thirteen ways

We were in sunny Texas for just over 24 hours last weekend, to take part in a Careers Forum at the Shepherd School of Music, Rice University. Students, staff and faculty were invited from across the nation’s music schools to come together and talk about the future of careers counseling, in particular how to shift the focus of conservatories from the narrow goal of turning out perfect orchestral audition machines to a broader goal of creating well-rounded musicians fit to confront the challenges facing classical music today. Tough task in three days, but the participants certainly didn’t lack for either ambition or street smarts, and I gather it was a fascinating roller coaster ride.

The driving force behind the forum was Janet Rarick, a professional oboist now passionately involved in the professional development of young musicians. She has set up an interesting website called Navigating Music Careers, which is chock-a-block with resources for the up-and-coming, including lots of videos touching on relevant issues.

Below, lunchtime in the Shepherd School lobby:

8bb and the Chiara Quartet were presented at the forum as examples of ensembles that had carved out interesting, unique and successful niche career paths for themselves. 8bb played a set on Saturday night, featuring three of our “greatest hits”: the perky 8th movement from Thirteen Ways by Thomas Albert (the first work that the ensemble commissioned); the sometimes manic, sometimes super-funky Eel from Dennis DeSantis’ Powerless (written in 2001); and five movements from Frederick Rzewski’s colorful concerto grosso, Pocket Symphony.

Our performance was followed by a Q&A with the students led by Eric Booth, a fascinatingly diverse artistic personality. Eric has been both actor and small businessman; has written Esquire, Theater in America, Entrepreneur; and was on staff at Julliard for ten years. He asked uncompromising, concise, direct questions, pertinent to the engaged young music students in the audience.

We went out for a beer or three on Saturday with those participants of legal drinking age (aaaah, America, you really have to learn from Australia and Canada’s example).

The evening followed a typical 21-st century direction, which meant that at some point the Phot whipped out his iPhone, and within minutes the gathering devolved into a YouTube-watching session. Julie Yoon, the Chiara’s engaging, opinionated second violinist, insisted we watch a video she had posted online of her impossibly cute cat, Dirty. As you can see, Dirty is one seriously laid-back feline: