Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Letter XXVII: Not the Pied Piper

How different would this year have been if I’d gone to see Kifah Fakhoury in September rather than this week? I finally brought my 1989 New Jersey Network documentary film “Classical Caravan” to the director of the National Conservatory of Music. Dr. Kifah is featured in the first half of the film, which follows the concert tour of the Chamber Symphony of Princeton to Jordan and Egypt. Watching it together was a waltz down proverbial memory lane. After all these years he still didn’t have a copy. Now he does.

How different am I now, from the Anisa who marched straight to the Music Conservatory of Seville, Spain, within days of arriving in 1976, telling anyone who would listen, “I’m an accomplished flute player from the US and I want to play here. Please let me show you what I can do.”

I stopped a stranger walking down the street not far from the conservatory – he was carrying a flute case. “Hi, I’m a flute player, too (toco la flauta también. Quiere tocar duetas?) Do you want to play duets?” He demurred, being a beginner, but he brought me to the door of his teacher, another American, who became my favorite duet partner. We gave several concerts that year and Bonnie Walter, who eventually returned to the US and became a dean of students at MIT, performed at our wedding … nearly 25 years ago.

The dean of the Conservatorio Superior de Música de Sevilla listened to me play. He made me principal flute of the conservatory orchestra and put me into the woodwind quintet that toured the country that spring. We played in small towns and villages in Extremadura, Andalucia, and I can’t remember where else. There was terrific music for flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and French horn by Hindemith, Ibert I do remember one rickety stage we played on outside the municipal building somewhere rather hot and dusty. The front legs collapsed under us as we were setting up.

Tonight, so many years later, in Amman, Jordan, Katie and I enjoyed a concert of the Amman Symphony at the King Hussein Cultural Center. They played “Night on Bald Mountain,” the “Romeo and Juliet” overture by Tchaikovsky, and Liszt’s “Hungarian Rhapsody #2.” I’ve played principal on all three of those, most recently last year with the Livingston Symphony Orchestra (not “Bald Mountain.” We played that the same fateful night of the Debussy – see Letter XXV. I was on piccolo for that piece. Barbara soloed.) Well Amman’s principal flutist nailed the Scherzo in the Liszt and that’s a tough moment. With only four stands of first violins it was hard for them to generate the sheer bulk of sound we’re accustomed to in the Tchaik and Mussorgsky. But they made up for volume with energy and intention. At intermission Kifah Fakhoury said to me, “you should join us! Ah, but you’re leaving so soon.”

And I wondered: if I’d come to see Dr. Kifah in that first month, would I have been playing with the orchestra tonight? Would there have been weekly rehearsals and an entirely different set of friends? What about my snuggly nights with Katie, eating chocolate and watching episode after episode of “House”? What about nights out with Basma or Nesreen? What about leisurely editing “Mozart in Maine”? And writing to you? What about not being overloaded?

Spain was the year for bold fluting.

Jordan is the year, apparently, for something else.

I’ll know what that is … sometime soon.

2 comments:

  1. Anise, It's been amazing to read your Blog throughout this year. Thanks for sharing your story. I look forward to hearing more, playing music together, and seeing you and your family around Maplewood. JIM

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  2. Back at you, Jim. All of it, from the blog stories to making music again. Today is Jordan Independence Day. I hope to see you in Maplewood on our own July 4. Anisa

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