| OPERA REVIEW
SF Symphony Bassoonist on "Vacation" July 25, 2002
|
By Harvey Steiman
Stephen Paulson, the San Francisco Symphony's principal bassoon, came to Aspen enthusiastic about working with young musicians. After a few weeks here, he's amazed with what he's learned.
Paulson grins when he talks about showing young musicians what they need to make it in a major orchestra." The communication we have in the San Francisco Symphony is special," Paulson says. "We're always refining our sixth sense, and most of us in the woodwind section have been together for years. It's fun to have at least some of that rapport happen instantly (here) with other musicians and sound like a wind section that's been playing together for years."
Paulson is sharing the principal bassoon spot in the Aspen Festival Orchestra with Per Hannevold, principal bassoon of the Bergen (Norway) Philharmonic. In the Aspen Festival Orchestra, only the principals are faculty. The rest are students, selected from the 800 at the nine-week summer music school and festival.
"It's great being in an orchestra with students," he says. "It's an opportunity to do what you can't do in lessons, show them how that communication works. They play all the notes right, but they have to learn how to be part of an ensemble. I notice that they're not that interested, but don't realize that this is what's going to make them great orchestral players. "I become a much better orchestral citizen, too." This is Paulson's second stint in Aspen. As in 1999, he's here substituting for Steven Dibner, the associate principal bassoon who sits alongside or alternates with him in the San Francisco Symphony. Faculty members and orchestra principals in Aspen usually participate extensively in chamber music concerts and small ensembles. Paulson did that in 1999. "That was too much like work," laughs the bassoonist, who this time has limited his involvement to five students, concerts with the Aspen Festival Orchestra, and one appearance in an ad hoc ensemble last Thursday, July 25. That was on a concert featuring Leon Fleisher, who led Hindemith's Kammermusic No. 1, a 1922 composition for flute, clarinet, bassoon, trumpet, percussion, harmonium, piano and strings. It was a lively performance, notable for the interplay among the wind players, which included Paulson on bassoon, Nadine Asin (who plays with the New York Philharmonic), flute, Micah Heilbrunn (Symphony Nova Scotia), clarinet and Raymond Mase (American Brass Quintet), trumpet. Paulson is spending the time in Aspen with his girlfriend, a member of the San Francisco Symphony Chorus whom he met earlier this year backstage at Carnegie Hall when the orchestra and chorus were on tour. "She's a singer and a voice teacher, so she's been taking me to all the vocal performances and master classes, which is all new to me. I'm learning so much." The bassoonist was especially fascinated with an opera scenes master class, in which Juilliard's opera director, Edward Berkeley, worked with students to improve their performances. "In a way, it's how Michael Tilson Thomas works with us in the orchestra to achieve different expressions," he says. "We can't use facial expressions or body movements, like the singers do, but you can change your sound to fit what the conductor wants."
(Harvey Steiman, editor at large of Wine Spectator magazine, uses his university training in composition and conducting to write about music occasionally.) ©2002 Harvey Steiman, all rights reserved |
