An Interview with David Leach and his colleagues

Jason Smith, Robert Ash, Jack Wagner

Maestro David A. Leach is a true Michigander: born, educated, and giving a lifetime of service in music education and life inspiring to the next generations. Speaking with him on the phone is a pleasure, yet seems only a small indicator of what his influence must be like in person. He has spent over 20 years as Director of Bands for the Ann Arbor Pioneer High School, and a portion of that as Chairman of Fine and Performing Arts.

Four of Ann Arbor’s high school bands will be traveling to Carnegie Hall later this month (March 30) for a resplendent showcase: Pioneer, Skyline, Huron (concert bands), and Community (jazz).

Jason Smith, director of the Skyline High band, wants everyone to know “When you go off to college and later on, perhaps when you have a family, and are looking back to your high school years, you might not remember the specific pieces we worked on, but you’ll remember that it was a time to be together in a creative way with some of your best friends.  While we’re fortunate that many Ann Arbor parents give their kids a chance to hear jazz and classical music, that isn’t so for every family; therefore, in many cases it’s not only an opportunity to perform together but also the only chance to travel.

Jack Wagner, the conductor of the Community High Jazz Band states: “We in the Community High Jazz Program are excited, humbled, and honored to join our counterparts in the band programs from across Ann Arbor to perform at Carnegie Hall. Many have said ‘jazz is freedom,’ so we look forward to celebrating that on a stage that has featured Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, and Benny Goodman.

David Leach radiates positivity and gratitude, constantly reiterating how lucky he and his band programs are to be in a supportive community, one that puts a priority on funding for the arts. Instruments are provided from fifth grade on, if desired or needed, and at least twenty percent of his students continue after high school, majoring in music education or performance.

He stresses the importance of music as a life skill, how it necessarily sharpens listening, cooperation, coordination. Are you listening, America? There are four levels of concert band, so no one needs to feel excluded simply on the basis of where they are in playing ability. Even in some challenging instances of ADHD or autism spectrum, the focus on the musical task at hand in the moment nearly always helps these serious issues fade into the background.

Leach encourages his students to “live in the moment” (good advice for anyone!), and to revel in the physicality of playing their instruments, to remember the “big picture,” and to experience passion through the music. Adolescence for many can be a chaotic, tough transition emotionally, so this channel is even more vital.

After nearly two years of rehearsing via Zoom, everyone is thrilled to be able to make music in person again, though the important lesson “we are all in this together” won’t soon be forgotten. Robert Ash, Director of Bands at Huron High School said: “A lot has been taken away from us in music and the performing arts world over the past two years; to see the students in person and see how and why we perform together is magical.  So it’s a great privilege, after not meeting in person as an ensemble for all this time, to connect with students and colleagues across our district and city and to share this with our American community at large at one of the world’s most renowned concert halls.”

One of Mr. Leach’s former students, encountered by chance, went on to become a pediatric oncologist. However, he never forgot a gentle correcting remark made by Leach in high school marching band rehearsal: “hold still, every motion is magnified by the white band gloves.” The doctor retained that necessity for stillness in his medical practice, a valuable asset.

Taking his band to China was a definite highpoint both for Mr. Leach and, of course, the students. He relates: “When everyone meets, they realize that this world isn’t about toxic politics. These are people who express feelings just as we do, and hunger for beauty.”

He humorously referenced a cult-favorite cookie bakery on New York’s upper west side: Levain, a pilgrimage he and his wife plan to repeat this month. Keep feeding your students and audiences beauty, sir, and enjoy a well-earned cookie or two!

George Bernard Shaw wrote that “We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” Saint Patrick’s Day seems a good time to remember these words of the wise Dubliner, and two age-defying performances in New York this past weekend seemed to support that saying. One was a play at the Cort Theatre with the inimitable Glenda Jackson, age 83, in the title role of Shakespeare’s King Lear, and the other was a cello concert at Symphony Space (the Thalia) by Harry Wimmer, now in his nineties. Both evenings were a mix of the theatrical and the musical, King Lear drawing many musicians to hear the incidental music composed especially for it by Philip Glass (b. 1937), and Harry Wimmer’s program “Laugh a Little” blending his highly celebrated cello playing with related puns, witticisms, and sayings of Shakespeare and others. Both were evenings not to be forgotten.

The King Lear production, currently in previews, is directed by Sam Gold and offers a chance to see the legendary Glenda Jackson in the classically male title role that she brought to the Old Vic in London three years ago, causing quite a stir. That gender-bending issue proved here not to be so focal as much as her age – Glenda Jackson is simply too young (“kidding, not kidding,” as the children say). Seriously, one couldn’t help noticing that Ms. Jackson had clearer delivery and projection than nearly every other actor as she held the audience spellbound. As Lear’s world crumbled, she even seemed physically to shrink, such is her acting power, only to expand enough to hold her dying Cordelia. She inhabits this role three hours a night, seven days a week, and is, as my usually understated guest called her on Friday, “off-the-charts amazing.”

And the music? I had my doubts about adding music of Philip Glass to King Lear, but all doubts were allayed. It was delicately wrought, performed onstage but far in the back by a string quartet and later switching with the scene changes to other corners of the stage. The musicians were violinists Cenovia Cummins and Martin Agee, violist Chris Cardone, and cellist Stephanie Cummins, and they were appropriately unobtrusive with some special lyrical moments. Alternating a distant texture of minor thirds and wavering tritones with episodes of greater intensity (and silence), the music reflected occasionally a hint of Elizabethan spirit, though most of it was in keeping with the hypnotic Glass style most of us know and appreciate; Glass fans coming to focus on this music will have trouble, however, as it had a transparency (no pun intended) that allowed the focus to be elsewhere, as one would hope. The production itself seemed to this reviewer to throw in too many distractions from Shakespeare’s own powerful language, but then it is still in its previews and may likely take on more of the power of its lead.

“All the world’s a stage, and most of us are desperately unrehearsed” said Sean O’Casey, and we have Harry Wimmer to thank for reminding us of the bon mot, one of many choice quips throughout his Saturday evening concert, “Laugh a Little” (including words of Shakespeare, Shaw, Melville, Wilde, Prokofiev, Ogden Nash, Alfred Hitchcock, and Groucho Marx). Of course, his concert could not have been not unrehearsed, as it offered a perfectly seamless flow from a huge range of musical selections to enlightening stories and banter. From the opening Toccata of Frescobaldi (arr. Cassadó) and Albeniz’s Tango with pianist collaborator extraordinaire Eduard Laurel, there was no note without meaning. He closed his first half with Beethoven’s highly challenging Variations on Mozart’s Magic Flute and opened the second half with Falla’s Ritual Fire Dance in a Piatigorsky transcription.

This concert was held in memory of Mr. Wimmer’s wife Shirley Givens, world-renowned violinist and beloved teacher, who passed away last year (and proceeds went to a fellowship in her name for the International Chamber Orchestra of Puerto Rico). Shirley Givens’ many stellar students have included Pamela Frank, Joseph Lin, and David Kim, among others, and one of her special ones, Alexis Walls, was present to join the duo of Laurel and Wimmer in a tender rendition of Grainger’s Colonial Song. Ms. Walls later lit into Kreisler’s Sicilienne and Rigaudon with exceptional virtuosity.

Other offerings included vibrant performances from son Kevin Wimmer, one of the premier Cajun fiddlers in Louisiana, with excellent swing/jazz guitarist Tom Mitchell. Interspersed among musical selections, there were appearances from actor, Robert Raines Martin, who added his jokes and antics to the evening, lest things get too tearful, but tears were inevitable from audience members. The Django Reinhardt piece Tears, with father and son playing, was a heartbreaker. Also deeply moving were cello-piano performances The Swan from the Saint-Saëns Carnival of the Animals and Ernest Bloch’s Prayer, from the Jewish Cycle.

For full disclosure, Harry Wimmer and his late wife happen to have been close friends of my parents, but this reviewer’s musical respect exists apart from that, and though Harry has a very modest demeanor, he has received praise from Pablo Casals and Bruno Walter, among others. A little-known fact is that he performed the premiere of Bartók’s Cello Concerto as part of a New York Concert in 1960 (long before what is usually listed as the premiere by Janos Starker decades later). He has played and taught in illustrious venues all over the world, but for more details one can visit About Harry Wimmer. Whatever the accolades and laurels, there is little that compares to continuing it all as a nonagenarian.

This weekend was a good cure for having been sent quite a few viral videos of toddlers playing Bach – not that those are not perfectly delightful, but these two evenings were a reminder that the more one lives the more one can express. They were testaments to the human spirit and inspirations to behold. As George Bernard Shaw said, “Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch, which I have got a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.”

A remarkable act of musical and financial philanthropy is taking place in one of New York City’s loveliest jewel-box concert halls, the intimate Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. The series is known as Key Pianists, and 2016/2017 marks the second season of its existence.

Detroit-born pianist Terry Eder had the idea that there were certain pianists of merit who were being passed over, as it were, by the musical system. They play with “wisdom, insight, and sensitivity” and they deserve an opportunity to be heard to their best advantage, and audiences deserve to hear them, in an intimate, small hall with clear acoustics and good sight lines.

Ms. Eder, whose own musical accomplishments make her “key,” taught herself Hungarian, a notoriously difficult language, and studied the composers with whom she is closely identified: Bartók, Kodály, and Dohnányi, at the famed Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest.

Last year, to begin her enterprise, she presented the renowned Beethoven interpreter Peter Takács, a former teacher of hers, in a three-concert overview of Beethoven’s music (including chamber music): early, middle, and late. The concerts were very well-attended and received. Interested readers can access my reviews by clicking on the following links: Early Beethoven/ Middle Beethoven/ Late Beethoven.

Encouraged to continue, this season will have three concerts as well, each with its own pianist, the legendary Chopin specialist Ann Schein, Ms. Eder herself, and Sara Davis Buechner in a Japanese/French “fusion” recital.

Ms. Eder and I conversed over lunch recently. She is a petite, vivacious woman, with great passion for the piano and the experience of live music. After some years following a different career path (lawyer), she has returned to her first love. Her energy radiates; she practices four hours a day (quality instead of quantity); and she is now studying Mandarin Chinese.

To put it as succinctly as possible- Ms. Eder believes in the immediacy of the live concert experience, coupled with performers who possess not just great ability, but who also have charisma—the ability to create the chemistry of rapt attention among the audience. For this to happen, a small hall is ideal, thus Weill is the perfect location.

Ms. Eder wishes to change a general perception of the “third” hall in the Carnegie complex as merely a venue for debutant artists by presenting a high-quality, important series of events: Key Pianists. She stresses the importance of the live concerts as a communal activity of utmost value, especially in a technologically driven era like ours (the ubiquitous cell phone, social media, etc.).

A frequent attendee of the major piano series in New York series, Ms. Eder became troubled by the sameness of many of the presentations in the big halls—as well as the too-trendy avant-garde locations that are sprouting at a great rate. She is constantly searching for pianists who would fit the “key” quality. She stated that this is, by nature, quite subjective. She is looking for what she calls “sincerity with every note.” When I asked her about a “dream list” for the future, she ventured Janina Fialkowska, not often heard in the United States, let alone New York.

I mentioned philanthropy in paragraph one. These events are entirely financed by Ms. Eder herself, an immense tribute to those invited to perform, and a true commitment to bringing beauty to New York. For more information, follow this link: Key Pianists Series 2016/2017

Come hear what makes a Key Pianist, and unlock some beauty for yourself!