Stereotypes

You know that scene in Finding Nemo where the other fish ask Marlin to tell them a joke because he's a clownfish and supposed to be funny?  He can't remember how the joke goes and kind of fumbles around for a minute while the fish realize that the only thing funny about him is his color pattern.  Story of my life.

I'm not really good at the stereotypical joke.  The only knock knock joke I know is the "orange" one and that's so overdone, the joke isn't as funny as the fact that I'm still trying to use it.  When it gets to the joke-telling point of the party, I usually excuse myself to use the restroom and let the rest of the guests think that I have irregular bowel movements while I play Angry Birds in a stall.  That's the real joke.

But there is one exception, I know a lot of music jokes.  A lot of music jokes.  I know a ton of music puns (although I have had to take notes on some of them), can manipulate the composers names to an almost unrecognizable degree (mosquitoes that buzz in tune can sometimes give you a bad case of Mahler-ia), and I know the method, time, equipment, and number of every instrumentalist needed to screw in a lightbulb.

I think my favorite kind of jokes would have to be conductor jokes.  They are the pinnacle of musician jokes.  Quite honestly, it's a bit unfair to the conductor.  At least with different instruments, there's a community with some people who can maybe stand up for you.  Conductors though are like the Rosa Parks against the entire New York Subway system.  You see, with conductors there's this egotistical, self-praising stereotype that surrounds them.  And oh, is it comic gold.  Tell me, what's the difference between God and a conductor?  God knows He's not a conductor.  Hehe, good stuff.

The sad thing is that our orchestra director, James Ross, who is preparing us before Valery Gergiev arrives, doesn't fit this stereotype.  You can't make the jokes if they aren't at least partially based on real life.  It's really rough.

He has played a gigantic part in making NYO a wonderful experience for me.  His conducting is clear and easy to follow but he's so expressive in his movements.  Really, if you watch him even half as closely as all of England is watching Kate's pregnancy, you will get everything you need to know from his conducting.  

And that's not even the part that makes him a great conductor.  He's so invested in us as a group of young adults and so ready to answer our questions and get to know us, as people and as musicians.  The first thing he said to me after I introduced myself was that he "remembered my audition video."  What?!?  Flabbergasted, I stopped myself from saying "you too" because I doubt he'd have made an audition video and even if he had, I don't think he would have believed that I had the authority to watch it.  Not sure why.  All I could muster as a response was, "Um...thanks."  What I'd meant to say is "can we be friends forever?"  But, I'm kind of glad I didn't blurt that out right away.

Throughout the week, he was given the task of getting 120 kids to take their own musical opinions and blend them into one idea.  It's a miracle to get two teenagers to agree on a fast food restaurant for lunch.  This undertaking should be the premise of the next James Bond movie.  But here's the real catch, the musical idea that he was trying to get us to agree on, he doesn't even know it yet.  Since he won't be our tour conductor, he has to prepare us for Valery Gergiev's idea of the program, not his own.  If Maestro Ross had been the stereotypical conductor I mentioned before, there was no way this could work.  How do you prepare for the unexpected if you can't telepathically communicate with the conductor that will be taking over.  But, somehow he did it.  Not only has our improvement as an orchestra been exponential, but it's been strategically exponential.  We aren't reliant on him and instead have decided that if we want to stay with the conductor, then we have to stay together first.  We tried different tempos, different conducting styles, and at the full concert run through we did today on our last rehearsal together, I think we could all hear how much it paid off.  

On the first day, he pronounced himself as our "surrogate daddy" and today revisited this by saying that like every good parent he has to "let us fly" out of the nest.  And I know that it may have been his goal to make us independent and flexible so that when Gergiev arrives, we could continue to make leaps and bounds in our progress, but I think that he might have failed a little bit.  Because as much as I am looking forward to the experience and tour ahead of us with Gergiev and Joshua Bell, I can't help but think that I'll continue to take a glance every now and then back to our time with James Ross.  So, I think that could be considered failing in a good way.

Because of all the fun I've had this week, I looked him up and read his biography.  Turns out, he's not just a conductor, but was a solo horn player with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra while studying with Kurt Masur.

It all makes sense now.  

He's a horn player.  That's why he's so awesome.