Honoring a Legend
It’s no surprise that Jerome Lowenthal responds to interview questions with the same sort of erudite yet playful tone anyone familiar with his master classes has come to know and love, as well as a particular precision, with personal flair, that mark his piano performances. So when asked what it means to be notching his 50th anniversary at the Music Academy of the West this month, which might seem mind-boggling to an outsider, Lowenthal laughs lightly, then says “Fifty years don’t happen all at once. It’s year by year. It’s not as if one day suddenly it’s fifty summers. I’ve been enjoying the unrolling of this half century as it went along.”
Queried about what kept him on campus for so many decades, you can almost see the twinkle in his eye when he recounts the anecdote of how he arrived (after Leon Fleisher decided to take a summer off) and how Maurice Abravanel made it clear that first year that “If you ever leave it goes to somebody else… My contract is year to year. I can be dropped at any time, and I’ve always been aware of that.” On a more serious note, Lowenthal allowed that he thought seriously about leaving after his beloved wife died in town in 1990, but “whether it was indolence or sentiment I ended up staying, and now it’s been another several decades.”
Next Friday night, June 14, that commitment will be fêted when MAW’s Opening Night Gala, “Honoring a Legend,” celebrates Lowenthal’s half-century anniversary as an acclaimed faculty artist, and the new season of the Summer School and Festival, which itself is only 22 years older. Guests will partake in a densely-packed evening including a 5 pm cocktail reception, a performance at Hahn Hall curated by Lowenthal followed by a dinner in the Miraflores courtyard that features a special al fresco encore performance from the honoree.
Joining Lowenthal on the program that takes place three days before the 2019 festival begins are a series of MAW alumni pianists, including Micah McLaurin (’14, ’16), Elizabeth Roe (’01), Evan Shinners (’09) and Orion Weiss (’00), with Lowenthal’s partner Ursula Oppens serving as guest artist. Barber’s piano four hand ballet suite Souvenirs will be played in its entirety, with Lowenthal partnering with three of the alumni over the six movements, then joining McLaurin for a Rachmaninoff waltz and Oppens for Lutoslawski fantasy on the 24th caprice of paganini. Each of the pianists will also perform a solo work in honor of their former (or in McLaurin’s case, current) teacher.
“All these works are both practical and good for the occasion,” Lowenthal said. “There are other things I love very much, but maybe not what a gala audience wants to hear. These are all winners.”
It’s not just the music, but also the personalities that the pianist looks forward to enjoying at the gala. “It promises all sorts of lovely interactions,” Lowenthal said. “These kids, as I still call them, are all extremely lively people, and Evan is one of the most unpredictable people I know.”
(As if on cue, Shinners offered a quick comment via email: “Mr. Lowenthal is of course my greatest musical influence, also equal parts teacher in poetic, literary, even spiritual matters… matters of buon gusto too: He was ordering [the cocktail] Negronis ten years before they arrived in Brooklyn.”
On Friday night, the musical and gastronomic adventures might be as intoxicating. Here’s excerpts of Lowenthal take on the proceedings. (For tickets and information, visit www.musicacademy.org/gala.)
Q. How has what you do changed over the years, in terms of how you approach working with the fellows, and shaping their careers?
A. It’s mostly that the students have changed. When I first began, they were high school students. MAW wasn’t well known, and it wasn’t a scholarship institution. Back then we had to look for students, now we get to cull them. There were always wonderful musicians among my students, but today you can see how that’s changed in that we get 125 applications for only eight spots. So quite simply we get the crème de la crème today. And of course, the piano world itself has changed: The golden age of pianism is right now. There’s never been such an extraordinary proliferation of great artistic talent [with the instrument]. That’s partly the geographical phenomenon – the Chinese miracle and around Asia. In recent years, MAW has also become a guest artist festival so that the students have the opportunity to work with big stars. That also changes how I deal with the students.
Talking with you and having seen you perform and run a master class, it occurs to me that you approach your work in present time, day by day, moment by moment, piece by piece.
The only reason to be a musician is to move from note to note, challenge to challenge, student to student, and audience to audience. Even as a performer I’m very aware of the music as narrative, moving from note to note, phrase to phrase, theme to theme, and shape to shape – finding my way in the time dimension in a piece.
Your master classes are always fascinating as you cite history and offer anecdotes along with the musical suggestions. Where do you come up with all those stories?
I’m 87 and I’ve been accumulating this stuff all my life. It’s just there. I don’t know what I’m going to say in advance. But I listen to the performance and as it unfolds certain guiding ideas form in my mind. And remember I get to choose what I say. I don’t talk about the things that I don’t know. But I do have certain talents, and I’m aware of that, just as I am aware of the tremendous empty spaces in my abilities. I’ve always encouraged my students to take advantage what I have … [including] my interest in literature, which I care about very much. Things come to mind and what I say when they’re appropriate. I never find myself without a thought. There’s always something being suggested, sometimes too many things.
As you look back through your time here, what are you most proud of, most exciting moments, and maybe something you would have done differently?
I’m particularly pleased that so many [students] I worked with have blossomed into wonderful musicians. Also that I provided a marvelous summer for my wife, who had been a student at MAW in 1952 when she was 16. Before I came here, she always talked to me about it as a fairyland. It was her dream place. The third is that I was able to ride so many political waves over the summers, go through all the changes and challenges when a lot of my colleagues didn’t survive… It pleases me that without any dishonesty I have been able to keep my head. [On the other hand], I would have liked to have had more interactions with the vocal department, as a performer and teacher. That was never possible until recently, as there was always a line.
Honoring a Legend: how does that strike you? Do you feel like a legend?
I’m good at accepting compliments. This legendary status is really a matter of age. When students say it was an honor to work with you, I think they mean it in a “you who knew Beethoven” sort of way. I don’t go back that far, but did know a lot of people. And it’s true that my life put me next to people who are considered legendary. So, I have lots of stories, and it can seem like a connection to an imaginary thing. So, a legend? Why not? It amuses me.
Are there any thoughts of retirement on the horizon?
I can’t see any particular reason to so long as I don’t have to. If you’re a coal miner, you’re happy to stop. But I love my work and I love performing and teaching is still fascinating to me. So as long as my health holds out and people want me, I will continue. When that changes, I will try to accept closure gracefully.
Classical Corner
The weekend of June 6-9 marks the 73rd Ojai Music Festival, which began just a year before MAW and has enjoyed a similar exponential expansion in scope in recent years, especially under the auspices of artistic director Thomas W. Morris, who ends his 16-year tenure this summer. Conductor and singer Barbara Hannigan serves as music director, with her mentoring ensemble Equilibrium and the orchestral collective LUDWIG making their Ojai debuts, the return of the Jack Quartet a year after its first visit, and a semi-staged production of Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress serving as the centerpiece. Visit www.ojaifestival.org for program details, tickets and more.
