BRIGHT YOUNG THINGS

NYSOS artistic director Jaime Laredo

On a chilly New York afternoon in December 2018, an overcast, grisaille-laced sky made the Upper Manhattan landscape seem more formidable than usual.

But inside the Mannes School of Music, in a cheerful rehearsal room, the mood was considerably brighter, even spring-like, as conductor Jaime Laredo began the afternoon session with the young musicians of the New York String Orchestra.

A casual atmosphere reigned. Backpacks were tossed around the edges of the room, and phones and tablets were discreetly relegated to the floor – handy if needed, but it was clear that they weren’t. (You know something compelling is happening when not a single phone rings during the entire three hours.) Plunging into the torrential emotions of Tchaikovsky’s ‘Pathétique’ Symphony, the young musicians (aged 16 to 23) exuded a mixture of patience and jubilation, as Laredo announced that they would do a complete run-through. In the first movement, the violins’ carefully gauged pizzicatos belied the age of the musicians, and the 5/4 time signature in the second-movement Allegro con grazia didn’t faze the ensemble at all. The sprightly third movement seemed a prelude to the lushness of the finale, with the strings working their damnedest to recreate the composer’s emotional textures.

As Laredo announced a break, he added encouragingly, ‘For 24 hours’ work, pretty good! Bravo, bravo!’ Stting behind a couple of horn players, I wondered about the group’s string-centric name. Since its 64 players are dominated by 49 strings, how does one reconcile the 14 winds and brass – not to mention a timpanist? ‘It started as a string orchestra with [founding conductor] Alexander Schneider, and little by little we added instruments to play Haydn or Mozart,’ Laredo later tells me. ‘But now the tradition is so strong that – between audiences, Carnegie Hall and the fans – we can’t change the name,’ he laughs.

When the rehearsal resumed, with Brahms’s Violin Concerto (sans soloist Joshua Bell), the young players’ tone was already on the refined side, with the violin contingent in precise form, and a handsome cello and double bass anchor. Laredo offered a few instructive suggestions to the violas, urging them to find more diversity in dynamics: ‘Everything is a little too mezzo forte. More range, please, and more bow – more flautando, more air!’ To the cellos he urged: ‘More legato, longer bow strokes’; to the violins: ‘Beautiful, but even more – really legato.’ And later, ‘Articulate those semiquavers (s)… Intonation is pretty good, but could be better.’ In each case, the message was assimilated almost immediately.

Karina Canellakis conducts the New York String Orchestra in George Walker’s Lyric at Carnegie Hall in December 2018

Manhattan School of Music professor Todd Phillips coaches NYSOS students in chamber music during the 2018 season

ALLEN COHEN

‘WE MADE THE SEMINAR A FAMILY – HUMAN AS WELL AS EDUCATIONAL’ – NYSOS FOUNDER FRANK SALOMON

Before launching into Beethoven’s Piano Concerto no.4 (to which soloist Yefim Bronfman would be added later), Laredo announced, ‘I know it’s a little boring to play without the piano, but we have to!’ Later, helpfully humming the piano role, he stopped to observe, ‘The strings are a little too heavy for the winds,’ and he made a plea for ‘a nicer sound, please – loud but warm’. With every single comment, the conductor offered forthright correction (firm but gentle, without any stereotypical tyranny), and the results were apparent, even during my quick dip into the refining process. In the run-through that followed, each and every player had internalised the comments, made mental notes and executed the changes.

Established in 1969, the ensemble – officially known as the New York String Orchestra Seminar (NYSOS) – was the brainchild of Frank Salomon, founder and manager of Frank Salomon Associates, who is also affiliated with Marlboro Music (as senior administrator) and New York’s Peoples’ Symphony Concerts (as manager). Salomon set up the NYSOS in order to showcase the conductor Alexander (‘Sasha’) Schneider, originally getting the idea from Schneider’s brother, Mischa, cellist of the Budapest Quartet (of which Sasha was also second violinist). ‘Some time in the late 1960s,’ recalls Salomon, ‘I picked up Mischa at LaGuardia Airport and he told me about a string festival for high school students that his quartet had just directed at the University at Buffalo. He mentioned the ten string quartets that the Budapest had coached during the day. In the evenings, Sasha had rehearsed them as an orchestra, having found some young local double bass players. At the end of the five-day festival, the orchestra gave a concert, which Mischa said was amazing.’ Salomon had a revelatory moment: in his words ‘a light went off’. He took the idea and ran with it.

NYSOS was founded at New York’s New School university, before the latter incorporated the Parsons School of Design and the Mannes School of Music. NYSOS now continues under the auspices of Mannes, and attracts more than 400 applicants every year, of which typically only 64 are accepted. Those who qualify receive a full scholarship for the ten-day programme, including room and board. The intensive twelve-hour days include nine hours of rehearsals and coaching – six hours of orchestral and three hours of chamber music. Two Carnegie Hall concerts are the climax of the initiative, and have become a holiday tradition.

Salomon fondly remembers the early years of the programme, which has traditionally taken place over the Christmas period, from 19 to 28 December: ‘We tried to make the seminar a family – human as well as educational and professional. On Christmas Day, the young musicians who didn’t have family or friends came to the home of the legendary violinist Felix Galimir and his wife, Suzanne, who cooked them a great meal. Felix and Suzanne always had a grab bag of gifts – strange presents that they had received during the year and funny little things they had found, like garters, or spectacles with an oversized nosepiece.

‘Then they would come to our apartment, where my late wife and I would serve them eggnog and Christmas cookies. After the final concert, on 28 December, Sasha invited everyone to his loft on 20th Street, where he would play his famous recording of Strauss waltzes [made in 1988 with his string quintet, the Alexander Schneider Quintet, which he led as violinist]. Often, many of the young musicians danced – so many that the floor began to shake!’

In 1993, Schneider handed the reins to Laredo, who now serves as the seminar’s artistic director. In 1977, Laredo the violinist had rocketed into American musical consciousness with the debut of the Kalichstein–Laredo–Robinson Trio (with colleagues pianist Joseph Kalichstein and cellist Sharon Robinson) for President Jimmy Carter’s inauguration. More than 40 years later, the ensemble is still active, with concerts and recordings (including the complete piano trios of Beethoven and Brahms) as testament to its enduring popularity, and some 30 commissions from composers such as Richard Danielpour and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (the subject of their latest album, Passionate Diversions, released in 2014 on the Azica label).

Laredo channels this real-life experience to teach the NYSOS participants about the joys – and perhaps the sober realities – of working as professional musicians. Over the years, mentors have included a galaxy of stars and some of the world’s most distinguished chamber musicians, as orchestral training is not the only NYSOS mission; chamber music is also a key part of the programme, even if no public concerts are given. As Laredo chuckles, referencing George Szell, ‘A great orchestra plays like a great string quartet.’

Past concerts were starry. In 2016, for the 24 December concert, Jennifer Koh was soloist in Mozart’s Third Violin Concerto, and four days later, pianists Anna Polonsky and Orion Weiss were the duo in the composer’s Concerto in E flat major for two pianos K365. In 2017, the star for Christmas Eve was violinist Pamela Frank, joining Laredo for Vivaldi’s Concerto in A minor for two violins, strings and continuo. A few days later, Richard Goode added his understated brilliance to the festivities in Mozart’s Piano Concerto no.20. ‘The kind of soloists we get speaks volumes for the whole programme,’ says Laredo. ‘Christmas time is when everyone should be with their families. But here, Josh Bell and Pam Frank show up. I’ve never had to beg or cajole anybody. The answer is always, “Yes”.’

In the last few decades, youth orchestras have blossomed in the United States and around the world. In 2007, Gustavo Dudamel – a veteran of Venezuela’s El Sistema and music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic – started Youth Orchestra Los Angeles (YOLA). In 2012, Carnegie Hall launched the National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America (NYO-USA), and in 2016 its younger sibling, NYO2, followed, with even younger participants. Europe had had a bit of a head start, with the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester, created by conductor Claudio Abbado in 1986, and the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain beats them all, founded in 1948. All of these are designed to give promising youngsters a taste of what they might expect as a professional instrumentalist. NYSOS was one of the first in the United States, and over five decades it has developed an ardent, loyal following.

When the time arrived for the two 2018 Carnegie Hall concerts, the students’ metamorphosis was even more apparent. On Christmas Eve, Laredo kicked off the evening with Mendelssohn’s ‘Hebrides’ overture – a powerful reading, but the best was yet to come: the four violinists Jinjoo Cho, Pamela Frank, Bella Hristova and Kyoko Takezawa were a rhapsodic cast in Vivaldi’s Concerto in B minor for four violins, belying the opinion of those who find the composer’s utterances monotonous. To close the hour-long essay, Bronfman offered Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto, and the soloist’s impact was obvious, further underlining the value of collegial interplay.

LAREDO TEACHES ABOUT THE JOYS – AND PERHAPS THE SOBER REALITIES – OF WORKING AS PROFESSIONAL MUSICIANS

Laredo teaches his young charges that ‘a great orchestra plays like a great string quartet’

ALLEN COHEN

Left to right Pamela Frank, Kyoko Takezawa, Bella Hristova and Jinjoo Cho perform Vivaldi’s Concerto in B minor for four violins on Christmas Eve 2018

‘IT WAS A DEFINING MOMENT FOR ME AS A TEENAGER. THE PASSION OF PEOPLE YOUR OWN AGE IS IMPORTANT’ – CELLIST YO-YO MA

Founding NYSOS conductor Alexander Schneider leads a rehearsal in 1969

MAIN IMAGE PETE CHECCHIA. INSET IMAGE COURTESY THE NEW SCHOOL

Four nights later, on 28 December, in the Carnegie Hall auditorium that carries his father’s surname, the conductor Michael Stern strode on stage to make introductory remarks.

(Not only was Isaac Stern an early supporter of the NYSOS, but he was also instrumental in recruiting Carnegie Hall as the concert sponsor, and in the first year he appeared with the orchestra along with cellist Leonard Rose and flautist Jean- Pierre Rampal.) In heartfelt remarks, Michael acknowledged the musicians, Laredo, the faculty and NYSOS’s tireless director Rohana Elias-Reyes, as well as those who have supported the seminar over the years.

Guest conductor Karina Canellakis opened with a relative rarity, Pulitzer prize-winning composer George Walker’s Lyric (1946) for strings – lush and luscious, with subtly shifting timbres that evoke Barber’s Adagio, which was written ten years earlier. The Tchaikovsky was even cleaner and more wrenching than it had been in rehearsal. Double bass entrances were more refined; brass and winds, which had been mildly struggling just a week earlier, were totally secure. In the Allegro con grazia, the cellos led the way – so lustrously in the 5/4 metre that it felt more like a danceable waltz. The Allegro molto vivace was a high-spirited romp, and the finale was marked by broad swathes of string tone, with Laredo encouraging – and getting – a surprising dynamic range, worlds away from ‘too much mezzo forte’ just days earlier.

In between, Joshua Bell applied his creamy gloss to the Brahms Concerto, while Laredo coaxed sumptuous counterpoint from the ensemble. During his solo moments, Bell sported impeccably straight posture, except for those moments when his body language – swaying to and fro – seemed in empathetic synchronisation with the students.

In December 2019 NYSOS will mark Christmas Eve with an all-Mozart evening featuring violinist Nancy Zhou, winner of the 2018 Shanghai Isaac Stern International Violin Competition. Zhou will perform the ‘Turkish’ Violin Concerto in a programme that includes the Overture to The Marriage of Figaro and the ‘Jupiter’ Symphony.

On 28 December, violinist Shannon Lee joins Laredo for Bach’s Concerto in D minor for two violins BWV1043.

Lee is also an award winner: she came second in the 2018 International Naumburg Violin Competition, and this year she came fourth in the Queen Elisabeth Violin Competition and second in the Sendai International Music Competition, in which she played Bartók’s Violin Concerto no.2. Laredo is one of her mentors – she studied with him at the Cleveland Institute of Music.

Also next month, a documentary on the NYSOS, recorded in 2018, will be broadcast on Bill McGlaughlin’s long-running radio programme Exploring Music.

From a glint in the eye of a visionary, inspired by the experience of another, the NYSOS seems destined to continue its crucial mission for another 50 years. As the cellist Yo-Yo Ma reminisces about his 1971 seminar experience, ‘It was one of the defining moments for me as a teenager. The passion of people your own age is very important; it puts you in touch with a larger world, beyond schooling and everything else you do.’