My belongings were packed into a few suitcases and boxes for shipping—recipient address TBD, I had a certificate of graduation, I'd sold my other viola (The Ian Clarke) to a colleague: Gudrun from Iceland; and I had a future longterm girlfriend waiting for me in New York City.
Being New York —a magnet for people from all walks of life— there would soon be others from my past living there too. Felix, whose parents bought a duplex in Mid-Town, in which I would get married just a few years later, Toby Breider from Moog's class - off to study with Michael Tree from the Guarneri Quartet, Anne Hamilton and a few other Aussie Doctor girls who liked to party, John Secondini was already there studying to be an opera singer; a hyper-talented jazz drummer called Jochen Rückert, who was the quiet one at our parties in Germany, Alissa from the New Zealand competition and even a couple of people from Trinity College days.
Saskia spent her last bit of cash getting a cab to Newark airport to meet me. We took the airport bus back, excited to be together again after nearly four years. She was apartment-sitting for an Aussie violinist: Asmira Woodward-Page. We stayed there for a bit, and moved around to other people's places briefly, practicing at Juilliard until school started for her.
I flew to La Jolla to play at Felix's new festival. It was a fun bunch of people. James Ehnes, Ittai Shapira, me, Felix Fan, Son of Alfred Brendel, Katja Cerovsek, Michelle Kim, little Corinne Chapelle.
 |
| MUZIK3 Festival in La Jolla |
We played Bach's 3rd Brandenburg concerto, some Schulhoff, partied a lot... I surfed a bit too, getting thrust among the locals at Wind and Sea. They gave me a pass because of the accent —and I told them that my evil friend had sent me out here—. I stayed a while longer with Felix, just hanging out. I bought a new skateboard, as I had none. The Sector9 longboard that Felix had bought me in '96 had been run over by a car in Brussels. I'd kept the trucks. The new skateboard would be with me for more than thirty years. It was so much a part of me in New York City that the photographer insisted on putting them in a couple of my publicity photos.
Saskia was enrolled for her second time (now four years later) at the Summer Music Academy in Santa Barbara. I'd applied for the job they'd advertised running their new 'Merit Program' that paired visiting youngsters with volunteer music students. While I was in Germany packing up, I had been intensely visualizing, seeing myself working there, but they wrote and told me that they had given the job to someone with experience. I went there anyway. But first....
Saskia had a little breakdown as I was in the process of buying an old Honda with many miles on it, to use in Santa Barbara. The seller only wanted $900 but during the test drive there was an annoying squeak which I searched for, thumping the dashboard in different places until I put my fist through the dashboard. (this caused Saskia to burst into tears). It was brittle from years of sun. He brought the price down to $700. As we drove off in it, I turned to Saskia and said: "Did you see that? I got the price down."
I sold it a couple of months later for $1100 after finding a replacement dashboard piece in a junkyard.
I drove south along the coast to Santa Barbara, stopping along the way in Los Angeles to see a few people.
Music Academy 3rd time
Driving up the hill and in the gate of the Cate School brought back a flood of memories. I went and found Saskia, quietly moved into an unoccupied room and without really thinking twice about it I carried on as if I belonged at the Academy — eating in the cafeteria, watching the masterclasses—. It was good to be back. Nobody batted an eye.
McInnes was happy to see me there and at one point made a big deal about me being at his masterclass. He tended to do that sort of thing.
I told him what I was doing, living at the Cate school illegally, practicing viola there and having lunch with the opera students. He quickly lined me up with one of the old donors who was happy to give me a room, since he was living alone in his big house, all gay and nobody to harass.
Mysteriously, a paying job was created especially for me, to do with the Merit program. It was thanks to a clever fellow called Scott Reed who was destined to run the place within a few years.
I don't remember what I did exactly, but my role seemed to be 'oiling the wheels' of the Merit Program, because the kids were not digging the way things were happening. Somehow I changed that.
 |
| Merit Program 1998 |
During the second week of that summer, I was to play Brandenburg Concerto VI with the LA Baroque Orchestra in a music bowl in LA: the rather sizeable Greek Theatre in Griffith Park. I was in good playing form, so it wasn't a big deal. It was only baroque music.
My little sister Helen dropped in to the Music Academy for a couple of days, heart broken, but only temporarily as it turned out. I found her another empty student room. Free accommodation for family.
 |
| Peter and Helen 1998 |
I played a little chamber music with Saskia, a Trout Quintet, with some coaching from her Bass Professor, Nicolo Abondolo. Nico and I also read some string quartets with his buddy Gilles Apap who is the free-est violinist who ever lived. Nico also allowed me in on the Bass social activities. He rented a couple of big sailboats, which he was happy to have a bit of help with, and some minor surfing.
I bought Saskia a nice skateboard her birthday, which she kept for years, giving it away only after she was married with kids.
I sold the Honda for a $300 profit and flew back to the East Coast.
Back in New York, I juggled my couch surfing with a few nights a week using our dormitory system: Saskia and I had figured out that I could sleep in her dorm room (girls dormitory) at Juilliard, and the two of us could easily survive on her meal plan punch card. Even in those days they couldn't say anything to anyone when paying at the cash register, as long as it was in the limits of 'a meal for one person.' Too many eating disorders at Juilliard - Dance department.
Looking for work and accommodation, I was officially a thirty year-old which was a bit past the limit for couch surfing and girl's dorms, but it's just what I had to do until I had more work coming in.
Meanwhile I'd seen a flyer on the wall at Juilliard, "Seeking a cellist for a band". Using the public phone and my new pager, I was in contact with them pretty quickly, convincing them that a viola was a better. The singer song writer Sam Slovik (this guy) had written some beautiful songs that we rehearsed with a guitarist, a native Canadian rap artist called Daybi, who had two gold front teeth.
We did a six week run of live gigs in Chelsea, got an offer for 'distribution' from a reputable industry guy, but the band exploded when Daybi got drunk and I don't remember the rest, but Sam was a regular at AA and perhaps he decided that he had to go another way. I actually went to an AA meeting with him out of curiosity —and also at his suggestion— but he stipulated that I was only a 'problem drinker' not an alcho. He was right. Most of us were problem drinkers in Australia back then.
I'd been bugging Cynthia Roberts to get me some baroque work. She didn't know anything about me, nor I about her, really. Someone had told me that she was a good source of work. Her husband nudged her into action and now I had my foot in the door.
Meanwhile I was looking after a Harlem apartment that my sister Helen's friend Yam was about to move in to. I had the place for six weeks. It was up a bit of a hill which I used to ride down at great speed on my skateboard, sometimes in Tails with my viola on my back. The black traffic cop would always hold up traffic and wave me through. I would fly past him saying thhhaaannks Jimmy.
It was the highlight of both of our days.
Before he went away for his 6 week project, Yam and I went to the Million Youth March, Sept 1998. We were the only two white people for as far as the eye could see. Total immersion into the black population of New York. We were there all day, listening to speeches, talking to the people. Our presence was accepted, more or less. Perhaps we were tourists, or maybe we were the tip of the iceberg of all the people who just agreed with Rodney King "(I just want to say—you know—can we, can we all get along?").
The only time I felt at risk was on the way down to 125th street when a white cop wanted to question me about being up in Harlem to "Get Hydro."
"What's a *Hydro?" I asked, walking briskly. He was frisking someone else against a parked car.
"I live here. Have a nice day" and I kept on walking. He was busy enough.
*Twenty-eight years later, one can ask AI what things mean. Turns out that the cop was likely referring to 'Hydroponic Weed.'
Hung came to visit me very early on. He was a fully fledged standup comedian now and was thinking about checking out the scene here. I asked Daybi from the band to go and pick him up at the airport and bring him back the apartment in Harlem. Daybi was probably crashing at 'my' apartment. I was busy with a gig. Daybi was asking every asian male who came out at international:
"You Hung? You Hung? Hey, Are you Hung?"
Eventually Hung walked through. When the gold toothed Indian asked him if he was Hung he must have been quite surprised. When I showed up at the apartment, Daybi had already shown Hung how to buy weed on the street: "Cop a dime?" (dime sized ziplock bag).
 |
| Sam Slovik, Hung Le and Peter |
I kept on with my baroque gig rehearsals, meeting up with Hung later in the evening. He was having his own adventures. I showed him my trick of taking your own beer into bars. We couldn't really afford to drink with our friends unless we cut a few corners.
I arranged a solo show for Hung in Chelsea at the venue I'd been playing at with Daybi and Sam Slovik. I invited everyone I knew and he had a nice crowd. His show went well and he discovered that his material was came across 'profound' in America. His stories about the war in Vietnam and his family's brave escape in 1975 on a leaky boat.. touched them. More so than in Australia.
Yam, 'my landlord' came back to town and my six weeks of free accommodation were over. Thankfully I had somewhere to go now.
I'd run into John Secondini, who was looking for a room mate. Funny how the world works isn't it? I moved in immediately. It was a weird little two story building in Astoria, Queens and we had the whole second floor. We had a view of the Manhattan skyline, and it was a half hour ride on the N subway to get into the city.
My baroque career in New York took off very quickly which was both a relief and a concern as I was on a holiday visa. I was syphoning my money through Saskia's bank account.
My employers were all ok making out my checks out to her but I would soon be under the gun to change my visa status.
In a little over a year I'd be enrolled in a University Doctoral Program, but I didn't know it yet. A small chain of events was destined to bring me to my final viola teacher. Post-grad foreign students were permitted to do paid 'work experience' as long as your employer wrote a letter, and your University signed the form. It was a pain in the arse, but I was very good at that sort of thing.
Christmas for for Orphans
I'd stopped drinking completely because the Berlin Philharmonic had invited me to come and audition. They didn't want to hear any orchestral excerpts, just the first and second movements of the Stamitz Concerto and two movements of solo Bach. I focused on my practice and cut back on the bad behavior.
One of my new friends, Jeremy Turner threw a nice Christmas lunch for those of us who were at sea with no family present. Three of us violists: me, Toby from my Moog class, and Alissa Smith from the Auckland competition -six years ago. Toby said I could stay at his brother's place in Berlin while I prepared. It would be the dead of winter and the heater was a coal-burning fireplace.
Jeremy's Manhattan apartment was luxurious for our age group, the reason being that Jeremy had obtained a position in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra which had a very nice salary, and his room mate, James Ehnes was already enjoying a fine career as a concert violinist.
Every year they threw a fantastic Costume party on Halloween. The last one I went to dressed as a Venetian gondolier, boat and everything. The funny part was that I went there on a skateboard using a broom handle to push myself. I stopped short when I saw a colleague from France: Renaud Capuçon, violinist, looking very depressed, squatting on the pavement.
Renaud, it's Peter from Deuxville. We played together last year. What's going on? You ok?
- I just broke up with my girlfriend.
Come with me, we are going to a party.
Jeremy and James' party was going OFF. Full of pretty girls and alcohol. I didn't see him for the rest of the night, but I hope it eased the pain a bit.
 |
| Venetian Gondoler 1998 |