In the Gloaming
Milly always dreaded
the Arts in the Schools programs when regional visual artists or dancers or
musicians would come in and either perform in the small, stuffy auditorium—the
students bored to tears, furtively texting. Or the artists might visit
a few classrooms, encouraging questions, which were usually inane, though
mercifully few. Milly would feel sorry for the earnest visitors, trying to spark
interest in disaffected students dumb as bricks. And then she would feel
sorry for her own students, many of whom were not dumb as bricks. It’s just
that most of the class was not college-bound and the smart kids were
easily intimidated by them. In this rural, working class school district,
it was athletics, not art, that scored points with the student body.
The
only time Milly could remember an Arts in the School program that went well was
when Chinese-American poet Da Chen did a presentation on writing and drawing
ideographs. He was funny and bold, assuring them that for Chinese poets it was all
about the drinking—about getting drunk and writing a better poem than your buddy had just written. He cursed in front of them. He played Chinese flute. The kids were rapt.
And when he asked for questions at the end, one student—a student best known
for picking fights and ditching classes—raised his hand immediately.
“Can
I have that?” he asked, referring to the completed ideograph Da Chen had
painted on newsprint. Wordlessly and dramatically, Da Chen peeled off the sheet
of paper, rolled it up and handed it to the kid.
“Now
you write a poem and send it back to
me,” he said, “Your teacher’s got my email address.”
“I
don’t write poems. I write rap,” the kid said.
“What? You don’t think rap’s poetry?” Da Chen asked, “Send me some.”
And
the kid nodded. Milly wondered if he had ever followed through.
Today’s
artist was the conductor of region’s professional orchestra. Turns out the
Hudson Valley Orchestra was a well-regarded group and also well-funded, so they
were able to hire a fairly high-profile conductor. But despite his strengths at
the podium Anders Lanski was no match for high school students. He was known to
do brilliant children’s concerts, getting the little kids to tap out rhythms or
dance or sing along. But the high schoolers weren’t about to tap or whistle or
anything remotely interactive. And though he played bits of very famous
music—“Greensleeves,” the opening bars of “The Nutcracker” and Beethoven’s 5th,
the majority of the students
didn’t seem to recognize any of it. Then he played a UTube clip of one of the
Vienna Philharmonic’s New Year’s concerts, trying to get the students to join
with the audience in the clapping parts of “The Radetzy March.” But the
goofy-looking old white guy conducting a theater full of well-dressed Europeans
just made them laugh. He hit Pause.
He
explained that this was a traditional New Year’s concert performed annually in
Vienna since before WWII. “The Radetzy March” was always played as an encore
and people loved it. It was tradition.
The students’ blank faces didn’t seem to register any importance in that.
“It’s
like reading “Twas the Night Before Christmas” on the night before Christmas,”
he said and Milly had a sense of dread over what was coming next.
Casey
Wiley, home-schooled through eighth grade, raised her hand, “In our house we read
from the Gospel of Luke on Christmas Eve.”
And
yes, she said it with an attitude.
“Look,
the point is,” Anders Lanski said, clearly exasperated, “Musicians and conductors don’t
always like what they have to play or conduct. I don’t like “The Radetzy March,” he went on, “And yeah, maybe
those people clapping look old and stupid to you. But sometimes you have to
play things people want to hear so they’ll continue to support the orchestra.”
Milly
smiled to herself. She admired his honesty. Music is art. But if you want to
play, it also has to be a business.
Anders
must have struck a nerve with the students because they were mildly more polite
after that. And when it came time for Q & A, they actually had questions.
Not terribly intelligent ones. But questions, nonetheless. One girl—a student
in Milly’s sixth period English class--even asked what his early musical
influences were.
“Like
most of you, I listened to what was on the radio. I was in a band--.”
“What’d
you play?” a boy called out.
“Oh,
I played keyboards. My mom had made me take piano lessons from the time I was
really young. She made me practice. I figured getting into a band in high school
was a good way to get even. We rehearsed in our basement. She really hated it.”
The
same boy called out, “I mean songs.
What songs did you play?”
Anders
laughed, “What do you think? Loud ones. You’re probably too young to know
them,” he said, and burst into a pretty good Jim Morrison: “Come on, come on, come on, come on, touch
me baby…Can’t you see that I am not afraid?”
The
teachers all laughed, the students just seemed shocked. This guy was supposed
to be a boring snob.
Then
he channeled Joe Cocker, “Ain’t it high
time we went, ain’t it high time we went?” flailing his arms and shaking
his head. And he finished up his medley with a spot-on Robert Plant, “And she’s buy-uy-ing a stair-air-way to heh-von.”
The teachers began clapping and,
confused, the students joined in.
Another
girl raised her hand, “So why did you stop playing rock?”
