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In Perspective, Fun: Spring Celebration Gala at The Colburn School of Music

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Everyone at the 1800 member student body and the entire faculty, the staff and an army of philanthropic volunteers slave for months to put together a major demonstration of the best works of every part of the giant performing arts school in the Spring of each year. The idea is to celebrate the spring and also to honor an individual whose service to the arts community has been stellar and exemplary. This year it was LA county Supervisor Ed Edelman a scion in the world of movers and shakers who actually make music centers and schools get built. I'll come back to Ed later.

I'll show you what we experienced. Tap your feet, drum on the desk, whistle, do a jig, waltz, salza, jazz and imagine every performance you ever experienced as you look at the pictures, so broad was the program.


While folk were served wine and hors d'oeuvres, a jazz ensemble and tap dance entertained us.


_0014778_Tap dance _600.jpg


Asher Kelman: Denise Scheerer's Tap class at the Trudl Zipper Dance Institute at Colburn.

GXR 50mm Macro f 2.5 unit 12 MP APS-C size sensor used and pop up flash for fill



 
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Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
More to follow, much more when I wake up! You are welcome to comment. The above picture was taken with a GXR and 50mm f2.5 Macro lens unit with an APS-c size sensor.

Asher
 

fahim mohammed

Well-known member
Asher, now I am beginning to tap my feet, drum on desk, move..move..feel, vigor, the beat,
the music, the soul of music.

I can taste the ' grape juice' see the people around me...

I dance with those kids, feel with them, sing with them.

This is music, this is the people that perform it, now you are beginning to capture the essence
of your passion. You sir are moving away from the brochures of a performance to bring to me
the emotion of it, the feel of it. To let me begin to feel what it was to be there with you and them!


Well done.


I'll show you what we experienced. Tap your feet, drum on the desk, whistle, do a jig, waltz, salza, jazz and imagine every performance you ever experienced as you look at the pictures, so broad was the program.


While folk were served wine and hors d'oeuvres, a jazz ensemble and tap dance entertained us.


_0014778_Tap dance _600.jpg


Asher Kelman: Denise Scheerer's Tap class at the Trudl Zipper Dance Institute at Colburn.


 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
When my youngest son was 4 years old, I made him a "cello" out of a cardboard shoe box, some colored string and an arrow from my compound hunting bow, I used for shooting paper targets.

He had a tiny stool he's sit on as he pretended his cello and listened to a tape of Suzuki cello music. He has the promise that if he did this every night for i month he's have a real cello and lessons. A few years later he was ready to graduate from his private teacher to go to The Colburn School, then a kind of satellite program of The University of Souther California, the home of the Bruins, and the location was down town, in a mixture id industry and poverty in an old warehouse type structure. His teacher was Mr's Nancy Yamagata as hse taught cello the Suzuki method.

So all these decades later, imagine that thrill to see this scene on the stage in Zipper Hall in front of a hall packed with paying supporters of this program. I like the system of having kids learn together and getting the language of music from an early age in a way that is non pressured and nurturing of their own free spirits. Notice how the tiny cellos are reflected in the polished wooden floor. The chaps on the left have all the bows down on the floor to make sure they don't start their own concert before their groups turn!


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Asher Kelman: The concert in Zipper Hall began with a performance by the CSPA Suzuki String cellists, led by faculty Carey Beth Hockett, Susan Weisner and Nancy Yamagata.

Ricoh GXR 50mm 2.5 Macro lens unti with APS-C size sensor 12 MP f2.8, 1/60 sec -1.3 EV exposure Compensation to account for overhead lights ISO 400




After the cellos, in marched the choirs though every entrance on the stage and the various 4 doors around the auditorium. Singers lined the aisles and in front of the stage and sang one piece after another, each child having a glow, knowing they were making something beautiful together. What I liked was that the gap between the supporters of the school and the students was obliterated. The audience didn't have to look elsewhere, there was no space to traverse as the kids were all around each of them.


_0014844_CSPA Choir.jpg


Asher Kelman: Colburn Children's Choir and Young Men's Chorus, led by director Mikhail Shtangrud, covered Zipper Hall with the sweet sounds of song

Ricoh GXR 50 mm Macro lens f2.5, hand held



The Colburn Conservatory Brass, on high balconies, (A. David Krehbiel and Mark Lawrence, co-directors) heralded the audience with a performance of Gabrieli's Canzon Duodecimi Toni. Brass is the sound of royal calls, the hunt, the dances of the court of King Henry The 8th, marching bands and of course jazz. In the orchestra it is the rallying voice that come above the sounds of the strings and woodwinds to being force, royalty and brute strength to the composition. But brass can be simply melodic and is always grand and it's royal roots are never ever totally lost or hidden.


HI6E9403 Brass Right Hand Balcony_600.jpg


Asher Kelman: The Colburn Conservatory Brass, right balcony

Canon 1DII 70-200 2.8 L IS, handheld f3.5 -0.7 EV exposure compensation ISO 800,






HI6E9396 Brase Left hand Balcony.jpg


Asher Kelman: The Colburn Conservatory Brass, left balcony

Canon 1DII 70-200 2.8 L IS, handheld f3.5 -0.7 exposure compensation ISO 800



 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
One group came after the other in waves of overlapping performance, so the chain of action was never broken. The dance cannot be shown because of respect for licensing issues but the dancers were fabulous and you have seen them before here on OPF.


Back to cello. We saw the little tots and young kids playing cello, the Suzuki method. 14 to 18 years later, such munchkins and menaces have absorbed thousands of hours of Bach, Dvorjak, Mozart and so much more. The very best of the very, very best get to come to The Conservatory of Music at The Colburn School on Grand Avenue Los Angeles, down the road from the Music Center, the Walt Disney Concert Hall and the LA Court House. These unusually talented and devoted musicians are at the extreme leading edge of the spectrum of musical achievement and virtuosity. These are the students of Ron Leonard. They come from Shanghai, Perth, or Yerevan and every other major region of the world to learn with Mr. Leonard. They are there to have transferred to them the polish of expression and performance that comes from a lineage of classical pedagogues and arrives to them via Mr. Leonard bring to them that legacy. Music played is not just the notes on the score. It's what's not there, what's between the marks and what must come from the intuition, insight, musicality and creative expression of such fine teachers. Anyone can seem to be "very good" if they practice enough to get the notes right. However, such "anyones" cannot get into Colburn Conservatory! Being "very good" is not what this program is about. It's about finding the students able to undergo the demanding focus to enable them to find within themselves the magic to allow development of rock solid virtuosity without loss of damaging passion. The excellent faculty bring to the already gifted students the finest form, discipline, tenacity, endurance, understanding of the repertoire and ability to express their own passion on the DNA of the classical music, even written last year or centuries ago.

I see these great teachers, solitary figures, legends in the music community, working so late at night, allowing a student to prepare for a recital or competition and giving that extra help. So seeing Mr. Leonard, for example, is not just seeing a great teacher, it's also seeing a man who has not an ounce of hubris and is one of the most generous human beings I have had the honor to meet... and he puts up with me an my camera!

This occasion the cellists on stage are joined by a performer who could just as easily be mistaken for a Vogue model or for her lassic beauty. Well she's far too elevated and accomplished for that! Soprano Valerie Vinzant (from Los Angeles Opera's Domingo-Thornton Young Artist Program) added her beautiful pure silk voice to the absolutely astounding talents of the Conservatory Cello Ensemble. Director Ronald Leonard is one of the most modest gifted men I have met and these students are the beneficiaries. The audience was entranced with the Aria from Villa-Lobos's Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5.

HI6E9457 Chamber Orchestra and Singer.jpg


Asher Kelman: Soprano Valerie Vinzant and the Conservatory Cello Ensemble

Canon 1DII 70-200 2.8 L IS, handheld at 135mm 1/64, f3.5 -0.7 EV exposure compensation at ISO 800
 

John Angulat

pro member
Great images once again!
I especially enjoy the depth of the narrative that accompanies the photos.
Another month or so, and we'll know these gifted children by first name!
Thanks for continuing to share this journey.
 
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