The occasion for my visit was a performance by violinist
Danielle Belén at the
Colburn School of Music. Danielle played six of my pieces – two solo works, three with pianist David Fung, and one with violist Miguel Hernandez. Although I like to attend performances of my music whenever possible, I had an added incentive for making this trip: after the performance, Danielle was off to Toronto to
record all of my violin music, and I wanted to get some input into her interpretations up front.
I met Danielle (for the first time) in the Colburn lobby; she took me upstairs to a rehearsal. She is, by the way, even more lovely in person than in her photos. In the rehearsal, it quickly became apparent that my music was in very good hands. Joined by violist Miguel Hernandez (of the Harlem Quartet) for
Bacchus Chaconne, Danielle easily demonstrated that she had the monster technique to handle all of the piece’s challenges, the intelligence to ask all the right questions, and the artistic sensitivity to find just the right sound for every nuance.
The violin-viola duo was followed by a rehearsal of
Façade, with pianist David Fung.
Façade has subtle tempo shifts every few measures, all of which have to be “felt” – I wrote it at a time when I had decided that intuitive tempo changes are much more interesting to listen to than metric modulations. Danielle definitely has a very special feeling for how this piece should flow. By now, she and David had played it together dozens of times. When they finished playing for me, I told her -- and I repeat it here -- their performance was downright scary.
Unfortunately, we didn’t have enough time to rehearse all the pieces before the concert, but we got through enough for me to know that I would only have a few minor suggestions afterwards. I’ve been lucky enough to have many excellent performances of my music, but some of them have been more a matter of putting every note in the right place than “getting” the music on every level. Danielle puts all the notes in the right places, AND grasps every layer of meaning.
The concert took place right during the Super Bowl, so it was nice to get a good turnout my first (and hopefully last) time going toe-to-toe with Bruce Springsteen. I was happy to have my niece Raquel and her new husband keeping me company. Danielle played magnificently. Afterwards, the great Robert Lipsett gave me a tour of Jascha Heifitz’s studio, designed by Lloyd Wright in 1946. When Heifitz’s Beverly Hills home was demolished in the 1980s, this studio, which was fifteen steps from the house, was dismantled and stored, later to be installed in a lobbyish area above Zipper Hall. It’s a fantastic monument of mid-century modernism, complete with redwood-panelled, built-in furniture and an imposing fireplace.
Heifitz studio, with RCA dog guarding the entrance
And, of course, no parallel walls, for a wonderful acoustic.
Interior of Heifitz studio
Later, over dinner, I gave Danielle some notes on interpretation and we talked through plans for the recording. She is chock-full of good ideas. Then it was off to the airport for the red-eye -- appropriately named in this case, since I was up all night with a mind reeling from taking in impressions of three different countries (
Midland-Odessa,
Houston and
Los Angeles) in the space of 24 hours.
