thirteen ways

It’s the time of year for top ten lists, so I thought I’d give one a shot. Here are my top ten moments of 2009. Most are 8bb-related (this is our blog, after all!) but not all. But the two that aren’t I couldn’t have done without 8bb granting me those opportunities, so it seems worth including them here.

10) running to the Tiergarten
Morning of March 27th. Day before, we’d landed in Berlin, checked into our hotel, and played a concert for the Berlin Festival — a concert which I felt really great about, mostly because of the awesome work that Ryan (sound) and Emily (lighting) did in preparation for our arrival. But it was that Friday morning run, jetlagged and slightly hungover and therefore not very fast, that I remember. I checked out some maps and realized I could make it from our hotel to the Tiergarten. I remember reading about Rhoda Henry walking through the garden in The Winds of War, and as I ran through it (passed by many more fit Germans) I thought a lot about how lucky I was to have a job that took me to Berlin. Yeah, it was a crazy itinerary, with only 48 hours in Europe, but somehow running those paths made me feel like it was worth it.
9) listening to the Harp at UR
At the University of Richmond, one of our responsibilities is to do coachings for the student chamber music ensembles the weeks that we’re in residence. This past spring, I had the honor to coach a group of four students playing Beethoven’s Op. 74. It was a hard piece for them, but they drew on their experience playing together the previous year, and they took it seriously. The evening in April when I sat on the edge of my seat, mentally cheering their ambitious tempos while making checklists for things I wished drilled them more on, reminded me why sometimes I love teaching as much as I love performing.
8) cousins in Tallahassee
This was just crazy. Like a fox. In a good way. We played a concert at FSU for a great new music festival they have there. And for some amazing reason, three of my cousins, two of whom I hadn’t seen in years, decided to make a roadtrip for the evening. Denise, Shannon, and Molly — you made my night. Sorry your car got towed.

7) Ojai Pierrot
It’s hard to single any one thing out from our amazing experience at Ojai 09. So I’ve picked two: here’s the first one. Saturday night. I’d already been in southern California for two weeks, rehearsing and preparing for everything at the festival. I was leaving in two days. But that night I walked onstage and everything seemed to fall into place. Mark DeChiazzas choreography, Lucy Shelton’s complete inhabiting of Schoenberg’s world, my own musical contributions — everything seemed of a piece, contributing to a whole so much greater than its parts. I felt confident and fortunate to be able to be placing violin and viola under my chin and playing complex hundred-year-old atonal music for a rapt audience on a mild summer evening.
6) Monk at BAM
Todd Reynolds, I have no idea why you decided to ask me to play in your string quartet for the June 08 workshop of Meredith Monk’s Songs of Ascension at the Walker. I know it was a huge headache that I couldn’t do most of the performances for the past 18 months. But doing that meant you asked me back to play at BAM’s Next Wave this fall. Playing Meredith’s music with you, Nadia, Ha-Yang, the singers and other players was so humbling and beautiful for me. When a friend came up to me after the last performance and said “it was so nice to hear you play long phrases!” I knew exactly what he meant. So thanks.
5) Haydn rehearsal in Detroit
Larry (best host north of Detroit!) N’s house, party after listening to a concert of Mozart and Mendelssohn. Nick and I sit down to read through our Haydn piano trio with Jeremy Denk for the first time. We’ve all had wine, we’re all a little burned out and tired, so what do we do? We make music. We get into the piece, explore its possibilities, stretch transitions to their breaking point, and coax life, circa 2009, out of this 200+ year old piece. Magic.
4) Lindberg at Cabrillo
I don’t know how many full time jobs would allow me to take off two weeks almost every summer and go play in an orchestra in Santa Cruz, CA. But this one does, and over my seven summers of playing at the Cabrillo Festival I’ve managed to convince enough people there that matter that I should be their principal second violinist. This summer we played Magnus Lindberg’s Seht di Sonne, a piece that inspired a pretty wide range of reactions from my friends in the orchestra, from love to despair. I was pretty close to the love end of the spectrum anyway, but what made the performance amazing was the sense of being on a musical tightrope: Marin took every chance she could, making every moment count, and our section of eight fantastic, wonderful, amazing violinists played Lindberg’s divisi a 6 violin part with all our hearts on our sleeves. Unlike the above Pierrot performance, I was far from comfortable, and I loved every second of it.
3) Jennifer’s class, UR
September, the morning of our first concert of the school year. Michael, Lisa and I show up for an 8 AM discussion with non-musicians taking a Music Scenes class about that night’s repertoire. Jennifer Cable has prompted her students to come with insightful questions, which they do. They then proceed to follow our discussion closely, ask us for appropriate clarifications, and generally inspire us to think differently about the pieces we’re playing that evening. What could have been a huge drag was instead the primary motivation I used to play a thoughtful, engaged concert that evening.
2) Colburn Hartke performance
Here’s an idea: show up at a music school on a Wednesday. Begin rehearsals on Thursday, and continue for ten days. The last day, perform a piece with three members of your ensemble and three students all playing by memory, all choreographed, and all knowing every aspect of the piece inside and out. Can’t happen, right? Except it did, with Hartke’s Meanwhile at the Colburn School in April. Louise, Stan, and David — wow.
1) Denk Ives performance, Ojai
Saturday morning at Ojai, Jeremy Denk walked on stage and played the Ives First Sonata as if it were written for him. Which, I think, in retrospect, it was. Only an audience member for this, but since my career as a performer requires so many people to be our audience, it’s fitting to recognize this kind of experience as my top moment of 09. It’s become my challenge for 10: every time I walk onstage, make my best effort to allow our music to affect someone profoundly. Take risks, find the seams and unleash my own reality with every piece we play. If Jeremy can do it, so can we.