Stand Partners for Life

Latest Episodes:

006: Stand Partner Feud – Etiquette Do’s and Don’ts Feb 04, 2018

Show notes

Let me start by saying that I just spent five minutes looking up the proper and accepted way to spell “do’s and don’ts”, so you can rest assured that I’ve nailed it! Do you want to be the kind of stand partner that your colleagues dream of playing with? Or do you want them to look at the new week’s roster, and mutter something under their breath? Let us break down the ways to get on your stand partner’s good side, and to stay there through the ups and downs of orchestra life. Of course, we also get into the big-time no-no’s so that you can steer clear! In fact, let’s break it down in the style of Family Feud! First, Nathan tries to guess Akiko’s top 5 “Don’ts”, then she attempts to guess his “Do’s”. We’re moderately successful, with just a few strikes against us. Along the way, Nathan shares a story about his first week with the Chicago Symphony, and what happened when he attempted to mark a fingering in his music. You can read much more about Nathan’s first few weeks with the CSO in his article on Audition Cafe. Listen now for all the inside information about pre-rehearsal chit-chat, touching the music stand, personal hygiene, warmups, part marking, pencils, balance, and even the elusive art of “staying in the moment”. By the end of this episode, you may have some changes to make to your orchestra routine! At least once in this episode, Nathan said, “I’m so guilty of that…”

005: What we love (and loathe) about young conductors Jan 24, 2018

Show notes

“All music was new music once,” we often have to remind ourselves, and the same is true of conductors: they were all young once upon a time. But what does age have to do with a conductor’s artistic vision, or prowess with a baton? That’s what we figure out in today’s episode. Just how necessary is a conductor in the first place? Well, maybe not strictly necessary, but pretty important, as Akiko and the Chicago Symphony found out back in 2010 when Riccardo Muti fell ill just an hour before the season-opening gala! The orchestra and soloist Anne-Sophie Mutter went ahead with the Beethoven violin concerto and a Mozart symphony without anyone on the podium. It was hair-raising stuff, and anything but easy. Nathan talks about his first job, in the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, where conductor-less weeks were (and remain) a feature, not a bug. We get into how conductors were trained in the old days (and the old countries), versus how they’re brought up now. Hint: it’s faster now, and that leads to consequences both good and bad for orchestras. Back when Nathan was at Curtis, the conducting teacher Otto-Werner Mueller stuck to the old ways when he selected his students. Only the cream of the analytical crop survived his grueling tests and earned the right to conduct Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring under his watchful eye at the audition finals. But not all them instinctively knew how to use the baton. We recall our (still young) boss, Gustavo Dudamel, making his first appearance with us and the Chicago Symphony while he was still in his 20s. A senior member of the orchestra challenged him in rehearsal, and the way Dudamel handled himself set the tone for his illustrious career. Likewise, Daniel Harding has appeared with us both in Chicago and in Los Angeles. We take our own remembrances of those not-always-happy meetings, and combine them with Harding’s own interview on the subject, to discover what experience taught him about orchestras. Here’s the link to the 2011 New York Times interview with Harding: Prodigy Ages into a Merely Young Conductor Finally, we round up the things young conductors can do, or not do, to start off on the right foot with a new group. There’s a lot to be said for trust, in both directions!

004: Audition advice for our younger selves Jan 07, 2018

Show notes

Everything would have been so easy if we’d just known then what we know now! In this episode, we revisit what auditioning was like back when we started, and what’s changed for us as we’ve both taken, and judged, so many orchestra auditions. Nathan likes to compare auditions to blind dates: you’ve only got a minute to show what kind of player you are, and all the details you’ve worked so hard to refine need to add up to a beguiling package. Akiko talks about how it’s all about playing to your strengths while deftly concealing your weaknesses. Some of those weaknesses may be with you all the time, while others may only show up under pressure. You have to be savvy enough to know what’s coming when the spotlight’s on you. We discuss what immediately signals to us that someone’s a great player, or not-so-great. Then we each finish with an audition blunder from our early days. Nathan’s involves the cadenza to the Brahms violin concerto, while Akiko’s has her playing for a friend the night before the big day.

003: Nathan’s journey from Kentucky to Curtis Dec 25, 2017

Show notes

Nathan comes from a musical family, which might have saddled him with unmanageable expectations. But his parents were careful to keep things light and fun, while making sure he had a strong foundation. In this episode, Akiko learns about Nathan’s beginnings in the Suzuki method with Donna Wiehe, his transition to Daniel Mason (who was a Heifetz student), and that always-awkward teen period when we all have to figure things out for ourselves. For Nathan, that included his first memory slip (terrifying), his introduction to chamber music, and his lifelong habit of keeping a practice journal. We wrap up where we did in the last episode: at the moment just before we met for the very first time!

002: Akiko’s journey from Eastchester to Harvard Dec 23, 2017

Show notes

Akiko’s parents aren’t musicians, but that didn’t stop them from wanting her to play an instrument from an early age. So when she was five, she began the violin in her public elementary school (imagine that happening today)! Before long, she and her mother were taking the train into New York City every Saturday to spend the day at the Manhattan School of Music’s pre-college program. We’ll follow Akiko from there to the Juilliard pre-college program, through her years of lessons with legendary teacher Dorothy DeLay. In those days, she never knew which famous soloists (along with their parents) might be waiting in the hallway for their lessons, as the hours dragged toward midnight. As her fellow students jockeyed for position, Akiko felt less and less like competing for Ms. DeLay’s favor. She finally “hit a wall” with the Paganini concerto, and decided to look ahead toward an academically satisfying college life. Harvard (at least in those days) loved students like Akiko, who had dedicated their lives to one elite pursuit, so at age eighteen she found herself in Cambridge. But she found the atmosphere there to be just as competitive as the one she had left! Luckily she found great friends right away, so she fully enjoyed her time at Harvard, while still wondering if she was truly done with the violin.

001: Secrets of the Symphony; Meet the Stand Partners Dec 22, 2017

Show notes

In this first episode, we reveal the secrets of the symphony: what it’s really like to work day in and day out with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. As two violinists raising three kids, we find that our job means different things to us on different days. It’s our passion, of course, but it’s also a marathon. The repertoire changes every week, and those weeks keep coming! We talk about the great parts of the job, as well as the not-so-great. Why do musicians tend to end up with other musicians? Are we always inspired to play each night’s concert? What’s it like to play and to judge auditions? Your feedback has already shaped this opening episode, so you will hear us lay out many topics that we’ll be covering in future episodes. Keep the suggestions coming at the Stand Partners for Life website!

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