Saturday the 12th was almost as big a day as Friday the 11th. We stayed at a nice hotel right down the road from where Trevor and Megan’s wedding reception was held – and met some of Trevor’s family for breakfast the next morning, before heading into Chicago and down to 31st Street, south of the Loop, a few blocks away from Comiskey Park (home of the White Sox) so I could play for the graduate recital of Helen Breidenbach. She is the orchestra director at Tremper High School (where Polly is choral director) and approached me back in May to see if I would be willing to accompany her for her viola recital. It’s not like I didn’t already have plenty of pots cooking on my stove, but Polly speaks highly of Helen and I decided that it might be an interesting and fun challenge- and I was right. The worst part was that the recital had to take place at VanderCook College, which is quite a hike from home, but I thought if it could be scheduled to coincide with a shopping trip or some other reason to be down in Chicago with Kathy, it would be pretty painless. And as it turns out, it worked to schedule the recital for the day after Trevor’s wedding, when we would be down in the Land of Lincoln anyway.
It was a fair amount of work because she played four pieces, all of which were challenging in one way or another- but Helen was so appreciative and easy to work with – and also a good player, which really makes a difference in whether or not a project like this is fun. And she was generous, too – so I had nothing to complain about outside of the last piece on the program, which seemed to have a different time signature and several dozen accidentals in every blasted measure. But the challenge was good for me.
One unexpected bonus in working with Helen on this project was the experience of watching her work with her teacher and advisor at VanderCook, whose name escapes me. (I think he might be Dr. Hall.) He came up once to Kenosha and we went down once to Chicago – and in both cases I found myself absolutely floored by his excellence. He had such a discerning ear, such fun and intriguing ways of articulating what he wanted, and he conveyed such genuine caring and concern without being maudlin about it. He also achieved what I think is the perfect balance between having exacting standards and yet being impressed and thrilled with the good things Helen did. That is such a tricky balancing act. . . some teachers are impressed by NOTHING their students do, while other teachers are impressed with EVERYTHING they do. I loved his enthusiasm – and also how he kept the focus on Helen and her playing. (Lots of fantastic teachers are a little too aware of themselves and their own abilities and the lesson becomes a nauseating exercise in narcissism.) In short, he was the very best teacher I’ve ever seen in action. . . and after you’ve been playing as long as I have for a whole host of teachers both in college, graduate school and beyond, that is really saying something.
So the recital was Saturday the 12th and it ended up going SO well. I was especially pleased that a nice group came to hear her – because she really didn’t know what to expect and a Saturday recital could have been a very very sparse event. (I told Helen about the trombone recital I accompanied at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln one Sunday afternoon . . . in which the only people there were the trombonist, the teacher, and me. No one else. It was sad but he went ahead and played the whole program and his teacher recorded it – and there was something very moving and poignant about that performance.) Helen’s audience nicely filled the room and I was happy that so many people came to enjoy the fruits of her labor. And in a moment that was so Helen, she had some thank you’s before she played her last piece and as she thanked me and thanked her teacher she started to cry. . . which made me cry . . . which did not exactly enhance the quality of our playing of the last piece, but who the heck cares!
One thing that was neat about the performance was that VanderCook College is located very close to the southside train line, and during our rehearsal that morning there were several moments when trains went rudely rumbling by. . . and it was so loud, almost as though the train was right beneath us. I groaned inwardly, frustrated that a performance this important had to happen in this kind of setting – in a room that wasn’t even designed to be a performance space at all, with the sirens and trains and car horns of the outside world intruding so irritatingly. But then the recital itself began and it was as though all of that went away and the only thing in the room was the sound of Helen and me making music. And at the end of each piece, Helen flashed me this big smile – of joy, of relief, of gratitude. I can’t remember when I enjoyed such a performance so much.
One more fun fact. . . Helen asked her teacher if it would be okay with him if she played the recital in bare feet. She just doesn’t own a pair of dressy shoes in which she feels completely comfortable when performing – and fortunately her teacher agreed that nothing was more important than her sense of comfort and security when she played. So Helen played her masters recital in bare feet and it didn’t matter one little bit. What mattered was the music. That’s how it should always be.
pictured: during our rehearsal in Carthage’s recital hall with Helen’s teacher.