, according to their nature. Many of these modern cleaners are quite harmless because they are ineffective. For this we must be grateful, for if they worked they would be truly dangerous.
So, what are we to do if we wish to keep our instruments looking good? A heavily soiled instrument still requires professional examination and attention, but once clean the best cleaning accessory to include in your case is a microfibre cloth. Once the expensive tool of professional conservators, they are now widely and cheaply available. This is a man-made material spun from a combination of polyester and polyamide, shrunk and processed to 1/100th the diameter of a human hair. Being spun, the fibres have a slight electrostatic charge that attracts dust, which then becomes held in the wedge-like fibres which are highly absorbent and can hold up to eight times their own weight in dirt and liquid. Because these cloths are so effective, no additional chemicals are required. Soaking the cloth in boiling water releases the dirt, making them reusable for hundreds of washings.
Despite such advances, some still cling to more primitive methods. Recently, in an internet chatroom, someone recommended their grandparents’ home-made instrument cleaner: Vaseline and toothpaste. Please don’t try this at home.
The Strad

Rules of attraction

2011-01-27T15:58:00.002-05:00

Buying a new instrument is as much about rigorous auditioning as it is about falling in love. Violin maker Guy Rabut recommends a step-by-step approach to finding the ultimate partner.
The search for your ideal instrument can be an exciting and rewarding journey. It’s a process that takes time and patience, and one in which you will have to learn to identify your needs as a musician and also fine-tune your perceptive abilities. The match must work both ways so that you are right for the instrument and the instrument is right for you. If you follow the right steps and stay connected to the process, however, the right instrument will almost select you.
Often, the focus of a search is simply to find a fabulous instrument, when instead it should be a quest to discover the instrument with which you can make a wonderful sound. Although each instrument has distinctive characteristics, the voice that we celebrate in the concert hall is primarily that of the player rather than that of the instrument. It has been demonstrated many times that two different players with the same violin and bow will sound as if they are playing two different instruments.
It is best to establish a systematic approach when you are auditioning instruments for consideration. Start by listening to as many great players as you can in order to develop your taste for what constitutes a great sound. Recordings are helpful but are no substitute for a live performance. Begin to identify the characteristics that you find attractive and that speak to you as a musician. As you listen to your own playing, start to formulate the qualities that you require in order to create your individual voice. A mental checklist containing as many observations as possible will be a great tool in your search.
Most players are extremely familiar with one or two instruments that they have owned or borrowed. At first, all new instruments are compared to those. In order to expand your listening experience, it is important to try several different types of instrument so that you understand better the range of tonal possibilities. It is much easier to eliminate instruments you don’t like first, rather than trying to find your favourite immediately. Use this approach and you will quickly reduce the number of choices, making it easier to concentrate on the final decision.
Some players find it helpful to take notes about each instrument as they try it. These notes usually include some information about the maker, age, price and condition, as well as any relevant impressions regarding the sound. After a long day of shop visits, it can be very helpful to have some reflections to help sort out which instruments stood out and should be revisited. I have occasionally had players make a recording of each instrument in an effort to compare the sound. However, the limitations of the equipment available and the fact that each instrument is recorded in a different environment will tend to confuse rather than clarify your decision. Sharpen your listening skills and your powers of perception and you will have all the tools you need to make the right choice.
Two questions should be at the front of your mind as you proceed on your journey: ‘Is it good?’ and ‘Do I like it?’ The first question is of a more mechanical nature. It concerns the structural soundness and construction of the instrument. An instrument with unrepaired cracks, serious worm damage and a falling neck will only lead to problems in the future. Instruments that are too thick or too thin, have non-standard set-up measurements, or are made from sub-standard materials should be avoided. The last part of ‘Is it good?’ concerns instruments by non-living makers. This is the question of pedigree.
If you are paying a market price for an instrument by a particular maker, it is imperative that the instrument has a certificate from an expert who is universally respected by the market. To ignore this point is to invite trouble further down the road if the pedigree is questioned when you attempt to sell the instrument.
As you are trying various instruments, you may want to enlist the services of a second dealer or maker to verify the condition and value of an instrument that you intend to buy. Unless you are a close friend of the expert, expect to pay for the evaluation. Many shops or makers will not give a second opinion, as they would rather have your business than encourage you to shop somewhere else. There are also legal liabilities that arise when giving statements of value and authenticity about instruments. The possible legal ramifications that could occur in most cases outweigh the benefit of any compensation.
My advice is to work with a maker or shop that you trust. Remember that the process of finding the right instrument shouldn’t be antagonistic, but rather a collaborative effort to find the instrument that suits you the best. Word of mouth is a very powerful force and when you choose to shop with good establishments it helps to elevate standards throughout the market.
The second question, ‘Do I like it?’, should always be considered after you have determined that an instrument is good. You don’t want to fall in love with something only to regret it later. If the instrument doesn’t pass the first test, it doesn’t matter how much you like the sound: don’t buy it! After you have played a number of instruments you will become more attuned to the process of determining which one is right for you. In the best circumstances, one or more instruments will begin to seduce you and you will not be able to stop playing them. Don’t force the attraction. Let it happen. If you are not getting a clear message to continue playing, move on to the next instrument. Make every effort to avoid being attracted for the wrong reason. Some common mistakes include an attraction to the famous name of the maker; your friend, teacher or a famous player you admire playing an instrument by the same maker; or a romantic story being associated with a particular instrument. Let the romance enhance, not cloud your vision. You will be creating your own incredible story with your instrument, no less romantic than Napoleon’s spur marks in the side of the ‘Duport’ Stradivari cello or a violin that lay hidden in a castle for a hundred years.
You may find that after several weeks of looking, you become confused or frustrated. Take a break and resume your search at a later date. Different instruments may become available in the meantime and you will return with renewed energy and fresh ears. It is a good idea to bring a musical friend or colleague along to help when you are trying instruments. It doesn’t even have to be another string player; a singer or a wind player can provide very insightful comments and be tremendously helpful.
Musicians are often uncomfortable discussing the financial aspects of shopping for an instrument. If you are in a shop, give the salesperson an accurate idea of your price range so that you won’t waste your time or the shop’s by looking at instruments you can’t afford. When looking at older instruments, if you feel that the price is higher than the market value, it is fair to inquire if the price is set in stone. Often the instrument is on consignment with the shop from a private owner and this can determine how the price was set. If you are looking to trade in your current instrument against a new one it is also appropriate to discuss the value of the trade-in. The guidelines when shopping with a maker are slightly different. Most makers have a fixed price, which establishes the value of their instruments. It is best to respect that price and move on if the instruments are out of your range.
Once you have identified one or two instruments that are particularly interesting, take them home to audition for a week. Show your teacher or colleagues and try to get into as many different playing situations as possible to find out how the instruments perform. Play in a trio or quartet, and with a piano and orchestra if you have those opportunities. Each of these situations will reveal different strengths and weaknesses of the instruments and will help you to narrow down your selection. In my own experience, I find that by the end of the first week you will know if you don’t like the instrument. If you find that you are attracted strongly at the end of the first week, use a second week to arrive at a final decision. More time is rarely helpful and more often than not it is counterproductive. If you are still unsure at the end of the second week, it is better to return the instrument and keep looking.
Love at first sight can happen, but I recommend a blend of reason and feelings to guide you in the instrument selection process. Allow these forces to work together in order to achieve your goal. Only once in 30 years have I actually had to ask a player to slow down and take a bit more time before he made his final decision to buy. He arrived at the shop on a Friday and selected an instrument that he said he wanted to buy. I suggested that he take it home and call me after trying it for a week. The following Tuesday he called and asked, ‘Now can I buy the instrument?’ I agreed: in this case it was love at first sight.
The physical comfort of any instrument is also very important. In the case of violins and violas, the instrument must be a comfortable size and the neck must be properly shaped. You will be holding your instrument for several hours a day as you play and any discomfort will be magnified over time, possibly leading to injury. With cellos, try to determine if you feel at ease reaching around the instrument to play, and if you can shift comfortably from fourth position to thumb position.
Testing the sound of an instrument should be a thoughtful process guided by intuition. Put the bow on the string and begin playing over the whole range of the instrument. If you find the voice pleasing and the instrument generally responsive, move on to more specific questions. Avoid becoming preoccupied with particular notes or small details too soon. If you don’t find the voice attractive or if the instrument is hard to play, put it aside and move on to the next one. Sometimes a simple adjustment can ease a playability problem if you find the voice pleasing. Test the instrument as you would in an adjustment session. See if the voice is open from the lowest register to the top of the first string. Make sure that the sound has a good balance between the focus or core and the harmonic richness around the sound. Avoid empty, hollow-sounding instruments as well as nasal, edgy-sounding ones with no flexibility. The ideal is to look for a combination of desirable characteristics in balance. As you test the sound further, use selections from the repertoire that reveal different qualities of the instrument to help you make your decision. In a chamber setting, the ideal instrument is one that is complementary to the group, not one that blends. The best chamber musicians perform together as one while still retaining their discrete and identifiable voices. To this end, violas and cellos in particular should have a clear and powerful quality to ensure that their lower and mellower voices are not lost in the sonic soup. In a string quartet, the high, pure sonority of the violins allows them to be heard clearly but it is still important to maintain the individual identities of the first and second violins.
I hope that this short tour through the process of finding your ideal instrument will give you the confidence to make this exciting journey. If you follow the steps and listen to your heart along with a healthy dose of reason and common sense, you will make a choice that will bring you tangible rewards each time you pick up your instrument and play.
The Strad

News from Examinations and Competitions

2011-01-26T16:04:00.000-05:00

Here are some dates and deadlines for RCM examinations and local competitions:

RCM Examinations

Spring Session Registration Deadline: March 1, 2011
Theory Examinations: May 13 and 14, 2011
Practical Examinations: June 6-25, 2011
http://www.rcmexaminations.org/

North York Music Festival
Festival dates: April 26-May 2, 2011
Entries close February 18, 2011
http://www.northyorkmusicfestival.com/

Yip’s Music Fesival
Festival dates: April 9-May 1, 2011
Entries close: February 22, 2011
http://ymf.yips.com/

Newmarket Lions Music and Dance Festival
Dates and deadlines T.B.C.
Karen Barker, Administrator,
Phone: 905 252-3203, Email: karen@zonas.ca

Interview : Vladimir Spivakov

2011-01-25T16:07:00.000-05:00

A quest for harmony

World-renowned violinist and patron Vladimir Spivakov focuses his talent on the most vulnerable segment of society – children.

The only way to preserve humanity is through
culture," said Vladimir Spivakov, shown here in his Moscow office.
Vladimir Spivakov, impeccably dressed, relaxed without being nonchalant, has finally found a comfortable position on the leather couch. His office in the Moscow International Performance Arts Center, where he is musical director, clearly reflects the maestro: sober, elegant, sophisticated and filled with unassuming yet daring works of art. The day before, the conductor led a final concert of the season with the Youth Symphony Orchestra, which is made up of talented young musicians from every country in the former Soviet Union. The orchestra spent a year playing the capitals of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), from Moscow to Baku, as well as New York and Paris. “There were no translators on stage,” the conductor explains. “We all spoke the same language, that of music.”
At the age of 66, Spivakov is one of the most renowned violinists and conductors of our day. This month, he is again touring the United States, from Bethesda to San Francisco and on to New York's Lincoln Center with his Moscow Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra, a group of Russia's top-ranking soloists, and one of the most sought-after orchestras in the world. "What this violinist has achieved with this group is remarkable," wrote The New York Times.
In his deep, booming voice, he talks about the the joys of his most recent tour, and of seeing Azeri and Armenian children eating and dancing together: “This is an essential unification project. The mood isn’t always conducive to dialogue, but by bringing together Kazakh, Turkmen, Tajik, Ukrainian and Georgian children, we remind ourselves that the time has come to build together. The success of our endeavour proves that culture can’t be split up,” said Spivakov, who has worked as a UNESCO Artist for Peace since 2006.
Since 1994, the Vladimir Spivakov International Charity Foundation has been helping children with bursaries, instruments, medical care, shows and concerts.
Over 10,000 children have received support, transportation, encouragement and have simply been treated with kindness. “This is my life’s greatest work,” Spivakov explained without false modesty. This generosity, often praised by those who know him the world over, also comes through in how he defines his profession. “An orchestra is the unity of the masses,” he said, quoting the poet Marina Tsvetaeva, “but it’s especially the capacity of each and everyone to support each other and to cover the faults of the next person.”
Spivakov is a social philanthropist, but he is also a virtuoso known for being solitary. “Solitude is essential for the musician, and music is protection against public life,” he noted. Yet he is equally as passionate about his work as a conductor and spares no effort when it comes to organizing first-rate festivals. He finds it especially hard to resist the artistic genius of his friends and invitations to collaborate.
The International Performance Arts Center’s new season was recently launched with a sneak preview screening of the animated musical production The Ugly Duckling.
“When [director] Garri Bardin came to see me with his project, I saw an exceptional artist who was passionate about his work even before it was conceived he already knew every last detail,“ Spivakov said. “I also saw a big kid.” Spivakov immediately accepted to help with the production’s soundtrack by leading the National Philharmonic Orchestra in an arrangement of "Swan Lake" and Tchaikovsky’s "The Nutcracker."
“It’s a Chaplinesque film, but in a Russian setting, a fairy tale that criticizes intolerance of others while celebrating inner beauty,” he said of the movie, an adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s tale combined with George Orwell’s "Animal Farm." Invited by Bardin to play the role of the hateful rooster, it is obvious that Spivakov enjoyed the journey back to his own childhood.
Spivakov, 66, has no end of projects on the go. He recited an endless list of dates worldwide and said he is delighted with the intensity of his life and would not change it for anything. The year ahead will be marked by the American tour, but also by familiar events such as the “Vladimir Spivakov Invites…” Musical Festival in Moscow or the Colmar Festival that the maestro has directed every summer since 1989. That does not include the concerts in Moscow . Are there enough hours in the day? “I sleep little and I always work on the plane. My best ideas come to me in the air,” Spivakov said.

Veronica Dorman

Concert Calendar

2011-01-24T16:11:00.000-05:00

Here are the details of some Toronto concert organizations’ websites:

Toronto Symphony Orchestra
http://tso.ca/

Canadian Opera Company
http://www.coc.ca/performancesandtickets.asp

National Ballet of Canada
http://www.ballet.ca/performances/season1011/

Roy Thomson Hall
http://www.roythomson.com/

Royal Conservatory Concerts
http://performance.rcmusic.ca/viewallconcerts?date=all+months&filter=all+performance+categories&page=1

Tafel Music Baroque Orchestra
http://www.tafelmusik.org/concerts/

Some music quotations

2011-01-23T16:14:00.000-05:00

Life can't be all bad when for ten dollars you can buy all the Beethoven sonatas and listen to them for ten years
- William F. Buckley, Jr.

Music cleanses the understanding; inspires it, and lifts it into a realm which it would not reach if it were left to itself.
- Henry Ward Beecher

Play the music, not the instrument.
- Author Unknown

When words leave off, music begins.
- Heinrich Heine

Music is the shorthand of emotion.
- Leo Tolstoy

There is no truer truth obtainable By Man than comes of music.
- Robert Browning

The world must be filled with unsuccessful musical careers like mine, and it's probably a good thing. We don't need a lot of bad musicians filling the air with unnecessary sounds. Some of the professionals are bad enough.
- Andy Rooney

Some funny stories

2011-01-22T16:21:00.000-05:00

A musician from the Chicago Symphony one day ran across an old lamp at a garage sale, took it home, washed it up, and out popped at genie.

"Thank you kind sir for releasing me from this old lamp. I regret to say that you have encountered a poor, less powerful genie, and I can only grant you one wish, but wish away." said the genie.

"Oh that's wonderful. I think I would really like to make a difference in the world with my one wish." said the musician. He thought for a moment and then reached for his atlas. "Here's a map of the Middle East. The people who live there have been fighting for years and years. For my one wish, I would like to bring peace to this land."

The genie, a little caught off guard, said "Oh, well, ah... that's a little bit too much for even this old master to handle. Aah, ya see, these people... they're involved in that touchy religious stuff, and aah, the kids, aah, they begin fighting when they're just teenagers. I'm afraid you're going to have to make another wish."

"Well, okay." said the musician. "For my one wish, I would just once like to hear the Chicago Symphony viola section play in tune."

The genie quickly thought for a moment and replied, "Um, let me take a look at those maps again."

***

A group of terrorists hijacked a plane full of violists. They called down to ground control with their list of demands and added that if their demands weren't met, they would release one violist every hour.

***

One day Timmy came home from school very excited. "Mommy, Mommy, Guess what? Today in English I got all the way to the end of the alphabet, and everyone else got messed up around 'P'!"

His mother said, "Very good, dear. That's because you're a violist."

The next day, Timmy was even more excited. "Mommy, Mommy, guess what! Today in math I counted all the way to ten, but everyone else got messed up around seven!"

"Very good, dear," his mother replied. "That's because you're a violist."

On the third day, Timmy was beside himself. "Mommy, Mommy, today we measured ourselves and I'm the tallest one in my class! Is that because I'm a violist?"

"No dear," she said. "That's because you're 26 years old."

…and not so funny

2011-01-21T16:23:00.000-05:00

Yo-Yo's lost cello and other tales of the unexpected

There's a wonderful thrill of anticipation about going to experience a live performance. You know the players will have that heightened state of awareness, and will be absolutely in the here and now. There's also the potential for the unexpected. Few, though, could have guessed what was going to happen one December night eight years ago, when the Philadelphia Orchestra went on stage for the first time in its new venue.
The Verizon Hall, part of the Kimmel Centre for the Performing Arts in the sixth-biggest city in the US, is a masterpiece conceived by a celebrated architect Rafael Viñoly. It takes its lines from the shape of a cello.
On Saturday, December 15, 2001, it was just about ready for the arrival of its principal tenants, the orchestra, which had recently celebrated its centenary.
The programme began with a specially commissioned work, then moved on to Beethoven's Triple Concerto. This is an unusual piece, not much performed, with lead parts for violin, cello and piano. It's almost like a chamber-music ensemble, performing with a full orchestra.
Their line-up of soloists was top class. Itzhak Perlman was the violinist; Emanuel Ax was the pianist; and the cellist was Yo-Yo Ma.
The Triple Concerto begins with an allegro, nothing too dramatic, march tempo, then a slow movement that leads seamlessly into the lively, concluding polonaise.
Yo-Yo Ma, on a little raised dais, was well into the tempo of the finale -- swaying back and forth -- when his chair slipped, and tipped him backwards in a heap among the musicians in the front row of the orchestra. But you know that old saying ... the show must go on. Ma leapt straight back up, and resumed the cello part -- standing -- without missing a beat.
From among the first violins, the deputy leader of the orchestra -- a lady by the name of Nancy Bean-- then grabbed the chair and put it back in its place.
Yo-Yo Ma retook his seat, and carried on as if nothing had happened.
A couple of years previously, Ma very nearly lost the priceless instrument that he refers to as his voice. In New York for a series of concerts, he'd booked a cab for the ride from Central Park to his hotel and had put his cello -- crafted in Venice in 1733 -- into the boot.
Distracted by his schedule, he paid off the cabbie, and headed for the lobby, when he realised he'd left his luggage behind.
His $2.5m cello was headed who knew where in Manhattan.
He told the front desk. They told the cops. Four hours later, the valuable instrument was located in a taxi garage in Queens.
It could have been a very expensive mistake. But the taxi was easily traced. For Yo-Yo Ma had followed the experienced traveler's first principle -- always ask for a receipt!

Irish Independent

Some funny videos

2011-01-20T16:26:00.000-05:00

Igudesman & Joo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jiu0RNizU8

Igudesman & Joo Piano Lesson

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOQaK7NHY-4

These months’ birthdays

2011-01-19T16:30:00.000-05:00

December

Ali (9)
Jolin (15)
Lea (13)
Leo ( 15)

January

Eva (16)
Timothy (12)

Happy birthday to all of you!

Have lots of fun with Music!

Featured Artist - Vladimir Teodorovich Spivakov

2011-01-18T16:32:00.000-05:00

Vladimir Teodorovich Spivakov is considered one of the foremost violinists of his generation was born on September 12, 1944 in Ufa. At the age of 13, Spivakov was awarded the first prize at the major conductor contest in Moscow. He studied at the Moscow Conservatory under Yuri Yankelevich and debuted with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1979. The same year he established the Moscow Virtuosi chamber orchestra. In 1989 he emigrated to Spain. Spivakov was named the People's Artist of the USSR in 1991. Three years later, he established the Vladimir Spivakov International Charity Foundation to help Russian orphans. In 2000 he was awarded the Légion d'honneur for his work as an artistic director of the Colmar International Festival, for which he has worked since 1989. His wife Sati is a TV anchor. He has three girls, Tatiana, Katia and Anna.

Well known to orchestras and audiences alike as one of the leading violinists of our time, Vladimir Spivakov equally enjoys a multifaceted career as a respected conductor and committed humanitarian. He is artistic director and principal conductor of the National Philharmonic of Russia and has been the president of the Moscow Performing Arts Centre since 2003. From 1999 to 2002, Spivakov served as principal conductor of the Russian National Orchestra. As a chamber and symphony orchestra conductor, Vladimir Spivakov has appeared in the world’s most important concert venues and has conducted European and American orchestras, including the symphony orchestras of London, Chicago, Philadelphia, Cleveland and Budapest, the La Scala Symphony Orchestra, the orchestra of the Accademia “Santa Cecilia”, the Cologne Philharmonic Orchestra, the French Radio Orchestra as well as all the leading Russian orchestras.
Mr. Spivakov made his United States recital debut in 1975 and international engagements quickly followed. As a violinist, he has performed as soloist with the most important orchestras in the world, including those of Moscow, Leningrad, Berlin, Vienna, London, New York, Paris, Chicago, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Cleveland. He has collaborated with some of the 20th century’s most eminent conductors, including Svetlanov, Kondrashin, Temirkanov, Rostropovich, Bernstein, Leinsdorf, Ozawa, Maazel, Giulini, Masur, Chailly, Conlon and Abbado. Critics of the leading musical countries unanimously appreciate Spivakov’s deep insight into composers’ intentions, the richness, beauty and volume of his tone, his fine phrasing and nuance, his emotional impact on his audiences, and his refined artistry and intelligence.
In 1979 Vladimir Spivakov, together with some of his colleagues who shared his flair for chamber music, formed a new chamber orchestra named “Moscow Virtuosi”. He has been its artistic director, conductor and soloist ever since. Maestro Spivakov studied conducting with Professor Izrail Gusman in Russia. He furthered his skills with lessons from the great Leonard Bernstein, who presented him with his own baton as a sign of his belief in Mr. Spivakov’s conducting future. Vladimir Spivakov is never separated from this precious gift.
Mr. Spivakov founded the International Colmar Music Festival in France in 1989, and continues as its artistic director today. Many prominent musical groups have appeared at the festival during its existence, as well as great artists such as Mstislav Rostropovich, Yehudi Menuhin, Evgeny Svetlanov, Krzysztof Penderecki, Jose van Dam, Jessye Norman, Robert Hall, Thomas Quasthoff, Kristian Zimmermann, Michel Plasson, Evgeny Kissin, Vadim Repin, Nikolay Lugansky, Vladimir Kraynev and Sergey Leiferkus. Since 1989, Mr. Spivakov has served as a jury member at many well-known international competitions (such as those of Paris, Genoa, London, Montreal). He is also president of the Sarasate Violin Contest in Spain and in 2002 presided over the jury of the Tchaikovsky International Violin Competition in Moscow. Mr. Spivakov succeeded Nathan Milstein in leading the prestigious annual violin master classes in Zurich in 1994.
Charity work is a philosophy of life for Vladimir Spivakov, and for many years he has been involved in humanitarian and charitable activities. Together with the “Moscow Virtuosi” Chamber Orchestra, Maestro Spivakov performed in Armenia soon after the earthquake of 1988 and in Ukraine three days after Chernobyl. He has given hundreds of charity concerts throughout the territory of the former Soviet Union.

Recommended listening

2011-01-17T16:35:00.000-05:00

Vladimir Spivakov plays Bach Violin Concerto in a minor

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1Ig8HDxg1E

Vladimir Spivakov & Moscow Vistuosi

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAqSTXgjbA0

Mozart Symphonie Concertante - Spivakov / Bashmet - 1mvt

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IURznJe2Jm4

… and of course Heifetz!

Paganini Caprice no 13

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3jid-TIK3w

JLNotes 2010/09-10 : Concert Calendar

2010-10-23T17:15:00.000-04:00

The Scarborough Philharmonic and the Rotary club of North Scarborough present:

Russian Fireworks

Stravinsky’s romantic Firebird suite, dance music from Tchaikovsky’s operas and
Tchaikovsky’s virtuosic Violin Concerto featuring
SPO Young Artist David Lakirovich

Saturday, October 23 – 8:00 pm

Birchmount Park Collegiate Institute
3663 Danforth Avenue, Toronto

Tickets: $30 adults, $25 seniors, $10 youth

Please join the special fundraising reception with refreshments,
live music, door prizes, and a special guest speaker at 6:15 pm (reception tickets are extra).

For more information please visit www.spo.ca

For tickets please call 416-429-0007

JLNotes 2010/09-10

2010-10-10T18:53:00.000-04:00

Welcome back to a brand new school year! For many of you, this year will be the last year of your high school career. And next year will be the start of a new chapter of your “adult-lives”. Many of you will continue with music studies in universities and conservatories around the world. And some of you will peruse great professional careers in other areas. However, the music, I hope, will always be a very important part of your life. This year, Stephanie Nowakowski-Brown, Matthew Hui, Sylvie Kim, and Nathan Chia graduated and began their studies in universities. Stephanie, Matthew and Sylvie are studying in the prestigious University of Toronto. Stephanie is studying engineering, and both Matthew and Sylvie are in the science program. However, Nathan is continuing to study violin, pursuing a Bachelor of Music in performance degree at the Indiana State University, USA. I would like to wish all four of them great success with their studies!

When I look back at the last school year, I can say that I am very satisfied with the progress that all of my students have made and obtained tremendous results in the competitions and examinations. And they should be very proud of their accomplishments!

This past summer, as most of you probably know, was extremely busy with preparation for the very successful music camp that took place in July. Both, faculty members and the students alike, thoroughly enjoyed the experience. All students had the opportunity to flourish their skills as musicians, and successfully did so!

After a short two extremely enjoyable weeks in Italy, with my family, I am back now to start a new school year. Let’s hope that all of us will have a great year ahead!

In this issue of JLNotes, you will find some interesting articles, especially the one about Alexandra Lakirovich’s account of the events that took place in the JVL 2010 festival. As well as vital information regarding violin competitions and festivals, RCM examinations dates and deadlines and some information about upcoming concerts in Toronto. Also in this edition, you will read about the great Russian violinist and pedagogue Nelli Shkolnikova.

You will also find a recommended listening of various violin repertoires with links to YouTube. You could also read the interview with one of the leading Canadian Soprano Sondra Radvanovsky, and much more. So enjoy reading and hopefully the next instalment of JLNotes will appear this time next month. I certainly would encourage and invite any comments and suggestions that you may have.

I also would like to invite everyone to a concert on Saturday, October 23 at 8:00 pm. David Lakirovich will be performing Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto with Scarborough Philharmonic Orchestra under direction of Ronald Royer. Also in the program Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite and a world premier performance of Ronald Royer’s new composition Exuberance. I am absolutely sure that you will enjoy very much this beautiful program.

Those of you who would like to hear my live interview with Alexa Petrenko on the New Classical 96.3 FM radio station can do so on Tuesday, October 19 at 3:30 pm.

Jacob Lakirovich

JLNotes 2010/09-10 : News from JVL Summer School for Performing Arts

2010-10-10T18:46:00.000-04:00

The 2010 season of JVL Summer School for Performing Arts “Music in Summer” Festival was a great success. There were faculty and students from various parts of the world. The experience and skills that were developed during these 10 days will help all students not only to become better musicians, but also to appreciate the art of music.

The 2011 season is the 10th anniversary of JVL and to help celebrate this occasion, we will have many great new activities, surprises and hope to have back many of the faculty that have been a part of the festival for the last 10 years.

The 2011 season of JVL SSPA “Music in Summer” Festival will commence on Thursday, July 7 and will conclude on Sunday, July 17, 2011.

I hope that you will like the re-designed website as much as I do, and I would like to thanks Mr. Gregory Karpinsky for his excellent ideas and skills in creating this new look. I also would like to thank Ms. Lena Karpinsky for her creativity and critical suggestions concerning the correct choice of colours. A special thanks to Ms. Catherine Lin for providing 5 DVD discs with a substantial videotaped material of some of our concerts in 2010.

The fully updated information regarding 2011 season will be posted on our website by mid-October. However the Video Archive for 2009 and 2010 is available on the www.MusicInSummer.com I hope that you will enjoy watching students and faculty performances, and if you do, please direct your relatives and friends through Facebook, Twitters or emails to our website.

JLNotes 2010/09-10 : JVL Reflection... by Alexandra Lakirovich

2010-10-10T18:42:00.000-04:00

JVL 2010. So many thoughts and memories come to mind when thinking of those 2 words. Upon reflecting on how the camp went this year, one thinks of meeting amazing new people, getting great lessons and invaluable musical experiences, and of course, the unforgettable feeling of exhaustion and dehydration that hits you right after the 5th or 6th day. Arriving at the Scarborough bus stop, the day was extremely humid. Seeing familiar and new faces is exciting, but also very scary. Of course there were a few late comers (not the H[...]s though-surprisingly!) as the bus was being boarded. Cesar, who came from as far as Venezuela, got a bit confused and lost coming to Scarborough, so the bus had to drive to Finch Station to pick up the lost camper. Naturally, this caused us to arrive to Canadore College later than scheduled. During the 4 hour bus ride, it was the counselors, Alex Lakirovich’s and Shoshana Hershkop’s job to welcome everybody to Camp. The councilors tried to lighten the mood with fun icebreaker games and making sure that the campers felt comfortable to ask questions and seek advice from them for the next 10 days. When everyone arrived in their designated cabins, the tension became a bit lighter. People started making new friends with their cabin mates and familiarizing themselves to their new home.

The first day seemed to be going by slower than the rest. Maybe it was from the unbearable heat of the day. Or maybe it was because of the fact that first days in a new place is always the most nerve-wracking for any kid. When everyone came to the Weaver Auditorium for the first official “brain washing” (whatever that means!) meeting, the Director, Jacob Lakirovich made everyone feel at home and welcomed us to what is without a doubt, going to be the best 10 days of everyone’s year! For the very first night, there seemed to be no problem putting the kid’s to sleep, as everyone was pretty exhausted from the long day.

Waking up at 7:30 am on Friday, July 9th seemed to be one of the hardest and most impossible tasks in the world. On top of that, there was the dreaded 30 minutes of stretching with the amazing Mr. Peter Cosbey (so that kind of made up for it).

Naturally, many kids were very confused with the schedule for the first couple of days. There were some late orchestra arrivals, late and/or missed scheduled lessons and chamber music meetings. However, people started getting the hang of the schedule by the 3rd day. The first great activity in camp was on Saturday, July 10th. Jacob decided to host a soccer tournament. Luckily, this year there were no concussions to the head. The whole game turned out to be great fun, with many teachers exemplifying amazing soccer skills-Mr. Oleg Pokhanovski!

On the next day, the FIFA world cup was taking place all over the world. Thankfully, each teacher kindly dedicated the afternoon to be free for the whole camp to watch the big game on the projector screen! Even though Spain wrongfully won, it was very fun watching and rooting for the game with everyone as one big family.

Monday, July 12th. Scales Competition. Everywhere you look, you see nervous kids frantically repeating all their scales in hopes of winning the competition and the cash prize! Some kids even skipped the meals just to get a few more minutes of practicing time. The competition started. All the competitors played to the very best of their ability and it definitely showed! Every single camper that participated, should be proud of their hard work absolutely paying off. Congratulations to all the winners!

On Tuesday, July 13th there was a surprise trip to the local BOWLING ALLEY! Each camper was divided into groups and was allowed to play 2 games with their teams. The experience as a whole was a lot of fun, and gave us more opportunities to spend with our new friends and teachers.

After the excitement of the FIFA game and the bowling, the next few days suddenly became harder, as it was solely about the music. Wednesday, marked the beginning of concerts and recitals.

There were a total of four Music Through the Ages presentations throughout the season, held by the amazingly talented Ms. Clayton Scott. The show took the audience through amazing music history of operas, such as Aida and Magic Flute, and Romeo and Juliet Ballet. This provided fascinating information of music history at its finest!

As well, JVL was honoured in hosting Mr. Hratch and Artak Armeniuos, two of the most influential Canadian violin makers. The two workshops showed students the fine art of violin and bow making!

A funny memory that comes to mind when thinking about these 10 days was the prank that was pulled on A[...]. The prankers were Al[...] (the girl that made up the brilliant idea), Cl[...] (the boy that videotaped it all) and Le[...] (the boy that executed the prank). It was around the middle of the camp, and during dinner time, those 3 campers decided to be really funny, and wanted to pull a practical prank on a fellow friend. Although the whole prank was quite hilarious, there was property damage, and A[...] ended up breaking a door. Let’s just say pieing someone in the face and then running out the wrong door is probably not the best idea! (albeit, it was quite funny!)

At first, there were chamber music concerts, where every single chamber group performed their pieces that they practiced with their supervising teacher. Then, there were solo/duet performances and of course, the final orchestra concert by the end of the camp.

Ms. Janet Lopinski, a wonderful piano teacher and mother of the insanely talented Paulina Swierczek, held an amazingly informing Piano/Theory Workshop. The whole camp was invited to come, but it was mandatory for the pianists.

By the 6th or 7th day, the Music Theater group, taught by Mr. David Stone and Ms. Tina Torlone, already began stressing about finishing on time and making sure the kids will be ready to present an awesome performance by the end of the camp. Mr. Stone and Ms. Torlone should be proud in the production that was put on this year. It was simply amazing, and probably the best one of all the years! It seems as though that the productions keep getting better and better with every year.

On Wednesday, July 14th JVL hosted its first ever Paganini Showcase where the faculty and kids joined together to perform various pieces by the great Italian composer and violinist. It was quite a success for the performers and this showcase will become an annual event.

Unfortunately, the camp is coming to a near end, and it is getting a bit harder to control the kids and put them in their cabins by 11:00pm. This is because everyone has already made friendships that will probably last a lifetime, and feel that they want to socialize after lights out. Luckily for them, there was 2 teachers on-call every night, as well as the amazing counselors that made sure that the kids were in bed.

On one of the nights, the same Cl[...] and Le[...] were even found on a roof, just “hanging out”. When asked what Cl[...] was doing on the roof, the response was merely “I’m exercising”. ( Cl[...], that is what stretching is for. Right, Peter?)

Overall, by the end of camp, everyone became so close and all the campers were begging for camp to be even longer. There is a tradition that the older kids have at camp. Basically, cabin 73 (Miriam, Shoshana, Alex, Mari, Stephanie and Sasha) wrote a song that reflects the last 10 days. The whole cabin taught it to every camper and it was performed at the last concert on Sunday, July 18th. Below, you can find the lyrics to the song that sums up what everyone’s camp experience was like. Speaking for everyone, JVL 2010 was definitely the best season that was ever held! Every camper made everlasting friendships, unbelievable memories, gained musical knowledge and experiences by working with amazing internationally acclaimed teachers, and survived 10 days that will never be forgotten! As written in the beautiful song, “JVL we learned so much this week we are one big family. We can’t imagine that we have to leave, Oh Jacob make camp longer please!”

Alexandra Lakirovich

JLNotes 2010/09-10 : A Topic

2010-10-10T18:24:00.000-04:00

Karl Paulnack Welcome Address

Below is an excerpt from a welcome address given to parents of incoming students at The Boston Conservatory on September 1, 2004, by Dr. Karl Paulnack, director of the Music Division.

http://www.bostonconservatory.edu/s/940/Bio.aspx?sid=940&gid=1&pgid=1241

One of my parents' deepest fears, I suspect, is that society would not properly value me as a musician, that I wouldn't be appreciated. I had very good grades in high school, I was good in science and math, and they imagined that as a doctor or a research chemist or an engineer, I might be more appreciated than I would be as a musician. I still remember my mother's remark when I announced my decision to apply to music school—she said, "you're wasting your SAT scores!" On some level, I think, my parents were not sure themselves what the value of music was, what its purpose was. And they loved music: they listened to classical music all the time. They just weren't really clear about its function. So let me talk about that a little bit, because we live in a society that puts music in the "arts and entertainment" section of the newspaper, and serious music, the kind your kids are about to engage in, has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with entertainment, in fact it's the opposite of entertainment. Let me talk a little bit about music, and how it works.

One of the first cultures to articulate how music really works were the ancient Greeks. And this is going to fascinate you: the Greeks said that music and astronomy were two sides of the same coin. Astronomy was seen as the study of relationships between observable, permanent, external objects, and music was seen as the study of relationships between invisible, internal, hidden objects. Music has a way of finding the big, invisible moving pieces inside our hearts and souls and helping us figure out the position of things inside us. Let me give you some examples of how this works.

One of the most profound musical compositions of all time is the Quartet for the End of Time written by French composer Olivier Messiaen in 1940. Messiaen was 31 years old when France entered the war against Nazi Germany. He was captured by the Germans in June of 1940 and imprisoned in a prisoner-of-war camp....

Continue reading...

JLNotes 2010/09-10 : Point of View - Family matters

2010-10-10T17:48:00.000-04:00

Finding the right level of involvement in your child’s instrumental practice can be a tricky balancing act. OLIVER GLEDHILL offers parents some strategic guidance

http://www.thestrad.com/HowTo.asp

When your child’s teacher ends each lesson with a reminder to practise, do you really understand what this means? How best can you support practising? How involved should you be either in practising or in the lessons? Here I shall try to offer some practical advice, drawing on the findings of the available research evidence.

Elements of practice
First of all, you need to be able to tell the difference between practising and simply playing. Practising is characterised by three main differences: it often needs to be slow, divided into small sections, and it should be analytical or questioning.

Routine and environment
Once you and your child understand what practising is, you can help enormously by establishing a routine. The first element of this is one of attitude, instilling from the outset that your child’s instrumental learning will be a long-term commitment to a valued activity, possibly for life. Research by the Australian Gary McPherson (2000) found that the shorter the period of time that children expect to continue learning an instrument, the less they achieve and the sooner they give up...

Read the article here: http://www.thestrad.com/pdfs/matters.pdf

JLNotes 2010/09-10 : Festivals and Competitions

2010-10-10T17:40:00.001-04:00

RCM Examinations

Winter Session Registration Deadline: November 2, 2010
Theory Examinations: December 10 & 11, 2010
Practical Examinations: January 17 - 29, 2011
http://www.rcmexaminations.org/

Arts Richmond Hill Music Festival 2010
November 26-28, 2010
~~Registration deadline: October 8, 2010~~
http://www.artsrichmondhill.ca/page.php?id=1864

Canadian Music Competition
April - May (TBC), 2011 Toronto - First round
Registration deadline: mid-November
http://www.cmcnational.com/en/

Kiwanis Music Festival
February 22 - March 4, 2011
Registration deadline: November 8, 2010
http://kiwanismusictoronto.org/

Peel Music Festival
Dates for the 2010 Festival: March 21 to April 30, 2011
Registration deqadline: December 6, 2010
http://www.peelmusicfestival.ca/

Newmarket Lions Music and Dance Festival

Karen Barker, Administrator,
Phone: 905 252-3203, Email: karen@zonas.ca

JLNotes 2010/09-10 : Famous Musicians - Sondra Radvanovsky

2010-10-10T17:28:00.001-04:00

Interview: Sondra Radvanovsky at The New Classical 96.3 FM
http://blog.scena.org/2010/03/interview-sondra-radvanovsky-at-new.html

Radvanovsky interviewed by broadcaster Alexa Petrenko (Photos by Soula Zisidis)

Soprano Sondra Radvanovsky is Canada's - and Toronto's - best kept secret. I say that because the internationally renowned soprano sings in all the important opera houses of the world, yet hardly ever in her adopted country of Canada. The American-born Radvanovsky is married to a Canadian, Duncan Lear, who is also her business manager. They have been living near Toronto for quite some years now. Yet the only time she has sung in Toronto was a brief appearance in LUNA, an opera concert during the Luminato Festival three years ago. But things are going to change. This Saturday March 20 8 pm, Radvanovsky and the Russian baritone sensation Dmitri Hvorostovsky will give an opera concert at Roy Thomson Hall. This is part of a tour sponsored by Show One Productions that will take them to Montreal and New York. They have sung together in many opera productions, but particularly in Verdi's Il Trovatore. They will reprise the opera at the Arena di Verona this coming summer. This fall, Radvanovsky will be making a belated COC debut, as Aida, which will also be her role debut. An authentic "Verdi soprano", Radvanovsky has a dark-hued and sumptuous soprano of beauty and power, with a remarkable range, from mezzo lows to a high E-natural. She is also capable of a full range of dynamics, from honeyed mezza voce to knock 'em dead fortissimos. I have heard Regine Crespin and Gwyneth Jones live, two legendary sopranos known for the huge sounds they made. Judging by yesterday's concert that Radvanovsky gave at the New Classical 96.3 FM, our Sondra has them beat in the volume department, and beautiful too!

JLNotes 2010/09-10 : Toronto Concert Organizations

2010-10-10T12:07:00.000-04:00

Here are the details of some Toronto concert organizations' websites:

Toronto Symphony Orchestra
http://tso.ca/

Canadian Opera Company
http://www.coc.ca/performancesandtickets.aspx

National Ballet of Canada
http://www.ballet.ca/performances/season1011/

Roy Thomson Hall
http://www.roythomson.com/

Royal Conservatory Concerts
http://performance.rcmusic.ca/viewallconcerts?date=all+months&filter=all+performance+categories&page=1

Tafel Music Baroque Orchestra
http://www.tafelmusik.org/concerts/index.htm

JLNotes 2010/09-10 : Music Quotations

2010-10-10T12:03:00.001-04:00

Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is never enough for music

-Sergei Rachmaninoff

A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence.

-Leopold Stokowski

Without music life would be a mistake.

-Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Take a music bath once or twice a week for a few seasons. You will find it is to the soul what a water bath is to the body.

-Oliver Wendell Holmes

If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music.

-Gustav Mahler

JLNotes 2010/09-10 : Funny Videos

2010-10-10T12:01:00.000-04:00

We Will Survive: Igudesman & Joo + Kremer & Kremerata

Where is the Remote Control?

JLNotes 2010/09-10 : These months' birthdays

2010-10-10T11:56:00.000-04:00

September

Clarence 20
Nicolas 15
Vicky 19

October

Daphne 12
Jonathan 13
Julia 14
Lauren 15
Michelle 11
Sean 20

Happy birthday to all of you!

Have lots of fun with Music!

JLNotes 2010/09-10 : Featured Artist - Nelli Shkolnikova

2010-10-10T11:39:00.002-04:00

Nelli Shkolnikova 1928–2010
The great Russian violinist and pedagogue died earlier this year. Curt Thompson, one of her former students, looks back on her life and examines her teaching methods

In February of this year, violinist Nelli Shkolnikova died of cancer at the age of 81 in Melbourne, Australia. Although she had lost the use of her right arm and her ability to speak near the end of her life, she continued to finger parts with her left hand as she listened to recordings. Her eyes maintained their expressiveness and she communicated using them as clearly as she had always.
I am one of dozens of students who owe her an enormous debt of gratitude. She taught me from 1988 to 1994, and in 2003 I was able to ask her about her teaching methods when I served as her sabbatical replacement at Indiana University.

A life in music
Born on 8 July 1928 in Zolotonosha, Ukraine, Nelli Shkolnikova began to play at the age of four. After her family relocated to a suburb of Moscow, the five-year-old Nelli had lessons with Lillia Kossodo, a pupil of Leopold Auer. At the age of eight she performed her first concerto with orchestra, and the next year began studying with Yuri Yankelevich. In 1953, while still a student of Yankelevich, Shkolnikova was selected for participation in the Long–Thibaud Competition in Paris. Her triumph there as first-prize winner simultaneously launched her international performing career and established Yankelevich’s reputation as a pre-eminent pedagogue. Students flocked to him, and went on to win virtually every major international violin competition, including the Tchaikovsky, Sibelius, Paganini and Queen Elisabeth contests.

Regarded by many as the best female Soviet violinist, Shkolnikova performed with major orchestras throughout the Soviet Union, Europe, the US, Asia and Australia. Her golden tone, precision, taste and clean playing were demonstrative of the very highest standards of the Russian school. Her recordings, which were recently made available many years after they were seized by Soviet authorities, are phenomenal. Violinist Ilya Kaler, gold medallist of the Tchaikovsky, Sibelius and Paganini competitions in the 1980s, recalls her performance of the Beethoven Concerto in Moscow when he was a boy: ‘It was the biggest and most beautiful sound you can imagine, and probably the greatest Beethoven I have ever heard.’ Some years later, while preparing for the 1981 Paganini Competition, Kaler also remembers playing Paganini’s 18th Caprice for her: ‘She picked up my violin and tossed off the caprice with a quality, precision, musicality and elegance that stunned me. She was talking to me while playing and making suggestions – truly, a mind-blowing experience.’

JLNotes 2010/09-10 : Recommended listening

2010-10-10T11:31:00.001-04:00

Nelli Shkolnikova : Tchaikovsky Violin concerto in D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-5LJloy8xM

… and of course Heifetz!

Tchaikovsky Serenade Melancolique

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KT7m31MZBk8

Julia Mirzoev - UWC Recital - April 7, 2010

2010-03-31T11:25:00.001-04:00

JLNotes :: Volume 2 :: March-April 2010

2010-03-26T01:07:00.000-04:00

Spring is here and one can really feel the unique scent that is associated with its arrival. For me, it is a very special time of the year, very busy and very exciting. It is the start of the preparation for the culminating events of the school year: huge RCM examination session for both examining and preparing a large number of students for examinations. And of course preparation for the Ninth Season of JVL SSPA “Music in Summer” Festival. Not to mention the ongoing number of competitions and festivals… All these are very thrilling as students are working very hard to reach their goals and are progressing very well.
The recent RCM examination session ended with excellent results where all students received very high marks and glowing reports (see the details in the News from Examinations and Competitions section of this edition). I am also very proud of all of my students performing at the Kiwanis Music Festival, where all of them were awarded first prize, and two of them the second prize. Nathan Chia was auditioning for the Eastman School and also for Manhattan School of Music and I hope he will be successful. Our Annual Student’s Recital on February 7th demonstrated excellent achievements of all students and we all enjoyed their performances! Of course I would like to thank Rozana Koren for her wonderful collaboration as an accompanist for most of the students.
In this issue of JLNotes, you will find some interesting articles, especially the one on the topic of the importance of having different vibrato (thank you to David Lakirovich for the very essential contribution), vital information regarding violin competitions and festivals, RCM examinations dates and deadlines and some information about upcoming concerts in Toronto. Also in this edition, you will read about some interesting aspects of the life of Niccolo Paganini, considered by many to be the very first "great" violinist. You will also find a recommended listening of various violin repertoires with links to YouTube. You could also read the interview with one of the leading violinists of our time, Vadim Repin, and much more.
So enjoy reading and hopefully the next installment of JLNotes will appear this time next month. I certainly would encourage and invite any comments and suggestions that you may have.
Jacob Lakirovich

News from JVL Summer School for Performing Arts :: 2010-03/04

2010-03-26T00:59:00.000-04:00

The name of the legendary Niccolo Paganini has always been associated with something of a mysterious nature, somewhat of a supernatural power in the violin world. And truly so, his compositions are incredibly difficult to perform, they require a significant amount of instrument mastery and an outstanding technical control. So, to demystify the myth that only “chosen” can tackle and master the Paganini pieces, we have decided to premier the “Paganini Showcase,” where students will be asked to perform one of the 24 caprices or any other works composed by the great violinist. The showcase would run as a competition and the top prize is expected to be $100. However there is a catch; students: be aware – faculty is participating! (Kind of like the soccer tournament that takes place every year. In the past the students have always been victorious over the faculty, however in this competition, the result may be different….). I hope that we will all have lots of fun learning and performing! Since Paganini was a violinist and most of his compositions are composed exclusively for violin (some are for viola and guitar), we do not want to exclude our wonderful students playing other instruments. Everyone is invited to participate in this Showcase as long as they will perform Paganini works that have been arranged for their instruments.

On another note: the Video Archive for 2009 is available on the www.MusicInSummer.com
I hope that you will enjoy watching students and faculty performances, and if you do, please direct your relatives and friends through Facebook, Twitter or emails to our website.

Just a reminder: the 2010 season of JVL SSPA “Music in Summer” Festival will commence on Thursday, July 8 and will conclude on Sunday, July 18. The website has been up-dated and the registration is open. I’d like to invite you to visit: www.MusicInSummer.com and to familiarize yourself with the new important information.

The final application deadline for the JVL Summer School is May 17. This is a marvelous opportunity for children to explore the world of music and to have an incentive for continuous interest in music.

The Importance of Having Different Vibrato

2010-03-26T00:53:00.002-04:00

by David Lakirovich

Apart from his uncanny technical wizardry and honey-gold sound, the great violinist Jascha Heifetz possessed something that very few violinists could boast about having. What increased his status as one of the greatest violinists of all time was his unending arsenal of colors. Whether he plays one of his signature miniature pieces, or a violin concerto, one can see and “hear” quite possibly every color of the rainbow.
Color on the violin comes mainly from two different places: the bow arm, and the left hand. How a violinist creates color from the right hand is very complex and intricate, and requires a whole lifetime to master. Achieving color from the left hand, however, is much more concrete and “simple.”
The word ‘vibrato’, when used in a musical sense, could have many different meanings and connotations. In essence though, the word vibrato means COLOR. If a violinist plays without vibrato, then he/she is playing completely colorless. It is like watching a movie in black and white- it is just not the same as watching the same movie in color. Imagine watching Avatar or Spiderman in black and white. Wouldn’t be so interesting would it? A note that is without some sort of vibrato is a note that is completely uninteresting and dull, and thus diminishes from the entirety of the performance. Therefore, every single note that a violinist plays in a piece should be vibrated, unless there is a specific musical reason and justification for playing that particular note without any color.
Ergo, while it is a crime to play a note without some sort of vibrato/color, it is also a crime to play with only one kind of vibrato or color. When performing a piece, the violinist is trying to paint a picture, tell a story. He/she needs every color in the book in order to paint the most sublime and perfect picture. The violinist is trying to create a picture similar to those of Claude Monet’s. Monet uses so many beautiful colors in his paintings, and that is why they are so gorgeous. If a violinist plays with one kind of vibrato, he/she is essentially playing with one kind of color. What made Jascha Heifetz so great was that he had five or six different types of vibratos in his arsenal! That is just an astonishing amount. It truly boggles the mind. That is one of the reasons why he created so many different colors in his playing.
There are three essential types of vibrato that any violinist should know and master. They are: the arm vibrato (where one uses the whole arm to vibrate), the wrist vibrato (where one uses the wrist only to vibrate), and the finger vibrato (where one uses only the finger in use to vibrate). In order to be a complete violinist, these three types of vibratos should be in the violinist’s arsenal. One might ask: when should I use the wrist vibrato, or the arm vibrato? Well that is a topic of a completely different discussion. The point here is to understand how imperative it is to vibrate every note, and to possess different types of vibrato. Generally, any piece written for the violin will require the three different types of vibrato. It is of course the challenge for the violinist to determine when and where to use the wrist, or arm, or finger vibrato.
Remember, vibrato is color. The more vibratos you have, the more colors you produce. And the more colors you produce- the more brilliant of an artist you become.

Point of view :: It Takes Two

2010-03-26T00:52:00.000-04:00

String players and pianists are uniting to end the perception of piano accompanists as lesser musicians. Elana Estrin delves into the emerging field of collaborative piano.
When a young pianist didn’t pass the preliminaries of a piano competition in New York in 2002, her sister sent the staff an irate letter complaining about the judges. Pianist and competition judge Akira Eguchi recalls the gist of the letter: ‘Accompanists are lower-class musicians than soloists,’ the sister wrote. ‘They should not judge a competition that is for soloists who are so much more advanced and talented than they are.’ Eguchi has collaborated with top-notch artists, including Gil Shaham, Chee-Yun Kim and Anne Akiko Meyers. Was this a very strange, unusual incident? Eguchi thinks not: ‘Accompanists have always been classified as lower-level musicians.’
There has long been a stereotype in the performance community that accompanists are inferior musicians. Not good enough for solo careers, they are hired to perform a service: to obey their musical partner’s instructions without question. But some of the world’s leading classical musicians, including Itzhak Perlman, take offence at this misconception. ‘It’s true: there’s no such thing as an accompanist,’ says Perlman. ‘A lot of the repertoire, like Beethoven and Mozart sonatas, is written for piano and violin. The pianist is so important. The word “accompanist” is a total mistake.’
Attitudes have begun to change in recent years, thanks to the pianists and other instrumentalists who have rallied together to eliminate the hierarchy implied by the term that has, well, accompanied pianists for so long. The result has brought about a new title – collaborative pianist – and a paradigm shift in the classical music world, which views pianists as equal partners rather than as subordinates. ‘I’m kind of nuts about this issue; it’s really important to me,’ says Paul Kantor, professor of violin at the Cleveland Institute of Music. ‘It is that disregard for the other people on stage that I think is more and more becoming a thing of the past. The music and the audience win as a result of this improved attitude.’
(the Strad, December 2009)

Great Violinists :: Niccolò Paganini

2010-03-26T00:46:00.001-04:00

Niccolò Paganini (27 October 1782 – 27 May 1840) was an Italian violinist, violist, guitarist, and composer. He was one of the most celebrated violin virtuosi of his time, and left his mark as one of the pillars of modern violin technique. His Caprice No. 24 in A minor, Op. 1 is among the best known of his compositions, and has served as an inspiration for many prominent composers.
Childhood

Niccolò Paganini was born in Genoa, Italy, the third of the six children of Antonio and Teresa (née Bocciardo) Paganini. Paganini's father was an unsuccessful trader, but he managed to supplement his income through playing music on the mandolin. At the age of five, Paganini started learning the mandolin from his father, and moved to the violin by the age of seven. His musical talents were quickly recognized, earning him numerous scholarships for violin lessons.

The young Paganini studied under various local violinists, including Giovanni Servetto and Giacomo Costa, but his progress quickly outpaced their abilities. Paganini and his father then traveled to Parma to seek further guidance from Alessandro Rolla. But upon listening to Paganini's playing, Rolla immediately referred him to his own teacher, Ferdinando Paër and, later, Paër's own teacher, Gasparo Ghiretti. Though Paganini did not stay long with Paër or Ghiretti, the two had considerable influence on his composition style.

Early career

The French invaded northern Italy in March 1796, and Genoa was not spared. The Paganinis sought refuge in their country property in Ramairone. By 1800, Paganini and his father traveled to Livorno, where Paganini played in concerts and his father resumed his maritime work. In 1801, Paganini, aged 18 at the time, was appointed first violin of the Republic of Lucca, but a substantial portion of his income came from freelancing. His fame as a violinist was matched only by his reputation as a gambler and womanizer.

In 1805, Lucca was annexed by Napoleonic France, and the region was ceded to Napoleon's sister, Elisa Baciocchi. Paganini became a violinist for the Baciocchi court, while giving private lessons for her husband, Felice. In 1807, Baciocchi became the Grand Duchess of Tuscany and her court was transferred to Florence. Paganini was part of the entourage, but, towards the end of 1809, he left Baciocchi to resume his freelance career.

Continue reading here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niccolo_Paganini

Links

Results from RCM Examinations Winter 2010 session

2010-03-25T23:23:00.000-04:00

Fira Katchan   - Grade  1 : 80

Yoni Katchan  - Grade  2 : 87

Araz  Tokdjian - Grade  4 : 88

Leo Jarmain   - Grade 10 : 85

Julia Mirzoev  - Grade 10 : 96

Daniel Temnik - Grade 10 : 90

Alex Volkov    - Grade 10 : 95

Here are results from Kiwanis Music Festival 2010:

Shoshana Hershkop - 2nd place ($250 scholarship)

Sophia Lee        - 1st place

Clement Li        - 2nd place

Clara Lo          - 1st place

Alex Volkov       - 1st place ($300 scholarship)

Lea Zila          - 1st place

Congratulations to all students for their wonderful efforts!

Dates and deadlines for RCM examinations and local competitions : 2010-03/04

2010-03-25T23:12:00.001-04:00

RCM Examinations
Spring Session Registration Deadline: too late!
Theory Examinations: May 14 & 15, 2010
Practical Examinations: June 7 - 26, 2010

Summer Session Registration Deadline: June 1, 2010
Theory Examinations:
August 6 & 7, 2010
Practical Examinations:
August 9 - 21 , 2010
http://www.rcmexaminations.org/

Canadian Music Competition
April 29 - May 4, 2010 Toronto - First round Registration deadline: too late!
http://www.cmcnational.com/en/

Peel Music Festival
Dates for the 2010 Festival: March 22 to May 1 Entry Closing Date: too late!
http://www.peelmusicfestival.ca/Main.aspx

Newmarket Lions Music and Dance Festival Entry Closing Date: too late!
Karen Barker, Administrator, Phone: 905 252-3203, Email: karen@zonas.ca

OSM Standard Life Competition Entry Closing Date: September 30, 2010
http://www.osm.ca/en/index_osm-jeunesse_concours-osm.cfm

… and some international:

Pretoria, South Africa
5th Unisa International String Competition: violin, cello 2010

Brescia, Italy
"Città di Brescia" International Violin Competition

Genoa, Italy
53rd International Violin Competition "Premio Paganini"

Leipzig, Germany
17th International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition

Martigny, Switzerland
43rd Tibor Varga International Violin Competition

Gorizia, Italy
29th International Violin Competition "Rodolfo Lipizer Prize"

Naples, Italy
16th International Violin Competition Alberto Curci

Helsinki, Finland
10th International Violin Competition "Jean Sibelius"

Prague, Czech Republic
62nd Prague Spring International Music Competition

Montreal, Canada
Montreal International Musical Competition (MIMC), Violin

Oslo, Norway
http://www.menuhincompetition.org/

Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
www.stradcompetition.org/music

Interview with Vadim Repin @ Violinist.com

2010-03-25T22:58:00.000-04:00

Violinist.com interview with Vadim Repin
March 31, 2009 at 9:09 PM

Out of Siberia came violinist Vadim Repin, under the guidance of Zakhar Bron and from the same studio and generation as violinist Maxim Vengerov.
Perhaps as a child he struggled to get the spotlight to shine on an artist in Siberia; by now his artistry has achieved a level of international respect and he is warmly welcomed on stages the world over.

Photo by Anastasia Chernyavsky

Born in what was the Soviet Union in 1971, Vadim Repin brushed elbows with many of that country's finest artists: cellist Mstislav Rostropovich and pianist Sviatoslav Richter among them, not to mention the many artists he collaborated with all over Europe. His relationship with Yehudi Menuhin, at the end of Menuhin's life the beginning of Repin's career, is woven into his work with the Brahms Concerto.
Last week, Repin released his new recording of Brahms, both the Violin Concerto and the Double Concerto, with Riccardo Chailly and the Gewandhaus Orchestra, with cellist Truls Mørk.
Repin spoke to me several weeks ago, over the phone from Amsterdam – early afternoon for me in California, and nearly midnight for him in Europe. He's been on the road: in Netherlands, Denmark, and this week the United States, playing the Brahms Violin Concerto with the Seattle Symphony and also giving a master class on Saturday.

Continue reading here: http://www.violinist.com/blog/laurie/20093/9927/

Mozart: the composition of Requiem and how Mozart died

2010-03-25T22:47:00.000-04:00

The bodily frame of Mozart was tender and exquisitely sensible; ill health soon overtook him, and brought with it a melancholy approaching to despondency. A very short time before his death, which took place when he was only thirty-six, he composed that celebrated requiem, which, by an extraordinary presentiment of his approaching dissolution, he considered as written for his own funeral. One day, when he was plunged in a profound reverie, he heard a carriage stop at his door. A stranger was announced, who requested to speak with him. A person was introduced, handsomely dressed, of dignified and impressive manners. “I have been commissioned, sir, by a man of considerable importance, to call upon you."—" Who is he?" interrupted Mozart. “He does not wish to be known."—" Well, what does he want?" —" He has just lost a person whom he tenderly loved, and whose memory will be eternally dear to him. He is desirous of annually commemorating this mournful event by a solemn service, for which he requests you to compose a requiem."—Mozart was forcibly struck by this discourse, by the grave manner in which it was uttered, and by the air of mystery in which the whole was involved. He engaged to write the requiem. The stranger continued, “Employ all your genius on this work; it is destined for a connoisseur."—" So much the better."—" What time do you require?”—"A month."—"Very well; in a month's time I shall return—what price do you set on your work?”—" A hundred ducats." The stranger counted them on the table, and disappeared. Mozart remained lost in thought for some time: he then suddenly called for pen, ink, and paper, and, in spite of his wife's entreaties, began to write. This rage for composition continued several days; he wrote day and night, with an ardor which seemed continually to increase; but his constitution, already in a state of great debility, was unable to support this enthusiasm; one morning he fell senseless, and was obliged to suspend his work. Two or three days after, when his wife sought to divert his mind from the gloomy presages which occupied it, he said to her abruptly, " It is certain that I ain writing this requiem for myself; it will serve for my funeral service." Nothing could remove this impression from his mind.
As he went on, he felt his strength diminish from day to day, and the score advancing slowly. The month which he had fixed being expired, the stranger again made his appearance. " I have found it impossible,' said Mozart, “to keep my word." “Do not give yourself any uneasiness," replied the stranger; “what further time do you require?"—" Another month; the work has interested me more than I expected, and I have extended it much beyond what I at first designed." —" In that case, it is but just to increase the premium; here are fifty ducats more."—"Sir," said Mozart, with increasing astonishment, "who then are you?”—"That is nothing to the purpose; in a month's time I shall return." Mozart immediately called one of his servants, and ordered him to follow this extraordinary personage, and find out who he was ; but the man failed from want of skill, and returned without being able to trace him. Poor Mozart was then persuaded that he was no ordinary being; that he had a connection with the other world, and was sent to announce to him his approaching end. He applied himself with the more ardors to his requiem, which he regarded as the most durable monument of his genius. While thus employed, he was seized with the most alarming fainting fits; but the work was at length completed before the expiration of the month. At the time appointed, the stranger returned, but Mozart was no more. His career was as brilliant as it was short. He died before he had completed his thirty-sixth year; but in this short space of time he had acquired a name which will never perish, so long as feeling hearts are to be found.
(From The Flowers of Literature by William Oxberry)

Some funny stories :: 2010-03/04

2010-03-25T22:36:00.001-04:00

You're no Mozart
Mozart was once approached by a young man who was interested in Mozart's advice on how to compose a symphony. Since he was still very young, Mozart recommended that he start by composing ballads. Surprised, the young man responded, "But you wrote symphonies when you were only ten years old." "But I didn't have to ask how," countered Mozart.

Irish composer's marriage

The Irish composer, Field, married from a somewhat peculiar reason, if we may believe his version of it. While yet this originator of the style of music called the "nocturne" was single, he numbered among his pupils one attractive young lady from whom he found it exceedingly difficult to collect the amount of her tuition bill.
Finally, Field concluded to proceed to law in the matter, that is, to use one form of law — for he proposed to the slow-paying damsel and was accepted. He made no secret of the fact that she was his pupil and he married her to get rid of giving her lessons for which she never paid, and for which he felt sure she never would.
This may be a good plan. Who can say but it is applied more than the world knows. But what if the teacher is already the happy possessor of one, or if he
has several debtors among the fair sex?

…and not so funny:

Bum note as attendants end concert in the Roman Pantheon

Audience told Vivaldi recital must stop abruptly to respect monument's closing time
John Hooper in Rome
Concertgoers and musicians were perplexed when an attendant stopped a performance. Sunday evening in one of the world's most impressive buildings – the Roman Pantheon built almost 2,000 years ago. A sextet from Russia is playing Vivaldi, accompanied by a choir of four. They have just reached the end of a movement when, to the musicians' evident astonishment, an attendant comes up and starts talking to them. Then, there is a clack of heels as a resolute young woman marches up, takes a microphone and says: "The Pantheon is about to close. Please move towards the exit. The concert is over, because today the Pantheon closes at six o'clock." Officials from the Italian culture ministry will on Monday begin investigating an episode that has flabbergasted music-lovers and opened a heated debate in Italy on the power of its public employees and the trade unions that back them. According to the organizers, the concert had only four minutes to run; the attendants' representatives said that it was more like 40. The cultural minister, Sandro Bondi, who has apologized to the mayor of Rome Gianni Alemanno for what happened, said that it had given an "intolerably hateful image" of Italy.
The incident, which took place on 28 February, became widely known after a video was posted on YouTube last week where it has since been watched more than 37,000 times. It shows that after members of the audience shouted "shame on you" at the attendants and "play on" to the musicians, an attempt was made to resume the concert. But the music was again interrupted by an official. Most comments left by Italians were critical of the attendants, though some argued the Pantheon's custodians would not have received overtime. Dismissing such considerations, one man simply remarked of the young attendant with the noisy heels: "I want have not this woman as wife."

(Guardian.co.uk, Sunday 7 March 2010)

.... and some more:

What's the difference between a viola and an onion?
No one cries when you cut up a viola.

How can you tell when a violist is playing out of tune?
The bow is moving.

Why is a viola solo like a bomb?
By the time you hear it, it's too late to do anything about it.

Why don't violists play hide and seek?
Because no one will look for them.

A conductor and a violist are standing in the middle of the road. Which one do you run over first, and why?
The conductor. Business before pleasure.

These months' birthdays :: 2010-03/04

2010-03-25T19:34:00.000-04:00

March

Alex 15
Dennis 15
Matthew 17

April

Sophia 11

Happy birthday to all of you!

Have lots of fun with Music!

Featured Artist :: Vadim Repin

2010-03-25T12:56:00.000-04:00

Vadim Repin (born Novosibirsk, Western Siberia, 31 August 1971) is a Russian violinist. In his youth Repin studied with Zakhar Bron and was revered throughout Russia as a child prodigy. At the age of 17, he became the youngest winner of the Queen Elisabeth Music Competition in Brussels, the world's premier violin competition.
Vadim Repin played under such leading conductors as Sir Yehudi Menuhin, Pierre Boulez, Riccardo Chailly, Charles Dutoit, Michael Tilson Thomas, Valery Gergiev (with whom he made his United Kingdom debut at The Lichfield Festival in 1985), James Levine, Kurt Masur, Edo de Waart, Sir Simon Rattle, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Mstislav Rostropovich, and Riccardo Muti.
Repin specializes in Russian music and French music, particularly the great Russian violin concertos, as well as 20th century and contemporary music. New music in his repertoire includes work by John Adams and Sofia Gubaidulina.
He has recorded violin concertos by Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart, Sibelius, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Nikolai Myaskovsky. Repin has also made two CDs of violin and piano music works with Boris Berezovsky (pianist) and has recorded chamber music with pianists Martha Argerich and Mikhail Pletnev, violist Yuri Bashmet, and cellist Mischa Maisky.
The majority of Repin's recordings through 2005 were on the Erato label. However, in 2005 Repin appeared on Deutsche Grammophon (DG) on a disc of chamber music by Sergei Taneyev alongside Mikhail Pletnev, Ilya Gringolts, Nobuko Imai, and Lynn Harrell; and in April 2006 Repin signed an exclusive recording contract with DG.
Vadim Repin played the Stradivarius ‘Ruby’ violin, made in 1708 and previously played by Pablo de Sarasate, up until 2005. He currently plays the Guarneri del Gesù 1736 "von Szerdahely" violin. His preferred bows are by Nicolaus Kittel and Nicolas Maline.
(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vadim_Repin)

JLNotes 2010-03/04 -- Recommended Listening

2010-03-25T11:51:00.001-04:00

Vadim Repin - Paganini - "Carneval di Venezia"

Vadim Repin - Tchaikovsky - Melodie

Vadim Repin - Wieniawski - Polonaise

Vadim Repin in Interview

... and of course Heifetz!

Jascha Heifetz - Paganini - Caprice No. 24

Jascha Heifetz - Paganini - Caprice No. 20

JLNotes 2010-01

2010-01-01T23:00:00.006-05:00

As I was sun tanning and exploring ancient Mayan caves and pyramids in hot and sunny Mexico during the Christmas break, my computer back home in cold and freezing Canada was slowly dying. It took well over a month of searching every last electronic store in town to find a perfect replacement. As a result, this edition of JLNotes had to be postponed slightly.

I hope you have enjoyed the Holiday Season and are ready for a very demanding schedule for the next 6 months. There are RCM Examinations, both in January and in June and an ongoing number of competitions and festivals. Almost all of the students will take part in our very important Annual Student’s Recital on Sunday, February the 7th. The details are in the Concert Calendar section of this edition. You also could read the interviews with two great musicians, Itzhak Perlman and James DePreist and their life and fight with polio, a disease that Rotary International helps to eradicate worldwide. In this issue of JLNotes you will find some interesting articles, especially the one on the topic of time management (thank you to David Lakirovich for the very important contribution), important information regarding violin competitions and festivals, RCM examinations dates and deadlines and some information about upcoming concerts in Toronto. You’ll also read some interesting aspects of the life of the great David Oistrakh, and find a recommended listening of various violin repertoires with links to YouTube and much more. So enjoy reading and hopefully the next installment of JLNotes will appear this time next month. I certainly would encourage and invite any comments and suggestions that you may have.

Jacob Lakirovich

News from JVL Summer School for Performing Arts

2010-01-01T22:00:00.004-05:00

The Video Archive for 2009 is now available on the www.MusicInSummer.com I hope you will enjoy watching students and faculty performances, and if you do, please direct your relatives and friends through Facebook, Twitters or emails to our website.

The 2010 season of JVL SSPA “Music in Summer” Festival will commence on Thursday, July 8 and will conclude on Sunday, July 18. The website has now been updated and the registration is now open. I'd like to invite you to visit: www.MusicInSummer.com and to familiarize yourself with the new important information.

We are proud to welcome Ms. Clayton Scott, one of the foremost Canadian pianist and music educator; she developed the highly acclaimed lecture/performance series, Music Through the Ages, a course in music history for the young music student, now consisting of over 75 titles. In 2006 she joined the faculty of Queen's University (Kingston, ON) as Adjunct Professor in the music department, teaching pedagogy to undergraduate music students. She is an accredited Teacher Trainer for the Bigler ~ Lloyd-Watts Mastering the Piano pedagogy and works with the Royal Conservatory of Music (Toronto) for the Royal Diploma Program. She adjudicates piano festivals, conducts piano master classes, presents opera and ballet workshops, gives professional development lectures for teachers and delivers motivational lectures for teachers, parents and students throughout North America.

The application deadline for the JVL Summer School is February 15
This is a marvelous opportunity for children to explore the world of music and to have an incentive for continuous interest in music.

Our Annual Student’s Recital will be held on Sunday, February 7 on the premises of Pro-Music, Conservatory of Music at: 5051 Hwy 7 East in Markham, (Hwy 7 and McCowan, south side of Hwy 7, opposite of the Markville Shopping Centre). There is plenty of free parking. The concert will consist of three parts, as there are some students of Ms. Rozana Koren who will also participate. The first concert will at 2:30 pm, the second at 4:30 pm and the third at 6:30 pm. Of course the parents and students are most welcome and actually encouraged to come and listen to all three parts as it is extremely important for everyone to listen and to learn from each other. So, where possible, try to stay! The rehearsals with piano have already commenced, and I am extremely grateful to our accompanists: Ms. Rozana Koren, Ms. Jennifer Cha and Ms. Anna Temnik, who agreed to participate in this event.

This month’s birthdays

January
Eva 15
Shoshana 19

February
Ambrose 10
Amir 13
Araz 12
Camile 13
Katayun 8
Yoni 10

Happy birthday!

Have lots of fun with Music!

A Topic :: Time Management

2010-01-01T21:00:00.002-05:00

by David Lakirovich

Effective practicing is undoubtedly one of the most predominant challenges that a violinist, or for that matter, a musician, faces. What is effective practicing? What does it mean to do smart practicing? Take a violinist who is eighteen years old, who is very serious about his craft, who is pursuing a career in music, and who is delving into very advanced repertoire. Would it be wiser for him/her to practice eight hours a day, or four hours a day? Of course this is a very hypothetical and fictional example; however there are many similar situations around the world. Many people would answer that it is obviously in his best interest to practice the painful eight hours each day, in order to become a great violinist. However though, the four hours can be equally beneficial to him, if not even more.
This is precisely where the concept of “smart practicing” comes in. The universal rule is that quality overrides quantity. If a person can do something in an hour instead of two, with equal or better quality, then well, that person is saving the most precious and sacred thing known to man: time. So I ask this: why spend eight hours in a practice room when you can do the same exact work in four?
That being said, a very practical question arises: how much should a violinist practice? It all depends on the student and the situation he/she is in. It depends on what the student wants, on his/her age, the level, and many other varying factors. No matter the age, or the level, a precise practice routine must be established. So for example, a student is practicing for two hours a day: half an hour is devoted to scales and etudes/studies (that is a must for any violinist, of any level, of any age), and half an hour to each repertoire piece. The time allotted can be fluctuated, again depending on the specific situation. To illustrate this point even clearer, we’ll take John, who is sixteen, very advanced, whose repertoire includes a romantic concerto, a classical sonata, and a Paganini Caprice. For a situation like that, I would suggest a minimum of four hours of practice each day. The first hour is devoted on scales and etudes/exercises, the second hour on the Paganini Caprice, the third hour on the sonata, and the fourth hour on the concerto. These hours can very well be increased, so instead of practicing an hour on each element, John can do an hour and half.
Of course John can practice for eight or nine hours, and perhaps that can very well be the best situation for him. From my experiences so far though, practicing for eight hours or more is not 100% effective. This of course varies from person to person, but generally speaking, it isn’t the most effective method. If a violinist practices this much, he/she is usually sacrificing some amount of quality for quantity. In my opinion, John can get just as much done practicing for four hours or so, but only if he follows a very rigorous practice routine and discipline, thus having exceptional quality of practice. What does this mean? Simply put: not wasting any time at all, being extremely disciplined. If, on his schedule, he writes: “Paganini Caprice from 6pm to 7pm,” then from the hour of six to seven, the only thing he is doing is practicing that Paganini. The only thing he is thinking about is that Caprice, no other thoughts in his mind. He has to make sure that nothing in the world can distract him. Complete concentration and focus for that one hour. It sounds very simple, however it is much harder than one can imagine. This is a discipline that has to be practiced and developed. Especially for young kids, it is not easy at all to concentrate on one thing for a whole hour. They’re thinking about playing soccer outside, or schoolwork, or a movie, or their relationships. So it is a discipline that has to be nurtured (with help from parents and teachers).
It is also tremendously important to take breaks when practicing. It is never a good idea to practice for hours straight, without any break. It consequently becomes ineffective practice, because concentration eventually deteriorates. To continue with the previous example with John, it would be in his best interest to take a break after an hour of practice. In that break, he should be completely away from his violin, and his mind away from the violin and music. He can think about whatever, and he can do whatever. This is another strategy of developing “smart practice.”
There is yet another strategy. And this one can very well be the most important. The majority of violinists that I’ve encountered do not realize that they can still practice the violin without even touching it. Very few people are unfamiliar with the concept of practicing away from the violin. So what does that mean? In short, it is the mental preparation for the practice with the actual instrument. This can include studying the score of the piece that one is playing, or devising exercises for the initial warm-up regime, or making mental notes about a certain piece and then carrying them out during the main practice, and so on and so on. And this can be done anywhere: on the bus, on the subway, watching TV, playing basketball, even going to the washroom; it is all mental. By doing this practice away from the violin, it not only saves a tremendous amount of time during the main practice, but also makes the main practice very effective. Studying the score will especially achieve this.
So above are a few approaches to achieve effective practicing, and thus having excellent time management. By following these said pointers, you will be on your way to great success as a violinist, because effective, or “smart” practicing is one of the most crucial necessities to a great violinist. And again, how you do it is entirely up to you, and in some cases, your teacher.

Point of view :: A bargain at $18m?

2010-01-01T20:00:00.002-05:00

(the Strad, December 2009)

Photo: the Guarneri ‘del Gesù’ violin, 1741 'Vieuxtemps'

With record prices being asked and achieved for classic Italian instruments, Caroline Gill asks the experts whether top violins are in fact undervalued.
It has been on the market for over a year, so one can only speculate as to whether its high-profile, and highly discreet, owner might be taking offers. But the mint-condition 1741 (probably), ‘Vieuxtemps’ Guarneri ‘del Gesù’ is on the market for $18m. Where this figure has come from is anybody’s guess – some suggest it is set high simply in order to test the market – but last year’s sale of the ‘Lady Blunt’ Stradivari (to the Nippon Foundation in Japan, which has decided not to lend it out to a player) for a figure rumoured to be $10m has placed violins on a trajectory previously reserved almost exclusively for Old Master paintings and Impressionist and 19th-century art. (The current world record for an Old Master painting at auction is held by Christie’s London for the July 2008 sale of a work by Jean-Antoine Watteau, which achieved over £12m.) The upward mobility of the musical instruments market has been further supported by the sale in October of the ‘Kochanski’ Guarneri ‘del Gesù’ by violinist Aaron Rosand, for an undisclosed sum thought to be slightly in excess of that of the ‘Lady Blunt’. Some suggest that this is not a moment too soon for an underpriced market that has been under the radar of investors for too long. Though Stradivari was making works of art that can safely be described as esoteric, it would be a particularly out-of-touch art lover who could say with honesty that they had never heard of him. So, as works of art, are fine stringed instruments in fact undervalued?

Great Violinists: David Oistrakh

2010-01-01T19:00:00.000-05:00

(the Strad, December 2009)

JULIAN HAYLOCK examines the technical poise, interpretative focus and musical humility that made the player a violinistic ideal

David Oistrakh held all aspects of violin artistry in perfect balance and made even the most challenging of pieces seem effortless. For many the ideal violinist, he combined fingers of steel with a heart of gold.

Pedagogical background
Oistrakh’s only teacher was Pyotr Stolyarsky (1871–1944), whose other students included Nathan Milstein, Boris Goldstein and Elizaveta Gilels (sister of Emil, and wife of Leonid Kogan). Milstein later claimed that he had learnt ‘nothing’ from Stolyarsky, but Oistrakh remembered his 13 years under his guidance with respect and affection. He explained: ‘From the very beginning he instilled in us the need for perseverance and showed us how to enjoy the pleasures of the creative side of music. His incredible enthusiasm was contagious and we were all affected by it.’ Remarkably, when Oistrakh won the Ysaÿe Competition in 1937, three other Stolyarsky pupils were also prizewinners: Goldstein, Gilels and Mikhail Fichtenholz, whose career was cut tragically short by the Russian state when his wife was denounced as an ‘enemy of the people’ during Stalin’s Great Purge of 1938–9.

Technique and interpretative style
Few artists have made the art of playing the violin look so effortless. On occasion, Oistrakh’s unfussy though commanding stage presence and technical ease were such that the listener was left quite unaware of challenges being overcome. This sense of impregnability extended to his interpretative style, which while never actually cool, tended to be shorn of all excess and indulgence. When listening to an Oistrakh performance – most especially his studio recordings – it is the accumulation of the whole that tends to leave the most profound impression, rather than the emotional resonance of individual moments.
Yet Oistrakh was no slave to his own playing proclivities. In Mozart and Beethoven he was eminently straightforward, inflecting his bowing with myriad subtleties of angle, pressure and placement between fingerboard and bridge. In the music of Prokofiev and Shostakovich, he adapted his essentially cushioned style of bowing to produce a slightly more strident, less sensuously alluring tone. In Romantic repertoire, he was expressively more flexible, most notably in the opening movement of the Tchaikovsky Concerto, whose patchwork-quilt structuring was mirrored in Oistrakh’s keenly responsive emotional patterning.

News from Competitions

2010-01-01T18:00:00.002-05:00

Here are some dates and deadlines for RCM examinations and local competitions:

RCM Examinations
Registration Deadline: March 2, 2010
Theory Examinations: May 14 & 15, 2010
Practical Examinations: June 7 - 26, 2010
http://www.rcmexaminations.org/

2010 Kiwanis Music Festival
February 16 - Feburary 27, 2010
Entry Deadline: too late!
http://kiwanismusictoronto.org/

Canadian Music Competition
April 29 - May 4, 2010
Toronto - First round
Registration deadline: too late!
http://www.cmcnational.com/en/

Pickering GTA Music Festival
Festival Dates: January 16th - February 2, 2010
Entry Closing Date: too late!
http://www.pgtamf.ca/Pickering_GTA_Music_Festival/Welcome.html

Peel Music Festival
Dates for the 2010 Festival: March 22 to May 1
Entry Closing Date: too late!
http://www.peelmusicfestival.ca/Main.aspx

Newmarket Lions Music and Dance Festival
Applications must be in by January 31.
Karen Barker, Administrator, Phone: 905 252-3203, Email: karen@zonas.ca

... and some international:
Pretoria, South Africa
5th Unisa International String Competition: violin, cello 2010

Brescia, Italy
"Città di Brescia" International Violin Competition

Genoa, Italy
53rd International Violin Competition "Premio Paganini"

Leipzig, Germany
17th International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition

Martigny, Switzerland
43rd Tibor Varga International Violin Competition

Gorizia, Italy
29th International Violin Competition "Rodolfo Lipizer Prize"

Naples, Italy
16th International Violin Competition Alberto Curci

Helsinki, Finland
10th International Violin Competition "Jean Sibelius"

Prague, Czech Republic
62nd Prague Spring International Music Competition

Montreal, Canada
Montreal International Musical Competition (MIMC), Violin

Oslo, Norway
http://www.menuhincompetition.org/

Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
http://www.stradcompetition.org/music

Conversation with Itzhak Perlman

2010-01-01T17:00:00.001-05:00

by Warren Kalbacker
(The Rotarian, November 2009)

I play, I conduct, and I teach, so I’m having a good time,” observes Itzhak Perlman. Of course, when the violin virtuoso uses the word play, that’s an understatement.
Born in Tel Aviv in 1945, Perlman debuted at Carnegie Hall at age 17. Today, he’s one of the world’s best known and most honored classical musicians, often described as a “superstar.” He’s garnered four Emmy Awards and 15 Grammy Awards, and a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008.
At age three, Perlman heard a concert on the radio and asked his father for a violin. Months later, he contracted polio and lost the use of his legs. He walks with crutches and performs while seated. Throughout his career, he’s maintained a rigorous travel schedule, appearing at venues far beyond the concert halls of the United States and Western Europe. In 1987, he joined a groundbreaking tour with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in Hungary and Poland, and three years later performed in the orchestra’s first concert in the Soviet Union. He toured China and India in 1994.
Perlman’s instrument of choice is the Soil Stradivarius violin, made in 1714. He enjoys the “social” aspect – the portability – of stringed instruments, he says. While conceding the tremendous repertoire of the piano, he jokes that if you want to play one, “you have to go where there is a piano.”
Perlman doesn’t always don formalwear for his performances; he’s comfortable bantering with David Letterman and has appeared on Sesame Street. He was also a soloist on the Oscar-winning score of Schindler’s List by John Williams and played at the Academy Awards.
Along with performing, another aspect of Perlman’s self-described “three-pronged” musical career is conducting. He has wielded the baton with the Philadelphia Orchestra and the National Symphony, among others.
But teaching holds a special attraction. He and his wife, Toby, founded the Perlman Music Program in 1993. Seven years later, they purchased an old 28-acre resort and made it into a campus on the shore of Shelter Island, N.Y., USA. (When the wind is right, the sound of music carries across the channel to Long Island’s North Fork.)
Between tours, Perlman teaches at the Juilliard School in New York, where he and his wife studied violin, and during the summer at Shelter Island.
On 2 December, he will perform at the Concert to End Polio with the New York Philharmonic, at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. All proceeds will go to Rotary’s US$200 Million Challenge.
Journalist Warren Kalbacker recently caught up with Perlman before he was off to a favorite evening engagement: meeting with students.
The Rotarian: You appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1958, several years before the Beatles, and at a young age. What has that achievement meant to you?
Itzhak Perlman: I’m very thankful. The Ed Sullivan Show brought me to the States and led to my scholarship at the Juilliard School. I was a little 13-year-old kid walking with crutches. People have a tendency to look at a youngster with a disability and not listen to what they have to offer. They ask whether that person can really have a career and withstand the rigors of travel and so on. I had to fight that. I had to face a lot of people who did not have the proper attitude, which is, “Forget about the disability. Let’s hear what the person has to say musically and then make a decision.”
TR: Did the violin choose Itzhak Perlman?
Perlman: Absolutely. I liked the sound. If you were to ask people in a symphony orchestra why they’re playing a particular instrument, they would say it’s the sound that attracted them. It’s magnetic. We’ve got someone in our teaching program who wanted to play the bass all her life. Why would that sound attract her and not the sound of a violin or cello? It’s something in our makeup.
TR: Deep down, don’t we all need music?
Perlman: We do. In difficult times, people just like to hear music. They like to be moved by what they hear. And music speaks different languages. If you go to China or India or Africa, you will find that music is the language of that particular country or continent. But even in countries where the music is different, there is always Western classical music. It’s more international.
TR: You performed in the Eastern bloc during the Cold War. Do musicians and orchestras make effective diplomats?
Perlman: Always. You might have unresolved issues, but culture is always the first step toward warmer relations between countries. And, of course, the relations between governments rarely have anything to do with the people. They come to a concert hall to listen to the Israel Philharmonic or to listen to me, a native Israeli. They don’t listen because of state issues. They listen to the music, and they get enthusiastic – and that’s the important thing.
TR: Next month, you will perform with the New York Philharmonic at the Concert to End Polio, benefiting Rotary International’s push to end the disease forever. Can you share some program notes?
Perlman: I just chose nice music. [laughs ] I’m playing a Max Bruch violin concerto. In the second half, I may do the theme from Schindler’s List, and then a piece by Fritz Kreisler for violin and orchestra.
TR: Why did you agree to perform this benefit concert?
Perlman: For me, the issue is black and white. The fact that there’s still polio is ridiculous. There’s absolutely no excuse for anyone to get polio. This has to be dealt with immediately. I’m not totally versed in inoculation issues, and obviously there are certain countries where inoculation is not quite as organized and there is resistance. But you have to do this. It’s a very humane thing.
TR: When you hear a young person described as a musical prodigy, what comes to mind?
Perlman: Being described as a prodigy is all bad: “My God, this person is a freak.” Very talented is a more appropriate term. There are few real prodigies. Mozart was a prodigy. To be talented at an early age can be a blessing, but to have such a gift is an abnormality. The goal of every “child prodigy” at the age of 10 is to survive the years of being abnormal. You can listen to someone who sounds extremely promising, and then four or five years later you hear nothing there. You can call it burnout. I’ve heard a lot of extremely talented young people. And then something happened. Parents pushed too hard. Or there was bad teaching or a bad attitude. Teaching is all about letting the gift develop itself without messing with it. The promise has to be extended throughout the teenage years.
TR: What is most important to impart as a teacher?
Perlman: It’s important to have a nurturing attitude. I had three teachers. My first teacher, a Russian in Israel, would tell me what to do and was a bit abusive. She worked at trying to make me feel guilty if I didn’t practice. I had two teachers at Juilliard: Ivan Galamian and Dorothy DeLay. Galamian was similar to my first teacher. He had a system: “If you do what I say, you’ll be able to play the violin. If you don’t, you won’t.” But when I would play something for DeLay, she’d ask me what I thought of it. She included me in the process of teaching. I did not like it at the time. But it’s funny: This is the way I teach. I include the students. Even if a student plays badly, there’s always something that’s good there, and from talking about that, you can fix the faults. A lot of old-fashioned people believe that hitting you over the head is good for you. That’s not in the language of the faculty at our program. You have to be kind and constructive.
TR: So you didn’t like to practice any more than the rest of us who’ve studied an instrument?
Perlman: As a child, I hated to practice. But practicing is an art; it’s not just about putting in the time. A lot of kids are too young to immediately get that. They say, well, I’m going to do my four or five hours a day, and I’m going to keep repeating everything, and it’s going to be good. And sometimes they wonder why it’s not working. You need to organize practice; you need a goal. You need to ask yourself, “Why am I practicing, and what is it for?” You can practice for sound, for intonation, for facility, or a lot of other things, but it’s got to be organized. And sometimes the repetition without thinking can be counterproductive. If you practice something wrong – without knowing it – then you have to undo it by practicing even more. I tell the kids that if you practice slowly and with a brain, you will save a lot of time. You can accomplish in an hour what could take a week.
TR: You’ve played at the Oscars. You’ve played with jazz great Oscar Peterson. Recount a favorite unexpected venue or collaboration.
Perlman: Playing with Oscar Peterson was a blast. Classical musicians do not improvise like jazz people. I was in awe of his artistry. We chose pieces that were standards, and the reason was that I felt that harmonically, I would be very familiar with them. But we would do one take, and he would do the piece, and on the next take he would improvise, and it would really be a different piece. He felt so comfortable with what he was doing. It was amazing.
TR: Does klezmer, secular Jewish folk music, provide you with an outlet for improvisation?
Perlman: It all depends, because there are some klezmer tunes that you just play, and with the others, the improvisation is a little subtler than jazz. I always like to call it Jewish soul music. I enjoy doing it. You associate klezmer with the clarinet or violin as a solo instrument, but klezmer started with whatever instrument was available. We just had a klezmer band at our daughter’s wedding. They had trumpet, trombone, clarinet, piano, bass, and drums. And you can add other instruments. They have licks there, but for me, jazz is built for improvisation. That’s part of the virtuosity of the players.
TR: You’ve made more than one appearance on late-night television. Do you remain dedicated to bringing classical music out of the concert hall?
Perlman: I don’t care whether they’re sitting in the audience at The Tonight Show or in Carnegie Hall – people appreciate it when they hear quality. At Carnegie or Avery Fisher Hall [at Lincoln Center], the percentage of people who have a familiarity with classical music is larger, but I have a lot of trust in the audience. I’ve done Johnny Carson as well as PBS. There is no reason not to expose everyone to classical music.
TR: You’ve performed and recorded music written for the violin from every important composer over the last 400 years, from Antonio Vivaldi to Alban Berg. What is it about the instrument that has attracted such lasting interest?
Perlman: The range of the instrument is very attractive. The violin accommodates the range, sound, and the player’s ability to do what composers throughout the ages have demanded, depending on whether the music is baroque, romantic, classical. A lot of composers’ demands have to do with the usage of the bow. Others have to do with rhythm and harmony. We’re doing a chamber music program now, and one of the pieces is Bartók. His demand on the violin is certainly different from Vivaldi’s.
TR: Can you deconstruct the violin – wood, strings, varnish, all put together in a magical way?
Perlman: They were during Strad’s time. There are a lot of good makers now, but some of the old Italian violins are pretty amazing. Today it’s very difficult to find fine Italian instruments without spending a fortune. The only way for kids to have an opportunity to play those instruments is if they’re on loan from a foundation or society. Sometimes people share in buying an instrument, and then they loan it to a talented young violinist.
TR: What is the future of the violin? Will composers look to the instrument over the next few centuries as they’ve done in the past?
Perlman: I see the future, and it’s good because the level of playing has risen among the students I’m exposed to. We will see about composers. Everything has reached a plateau. There was no harmony, and now we’re going back to harmony with different rhythms. I’ve played some new compositions, but not recently. I’ve had a couple of pieces written for me by a wonderful composer named Earl Kim, a student of Arnold Schönberg. He wrote me a violin concerto, which I recorded with the Boston Symphony. I have played a couple of pieces that were written for me, but you could not describe me as somebody who champions contemporary music full time. Every now and then I play it, but I still feel I haven’t done justice to the old stuff.
TR: After the applause and the encores, what’s it all about for Itzhak Perlman?
Perlman: What I am going to eat. I cook, but I am not a cook. There is a difference. I wouldn’t even begin to think about trying to do something a real fancy French restaurant would do. But I cook fairly well. I can get excited about all sorts of ethnic foods. I have a 15-year-old asparagus patch at my home in East Hampton. And in the garden, we have tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers, and zucchini. One of the counselors at the camp, a wonderful bass player, is a mushroom fanatic, and she picked mushrooms from Shelter Island. We ate them, and they were wonderful. And I’m still here.
TR: Once and for all, what is the difference between a fiddle and a violin?
Perlman: When somebody’s terrific, classical musicians say, “He’s some fancy fiddler.” But the violin and fiddle are the same. Really.

Maestro, musician, and polio survivor

2010-01-01T16:00:00.001-05:00

(The Rotarian - November 2009)

James DePreist was born in Philadelphia in 1936. He was diagnosed with polio in 1962. Two years later, he won the Dimitris Mitropoulos International Conducting Competition, and a year after that he was named assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic.
His career since then has included musical directorship for orchestras in Quebec City; Malmö, Sweden; Monaco; and Tokyo. He also was associate conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C.
DePreist has more than 50 recordings to his credit and in 2005 received the National Medal of Arts from President George W. Bush. He is currently director of conducting and orchestral studies at the Julliard School and laureate music director of the Oregon Symphony. At 22 years old, James DePreist had just come to a decision as to what he wanted to do with his life. He had grown up in Philadelphia, had a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania, and had studied composition at the Philadelphia Conservatory of Music. DePreist had thought he might be a composer but decided instead to try a career in conducting. A man of great energy, he found himself uncharacteristically fatigued during a 1962 State Department tour in Bangkok, Thailand. Doctors there delivered a diagnosis that might well have derailed the plans of a lesser spirit: They told him he had contracted polio.
“There was no speculation as to the exact cause,” he remembers. “There were four or five other cases in Thailand. It manifested itself in my being very tired and having pain in my legs. I saw a doctor, who gave me a shot of something, and that night I had to get up to go to the bathroom, and I couldn’t stand up. And that was it.”
He spent the first weeks after the diagnosis in a Bangkok nursing home worrying about how far the disease would progress. “I was exercising my legs, trying to move my arms, with images of an iron lung in my mind before it was determined that the disease wasn’t continuing to move.”
There were some low moments, he says, as he waited in Bangkok for a way back to the United States. “I knew that I needed treatment and therapy, but there was some question if I was contagious and much bureaucracy between Washington and Thailand, and that’s where my aunt was very helpful.” His aunt was the famous contralto Marian Anderson, who had just sung at President Kennedy’s inauguration. DePreist had been told it would be at least a week before a plane could be arranged. When his aunt found out his condition, “a plane happened to be there the next morning,” he recalls. “It was a military transport, and in the stretchers all around me were wounded Marines and soldiers from Vietnam in far worse shape than I was, and it really put things in perspective. And I was entirely optimistic and had a great deal of faith, and so I said, ‘All right. This is what it is for the moment, and we’ll see what’s going to happen.’”
I thought it was so important to be standing, and I was in braces, and keeping my balance was very confining.
Back in the United States, DePreist entered Masee Memorial Hospital for Convalescents in Philadelphia and lived there for about a year, learning to walk with braces, to use crutches, and to maneuver stairs, among other therapies. He spent much of his time in his room reading musical scores.
“When I came to the rehabilitation center, all the patients had some kind of trauma, because they couldn’t walk or do things, and they wanted to make sure they had social contact. I just wanted to be in my room reading scores, so my door was closed, and there was this major discussion about whether I was going through some huge depression. The staff finally said no, he seems perfectly happy. And I was happy. I had finally decided what I was going to do with my life as far as music was concerned. My excitement over that in some ways almost overshadowed the fact that I had polio. I did wonder what I was going to be facing. There hadn’t been a conductor coming on stage with crutches and braces, but amazingly enough, I said this is still what I want to do.”
His friend Leonard Bernstein encouraged him to enter the Dimitris Mitropoulos International Conducting Competition, and DePreist, on crutches and in braces, won first prize. Bernstein then selected him to be assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic for the 1965-66 season, and DePreist’s extraordinary career was launched. Since then, he has worked with every major North American orchestra and with others around the world. Most of that work has been from a wheelchair.
“I remember when I was starting out, I thought it was so important to be standing, and I was in braces, and keeping my balance was very confining. Then a liberating moment came in Stockholm around 1969. The soloist was Itzhak Perlman, who was also a polio survivor and who was performing from a wheelchair. And he said, ‘Why are you standing up?’ I had no intelligent answer except that conductors always stand. So I sat down on a stool, and it was so liberating that from that point forward I have always sat to conduct. The main thing about sitting down is you have to be seen by the musicians. You have to be clear in terms of our upper body gestures. Your eyes are tremendously important; you use your face to communicate.”
Speaking of fellow music legend Perlman, DePreist remembers a laugh the two of them shared: “We were talking about how people commented on how elegant our low bows were at the end of performances. What we knew is that we were looking around at the floor to make sure our braces hadn’t dropped any hardware.”

Some funny stories

2010-01-01T15:00:00.000-05:00

Young Mischa Elman

One day when he was seven years old, the prodigious Mischa Elman was asked to give a violin recital for some family friends. He selected Beethoven's Kreutzer sonata, which he played with ease and considerable virtuosity.
During one of the piece's many pauses, one of his listeners, a kindly old woman, tapped Elman on the shoulder. "Dear," she whispered confidentially, "play something you know."
Elman, Mischa (1891-1967) Russian-born American violinist

Critical Observation

The famed Finnish composer Jean Sibelius once consoled a young musician after a poorly received concert. "Remember, son," he said, patting the lad on the shoulder, "there is no city in the world where they have a statue to a critic."
Sibelius, Jean (1865-1957) Finnish composer

Trumpet Call

After a performance of Beethoven's "Leonora Overture No. 3" one evening, during which the offstage trumpet call had twice failed to sound on cue, an irate Stokowski raced from the rostrum in search of the delinquent trumpeter - whom he found in the wings, violently struggling with a burly janitor. "You can't blow that damn thing here, I tell you!" the janitor cried. "There's a concert going on!"
Stokowski, Leopold (1882-1977) British-born American conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra (1922-38)

Beethoven: Absent-minded Composer

While performing a new piano concerto at the Theater An der Wien one evening, Beethoven began to conduct from his seat at the keyboard (a fairly common practice at the time). At the first sforzando, however, he raised his arms with such passion that he knocked over the piano lights.
Beginning the concerto again (with choir boys holding up the piano lights), Beethoven again dramatically raised his arms, this time striking one of the boys (who dropped his light), causing the other to astutely duck - and sending the audience into fits of laughter.

[Enraged, Beethoven struck the piano with such force that he broke six strings playing the first chord. On similar occasions, the first violinist was known to sneak up behind Beethoven and conduct the piece correctly. (While conducting his Ninth Symphony at a concert in Vienna, Beethoven became so engrossed in the score that he continued to turn its pages while the audience gave him a thunderous ovation. Not until a singer finally pointed and pulled at Beethoven's sleeve did he turn and bow.)]

[Trivia: Beethoven paid so little attention to his wardrobe that friends often snuck into his apartment while he was out in order to replace his tattered clothes with new ones - and Beethoven, it seems, never noticed.]

…and not so funny:

Q: What is a chord?
A: Three violists playing in unison.

Q: What is the definition of a major seventh?
A: A violist playing octaves.

Q: What is the difference between a chainsaw and a viola?
A: If you absolutely had to, you could use a chainsaw in a string quartet.

Q: What do you call a person who plays the viola?
A: A violator.

Q: What do you call the folks who hang around the musicians at conservatories?
A: Violists.

Q: Why can't you hear a viola on a digital recording?
A: Recording technology has reached such an advanced level of development that all extraneous noise is eliminated.

Q: How is lightning like a violist's fingers?
A: Neither one strikes in the same place twice.

Q: How do you get a viola section to play spiccato?
A: Write a whole note with "solo" above it.

Recommended listening

2010-01-01T14:00:00.000-05:00

David Oistrakh, Debussy - Clair de lune

David Oistrakh plays Tchaikovsky Concerto (1st Mov.) Part 1

David Oistrakh plays Tchaikovsky Concerto (1st Mov.) Part 2

... and of course Heifetz!

Heifetz Franck Sonata 4th Movement

Welcome to Music In Summer blog!

2008-07-26T02:14:00.000-04:00

Dear Friends,

We are starting this blog in July 2008. We just had a great summer in North Bay! Stay tuned for photos and videos!

Thank you!
The Music In Summer Team