The Late Starters Orchestra Read online

  It wasn’t until after college that she picked up the violin. Elena waxed eloquent when I asked her about her choice. “There was always a part of me that loved the way it sounded, the way it could evoke emotions,” she said, adding: “I was curious about what it must be like to be the one creating the happiness . . . or the sorrow or the anger” that the violin expressed.

  “I also thought somehow that if I could just make that music, I would never be sad, or rather, I would be, but if I had the power of making the music myself, all I would have to do is pick up my violin and in a few minutes, create joy. Of course I didn’t know that it would be years and years of lessons before I would be able to come close to that.”

  Elena found a teacher, and, after just a couple of years of playing, she was scouring the Internet for a musical community at her level. She came across a summer program run by a British organization called the East London Late Starters Orchestra. She sent them an e-mail. “It was the best ‘send’ button I ever hit,” she told me. The group, known by its letters, ELLSO, was started in the early 1980s by a group of parents who brought their kids to music lessons week after week and realized that the kids were having all the fun. They wanted some of that, too. The parents decided to organize a musical experience for themselves under the ELLSO banner. Almost thirty years later, many of those children no longer play, but ELLSO members still meet with their violins and cellos weekly in London during the academic year. In the summers, they host a musical retreat program in the north of England. Elena signed up.

  “The first time I ever played with anyone it was at ELLSO in 2005,” she told me one day when we met at a Starbucks in New York’s financial district. “I was so new that I forgot I was supposed to sit down when I played!” She gave an embarrassed laugh. “I always practiced standing up. But then I looked around and everyone was sitting. So I sat, too.”

  Elena loved the experience in England—“one of the great ways to spend a week,” she said—and met many new friends, people she soon came to consider her English family. The intimacy of music making, even without words exchanged, can sometimes do that, especially with your “stand partner,” the person who shares a page of music with you. “There is an instant level of trust that stand partners are compelled to establish. The vulnerability felt in the cozy confines of the teacher’s studio must all of a sudden be shared with a person you may have met only minutes before. And if this is true for experienced players, how much more for late starters.

  “Everyone is very encouraging and forgiving,” she said. “Rather than slink down in your chair and make as little noise as possible, the late-starting group provides a safe environment where it is okay to let down your guard and let the music flow.”

  While most of her new friends were Brits, she also made friends among other international players. She became particularly close to a late starter from Italy and another from Russia. The three of them were the foreigners at ELLSO that summer and, at one point, sat down with Chris Shurety, who was among that initial group of envious parents in the 1980s. One of his children was playing the cello back then, so he decided to try a string instrument as well. He picked up the violin. Now, all these years later, Chris urged the three foreigners to carry the ELLSO gospel to their countries. “We’ve got to take this international,” Chris said.

  Elena gave it some thought upon her return to New York but the idea never got off the ground. When she returned to the summer program for a second year, Chris asked: “Any progress? You know you’ve got to do this.” By this time, another American had come to the program, a fellow New Yorker named Andrea Lockett, an editor, writer, and poet who, like Elena, was in her thirties and had discovered the violin after college.

  Andrea, petite and intense, grew up in a suburban New Jersey town and spent a lot of time in the home of her grandparents. She loved to lose herself in their library, which had six thousand books on a wealth of subjects, and she became a voracious reader. Like Elena, she played competitive sports in school but, unlike her new friend, she had considerable exposure to piano and flute as a youngster. She could read music, but sports won out. Andrea spent most of her school years fencing and playing lacrosse. “Team sports were a lot more fun than doing scales and drills,” she said.

  Andrea went off to the University of Pennsylvania where she studied English and worked on literary magazines. After college she wrote for medical journals and pharmaceutical companies. That kind of work “paid the bills” but her literary side was unfulfilled. She wrote poetry and volunteered at literary journals. She eventually became an editor of the New York Quarterly, which publishes poetry. Yet, her musical muse was also calling. She took up guitar at thirty-three and violin at thirty-eight.

  Andrea told me about her musical life when we met at a café in Greenwich Village. She had just dropped off her young son at a day care program in a nearby church. In a story that was becoming increasingly familiar as I asked people about their music teachers, Andrea told me that she found her violin teacher, a Juilliard student named Alexandra, on Craigslist. After making contact, the two agreed to meet for their first lesson at the practice studios at the prestigious music school.

  Andrea remembered approaching the Juilliard building with a sense of awe. She imagined all the great musicians who had walked those halls—and then she saw one of them. Coming out of a classroom as she was passing by was Itzhak Perlman. “Of course Perlman is immediately recognizable, with that wonderful mass of curly hair and broad smile,” she recalled. Perlman, a childhood victim of polio, was in a wheelchair and surrounded by students. “It was already exciting to be in the building, but that close encounter with Perlman was both humbling and electrifying. I was still learning how to control my bow and keep my violin from slipping off my shoulder. At the same time, I was casually walking through a space next to one of the most passionate and dedicated violinists of our time, an artist who has made a career of playing a challenging instrument despite his own physical challenges.”

  Some people might have been daunted by the encounter but Andrea was inspired. She dove into her Suzuki Book 1, a text written for children, with new vigor and commitment. Barely a year into violin lessons, Andrea went to the ELLSO summer program in England, which provided another boost to her playing. ELLSO is largely made up of British retirees. Instantly, she said, she felt like a celebrity. “People were so welcoming,” she said. “They were excited to see a young person. They were excited to see an American. They were excited to see a person of color. They’d meet me on the cafeteria line and say, ‘Come, sit at our table.’ ”

  At ELLSO, Andrea also bonded with Elena and they resolved, upon returning to New York, to start a New York version of ELLSO, which they dubbed NYLSO: the New York Late-Starters String Orchestra. They had no conductor, no members, and no place to play, but they were convinced that they had a potent idea. Again they turned to Craigslist. Andrea placed an ad: ADULT BEGINNER STRING ORCHESTRA SEEKS TUTOR. They called the job a “tutor” because they didn’t quite have the courage to write “conductor.” It seemed presumptuous. After all, they didn’t yet have an orchestra; how could they advertise for a conductor?

  In the ad, under the section about qualifications, they listed “willing to make a weekly commitment” first and “has basic conducting skills” second. Other qualifications were “understands the difference between working with children and working with adults,” and has an ability to work with everyone from “rank beginners” to “experienced amateurs.” In return they offered a salary that was to be negotiated later.

  A few days later they heard from a young Polish émigré and violinist named Magdalena Garbalinska, who was pursuing her masters in music at the Manhattan School of Music. The two organizers met with Magda at a Greenwich Village restaurant and talked about their dream. “We told her what we liked about ELLSO,” Andrea said, “and how we wanted to create a group in New York where people of different ages and different skill levels could enjoy music together. That’s a hard t
hing to create, especially in New York, where people expect the best.”

  One thing was certain: no kids. There are already many music programs for children in New York and once you bring in children you have to deal with supervision issues and discipline and parents. Adults are motivated in a very different way. And besides, Elena said, kids learn so fast and excel in music. “They’ll put us to shame.”

  Elena was right. There are a number of “intergenerational orchestras” in the United States that bring together young and old musicians. I attended a concert of one such group in New Jersey not long ago and actually felt sorry for the old folks. The kids were dazzling. The elderly plodded along. I didn’t want to be one of them. (I actually wanted to be one of the kids, but it was too late for that.)

  Magda felt very much in sync with the NYLSO organizers. “I thought it went well,” Magda told me when I asked her about that initial meeting, “but then I didn’t hear from them for weeks and weeks so I thought they found someone else.”

  There was no one else—Magda was the only applicant they interviewed—but Elena and Andrea were plagued by self-doubt. Neither was making a lot of money and both wondered if this was the best way to spend their energies. Indeed, they asked themselves, “Why are we hiring a conductor when we don’t have an orchestra?”

  They put a new ad in Craigslist, this one for musicians interested in joining—they decided to limit the group just to string players—and were surprised when over thirty people responded. Reassured, they called Magda and signed her up.

  A dozen players of various abilities showed up for the first meeting. “It was a disaster,” Magda remembered. There was everything from the conservatory dropout to the cellist who didn’t know how to tune his instrument. It was actually worse than that. He didn’t even know that the cello had to be tuned. One woman came with a violin but never raised it to her chin. She sat and strummed it like a guitar. Another woman clipped her nails during breaks in the rehearsal and yet another nervously handed out snacks.

  The first few meetings were demoralizing, evoking doubt yet again. Players at first came and went, but after a couple of months, a core group began to develop. Then, as they were getting the operation off the ground, Andrea became pregnant. It was left to Elena to work things out with Magda.

  Elena and Magda are two very different personality types. Elena is girlish and downright silly at times. When the music goes awry in the orchestra—as it has a tendency to do—Elena is the first to laugh. It starts as a giggle but then morphs to a shoulder-shaking laugh that spreads to her stand partner and soon to the whole violin section. Magda, on the other hand, is strict, serious, and demanding.

  “I sometimes feel bad,” Elena says. “From Magda’s point of view, here we are taking something sacred—music—and desecrating it.”

  “Okay. What’s so funny? I once asked Elena. She suddenly got serious. “It’s not that I do not believe that music is sacred. On the contrary, I can rightly say that I am utterly in awe of its powers. I think I laugh because laughter helps remedy what could be a very frustrating experience. Once I realized (basically after my first violin lesson) that I wouldn’t suddenly be making happy music—that this was going to be a long, long road of scratches and squeaks—I decided that the only way I would be able to enjoy the learning process was to laugh a little. I’ve come to relish the flubs and give myself permission to pursue something I have no hope of ever mastering.”

  Anyway, she thinks laughter is better than being overly self-critical. That, she added, would only lead to becoming bitter and flustered and, worse, giving up.

  Unlike Elena and the Late Starters, Magda was classically trained from a very young age. She was born in the western Polish town of Szczecin, near the German border, and began violin at the age of six. “It fit me right away,” she said of the instrument. “My mother had this huge dream of becoming a musician but she never got to do it. She pushed me very hard to play and practice.”

  Szczecin was a great place to practice. Magda grew up in the waning days of Communism and, as she recalled, “There were very few diversions. We had only two TV channels . . . I practiced all the time.” Magda excelled at the violin and, while in high school, was sent to Warsaw to further her studies. There, under the guidance of a demanding teacher, she studied Beethoven’s violin concerto. But she soon locked horns with her teacher over the proper musical interpretation of the piece. At this time, Poland was opening up politically and friends suggested that she continue her studies in the United States. Magda heard about a Polish violinist who was teaching at the music program at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, applied to that program, and was accepted. In Kalamazoo she fell in love and married another musician, an American jazz bassist named PJ.

  It was PJ, in fact, who first saw the Craigslist ad for a NYLSO “tutor” soon after the couple moved to New York. Magda was in school, and PJ, a freelance musician, was just beginning to find work. PJ thought this would be a great job for Magda and a good way to supplement the family income. He urged her to apply.

  Working with LSO has been part of the continuing process of the Americanization of Magda. “I am just getting used to the idea that it’s okay not to be perfect,” she said in something of an understatement. The core group that began to develop at LSO were eager, to be sure, but far from polished. What’s more, they were old, or at least older than Magda, who was barely thirty. Suddenly, she said, she was in the position of “bossing around people who are my parents’ age.”

  “I come from a cultural setting where if someone is an adult, they are right,” she added. “The hard thing for me at LSO is that I’m one of the younger ones. And I’m in charge!”

  Early on, the group had its travails. Some Sundays just three or four musicians showed up for a rehearsal. Other Sundays the organizers booked a room only to find that someone else had booked it, too. (Rehearsal instantly cancelled.) But Elena and Andrea and Magda and the New York Late-Starters String Orchestra persevered.

  Magda, who is often stiff and unforgiving at LSO rehearsals, seemed happy, relaxed, and at ease when we met to talk in my Columbia office. She’s well aware that she comes off as harsh. “It may not always look like it, but I truly enjoy the rehearsals,” she told me. Less appealing for her, she said, were the performances that the orchestra puts on several times a year. She prefers to call them “open rehearsals” to which family and friends are welcome. She is not quite convinced that LSO is an orchestra ready for prime time.

  Magda told me that she does have one fundamental disagreement with the way that Elena and Andrea run the orchestra. “I do wish there were auditions, not so much for who should be admitted but just so I know where everyone is musically.”

  “Too intimidating,” Elena said when I repeated the suggestion. And then she repeated her LSO mantra: “If you think you can play, you can play.”

  At times, Elena even goes beyond her mantra. Sometimes she tells people, “Even if you can’t play, you can play.” On several occasions she has organized what she calls a “Newbie Day,” a Sunday afternoon when people come just to explore what it might be like to play an instrument. On those days, “experienced” LSO players (who are already beginners) show visitors how to hold a violin or cello and demonstrate the rudiments of making music. By the end Elena has everyone playing “Twinkle.”

  In Elena’s mind, an instrument is more than a vehicle for making music. It is an agent of transformation. The mere act of taking up an instrument shows people that they can reach beyond their capabilities and even their imaginations. Elena told me about a woman named Sarah, a widow, who hardly went out of her house after her husband died. A friend dragged her one Sunday afternoon to LSO where she revived an interest in the violin. One day, she agreed to join the group for drinks at Chef Yu. “Last I heard,” Elena said, “she had signed up for Match.com.”

  THE YEAR THAT I joined the orchestra, my sixtieth year, Andrea was still out with her firstborn and Elena took the lead at LSO. Thi
s meant everything from choosing the music—finding the score, listening to it on YouTube, and determining if it was something the group could handle—to renting the hall and collecting the fees that players pay. LSO charges eighty dollars for a six-week cycle, although players can also drop in for a single session for eighteen dollars.

  Running LSO takes a lot of time and energy but it has its pleasures as well. “Making music does make my work life more bearable,” Elena told me. “It’s like I have this whole other world that I can retreat to in my head. I love that.” Sometimes, she has to bring her violin with her to work in order to make it to lessons or rehearsals on time. “I talk about this a lot with other adult learners, the fact that having an instrument with you automatically makes people assume you are a ‘musician,’ especially in New York.”

  And then Elena raised the same question I have been struggling with ever since my first day with LSO: “At what point,” she wondered, “do you get to call yourself a ‘musician’ and not feel like an impostor?”

  I know what she means. After one LSO rehearsal, I walked under the marquees of a half dozen Broadway theaters and hopped on the Fiftieth Street crosstown bus. A young woman saw me coming down the aisle with my cello on my back and offered me her seat. I thanked her but explained that it is easier to stand than to take the cello on and off my back in order to sit. “But you must be tired,” she insisted. “It’s hard playing a matinee. And you have to go back in a few hours to play the evening performance. Right? ”

  I smiled knowingly and said bravely, “It’s okay, I’m used to this.”