Album Notes

During the months before I was born, classical piano music was a part of my life. My Grandmother was a retired concert pianist and conservatory professor, and my mother also studied the classical literature. Through their daily practice my prenatal ears heard grand piano music every day: Chopin, Liszt, Debussy, etc. As a result, I memorized the notes of the piano, thus affording me the blessing of what's called perfect pitch (The ability to identify the keys of music).
At the age of four it was discovered that I could identify all the keys of music. This determined my career as a musician. I knew since age five what I was to do for the rest of my life. Starting on piano for three years and then switching to the violin for the rest of my music education.
My mother and father were undivided in providing me a wonderful education: studying with Juilliard and Peabody professors, concert artists and symphony concertmasters. Each had an area of expertise that laid the framework for the technical demands of my trade of performing with the symphony orchestra.
Since my youth I have also been a composer of music. Being left handed and right brained my imagination never fails in pursuing creative exercise. So I decided to be a double major in both violin and composition.
My last professor was a musicologist and retired professor of the Peabody Conservatory. He alone taught me the value and logic of artistry: how to carefully weigh the notes, giving proper attention to certain scale tones within the key, where some are to be accentuated more than others, just as certain words are more important than others when speaking and reading. Both music and vocabulary deserve more than mere monotone expression. In effect, this man could play Mary had a Little Lamb or Twinkle Twinkle Little Star with such graceful control over the sound that he could make you cry. He taught the simple gift of how to take a less-than-lovely melody or even a boring exercise, and by applying the tools of artistry leave the listener wondering, "What genius wrote that?" When music is done right there is little fatigue on the ear.
After completing my music education it was time to audition for the various symphony positions available. I wanted to move to a warm climate so I auditioned for the Florida Symphony in Orlando. As is typical with symphony auditions the player must master ten hours worth of music to perform short selections lasting a mere five minutes. Once the first round is completed successfully (where the judges are behind a curtain so as to not allow for any prejudice in their decisions) the audition finals are held in open view of the judges. Having to perform a difficult passage where the last note ends in the stratosphere octave I successfully played that last note standing on my tiptoes. The coordination of performance, along with the quality of my violin impressed the judges so I got the job.
For nine years I sat in the middle of the stage (the best seat in the house) surrounded by the other sections. To the audience, the beat of the music sounds intact: the sound bounces off the walls, ceiling and floor; and by time it reaches the ears of the listeners the sound melds together without much discrepancy. But on stage it is at times a severe tug of war. Each section: strings, woodwinds, brass and percussion have opposing views of just where the beat of the music is. When you have seventy to ninety musicians on the stage you tend to have the same number of interpretations. There is nothing wrong with the stick-work of the conductor, it’s just a matter of obeying where he places the beat. But most musicians "play to the beat of a different drummer." The strings are typically a quarter-second behind the beat, while the brass section tends to be a eighth-second ahead of the beat. The woodwinds and percussion are the most obedient to the rhythm. Three versions of rhythm dominated the stage more often than I care to remember. Sometimes repressed memories are good : )
Hard times came to the arts in Central Florida, so the Florida Symphony (the oldest orchestra in Florida went out of business). Having lost my job I stayed in the area doing other things. Some years had passed, but my creative mind hadn't lost any vigor in the process. I kept composing, accumulating in my career over 250 pieces ranging from symphonic, jazz, rock, string and piano chamber music, even writing ballet music for The Dance Company in Orlando.
The instrumentation on this CD represents my taste for a style I like to call "clazz"--classical/jazz fusion. Growing up listening to Mahavishnu Orchestra, Return to Forever and other jazz/rock fusion artists I greatly admired the discipline of musicians who worked through the ranks of technical dexterity while keeping me enthralled with their innovation. While there are styles that are not pleasing to my ear I respect all musicians who have mastered the rudiments. But in the end, my love for lyricism, found in the violin literature (duplicating the lovely sustain of the human voice), to me is more everlasting in its beauty, so I determined to write music in a more simple, lyrical fashion.
Beethoven would say to those who complained about his music, "I don't write for you." While I am secure in my musical values to where I can handle rejection, I can honestly say, I do write for you. I try to live my life, as best I can, to bless the lives of others. And while I have a flood of regrets, as is typically the case with most, I find solace in forgetting the things that are behind (because I cannot undo the harm already done) but look forward to the things ahead.
Thanks for your time in reviewing a little history of my life, Gary