Lawrence Stomberg, Cellist

In Memoriam: Miss Pat

larry.stomberg@gmail.com (Lawrence Stomberg) — 9:43am Sunday, December 18, 2011

Pat Layton died on Friday. For anyone who might have just happened to see her in passing, she might seem a non-descript person; worked a receptionist job at a community music school, not wealthy, not glamorous at all. But Miss Pat, as she was known by all who did know her, had an enormously positive impact on their lives who got to experience her.

Miss Pat worked at the front desk of the Music School of Delaware (formerly the Wilmington Music School), where she answered phones, checked on room availability, and took the 75 cents apiece for the snacks at the desk, among a host of other things. Her real job there, though, seemed to be carer-in-chief. In a building always full of a ton of kids ages 1 through 80 (most of the adult amateur musicians there have a wonderful, youthful zeal for their music making), Pat knew them all. And she didn't just know their names, she knew about them - their personalities, the little things that made them happy or sad, and the right thing to say when they were happy or sad. She was generous to a fault, giving little gifts or even money to kids for a holiday or birthday, even when she herself barely made enough money to make ends meet.

I've spent, and continue to spend, a lot of time at that music school: my wife works there, my kids all take lessons, music theory and play in ensembles there, and my quartet rehearses there a lot. Miss Pat's absence since getting sick (she lost her battle to Cancer) has felt like a huge hole for all of us; her successors are delightful people who do good work, but Miss Pat is irreplaceable. I always knew that my kids were looked after and cared for in this nurturing environment, and as a parent, this was a wonderful gift. She would talk to my daughters for long stretches while they stood and colored at her desk, often helping them deal with whatever drama of the day had thrown them for a loop, and she even occasionally got my son to smile in public (if you've ever met him, you realize that this is no small feat). She always greeted me with a smile and a hello that was as warm as any hug; it was one of the moments I always looked forward to on Monday mornings when I showed up for quartet rehearsal.

In our culture, we spend a lot of time canonizing and speaking of famous people: world leaders, celebrities, athletes. But the real heroes in our lives usually receive too little of this attention and praise, until they're gone and someone writes a nice obituary piece about them. Miss Pat meant more to me and my family, and countless other families, than any famous person ever has or will. I think she knew that, and so many of us let her know it. I only wish our world made more room to celebrate the Miss Pats in our lives while they're still with us.

Bogot�

larry.stomberg@gmail.com (Lawrence Stomberg) — 7:29am Tuesday, November 1, 2011

At this point, having happened nearly two months ago, and now well into the concert season and school year, this is very old news. �But, I wanted to write a little bit about my�reminiscences�of the wonderful week I spent in Bogot�, Colombia, playing a concert, working with delightful students in rehearsals and master class, and eating copious amounts of amazing South American cuisine.

I was fortunate to be part of an initiative, started by the lovely soprano Catherine Short de Arce, who is an alumna of the University of Delaware, my stomping grounds. �Her husband, Gonzalo, is a fellow faculty member at the university, in Electrical Engineering, and over the years in his department, he has forged productive and symbiotic relationships with collegiate engineering programs at a number of Colombian schools, developing student exchanges, dual degree programs, and a wonderful recruiting pipeline. �Cathy figured - why couldn't her alma mater do the same in music? �So, after a nicely crafted grant proposal and some seed money, we were on our way to Bogot� to start a relationship with the Pontifica Universidad Javeriana, a very fine private school in the heart of the city, to give a concert including faculty and students there, and to grease the wheels for an ongoing relationship. Joining Cathy, Gonzalo and me was Andreas Meyer, a fantastic recording engineer with whom I've worked a fair bit, who came to do classes and presentations with students, in a new state-of-the-art facility the school has built. (his lovely wife, Susan, came for part of the trip, too).

Embarrassingly, having grown up in southern New Mexico, surrounded by a thriving hispanic culture, I never learned Spanish (other than some of the more oft-used swear words). �Well, here was my chance. Having learned just enough Chinese 5 years ago to make a few people in China actually think that I knew what I was saying, I figured Spanish would be a breeze. I loaded up with all the free Spanish-language iPhone apps I could find, and downloaded the Discover Spanish podcasts (how could I go wrong following the soothing voice of Johnny Spanish, his lovely assistant Cristina, and salsa music playing in the background). �Luckily, one of the things I learned somewhat reliably were numbers, so I at least knew which measure we were starting at in rehearsals. �The big test of my all-to-quick language immersion came during the concert itself, when, because of some program changes, I needed to announce that I was playing the Prelude of the 2nd Bach Suite, then followed by the Bachianas Brasilieras No. 5 of Villa-Lobos (with Cathy and students at the Javeriana). �It was type of nervousness that I didn't anticipate during my South American debut, but I survived, and the kind audience didn't seem to mind what I'm sure was pretty mangled Spanish.

Johnny Spanish�and�Cristina�were my close companions for two weeks prior to the trip.

The trip itself was wonderful. �The Colombian people I met are lovely, warm and generous. �The city of Bogot� is one of the more stunning I've seen, sitting on a mountain at just about 9,000 feet of elevation (coming back home to sea level and going for a run the next day, I felt like Superman!).

A view of Bogot� from the top of Monserrate, a mountain overlooking the city.

We were treated so well by our hosts, shown the sights of the city and its surroundings. The picture above was taken from Monserrate, a mountain in the city, reaching up beyond 10,000 feet. �The top of the mountain has a gorgeous cathedral and a line of really neat shops selling local wares (and a whole bunch of Coca Tea; didn't buy any - just getting through airport security with my cello was challenging enough). On our complete day off during the trip, we visited the�famous�Cathedral de Sal (Salt Cathedral), which is a beautiful, if slightly strange, cathedral built way down in a salt mine. There is also a lovely collection of gift shops next to the cathedral underground, because, really, what says devout faith more than fine, but inexpensive jewelry and leather goods?

Even though it had a slightly "Return to the Planet of the Apes" style underground vibe, the Cathedral de Sal was quite beautiful.

But, even with the wonderful sight-seeing and tremendous food and drink, the best part of the trip was the people I met and got to interact with. The students and faculty at the Javeriana were wonderfully dedicated to and excited about music, and we got to hear a large group of young string players from all around Colombia, taking part in a festival performance of the Batuta program (a music education system much like the more-famous Il Sistema in Venezuela). I came back from the trip inspired by the musical energy in Bogot�, and really hope to get back very soon. �Next time though, I think I'll let Johnny and Cristina speak for me on stage

Me, with Cathy Arce, and the cello students in Bogot�, who call their ensemble "Ponticello"!

Ten Years Ago Tonight

larry.stomberg@gmail.com (Lawrence Stomberg) — 9:36pm Saturday, September 17, 2011

There are a lot of things I have to write about that I hope to get to as soon as possible, but have just been swamped with the simultaneous crises of the beginning of the school year, the concert season, and trying to sell our house. �Oy. �Soon, I hope to post about my recent trip to Bogot�, Colombia, and will continue my run-down of the 30-day challenge from the summer, but I wanted to post this tonight.

Last weekend, we all commemorated the tenth anniversary of 9/11 in our various ways. Many watched on TV the opening of the Memorial in New York, others reminisced about what they were doing that day and how they reacted (some would have no part of this; they understandably did not want to re-live any of it, and for those who didn't lose anyone they knew that day, there was a feeling that perhaps others had more of a right to share in the grief). �Me, well, I found myself thinking about Tchaikovsky and a Mexican conductor.

Ten years ago tonight, the Tulsa Philharmonic (the orchestra of which I was a member from 1998-2002) played its opening concert of the season. That in itself is not particularly notable, especially compared to the awful attacks of just four days before. �But how it happened has affected me deeply in how I view what I do as a musician, and why what I and my colleagues do is important. �Our first rehearsal was scheduled for Tuesday, September 11, 2001. �After the events of that morning sunk in, we in the orchestra received phone calls that rehearsal would not be happening that night. �It wasn't because of a security scare or for grieving (though many people were relieved to just stay home with their families and friends that night) - our conductor for that week (and our new Artistic Advisor), Mexican maestro Enrique Diemecke, was stuck in Chicago. �He had been on a plane at O'Hare, about next in line on the tarmac to take off, when they grounded all the flights.

Well, we thought he was in Chicago. �As it turns out, when he got off the plane at O'Hare, there were no rental cars left for him to rent, and taxis were outrageously expensive. �He somehow got himself to a friend's place, and then, deciding that he had to get down to Tulsa to make this concert happen, he caught a ride with someone to St. Louis. The next day, he caught a different ride with someone else to get to Tulsa (this is all a very long trip). We had rehearsal on Wednesday night, and his opening words to the orchestra that night were ones that have stuck with me: "The people who did this have no music in their lives."

The rehearsal was a mess. �On the original program was the Korngold Violin Concerto with Enrique's brother, Pablo. �Big problem - Pablo lived in Canada, so no dice getting him in that week. �So, the program got messed around with a bit. �Also on the program was the Resphigi work Feste Romane (Roman Festivals), which sounded pretty awful in the first reading (it's difficult, and everyone was still in a strange place with the events of the day before). And there was this problem, in the context of the piece, as presented in this description (from Wikipedia - sorry about about using them, but it's an accurate description of what the music depicts):

Strings and woodwinds suggest the�plainchant�of the first�Christian�martyrs�which are heard against the snarls of the beasts against which they are pitted. The movement ends with violent orchestral chords, complete with organ pedal, as the martyrs succumb.�

As the orchestra committee discussed the following day, declamatory, celebratory music about martyrs succumbing against beasts seemed in sort of poor taste, given the week. So, with one day to go before the concert, we arrived at rehearsal with the Tchaikovsky 6th Symphony, "Pathetique", on our stands, and we prepared it in a rehearsal and a half.

The concert that Saturday night is, to me, one of the main reasons that I keep plugging away as a musician. �It had been an awful week - amidst the grief we all shared, I and my wife, who was also playing in the cello section of Tulsa Phil. that week, were carting around our 3-year-old son and 3-month-old twins to and from Stillwater, OK, where we lived (an hour each way), after full days of juggling childcare and work (I taught cello at Oklahoma State University). �We were exhausted in every way imaginable, but the concert that night was, for me at least, transformative. �Never before had playing the Star Spangled Banner felt like such a cathartic event. �But, what moved me the most, was paying that�Tchaikovsky�symphony, a musical study in coping with grief, trying to just make it through, and feeling, quite concretely and powerfully, the energy and synergy from the audience.

I almost always feel some read from an audience when performing, and sometimes it can be quite a great vibe in the room. But that night, the performer/audience relationship was truly symbiotic. They needed us and we needed them, equally. I had not and have not felt anything quite like it, and it convinced me that, as trivial as I might have felt as a musician, particularly earlier that week, what I and my colleagues did was of vital importance. We, performers and audience alike, were better than those monsters who flew those planes and those that had them do it, because we had music in our lives.

So, as moving as it was to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the day that has changed all of us, I am always reminded of the Saturday night afterwards, as the day that changed me more.

The 30-Day Challenge Recap - Part 1, Days 5-10

larry.stomberg@gmail.com (Lawrence Stomberg) — 7:07am Thursday, August 11, 2011

Well, I made it. �I finished my personal 30-day challenge, to listen to a new work of music (to me, at least - something I had never heard before) once a day for a month. �As a refresher for my dear readers, this challenge was inspired by the video presentation I saw on the TED website:

It wasn't easy to make this happen in the month of July, as I was doing a lot of traveling with my family, with tens of hours and thousands of miles on the road, and many days away from the comforts of home and easily accessible internet. And, to be perfectly honest, I did fall down on the job a couple of times, needing to catch up by listening to two pieces on one day having missed the previous day. �I hope that you will all find it in your hearts to forgive me!

But, I did make it through, more or less, and had a wonderful time in doing so. As I stated in my first post about the challenge (in which I also discuss my first new piece, the third Schoenberg String Quartet), I looked to learn pieces by composers I knew little or nothing about, as well as unknown works by better-known masters. I tried to have some diversity of genre and instrumentation (which was difficult for a string quartet/chamber music snob such as myself). I suppose you can judge for yourselves whether I succeeded at that. I'll split up my reporting about my 30 days over a few posts (the first 4 days have already been discussed).

So, today - Days 5 through 10, which proceeded as follows:

Day 5, July 6:�Dohnanyi String Quartet #2, op. 15

Day 6, July 7: Mahler Piano Quartet in A minor

Day 7, July 8: Robert Schumann Arabesque for Solo Piano

Day 8, July 9: Respighi 6 Pezzi for Violin and Piano

Day 9, July 10: Chris Brubeck Travels in Time for Three

Day 10, July 11: Kevin Puts Network

Dohnanyi - String Quartet No. 2, Op. 15
Dohnanyi really never disappoints me. Yes, he's a little overblown, heart on the sleeve, but the sonorities are so inviting and beautiful, and he manages some really effective twists and turns harmonically that are just odd enough to not sound hackneyed. This quartet, written in 1906, is a lush, expansive 4-movement work, which I listened to on YouTube in a wonderful recording by the Guarneri Quartet (this is perfect repertoire for that legendary ensemble):

Interestingly, considering Brahms and Wagner hated each other with quite a passion, I heard in the opening something that sounded a little like Wagner's Sigfried Idyll, along with very Brahmsian sounding harmony. Dohnanyi wrote very effective scherzo movements, and the second movement here is a good example, built on a very cool cello ostinato. The third movement begins with a chorale-like section and proceeds to soaring melodic writing. The last movement, as much of his last movements are, is cyclical, meaning that themes from earlier movements are presented, almost as a�reminiscent�(think Beethoven's 9th Symphony, Franck's Violin Sonata). A gem of a piece, I think, and maybe something I'll pitch to my Serafin Quartet colleagues for a future season!

Mahler Piano Quartet in A minor
I've known of this piece for a long time, but had never actually heard it. �I chose it to listen to (late at night, as I was packing for a week-long family trip starting the next morning - I probably could have been listening more intently, but so be it) because July 7th is Mahler's birthday. �Okay, I really like and appreciate Mahler, which is why I didn't really enjoy this work very much.�It doesn't have any of the hallmarks of Mahler's mature style, harmonically, melodically, or in terms of instrumental color. �I might have actually mistaken this for Schumann, which is fine, but not what I was expecting. It's a�nice enough piece, and beautiful, but really not all that interesting to me, and a bit of a disappointment.

Robert Schumann Arabesque
Okay, truth be told, I actually listened to this first thing on the morning of July 9th, as we were driving all day on July 8th. �Despite what might be indicated from above, I love Robert Schumann, and know so much of his music, so I was pleasantly surprised when I found a solo piano work of his that I had never heard. I found a nice recording of Jonathan Biss playing (his mom, Miriam Fried, was the violin teacher of a couple of friends of mine). �Very fine playing, nice sensibilities for Schumann. I enjoyed the work a great deal:�It exhibits the sort of rhapsodic, capricious nature one expects in Robert Schumann's music - a real "back and forth" between moods.�One of my favorite traits of his music is its internal life, rhythmically and�harmonically; in this piece, it's the constant flow of rhythm underneath the melody and incorporating the melody as part of it, too - makes for a wonderful sweep.

Respighi 6 Pezzi for Violin and Piano
This was my second listening for July 9th, which just happened to be Ottorino Respighi's birthday (and me, forgetting to even buy a card - I'm mortified!). �I find him to be an under-appreciated composer. �Most everybody loves his Roman Trilogy (Pines of Rome, Fountains of Rome, Roman Festivals), but his smaller works, and particularly his chamber music, get real short shrift (for example, his music for string quartet is gorgeous, and almost never played). So, I had high expectations for this work, and was looking forward to hearing his Italianate take on musical Impressionism. What I found, though, was something much more difficult to pin down, stylistically. �Clearly, it's late-Romantic (I hear elements of the late 19th-century French composers and some Fritz Kreisler thrown in), but I don't think I would have identified it as Respighi. �While these were nice pieces, with some very attractive moments, I'm not surprised that they're not better known, given the wealth of the violin repertoire, including pieces of the same size and cope that are, frankly, better pieces.

Chris Brubeck - Travels in Time for Three
As part of our family trip in July, we rolled into Interlochen, Michigan to visit my brother, who works there as faculty and administration, and the rest of my family for a family reunion (read here about that trip), on Sunday, July 10. �Luckily, we were in time to hear the World Youth Symphony Orchestra there, the top high school orchestra at the camp, filled with some really talented young people. Sitting in front of those talented people on that night was a trio of phenomenally gifted players and musicians, the group Time for Three. The bassist of the group, Ranaan Meyer, was a colleague of mine at the University of Delaware for a couple of years, and I was looking forward to seeing and hearing him again, and hearing the whole group.
They didn't disappoint. �These three players are not only great craftsmen at their instruments, they bring an energy and honesty to their playing that is completely infectious, and they really sell their eclectic, crossover style as well as anyone in the business. �The work they played, Chris Brubeck's Travels in Time for Three, wasn't a great piece (it was a little long and sort of dull orchestrally), but it didn't need to be, as the group really made things work. It is rare to see "Classically" trained musicians so at ease and in a groove in this type of music. �Most of the music in this piece was upbeat and sounded improvisatory for the players (though I think it was only actually partially so).� The second movement, on Irish themes and with a lot of mixed meter, was particularly effective, for a while, but just went on too long. �The young orchestra did well.� Some tough rhythms for them, and they mostly handled it well (I saw a bit of frantic counting in the strings rather than grooving, but they're young).� Balances were too often orchestra heavy, but some of that was the scoring of the work, which I would have preferred to be leaner. �Nevertheless, this was a great experience to hear them live, and it was very nostalgic for me to be at Kresge Auditorium again, where I had played in that World Youth Symphony Orchestra a quarter century earlier.

If you haven't seen Time for Three, you really should. �Here's their promotional video:

Kevin Puts Network
The timeliness of this listening was also a casualty of vacation - it came a day late. �I'm afraid I wasn't the best possible steward of my 30-day challenge.

In spite of a potentially mockable last name, Kevin Puts [actually pronounced as in "he puts something on the table" - so stop giggling] has made a big impact as a composer, particularly for someone who is not even 40 yet (what a punk). �He has a number of very notable commissions, and has been embraced by many of the most important and influential performers on the concert stage today. �My friends in the Cypress String Quartet have championed some of his music, so I was eager to hear what he was about.
I found Network on a CD of mostly young American composers' orchestral works (with the Cincinnati Symphony, Paavo J�rvi conducting), and decided to give it a listen. �The work was very enjoyable - it sounds quite American to my ear, combining elements of Aaron Copland (wide open sonorities) and John Adams (minimalist construction), and made effective, colorful use of the orchestra. �While there was�nothing terribly groundbreaking or challenging about the piece (to listen to, at least - it sounded pretty difficult to play), I was certainly happy to hear it - he's a fine composer.

So, there's days 5-10. I'll get the others posted soon, I promise. Always a crazy time for your dear blogger, but I'll do my best!

Cheers,
Larry

A Family Reunion, a Trip Down Memory Lane, and Lake Itchy

larry.stomberg@gmail.com (Lawrence Stomberg) — 4:30pm Thursday, July 21, 2011

Last week, my family and I enjoyed a trip to Interlochen, Michigan, for a family reunion. My brother, the fine bassoonist Eric Stomberg, is the Associate Director of the summer Music Camp at Interlochen, and he worked out a cabin rental there where my side of the family all gathered for a few days of�catching�up. The trip was wonderful for that - in our busy lives, with my siblings and my mother scattered all over the country, it is difficult to find any opportunity for us to be in the same place at the same time. But in addition to that, the trip provided a couple of other notable memories.

The Trip Down Memory Lane
My wife, Jennifer, and I both went to Interlochen as high school campers, back in the 80s (for my younger readers, that was a simpler, happier time, when Arnold Schwarzenegger was merely an actor, and Michael Jackson hadn't gotten really creepy yet, and when the hairstyles were, well, magical). I had been back once, about 5 years ago, to give a master class at the Arts Academy there, but that was in the fall, when the place is much different, and Jennifer had not been back since her high school days. We both realized what an important, formative place it had been in both our lives, as musicians and people. Interlochen led both of us into careers in music, for better or worse, and was an inspiring and challenging atmosphere. �Seeing WYSO (the World Youth Symphony Orchestra) rehearse and perform was a pretty nostalgic thing for me, and so was hearing the traditional tag of a melody from Howard Hanson's 2nd Symphony at the end of concerts (despite what I said about that work in my last post).

One of the things I found most inspiring (and what was a great motivator for me as a camper a quarter century ago) was the energy, joy and commitment to music evident in these young campers. There were clearly a lot of very talented kids there, but it was the excitement about music (and the arts in general - we also saw some creative writing, film making, drama and dance students) that was palpable. This is why I always urge my students to go to summer festivals - it's harder to get this type of concentrated experience during the rest of the year.

Lake Itchy
My kids, and my niece and nephew, were also soaking in inspiration, and now all want to be campers in future summers. Unfortunately, they also chose to go soaking in the lake in front of our cabin, Duck Lake, on our second day there. It had rained the night before, which apparently stirred up a fair bit of, um, stuff in the lake. The adults all watched, in a combination of horror and amusement, as our kids turned into a swimmer-itch infested, wiggling, moaning group of youngsters. It was bad enough for one of my kids and my nephew to beg for the end of life. Thank goodness for Benedryl, which, after a little while, saved the day, and the kids spent the rest of their afternoon in a stupor watching old Scooby Doo cartoons.

Duck Lake, as seen from our cabin.

And as seen from our kids' point of view

Next up for me and the family is getting back to�Silver Bay, NY,�another wonderful, inspiring and formative place. And the water doesn't itch as much.

30-Day Challenge: Update #1

larry.stomberg@gmail.com (Lawrence Stomberg) — 12:58pm Wednesday, July 6, 2011

I'm a few days into my 30-day challenge of listening to a piece I've never heard before each day. �So far, so good, though I'm remarkably skilled at putting this exercise off until the last minute, when I'm already sleepy and/or have a glass of wine in my hands. �Anyway, as I sip on my, um, beverage, here's what I've done so far (you already saw my previous post singing the praises of the�Schoenberg�3rd�String Quartet):

Days 2 and 3: USA! USA!
To honor the July 4th Independence Day holiday in my country, I decided to pick two icons of 20th century American art music and listen to music of theirs that I'd never heard before. On Sunday came Charles Ives, the great composer and life insurance agent (he must have been good at that too, as he was quite wealthy). His father directed, among other things, a highly-regarded marching band, which seemed to be a good fit for July 4th (even on July 3rd). �Ives wrote a lot of great piano music (the Concord Sonata is one of the true American masterworks in my estimation), but I don't know all of it, so I chose some piano works that were�completed around 1909, first performed in 1968, and only published in 1991, called Five Take Offs. �"Take Offs" here probably meant improvisations, and the 5 short pieces have that quality. The movements are titled as such:�

The Seen and Unseen (Sweet and Tough)

Rough and Ready et al and/or the Jumping Frog

Song Without (Good) Words

Scene Episode

Bad Resolutions and Good WAN! (Jan. 1, 1907)

The first�movement, very lyrical, sort of gently moves in and out of dissonance, while the second is a great contrast with its jazzy, rhythmic quirkiness (it also sounds insanely difficult - maybe it took someone from 1909 until 1968 to find good fingerings). The 3rd movement, the longest of all five by a good margin, pays "hommage" (or pokes fun at) Mendelssohn, and offers a beautiful, rolling accompaniment to a very lyrical, though not terribly tonal, right hand melody. The fourth piece was described in liner notes as a prelude and aria; I hear a bit of Debussy in this music, with low-tessitura sonorities. The last movement, paying respects to the New Year, opens as a chorale, and there are not-so-subtle hints of Auld Lang Syne. Very fun, quirky little set.

For the 4th itself, I chose to listen to the most American of American composers, and someone you think of when you think of the wide open spaces of the western United States - a nice Lithuanian Jewish boy from Brooklyn named Aaron Copland. I figured I knew all of his orchestral music at this point, but was surprised to find one I had not heard - Prairie Journal. �Commissioned�in 1936 by the CBS Radio Orchestra (after George Gershwin turned the commission down), it originally had the catchy name Music for Radio, but Copland renamed it after a sub-title contest for each of the commissioned works solicited the words "Saga of the�Prairie". �I hear in this music what I usually hear of Copland (I would have had no trouble�identifying�the composer in a "drop the needle" exam):�open sonorities and orchestration.� It is simple, earnest, and borders on maudlin, as I find much of his music. (sorry, maybe that's just me) The work is remarkably upbeat, especially given the time in which it was written, with the US just getting out of the Depression and the spectre of World War II starting to loom large.

In addition to the Copland, I decided to look up works titled Fireworks, having just sat through a 25-minute display here in Delaware (and then sitting, in place, in my car, for over an hour waiting for traffic to move - God Bless America!). I found two piano miniatures from larger sets, one by Erik Satie (from a set called Sports et Divertissements) and Howard Hanson (from For the First Time). �They are remarkable similar works, maybe not that surprising, given their subject matter. Both�take advantage of very fast passagework for the piano (particularly arpeggiated passagework), and are intense and brief. �Nice to listen too, especially the Hanson, as the only music I know if his is the excruciating "Romantic" Symphony, whose main redeeming quality in my book is that the music was used for the final credits in the movie Alien.

Happy Independence Day!

Day 4: Venezuela! Venezuela!
Okay, not as catchy, and doesn't roll off the tongue as easily as my country does, but July 5th was indeed Venezuelan Independence Day, and the risk of sounding like a Hugo CHavez sympathizer, I chose to find a Venezueland composer. �Reynaldo Hahn (1874-1947), who I always thought of as the French song composer, actually was from Venezuela, and later became a naturalized French citizen. �I know that I must have heard some of his songs at some point, listening to a stray voice jury as a faculty member, but chose three songs from the early 1890s, that were on a nice recital CD with Marie-Nicolo Lemieux singing and Daniel Blumenthal playing piano.

D'une prison:��Sings of the beautiful natural world and the "peaceful murmur" from the town, and finishes with a lament of "what have you done with all your youth"

Chansons grises, No. 5 - L'heurse exquise: A love song, with syrupy text of the white moon and the "exquisite hour". A simple winding piano accompaniment underpins the spinning melody.

Fetes galantes: Sings of the "singers of serenades", and gives a fun, cheeky treatment of the text, with a (still cheeky) middle section full of descending chromatic lines.

These works are really delightful, fun and lovely. �Nothing terribly deep about them, but very nice diversions. Perfect to help celebrate�Venezuela�Day!

On to more in the coming days. I've got a lot of cross-country driving to do over the next number of days, so I may not be able to post, but will be dutifully turning over musical rocks to see what previously unknown treasure I might find. And maybe I'll watch the movie Alien again...

My 30-Day Challenge

larry.stomberg@gmail.com (Lawrence Stomberg) — 3:07pm Sunday, July 3, 2011

When looking at the blog of Ezra Klein, the wonky but quite engaging political and economic reporter for the Washington Post, I noticed a link to a short video from the wonderful TED website. In the video (shown below for your viewing pleasure), the speaker, Matt Cutts (an engineer at Google), speaks about trying something new for 30 days, and how it can be an enriching and maybe even transformative experience.

So I thought to myself, "Self, what could you do for 30 days that would be enriching and maybe even transformative, but would still allow you to practice and not get in trouble with your wife and kids?" After batting around some ideas, I came up with this:

I will listen to a piece of music that I have never heard before, once a day for 30 days.

Despite the urgings of one of my daughters to get better acquainted with the oeuvre of Taylor Swift, I have decided that this will be an exercise in concert art music ("that Classical and weird modern stuff", some would say). I will aim to have a breadth and variety of genre and era, though I will likely avoid opera, simply because of time considerations (segments of opera, or selected arias, might very well make the list). My plan is to appreciate works I don't know by composers I do know, and to discover some other composers I don't know but maybe should. �My main criterion is that it must be something I've never heard before, even if just once in a concert decades back (something I've heard of is fine).

I will blog about my reflections and opinions about this music. This probably won't happen every day, as there will be a number of days where I'll be traveling, but I will listen every day, and check back in here with some frequency.

I did start last night, and my inaugural choice was a piece I figured I really should have at least heard before, but had not - Arnold Schoenberg's 3rd String Quartet, Op. 30. �I studied the 1st and 4th quartets in school and have actually lectured a little bit about the 2nd quartet, but the 3rd never made it on to my play list or in my ears (and the Schoenberg quartets are almost never played in concert, sadly). I sort of figured it must be a lesser work than the other three, but I was delighted to hear it and discover otherwise.

The 3rd Schoenberg quartet was written in 1927, meaning that it is a year away from being in the public domain where I could download a free score from imslp.org - drag. �Despite being atonal (he had not yet "reached" his 12-tone years), it is in some ways a remarkably old-fashioned piece, borrowing old forms (which Schoenberg was wont to do). �When I think about this dichotomy of old forms in an atonal context, I'm reminded a little of my trip to China a few years ago, where my wife and I were on a bus to Guilin (where the famous river tour starts). The bus started playing a movie - True Lies (with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis - fun movie), which I had not seen before. �It was dubbed over in Mandarin, which I don't speak other than a few phrases, so it was quite something to watch this American movie in Chinese! One could tell to a large extent what was going on, because of body language and the always-vital visual�language�of film, but dialogue was tough to figure out. So, even in dense atonal music, there is quite a lot one can hold on to for meaning and emotional impact, even not knowing the "language".

This quartet is filled with charm and humor throughout, and rhythmic vitality, particularly in the 1st, 3rd and 4th movements. The 2nd movement is gorgeous, making lovely use of instrumental color and lushness of harmony. The movement becomes, essentially, a theme and variations, with the theme staying somewhat the same and the characters around it changing, sometimes quite drastically (a little bit like the Haydn "Emperor" Quartet variations). I also hear,�throughout, compositional techniques and emotive moments that are�reminiscent�of Brahms (who Schoenberg found to be a great inspiration, and also, despite prevailing attitudes of the early 20th Century, found him to be a progressive composer).

One thing not reminiscent of Brahms, though, was Schoenberg's apparent�inspiration�for the first movement; below are his own words - wow!:

As a little boy I was tormented by a picture of a scene of a fairytale "Das Gespensterschiff", (The Ghostship) whose captain had been nailed through the head to the topmast by his rebellious crew. I am sure that this was not the program of the first movement of the third string quartet. But it might have been, subconsciously, a very gruesome premonition which caused me to write this work, because as often as I thought about this movement, that picture came to my mind.

For your listening enjoyment, here's the quartet's first movement, along with score! (take that, imslp!):

And movement 2:

Movement 3

And the last movement

Okay, on to the next piece. Once I figure out what it is, I'll let you know!

Cheers,
Larry

The 2011-2012 Season Preview Spectacularoozamathon!

larry.stomberg@gmail.com (Lawrence Stomberg) — 11:44am Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Okay, not really, but I thought I'd celebrate the update of my website (complete with new sound clips!) by giving a quick preview of some of the cool things I get to do as a cello-player-of-sorts this coming season. Of course, you can always just visit my "Performance Schedule" page, but maybe this will give a little more detail.

1) South America here I come!
I am excited to be headed to Bogot�, Colombia to perform at the�Pontifica Universidad Javeriana, on their "Musical Tuesdays" series, with the wonderful American soprano Catherine Short de Arce. We will be performing a variety of works including voice and cello, and I also hope to be performing a wonderful electroacoustic work by composer and sound-engineer-extraordinaire, Andreas Meyer. As important, though, will be the food and drink enjoyed there, and the beautiful sights to be seen. �I hope to blog a little bit from way south of the border, so stay tuned.

2) Did you know that September is "National Cranium Drill Month?"
It isn't, but it should be, as that will be the month where I get to play a performance of the only piece I know that speaks of such a device: Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire, which is celebrating its centenary this year. I am happy to be joining colleagues Timothy Schwarz (violin/viola), Eileen Grycky (flute/piccolo), Marianne Gythfeldt (clarinet/bass clarinet), Julie Nishimura (piano) and No�l Archambeault (soprano/person who gets to say "cranium drill", albeit in German). My friend and colleague Harvey Price will be conducting. This work is always an event, so if you're anywhere close to Delaware on September 16th, come on by for some rip-roarin', creepy Expressionist fun!

After hearing Pierrot, you'll be screaming for more.

3) The ladies of my life
Sorry, that sounds sort of creepy (ask comedian Demetri Martin - check out 1'40" into the video). �I am referring to my beautiful and talented wife, cellist Jennifer Crowell Stomberg, and my friend, colleague and frequent collaborator, pianist Julie Nishimura. We will be playing a couple of concerts in the wintertime in Pennsylvania (because what better place could you be in the winter than southeastern PA?) performing, among other things, the Suite for Two Cellos and Piano by celebrated American composer Gian Carlo Menotti. My wife and I love performing together - mostly, it's a chance to be out of the house and not tending to the kids; the closest to a date we get most of the year.

4) Wait, Brahms had friends?
I don't really know if he did (other than Clara Schumann, but who the hell knows what exactly that all was). This coming spring, my good friend and Serafin Quartet colleague, Kate Ransom and I will be presenting Brahms and Friends: complete works by Brahms for Violin/Piano and Cello/Piano, along with some works for those combinations by a couple of Brahms' contemporaries, Robert Schumann and Niels Gade. As of now, we're offering this series at the University of Delaware (February-April, 2012) and in Abington, PA (June, 2012), with a variety of pianists. Other dates are in the works, and you'll be the first to know when they happen (okay, third to know - I'll know first, and then I'll probably let my wife know just to make sure she can get the kids from school that day).

Not the friends we had in mind, but this painting is called "Brahms and his little friends"

5) Bach in the works
Not finalized yet, but my other Serafin violin colleague, Tim Schwarz and I will be offering an interesting take on what I call "Bach in d minor". This past season, in an effort to put on a string trio concert that ended up being without violist, Tim and I each played movements of solo Bach, alternating back and forth. �The concert seemed pretty well received, so I had this idea of presenting the d minor Cello Suite and the d minor Violin Partita (with the Chaconne) in this way, alternating movements back and forth, to show the compositional cleverness and variety Bach could achieve within some strict dance forms. �Should be a fun project, albeit an intensely sad, d minor version of fun.

6) Back to the studio
You can check out the highlighted schedule for my group, the Serafin String Quartet, on this website, or check out our quartet site, which will have a new look and feel to it very soon. Our big project for the year, along with convincing our wonderful new violist, Molly Carr, that we're not all too old and weird for her to stay, is recording a bunch of early chamber music of Pulitzer and Grammy Award winning Jennifer Higdon. We'll be recording in the beautiful Gore Recital Hall at the University of Delaware in January, 2012, and the disc should come out later that year, on the Naxos label. In addition to SSQ, other contributors on the disc will be our former violist (and good friend), Ana Tsinadze, pianist Charles Abramovic, and my brother and amazing bassoonist, Eric Stomberg (who even has his own Wikipedia entry!).

So, there you have it - a sampling of some of what I have going on next season. Nothing like the smell of of self-aggrandizement in the morning! Hope to see you at some of these events; I'm looking forward to these things and more.

Cheers,
Larry

Blame it on the Boogie

larry.stomberg@gmail.com (Lawrence Stomberg) — 5:53pm Sunday, May 1, 2011

I was inspired to post this after an April Fool's message on Facebook last month that elicited a number of funny remarks from my friends (some of whom who thought, at least for a few seconds, that I was serious):

Larry Stomberg�will be leaving as Cello Professor at the University of Delaware at the end of this school year, to take the cello position in the band for the Carl Carlton "Bad Mama Jama Comeback Tour".

For the uninitiated, please enjoy the 30+ year old hit, "Bad Mama Jama":

To be clear, it is not really the lyrics of this song that make me like it (though they are, admittedly, hilarious), but rather the nature of R&B/funk as a genre. �My dear reader is probably thinking to himself or herself: "You're a cellist who plays in a string quartet and does recitals with repertoire like Mendelssohn and Brahms. And you're really quite white. How do you listen to and connect with R&B?" Well, as I often say, good music is good music - some of the language might be different, but the musical life and energy is vibrant and has something to say (and more than just "she's got a figure that sho' nuff get attention"). I find that I have learned a lot from this kind of music, and it has had an impact on how I play that Mendelssohn and Brahms, not to mention Schoenberg or Sessions.

It's really about rhythm, which is, for me, the most elemental part of what we do as musicians. Not just accurate rhythm that fits with the metronome, but rhythm that has an inner life that gets to the heart of the music's energy. Musicians in this more popular vein often get this more naturally than we "Classical" musicians, but as with music, good musicians are good musicians, regardless the genre.

So, what makes the rhythm of this music such a good model for me? Part of it is a simple concept - the backbeat. �The backbeat is a concept that is second nature in jazz, blues, funk and rock: it is essentially the relative strength of the "inner" beats of a musical measure (e.g., beats 2 and 4 in 4/4 time). �The legendary folk and rock guitarist (and now also a notable violin atelier) David Bromberg once told me, "We have two rules in my house: take your shoes off after coming in the front door, and no clapping on 1 and 3". The strength of the backbeat helps keep music from sounding boxed-in rhythmically - the one notable pop music exception is that of James Brown, whose music intentionally emphasized 1 and 3. Of course, his music swings so well�(and did his musicians)�that it doesn't matter where the emphasis is!

I've found, in my little niche of classical music, that this backbeat idea is really helpful. �Especially as a cello player, in a quartet no less, who frequently plays a steady stream of notes in a similar rhythm, I rely on feeling the inner pulse of the music to keep myself from getting rhythmically "stuck" - this, in turn (hopefully), helps out everyone in the group to follow that lead. (please don't tell my colleagues that I think I'm leading them - I don't want them to be in on that secret)

Another thing that I learn from the boogie is the amount of flexibility and rhythmic power one can have without having to go too fast. If you take a survey of some of the great R&B, funk and pop songs, they might sound fast on the surface, but if you feel the beat, it's usually relatively relaxed. The reasonable tempo gives a performer the ability to be in greater control of a complicated, difficult and even driven-sounding rhythm. This is a helpful concept for any musician, and is, I'm convinced, how virtuoso players/singers make it seem so easy.

Anyone who knows me personally knows of my admiration of the late, great Michael Jackson. I don't care about the periphery of his life (which, is, well, sort of weird, yeah). His music, particularly with the legendary Quincy Jones as a producer (a modern day Mozart and daPonte, if you ask me), shows these musical qualities at a level that is almost beyond comparison. Take, for example, the first track of the 1982 Thriller�album, "Wanna be Startin' Something":

At a relatively moderate 120 beat per minute, there is a good amount of complexity in both the instrumental lines and MJ's vocal gymnastics, especially as the song goes on. And, of course, there is a healthy dose of backbeat, which helps hold driving, rhythmic music from feeling out of control. �Take, by comparison, the opening movement of the Brahms first string quartet (in c minor, Op. 51, No. 1 - this video has a cool feature of scrolling the score along with the music):

This work has all those R&B features, just wrapped in a 19th-century German coating. Here you have very thick, complex and driving music that goes along at a very moderate 96 beats per minute (approximately). And, to boot, tons of backbeat that Brahms writes into the music (and that good performers bring out).

So, no, I'm not planning on joining Mr. Carlton for that imaginary tour, though I do often dream of recording a solo album of funk for the cello and titling it Play That Funky Music White Boy (with deference and apologies to, and potentially a lawsuit from, Wild Cherry).

Curing the Wintertime Blues

larry.stomberg@gmail.com (Lawrence Stomberg) — 10:17pm Tuesday, January 11, 2011

I hate Winter.

There are no two ways about it.� I just can't stand this season.� I grew up in Southern New Mexico and went to university in Houston, Texas, so I guess I'm programmed for warmth.� Now I live in Delaware, where I'm confronted by things like snow, ice, and sweaters (which I also hate, except for sweater vests, which is a whole different topic for a post).

As I type this, we're getting hammered with a snow storm. �So many people, when they hear snow, think "oh how pretty" or "woo hoo, school's called off". �Me, I think "yuck" (and other four-letter words) and "I have to shovel this stuff". �Look, I know that the winter season makes a lot of people very happy. After all, some of our most celebrated holidays come this time of the year, like the Winter Solstice (or, as I call it: Well, It Can't Get Any Worse Than This Day�- to be fair, I like this holiday, and the Solstice�Eclipse last month was awesome), Hanukkah, Christmas (though it seems quite likely Christmas was put on December 25 to coincide with the pagan Solstice holiday - I've heard of the possibility that Jesus was born anywhere from September through May).� These holidays tend to focus on light and hope - not surprising, given the awful weather, super early sunsets and no end of either in sight.

Late afternoon in December, Newark, Delaware

So, I have needed to find ways to combat this most depressing of seasons (for me, at least). �The aforementioned holidays, and the thought of daylight hours finally expanding rather than decreasing, go a ways in helping me out, but being an American, I need more instant gratification than that. �It's cold and dark now, and I need a quick fix of something.

So I do what I often do - I work, play, and perform. �The best cure for any winter blahs that I feel seems to be keeping busy musically. �I suppose, in a way, this also focuses on light and hope. �At its best, my musical life delves into the soul, which is an illuminating and often joyous venture, so why wouldn't I want to do this all year around? �Well, other than all the hard work, why wouldn't I want to do this all year around?

When I was a member of the Tulsa Philharmonic Orchestra, we had a Beethoven Festival in January, two concerts over two nights, each featuring an overture, piano concerto and symphony. �In remarks at the beginning of the first concert, our Music Director, Ken Jean, asked aloud "Why would we have a festival at this time of year?" and answered his question, "What better time to have a festival?" �I couldn't agree more, though at the time, I have to admit, I was also thinking "Why the %^&% would we have a festival this time of year? �I nearly killed myself in an ice storm getting to rehearsal!"

So using Ken's model (except, hopefully, for the driving in ice storms part), I'm as busy as a snow-bee over the next few weeks, playing three cello-piano recitals, appearing as a guest in two other concerts, and doing a few concerts with the Serafin Quartet. �I'm helped along my endeavors by a couple of nifty circumstances: it's really nasty outside, so I might as well stay inside and practice, and the University of Delaware, where I teach the cello studio, has a 5-week Winter Term during which I don't teach, so there's a bit more time to practice.

Look for me invading a space near you some time soon, to play a concert and try to shake off my winter blues. (check out my performance schedule on this site) You might very well be asking, "Larry, this is great, but if you have all these concerts coming up, why are you spending your time typing a blog post and not practicing all of this difficult repertoire you need to learn so as not to embarrass yourself in public repeatedly?" �That's an excellent question, which I won't answer out of shame, but I'm sticking with my wintertime concert philosophy, for better or worse.

Stay warm,
Larry

2010 in Review - 5 Events Not to Have Been Missed, Unless you Missed Them

larry.stomberg@gmail.com (Lawrence Stomberg) — 12:33am Sunday, January 2, 2011

As any responsible blogger, or frankly any human being should, I am self-aggrandizingly presenting a top 5 list of this year's events involving, well, me. �Yes, many lists give you a top 10 highlights, or lowlights, or movies, TV shows, recipes, websites, car accidents, you name it, of the year. �In my case, I spent the last 2 weeks racking my brain to even come up with 5, so I'm afraid you'll just have to deal with my shortcomings on this one.
So here, in chronological order, are the

Top 5 Events involving Larry
and his Cello in Some Capacity of 2010
[please imagine delightful trumpet fanfare now]:

#1 - Snowmageddon vs. Brahms, an Epic Struggle (February)
Traffic calamities and school closings were not the only effects of the major snow events of February on the east coast of the United States. �Much more importantly, it messed up my plans for performances of the Brahms Double Concerto with my violinist colleague and friend, Tim Schwarz, and�conductor and�old friend, Richard Prior,�NTFBC (Not the Famous Black Comedian). �We had two performances planned, one with the Wilmington Community Orchestra in Delaware (an orchestra Tim conducts) and the Rome Symphony in Georgia (Richard's orchestra). �Everything was hunky dory until the snow came, forcing us to postpone the Wilmington concert by a week. �Sure, we were piled under 2 feet of snow, no one in the orchestra could get out of their driveways, and Richard couldn't get a flight up from Atlanta, where he lives. �But I had finally worked out the hard spots in the last movement, and was ready to go! �Well, anyway, the concert did happen the following Saturday night, and went fine. �We thought our bad luck had passed, weather wise, but lo and behold, another weather system was hitting the Delaware/Philadelphia area right when Tim and I were to fly down to Georgia in late February. �Fearful of missing the concert because of flight delays (Brahms was a great symphonist, but the Double Concerto has a few uncomfortable silences if the soloists are missing), Tim and I hopped into a car and drove to Georgia. �We made it in time, and had a wonderful time with Richard and his very fine orchestra, with a successful performance. �The upside of all the driving was getting to have nice conversations with Tim, and getting to eat a delightful breakfast at a rural Tennessee Shoney's on the way back ("You're not from around here, are you?" - common refrain heard when locals see two guys with strange-looking cases).

Playing Brahms Double Concerto was a thrill, but it's hard to top a Shoney's in Cleveland, TN. �Great hash browns.

#2 - This Cello Goes to 11 - on stage with the Angel Band (May)
While this particular performance was not a huge amount of work (unlike Brahms Double, which is freakin' hard!), it was a lot of fun. �On May 15th, a lovely Saturday afternoon, my group, the Serafin String Quartet, joined the wonderful Angel Band as a partial back-up group, playing for the Wilmington, DE, Riverfront "David Bromberg's Big Noise in the Neighborhood" event, to raise funds and awareness for the renovation of the historic Queen Theater in Wilmington. �We got to play a few numbers and were broadcast live on WXPN, but more importantly, got to hang out backstage with cool people, and had artist/security clearance badges. �It was the most important I felt all year. �[Check out pictures from the event on Angel Band's site, to see yours truly looking extremely cool while playing in sunglasses].

#3 - London Plans came Falling Down (September)
We in the Serafin Quartet were very excited for our London debut in September, to highlight our recent CD release, celebrate our new project with composer Jennifer Higdon (see more about that below) and eat lots of Bangers, Mash, and other such humorously named food. �Everything was coming together well - the venue was all lined up, airline travel and hotel all taken care of, and list of British ales to try had been compiled. �One small problem crept in at the last minute. �Ana, our violist, is Georgian (the�Tbilisi�variety, not the Atlanta one) with a Green Card, and needed to apply for a Travel Visa from the UK, whereas the rest of us, as Americans, didn't (this wasn't a for-profit gig, so we were off the hook with work visas). �Everything was done in the time manner requested by British Consulate (slogan: "You give us a few hundred dollars and hours of your own time, and we just might give you the time of day - wait, scratch that, no we won't"), and our across-the-pond friends came through with Ana's visa on Monday, September 27th, a mere two days after our concert in London on the 25th!

Larry getting ready for London concert before the visa snafu.

Larry getting ready for London concert during the visa snafu.

So, in the days before the trip, while poor Ana was wrestling with unhelpful British people and even our wonderful Delaware U.S. Senator and his staff were trying to help out, the other 3/4 of the quartet planned an alternative program. �We ended up flying out wonderful pianist and friend of the quartet, Sandra Rivers, who played with us in a program of 2 duos and a trio (which, if you add them up, 2+2+3, is 7 - way more than a quartet!). �It was a stressful and harrowing experience, but the concert went pretty well, and for me personally, having my lovely wife accompany me on the trip made it an even more special occasion.

#4 - Sunday in Newark with Edward (October)
Right on the heels of the London excitement, I switched gears from quartet-cellist-turned-sudden-duo-and-trio-cellist to concerto-soloist cellist. �This is harder than it might seem. �I had to eat right, exercise differently (to get ready to carry an orchestra on my shoulders - major work for the lats and delts) and, oh right, practice! I was looking forward to the chance to play the amazing Edward Elgar Cello Concerto with the Newark Symphony Orchestra and their fine new conductor, Simeone Tartaglione. �Having just been in Merry Olde England, I figured I would have soaked up enough Britannia to get me through this concerto by one of England's true musical treasures, and the concert did go pretty well (the orchestra was a really wonderful group of people, and Simeone was warm and fun to work with). �However, I did not eat enough Bangers & Mash in London to keep me from missing a few harmonics in the second movement. Since I don't get too many opportunities to play concertos, being able to perform two of my very favorite ones (Brahms Double and then Elgar) in the same year was a huge honor.

#5 - The Higdonification of the Universe (all year)
As mentioned previously, the Serafin Quartet was slated to play some Jennifer Higdon at our London performance, her lovely string quartet version of Amazing Grace. �This was to celebrate a new project the quartet started�with her�in 2010, to record a number of her earlier works which have not yet been recorded. �We were put in touch with Jennifer early in the year, and she was game for the project. �We were very happy to get started, as she had a wonderful reputation as a composer and as a person (both well-deserved), particularly in the Philadelphia area, where the quartet is based, too. �Little did we know that Jennifer would be rising to the type of stardom usually only reserved for finalists on Dancing with the Stars! �Within weeks after agreeing on our project, she won a Grammy Award for her Percussion Concerto and a Pulitzer Prize for her Violin Concerto. �We were, of course, happy to be clearly responsible for these successes by simply forging this recording agreement - at least that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.
The project is moving forward as we are performing and preparing to record, in addition to Amazing Grace, her Sky Quartet, the Viola Sonata (with the fabulous pianist Charles Abramovic), the String Trio, and Dark Wood for violin, cello, bassoon and piano (with Charlie playing piano, and my brother, bassoonist-extraordinaire Eric Stomberg). �I'm hoping we can do something to help Jennifer's modest career along!

Larry's quartet after Jennifer Higdon recording arrangement.

Larry's quartet after Jennifer won the Grammy & Pulitzer.

So, 2010 was quite a year, and I wish everyone a happy and prosperous 2011!

Cheers,
Larry

Mama said there'd be months like this...

larry.stomberg@gmail.com (Lawrence Stomberg) — 9:29pm Monday, October 4, 2010

Actually, no. My mother never says things like that; mostly, I hear from her things like "You look thin. Eat!" and "You should get more rest; you look tired." Regardless of all that, it's been one heck of a month, about as busy, scattered and random as they get. This is saying something for someone who has three very bright but occasionally insane children, an insanely busy wife, and a house filled with (in addition to the aforementioned crazy people and a bunch of clutter) a veritable farm of pets - 3 cats (also insane), 2 birds (moderately insane, and noisy), a rabbit (pretty sane, for a bunny), a guinea pig (not insane, but very stupid; more about him below) and some fish (can't really tell about them).

So, here's a run-down of the weirdness, starting with Labor Day weekend. I took the kids up to New York, to hang out with my friends David & Jen and to give my wife a quiet house so she could practice as she prepared for an audition and some performances. It was a fun weekend, with lots of great food, drink and friends; kids all wandering around Manhattan having a great time; me catching up with the best coffee in the world ; and salivating over the iPhone 4 (at one of the 5 NYC Apple Stores). The night before we come back, in talking to Jen (my Jen, not David's) on the phone:

Jen: "So, how was Cassie [one of our guinea pigs] when you last saw her?"

Me: "Uh, fine. Why?"

Jen: "She's dead"

Me [in my head]: "Ah crap, I need to dig another hole in the backyard to bury another pet"

Me [on the phone]: "Oh no! Poor Butterscotch [the other guinea pig - Cassie's son]"

So, after getting back from NYC, on Labor Day, it was out to the backyard with a shovel. I really do feel bad for Butterscotch, who spent most of his life in an adjacent cage, Oedipally lusting after his mother with unrequited fervor. She's gone now, but at least Butterscotch still can act on his deep love of carrots and cabbage. (not in that way, geez! - that would be gross).

Butterscotch in happier times (below)-
you can just see the joy on his face.

Other than some fatigue from the New York trip and the emotional farewell to Cassie (Butterscotch attended the burial, but seemed confused as to what exactly was going on), I felt good starting the 2nd week of classes at the University of Delaware (new slogan: "Dare to be First"; my preferred slogan: "Dare to have a ridiculously embarrassing mascot "). Tuesday and Wednesday were basically normal, busy but normal. Thursday was also shaping up to be a packed day, wall-to-wall students, run to pick up a kid at the bus stop, and then (very last minute, sort of annoyingly so) a high-school student lesson to teach in the late afternoon, all before wacthing the kids while Jen had a very long evening. I figured, first thing in the morning, it would be good to go for a run - it was lovely cool morning, I figured the energy boost would get me going for the long day, and I was running a 5K the following weekend, so I needed to stay ready for that. All was good; I had my iPod on, listening to the dulcet tones of Harry Shearer's Le Show (yes, I listen to Harry Shearer - you already knew I was a Unitarian, so this should come as no surprise), and about 8 minutes into the run, I found myself somehow stumbling, unable to stop my fall, and crumpling to the ground in a heap. I seemed okay at first (fingers all worked, so I just ran back home), but was pretty bloodied up all over the place (both hands, left knee, left elbow, left shoulder). So, instead of an invigorating start to the day, I hurriedly slapped a bunch of bandages on and headed to a day full of teaching.

My running accident - artist's conception:

The next day was a big residency day for my band, the Serafin Quartet , at UD. Rehearsal and a concert at a big student gathering. This all would have been fine, had the bandages not been falling off of my left palm during the performance. However, the performance, including the heretofore unheard Brahms Sextet for Clarinet, String Quartet and Dangling Gauze , went pretty well.

The following weekend had the potential to be disastrously busy, especially as I was managing it with Jennifer out of town and me responsible for the kids:

Saturday: All-day retreat with my music faculty colleagues at UD, to discuss that future and direction of the department. This could have fraught with all sorts of horrible ramifications (I figured a fist fight or two was not out of the realm of possibility), but went swimmingly well, and just might have even been productive and encouraging!

Sunday: The aforementioned 5K run, which I actually did (bandaged and all). I did pretty well, which is more likely a reflection of the general running chops of the other participants. It was fun, my kids ran (well, walked) and had a good time, and I won a gift certificate to a local Pub, so I can't complain. That evening, the quartet played for our CD Release /London Debut send-off Party at the laboratory owned by our wonderful friend and supporter, Bill Stegeman. It was a fun time, and by this point, I was managing the bandages pretty well.

The last two weeks caused aging of about two decades. After the CD Party, the quartet residency kept going busily (we wanted to start our time at UD with a bang - it did feel like getting shot out of a cannon), with some sectionals for the university orchestra and an inaugural concert at an on-campus lunchtime series. That was all well and good, and then the real excitement happened. For that, I'll need another posting some time soon. Let's just say that it involved a thwarted European quartet debut because of a foreign consulate's office, a scramble to completely change the program for said debut (including learning a major Beethoven piano trio in a few days), extra plane tickets for a last-minute collaborative pianist, and a good deal of wine consumed after the concert actually happened. That being said, I did manage to enjoy a fabulous production of Jersey Boys at London's Prince Edward Theatre.

Who knows what October will bring - so far, as I type on October 4th, I've at least managed not to fall over and injure myself, and no pets have died.

Cheers,
Larry

Back to School

larry.stomberg@gmail.com (Lawrence Stomberg) — 12:13am Saturday, September 4, 2010

Big week in the Stomberg household - the kids all went back to school. My teaching year at the University of Delaware started up too. And my wife, with her teaching schedule starting in earnest next week, had the joy of looking at the house that the kids and I trashed before heading off to school. Good times (except for my wife, I'm pretty sure).

It was good to see my students. After a summer away, for all of us to decompress a bit, reconnect with family and old friends, and practice (or not - and those people know who I'm talking about!), there seems to be a new energy to working together and making music. I have a couple of new students this year, who seem to have great heads on their shoulders and a lot of potential, so I look forward to that, as well.

There are a couple of big differences in this school year for me. I'm no longer the Music Department's Graduate Coordinator (definition: Graduate Director+Graduate Secretary+Graduate Admissions Officer+Graduate Advisor); I learned a lot from the experience, but was happy to pass it on to a very able colleague. There's now much more time for me to plan for and engage with my students in a more comprehensive and meaningful way. That is, after all, what the university hired me to do 6 years ago (I think, though it is possible that, through the interview process, they actually hired for the position Assistant Professor of This Guy Looks Like A Sucker)

The other big difference is that my group, the Serafin String Quartet, is now in residence at UD. This is very exciting, as we will be working with and performing for the students, as well as reaching out to other consituencies across the campus (we play for a Global Studies program on the 15th). In addition, my quartet colleagues Kate (violin) and Ana (viola) are both teaching the respective studios this year (Kate just for the fall, as a sabbatical replacement), so they are around a lot now too. It's cool to see everyone at the university, though my brain is still trying to adjust to my two worlds colliding, as if there's been some rip in the space/time continuum.

In the spirit of starting up my teaching year, I leave you with the last few paragraphs of the "sermon" (more of a lecture, really) that I gave for my church this past Sunday. It pretty well, sums up the joys and challenges of what I do for this part of my career:

During the school year, I see my students once a week for their one-on-one lesson, as well as for the weekly cello studio class, their chamber music coaching session and occasionally in working with the cello section of the University Symphony Orchestra. They see a lot of me and me a lot of them. Cello lessons, especially for those majoring in music, are a pretty intense, personal and time-consuming venture. I work with individuals on a variety of levels that are not common in most fields - communicative, intellectual, emotional, spiritual, and physical - all this with 18-24-year-olds.

It doesn't take long for me to think of these students almost as my own children, given the depth of experience with them. I'm a little embarrassed to admit it, but I'll even worry about who they're dating or hanging out with, or if they're not eating or sleeping right (it's college, so it's safe to say that they're not eating or sleeping right). I have a lot of myself invested in these young adults, and I want to help them give themselves the best chances for success. In all of this lies the positive type of change to which I alluded earlier. I have a first-row seat to seeing children become adults over four years; they mostly come into the university as wide-eyed, idealistic and slightly na�ve kids (they try very hard not to appear na�ve, but they almost always are). In the upper-classmen years, though, they have begun to transform into maturely thinking and interacting people, hopefully still idealistic, but already much wiser than just two or three years prior. These transformations are more important to me even than how skilled they become as cellists - of course, they need that, too, but seeing them become adults through their work at the cello is the truly exciting change.

Before I have us all hold hands and sing "Cum-Bay-Yah", let me be clear - it's not all hunky-dory, by any stretch. There are many times throughout a student's 4-plus years with me that the aforementioned characteristics of chaos arise. All college students need to, as Helen Harkness said, "adapt and change as a result of �feedback �[and] depend on and incorporate a constant flow of new information into old patterns�" , and this is certainly true of students who are studying for careers in music, be it Music Education or Music Performance. This creates some dissonance at times (no pun intended!); different individuals have different capacities to meet problems head on, and having a 19-year-old work on major physical changes of playing an instrument in a more efficient way is uniquely challenging, particularly when the student has been playing a certain way most of his or her life. And the change and improvement in a student's work as a cellist and musician are often non-linear. There is no doubt that consistent hard and attentive work in the practice room will lead to greater skill and success, but the success comes in fits and starts, often seeming to take a couple of steps back for every one forward. Much of the time, the most progress is being made when the student can't sense any progress at all - the journey is far more educational than the destination. Convincing late teens of this is tough, and I am frequently met with great skepticism from them (my particular favorite is anything that begins with "but my old teacher said�"). But, as the maturation process continues over a college career, they start to see the journey for what it is. Some never really understand that reality, but most do to some extent, even if it takes being out of school and working on their own to come to grips with it.

In this journey, I find myself appreciating more and more the great teachers I had in my training, and more fully realizing the growth I made I these years, and how these people helped guide it. My most influential private teacher was the man with whom I studied for four years during my Masters and Doctoral degrees, the cellist Timothy Eddy, a beautiful musician and human being. I remember one lesson, a couple of years into my study with him, when I proudly exhibited my greater grasp of an expressive way of playing the instrument. Tim smiled and gently said, "Yes, we talked about that a couple of years ago. But I was speaking Greek back then." I think my Greek is getting better all the time, and hopefully my own students know a few words of it by the time they graduate.

By the time my students finish their degrees and go off to Graduate School or into the job field, I usually do feel like a surrogate parent, proud of their accomplishments and simultaneously hopeful and worried for their future. I want to create good, successful cellists and music teachers from my studio, but just as important (if not more so), I want to help foster people who are great communicators and good and understanding human beings. When that happens, I feel very proud of what we have accomplished together, and I start to look forward to the journey with the new students coming in. Unfortunately, I also get to start coping again with the chaotic change of staff shake-ups, area turf battles and silly college politics. I'd be happy to let others keep that change.

Cheers,
Larry

Silver Bay - an Addendum

larry.stomberg@gmail.com (Lawrence Stomberg) — 12:40am Tuesday, August 10, 2010

So, all that I said about the easiness of my existence when I'm at Silver Bay, and all that time I have to practice, relax, and spend time with the kids. Well, the past week wasn't really such a week.

I still had a great time there, but let my fiscal concerns trump my personal ones. While my wife, as an "Emp", gets her room and board covered, I have to pay for mine. Last year's bill was a little painful, so this past week, when I was there for 6 days in a row, I thought it wise to volunteer my time to earn a week's worth of room & board (only 20 hours of work - can't be too busy, right?).

When I went to the administrative office to offer my services, I was told "the quilting table in the Craft Shop really needs help. Elisabeth [the quilting teacher] is swamped. Do you quilt?" My reply of no was followed, perhaps unwisely, by "but I'm happy to learn". So, away I went to be the quilting assistant. I haven't sewn a button on a shirt since being a failed Boy Scout, and I've always been in awe and afraid of sewing machines, but here I was, helping Elisabeth, a lovely older Swiss woman and expert quilter, run the table at Silver Bay's Craft Shop.

It was pretty apparent to everyone (Elisabeth and the other ladies there to work on their quilting projects) that I knew nothing about quilting, but I was welcomed with open arms, and set about trying to learn what this was all about. My second day there, Elisabeth greeted me with "you are going to make a quilt for your wife". I was frightened. Should I tell her that a sewing machine might as well be a Saturn V rocket, for all I knew? Luckily, she is a great teacher, and very patient, and walked me through the rather complicated steps of making a quilted table runner (that term was also new to me - I had always called it "that quilty thing you put the bowl of potatoes on").

As the rest of the week went on, I actually became pretty deft at measuring and cutting fabric, and somehow exhibited a decently keen eye for color matching. The stitching, though, still scared me, and I stared, wide-eyed, at the sewing machines and the women who were so masterfully operating them.

The Jamome 8077 - the machine that made me a quilter

On Thursday, my time came. "You are going to sew this time". With fear, trepidation, and stereotypical sense of emasculation, I sat down and did the sewing. Nothing broke (at least that couldn't be fixed) and after a three long days (and Elisabeth doing most of the stitching, frankly - I did a lot of cutting and pinning, and watching), the quilt was done. And, if I say so myself, it was beautiful!

Showing off my creation - not quite how I envisioned what my week would bring

Elisabeth shared with me a saying her Swiss grandmother would say: "If you didn't learn anything new today, you wasted your day." While I expected my learning experiences this past week to more successful fingerings and bowings in the Elgar Cello Concerto, I ended up happy for the experience. I also feel a little less light in the pocketbook, and found out that I'm really quite popular with older ladies who quilt.

A love letter to Silver Bay - where I get my Mojo back

larry.stomberg@gmail.com (Lawrence Stomberg) — 8:11am Friday, July 30, 2010

I'm posting this from home, but typed it when I was away (and away from
reliable internet). I'm sitting in our "cabin" (i.e., run-down shack,
with lots of character) named Kendall during our yearly trek to one of
my favorite places, Silver Bay. It's a YMCA Resort and Conference Center,
tucked away in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York, on a little piece of Lake George. When I'm here, I'm mostly along for the ride as a guest and dad.
Jennifer has a great gig here as an "Emp" (the honorific for employee at
SBA - Silver Bay Association): she plays in a string quartet that is
hired to provide music for a daily Vespers service in the evenings,
weekly church services, and other functions. In addition, her quartet
also works up a new program each week to perform on Sunday nights (big
stuff - this year, she's playing Shostakovich 3, Britten 1 and Beethoven
Op. 59/1, in the span of 3 weeks!!).

Kendall Cottage is not so picturesque, so here's the historic Inn at Silver Bay, a grand building.

I'm not doing all of that work. I get up in the morning, we all go to
breakfast (buffet-style dining room for all meals; i.e., a few weeks of
not having to do dishes), then I take the kids to their daily little
tennis lesson (essentially controlled chaos, with rackets) and drop them
off for the rest of the morning at their Y camps. This means that I have
each morning here entirely to myself. While that might not seem like
such a big deal, when one is in a setting as beautiful, peaceful and
friendly as this, a few free hours a day here is my slice of heaven. My
morning is usually spent with some combination of the lovely little gym,
productive practicing while watching a gorgeous view, or simply walking
on the "campus" of Silver Bay, noticing glistening of the sun off of
Lake George, the gentle sound of waves lapping up on the shore, chatting
with folks here that I've known here for a long time. My afternoons are
a delightful combination of spending time with Jen and the kids on the
lake, or the tennis court, more quality time with the cello, and gazing
in awe at the ending of a day over some of the cleanest water in the country.

Two views: Lake George at sunset (left) and near the Boathouse (below)

I myself was an Emp here many years ago, in 1994. It was my first summer
here; Jennifer had been coming to play in her quartet as a college and
graduate student, and that summer (the first of our marriage), I hadn't
gotten into any of the festivals I really wanted to, so I planned on
hanging out with my new bride, where I could also get a lot of
practicing in (something I really wanted to do, largely as a result of
not getting into those festivals I wanted to). Last minute, I was
offered a spot at a very good orchestral festival in Colorado for the
summer, but turned it down for this interesting opportunity. At the
time, I was worried that I had made the wrong decision, but it turned
out to be one of the best things I ever did for myself. That summer of
1994 was a tremendous time for musical growth (6-7 hours a day of
practicing and some nice performance experiences will do that for you)
and personal enrichment. It was at Silver Bay where I first really
learned the value of being spiritual - not in a dogmatic religious
sense, but more in searching internally for what is true to oneself, and
connecting those truths externally with other people and the natural
world. I'm now a Unitarian Universalist, a liberal, broad-ranging
approach to religion that has no creed or dogma, but instead Seven
Principles, essentially taking from other world religions what seems
to be universal and toward a search for truth and meaning in our lives.
I think I've also been a UU, but only in the past few years have I
actually been part of that faith. Even though Silver Bay is a YMCA
(Young Men's Christian Association), it was here that I
first felt at home with my Unitarian spiritual side.

Akin to the spiritual refreshment, Silver Bay has been a great reset
button for me. The school year/concert season can get pretty hairy, with
crazy schedules, silly political infighting and other various
psychological dramas that play themselves out over the course of 9-10
months. Sitting by the lake this morning, I was reminded why it feels so
important for me to get back to Silver Bay every year, even if only a
little bit, before the next year begins and the dramas ramp up. As I sat
by the water, listening to the gentle waves, a stiff breeze came by,
obscuring the sound of the water with its own noise, albeit a pleasant
one. Then I heard a child playing in the distance, a car horn (slightly
jarring in a natural scene such as this), and a motor boat going down
the lake. These sounds subsided, and the calm sound of the water was
back - it had never left, but was only pushed to the background for a
while. The water is a constant, will always be there, regardless of the
temporary distractions and other forces that obscure it. Silver Bay has
taught me not to lose track of these constants in life, the ones that
are there for me and matter most - family, friendship, music, humanity -
despite the noise going on about me.

Tennis lessons overlooking the lake in the early morning - best to keep them caged.

So, after another number of days back at Silver Bay this summer over the
next couple of weeks, I should be ready to go for the coming year. Bring
on the noise.

Dad/Musician, part 2: The Daily Grind

larry.stomberg@gmail.com (Lawrence Stomberg) — 8:15pm Friday, July 23, 2010

So about a week ago, I said that a follow up post on being Dad/musician would be coming shortly. This week-late post is a case in point of the challenges involved in that split title. I really have been meaning to post for the last week, really. But I have these three young, short people in my house who seem to need an awful lot of attention, and when they finally go to sleep, I have to catch up with everything else, including the 300-year-old Italian in my house who also needs my attention. Unfortunately, by the time all of this is attended to, my wife, who I would be delighted to give attention to, has had a glass of wine and gone to bed.

Granted, the week just now concluding has been pretty thick, especially for the summer, though it's par for the course during the academic year, with all three kids in school mode, Jen teaching like mad and me well, doing what I do like mad. This week was more like that: kids in day camp at the Y Monday-Friday (can't say YMCA anymore because they changed their "brand" - the Village People are crestfallen), week-long camp at Jen's Music School (that she ran and where I taught for a couple of days), and lots of rehearsal for me, as well as making lunches for the kids, making dinner, etc.

The kids got themselves clean and had a good meal at Y
camp, though they did not necesarily do whatever they felt.

So, in a typical week, by the time the kids get to bed, the kitchen is clean, and lunches made for the next day, it's time to practice, usually around 10:00 PM. It's tiring, for sure, and the late-night laser-beam practicing focus of my youth is waning a bit. But I can't complain, especially when I compare my routine to what my single-parent musician friends endure (while managing to raise great kids in a loving household); I'm in awe of any single parent who makes it work, and it's that much more difficult for those freelance musicians who also have to navigate night and weekend rehearsals and concerts. We barely feel we're keeping our heads above water with two parents in the house!

One of the most meaningful lessons of having kids, as a musician and in general, is one about perspective. When I return from a concert, either charged from a good performance or fuming about a mediocre one, the kids pretty immediately put that performance in its proper place. It's hard to obsess about a missed shift or gloat about a successful Mendelssohn Quartet when I get home and am greeted with

The sweet sound of "Daddy's home!" and a hug from one of my twin
daughters

One kid screaming at another, "Stop it! Stop touching me!" [followed
by stomping and slamming of a door]

The kids sleeping beautifully and peacefully in their rooms, and my
wife crumpled on the couch, recovering from getting the kids to bed by
herself.

While I take my work very seriously, both performing and teaching (the above list could also apply to coming home from a day where a student really made some strides, or when a student really didn't), my family keeps me from getting as insane about it as I used to. I'm still plenty insane, but I've settled on a more moderated brand of crazy, something that has served me pretty well. It's very special when the kids come to a concert of mine: the very first time was when my son was 2 weeks old and "heard" me play George Crumb's Voice of the Whale; I heard him coo right before starting the 2nd movement - very cool.

Well, I have to go. As any parent reading this might imagine, I had many interruptions while composing this, to make dinner, clean up after kids, coerce/threaten/cajole about room cleaning, and now their Disney movie is ending. Time to get them into bed, likely with some sort of hilarious-yet-exasperating drama on the way. I might even get to practicing before 10:00!

-Larry

On being a dad and a musician

larry.stomberg@gmail.com (Lawrence Stomberg) — 12:29am Tuesday, July 13, 2010

In my life, I don't think anything has been more meaningful,educational, exasperating, exhausting and wonderful as being a father to my three children. (Late Beethoven is a distant second, Schoenberg winning the bronze) I firmly doubted folks who spoke of the life-changing nature of becoming a parent: I knew it would be busier and a little more tiring, but it really has changed the way I operate, both at home and in my work as a musician/teacher/whatever the heck else it is that I do. I wouldn't trade it for the world, and my kids are amazing people who I (mostly) enjoy watching grow (and enjoy pondering where their lives will take them in the years ahead). That being said, boy is it a challenge!

My professional career was in its fledgling stages when my son was born, so my kids' development has run fairly concurrently with my own, and has probably made me appreciate each one a bit more. I was starting my second college faculty job, at Oklahoma State University, and had just won a position with the Tulsa Philharmonic Orchestra when our oldest was born - my first concert experience at OSU was his first concert ever (he started life hearing Crumb's Voice of the Whale, of all things!). My twins were born three years later, still in Oklahoma, and shortly before I moved my orchestral work to the Oklahoma City Philharmonic. So, from the start, really, it's been a lesson in trying to balance career advancement with being as good a dad as I could be. Caught in the middle of my balancing act was my astonishing wife, Jennifer, a fantastic cellist and truly gifted teacher. Her struggles to balance everything were far greater: I had the bigger jobs that earned more money, and while she still did a bit of freelance performing and a good bit of teaching, she largely filled (quite beautifully) the role of Mom. Before kids, when I was teaching at Truman State University (and not doing a whole lot of performing off campus), she had earned a position of Associate Principal Cellist of the Illinois Symphony (and ended up as Principal Cellist after a couple of seasons), so this was an especially big transition for her.

The juggling act in Oklahoma was a major reason for our move when I was fortunate enough to be awarded the position at the University of Delaware. With my university and orchestra schedules (not to mention solo and chamber music performances, which were starting to increase), too many of my days consisted of teaching early morning until late afternoon, rushing home, patting my young kids on the head, then hopping in the car and going of to rehearsal, returning home shortly before midnight, only to repeat the process the next day. It was great to be busy with performing work, but the strain on the family life was tough, to say the least. Now, life at UD, and (for the last four years) as a member of the Serafin Quartet has been plenty busy, but the type of life I've been fortunate to fall into allows me a lot more time to spend with my kids. This is good, as they are now old enough to be annoyed by me patting them on the head. Jennifer's professional life has also blossomed, with an appointment in the Suzuki program and Head of the String Department at the Music School of Delaware.

The day-to-day education of being the dad/musician will follow in the next post, I think. I can sense my dear blog readers reacting like my students do when I feel compelled to speak yet again about the virtues of a straight bow (you know, that glazed expression that this has gone on long enough). That, and I'm up too late.

Cheers (and goodnight),
Larry

Summertime

larry.stomberg@gmail.com (Lawrence Stomberg) — 9:19pm Wednesday, July 7, 2010

[As I typed this, I was on an airplane, over the middle of the U.S. somewhere between Minneapolis and Denver, on the way to a week in Montana for a family vacation]:

It's summer! A great time to refresh and renew, and while this coming week doesn't reflect it for me (without a cello - my wife is already preparing for me having the musician's version of the DT's), also a great time to reload musically.

I consider myself very fortunate to have taken advantage of some great summer opportunities as a young music student back in the day. Interlochen in high school, Sarasota and Kneisel Hall festivals in college, Banff and Tanglewood in grad school. Not only did I gain a lot from the amazing musicians with whom I worked at these places (including folks like Timothy Eddy, who I was lucky enough to have studied with for my Masters and Doctoral degrees), but I was thrust into an environment of some of the best young musicians of my own, up-and-coming generation. For a kid from a small town in the Southwest, where I was one of the big fish, nothing could have been more valuable than to see how big the actual pond truly is. For anywhere from 3-8 weeks, I got to play and study alongside a group of other people who were at least as driven as I was, without the rigors and distractions of regular school. This experience forms a tremendous sense of community among young musicians, and the friends and connections I made in those years have been vitally important to me personally and professionally. I frequently proclaim that I really learned how to be a musician in the summertime.

I spend a bit of time urging my private students (at the university and the high schoolers) to follow a similar path. Some do, and too many don't. I completely understand the pressures and obstacles for today's young musicians - the economy stinks, and summer jobs are necessary just to be able to come back to university in the fall. I think some of my students worry that they can't get into any programs, that it's too competitive. They have a point; the pool of cellists grows in size and ability all the time, but there are a great many summer programs at a variety of levels. Even if for just a couple of weeks, it is worth it for young aspiring musicians to take the risks (including the financial one) of pursuing a summer festival.

Now that I'm (considerably) past the age of being a student at these festivals, my musical summer takes on a slightly different look; but the net gains are similar. For a number of years (2000-2006), I was on the faculty at the Eastern Music Festival in North Carolina, which allowed me not just to work with some fantastically talented students, but also to perform with a fabulous faculty orchestra. My quartet obligations, as well as the need to be ready for the upcoming season of solo, recital and concerto performances, led me to leave EMF, but I have the fondest memories and a host of great experiences to draw from.

Even though my summers, musically, are devoted to a lot of wood-shedding of the coming season's repertoire, I cherish the time to get to delve into a bunch of great new music (and still have time to enjoy my family!). This summer, it's a lot of quartet stuff (a Jennifer Higdon recording project, a London debut program, amazing repertoire like Brahms Clarinet Quintet and Beethoven Op. 132), a new recital program and the Elgar Concerto and Brahms Double Concerto (for concerts in August, October and March). I'm not officially a student anymore, but the break from my university teaching allows me to revisit the electricity of summer music making.

[Oh, and to prove that I didn't get the practice-withdrawal-DTs too badly during that week in Montana, here I am with the family at beautiful Yellowstone National Park, being pretty relaxed]:

Larry, Jen and the kids in front of Yellowstone's own Grand Canyon

Why on earth am I starting a blog?

larry.stomberg@gmail.com (Lawrence Stomberg) — 11:03pm Monday, July 5, 2010

Well, here goes. I have been hesitant to start my own blog, for a variety of reasons - most notably time, effort, and concern that I would have anything at all interesting or relevant to say. One might ask why I'm bothering to start one now, and there are also a variety of reasons:

Time
My professional duties as a faculty member at the University of Delaware are changing a bit, for the better, I think. I am rotating off a position as the Coordinator of Graduate Studies in the Music Department there, after four very active but challenging years on that job (which really provided little to no release from my other duties - the ones I was actually hired for). While I found the position to be often engaging, and I enjoyed getting to know our grad students better, it was also often all-consuming. I don't feel that I have a natural administrative bent (I'm not very good at enforcing rules and I'm a horrible delegator), so the position was too frequently a struggle, one that made it too difficult to keep my professional focus where I wanted, performing and teaching. Of course, this begs the question: now that this is off my plate (and in the very capable hands of one of my faculty colleagues, as of later this week), why on earth would I want to start a blog to fill time? Well, I don't think this will actually be so time-consuming; I won't be a slave to posting all the time, only when I think I have something interesting to say.

Something interesting to say?
I have always enjoyed writing, often in a sarcastic and silly manner (my Onion-News-style knock-off, The Stomberg News, has become a family tradition), and even started an attempt at a memoir early last year. While I don't think I have the time to pursue that as much as I'd like, or maybe as have as much substance as I'd like, I do like the idea of sharing important aspects of what I'm doing (important to me, at least), and perhaps how they intersect. This could also be a way of handling a mid-life crisis; I just turned 41, and maybe am trying to tie together elements of my life, personally and professionally, to find deeper meaning. Some guys buy sports cars or have affairs; I find that I've started exercising a lot (I've lost about 20 pounds in the last year!), meditating, and writing. I think my way is less expensive and generally healthier. As for something interesting to say, I suppose whoever might read my work here will be the judge of that.

Peer Pressure
This spring, my quartet, the Serafin String Quartet, hired a very energetic and helpful media consultant/PR person, and she got us going with all sorts of social media. We started up a Fan page on Facebook, all four of us have Twitter accounts (though I'm actually the most frequent "tweeter" - feel free to follow me!), and we added a blog to our website. I had the honor of posting first (we are taking turns, trying to average a new post every week or two), and that got me thinking about doing this on my website. Then my friend and quartet colleague, Tim Schwarz, started a blog on his own website, clearly taunting me and daring me to start my own. I don't often shy away from a challenge, so here I am. Tim, bring it on - let's see who can out-post the other! I do encourage you to check out SSQ's and Tim's blogs; my colleagues are really smart, insightful people and musicians.

So, there you have it. I'm starting a blog (along with however other many millions of people around the world). I'll talk a lot of chamber music, cello playing, teaching, fun-and-not-too-damaging-or-embarrassing family anecdotes, and will search for those deeper meanings and connections. You are welcome to come along for the ride.

Cheers,
Larry