Arkansas Residency 2009 - National Symphony Orchestra Blog

4/1/2009

Fayetteville, Arkansas, by Yvonne Caruthers

Yvonne Caruthers is a cellist in the NSO.

The last day of our Residency, in Fayetteville, AR, was very rewarding. Those of us who had morning events took the evening bus from Little Rock on Sunday night so we'd be in Fayetteville for early school events: I think the first one was at 8:15am. Several people on the bus were doing last minute preparations for Monday's events. Here is Associate Conductor Emil de Cou looking through a score he conducted with the university's orchestra.

My first event Monday was a strings clinic at Benton County School for the Arts. I was nervous when we arrived because the school's buildings looked temporary, but the interiors were clean and the students were terrific. (exterior of building and Carole Wysocki, NSO, posing with a violin mural).

There were about 50 students in the strings class. The 7th and 8th graders played for me, the 5th and 6th graders listened, and then I talked to them about practicing, being a professional musician, and my career path. They had lots of great questions for me, such as "what's the worst thing that ever happened to you on stage?" or "how long does it take to learn good vibrato?" They had a wonderful teacher, Ely Yale, and I enjoyed my time with them very much.

We had a large, enthusiastic audience----a very nice way to end our stay in Arkansas!

Posted at 4:41 PM by Steele, Cynthia P | Category: Arkansas Residency 2009 | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

3/31/2009

Leaving Little Rock, by Yvonne Caruthers

Yvonne Caruthers is a cellist in the NSO

I don't take photos during concerts because I'm onstage with the orchestra. I don't take photos during the events I present because I'm too busy presenting. Practicing is so private that we rarely allow anyone to see (or hear) what we're doing. Today I got to the concert hall early to practice and heard an interesting rehearsal taking place somewhere close by. I grabbed my camera and found Paula Akbar and Joe Connell in an empty dressing room rehearsing for their performance tomorrow. She's playing a fiddle tune, and he's playing dumbek (a type of drum). I felt privileged to hear them.

This afternoon we played Stars and Stripes for our encore, and our tuba player, Steve Dumaine surprised us. He played the part that's usually played by the piccolos, but on tuba, in the right octave for him. And we had another surprise: our Associate Conductor, Emil de Cou, starred as Assistant Bass Drum during the Sousa, adding extra "oomph" to the performance.

Tonight (Sunday night when this was written) 15 of us are taking the bus to Fayetteville, 3 hours from Little Rock, so that we can be there for our morning outreach events. We've heard it's a scenic drive, but it will be getting dark around the time we leave so we won't see much.

Our librarian, Marcia Farabee, collects pencil sharpeners. Today she became the proud owner of a triceratops pencil sharpener. You put the pencil in its stomach, turn the pencil to sharpen it and "wind up" the dinosaur at the same time. Then when you put it down, it starts to walk.

Posted at 1:08 AM by Steele, Cynthia P | Category: Arkansas Residency 2009 | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

Improv Little Rock Photos

Glenn Donnellan sent some photos to be added to his post below on the Star Wars-themed Improv show in Little Rock.

Posted at 12:59 AM by Steele, Cynthia P | Category: Arkansas Residency 2009 | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

3/30/2009

Little Rock, by Yvonne Caruthers

Yvonne Caruthers is a cellist in the NSO

One of the hardest things about being on tour is having major events happen to you when you're not with your family or friends. Daryl Donley, our production manager, celebrated a "big" birthday a couple days ago, so several people organized a party for him. I don't know if we made it as nice as he wanted, but he got a special surprise today when he toured the Clinton Presidential Library. Daryl is an amateur photographer, and he discovered one of his photos on display at the Library. He took it at one of the White House dinners that the NSO played for. Congratulations, Daryl!

Congratulations too, to James Nickel, our third horn player. He learned this evening that he's now a tenured player in the NSO---I'm sure he would have liked to be with his wife and children when he got the news, but we're all happy to have him with us. Most of our events today took place in Conway, about half an hour from Little Rock. The hall was nice, we had a warm reception, and Governor Beebe attended. He "conducted" our final encore, The Stars and Stripes Forever.

A few of us were invited to the (University of Central Arkansas) President of the University's house after the concert for a reception. It's always nice to meet sponsors and patrons after a concert.

On a lighter note, I finally made it to the Peabody Hotel for the march of the ducks. They enter at 11am and exit at 5pm. They climb out of the fountain, descend a staircase, walk down a red carpet and take the elevator to their rooftop home.

Posted at 1:10 AM by Steele, Cynthia P | Category: Arkansas Residency 2009 | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

3/29/2009

Improv in Little Rock, by Glenn Donnellan

Glenn Donnellan is a violinist in the NSO

In a state far, far away, Dave Teie, a talented local pianist (Katie Garton) and I played some music with Improv Little Rock for an improv of Starwars Episode 4 (the first Star Wars movie ever produced). Comprised of a hand-full of local professional actors, the Improv company was fantastic, hysterical and campy in all the right ways of the Force. A great blast to be part of. We basically underscored along with the action.

Our pianist wrote out some chord progressions from Episode 4 along with the melodies of a few main themes: John Williams assigns a musical theme to many characters in the movie. We get to play the full orchestra versions of this movie music often in the NSO, even with John Williams conducting, but it was just as electric to do it here as a trio alongside the high-energy acting and action in front of a full-house crowd of Jedi fans. Two personal even-higher-lights for me at the performance: I got to do the R2D2 whistle sounds on my fiddle (who ever knew R2 could wolf-whistle?) and at the after-party Darth Vader told me he blanked out for a second in the middle of a scene when he heard me do the famous scalar turning motif that accompanies the main them - it totally overcame him, which is what that music always does to me. I wish we could do this in every state we tour!

Posted at 7:59 PM by Steele, Cynthia P | Category: Arkansas Residency 2009 | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

3/28/2009

Little Rock, by Yvonne Caruthers

Yvonne Caruthers is a cellist in the NSO.

After 9/11 we all got used to having our bags inspected every time we enter a large building in Washington. Today I went to the Capitol
building here in Little Rock, walked right in and took a few photos....no searches, nothing.

The chandelier in the dome is really gorgeous.

In a display case I saw this snakehead violin---so called because of the snake's head at the top of the instrument. This trip we won't get to see Mountain Home, AR, where the museum of the Ozarks is located, so I was glad to see this small exhibit.

I also walked over to Central High School, site of the 1957 school desegregation protests. The school is still in use, a very beautiful campus.

Across the street is an old Mobil gas station (now used by the park service), with original pumps---gas at 22 cents!

Posted at 2:43 PM by Steele, Cynthia P | Category: Arkansas Residency 2009 | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

More Helena YPC, by Cynthia Steele

Cynthia Steele is the Orchestra Manager of the NSO.

The orchestra played two fabulous back-to-back Young People's Concerts in Helena on Thursday. It was truly a joy to see the audience filled with students and hear the cheers at the end of the concert. Logistically, we all had to check out of the hotel earlier in the morning, take the bus directly to the YPC, and then bus straight to Little Rock. Because we were going to be in a concert or on a bus through the lunch hour, we coordinated boxed lunches for the orchestra to pick up after the concert and eat on the bus. We had some logistical discussions about how to organize our four buses and the many school buses after the concert, and it was complicated to get everyone their lunch and on the bus and off to Little Rock, but once we did, we were able to check in here in LR and have the rest of the evening off.

However, when we say "evening off" or "orchestra day off", this is misleading – this is when the myriad of outreach and educational activities, as well as chamber music concerts, are happening. For example, after that YPC in Helena, we had a Community Service Performance in Helena at a nursing home, an In-School Ensemble/Assembly in Searcy at Harding University, Sectionals/Coaching at Hendrix College in Conway, three Chamber Music Concerts (in Forrest City, Brinkley, and Conway), and an Improv Show in Little Rock that involved two of our musicians. And this was just in one afternoon/evening! The NSO musicians and staff certainly keep busy in the "off" times! Since I came to the NSO three years ago, I've been impressed at the extra above-and-beyond work that they do in their "free" time on the Residencies, the amazing programs that they create, and the dedication to making the Residencies a great experience for the state we are visiting.

Kate Preston, Assistant Production Manager, passing water to a stage crew member (Dave Langrell) in preparation for the boxed lunch distribution.

Water for the orchestra for the YPC and the boxed lunches.

Emil de Cou, Associate Conductor, before the YPC trying out an electric violin. It's not quite as snazzy as the baseball bat violin!

Steve Dumaine, Principal Tuba, in the Green Room.

An example of the bulletin board in the Little Rock hotel, which lists all the educational/outreach/chamber activity pickups and departures.

Posted at 2:21 PM by Steele, Cynthia P | Category: Arkansas Residency 2009 | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

3/27/2009

From Helena to Little Rock, by Aaron Goldman

Aaron Goldman is the Assistant Principal Flute in the NSO

The orchestra arrived in Little Rock yesterday and has a welcome day off after four full days of traveling and concerts. Since we left DC, it feels as though we've either been sitting in a bus, getting ready to sit in a bus, or playing a concert - having four nights in the same hotel in Little Rock is a luxury.

Since joining the orchestra in 2006, I have been with the orchestra on three residencies - Kansas, South Carolina, and now Arkansas. So far, I've traveled to some poor, small towns. Nothing I've seen, though, has been quiet like what we encountered in Helena (it is in Phillips County, the poorest county in Arkansas). On the bus ride into town, we passed crumbling homes, and boarded up buildings; almost every structure was in some form of disrepair. We played a concert on Wednesday evening which was free to the public because of a generous former citizen of Helena, Samuel Warfield, who set up a trust to bring music to his community. We also played two Young People's Concerts in Helena for school children of Phillips and Lee Counties on Thursday morning. I have played Young People's Concerts for as many years as I've played professionally and have never been in a concert hall full of students that was as quiet while we played as the one in Helena.

My trio (with Abby Evans, viola, and Jeff Weisner, bass) gave its first educational performance of the tour yesterday in Searcy, AR at Harding University. We drove in one of the education vans (the orchestra rents vans to transport groups around to all the various outreach activities) directly from our Young People's Concerts in Helena. The two and a quarter hour drive from Helena took us through some pretty run down parts of the state, but the university was beautiful and the recital hall we performed in had great acoustics. After a reception hosted by the university, it was back into the van for a short, hour long drive to Little Rock. During the drive, Jeff tried to explain the in and outs of playing bridge. Evidently, you need more than an hour.

Posted at 7:19 PM by Steele, Cynthia P | Category: Arkansas Residency 2009 | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

Helena Young People’s Concerts, by Yvonne Caruthers

Yvonne Caruthers is a cellist in the NSO

The Young People's Concert program we played for the children was the same one we had performed in Washington, and it featured Glenn Donnellan playing an electric violin. Before we left for Arkansas, Glenn had hinted that he might try to make his own electric violin to show kids that they could make their own instrument. At today's concert we were all surprised to get to that point in the program and Glenn showed up with a baseball bat which he had converted to an electric "violin".

The hall in Helena was not as large as we're used to, so it was pretty crowded backstage. Paul DeNola (bassist), with his back to the camera, is getting his bass out of his trunk. Laura Hearn, our assistant personnel manager approaches, while Erin Ozment (Artistic Administrator) confers with Jeff Weisner (bassist). Associate Conductor Emil de Cou is in the doorway.

Usually there is a room backstage for our staff. At Helena they squeezed into whatever space they could find. Kate Preston (Assistant Production Manager) seated, Carole Wysocki (Director of Education)in the blue jacket, and Cynthia Steele (Orchestra Manager), standing.

The dressing rooms were especially crowded since 50 of us were packed into each room, with our wardrobe trunks as well. Ah, the glamour of touring!

Posted at 7:15 PM by Steele, Cynthia P | Category: Arkansas Residency 2009 | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

3/26/2009

Helena, Arkansas, by Yvonne Caruthers

Yvonne Caruthers is a cellist in the NSO

Emil de Cou (the NSO's Associate Conductor) and I walked around Helena, Arkansas, this afternoon. In the cultural center is a wonderful exhibit about why Helena became a magnet for blues musicians. "Jelly Roll" de Cou sat down to play a few notes.

When we stopped at the Roadkill Grill for a snack we were joined by Janet Frank and David Howard, both cellists in the NSO, who were also out for a walk.

Helena is no longer an affluent town, but there are still a couple mansions to remind visitors of the town's once-thriving cotton and timber industries.