Music series reflects the personality of its conductor

Friday, June 18, 2010

Click here to enlarge this photo Submitted photo Jeffrey Silberschlag conducts the Chesapeake Orchestra. E-Mail This Article | Print This Story

In the blockbuster film series known as "Iron Man," actor Robert Downey Jr. plays Anthony Edward Stark, the head of a multinational corporation who creates an iron suit to save his own life first and the world second.

In the commercial produced for St. Mary's College of Maryland's 2010 River Concert Series — "Iron Suit" — the actor, Jeffrey Silberschlag, plays himself: artistic director-slash-conductor-slash-head of the music department-slash-trumpet player. He's in some sort of factory, amidst a backdrop of hard rock music, creating a coat of armor ahead of the task of producing-slash-conducting-slash-announcing seven consecutive Friday night concerts on SMCM's Townhouse Green. As the commercial ends, Silberschlag, the man who tonight will bring us composers Samuel Barber and Robert Schumann, asks us comically, "Are you ready? Oh, yeah. It's River Series time!"

For local residents, the 12th annual classical music series indeed kicks off tonight at 7 p.m. For the man in "Iron Suit," the concert season is already in full swing. Just last week, Silberschlag, his wife Deborah (a professional bassoonist and graduate of the Juilliard School) and their two sons, Zachary (a 16-year-old trumpet player who is closing in on enough credits to earn a degree from SMCM) and Nathaniel (an 11-year-old horn player who is signed up for Little League but is nonetheless being recruited by professional orchestras) returned from Alba, Italy, the site of the SMCM music department's study abroad program and Silberschlag's Alba Music Festival, which just finished its 7th season.

A week before opening night of the River Series, Silberschlag — admittedly a bit jet-lagged, yet looking dapper as usual — sips an espresso and talks to a reporter at the Brewing Grounds in Leonardtown. Zachary eats lunch and waits patiently.

Alba to St. Mary's City

Silberschlag thinks of the Alba Music Festival and the River Concert Series as one and the same. He likens it all to the Spoleto Festival, which started in Spoleto, Italy, and expanded to a second site, in Charleston, S.C., in the 1970s. Now it exists as a two-part festival.

In Alba, Silberschlag conducts 20 concerts in 10 days inside a deconsecrated 12th century cathedral that seats about 1,000. The way he explains it, picture the River Series being held in Leonardtown instead of St. Mary's City. Alba is in northern Italy's Piedmont region, in wine country. Silberschlag, however, started SMCM's music conservatory in Saluzzo and moved it to Alba in 2004 when the festival was founded ("which is almost like saying we started in Solomons and moved to Leonardtown").

As it happens, when former SMCM president Jane Margaret "Maggie" O'Brien expressed to Silberschlag her interest in starting a music program overseas, Silberschlag had the connections in Italy to make it happen. In the 1980s, he was a principal trumpeter for RAI National Symphony Orchestra, a major Italian symphony. He's lived in Italy and speaks fluent Italian. Italy, too, is where Silberschlag first became interested in conducting.

Chesapeake Orchestra

A bit nervously, Silberschlag answers a call on his cell phone from the Chesapeake Orchestra's contractor. Silberschlag founded the all-professional group about four years before the River Series started. Initially, they played at big events around Southern Maryland. Now Chesapeake, which performs big classical pieces and quickly absorbs commissioned pieces in support of nonclassical guest artists, is the backbone of the festival. After hanging up, Silberschlag relates, "He's likely to say, ‘Well, we just lost a whole string section because [President] Obama wants to host the President of Paris.'"

Chesapeake includes members of the U.S. Marine Band, the Baltimore Opera and Kennedy Center Orchestra. Its 13 principal players, meanwhile, are mostly members of the college's faculty, some of whom in turn have positions with such orchestras. Additionally, Chesapeake always includes about a dozen college conservatory students plus a roster of professional freelancers.

"World events affect our orchestra in a big way," Silberschlag says.

Example: When former president Ronald Reagan died June 5, 2004, Chesapeake was scheduled to have its first rehearsal of the season. Everyone in the Marine Band, however, was obligated to play at Reagan's funeral.

Roots

Silberschlag is from Baltimore. His father was a jazz drummer. His great-grandfather toured Europe as a trumpet and French horn player and came from a long line of trumpeters. His family has traced their lineage as far back as Austria in the 1200s, and was in Vienna around the time of Mozart, he says. His mother's family was in business.

"I'm kind of a hybrid," he says. "In a way, that's what a conductor does. You're the artistic head to the orchestra and the conduit to the business and social community."

When Silberschlag was 5, his paternal grandmother, demonstrating with a bugle, showed him the technique of placing lips on a mouthpiece. By high school, he had earned a spot in an all-state orchestra which had a gig at the Lyric Theater in Baltimore. At the rehearsal, the University of Hartford offered him a scholarship on the spot. One semester later, he was invited to study at a conservatory for 100 young musicians from all over the world — to live in Le Grand Hotel on Lake Geneva in Montreux, Switzerland, and learn from some of the most famous musicians in the world. After the conservatory, Silberschlag attended Manhattan School of Music and was offered a position with the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra shortly before he earned his masters. While living in Israel, he met Deborah. Two years later, in 1981, he joined RAI.

Deborah Silberschlag, meanwhile, would leave Italy to perform in SMCM's former Tidewater Music Festival; and if Jeffrey Silberschlag had time off, he would join her in St. Mary's City. A couple of times, he even had breakfast with the festival's director and offered him a few suggestions. Even if it proved to be the perfect job interview, Silberschlag wasn't exactly looking for a job: "I was just expounding," he says.

In April 1986, the morning Reagan ordered the bombing of Libya, Silberschlag woke up and noticed things had changed. "We were like a pariah," he explains. "People are not serving us coffee. I had no idea what that was at the time. But apparently, Fiat, the big car manufacturer, had factories in Libya. In the north [of Italy] people had families there and they were so frightened by the ability of the Americans to strike anywhere at any time."

That week, SMCM called to offer him and Deborah year-long jobs as visiting professors.

Silberschlag had tenure in both the Jerusalem Symphony and RAI. In other words, he was on track. But, in 1988, the timing was right. In a year, he thought, things might be better overseas.

Looking back on it, "In my mind, I came to found a music festival — even in '88," he says.

A new era

Eleven years later, the River Series made its debut. In a sense, it was a synthesis of two visions, or ideas: O'Brien, who became the college's president in 1996, wanted to create a large community event; Silberschlag knew what he wanted that event to be.

"I thought that because of all the things you can do in St. Mary's County — whether it's boating or golfing during the day — and all the leisure activities you can do, because of the beauty of the land and because of the proximity to Baltimore and Washington ... I thought we were naturally suited for a large music festival the same way that someone could put a large music festival in the Berkshires or even Aspen."

Funded by an array of sponsors, the River Series remains free to attendees, who are allowed to bring food and drink and seat themselves among serious listeners or casual listeners or serious talkers.

Thousands of people attend the concerts, and the way Silberschlag sees it, both the casual atmosphere and the high quality of programming are the reasons people flock to the Townhouse Green. If either one of these elements disappears, he says, so will the crowds.

The River Series programming reflects his interest in popular music, particularly jazz, and his background in classical music. "I try also," he says, "to approach some of these big, serious classical works seriously but also with a sense of proportion and a sense of humor, not that we're making fun of the music."

Before Strauss's "Ein Heldenleben (A Hero's Life)," for instance, which has been performed in the past, he's likely to offer a more humorous explanation of the hero's psyche than many conductors will. And though his experiences are decidedly worldly, "my take on the music and how it fits into our society is a totally American perspective," he says. "It's not dismissive about the importance of those cultures but I just see them from a different point of view and try to share that with the audience."

The final take

"A composer puts down their music," Silberschlag says, "and you stay faithful to that. But you're also like an onsite orchestrator, or an onsite decorator. … If the personality of the various conductors did not affect the music, there would be no reason to hear it — ever.

"Some people think only jazz is a creative art because the person improvises on the spot. There's as much change in classical music; it's just a little more subtle."

—

The River Concert Series will kick off at 7 p.m. June 18 and continue through July 30 at St. Mary's College of Maryland. The concerts are free. Parking is in designated lots along Route 5.

Bring a blanket or chair. The grounds will open at 5 p.m. Look for sections marked for "serious listening," "casual listening" and "serious socializing." Vendors will sell food, but picnic baskets and coolers are allowed.

The college is in St. Mary's City. To find out about changes in the concert location or cancellations due to weather, call 240-895-2024 or go to www.smcm.edu.

For more about the series, go to www.riverconcertseries.org.

Here's a look at the schedule:

Birthday Boys (June 18): Artistic director Jeffrey Silberschlag and the Chesapeake Orchestra will celebrate the birthdays of Samuel Barber and Robert Schumann with classical and jazz pianist Jeffrey Chappell. Chappell has performed with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the Washington Symphony Orchestra and the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra

Trills and Thrills (June 25): Internationally acclaimed flutist Giuseppe Nova, guitarist Orlando Roman and harpist Floreleda Sacchi will join Silberschlag and the Chesapeake Orchestra for an evening of music that includes Stravinsky's "Pulcinella Suite" and Strauss's "Bourgeois Gentilhomme Suite." Nova is a member of the faculty in the college's study abroad program in Alba, Italy. Roman is a guitar instructor at SMCM and has participated in numerous performances throughout the United States, Mexico, Spain, Germany, Colombia, Cuba and Eastern Europe.

Summon the Heroes (July 2): Silberschlag and the Chesapeake Orchestra will welcome Independence Day weekend with music from John Williams, George Gershwin and the Sousa Marches with SMCM's Brian Ganz (piano) and the saxophone quartet from the U.S Marine Band. The concert will conclude with fireworks. Ganz is an artist-in-residence at the college. 

A Grand Night of Singing (July 9): The Chesapeake Orchestra and Helen Hayes Award-winner Larry Vote, the guest conductor, will welcome Michelle Johnson (soprano), Olivia Vote (mezzo soprano) and Brian Major (baritone) for an evening of opera aria highlights.

Young and Gifted II (July 16): Silberschlag and the Chesapeake Orchestra will welcome the first annual Young Artist Concerto Competition winners Nina DeCesare (bass) and Brian Hong (violin). The orchestra will also perform the world premiere of William Kleinssaser's "Many Rivers" and Prokofiev's "Symphony No. 5." 

Jose in Vienna! (July 23): Silberschlag and the Chesapeake Orchestra will celebrate Mahler's 150th birthday anniversary with a performance of "Symphony No. 7." SMCM's artist-in-residence, violinist José Cueto, will perform Mendelssohn's "Violin Concerto."

The Grand Finale (July 30): The finale will feature 2010 Tony Award-nominated Broadway singing sensation Kate Baldwin. Baldwin was nominated for the Tony Award for her current performance in "Finian's Rainbow."