An Interview with
Barbara Yahr

This is the Greenwich Village Orchestra's twentieth anniversary season. Twenty years that's a long tome for the big city.

Barbara Yahr: Yes, it is. The Orchestra is actually older, though there is some discrepancy the GVO started under another name, but it was incorporated in 1986 — still there seemed to have been another branch of the GVO out there.

CD:   It's kind of like the Ray's Pizza of Orchestras, we may never know which is the real “original.”

BY:    Exactly, lost to the mists of time. Before I conducted the GVO for The first time I had never heard of them, and I told them at the time “That's a bad thing.” I've been living in and out of the city since 1980 and I'd had never heard of the GVO, and I'm a conductor.

My first appearance was as a guest conductor and I was about eight and a half months pregnant, I had the baby about three weeks later. By the way, conducting when you're pregnant has some benefits; it makes you stand up very straight and tall, I couldn't lean forward at all or I would have fallen over.

CD:   So when you were pregnant did you do only Mozart symphonies for the baby's sake, or are we past that idea now?

BY:   Way past, we did Mahler. One of the great attractions of the the position was that I did not want to travel any more, it was after 9/11 and I thought I would put my energy into creating a really good local orchestra. I worked on taking care of the orchestra and the baby at the same time.

CD:   There are a lot of orchestras in New York, oddly, and they all have different niches, the GVO goes after the big works...

BY:   I'll tell you, I tear my hair out trying to make great programs that I believe in.

CD:   And you've also got a great venue, I'm sure people do a double take when they read that it's in a high school.

BY:   I think people might be turned off by the fact that it's a high school, but Washington Irving Auditorium is a great space. The Peoples' Symphony Chamber Concerts have been there for years, Heifetz played there, the list of great performers at Washington Irving is quite long. The hall has fantastic acoustics, it's a really great place for soloists, it's a great place to hear yourself, all that old wood and plaster...

Our only limitation is the size of the stage, we can't fit a concert grand piano on the stage with the orchestra We could do an early Beethoven, or Mozart concerto, the scoring is for a smaller orchestra.

CD:   So basically you have to be the sort of soloist who stands or sits on a stool?

BY:   Yes, but I did do Brahms Double concerto once (for violin and cello) and a Vivaldi double-soloist concerto so I can get away with that. I've done opera and I had two singers on one side and two on the other. The stage is only about twenty feet deep and forty feet wide.

CD:   When you walked in to the GVO four years ago what did you think needed to be changed?

BY:    A lot. They had been with out a music director for a while, and there was a lot of really basic stuff that I needed to set. We did not have a rehearsal routine down. If someone didn't come, they did not send a sub. All of the basics.

CD:   Let's cover some of the basics, it was created and remains an all volunteer orchestra...

BY:   Yes, an all-volunteer orchestra, the only person we pay is the harp, because you can't get a harpist to schlep their harp in for nothing. I am paid, and the soloists are paid. The rest of the orchestra is there because they want to be there. The orchestra has sixty-four members and it's phenomenal, every Tuesday night we meet and rehearse.

Everyone has their different day jobs, there are some people who are Broadway players, some retired professional musicians, so not all but most do have day jobs. So after work they're tired, they get something to eat and they show up at rehearsal.

When I first got there the chairs were not full, I had to do what needed to be done, I needed the whole orchestra, so I have to make it clear these are the rules. You have to show up to rehearsals if you want to play the concert, if you can't make it you have to get the music there and get a sub. Like I said this is basic stuff, rehearsals need to start on time and end on time, a fifteen minute break, not a forty minute break.

CD:   These tired hungry people get more rules.

BY:   Well, they are their because they want to be, some people might not look that way, they might be tired or what ever... but they know they have got to be there for the orchestra. They joke about being late and having their pay docked. People are really excited to be playing, we did Shostakovich's sixth symphony and no one in the orchestra had ever played it, and we communicate our excitement. With the GVO you never feel like your cranking up the machine.

CD:   That is one of my questions, there is little chance that even the major symphonies will be routine to the players. It's not like they do Tchaikovsky several times a year.

BY:   That's right, when I was at Pittsburgh as an assistant, we were going to do Bernstein's Candide Overture, and I remember standing in front of the orchestra and literally opening the book and said Candide Overture and closing the book. OK, well maybe we played it through once. Now that's a really hard overture, really hard, but there is a professional mentality, you could feel it, they know how the work goes. You want a Brahms 1? You want to fiddle with it, tune the trombones, great — here's our Brahms 1.

Major orchestras are sort of like great machines, there were times in Pittsburgh when I felt that was particularly true. Major popular pieces and often played works, like The New World Symphony or Tchaikovsky's 4th. In fact in Pittsburgh I remember doing Tchaikovsky 4 and it was like turning on the engine of a car and taking it for a ride. Try to keep up, give them good tempos and they'll give you a great Tchaikovsky 4.

Interestingly I've done Tchaikovsky's 4th a lot, I've done it here, in Israel, in Europe, and I thought I knew it. Then I come to this orchestra, and suddenly the piece gets harder and more interesting. I think it's because we have to work at it differently, we have to go slowly, take the piece apart and put it back together again, the process makes you examine your choices.

CD:   You've conducted orchestras through out the United States and Europe, are you much different with the way you interact with professional orchestras, or is there any similarity in their behavior?

BY:   There are similarities. The behind the scenes difficulties are the same, we just have fewer zeros to work with on our problems; everyone needs more audiences, everyone needs new ideas... everyone needs exciting programming — I don't see it as so different from the problems that all American orchestras have. I see more difference in issues between American and European orchestras.

CD:   Let's talk about the program a little bit, I did not do my homework on the Chavez.

BY:   The Chavez is a really cool piece. I've always wanted to do it. It sounds a bit like Latin Copland. He was a very prolific Mexican composer and it uses native Indian percussion instruments — a log drum for example.

CD:   You can fit logs on stage but there's no room for a piano?

BY:   Ha, no not exactly, it's a little log. Our percussionist Gerard has it all lined up for us. It's a twelve-minute piece, a fun piece, but it's not easy for us.

We're doing the Tartini Trumpet concerto because I make it known that players who are interested in playing solos should let me know. I have an “mental list” of people who want to solo in the future. Warren is an incredible piccolo trumpet player, he asked me a while ago abut a solo, so when I was planning the season I thought it was time.

And then Dvořák's 7th. It's the most difficult Dvořák symphony, much harder than the 9th, 8th, or 6th for that matter, really hard to play. It's like Brahms. The first movement is like Brahms 3rd, rhythmically very sophisticated.

CD:   And a really exciting piece...

BY:   And it's so bottomless in its emotional impact, this is his darkest symphony. You don't just hear it once and say, yes I've got it. I admit I love all Dvořák.

CD:   Given that it's an all-volunteer orchestra you must have to gage things differently, do you have to think about quality of playing and commitment.

BY:   Sure, you don't say “Here's your contract,” but we attract good people. We have many people who have day jobs, and who could easily play in a regional orchestra. For section player, you have a job and you travel, fine. For our principles, I need the person there.

One of the things I have to do is make this experience fun and interesting for the orchestra, this should be true for any orchestra. It should not be like working in a salt mine. It's a balance, I need to honestly communicate with them — I need to make them play better. I make demands, I have set the bar higher. Many people have responded to this, they know something is happening here.

CD:   You also started Musical Chairs, sort of a cuter, smaller version of endowing a seat in an orchestra.

BY:   GVO President Sunita de Souza thought of it, it's a way to let people support someone they know in the orchestra. It�۪s not a great amount of money, $200.00 and it's your chair.

CD:   Your name and chair are in the program and noted online.

BY:   Yes, just like the majors, but they don't advertise it.

CD:   One thing I noticed, and it's kind of sad, no one has bought a Double Bass chair...

BY:   You know you're right... that's something that should be brought up...

CD:   Well we are going to do something about that right now... After all the work they do — particularly in Sibelius 2. If you are out there and you have any sympathy for the serious strain that playing Double Bass in a Sibelius symphony causes... please for Sibelius for the Double Basses of the Greenwich Village Symphony — buy a chair.

BY:   For Sibelius 2, I was grabbing anyone off the street if they were carrying a bass — please I need at least five Double Bassist for the second movement.

Actually, it's funny that were talking about the Double bass players, because a lot of our Double Bassists are jazz guys who want to play some orchestra, and I love these guys, they have great ears, they're really into it. One of the parts of Sibelius that stands out for the Double Bassists is the pizzicato solo. I told them I need more sound, there aren't eight of you and I need more, and they told me that the way they do pizzicato in jazz is different and could we do that for this symphony, it might make a difference. It's a totally different sound too

CD:   Right I can picture the sound of a jazz Double Bass section.

BY:   It worked beautifully. I've done this symphony a lot with all levels of orchestras, double basses — they are never perfectly together. There are shifts that are very, very, hard even for a great orchestra, and these guys played it really well.

I'll add one more thing about American Orchestras vs. European orchestras. Europeans will ask why do American players look like soldiers when they play? And they are right, if you're in an orchestra here you have to be careful, you can't look too into it, or move around too much as you play. Over there, they are playing and getting into it, moving around and as a conductor it gives you a great feeling, since you're totally into to and you don't feel like “I'm up here going nuts and your out they're soberly playing away.”

It doesn't mean that the music coming out is any different. I think that in Europe they expect a clear beat, but they also expect that you will communicate that thing — I can't put it into words, that feeling. Whereas here, you'd better have a clear beat, or you're dead.

CD:   It sounds like you are a rock and roll sort of conductor...

BY:   I have a lot of respect for some of those guys... you certainly should know what's going on. My stepson is seventeen now, and for years he's been into the guitar and now he's studying music theory, and he's always played songs for me, including a lot of songs from when I was in high school.

CD:   Classic years for those who did not have to live through them...

BY:   But there is music that is really great, not just great for rock, but really great. There is a musical mind that I really respect in some performers.

It's something that I'd like to see more of in classical music — you just go for it. You get off the stage drained and exhausted. Yes, you follow the printed page, and it's technically difficult... but it's not about just playing it perfectly, maybe that's one of the reasons that people don't go to concerts as much.

CD:   Maybe it's a double bind, people don't want to have their expectations changed by an unusual interpretation, and they don't feel that they need to see a piece that was set in stone over a hundred years ago?

You know there is something that jazz or rock and roll can help us with, in classical we don't have a concept of swing. We can say something is good or bad, or we like it, but we need that word — or that awareness.

BY:   In rock you can be imperfect in every way — but you can still be an incredible musician... incredible in the context of rock... and music in general.

CD:   Ha, you have to get into the blues of the 20s and 30s, then you'll hear something imperfect, musical and beautiful.

BY:   We should have that attitude, that excitement. The excitement of a rock concert, I say that because at one time all classical music was fresh and new — and challenged people — the best performances I've ever given are when I can communicate my excitement.

CD:   Ok, and on that note, I'm going to contact the GVO to get the lights and dry ice smoke for the next concert. Thank you, Barbara and see you on the 28th.