The Curtis Chamber Orchestra comes to the MIM

Greg Kostraba: This is KBACH’s Heart of the Arts podcast, I’m Greg Kostraba. The Curtis Chamber Orchestra will be in concert at the Musical Instrument Museum Saturday, May 23rd. The program will include music by Beethoven and Samuel Barber, and the Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, featuring Erin Keefe and Roberto Díaz as soloists. Erin Keefe is on the phone from Minneapolis, welcome!

Erin Keefe: Thank you so much for having me.

Kostraba: For those unfamiliar with the Curtis Chamber Orchestra, tell us a little bit about the ensemble.

Keefe: Well, Curtis itself, the Curtis Institute, is quite a small school, there's only about 160 students. And for the chamber orchestra, it's much smaller than that even. So we have four first violinists, four seconds, four violas, two cello, bass, and then we have four wind players. And so it was sort of hand-picked with people who really wanted to be involved in this project and love to play in an orchestral setting, sort of chamber music-y kind of way, especially with this repertoire we're playing. And so it's been a really fun experience to get to work with the kids who are so involved and so invested in this project.

Kostraba: And these are all students, right?

Keefe: All students, yes.

Kostraba: Is this a standard procedure for this chamber orchestra to go on tour once a year or once every couple of years?

Keefe: Absolutely not, this is a special occasion. I can't say for sure when the last time a chamber orchestra at Curtis went on tour but I think it was more than a decade ago. I remember when I was in school years ago a group went to Japan, in fact, and also they did a U.S. tour as well. So it's a pretty special opportunity for the kids to get to go on tour together in this kind of ensemble.

Kostraba: What was the inspiration for doing this after all those years of having a big tour like this?

Keefe: Well, Roberto Díaz, the president of the school, came to me, I think maybe two years ago and said, "Hey, you know, I was thinking that we should bring a group on tour" and I believe it was 10 years ago he and Shmuel Ashkenasi, another violin faculty member, did a Sinfonia Concertante tour. And so he sort of wanted to recreate it. And I think whenever you have a chance to bring these students on tour, it's a great opportunity for them to get to know what a touring musician's life is all about. So they get professional experience and they can see that it's—it's not always what they expect it to be. You know, there's lots of hotels and planes and cars and buses, so it's a really fun experience to get to sort of show them what their future might look like.

Kostraba: Right, the glamour is on stage but behind the scenes stuff isn't always.

Keefe: Yes, lack of sleep, carting your luggage around, it's not always the best part of it, but it's still a fun experience.

Kostraba: Yeah, oh absolutely. Tell us a little bit about the program. It’s real interesting with a Barber Adagio for Strings and then the Mozart Sinfonia Concertante and then arrangement of one of the Beethoven late string quartets. Why was this program decided upon?

Keefe: Well, it was all based around the Mozart, so that was Roberto's idea. So he and I were going to be the soloists and then we were going back and forth about the rest of the program, but he really had it in his head that he wanted to do something incredibly challenging. And so he said, "What about Beethoven Opus 135?" which is the last string quartet and actually the last full work he ever wrote. And I said, "You're crazy. I think that's not a great idea. I think it's already hard enough as a quartet, let alone with a chamber orchestra." But he was pretty persistent, and so that ended up on the program, and I have to say I am shocked at how well it has come together. And it’s an arrangement, but not really. There's just an added bass part, the string quartet is playing exactly the same parts they play in a quartet, you just have four times as many people playing it. And then just based on length of program we needed something sort of on the shorter end to start, and we figured there's no more beautiful piece than the Barber Adagio, and so we chose that. So it was a little bit of a—interesting way of choosing a program, just sort of pieces that we thought they would get to play well and also would be a challenge for them.

Kostraba: And that Sinfonia Concertante, tell us what's so wonderful about that piece. Why do you enjoy playing it so much?

Keefe: I mean, it's just such a joyous piece, and it's so interactive, it's such a dialogue between the two soloists and the orchestra as well. And so I find that I just am so happy whenever I play it, and getting to play with my students at the same time is just so fun and exciting, and it doesn't get much better than that piece, I have to say.

Kostraba: Tell us about your relationship with Curtis. You went there, you got your Bachelor's there before heading off to Juilliard for your Master's. What do you find that's special about the place?

Keefe: Curtis is such a unique school, it always has been and it continues to evolve. It's so incredibly small, so it's very selective, so the level of students is incredibly high. There's not a big mix between maybe the best players of the school and the players that are not as maybe technically up there yet. As a student when I was there I learned just as much from my peers as I did from the professors, the teachers at the school, which makes it pretty incredible. So I went there for five years, and then this is the end of my fourth year teaching there, which is incredibly hard to believe, actually, that it's already been four years. I've enjoyed every second of it. But every time I walk into the building I'm still shocked first of all that I got into the school, however many decades ago, let alone the fact that now I get to work with all these incredible students. It’s really humbling.

Kostraba: You are in your spare time, shall we say, concertmaster of the Minnesota Orchestra, you frequently play with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center as well. So you must have learned something at Curtis when you were there.

Keefe: I definitely did. And you know, it's funny that as I get older I feel like I remember more things that I was told. When you're there it's so overwhelming and I think that we all feel like small fish when we come to a school like that, and so it can be pretty intimidating with a lot of imposter syndrome. Even now, I think I'm finally starting to get my footing, but it's really fun to get to see these faculty members who were there when I was still a student, and now they're my colleagues, which is incredibly weird. But it's still fun because I learn from them, I still learn from my students every single week that I'm there, and it's just a really special environment to get to be a part of.

Kostraba: How do you manage your schedule, being in Minnesota and then in New York and then in Philadelphia? Do you go for a week, a month to Curtis? Because I imagine that you have to spend the bulk of your time in Minneapolis.

Keefe: You know, usually I go to Philly almost every single week during the semester. I probably miss maybe three weeks out of 14 or 16 depending on the semester. So I generally am in Minnesota from Tuesday or Wednesday to Saturday, and then I'm in Philly Sunday and Monday and sometimes Tuesday. Luckily it's a Delta hub and so we have lots of flights each way every day and I have lots and lots of miles. It's a lot of travel, but it's so fun and so invigorating for me to get to do so many different things that it doesn't really feel like work. I would say particularly the teaching, because the students are such a high level musicians already that they can do anything you ask of them, and they're constantly exploring and they're so curious. And so for me, that really sort of rejuvenates me in my performing career because they make me think about all these things that I'm doing and think about these pieces in different ways. And so when I come back to the orchestra every week, even though I'm sometimes very tired, I feel like I said, rejuvenated musically, I think.

Kostraba: So this tour, it’s five concerts in eight days from the East Coast to the West Coast, starting in New York City, wrapping up in Phoenix and Prescott, Arizona. You’ve done tours like this, I assume, with the Minnesota Orchestra as well. What’s the hardest part of being on tour, and how do you manage that when you're on tour so that you're not so stressed that you can't play at your best when you're performing?

Keefe: I think being incredibly organized and planning ahead in terms of using your energy wisely is important because often we have early flights, so you need to get enough sleep. You have to decide, "Am I going to go out and explore these cities or am I going to take a nap after I land before the dress rehearsal? When am I going to eat? What am I going to eat?" And so I think that for me I try to look at the schedule and plan those things out ahead of time. And depending on which city I'm in, if it's somewhere I've been before, then maybe I'm less likely to do some tourist activities. But if it's somewhere new, and especially for these kids, I think they're going to be so excited to be in different cities every day that they might be pretty worn out by the end of the tour, I'm guessing.

Kostraba: It seems well planned out too. So you’ve got a Sunday concert in New York and then a day off to travel and then you’re in Fayetteville, Arkansas on the 19th and then a day off to travel then in El Cajon, which is part of San Diego, and then a day off and then Phoenix, and the next day Prescott, but that’s just a short drive from here. So it seems like whoever planned the schedule really was thinking about these kinds of things and that must add to the professionalism that the students will be experiencing when they go out into the real world.

Keefe: Absolutely. I mean, Andy Lane at Curtis is very experienced, he's a great tour manager for these things. He knows what's feasible, what's going to make the students play at their best in terms of scheduling. And so I'm really happy that this isn't one of those tours where it's kind of impossible, you know, and you're traveling every single morning and playing at night, that's just—it's too risky. And with that many students and not even just students, that many performers, that many moving parts, I think that this is incredibly well planned. And the other thing we haven't touched on yet with the chamber orchestra is we decided to mix up the seating for every single piece, so we have different leaders as section principals, which I really love because it gives everyone a chance to be in the front and they're also in the back, so they get different points of view and more people get a chance to lead, which I think is such an important skill. This is sort of a mix between chamber music and orchestra because it's not a big orchestra. What I love is sort of working with these students on their leadership abilities, because that's what I do in my other job as a concertmaster. And so it's been really fun to coach them on the pieces I don't play and encourage them to work together, you know, as a group and I think they've really blossomed beautifully.

Kostraba: There's so much to think about besides the notes.

Keefe: Yeah. I mean, I think the notes in some ways can be the easier part, especially if you're a younger musician who hasn't played much chamber music or orchestra, and trying to lead a group like that, it takes practice. It’s not something that necessarily comes naturally, you really need to sit in that seat and also sit in the other seats so you know what it's like in the front and the back, because they're quite different places to hear and to see and—and so I love that all of the students are getting a chance to sort of move around into different positions and experience it from both sides.

Kostraba: Erin, thanks so much for your time.

Keefe: Thank you, it's been a pleasure.

Greg Kostraba: Violinist Erin Keefe and violist Roberto Díaz join the Curtis Chamber Orchestra for Mozart Sinfonia Concertante in E-flat Saturday evening, May 23rd at 7:30 at the Musical Instrument Museum. The program will also include Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings and an arrangement by James Ross of Beethoven's String Quartet #15. Tickets are at MIM.org. For the KBACH Heart of the Arts podcast, I’m Greg Kostraba.