What a fun year 1985 was. It took me a hot minute to shake off the private school layer, but I already knew a lot of the students from music camps, and they were very relaxed about everything.
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| Talent night, National Music Camp |
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| Out with the VCA kids |
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| On tour in China with good people |
The teachers were welcoming and kind. I began violin studies with Nelli Shkolnikova who had just defected from the USSR and had become the Victorian Arts Centre’s first Artist-in-Residence.
I hadn't mentioned to anyone at the College of the Arts (VCA) that this first year out of school was intended to be just a fun year off before starting at Melbourne Uni, because in the back of my mind I desired a career in music, despite not knowing what it entailed.
Mum continued going to concerts with me. Most memorable were the violinists: Henryk Szeryng, just a three years before he died, Isaac Stern, Igor Oistrakh, Pinchas Zukerman, who brought his viola too, and Nelli played three concertos (and gave her students tickets). We had the Guarneri Quartet, the Beaux art Trio, Nigel Kennedy, Salvatore Accardo, Joshua Bell .. many of whom I would later meet personally during my own modest career.
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| Sarah Wells, Geminiani chamber orchestra |
I had many secrets during those years: a student spot at Melbourne Uni in the B.Arts and a girlfriend whom the VCA kids knew nothing of, a very busy double social life, and as a result, a bit of a lazy approach to violin practice that must have frustrated Nelli, but somewhere I was still harbouring the secret ambition to take music seriously, which my mother didn't know about.
I was only 17, which was 'young' but at the same time, I was actually getting long in the tooth for someone intending to master an instrument. I wasn't committed to anything yet, which in hindsight was a very healthy attitude.
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| Sydney tour, Libby Anderson and Katie Black |
Another secret was that I was getting up at 5:30am to go rowing on the Yarra River with my old friend Tony Smith, school science teacher (he'd also taught my faher), amateur bass player and most importantly a master oarsman. Once a week or so, we took out his double scull, hand-made, all wood, and worked on technique, summer and winter, afterwards having breakfast in the Melbourne Grammar rowing shed before I walked a block to the college, violin case over my shoulder, to go and do a bit of practice. The outings continued on across a span of eight years.
Forty years later, in Barcelona, I went out in a double scull on the Mediterranean with an Argentinian fellow who was in charge of rowing at the sailing club. He looked worried when I couldn't remember how to get in the boat, but once the oars were in the water, we really got going and he was stupefied. I had been taught by a master.
Half way through 1985 I switched teachers. It wasn't really working out with Nelli. She had assigned me four Kreutzer studies and I was bored, confused and adrift, but without caring too much either way. I'd been a Suzuki Method student for most of my time and technique was never something that was given much attention. One just 'did it' to the level of the teacher's understanding. Now I was in the big league, a Ukrainian/Russian trained teacher who was a world class violinist trying to pass on valuable knowledge. My new teacher was a lovely old fellow called Don Scotts who, when he retired, moved on to be the head of strings at Melbourne Grammar, a position that was offered to me after he passed away. I chose, however, to stay abroad.
Meanwhile I was having fun in a couple of young chamber orchestras. The Chamber Strings of Melbourne, run by an ancient lady we called Miss Cameron. Chris Martin, star violist from Devon (then only 55 years old) conducted. He was good fun, and we would tour China a couple of years later.
The other orchestra (Geminiani) was made up of mostly girls from the VCA, conducted by an energetic Dutchman: Marco Van Pagee, with whom I remained friends for more than twenty years. After having worked under with him, tough conductors were just water off a duck's back. I played lots of chamber music and was gigging with a string trio and teaching violin down the road at Melbourne Grammar where they still had not realized that I was only 17. My old violin teacher had recommended me to them - and they had assumed that I was an adult.
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| Marco, Peter and Anne Harvey (sinfonia concertante c. 2004 |
Turning 18 was a big deal for most Australians. Drink, drive... Worthy of a toga party.
I threw a joint party with Woody, a school mate who had the same birthdate but a year earlier.
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| Woody and Pete at another Party (We were Romulus and Remus) |
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| Richard and Richard threw an R & R party and 5 of us were Romans |
The party was at my Dad's beach house which had a big lawn. We had a keg, an unnecessary tent, and all of my friends found out about each other. It got more than a bit out of control with hundreds of uninvited people in the street hoping in vain to get past my step mother and through the front gate which was by that time locked. There was a bit of intermingling of my different circles of friends but none of us remember too much, except that I reconnected with my next girlfriend, a pretty blonde, literally the girl next door, living one street from where I grew up. Same exact birthday as me too. We were in the birth announcements in the same column.
That was the end of 1985.
Best year so far.
More to come.
Next year, I would move out of the family home and in to Trinity College where I would live while failing most of my first year of Economics and Commerce at Melbourne Uni.
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| There's me, failing academically while living at Trinity College |