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Panama and Guatemala
Guatemala and Panama -
A MUSICAL JOURNEY
June 16th to 28th 2003
8/31/2003 9:16 AM
The journey to Guatemala and Panama was my thirteenth tour with YPO and the seventh to Latin America. By now, they are all running together in my mind. However certain things stand out as powerful memories. I will try to capture some of them in these notes.
When we arrived at the airport in Guatemala City we were greeted by an orchestra of eight marimba players and a rhythm-section, playing with breathtaking virtuosity! It was the first sign that the Youth Philharmonic members were going to be treated like celebrities on this tour - though we couldn't possibly have guessed quite how much. We, of course, started dancing right there in the baggage-claim area - my first waltz with our radiant, utterly alive percussion player, Laci - and we were off! Off on a journey that every single member of our 102-member group of musicians, administrators and chaperones was to say would be indelibly imprinted in their memories forever.
Another sign that we were going to get special treatment on this tour was that on the trip from the airport to our hotel we were accompanied by a police escort car in front and behind and this was to be the case every time we went anywhere in the buses. Clearly neither the Guatemalan nor the Panamanian governments could afford to have even the slightest hint of an incident to mar the visit of this prestigious American orchestra. As it turned out there wasn't any cause for concern. In spite of the alarmist warnings, which, sadly, had caused many parents to keep their children from going on the tour, no one felt the slightest anxiety at any time
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One of the most striking experiences on the tour happened right on the first evening when we arrived at around 10.o'clock at the Hotel Casa Santo Domingo in Antigua. I have stayed in hundreds of hotels and some are imprinted on my memory, though most have receded into a blur of crystal chandeliers, marble lobbies and steel elevators. But I will never forget the impact of our arrival at the reconstructed 16th century monastery Casa Domingo that night. I can't imagine there is a more beautiful hotel anywhere in the world. Candles lit the entire hotel. The minutest details are lovingly cared for: the incredible array of flowers and plants around the ancient stone courtyards, the fountains and waterfalls, the birds, including 6 majestic parrots, and the music! Imagine! The music that they relay over the loudspeakers, is 15th and16th century acappella choral music. The look of disbelief on the faces of the young musicians was almost comical. Many of them had never left the United States before, and this was their first view of "abroad"! Certainly none of them had seen anything like this. It was simply stunning.
The tour book for the evening read, "snack before bed", but that hardly described the lavish feast of delicious lasagna, salads and bowls of tropical fruit in the candle-lit dining hall. A feeling of wellbeing - equal measure gratitude and disbelief - settled over the group and never lifted till we landed back in Atlanta on the last day of the tour.
A word of explanation should be inserted here. Why is it that YPO was staying in one of the most beautiful hotels in the world? The total cost per member for the tour was $2,000, including the journey, and many were on scholarship, how could this possibly include such lavish accommodations? Here is the explanation:
The presiding genius of the YPO tours for the past seven tours has been Jerry Slavet. Jerry, father of Eliza Slavet, our first oboe fourteen years ago, came as a chaperone on our tour to Spain that year. Jerry is a successful businessman and he simply couldn't believe the ineptitude of the company that was organizing the tour. Recognizing that the experience of playing in YPO had had a profound effect on Eliza, he offered to organize our next tour, even though Eliza had by now moved on to college. The rest is YPO history. Ever since that year, Jerry has organized all our tours - his only recompense being the satisfaction of knowing that the orchestra's mission was being fulfilled.
When Jerry starts planning a tour he always goes to the places we will visit and engages in conversations with local political and business leaders, embassy staff and concert planners and starts to enroll them into the YPO mystique. By now he has all the ammunition he could possibly need, testimonials, internationally reviewed CD's, videos and countless legends, but when he started out he had to rely on his own resources, which include an extraordinarily striking physical appearance - huge physique, a Methusallah-like white beard, a booming, actor's voice and one of the sharpest, most engaging, warm-hearted and imaginative minds you'll ever meet. It is very hard to resist Jerry's enthusiasm and passion for his task and few do. At first, the owner of the Casa Santo Domingo hotel, Don Jorge, a famously shy and retiring man, refused to see Jerry. However, when he was finally persuaded to meet with him, he spent three hours over lunch, at the end of which he had agreed to house and feed the entire orchestra for a week, on terms that the Executive Director of any Major Orchestra could only drool over. There will be more about Jerry as we go along, but now you have some idea of how these amazing tours are possible. Back in Boston, I had warned the players that they were in for a treat on this tour, and that when they had an especially glorious experience, they should remember to say quietly to themselves: "thank you Jerry!"
There was another important event that took place while we were still in Boston and it is worth dwelling on it for a while before returning to my narrative, since it was to have a significant influence on the progress of the whole tour.
For the past several tours there has been some trouble over alcohol consumption. This is an issue that apparently plagues all touring groups from the US and no one quite knows how to deal with it. The kids in the orchestra range in age from fourteen (sometimes as young as twelve) up to high school seniors. In addition, there are a few college "ringers", often replacing high school students who weren't able to go on tour, or possibly covering instruments where there was no high school student of sufficient ability available. These students may occasionally be as old as 23 or 4, which creates a complex culture. Since some of these students are able to drink legally in the US, they are virtually impossible to control. Moreover, since there is no drinking-age restriction in countries like Panama and Guatemala, it is often hard to impress on our students that we mean it when we say we will send them home if they break the rules. Certainly in the past we have failed to carry out the threat, so the students have become quite lax and, in a few rare instances, have behaved irresponsibly. Hangovers and general sleepiness were common and it has cast a negative atmosphere on the tour and caused several parents to be critical of the whole venture.
Jerry Slavet and the tour manager Jenny Lewis, herself a former YPO parent and chaperone, made it very clear that they were going to insist that we enforce the rule this year. The litigious environment in the US today, plus the heightened anxiety since 9/11 made them feel we could no longer turn a blind eye to infractions of the rules. The problem for me was that I could not contemplate sending anyone home, since we had nobody "on the bench" to take over, if a first flute or a second trumpet were sent home. We adults battled it out for several days, until nerves became raw and the tour was momentarily in jeopardy.
Finally, I took matters into my hands. I gathered the entire group, kids and adults, and spoke to them for nearly an hour before the final rehearsal. I explained that there are two worlds - the world of the downward spiral and the world of possibility. In the downward spiral kids cannot be trusted. There have to be strict rules and they have to be enforced. The punishment has to be very severe, so that people are deterred, once they realize the rules are serious. Also there has to be an elaborate system of supervision, even spying, in order to ensure that the kids, who are clever and devious, do not get away with errant behavior. The adults have to be given permission to surprise kids at any moment and report back should there be any suspicious behavior. It is likely to lead to a divisive, suspicious atmosphere and probably encourages disobedience, but "it is the only way!"
The world of possibility works quite differently. I explained to the orchestra members that the adults who were going to be responsible for their wellbeing and safety on the tour, in consultation with the legal counsel of the New England Conservatory, had decided that there was to be no alcoholic beverages consumed by any high school students on this tour. The procedure we had decided on was very clear and very fair: if someone is caught drinking, they would be reported to me and I would call their parents and get their parents' credit card number. If they were caught drinking again, they would be sent home immediately, at their parents' expense. Since they are virtually all under age, there was no reason to suppose that there would be any resistance to that procedure. However, as we all knew from past experience, it was no guarantee that there would be no drinking.
I then explained that there was a problem built in to this system, namely that the orchestra could not function effectively without ALL its members. The cello section had been reduced, by attrition, from 17 to 10 and the violas were also down to 10. We were going to be playing in very large halls - there simply was no flexibility. If the numbers were up to our normal full quota we could have taken the simple solution, that if an indispensable brass player or a wind player, say, were to commit an infraction of the drinking rules, we could send one of the cellists home - an venerable practice of ritual sacrifice, going back to the Greeks, the Druids and the Old Testament (as in sending the lamb to the slaughter). However that was not an option in this situation. There were no lambs going on this tour. Therefore we had to find a different solution.
I suggested that we create a new culture. Everybody would be absolutely clear what was the vision for the tour. We were going to Guatemala and Panama to bring great music, to make a difference in the lives of the people and to inspire friendship and cooperation between young people. For that to happen, it was unthinkable that anyone would be sent home.
I reiterated the rules and said that they must understand that there could be simply no flexibility in their enforcement, so it was up to all of us to make sure that NO ONE drank.
I pointed out that nobody drinks alone on a tour, so that if anyone showed any sign that they were going to be tempted to drink, it was up to someone else to stop them for the sake of the whole venture. Imagine if someone were just about to come in a measure early in a concert - of course his stand partner would intervene to stop him before the performance was ruined! I promised that I myself would not drink while on the tour, as an act of solidarity, and I invited each and every one of them to take responsibility for the successful completion of the journey with every single member intact. Then we launched into a rehearsal of Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra.
Not only was there no incident on the entire tour of any high school player involved with alcohol, but the entire trip had a joyous lightness, a cooperativeness and an ease that everyone agreed was new in their experience of touring. People even got to the buses on time, which had never happened before. Clearly we had a new culture.
The only other reference throughout the tour to any issue of safety or behavior was the rather sobering talk from the Chief of Security at the US Embassy, Michael Frost, who while making it quite clear how dangerous the situation could be, managed to encourage the kids to throw themselves in the most open-hearted possible way into enjoying all that Guatemala had to offer. How different from his opposite number in Venezuela two years before, who had terrified the living daylights out of the students and closed them down for the rest of the tour! What a difference a light manner and a lot of charm can make, even when you are dealing with a serious matter!
The first great musical memory of the tour was the joint rehearsal on the first morning with the Guatemalan Youth Orchestra. We always perform together with the local youth orchestras of the various places we visit and Jerry had created a significant bond with Igor Sarmiento, the conductor of the Jesus Castillo Youth Orchestra of Guatemala. Igor, head of the local Conservatory, is a brilliant musician and a passionate educator. It was a joy to join forces with him and his orchestra - just fewer than 40 musicians - many of whom were older than ours, some considerably, but of course, it made no difference.
It is hard to say why these first meetings between orchestras from different countries are invariably so intense, but this was one of the most passionate encounters any of us had ever had. It is probably a bit of competitiveness that comes out - certainly with one YPO and one Guatemalan on each stand as far back as possible, the adrenalin level goes way up. Also, for YPO, it was the first chance to play after a whole day of traveling. The sheer delight and excitement engaging with those musicians, after all the months of planning, waiting and preparing was overwhelming! Also, I feel so completely in my element, doing what I love to do best - teaching a very good orchestra how to bring to life every nuance and emotional implication of the music. Tchaikowsky's Romeo and Juliet took us all by storm. The English have a word for it - they call it being Gobsmacked! One Guatemalan musician came to me afterwards and said he had no idea music could mean so much.
There were two other things that morning that will stick in my memory and, I think, of most other people there. One was the look of amazement on the faces of the young Guatemalans when they heard Stefan Jackiw play the Mozart 5th violin concerto and the Campanella movement of the Paganini 2nd concerto for the first time. In the four years Stefan has been in YPO, I am used to see the astonishment that his solo playing causes. However, by now his playing has reached a level of such subtlety and sophistication that is truly awe-inspiring. Clearly, the young Guatemalan musicians had never heard anything like it. In Panama, Samuel, the conductor of the Panamanian Youth Orchestra, overheard a hilarious exchange between two young violinists in their twenties, whilst Stefan was playing the Paganini: "We have got to kill him", said the guy. "No!" responded the girl, "we've got to breed him!"
It was Stefan's last week with YPO and, as he goes on to his undoubtedly great career, after a season with solo appearances with Chicago, Boston and other major orchestras, I had to note again how utterly natural and unassuming he is, quietly going to his chair in the second stand of the First violins, where he has sat for the past 4 years, without the slightest sense of self-importance. When I mentioned something about it, he replied, "but these are my friends." Can one worry about a kid with such a high level of achievement and so little pretentiousness?
Another unforgettable moment was when Igor took over conducting the Danzon of Marquez. I am getting my Latin moves down better than the last time we went south of the border, but I despair that I will ever be able to get the swing of that music the way Igor does. It's the buttocks! Ah well, I'll keep working at it. It's like speaking a language. However well you learn a language, you always sound a bit foreign. On the other hand, if you have been brought up speaking (and dancing) in the culture, you instantaneously know the moves. An orchestra can pretty much do anything its conductor can do, so the Youth Philharmonic and the Guatemalan Youth orchestra were instantaneously transformed into a Latin band! Like magic! What on earth happened to our very American Elise Kopoehkne? She stood up to play the solo at the beginning of Danzon 11 with swinging hips and sultry, x-rated tone!
The first big event of the tour was the concert in Guatemala City. The concert hall is huge, nearly 2400 seats. It is notoriously hard to sell a large concert hall like that with a youth orchestra and, true to expectation, a few days before only around 600 seats had been sold. I had been interviewed by phone by a reporter while I was still in Boston. Needled into trying to get as much attention as possible for the event, I said that Stefan Jackiw, now 17, was the greatest living Mozart violinist (which I think quite possibly may be true) and assured the readers of the newspaper that it could be a life-transforming experience to hear these young musicians play (which I knew was true!). Later in the interview, I offered to anyone who didn't have a wonderful time at the concert that I would personally give them their money back.
Well, the day of the concert, there was a half-page color picture of Stefan in the main newspaper of Guatemala, with a picture of a concert ticket. Across the top, in huge letters, was splashed the word REFUND! And then: Mr. Zander promises that if your life isn't transformed he will refund your money! Well, it wasn't quite what I had said, but close enough!
Perhaps it was that, perhaps it was all the other efforts that Adrian, the concert promoter made at the last moment, but in any event, the concert was sold out - the first time a classical concert in that hall had sold out in fifteen years! The line for the box -office snaked around the building and beyond and we had to delay the opening of the concert for 45 minutes!
We began with Tchaikowsky Romeo and Juliet Overture together with the Youth Orchestra of Guatemala. It was, of course, incredibly stirring, as these joint orchestra performances often are. The natural competitiveness of the players, in evidence when they first meet, had completely disappeared into the feeling of being part of a whole larger than the combination of two orchestras. It was overwhelming in its effect.
Stefan was, of course, brilliant in the Mozart Concerto No 5. In fact, I think it was the less good of the two performances he gave on tour, because he set slightly too fast a tempo for the first movement which then resulted in each movement being rather fast. It seemed a bit too fleet and virtuosic, rather than poised and open hearted (Mozart's wonderfully expressive designation Allegro Aperto, didn't quite seem to be in evidence). Still, it was magnificent and I think my contention that he may be the finest Mozart violinist was borne out. The Paganini (first movement of the violin concerto "campanella" was flawless and breathtaking. The standing ovation was instantaneous and prolonged.
I spoke quite a bit about the Bartok Concerto for Orchestra before we played it. The presenters had warned us against playing Bartok in Guatemala (and Panama, incidentally) because of the difficulty of the music. But after I explained the circumstances of its composition - Bartok, near death from cancer, was persuaded to literally rise up from his death bed to compose this most affirmative music - and gave a short description of the music in each movement, it seemed to present no problem for the audience. The ferociously intense and convinced playing by the orchestra must also have helped to sweep away any resistance. It too got a standing ovation, though not quite with the rapturous enthusiasm of the Paganini or the string of pot-boiler encores that followed. The biggest roar of approval came when we played the sentimental pop love song "Luna", which has become a kind of national anthem in Guatemala. It is strange how a piece of music, without any particular artistic quality, could so completely enter the psyche of a whole country. When we began the first bars, the place simply erupted with joy and gratitude - as if Guatemala had just won the World Cup or discovered oil!
We had been also been told (rather emphatically) to avoid playing Stars and Stripes because of the anti-American feeling in Guatemala these days. The program actually listed another Souza March - Hands across the Sea - better name, but not nearly as effective as music! So I explained to the audience that a piece of music cannot describe a flag - at its best it conjurs emotions, moods and feelings. This music embodies joy, courage, youthful energy, openheartedness, inclusiveness and possibility - but America doesn't own these qualities - they belong to everyone! This is music that celebrates the human spirit. Of course, the audience went crazy, joining in with wild hand-clapping and peals of laughter when the cellos twirled their instruments - Boston Pops style.
The concert the next day was no less inspiring. It was a young people's concert at the National Conservatory. The place was almost full an hour before the concert began, but that was only the start! More and more people crammed into the hall - probably close to 1,200 people in hall for 800! The standees at the back had to be cycled in and out to give people a chance to hear some of the concert.
I began by conducting a rip-roaring, incredibly fast and then, at the coda, even faster performance of the main Allegro of the William Tell Overture. I am not sure if that piece is intended to go that fast - I actually think there is something quite wonderful about playing it with elegance and poise, but Mark Churchill, the Director of the Preparatory School and my dear friend and advisor had told me that Solti had conducted it at the fastest imaginable tempo with his dream-team World Orchestra made up of all his favorite players from the great orchestras he had conducted. So I let it rip that day and the players looked stunned and slightly panicked, but pulled it off with incredible panache! The crescendo and accelerando at the end was so exciting we almost exploded. The kids in the audience, many of whom had been sitting for over an hour in the stifling heat simply erupted. It was hilarious. This was the first piece on the program and the audience had gone beserk! Then I did something that I subsequently did at all our non-formal concerts, I asked the audience "How many of you are hearing a symphony orchestra for the first time?" It was a jaw-dropping moment, virtually the entire audience raised their hands - adults, the young soldiers in the balcony - everyone! That moment changed the tour for all the members of YPO. It suddenly became clear that we were bringing people in touch with experiences that they had never imagined before and the realization transformed us.
I can't remember all the details of the concert, but a very high point was the performance of Peter and the Wolf narrated by Igor's sister, who is a nationally famous character actress. She's a lady of a certain girth, one might say, and a fabulous story-teller! She brought every character to life in the most amazing way. I will never forget her rendition of the grandfather! Ingrid Hagen's bassoon (has anyone played the grandfather any better?) was demented with fury in response. The enthusiasm in that room by the end was unbelievable. We played all our 6 encores, including the final 5 minutes of La Valse that hadn't been brought out since Boston, but what a high! The orchestra was so fired up by the audience reaction that they had to be peeled off the walls. At the end I asked "How many of you love classical music?" Every hand went up along with a roar of approval. When we went out into the foyer afterwards the players were mobbed for autographs. It became such a wild scene they had to close the metal gates separating the musicians, to prevent a stampede! I had the privilege of touching hands with or hugging virtually every kid as they come down the stairs their eyes shining with joy.
The concert the next day was back in Antigua at our hotel, with the completely sold out 1000 seat hall lit magically entirely by candles! The program was almost completely different than the one two days before in the National Theater - a remarkable feat for a youth orchestra of players between 14-18 years of age. William Tell Overture, First and Fourth Movements from Dvorak's "New World", a work Igor Sarmientos' father, which the kids learned from scratch at that morning's rehearsal. and Saint Saens 2nd piano concerto with the prodigious Ko-Eun Kim, who had come with us on the tour especially for this one performance!
Once again the local youth orchestra joined us for Danzon #2 and the many encores. By now differences of age between the two groups (some of them were in their late twenties and early thirties) had evaporated and after we had played the Elgar Nimrod and the tumultuous reception of the audience had subsided we all went off for a grand party, with speeches, presents and dancing. Oh, how they dance! A very late night and then an early start for one of the most remarkable days in the history of YPO!
It is not possible to do justice to the next leg of the journey in this journal if I am ever going to get it finished. I hope to get someone else who knows the history to fill out some of the story. Maybe Jerry Slavet whose incredible ingenuity thought up this extraordinary venture? This was the day we visited the Mayan village of Solala. Along the way we stopped for a visit to ancient Mayan ruins and were serenaded by several children's choirs dressed in their traditional pre-colonial embroidered dresses, which is their daily garb.
I had the privilege of a detailed lecture from Igor Sarmientos, conductor of the Guatemalan Youth Orchestra and Director of the Conservatoire about the whole recent history of Guatemala. He explained the extremely fraught relationship with the US especially the role the CIA played in bringing down the populist government that gave the country 12 years of benign and adult leadership and which led to the disastrous extended civil war, which remains so fresh in the minds of the present population.
But the real treasure lay ahead. We all assembled in the gymnasium of the high school in Solala for the concert. It was apparent that no one in this tiny town had ever seen a symphony orchestra. They were open mouthed with amazement at the incredible array of instruments and the tall, strapping American youths. There were so many people in that hall that the audience spilled all around behind the orchestra into the percussion section and down in front of the orchestra so that there was no room at all between their feet and that of the front row of strings. But for several hundred more who could not cram themselves into the building, standing outside and straining to look in through the windows had to suffice.
The high point of this concert was, without question, the performance of Peter and the Wolf, which had been translated for the first time into Mayan Indian!! The fact that the narrator was simply abominable and that I hadn't the slightest idea what he was saying and therefore came unstuck several times, made no difference at all. The audience was spellbound, intoxicated and so expressive in their reaction that we could not have been more enthusiastically received if we had been an army of liberation - and in a sense we were!
Has there ever been a more powerful weapon for releasing the human spirit than great music? I can't remember what we played that day - it didn't matter. All I can remember is the overwhelming love and gratitude they expressed in response. The Mayor of Solala came to me after the concert and said "This is the greatest event in the history of our town." And I believed him!
I have said almost nothing about the experiences we had outside the concert hall - the amazing first night when we saw a volcano erupt AND experienced the tremors of an earthquake. Or the fabulous fun of haggling for bargains in the market in Antigua. I leave that to others who were able to find the time to enjoy the surroundings more than I could. Most of my joy came from spending time with members of the orchestra, who I had seen only fleetingly on Saturday's in Boston, and watching the friendships develop between our kids and their Guatemalan counterparts.
When we left Guatemala later that night Jerry Slavet and I looked at each other and said: "After this, it can only be an anti-climax in Panama." How wrong we were!
The spectacular nature preserve Gamboa Rainforest Resort was to be our home for the week in Panama. Our arrival between 4 and 5a.m. should have been irritating but it was the opposite. Everybody was sweet natured and cheerful. We were greeted by a marvelous breakfast in the vast foyer with scrambled eggs and croissants before we went to our rooms. I lay on the hammock on my balcony and watched the landscape emerging gradually in the dawn light - a phenomenal view of distant low mountains, a winding river and just below my window swimming pools and palm trees.
The next day lunch was the kind of buffet spread you see in Hollywood movies. It was all laid out on the verandah of the hotel's lower restaurant overlooking crocodiles swimming below and the huge ships going through the Panama Canal in the distance. We were introduced to our remarkable host Herman Bern, one of the finest and most generous spirited men I have met. He gave a really beautiful speech to the kids, telling them that they were the very first orchestra to tour around Panama in the country's history!
The rest of the day and all of the following day were filled with sight-seeing - visiting the monkeys and the rainforest; kayaking and other outdoor activities until the late afternoon visit to the Canal and after that a chamber concert in the evening at the Ambassador's Residence.
Once again I was struck by how impressive some of our career Ambassadors are. John Hamilton in Guatemala is extremely charming, warm and erudite and Linda Watt in Panama is the kind of woman who one wishes everybody would think of as the face of the United States. It was a really fun evening with a marvelous chamber concert given by the kids - one wondered how with so little practice time. I was especially struck by the impeccable intonation and ensemble of our four bassoons. Also a deeply felt performance of the Brahms f minor quintet arranged for strings only. Not to speak of a truly spiffy performance of fiddlefaddle - all prepared by the amazing Jonathan Cohler
Once again not enough tickets had been sold for the following day so I was whisked off at 7am to appear on the drive-time radio show and then for an interview on Breakfast TV with a woman amazingly like Ophra. I have no idea whether it made a difference, but like Guatemala the huge Anayansi Theater (seating 2,800) was all but full for the concert that night - once again the first time the promoter Harry ..... had seen the place filled for a classical concert in living memory.
Once again the morning was spent in rehearsing with the local Youth Orchestra - the Orchestra Juvenil Isthmena - under their wonderfully engaging conductor Sam Robles. He turned the sow's ear of the Panamanian Suite, which we had struggled our way through in the Boston send-off concert, into a veritable silk purse, by the judicious addition of some percussion instruments and his and his orchestra's natural flair for the rhythms and nuances of the music. A group of 6 Panamanian dancers stepped their way through a rehearsal of a little dance choreography, which looked tenuous to me, at best. I wondered how it possibly could come together by the evening.
Stefan Jackiw was on spectacular form that morning - the perfect, spacious tempi and the really beautiful playing of the small orchestra, made for a delicious, utterly Mozartian experience. This was to be Stefan's last day as a member of YPO and I made a little speech to the orchestra and thanked him for his truly remarkable contribution. As his career developed and he began to emerge as a real star on the musical firmament, he never changed his attitude, or his seat, for that matter - he occupied the outside 2nd stand chair of the first violins for four years. This year he had played concerti with the Boston Symphony, the Chicago Symphony, and at the Caramoor Festival as well as several major European engagements, but the sweet kid he is, he always walked quietly back to his chair in the orchestra as soon his solo was over. It was during that rehearsal that a conversation between two young Panamanian violinists was overheard, as they listened to Stefan rehearsing the Paganini Concerto:
"Got to kill him!" said the guy. "No", responded the girl, "got to breed him"! I am not sure we should do either, but emulating him isn't a bad idea!
While I am on the subject of the remarkable SJ, it might be good to remember the incredible level of the whole orchestra at that point. The quartet of bassoons perfectly in tune in their chamber performances; the timpani player, Jason Taylor, who negotiated the notoriously treacherous tunings in the Bartok Concerto for Orchestra perfectly every single time; the life-like bird of sophomore flute player Emi Fergusson in Peter and the Wolf and the totally extroverted, sensuous, nay downright sexy hip swinging solo of Elise Kopesky in Danzon #2. The amazing intensity, virtuosity and warmth of the string playing, which one of the members of the Panamanian Symphony Orchestra told me he was embarrassed to say far surpassed the playing of the National Symphony Orchestra. And Laci, ah Laci in the percussion section, officially a ringer as a freshman in college, but, bless her, present at every rehearsal with the most perfect attitude imaginable. I could go on and on. But by now the Bartok Concerto was in everyone's fingers and we could really play the music with all its expressive depths.
At the big concert, the Tchaikowsky Romeo and Juliet reached a new level of intensity with the vast numbers of the combined orchestras. Stefan was eloquent in Mozart and so brilliant in Paganini that it made people laugh. After I had shared some intimate thoughts with the audience by way of a farewell he played the most touching, utterly simple rendition of a Chopin Nocturne, unaccompanied, as an encore. The whole hall gave him one of those ovations that tell you people have been deeply touched. It was an amazing moment and I noticed several members of the orchestra wiping away tears.
The Panamanian Suite came miraculously together with the dancers now swelled to 8 and dressed in the most lavish white costumes with brilliant dabs of sparkle and color, looking for all the world as though that they had been in rehearsal for weeks! The audience reaction when they recognized the first of the Panamanian tunes threatened to out-do the Guatemalan reaction to Luna and it was that way every single time we played the piece. By now Sam had won the hearts of all our musicians and they played their hearts out for him! It was another very late night.
The next day we had the least-likely-to-be-forgotten experience on the tour. We set off from the Gamboa Resort in the beautiful train that travels the forty minutes from Panama City to Colon - a train lavishly restored with a glass-roofed Pulman car, gold table lights, and gorgeously upholstered seats. On the train we found a hoard of adorable, spruced and brushed little black kids who had been brought up from the countryside to hear this orchestra from America. Many of them, we were told, had had to get up at 3 or 4 in the morning and walk for several miles to the place where they would be picked up. I have never seen such a group of totally entranced people as those children. They wouldn't have been any more excited if Madonna, Britney and Michael had been signing their autographs that morning on the train instead of a bunch of kids from the New England Conservatory in Boston. I think our kids may have realized that morning, perhaps more than at any other time of their lives, what a huge contribution they are in world and what a difference their music enables them to make.
When we arrived at our destination we set up the orchestra right on the railway station and, using the train as a shell, gave, in all probability, the first concert by a full symphony orchestra on a railway platform in human history. I don't think I have ever been more perfectly happy than at that moment. Three hundred kids, all around 7-12 sat literally spellbound while we played for them for an hour. A faster than ever rendition of William Tell ( I told them that it was going to be so fast that they would hardly be able to see the fingers of the violinsists). Boy did they watch! Dvorak's New World, Finale. I told them about homesickness and courage and the excitement and fear of a stranger traveling to a foreign place. We played Star Wars - sounded pretty good on a railway station! That piece sounds great anywhere. We played the Panamanian Suite, of course. We played Stars and Stripes and I brought a girl of about 10, whom I had noticed moving to the music, up on stage to conduct and she became an instant star. We even played Nimrod.
At the beginning I had told them that they were VERY important. "Do you know why?" I asked. "Because the police had been persuaded to divert the traffic for them, whilst the concert was taking place". "Whenever the police diverts the traffic for you", I said, "you KNOW you are important!" At the end, after all the speeches and the presentation of the plaques, I said: " Last night we played a very important concert, for very important people in a big and famous hall, but this morning was even more important for all of us than last night". I think they understood, because they clapped a lot. These children live in such unimaginable poverty and deprivation that it must seem that they have almost no chance to ever get out. Their town of Colon is referred to as the "arm-pit of the world", but for one hour on a railway siding they were made to feel extremely valuable and it felt like a terrific privilege for every single one of us to be there.
I must add a word about two people. I have mentioned them before: they are Herman Bern and Jerry Slavet. Herman was our host. He is a very successful business man who has built a world class hotel and succeeded in several other business ventures, but it was he who came up with the idea of having us go to that station to play for those children and it was Jerry Slavet, another successful business man, who out of sheer love, runs tours for YPO, who pushed through against all the utterly reasonable objections: it might rain (it did mightily three minutes after we finished!!); we could never get the orchestra on the platform; the National Symphony would never lend us the percussion instruments; the sound of the traffic would drown out the orchestra; and on and on and on. I went to the site the day before and what I saw was a dingy run down, wind-swept platform in the middle of nowhere. The traffic was so close and so loud that it seemed utterly pointless. "This is the craziest idea I have ever heard in my entire life" was my verdict, "but I am game to give it a try."
It was the passion of those two men plus the amazingly resourceful tour manager, Jenny Lewis, that lit a spark in me, albeit a very timid flicker, that allowed me to say yes to something that had a very high chance of being a real bust. As it turned they DID get the instruments from the Symphony and the traffic was diverted for an hour and they dolled the place up something lovely with awnings and flags and decorations, so it looked as though it was always intended as a spot for a symphony concert and those children - both the Panamanians and the Americans - will never forget it as long as they live!
That experience would have been excitement enough for any one day, but there was more to come. In the afternoon we went to Catholic University, where 2,300 people of all ages were crammed into the gymnasium in a temperature that must have been close to 100 degrees with almost total humidity. The orchestra was on stage for nearly an hour before the concert began - they were dangerously nedar total exhaustion. But once again they gave another fabulous, flat-out concert, including a performance of the first movement of the Elgar Concerto with first cellist Ethan Philbrick that we hadn't touched since he played such a wonderful performance of it on May 24th more than a month ago.
There was one wonderful moment that afternoon that is probably too insignificant to remark on, but here goes. One of our violinists, Sarah Konig-Plonskier, had somehow manage to get from the States a copy of the new Harry Potter book and was reading it on stage. To pass the time during the long waiting period before the concert began, I went around the hall asking young people what book they thought the girl on the stage was reading. "It's a very, very important book, but it isn't the bible", I hinted, as the only clue. They tried and tried but couldn't guess. Every time, I said, "it's very important" they came up with another round of guesses. Suddenly I looked down and every single one of them had on the laps a Harry Potter Note Book. I said "you have a clue on your lap." At that moment they all suddenly realized that Miss Konig-Plonskier was the owner of the new Harry Potter Book. They screamed and raced up to the stage in droves - 40 or 50 strong - to touch her, talk to her, and get her autograph. It was a hilarious scene - a star suddenly born on a stage in Panama, not as a result of years of good training diligence and hard work, but because she had managed to get her mom to send her a book!
In spite of the terrible heat and the exhaustion the concert was a tremendous success. I probably talked to the audience a bit too much, probably we shouldn't have played the fourth and fifth encore - certainly if there had been a vote of the orchestra, I would have been voted down in favor of a quick escape back to the pool at the luxury hotel, but, you know what? For the people in that gymnasium - probably two thousand of whom had never heard a symphony orchestra - it wasn't one second too long and there wasn't one word of explanation too many. I know, because they told me so. There was a group of totally blind people there, about twenty of them. I had to meet each one and they had to touch my head and my arms and hear my voice. One of them, a lady who looked in her eighties, said she was glad to have lived long enough to experience this day. "It will keep me happy as long as I live", she said. I was glad we had played the fourth and fifth encore!
Thursday, 26th June was a day we might forget in the plethora of experiences and concerts, but that was the day we went out and played in a school miles and miles away in Santiago - it took almost all day to get there - was it 5 hours or 7 hours in the bus? I can't remember. I know we left very early in the morning and got there for a late lunch.
Anyway the audience was mostly kids, - teenagers - over two thousand of them in a high school gym, plus about 400 adults in the middle seats. It was wicked hot again - a couple of puny fans made little impact. I asked my usual question about how many had never seen a symphony orchestra and the usual 2000 plus hands went up. (How could they have seen a symphony orchestra? None had ever been there!!) And then I did something very funny. One of our members Anna Williams, leader of the second violins, had her 18th birthday that day. Now Anna is very special person, in a group of very special people. Anna gives of herself totally at every moment. She loves her life and she is clear that she is a tremendous contribution to the world - something that other kids sometimes forget. She exudes joy and enthusiasm and it is infectious. I suddenly felt like giving Anna a gift in return for all the gifts she keeps giving us, so I told the audience that it was Anna's birthday and she was far away from home. I had her standing on a chair and I had the whole audience stand - 2,400 strong, plus the whole orchestra - and we sang the loudest most impassioned performance of Happy Birthday Panama can ever have heard and it moved Anna to her core. And I suspect it moved everybody there, because they probably realized that sometimes they forget to express themselves to people they love. Anyway, it seemed to open the floodgates of emotion at that concert. The orchestra players were still signing autographs an hour after it was all over.
One of the viola players said to me "I am a viola player and I signed 20 autographs! When has an orchestral viola player ever signed 20 autographs?" And now you understand why we go through all the trouble and expense and, frankly some risk, to go south of the border to South American and Central American countries over and over again. Because that is where people are so emotionally available that a teenage, orchestral viola player can get to sign 20 autographs.
One of the moments I treasure was the group of about 7 people who came up to tell me that they had traveled 9 hours overnight by bus to get there and now they were going to travel back. It was their music teacher who had arranged the trip and they were so happy to have come. They were all smiling from ear to ear! We had autographs, photos, kisses and hugs with every one of them. It was all worth it.
One other tiny memory I will take away from Santiago was the fiddle player whom Sam told us was one of the master fiddle virtuosi of Pananma. Sam thought it would be great for us to hear him so he called him up on his cell phone right from the stage at the concert and told him to come over to the school and bring his fiddle. Well, when he got to the school, they wouldn't let him in because it was completely full and they told him there was a concert going on! So he turned around and went home. We meanwhile were waiting for him, so Sam called him up again on the phone and then told me that he had been turned away and was on his way home. "Tell him to turn right around and come back", I said. And so we waited some more and I think we filled in with some other piece and then he arrived. He played along with the Panamanian Suite improvising an obligato part and then he played a solo, with Sam holding the hand-held microphone to his violin. He blew the audience away and everybody stamped and shouted till they were hoarse. Of course it was the highlight of the concert because they were so proud that they had someone who could bring us pleasure. Probably no one will ever forget that one either - certainly the violinist won't!
The concert on the 28th June may well have been the most remarkable event of the tour sociologically. It was another concert in a large high school gymnasium for over 2000 children and a couple of hundred adults, most of whom had never heard a symphony orchestra. We played the same program we had played in several other concerts, it was towards the end of a very long, very exhausting tour it was unbelievably hot and sticky. Hot, like 100 degrees. One might have been forgiven for thinking MAYBE this is a little bit too much?
Not so! The school, Instituto Rubiano is in San Miguelito, the poorest and most dangerous part of Panama City. Hermann Bern had heard from lots of his friends that he was crazy to have the orchestra go to play there. No one goes to San Miguelito - it is simply too dangerous. It is an area where thieves and criminals abound and it wouldn't be safe for the American kids. But Hermann is a visionary. He doesn't believe in bad kids. So he worked with the headmistress at the school and they gathered the parents together and they planted flowers all over the schoolyard and they spruced it up and wrote messages in all the new flower-beds. Then they made a new ceiling and painted the walls of the room in which we were going to have the lunch afterwards and then they cooked enough food for a hundred American kids and that's only what we know they did.
It was unbelievable. Those kids gave us their hearts and their souls and their minds for an hour and a half. At first it was set up so that all the dignitaries and sponsors were sitting in chairs in front of the orchestra with all the kids all in the bleachers on the sides. But I sent people running all over the school to get extra chairs so that the first 7 or 8 rows could be filled with kids instead of adults and then I brought a whole lot more kids up to sit on the floor in front of them. I think I was probably the wildest thing they had ever seen in Rubiano High, but we brought them right up against Tchaikowsky's tragedy and Rossini's joy and Dvorak's dark passion and the incredible exuberance of Souza and finally to the noble, spiritual uplift in Elgar's Nimrod. I told them about Nimrod, Elgar's best friend. I spoke about friendship and love and loss and I told them that the sadness and the love were held for a moment in the silence at the end of the piece. When we got to the end no one clapped for nearly thirty seconds there was complete silence in that room full of more than 2,000 teenagers, none of whom had ever heard an orchestra live and few of whom had probably ever listened to a piece of classical music. It was one of the most amazing moments in our lives and we knew it. I was near tears and several members of the orchestra were actually crying.
These were not the understandable tears that they shed when they get to the end of their time with YPO and they have to say goodbye to their friends. These were tears of compassion and love for other young people they didn't know but who they know to have terribly difficult lives, but whom they knew they had touched.
When it was over something rather sad happened. There were a number of speeches by the various adults and plaques and congratulations and votes of thanks. Everybody thanked everybody and honored everybody and it seemed suddenly that the attention had shifted away from the children and their experience onto the adults who traipsed one after another up onto the stage. Gradually, and then more precipitously, the atmosphere of joy and community that had been in the room began to dissipate until it had disappeared altogether. I was heartbroken inside and furious on the outside. And then Mark Churchill, my trusty friend with the seemingly infallible judgment, who, on a hundred different occasions during the tour, had given me a little nudge here or a piece of advice there, came up to me and whispered "play the Souza again". In a flash I was on a chair, getting everyone clapping wildly and we played the Stars and Stripes again. Instantaneously the mood was restored and the whole thing ended in glory!
My main impression, as I went around the gym hugging kids and signing hundreds of autographs was that this was a group of the most beautiful looking most open-hearted kids I had ever seen in my life. Perhaps when we say a child is privileged, instead of meaning that they have a lot of resources or opportunities, we could mean they were emotionally available, open to experience and willing to be touched in their hearts? Perhaps that is what the YPO meant when she asked me: "Mr zander, why is it that we have everything and these kids have nothing and yet they seem to be so much happier than we are? That is one of the questions that keep coming up for our kids when we go on these trips. It's why we keep making them.
Later that evening we gave our final real concert in the great Cathedral at Plaza Catedral. The audience was crammed in at least 2,000 strong. I loved playing that concert. The acoustics were fantastic - the orchestra sounded magnificent - the closest we had come to Jordan Hall kind of acoustic on the tour. The confidence the orchestra felt allowed them to take wonderful risks with the music making.
I took a couple of risks myself. I pointed out to the assembled group of dignitaries and wealthy patrons sitting in the front several rows that we had had to bring our own harp from Boston, because there is no harp in Panama. The local orchestra couldn't play a lot of the standard repertoire because there was no instrument to play. Please would they gather together. I asked, and contribute a harp to their local orchestra? There seemed to be general agreement. So now all that remains is to organize a campaign to bring the purchase to fruition!
I remember the brasses sounding really wonderful that night in the Dvorak New World slow movement and Ian's English Horn seemed especially eloquent. One of the blind ladies came back to hear the orchestra again. Could she touch some of the brass instruments, she asked. I found one of the brass players to take to meet the brasses (the instruments, not the players,) and apparently she ran her hands over the horns and the tuba.
I got an email from a kid from the Rubiano High School a few days after I got back. Apparently he hadn't made it to the concert in his school, but he came to the concert in the Cathedral. This is what he wrote:
We had one more concert the next day in a school San Cristobel, but it is something of a dim memory now. Maybe I am just tired. I remember it was very, very hot and we had a wonderful time. I also remember being given David McCullough's book on the Panama Canal by Terry Ford - a book which I have subsequently read and which opened my eyes.
At the party on the final night I asked everyone to write a "white sheet" about their experience of the tour. Almost everyone wrote about the highlights of playing for the kids, very few wrote about the concerts in the big halls. Sometime I will transcribe some of them and post them on this website, so you can read some of the incredibly beautiful and eloquent things that they said.
I came away from the tour feeling enormous gratitude. Towards Jerry Slavet for having originated and inspired the whole thing, not just this year but for the past 7 tours to Latin America and for having enrolled so many people into acts of amazing generosity. To Jenny Lewis who was the most devoted and organized tour manager we ever had and who gave herself totally to the task for months. To Mark Churchill for his unfailing wisdom and perspective and his unstinting efforts to keep the orchestra together for the tour. To the chaperones who turned out to be perfect border collies, looking after their flocks, as well as wonderful human beings and friends. To Jonathan Cohler for his support of the kids and his work in training them. To Ashley Liberty for stepping into the role of orchestra manager from no experience and doing a magnificent job and for Jim Raposa for helping her and also for holding down the chair of bass trombone so magnificently for more years than we deserved.
Finally I came away with an enormous sense of gratitude to the kids: for their enthusiasm, for their patience in occasionally trying times, for their unfailing sweetness, for their willingness to obey all the rules, thus making the life of the adults a real joy, for their discipline as musicians and their open-hearted generosity in their playing and in their living.
I wish farewell and good luck to those who are going on to college. I am rolling up my sleeves to prepare for the challenges and excitements of the upcoming year.
I have one more feeling of gratitude to express, to all the parents, whether or not their children went on the tour: for all the years of training and support that has enabled them to become such excellent musicians and fine human beings.
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