Music camp!

Glinka Orchestral Works; Tchaikovsky Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra; Mikhail Glinka, composer; Vladimir Fedosseiev, conducting

In the summers of 1981 and 1982, I attended South Dakota All-State Music Camp on the campus of South Dakota State University. I played in the symphonic band, sang in the concert choir, played in one of the jazz bands, took a couple of piano lessons and ate lots of SDSU ice cream. On Friday evening we had the Grand Concert. At that time, they held the concerts outside in the Sylvan Theatre, dedicated in 1927 by President Calvin Coolidge. In 1981, we barely got everything performed before the rain poured out of the sky.

Dr. H., head of the Music Department at SDSU, directed the jazz bands. The jazz bands only got to rehearse once a day during music camp week, so their contribution to the Grand Concert wasn’t ample, but, in 1981, the brevity may have prevented us from getting drenched. Dr. H. employed two adages in his music camp jazz band improvisation teaching philosophy: “Baptism by fire” and “Sink or swim”. “You’re not going to learn how to improvise by not blowing your horn, so you might as well blow your horn. Get all of the wrong notes out of there now so that the right ones will come out later”. At the concerts, Dr. H. wore a jacket that defied, yet somehow encompassed, every entry in the finest writer’s description arsenal. That is to say that everything that it was, it also wasn’t. Never saw anything like it, and yet did.

When I attended SDSU as a music major, Dr. J. was the director of jazz bands and jazz studies. He also had the clarinet studio. Dr. J. taught a completely thorough class on 20^th century music literature that meticulously prepared me and my colleagues for the subject in graduate school. Many years later, Dr. J. and I played a recital together. Every rehearsal became laced with jokes and stories, mostly from him. His knowledge of music and general knowledge of nearly everything else surpasses his sense of humor, but only barely.

Mrs. R taught flute at SDSU. Other than playing accompaniments for a few of her students, I didn’t see her very often. Her last year at SDSU coincided with my senior year. While cleaning out her office before retiring, she came across a very special picture. Mrs. R. had attended an earlier incarnation of CCM (University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music). As I recall, she played in the flute section of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra as a substitute. On one of those concerts, none other than the legendary pianist/composer/conductor Sergei Rachmaninoff guest-conducted the CSO. After the third rehearsal or so, the great Russian sat down at a table off to the side of the stage and signed photographs of himself for anyone who wanted them. Remembering how much I loved Rachmaninoff, she gave me her autographed photo of Mr. Rachmaninoff .

A few years before I attended SDSU, these three SDSU faculty members formed a woodwind trio called “Wind Power” that featured each of them playing their instrument of expertise. Dr. H. played the oboe. I think I heard them in concert three times. And while I know that I enjoyed them and their repertoire each time, I really only remember one selection that they played. Wind Power’s piece de resistance was the Overture to “Ruslan and Ludmila”, an opera by Russian composer Mikhail Glinka. This overture serves up a virtual jamboree of color, dynamic and excitement. There is so much happening musically at any given time during this piece that I would consider it a daunting task to dilute the orchestration down to just three parts. And, yet, Wind Power thrilled me every time with its infectious vitality and jubilance on this exultant opera prologue.

Mr. Glinka spiritually served as mentor to a group of Russian composers whom history has referred to as “The Mighty Handful”. Master composers Cesar Cui, Modest Mussorgsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Borodin led by Mily Balakirev wanted Russian nationalism to pervade their compositional techniques. Mr. Glinka, who lived some fity years before “the handful”, had already accomplished this to some extent. You can hear folk elements in much of his music.

Many years after my music camp adventures, I served as a camp counselor and staff accompanist at All-State Music Camp. Mrs. R. brought a piece called “Variations on Old MacDonald” for flute and piano. As I recall, one of the variations had Old MacDonald as a stodgy, somber Russian farmer, quoting Tchaikovsky, Borodin and Glinka. The piece culminated with Mrs. R. and I singing (yes, singing) Handel’s timeless chorus from “Messiah”: “Haaaaaa-lle-lu-jah! Haaaaa-lle-lu-lah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! E I E I O!”

Credits: To music students everywhere, who have a hunger for music that just can’t be slaked, and who go to music camp to meet other nerds who enjoy music as much as they do, and who inspire, and get inspired by, each other. Nerdiness can be shed, but an appreciation for music lasts a lifetime.

Today, I am a quarter of the way through my blog. Woo-hoo!

I couldn’t find a picture of the cover of today’s CD on the world wide interweb, so I rustled up a plate of homemade Oreos for you. Bon appetit!