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Tanglewood seminars invite casual listeners into classical club
By David J. Craig
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Roye Wates Photo by Kalman Zabarsky |
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Harvey Korotkin attended classical music concerts for decades without knowing the difference between a harpsichord and a borrowed chord.
He’s precisely the kind of music fan Roye Wates likes to meet. Wates, a CAS music professor, directs and teaches Tanglewood’s Adult Music Seminars, which every summer offer music lovers an intense, behind-the-scenes look at the famous music festival in the Berkshires. The goal of the CFA-sponsored seminars is to help casual listeners decode classical music.
“I’m a fervent believer that classical music speaks to the deepest feelings in all of us, and that you strengthen those feelings by bringing your intellect to the experience,” says Wates. “I also believe that listening to classical music has to be taught. It’s a skill we’re not born with, and once we learn it, we take our appreciation to an entirely new level.”
As part of the seminars, small groups of adults are taught musical form and style by Wates, attend Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) rehearsals and performances, and sit in on master classes and workshops. Participants observe virtually every aspect of music-making at Tanglewood, the bucolic summer home of the BSO, as well as of Boston University’s Tanglewood Institute for high schoolers and the Tanglewood Music Center for college and graduate students. The seminars are four or five days in length, and cost $355 and $410, respectively, which includes a lawn pass to Tanglewood’s main grounds, but does not cover food and lodging. A June 19 to 24 seminar cosponsored by Elderhostel, a nonprofit educational and travel organization for seniors, includes food and lodging, for a total of $1070.
“It’s a total immersion experience that you don’t get when you visit Tanglewood as a tourist,” says Wates, who also arranges for musicians, conductors, and music critics to meet the participants and field their questions. “I lead a two-hour class every day where I explain the technical aspects of a piece we’re about to see rehearsed and performed. We listen to a recording of it, and I discuss how its movements and sections fit together, as well as a bit about the time it was written and the composer.”
At the subsequent rehearsal, Wates discreetly points out decisions being made by the conductor. “People find the rehearsals thrilling because most have never seen how physically exhausting and mentally taxing it is to make music at this level,” she says. A Mozart expert, she has taught at Boston University since 1962 and in 2000 received BU’s Teacher/Scholar of the Year Award. “We’re close enough to see the sweat on a musician’s brow. It’s also exhilarating to see the everyday reality of the situation — a BSO musician arriving in shorts, putting his golf clubs in his car, playing with his child, and then sitting down to play an exhausting three-hour rehearsal.”
Because participants’ knowledge of music varies widely, Wates makes sure everyone is comfortable sharing their impressions. “If there’s a typical participant, it’s a person who’s gone to a lot of classical concerts over the years, but has no training,” she says. “Very few people who attend can follow the form of a piece of classical music. I try to level the playing field by drawing out people’s life experiences as a way to discuss the music. Classical music is about life and death, after all, and it’s supposed to speak directly to your life. I try to reduce radically people’s sense of intimidation, so that they can join the club.”
Korotkin arrived with scant knowledge of classical music when he took the seminar last August. Now when he hums along in his car to cassettes of his favorite Brahms symphonies, he does so with a trained ear, and his kids buy him classical CDs as gifts.
“I’ve been listening to music my whole life, but I never knew much about it,” says the 65-year-old Bedford resident and retired financial analyst. “When I listened to a symphony, it sounded like one continuous thing to me. Now I can make out the different sections, I hear themes repeat, and I understand some of the common structures in classical music.”
That’s a testimonial Wates hears often. “Over and over I hear things like: ‘I’ve listened to this piece of music for 30 years, but I never thought I’d be able to understand what’s going on in it,’” she says. “People are overwhelmed when they finally get it. It’s almost a healing experience.”
For information about Tanglewood’s Adult Music Seminars, visit www.bu.edu/cfa/music/tanglewood/index.htm, or call 617-353-3386. Information about the session cosponsored by Elderhostel is at www.elderhostel.org/programs/programhome.asp.
23
April 2004
Boston University
Office of University Relations