Elektra had three performances spread over eight days, giving me time to finalize my F1 student visa which was issued a tense six days before my departure. Simone Young seemed very happy to be in Australia and was in great spirits, and talked to the orchestra with great respect.
Several years later I would be sharing a meal with her in Berlin reminiscing about the Sydney production.
Worthy of note in my life, violist Jane Hazelwood was in the viola section just in front of me. I remember well the moment at the Victorian College of the Arts when she came to talk to me back when I had just started out on viola and she said:
"I mean it in a positive way when I say to you that if you practice, you'll be really good!"
I took this the way it was intended, and found her to be an encouraging influence whenever we crossed paths.
Two days after Elektra was done, I flew to New York, immersed in the ridiculous GED book, studying for a stupid exam requirement (equivalent to a high school diploma) that I was obliged to do —not to pass, just to do— to enter the Doctoral program. I took the exam at the earliest opportunity, but leaving the exam early, out of extreme boredom, having answered about enough of the questions to pass. It merely served as a reminder of how much of my early education had been inappropriate for the life I was to lead.
Interestingly, my University Degree in Economics and Commerce fulfilled the requirement of 'undergrad degree' so it finally came in handy. It was good that I had persevered with it after my fun year with the Como Quartet.
Stony Brook's second language requirement was another strange requirement, but luckily French was on the menu and I could still 'defend myself' in French at the time.
Saskia moved out of her 'railroad apartment' and into mine in Astoria. John seemed nonplussed, but I gave him no choice, and we were three.
My violinist colleague, Peter Rovit, also recently enrolled, agreed to a mutually beneficial deal that he would drive me the 90 minutes to Stony Brook on our class days and I would read him the 'readings' that we'd been assigned in our early music class. We spent time in the music library together finding and photocopying all the required reading. There was quite a bit, and I suppose we learnt a lot.
The requirements for a DMA (Doctor of Musical Arts) were much more useful than those of a PhD (Doctor of Philosophy in...) We were required to perform four recitals, give a lecture recital to our panel of professors and write not one but two papers -one analytical and the other historical. The fun part for me was the teaching element. As part of our full scholarship were were required to teach a class of non-music majors. I taught Music 101 which meant teaching a bunch of lazy undergrads how to read music and understand harmony etc. We had fun, but it was a new experience and required preparation and poise, and also the grading of papers, which I did on the return trips to Manhattan on the Long Island Railroad, a bit of an arduous trip that could take three hours.
Stony Brook was THE place to do your Doctorate. Most people took three or more years to get it done, but I did it in two and a half. By the end of it I would be into my twelfth year of University study. When you think about it, that's a lot of socializing- more than anything else. In constant contact with smart young people in academic environments for all those years.
My baroque work filled in my spare time, as did the paperwork for a foreign student doing paid work.
I played a concert tour with a Cleveland baroque group called Apollo's Fire. (It was a time where people were looking further afield for memorable names for their groups.) We played all of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, with the sixth concerto being for two solo violas and small ensemble. I had just lost an old friend, Danni Lloyd, which I kept to myself.
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| Pete and Dani |
I barely remember the project or the people involved, the reviews were great, but I only recall that I much preferred the previous time I had played it back in LA with Simon Oswell, where it was as smooth as silk.
The one outside activity which was a welcome distraction was a sailing regatta on lake Erie in Cleveland. Someone I'd met on the plane had taken my details and invited me out. I was a little surprise to be handed wet weather gear, first thing before the sun had come up. Apparently 'lake sailing' could get very rough.
Toby had lent me his beautiful borrowed viola to use for the project on the condition that I didn't ride my skateboard with it. I agreed, of course. After the project, another colleague, Judson Griffin lent me his baroque viola as he had switched back to violin. I just had to pay its yearly insurance and keep it in good condition with visits to my luthier friend Stefan Bauni. I played the instrument for several years, and brought it to my lessons at Stony Brook so Mitch could hear my Bach Cello Suites, of which I played the first two in separate recitals. It was all infinitely useful and Mitch and I had a ball working together.
It was an interesting exercise starting a recital on baroque viola at 415 pitch then switching to modern viola at 442. The public were also being treated to to a side by side comparison which few people get to hear. For me, it planted the seed for a great lecture-recital topic.
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Saskia and I decided to move to a Brownstone apartment in Harlem which we had to paint. I also did a little plastering. 123rd street was on the frontier of the white neighborhood. Life was similar to what I had in LA. There were neighborhood black kids running around in our apartment, attracted by the music and the funny white guy who talked to them with that accent. They trusted me and I found them hilarious most of the time. It was symbiotic, but I had to disconnect the doorbell so I could get some practice done.
My presence was noticed by the community. Apparently they mostly thought of me as a friendly, but I was also a sign that gentrification would not be far behind. I was a gentlemen.
One night, absurdly late, I was walking from the A train to my corner, and stopped at the bulletproof window of the bodega to get something to eat. A couple of black guys buying beer asked me if I was lost etc which turned into a chat about how they look after people who live in the neighborhood. I went and hung out with them on the corner with a group of twelve or so. Apparently I had helped the big girls carry their washing bags at some point so they seemed to know who I was. I don't remember what we all talked about but I was there happily for quite a while before one of the quiet guys pulled out a pistol and waved it around. My reaction, being a bit inebriated still —but in an Australian way— was to say:
"Put that away. That's minimum two years." (Felony charge, criminal possession at that time. Now it's up to 15 years maximum now)
He fired it in the air twice and then we all watched him storm off, looking frustrated.
There was a varying level of hatred of white people in many segments of the black population. My experience on the streets of New York was that the animosity was often pretty close to the surface on the black side with a corresponding level of fear on the white side.
My own behaviour often confused and amused black people who wanted to hate me. I had quite a few interactions that started nastily and ended amicably. There was a wide variety of reactions to my personality. One guy after talking to me wanted to go and visit Australia because I told him he could get laid a lot there.
Another, a large group on the subway became somewhat confused at how I had laughed hard and pointed at the one calling me a fucking cracker and asked the whole group:
"Who does he belong to?"
One of them was certain that I had done time and tried to get me to admit it.
More than a couple of times black people have said to me:
"Are you sure you're not black?"
"No, I am not sure."
As summer approached Saskia continued her studies at Juilliard, earning money at 'Strings and Other Things' which was housed in Christoph Landon's violin shop. One afternoon I showed him my Arthur E. Smith viola, and we talked about the Berlin Phil audition and what Brett Dean had said to me about the sound they were looking for. That was when Christoph lent me a viola that he had made, which the owner, a Berlin Phil violist, was hoping to sell.
I kept it for an embarrassingly long time, playing a Schubert Arpeggione sonata at Isaac Malkin's summer academy at Ramapo College in New Jersey where Mitchell Stern was teaching for a few weeks. You went to these little festivals to get more time with your Professor and have some opportunities to perform while having a nice break from the noise in the big city.
I had the viola in my possession all the way 'til Christmas, when I tuned it up a half step to perform Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante in Melbourne with Anne Harvey and our old orchestra: Geminiani, under the baton of Marco van Pagee. Good fun, good reviews. Fun finally to play at home where my friends and family could attend.
I used my time in Australia to heal after having called it quits with Saskia. Notably, Felix's Mum and my sister had both warned me that if we were arguing this much at such an early stage, just wait... meaning that it will probably get much worse. We wanted the best for each other and both acted honorably, I am proud to say.
All those checks I had laundered through her bank account for two years had put her into a different tax bracket, so when she called me in 2001 with the number $he was out, I only took a minute or two to say: "Of course I will give you that money."
Before moving out, I'd given her a month's rent so she had time to find a roommate, and I went and moved in temporarily with Jennifer Frautschi whose second bedroom had become empty when her cousin moved out. Jen and I had played some chamber music together and we already knew that we got along well.
A cathartic six weeks brought maximum healing. I'm not ashamed to write that I was almost ready to march once more unto the breach.
That visualization list of girlfriend 'must haves' that I'd written back in 1997 needed an edit. I also needed some new clothes, and with a Stony Brook hell-semester full of 'on-campus commitments,' morning classes and orchestra etc, I would have to quickly find a room out on Long Island because doing that commute five days a week would have been a killer.
Before the new year I had things to do and people to see. I began with a focused clothes-shopping spree in Melbourne.