This February, we had a big weekend here in Honolulu for visiting pundits.

First to arrive was Burton Kaplan, professor of violin at the Manhattan School of Music and head farmer at the Magic Mountain Music Farm in upstate New York State. (http://www.magicmountainmusic.org) Burton has been traveling to Honolulu for a number of years now, and each time I’ve eagerly looked forward to the seminar that he offers. The format is simple, in master class format, and the topic is how to practice. The seminars are called marathons, and at 5 hours or more, they do live up to this billing. This year two of my students participated, and as in years past, I learned a great deal about practice techniques, ways to teach and ways to practice. He has gathered a major portion of his teachings into a new book, Practicing for Artistic Success:
The Musician's Guide to Self- Empowerment, which is available on the website. Another of his books that I have found to be extremely useful is The Musician's Practice Log, also available on the website. My sincere thanks go to Burton for making the long trek to Hawaii and for bringing his teachings to us in this isolated place. For those of you not familiar with his practice methods, I highly recommend that you take a look at the books or even better, make the pilgrimage to the farm. He does travel to other places than Hawaii, for example he will be in Colorado later this month and also in April. (http://www.magicmountainmusic.org/ppEvents.html)

Burton’s seminars were on Saturday and Monday. Following both seminars were rehearsals of Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” with the Hawaii Opera Theater. For those readers not familiar with the bassoon part, let me explain: it’s a killer part. Three and a quarter hours of constant, exposed playing.

Monday was the first really long day. This year I’m serving on the HSO Musicians Orchestra Committee, and we had invited two special guests to come from the mainland to help the committee and orchestra musicians to start thinking about the upcoming contract negotiations, as our contract expires this June. Our two guests were Bruce Ridge, bassist with the North Carolina Symphony and Chairperson of ICSOM. (The International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musician, a part of the AFM, or American Federation of Musicians.) (http://www.icsom.org/), and Nathan Khan, bassist with the Colorado Springs Symphony and a negotiator with the AFM’s Symphonic Services Department. (http://www.afm.org/depts/ssdindex.htm) These two visitors had a marathon schedule of events; meeting with the Orchestra Committee, with Tom Gulick, our new Executive Director, and being interviewed for radio appearances on KHPR’s radio show ‘The Business of the Arts’ with host Robert Sandla (himself a former Executive Director of the Symphony) and for Stuart McKinley ‘s radio show, Voice of Labor, on KWAI 1080 AM were some highlights.

After all this preparation came the main event: a two part meeting with our two visitors and the HSO musicians at the Union building. We had a good turnout, over 40 participants for both the morning and the evening. Additionally, before the evening gathering we had a potluck dinner at the union. The union provided hamburgers, salmon burgers and veggie burgers, the musicians brought side dishes and desserts. It was very enjoyable to have a chance to see each other outside of the work environment, and many orchestra children came to visit as well. (We had also held a potluck dinner the previous month with the new wrinkle of screening a movie afterwards. We had two rooms playing videos, in one room was Fellini’s ‘Orchestra Rehearsal’, in the other, the new Disney version of ‘Fantasia’)

The meetings with the visiting officials were productive and very upbeat. Our guests told us that they were especially pleased to be in Hawaii, as our local is used as a model for other locals in terms of organizing and negotiating. Bruce Ridge reminded us that he had been a substitute musician with the HSO about 10 years ago, and had attended a three hour long orchestra meeting that changed his view of how a union could function. Nathan shared his own stories of his career, and reminded us that we are not alone in facing adversity. Following these presentations by our guests, there was an extended question and answer session both in the morning and in the evening. By the end of the evening, it seemed that we had run out of questions and our guests had run out of comments, so we ended up adjourning a few minutes earlier than planned, which was good as Bruce had to rush to catch a plane an hour or so later. He was in Hawaii for a grand total of 52 hours, but he got a lot done in that time.

Bruce represents a new voice and a new direction for ICSOM, the HSO musicians wish him the best in his endeavors to make a change for the better. It was good for us to meet these people face-to-face, as the committee will be spending some time with them on the phone in the near future, and having them come all the way to Hawaii validates the fact that what happens here is important and affects other orchestras.

Anyone who thinks that nothing ever happens in Hawaii has just been proven wrong.