January 18th 2001, a Thursday.
The Music Academy of the West had sent out invitations to alumni living in New York for drinks at the Rose Suite above the Juilliard School. A friend called me and said that we should go.
I dressed in my best, recently purchased. The party was classy with drinks from a bar, Marilyn Hornes and Thomas Hampsons standing importantly, a piano trio and a fairly unfamiliar crowd.
"Who's that?" I pointed, asking my friend.
"That's Rini. She's amazing." she replied
I looked for a while. Beautiful. Pale, freckled face, animated. Earthy but classy. She was wearing silver sequins. Striking looking. I felt immediately attracted to her. Strong magnetism.
I walked over. It didn't seem important to me what I would say, just that I stand there with her. I noticed that her red wine needed attention, and that's how we started. Conversation flowed naturally. About what we talked, I don't remember, but I felt a quiet respect for the long, quiet, private moment that we were inside - something important was happening. I could feel it.
From that party we went to dinner, eating sushi, four of us: her friend Larry and my friend Jacqui. I was dressed up, paying for everyone, speaking Chinese to the waitresses... I was trying to give Rini no choice.
Next stop, a party, in full swing, that her gay friends were having close by. First kiss, yada yada, then we were in an Irish bar.
Rini was living in Philadelphia still, but was coming to Manhattan regularly in search of an apartment. I was at that moment staying with Annie Hamilton. There was no need for Rini or I to rush anything as we were both in agreement that something strong was pulling us together.
We said a long goodbye on the street and went on our different ways home, each with that unique heightened emotion, the flutter of the heart, the somersault of the stomach, the lightness of the feet.
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My third semester started with a few Stony Brook nights in a student shared, classic country house complete with a large kitchen, banging fly-wire back door and a long hanging tree swing in the backyard.
During my first night on Long Island I had a beautiful five hour phone conversation with Rini discovering the many things on which we were already of the same mind. This was to continue throughout our lives.
Viola lessons went ahead nicely. Mitch taught me a couple of simple techniques and methods about shifting that I had not been properly taught, thus making my playing more secure. I could now trust my technique, which reduced fear and allowed me to be very comfortable onstage so I could just make music for the people listening.
I already had two recitals out of the way. I liked to have a crowd at my concerts, but with all the doctoral students, we had two recitals a day to listen to if we wanted to support our colleagues.
Thankfully there were quite a number of Korean girls at school who were treating it as a sort of finishing school before they went home and got married. They preferred their recitals to be empty of public, needing only to record each recital and hand the tape to their academic advisor the next day. I didn't judge them because my attitude was that you got out of this degree whatever you wanted to. I wanted two things:
1/ To improve as a violist and accumulate repertoire and more solo performing experience.
2/ To graduate and then go and get a teaching position.
So as far as my four recitals were concerned, if I only had a dozen people there, it was still fine by me. I used the opportunity to talk to the audience a little. I also started to enjoy 'being myself' onstage. Apparently my self-doubt was actually charming, so I decided to go with that instead of pretending to be someone else. Mitch helped me with that, reinforcing every week that I was already a pro.
Mitch put me on the 'Viola Professor Search Committee.' The position was advertized and we began to hear candidates. Kim Kashkashian needed to be near her daughter so decided not to come. Katherine H. Murdock was named professor and began the following semester.
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To see Rini on the weekends in Philadelphia, I took two trains, a subway and then an interstate bus ride. It was a six hour journey. She'd finished her masters at the Curtis Institute and was going to make the move to New York City but for now it was a roadtrip. We did meet a couple of times in Manhattan too. Pretty soon she found an apartment in a neighborhood called Inwood, which was in the North of the island, past Harlem, past Washington Heights, just before where the East River rounded the tip of Manhattan and joined the Hudson.
Rini got ready to move to her new place in Inwood around the time that Mitch told the studio that he had to have a brain aneurism operated upon. I gave him a call the day before he went in and we talked for a while. I told him about Rini, which was nice for both of us. I said a couple of things to send him on his journey, whichever way it went and we said goodbye.
I went to see the Dean of the music school a couple of days later and suggested that she put something in place in case things went badly. She had not considered it until that moment. There were a lot of students who would be set adrift.
Mitch survived the operation and was resting in hospital. Everybody breathed a sigh of relief, especially his beautiful wife whom I'd met once at school, afterwards teasing Mitch about what trick he must have played to get a woman so out of his league to agree to marry him.
Mitch developed severe brain swelling and died just a few days later on the April 9th.
I wrote something for the Memorial we held in the hall at Stony Brook with various musical tributes. I may not have the paper anymore, but it was called "When is my next lesson?"
His wife asked me to read it again at the service in Manhattan.
The semester faltered slowly towards the summer break, students in shock, each worried about the next. Professors, also devastated, having lost a wonderful colleague in Mitch. They all trod carefully, knowing how vulnerable the students could be, especially the undergrads who tended to lean on their teachers even more heavily than we grads did.
I missed my plane to Austin Texas. Rini was singing her first Carmen production and I was supposed to be visiting her for a week. We'd only been together for four months so she wasn't sure what to make of my behaviour. It was very out of character for me.
I got the timing right the next day and arrived at her hotel, most likely a cellophane version of myself. She scratched her head, but had her own business to take care of.
They painted Rini's whole body a Southern Spanish tan for her Carmen performances, the first in her career. I sat in the premiere audience waiting for her entrance, suddenly alive with anticipation. I was blown away by her performance and have no recollection of anything that came after except seeing the body makeup circle the drain in the shower.
Summer?
I'd moved into the Inwood Apartment at 55 Cooper Street. It was a nice little building with two problems, both of whom lived on the third floor with us. Next door was an alcoholic Cuban called Filipo. At the other end of the short corridor was a heroin dealer called Mark, with whom we were friendly enough but we were wary.
My class schedule had lightened significantly and I'd handed in both my papers. All that remained to do was my lecture recital and then a final recital in May the following year.
In the second week of September, on a Tuesday, I walked out of the front door, took the elevator down to street level and as I left the building a Mexican guy said something urgent sounding about the train center. I said ok, and kept on my way to the A train, wondering what he was trying to tell me. The A train stopped at 181st street and its doors stayed open. An announcement told us that all downtown trains had been stopped due to ... unintelligible.
I crossed the platform and managed to get a train back to my home stop at 207th street.
All channels of the television showed the same live shot of both of the World Trade Center's towers billowing smoke. The phone rang. It was Rini.
"You stay home, okay?" she said.
Glued to the television screen, I sat there in shock for fifteen minutes, watching the buildings standing there on fire. Then one of the buildings, slowly at first, started to collapse.
I remember yelling "Noooooooooooo" and I swear I could feel a sudden change in the energy around me, as if everyone was feeling the exact same thing at the same moment.
A half hour later the second tower collapsed.
Rini visited Israel to see her family, returning, like the champion that she is, with a beautiful viola for me. Her brother, Hagai Shaham had seen it in Amnon Weinstein's shop in Tel Aviv. Amihai Grosz had been playing it in the Jerusalem Quartet for six months but, much like me with my baroque violas, he was a serial borrower and had to return it.
I opened the case excitedly and immediately saw that it was a beautiful instrument, made by Hans Voss in Hamburg in 1904, so around about 100 years old at that time. I played it for two minutes and Rini and I decided on the spot that it was a no-brainer. I would come up with the money somehow. It was a very reasonable price, but I would need time to make the money. With just one semester to go, I'd be on the job market by the middle of the following year.
The viola had undergone a couple of minor adjustments to reduce its string length for smaller hands -which I didn't need-, so that would have to be remedied. I borrowed money from my Dad, and Rini's dad lent me the same amount. For my 34th birthday Rini gave me $1000 cash, tucked into a miniature, palm of the hand sized violin case. Cute and effective.
I took it back to Israel a couple of months later to have Weinstein changed it back to its original string length, putting on a new bridge and new fittings. Just in time to start practicing for my final Doctoral recital in 2002.