Friday, February 21, 2014

Remembering Harry Begian


My friend and colleague Greg Clemons is active on Facebook and for "throw back Thursday" posted this photo of Harry Begian, the legendary band director.




That brought back so many memories I decided to choose Dr. Begian as the subject of this week's blog entry.

I met Harry Begian for the first time in 1979. I was auditioning for graduate school at the University of Illinois, and the percussion professor Tom Siwe, noticing that I had played in bands at Michigan State, told me that if I were willing to play timpani in the symphonic band, I could audition for Begian and (if successful) get a band scholarship.  I thought the language of the possibility seemed a little strange, ("willing to play"?), but since I would need a scholarship regardless of where I went to school I said yes I'd definitely be interested. Playing in band was a normal part of life for me and, like many young musicians, especially in the midwest and definitely in the rural midwest, my earliest experiences as an instrumentalist (except for private lessons with my Dad) were in public school music.  

If I remember correctly, Tom made a call over to the band office, arranged for me to play, and sent me over to the band building, which was in a separate location from the rest of the music school, walking distance of course (the Illinois campus is pretty centralized), but I know I couldn't help wondering about why the band had a separate building and also why there seemed to be more than just a physical distance between the band and the rest of the school. I could sense this from the very beginning and later that distance was both confirmed and amplified during my year in residency at Illinois. My audition for Dr. Begian (no one I know ever called him by his first name) went well, although he must have been somewhat taken aback by what I played--Improvisation by Elliott 
Carter--and I was offered the scholarship on the spot. After the audition we went back to his office, which was an amazing space and even had a shower installed. Anyone who played under Dr. Begian knew why it was there--he was usually drenched in sweat after rehearsals.  He talked to me about Michigan State University, how much he had loved the school and what a dream it had been to be chosen as Leonard Falcone's successor. Then he asked me where I went to high school. When I told him I came from Leslie, Michigan he said, "Well, that's proof talent can find its way out of anywhere."

After graduation, I packed up for a summer playing percussion with the Santa Fe Opera, an amazing opportunity for a twenty-year-old just out of undergraduate school. Mark Johnson, my professor at Michigan State was the timpanist, and Michael Udow (who was teaching at the University of Missouri--Kansas City at the time) was the principal percussionist. Things have changed now I'm sure but back then there were only two of us playing all the parts so Mike had to make "arrangements" of big pieces so we could cover everything. Can you imagine Salome played by two percussionists and timpani? I can! We also performed the U.S. premiere of the completed three-act version of Alban Berg's Lulu, which was conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas. That reminds me of a story. My future plan was to be an orchestra player and when I wasn't performing I spent the rest of my time practicing for an audition with the Grand Rapids Symphony (Bill Vits won that job and still holds the position). During one practice session, I was working on Stravinsky's Les Noces when I heard a knock on the door. When I opened it there was Michael Tilson Thomas! He said, "That's not the right tempo. Would you like me to conduct you through it?" And so he did. What a memory: both his ability to conduct me through Les Noces from memory like that, (it's not exactly in the standard repertoire after all), and the memory of me playing playing Lulu under his direction as well as that Les Noces excerpt in the practice room.

I mention this as a prelude to my arrival at the University of Illinois, one week late because the opera season goes through the end of August. I had that preapproved of course, but during my first rehearsal with the band, Dr. Begian stopped conducting, looked directly at me with that stare everyone calls "the beam" and said, "This may be your first look at this piece but we've been working on it for a week. I want to see you in my office after rehearsal." Had he forgotten why I arrived late?

I entered his office with fearful trepidation--the first of many times I experienced fear in Dr. Begian's presence; in fact I was pretty much in fear every time I was in his presence--waiting for him to come out of the shower. When he came out he smiled, shook my hand, and said, "How was the Santa Fe Opera? What was Tilson-Thomas like?" Turned out, I had worried for nothing and he wasn't mad at all. However, a seed had been planted that lived and grew for the entire year I played in his band. I never, ever wanted to see that look on his face directed at me again. And I knew (first intuitively, later by experience) that if I ever made a mistake in rehearsal or concert (it didn't really matter since rehearsals and concerts were all performances for him) I'd get that look.  And that he would never forget.

Conductors can no longer behave that way in front of any ensemble, professional or student. Fear as a motivator is no longer how music gets made, at least not directly in the hands of any conductor I'm aware of.  And even then, with many conductors still using intimidation as a means of establishing discipline and order, Dr. Begian was legendary for his dictatorial ways. When I arrived, very few music majors played in the Symphonic Band. That's why Tom Siwe had asked if I was "willing." There was only one other percussionist in Tom's studio, my good friend John Leister, who played in the band when I did. Most majors instead played in the wind ensemble under the direction of the trombone professor Dr. Robert Gray.  Dr. Begian was quite open about his resentment that this was the case, at least he was with me. I remember him telling me once about how he had received a phone call from a band director at a top music school, asking about a musician who was being considered for a teaching position there. Begian told the director, "I can't tell you anything about him. He never played in my band." "What?" the band director said. "Went to Illinois and didn't play in your band? I can't believe it." Begian then said to me, "This happens all the time. Someone is a candidate for a job and who do they call? The one person they know at Illinois. Me. And I don't know those candidates because they never play in my band." Sure enough. When I applied for my job at the University of New Mexico, who did they call? That's right, Harry Begian.

I worshipped the man. He scared me to death but I loved him. I'd never played under the direction of anyone like him and I wanted to be like him too. So, with no prior experience, I asked Dr. Begian if I could take his conducting class, which I found out later was created for graduate students of his who were majoring in wind conducting. Actually I did have some conducting experience, one experience to be exact. I conducted "Coat of Arms" at graduation, following a tradition that all band seniors could conduct a march of their choice at spring commencement. "Coat of Arms" was my favorite march then, I loved playing it in high school, and it is still one of my favorites today. I'm pretty sure Stanley DeRusha, who was Director of Bands at the time I graduated, was not happy with my choice. He didn't like marches anyway I could tell but this march, a march only played by small town high school bands like the one I played in? Well, I think it's great and here's a YouTube link so you can listen for yourself, played about as well as I remember my high school band playing it, and it is the only link that is at the right (fast) tempo:


Dr. Begian said yes so I joined the conducting class, meeting many fine students who have since gone on to successful conducting careers. Dr. Begian spent most of the class telling stories. He especially liked to talk about wind ensemble conductors, their arrogance, their predilection for turtlenecks, (Begian instead wore polo shirts, usually Illini orange and blue), and how one instrument on a part was not conducive to the repertoire, which he believed was best served by a large symphonic band. My favorite wind ensemble story involved his nemesis, Frederick Fennell, whom he talked about, and not favorably, a lot. I made the mistake once of bringing in a Fennell recording for one of my conducting lessons, an excellent Eastman Wind Ensemble recording of Schoenberg's Theme and Variations, and he was so furious he went up to his shelf and handed me an Illinois recording. "Use that from now on," he said. End of lesson. Anyway, back to the story, which happened not long after he had been appointed Director of Bands at Michigan State University. Begian had invited Frederick Fennell to be a guest and at the first rehearsal, Fennell asked Begian to conduct the piece through so he could have some idea of what had already been accomplished in rehearsal and take it from there. After Begian finished, Fennell took the podium, closed the score, put it on the floor and said, "We won't be needing that," and conducted the rest of the rehearsal from memory. Begian was furious, and, according to him, this was when the rivalry began.

One of my favorite Begian stories, I've told it many times over the years, originates during another one of those class sessions.  He was giving us all advice about being a conductor and making priorities, "God first, family second, music third," he said and then told us that after a concert, no matter what goes wrong, "you have to let it go and move on. Otherwise it will just eat at you, become an obsession." At that time, I was conducting Hindemith's Symphony in B-flat, a piece I would later analyze for my final (I still have it), using a University of Illinois recording under Begian's direction, as I had learned you dare not do otherwise. During my private lesson, Fridays at 8:00 AM,  (although I usually could never get up that early I was never late), I started to conduct the second movement, which begins with a very exposed duet between trumpet and saxophone. There is some trouble in the recording with the trumpet playing, and when that trouble was heard, Begian stormed over to the turntable, pulled the needle off the disk, and in that inimitable husky voice of his quietly roared, "how could he make that mistake? Completely ruined a great recording." So much for letting go and moving on! He then put another record on the turntable and I finished my conducting lesson by listening to the recording he made of the Hindemith with his high school band. In fact he told me that Cass Tech High School, under Begian's direction one of the greatest high school bands ever, did the Michigan premiere of the first movement of the Hindemith, after which (according to Begian) William Revelli at Michigan finally gave the complete Michigan premiere. Apparently Revelli did not like the piece but refused to be "upstaged" by a high school band.  Here's a link for the second movement, from that amazing performance of the Hindemith performed by Begian and the Cass Tech band:


I've always loved the music of Percy Grainger but there's just no way to emphasize enough how my feelings about Grainger's music deepened through performing his band music under the direction of Harry Begian. Every band director has their own way around this music but I am guessing that no one ever approaches Grainger's music without first listening to Begian's legendary Grainger recordings. Of all the pieces I studied with Dr. Begian, Grainger's Colonial Song was my favorite and I consider it to be Grainger's minor masterpiece. This is the recording of it I used for my lessons:


When I was writing Openings, the band piece I finished in 2009, and dedicated to my father who was himself a band person having studied with Sousa drummer Frank Perne and playing in the Michigan State University Band when Leonard Falcone was the director, Grainger's Colonial Song was ever present, the score sitting at my piano and the music always in my ear, even becoming the intentional source of how the last movement "Ear" ends, so if one wanted, you could without pause have Colonial Song immediately follow. Here's the last movement of Openings so you can hear for yourself how the two pieces fit together:


I always told Eric Rombach-Kendall, Director of Bands at the University of New Mexico, that before I retired I wanted to conduct Colonial Song, which unfortunately didn't happen but is something I still hope to do in the future.

There are many stories out there about how brutal Harry Begian could be in rehearsals.  And no remembrance of him is complete without drawing attention to that side. One time in particular I will never forget. We were preparing for a tour in mid-Michigan, essentially a homecoming for Dr. Begian, (for me as well of course), and we all knew these performances were a rare chance for Michigan band directors and students to hear the great Harry Begian conduct the famous University of Illinois Symphonic Band. The program was very difficult and, as usual, mostly transcriptions. I don't like transcriptions and, as my former percussion students know, I refused to ever program anything not originally composed for percussion, even though we had a marimba ensemble where it would have made sense to program transcriptions following in the great Guatemalan tradition. Instead we played exclusively traditional Mexican and Guatemalan marimba music and the ragtime xylophone repertoire. I will continue with this subject momentarily. For now, back to the story at hand. 

We were rehearsing the Aegean Festival Overture by Andreas Makris which, if you don't know it, you can listen to here:


The piece has a very exposed bassoon solo and just days before we left on tour, the bassoonist, accompanied by me on timpani and (probably) John Leister on snare with the snares off, was having some trouble. Dr. Begian stopped and had the student, who like most of the band was not a music major, play by himself.  Not good. "Try again," Begian said. "Again." And "again." Several times. After which Begian, with that terrifying glare of his, finally looked at the student (the "beam," remember) and said "What on earth is wrong?" The student replied, "I'm playing on a new bassoon." Begian: "Why would you do that now?" "I did it for you, so I would sound good on the tour," the student replied. The tension in the room was unbearable. "Well, that was a terrible mistake," (emphasis not mine) Begian fumed, standing there in silence just looking at him. We were all horrified and I've never felt so sorry for a student in my entire life.

I assume the student got his old bassoon back (what else could he possibly do after that?) because the tour went splendidly. The finale of every concert was one of Begian's favorite closers, Respighi's Pines of Rome, in a brilliant transcription by Guy Duker who wrote many of the great transcriptions I played when I was at Illinois. They were always in the original key so if you learned the part you essentially had learned what you might someday play in an orchestra, at least if you were a percussionist like me. I think that's the reason I never minded playing transcriptions at Illinois. And you were performing under someone who really should have been an orchestral conductor anyway. Begian had studied conducting at Tanglewood before he began his professional career as a band director and he had also conducted opera when he was at Cass Tech. I can tell you this: I've played the Pines of Rome many times but it never, ever sounded as good as those performances with Harry Begian. When we played in Charlotte, Michigan, my parents came to the concert and it was so close to home I actually spent the night with them afterward. The Pines drew incredible ovations everywhere we went but that night in Charlotte was by far the best.  And the fact of that just seems to capture what I loved more than anything about Harry Begian: making music had nothing to do with whether you were playing a concert or a rehearsal, whether you were playing in Carnegie Hall or Charlotte, Michigan. The music itself, the making of it, is what mattered. And it mattered so much that, no matter what, you had to push as far as possible to make it absolutely great. 

Many people suffered getting there, and I suspect he suffered the most of all. But was it worth it? I guess nowadays people would say no it's not worth it and I certainly can't speak for anyone else who was there at the time. But for me? Yes it was. Absolutely worth it. Listening to the Respighi again, in this great recording now available through the American Bandmasters Association (link below),


I'm guessing the musicians who performed on the recording would have said it was worth it too. Playing under the direction of Dr. Harry Begian was an incredible experience. For me, there has been nothing like it before or since. Here's a link so you can hear Begian conducting the last movement of the Pines of Rome:


I wonder if that's me playing timpani?

I went all year playing in the University of Illinois Symphonic Band without making a single mistake, terrified that I would at every rehearsal and every concert. And at the end of the year, not long after we returned from our tour of mid-Michigan, I asked Dr. Begian if he would sign a picture of himself and give it to me as a gift. It is one of my most treasured possessions. 


Monday, February 17, 2014

Nicholas Kristof and the Public Intellectual

A difficult week to blog, with my essay "The Dialectics of Experimentalism," accepted for publication in Perspectives of New Music but in need of editing prior, something I've been struggling with for months. And now another deadline is approaching, an essay I'm writing about composer/theorist Robert Morris due the beginning of March.  Those who know me well know how much I hate deadlines. However, those same people also know I need them as otherwise I edit and edit and edit and edit. Eventually somebody, usually one of my editors, just has to pull the plug. I mention these two projects (I have others as well) because I want to draw attention briefly to what I'm working on in relation to a really bad editorial written by Nicholas Kristof this past Sunday, "Professors We Need You," which I'll link below:


I can't spend too much time with this for a couple of reasons: first I'm too busy, like many other serious scholars and artists, to devote myself to the practice of being the "public intellectual" Kristof wants more of us to be. And while in a sense this blog is meant to address that (in fact I've always wanted to have time to be someone who could write journalistically about various subjects that matter to me outside of my specialized interests), I also made a decision, that I've tried to keep so far, of not delving too deeply into current events, saving that for my occasional rants on Facebook and even then limiting those to issues I see as not partisan: like voter suppression; media bias--not "liberal," which it seems to me is an intentional figment of the conservative imagination to confuse people--but instead bias rooted in bought and paid for propaganda masquerading as "conservative" journalism; and the issue of "gun rights," the discussion of which I believe almost exclusively tramples upon my rights as a citizen not "to bear arms." I believe these issues are so basic to our lives in this threatened democracy that it can't help but have an effect on all we do, whether we be artists, writers, factory workers or whatever. So I share those opinions in public media when I read about things I find especially egregious. But still I resist it here in this blog, as I do with many of my deeply held and carefully thought out opinions on what is going on in the world. Being an informed citizen matters to me and I use what I learn every day. But I want this blog, whether I write about things such as movies and concerts, or more typically actual research projects either finished or in process, to always be informed by careful examination, with me writing from an informed perspective where I feel I have enough expertise to hopefully have something interesting to say.

And this is what upset me so much about Kristof's editorial, something that neatly fits with the "neo-liberal" nonsense going on at most state universities even as the wealthy and privileged at our nation's best private institutions still demand (and get) the highest quality professors doing the most important, detailed and (dare I say) complex research activity possible in their chosen fields. That's the world I write and work in, did so for my entire 30-plus year career at the University of New Mexico, and now devote myself to full-time as an Emeritus Professor. If we were to take Kristof seriously, should all of us drop any research projects that do not directly concern the general populace, or at least reorient our research so that it can be understood without the usual training required in the various disciplines concerning language typically part of those specified discourses? This seems dangerously close to the kind of thing I'm often reading about concerning professors who teach primarily at state universities, where the emphasis is not so much on sharing what you know with students but instead being responsible for making sure they learn what you are teaching and that what you teach should be relevant to their needs as students and (worse) as "citizens." This is truly scary stuff and I have strong opinions regarding the damage this causes, especially when you consider the fact that talented students who cannot afford to go to top private institutions are being cheated out of the education they used to be able to get when they came in contact with leading scholars and artists whose jobs were about the sharing of their expertise with students who wanted to learn to do what their professors do. This is often an apprenticeship atmosphere and when I've experienced it with talented students, the results have without exception been wonderful for both professor and student alike. It's one of the few things I miss from my university teaching days.

That said, I don't want to be seen as defending the unintelligibility of what sometimes passes as academic prose, and in fact I've often criticized it myself, but I think this argument is not really up-to-date and the writing I'm in contact with lately is much better in that regard. In fact, I'll use myself as an example, referring back to my opening paragraph, which I included for this purpose. My essay "The Dialectics of Experimentalism" is written in prose as clear as I was able to produce at the time and many of my colleagues have already read it informally and offered me excellent comments and advice. During the review process I received some pretty strong criticism regarding the clarity of what I had written, with the desire of both having it be more focused as well as making sure my own point of view was stated throughout. My usual attempt at objectivity was questioned, legitimately I think, as being suspect due to the fact that the subject I was writing about was/is something I not only study but in which I am also a participant. I have struggled mightily working on this and think I've finally found a solution acceptable to both my editor and me.  The result will be, I believe, a far superior essay than had I just put it out there without going through the process of peer review.

I think one must be very careful when reading criticism concerning the academic necessities of "publish or perish" and the peer review process that helps determine the quality of both the research presented as well as the value attached to the place where it is published. This is but one area where I take strong exception to Kristof's point of view, a view he shares with many by the way. There are flaws in peer review and we've all experienced them first-hand. However, some criticism of the system can also be attributed to sour grapes by scholars who do not produce research the peer review system deems as meritorious and worthy of publication. Of course mistakes get made and equally there are some ruthless power brokers out there who intentionally keep excellent research from finding its way through the peer review process. I understand that and am sympathetic. But as someone who does not like to write reviews for journals (as I've written about before) I frequently review articles and books for publication purposes and rarely, if ever, turn down a request to do so. I consider it my duty as a scholar to assist in helping discover great new work that deserves to published, assist authors when the work is not yet ready to be published but could be if changes are made, and assist the profession when an essay does not deserve publication at all. I've experienced all three of these possibilities when I review. If this is not something meant to be read by a general audience so be it. I do not feel, nor have I ever felt, beholden to the community at large whether that be when I compose a piece of music or write academic prose. My obligation is to the discipline I've chosen to study and I write for that community. It may be the case (and in fact often is) that there is overlap where what I've written can be of interest to others who are not part of the specialized world where I live and work. And here's an example of that, something I heard today on Terry Gross's "Fresh Air," which I would hope qualifies as a vehicle for things that might be of general interest, a review of a new book about Henry David Thoreau. You can listen to the review here:


Sounds like an interesting book and I'll probably read it. But notice where the reviewer mentions what made the book interesting to her, even though she remains unconvinced about Thoreau and his work overall, that being the point where she mentions Thoreau's shift from the Romantic idea of writing about nature in a symbolic way and instead writing about it scientifically, or as I would put it, "experimentally." Well, this is certainly old news to Thoreau scholars, going way back to the 1980s, and while I don't have a problem with popularizers getting credit for something that seems novel to reviewers on radio shows, I do want to point out that I have spent years researching this and it represents one pole of how I approach all of musical experimentalism, a subject that has been my specialization as scholar and artist from the very beginning of my professional career. If you are interested in learning more, it can be found in my book "Silencing the Sounded Self" for which I'll put a link here:


I very often talk about finding universals through the particulars, borrowing from William Carlos Williams who, in turn, probably borrowed from James Joyce and, in any case, it is an idea that's been around for a very long time. And here's a case where that is true. My particulars concerning Thoreau, building on the research of my predecessors, finds its way into a popular study about Thoreau being reviewed on a popular radio program. That is, in my opinion, what should be the typical role of scholarship in the world at large. There will be occasional exceptions where scholars more directly engage with the world regarding current events, one obvious example would be the great economist Paul Krugman writing for the New York Times. But look at the vilification he receives for doing so. You would think anyone off the street knows more than this Nobel prize winning professor who teaches at Princeton University, one of this country's most prestigious academic institutions. At least Kristof mentions the long history of anti-intellectualism in this country as influencing scholars who might not want to follow Krugman's path. I know I wouldn't.


Inserting the personal is not something I'm entirely comfortable with but lately, and maybe this approaches something closer to what Kristof would want scholars like myself to do more often, I'm being asked to write in a style that includes my point of view in very direct ways. After I finish this blog entry I'll be devoting myself, as mentioned at the beginning, to an appreciation of Robert Morris, especially as it relates to our shared interest in the natural world and how this finds its way into what we create. I'm going to struggle with that too. But I certainly would rather struggle with difficult projects like what I've described, in the hope that I might come up with something useful, not just currently, but with any luck something that might even last longer than the usefulness of Kristof's attempt to denigrate the important work of scholars and artists who, like me, do not look at what we do as a product meant to reach as many people as possible. I want instead to reach those people who are interested in what I do. And, believe it or not, over time they usually find my work, read it, learn from it, and (often) add their own perspective to it.  This may not be good enough for Nicholas Kristof; but it is definitely good enough for me.

Sunday, February 9, 2014

Steven Schick Superstar


I've known Steve Schick since the 1980s, when I was myself still an active percussionist, and I have fond memories of those days, especially associated with great concerts of whatever new music he was learning at the time, but also of intense conversations about music, literature, good food and drink, and so on. His sense of personal style is something I also remember and that still is certainly the case. As someone who has been wearing a flannel shirt over a T-shirt and jeans since graduate school, I've always admired his taste, whether it be his choice of shoes--were they always Italian? Regardless I remember nothing but leather--or even more noticeable his designer eyewear, which seems to be different every time I see him. In other words, a stylish and classy guy who also happens to be one of his generation's greatest musicians. That he is also a percussionist, well, maybe this seems not so unusual now with so many fine percussionists working as conductors (Steve does too nowadays), becoming composers (which is, in addition to writing, what I do now), or just participating as percussionists in a world that accepts percussion music as not just normal but often with an appreciation of it as something really spectacular. But back when I was a student, which is only few years later than when Steve was a student, percussionists were definitely, and especially in the United States, decidedly in the "back of the bus" musically, often literally, as one still sees in bands and orchestras everywhere. Steve and I remained in touch when I stopped being a percussionist and I really appreciated that contact. In fact, when he invited me to be part of his Roots and Rhizomes festival at UCSD in 2005 it was the beginning of what has since become a percussive "reawakening" for me that I've written about elsewhere.

I'm writing this as an introduction to what follows, a response to the two-concert retrospective Steve did at the Miller Theater last week. You can see what Steve had to say about the concert, and about solo percussion, here:


I'm sometimes embarrassed by the overflow of emotion in written prose, at least as it finds its way into my writing, which I make sure it rarely does. And I sat on what I wrote below all week, thinking through my feelings about sharing such a personal reaction to what was a set of concerts that ranks up there with the very best I've ever seen. As I've written in a recent post, I've been to tons of concerts so that's really saying something. Anyway, Steven Schick definitely is a superstar in my book and I certainly don't intend the use of "god" as in any way connected to acts of worship--more in line with the famous example of 60s-London graffiti: "Eric Clapton is god." Yes, it is exactly in this sense, and I'm guessing with the same passion that listener felt about a Clapton performance, that I offer the following, written one day after the concert series was over.

Steven Schick Superstar

If the rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar portrayed Jesus as a man, let's have this blog portray Steven Schick as a god. Of percussion that is, or even more specifically, as this is where he began: a god of solo percussion, a category Steve proclaimed this past Friday (during a panel discussion) as possibly "dead." I'll have more to say about that in a later blog entry. For now let's just say this: not as long as Steven Schick is alive, that's for sure, and his two concerts at Columbia University's Miller Theater last Thursday and Saturday were living proof, a virtuosically performed overview of Steven's place in the pantheon of percussion history and whose participation these many years played a large role in bringing percussion, for better and worse, into the forefront (better) and mainstream (worse) of music today.  I'm going to write about this latter category at another time and concentrate here solely on the former.

After the panel discussion mentioned above I complimented Steve on his performance of Stockhausen's Zyklus, which I've heard him play many times. Here's a performance of him playing it that I found on YouTube:

Steven Schick performing Zyklus by Karlheinz Stockhausen

His Miller Theater performance of Zyklus was among the very best I've ever heard. He told me he had "played the Stockhausen maybe eight hundred times at least," but hadn't played it in the last ten years. He'd performed Xenakis's Psappha, also on the program, "even more."  Here's a video of Schick playing Psappha:

Steven Schick performing Psappha by Iannis Xenakis

During the Friday panel discussion Aiyun Huang, one of Schick's former students and now a professor teaching percussion at McGill, commented about how the percussive "standards" on the first concert were written for young men in their twenties and Steve, at sixty, was still playing them. She meant this as, and I'm sure it was taken as, a compliment. Truthfully, I know of no other person who played (or plays) these pieces in later years. It was quite extraordinary for me, someone not that much younger that Steve, to see him not only perform these pieces, in and of itself a major accomplishment, but add new insights into these pieces--a new awareness of what something like Zyklus and Psappha compositionally is and how these are both great compositions deep enough to allow for interpretive change over time. Like comparing Alfred Brendel's Beethoven piano sonata recordings, early and late, both have their merits; both are necessary to a complete understanding of Beethoven and Brendel. Same here: Zyklus and Psappha have many interpreters and interpretations. But how rare it is to hear Steve Schick's interpretations of Zyklus and Psappha, having myself heard them not hundreds but certainly dozens of times, and hear those pieces as a history of piece and player combined. As great as the YouTube performances of Steve playing Zyklus and Psappha obviously are, my memory of Steve playing these pieces last week will be the performances that stick with me. Definitive then has, for me, become definitive now. You could hear the history of those eight hundred performances, the power of that accumulation, in what Steve played last weekend. As I'm sure anyone who was there will tell you, it was an unforgettable experience.

Borrowing from Christian fundamentalists, not only is Steve Schick a god, but an "awesome god," who "reigns from heaven above." The real question to ask is, with Steve still going strong at sixty, who dares ascend to the throne? Any takers? I didn't think so. So Steve, in response to your wonderful performance last week, let me quote the words of another young man who performed virtuosically in his twenties, and whom I wish was still interpreting his own "standards":

"Sing on brother, play on drummer."

"If Six was Nine" by the Jimi Hendrix Experience