It has long been a dream of mine to lead an ensemble worthy of performance at the Iowa Bandmasters Association conference. That moment finally came on Thursday, May 15 when the QCWE presented an amazing concert. Our emcee was my long-time friend, Leon Kuehner, who set the stage for the stirring music making that was to ensue. Although we had played all of the rep at our 5/10 "home concert," the players (and their conductor, for that matter) brought the entire proceedings to a higher level.
Of course, none of it would have been possible without my "pares un concert" dinner with my good friend and number-one critic, Jay Kahn. While he was highly complimentary of much of the program, he excoriated the ensemble (and me) for a horrible (I believe that his exact word was "turgid") performance of the "March" from the Symphonic Metamorphosis by Paul Hindemith. Something to the tune of, "Everyone is going to know that piece and if you play it that badly, the band will fall flat on its face."
So which piece was mentioned more in post-IBA concert comments? The Hindemith, of course. Audience members were glowing over it. What happened? What could I have possibly done from Saturday until Thursday with nothing but a brief "get used to the room" warm-up. The answer is simple but one which many conductors are afraid to admit: get out of their way. We juiced the tempo and I basically told the players to forget about the finessing I was attempting (which had sucked the life out of the piece). At the "big moment" when the ensemble seems to explode, the composer writes a mere "forte." We ignored that and went for the glory, and glory it was.
All I had to do was listen....
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