Shangrow adds layers of appreciation for Chamber Music Festival's Music Lovers

George Shangrow, eminent conductor, entertaining lecturer and Music Lover extraordinaire.

Updated August 15 Correction: Mark O’Connor’s Music Lovers Seminar on Saturday, Aug. 22, still has tickets available.

In the [intlink id=”music-lovers-seminars-the-schedule” type=”post”]Music Lovers Seminars[/intlink], George Shangrow gives the audience insight and sympathy for the music they will enjoy at the Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival (OICMF) — taking place this year between August 16-29 —  and for the rest of their lives.

The seminars focus on the Festival’s concert programming and the topics close to the hearts and minds of musicians and music lovers. As well as educating the audience, the seminars celebrate OICMF’s Artistic Director Aloysia Friedmann’s carefully chosen repertoire.

Shangrow’s lectures, preceding each concert series,  offer great insight, accessibility and entertainment. You wonder if you’re laughing with a comedian, analyzing with a scientist, or basking in the genius of a storyteller.

He  delights in black humor, such as the story of the bird that was roasted on a radiator, and then emotionally pivots to speak with tender compassion of a child who’s lost his parents.

He mixes the physics of music – a F sharp will sound different, have different vibrations, than a G flat – with the soul of a street singer – “Hear the doo wah doobee do there?”

Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival (OICMF) Artistic Director Aloysia Friedmann has said “Any aspect of what you know will enhance the enjoyment” regarding the music, and Shangrow’s seminars leave the audience with their  spark plugs igniting recognition of a phrase, sympathy for the composer’s experience, and awe of the musical performers’ expression. [intlink id=”music-lovers-seminars-the-schedule” type=”post”](See accompanying article for schedule)[/intlink]

Chamber music, by definition, is not your symphonic grandeur, played to a concert hall of thousands. Chamber music is more intimate, prepared chiefly for the enjoyment of the small group of musicians themselves – trios, quintets, maybe as many as an octet. Think of Woody Allen declining to receive an Oscar award for Best Director because the ceremony was on a weeknight when he regularly played clarinet with his jazz group – that’s the atmosphere of a chamber music performance, performed by friends for friends. Orcas’ audiences are fortunate that such intimacy among musicians extends to its “small” theater of 231 seats.

Friedmann has also said that while some of the Festival music program may seem strange to the audience, she tries to select pieces that “can elicit other feelings, that’s what music is about – fulfilling expectations and gentle challenges.”

Shangrow, then, serves as a guide, a Scout leader talking you on a walk both beautiful and challenging, or if you like, as the sky-diver who carries you on his back as you free-fall into a musical atmosphere you’ve never experienced before.

George Shangrow starts with the educator/entertainer’s key asset – enthusiasm. He has it in spades: “I love being here, you love being here, so it’s a big love-fest!” he said at last year’s first Music Lovers Seminar.

Shangrow explains how to read a musical score for the absolute beginner: “If the notes go up, the tone is higher; if they go down, it’s lower. The blacker the notes, the faster the music.”

That’s all you need for starters. The squiggly script at the beginning of the score is the clef or key mark — “It unlocks where the music is starting.”

Then we’re into one of the all-time geniuses – Bach. “Bach is hard to get to know unless you’re open to patterns,” Shangrow says. He then familiarizes us with Bach, comparing him to Jimi Hendrix: “Part of me can visualize Bach hunched over wearing shades…he’s playing with our minds bigtime with that pick-up rhythm.”

Back to the mechanics, explaining the synchronization of counterpoint – two melodies or two timings going on in the same time frame – “It sounds like a sewing machine to me, and then the arrhythmic syncopation. Hear the soloist taking a ride while the other instruments just sit back?”

As the slow “adagio” movement plays, Shangrow says quietly in the background, “This is your Moody Blues guy,” and then like a hipster getting into his groove, he comments on the final, fast movement, “This movement is definitely do doo wah bee doo.”

And you get it, so that when you hear the musicians play the piece in rehearsal (part of each Music Lovers Seminar is sitting in at the Festival performers’ rehearsal) and later, in concert, you recognize and appreciate and silently sing along with the expression.

Again, Friedmann says of the refrains that reappear through music, “At first it’s not exciting, but you get drawn into it and are waiting for certain things to happen, and then you become completely attached.”

In describing a Cesar Franck sonata, Shangrow points out the “seductive” 1^st movement where “something going to happen. It’s like a luscious beautiful walk through the garden that never scales the mountain.” He calls the 2^nd movement a “tether” piece to the 3^rd movement that “advances the story and leaves you wanting resolution or summation that comes in the final movement.

“Franck makes you wait for the goods,” says Shangrow, and then he adds one more teaser — “like in the Ring.” (Wagner’s monumental four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen),  so you know one element of that complex masterpiece.

The Chamber Music Festival isn’t just for the pleasure of the musicians performing together, however, it’s for the audience to share in the music-making. The bugaboo about clapping between movements of a piece is dismissed by Shangrow who says, “There’s no wrong way to listen to music.” He notes that when clapping breaks out between movements, it’s more spontaneous than the pro forma applause at the end of a piece, and welcome to most musicians. At a celebrated performance Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet, the 4^th movement was encored twice before going on to last movement, Shangrow adds.

Theater’s classic formulation for a romance is boy chases girl, boy gets girl, boy loses girl. Similarly, Shangrow gives the “recipes” for musical works such as sonatas and provides translations for musical forms such as allegros, scherzos and the like.

He also delves into the difficult-to-comprehend mathematics of tuning: “Musically a C flat is different than a B [the same white key on a keyboard].”

He offers the probing and somewhat unsatisfactory explanation: “All tuning on a keyboard is a compromise — each key on a piano is equally out of tune.”

He explains further: “Our ears melodically hear leading tones,” and then uses an anecdote to bring it home, noting that clarinets are notoriously sharp while violins have a “sweeter” tone. He describes the experience of horns and woodwind instruments that aren’t properly tuned: “It’s going to be toothache city.”

Shangrow often gives the “back story” that enhances the feelings of sympathy and connection. When the listener understands how the composer turned his inner turmoil into music, it makes the music that much more palpable, and the listener that much more involved.

He tells of Carlos Szalzedo’s inspiration for the “most beautiful work – Lamentations” written for his pet bullfinch, Baron Taraky. The bird had his own small car and was known to eat from Szalzedo’s plate and sip wine from his glass, but he met an untimely death when his birdcage was left on the radiator.

Then Shangrow explains that Szalzedo was born two months’ premature and was a frail child. Further, his parents died when he was only a young boy, and he was under the care of his Basque governess. “Who knows what goes on in the psyche of someone who loses a parent at the age of five and someone else steps in?” Shangrow asks.

Likewise, seminar attendees learned that Josef Haydn, composer, court musician and teacher of Beethoven, was born poor, and at six years old was sent away and never reunited with his family.

Maurice Ravel’s repeated attempts to win the composing award, Prix de Rome, resulted in the scandalous “Ravel Affair” that pitted the conservatives against the avant-garde and caused him to resign from the prestigious Paris Conservatory.

American composer George Gershwin came to Paris expressly to study with Ravel. After meeting with him, Ravel turned Gershwin away, saying, “Why do you want to become a second-rate Ravel when you are already a first-rate Gershwin?”

Appreciation and familiarity go hand in hand, the great musicians and music-lovers realize. Shangrow familiarizes his audiences with the history, technique, quirks and efforts of the great composers.  Jon “Jackie” Kimura Parker, OICMF Artistic Advisor, has said, “A great work of art reveals itself to you layer by layer, another layer every time.” With the guidance of George Shangrow, Music Lovers will learn the pleasures of each layer.

Of himself, Shangrow says simply, “I’m kind of the utility guy – hosting and lecturing for the last 8 years.” This is Shangrow’s third year to present Music Lovers’ Seminars at the Festival; his lectures are a component of the OICMF’s IM: In Music year-round education.

He is a renowned Conductor and Music Director who has followed an individual muse throughout his career. He began at age 8 with piano lessons for one year and says, “I didn’t much enjoy it.” But he kept playing by himself, and took lessons as a pre-teenager from the woman across the street.

Then, when he heard a friend play a recording of Handel’s Messiah, and shortly afterward, heard the Roosevelt High School Madrigal Group perform, he knew, “I want to do that!”

He listened to “tons and tons of records” and formed a madrigal group in high school. Their first performance was the debut of the Seattle Chamber Singers on June 1, 1969.

Shangrow attended the University of Washington as a music composition major. He studied harpsichord as his main instrument and took graduate classes in conducting (He began his professional conducting career at age 18).

But, he says, he “learned faster outside the walls of the university,” and went on to found Orchestra Seattle (formerly the Broadway Symphony) in 1979. He has concentrated his musical efforts with Orchestra Seattle and the Seattle Chamber Singers, and has also appeared as guest conductor with many Northwest orchestras and symphonies and the Sapporo (Japan) Symphony. He has conducted world premieres of operas, orchestral, and choral works.

As an educator, he has taught music history, theory, and composition at Seattle University, Seattle Community College, and Seattle Conservatory of Music. Shangrow also performs as pianist and harpsichordist in partnership with flutist Jeffrey Cohan as the Cohan-Shangrow Duo and has toured Europe as a keyboardist and a conductor. Many Northwesterners will recognize his voice from the Live! By George radio program, of which he was host and announcer, on Classical KING-FM.

Four from the Music Lovers Seminar team from St. Francis Church - from left, Karen Hedge, Mary Poletti, Tricia Loop and Eileen Pyka.

Shangrow is particularly glad to be speaking to his audiences at St. Francis Catholic Church. “It’s a very welcoming place and the people do such a lovely job of getting things ready and making us feel welcome.” The volunteer Music Lovers’ Seminar team includes Eileen Pyka, Karen Hedge, Magdalena Verhasselt, MaryAnn Giefer,  Sharon Bearchell, Trisha Loop, Velma Doty and Mary Poletti. Additional goodies are being provided by Karen Blinn, Andrea Hendrick, Rolf Nedelmann, Judy Flath, Barbara Wheeler, Catherine Ellis.
Catherine Pederson is the OICMF Board representative. Registrars for the event are: Penny Sharp Sky, Ben Jenkins, Patty Johnson, and Louellen McCoy.

This year, violinist [intlink id=”mark-o%e2%80%99connor-presents-orcastrations-music-lovers%e2%80%99-seminar” type=”post”]Mark O’Connor will also present a Music Lovers’ 2009 Seminar[/intlink] on Saturday, August 22, preceding his featured performance at the Orcas~trations concerts. Tickets for this seminar, to be held at Orcas Center, are still available.

Each seminar (except O’Connor’s August 22nd seminar) is comprised of 2 mornings for 2 hours, with one of the mornings to include a visit to a reserved rehearsal, during which the music to be performed that evening and the next evening is being rehearsed. Tickets for the Music Lovers’ Seminars cost $20 for both days; no single day registrations are accepted. Register for Music Lovers’ Seminars by phone at 376-2281, in person at the Orcas Center Box Office Thursday through Saturday from noon to 4 p.m.

OICMF Executive Director Victoria Parker notes, “There are also tickets available for most concerts and productive waiting lists.” Those who have not yet purchased tickets are encouraged to call the Box Office at 376-2281 or the Festival Office at 376-6636.