Jerry Junkin

How are you, Michael? And everyone.

Correct.

Right. Mm-hmm.

Right.

Actually, the one in Hong Kong, I'm the Music Director, the Artistic Director and conductor. And in Japan, it's a and that group in Hong Kong is a professional group, but in Japan, it's I'm affiliated with Sinzoku Gakuen College of Music, so I'm a visiting professor there.

Well, in one way or another, it will open on August the 24th, but it remains to be seen, you know, what that's going to look like. Uh, and I just late, well, yeah, last night, talked with my colleagues in Japan about things are canceled there for a while, you know, everything is canceled everywhere. Had a phone message from Hong Kong this morning. So, and in Dallas, of course, we're all in the same boat, all around the world. So, no one is alone in this.

Um, you know, it's been a mixture and I I've been asked that, uh, a lot, obviously, because it's and for I would say the first two to three weeks after this all began in March, going into April, I was nervous and antsy and feeling like I was supposed to be on a plane. I was supposed to be going somewhere and I had this uh stack of scores, it's now out of camera range, but to the side, which was all the scores of the upcoming concerts, you know, uh, though so there were two in Dallas, one in Austin. We had just finished a concert in Austin on March the 6th. That was our final concert before the crisis, but the pandemic hit. And so, um, I had another UT concert, two in Dallas, one in Hong Kong, you know, engagements during the summer. So all that stack of scores I would like to tell you I was really industrious and I've, you know, was delving into more music, but that stack of scores is sitting where it was. Uh, and you know, the programs that have been planned for the coming year are either being postponed or canceled. So there's just nothing imminent right at the moment. So, I would like to tell you I've been I've been memorizing all these pieces that I know I'm going to be, but I don't know when I'm going to be able to do them. So, I've been catching up on a lot of stuff. Our house looks great. I have to tell you. So.

Right.

You know, the only thing I'll say about that is that you look great, you know, considering what you've been through.

Right.

Yeah, I think that's and and yes, I assure you we've been having constant conversations about this, which are getting become ratcheted up even more now as we get closer. But, um, for us, we've made the determination that we cannot in any way continue business as usual, uh, in this fall. So, the group that I normally conduct, the wind nuts has a flexible instrumentation. So, whatever the composer requests, you know, from eight players to 75 players, whatever the specific instrumentation is, just there are no large ensemble pieces that we can do because of social distancing, the number of people in the room, and all of that around the subject of aerosols and how they're dispersed into the air, which we're waiting on a couple of important studies that are being done right now about aerosol air displacement, uh, dealing with all of the woodwind brass and percussion instruments. And those we should have some results from these in a way twin studies that are taking place in Colorado at University of Colorado and Colorado State, separate, uh, studies, but those within the next week or two, we should probably be getting some results about that. But I can't imagine that the results will tell us, oh, sure, go on, do whatever you've been doing in the past. That's just not going to happen. So, I think right now, what we can, the best that we can try to do is provide chamber ensemble experiences for our students with appropriate social distancing and other precautions, like maybe plexiglass between players, things like that, spreading out much more, and probably in the fall for no audiences. We've made the decision here at UT, no audiences. Maybe we invite a few faculty members in to hear their students play and but spread them out in the house, but we may be able to live stream or webcast chamber concerts, but that's the that's the closest approximation we can make uh, to music-making, you know, and and doing it virtually, at least in my book and I and I'm not dissing anyone who's done it, but, you know, putting together these Hollywood Square sort of Zoom, uh, performances for me is of no interest, uh, and I'm I'm waiting to see more than one or two good ones, you know. So, and so.

Yeah, well, you know, I think that interest in new music is what excites me about the profession and the field. And, um, you you asked me a moment ago about the future of the wind ensemble and I didn't really answer that question, but I think for me, for someone like me, there's never and I'm including the time we're in right now, there's never been a better, more exciting time to be involved with this medium and to be a a conductor because there is so much good music that is being composed right now for the medium, which you couldn't say that 15 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago. Um, I there's a famous quote of Arnold Schoenberg in the 1940s in which he was approached by G. Schirmer about writing what turned out to be his Theme and Variations, Op. 43A, and he said, oh, bands, you know, no good music, all bands play are transcriptions, novelty, no, sorry, marches, novelty numbers, and transcriptions of music of low taste. And that was it. That was the that was the band repertoire.

Yeah, his his notorious sense of humor was shining through there. But, and at any rate, that he it he was right. Um, but now there are so many composers of all ages too and it's not just a generation of new composers. I mean, it's, you know, the most wonderful composers, such as yourself, are write, you know, John Corigliano and not only him, but he him him encouraging his students, uh, you know, rest his soul, Christopher Rouse was a wonderful contributor and fan of the medium. So, it just you know, that I shouldn't even name names because it the the line goes on of people who are now interested in the medium and producing really substantial amounts of wonderful repertoire.

Right.

Right.

Four is the max. Yeah.

Well, that's it to be honest, not as many as we should have. Um, just because of some complications from the publisher and the the parts and all that sort of stuff. But John met his deadline beautifully. I had a score, finished, completed score in his hand by October 1st of that year. Performance, the first performance was in Austin on February the 16th. So, the idea was we would have all of the parts so that we could actually rehearse before we let out on break. That didn't happen. So, our first real rehearsal was on the Wednesday following Martin Luther King holiday of that year. So, that was January the 22nd, something like that. Uh, so to be honest, we probably we still had with a couple of extra rehearsals, we probably had 10 rehearsals, but that was for the entire program. So, not just Circus Maximus, but for the other, you know, three pieces on the program as well. But still, it was it was quick and what we were doing to get people music that they could look at over the break was we were cutting out of his C score, you know, parts and just like making one line and just faxing them to people because this is before, you know, we could do it purely electronically. So, um, at any rate, so at least they had something in the key of C to look at, uh, so that when they came back and could actually get their hands on the parts, we could really begin in earnest.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah, that's that's an interesting thing. I always when I'm talking with composers, if we're starting a project together, a relationship, uh, that's going to culminate in a piece, and it's it's the the object of the commission is to write a piece for our group, then I never want to put a restriction on someone, you know, so I just want them to write the piece that they want to write, and then we'll figure out a way to accommodate that. Um, but there are, you know, if if a person is concerned, and and most composers are about future performances, then I think the overuse of and they're not exotic instruments, but let's just face it and say expensive instruments. So, having three English horn parts, or having two contrabassoon parts, or, you know, things like that, adding a a string complement that goes beyond this oddball one double bass that we almost always find in wind ensemble pieces, but which you can always hear. So, um, you know, it's quite interesting the fact that there's if if a double bass makes a pitch, it how that cuts through 50 woodwind brass and percussion players, I don't know, but it always does. Um, but if you wanted to use cello, if you wanted to use involve a solo viola or something, then in an academic situation, you've got to work it out with the orchestra and conductor if you're sharing players and people are meeting at the same time. So, um, if a person is concerned about future performances, then I think nothing too outlandish in terms of giganticism, you know. So, uh, use there are, of course, you could use bass saxophone. You could use soprano saxophone, but once it begins to get beyond the standard four or five, then you're jeopardizing future performances, even though that first performance might be spectacular. Now, John, with Circus Maximus, that was a great example because he wrote for, you know, this huge collection of trumpets and all sorts of specialty instruments. But that was a specific piece, and as Gunther Schuller once said, you know what? If you want to do my piece, you'll figure out a way to do it.

I doubt it. Yeah.

You know, I just think that bands should be viewed by people, and I would hope that this is where we could go, that everyone would be view bands and wind ensembles as being a part of the real world of music. And not this aberration over on the side that does weird things and sort of has their own language and, you know, but, um, if if the leading composers of the time are writing pieces that represent their best work for the wind ensemble medium, I would consider that a success and a victory. And it's certainly happening right now, but it's not, um, it's and you know, because it's more and more difficult for large symphony orchestras these days to commission works, maybe in the way that they once did. Um, bands are doing very well, but you don't want this kind of hybrid repertoire to grow that doesn't have a relation to what that same composer would be writing for a symphony orchestra or a very elite chamber ensemble, something like that.

Right.

Well, that's that's an interesting, yeah, that's a that's a very interesting thing because if you take just the subject of transcription, you know, by itself, which has been a part of the wind band repertoire since the 1700s. We know that. Um, but when when a work is transcribed, then there's two things that can happen. You can view that as, okay, somehow for whatever reason we're wanting to make this wind ensemble sound like an orchestra. So, we're going to orchestrate the wind version in such a way that you think you're listening to a symphony orchestra, or you can approach it to make the transcription so that it sounds like it was always intended to be this wind ensemble piece and it's convincing musically. So, there's just two different ways to look at it. So, I think a composer who writes orchestral music exclusively or largely for that composer to then come into the wind band medium, I think it's probably not the best way to view it to say, okay, normally I would put this in violins, what's the best so that means it should be clarinet here or I think you just have to come sort of wipe all of that away and know that you don't have this big string complement. So, now you have to embrace, you know, the colors that are available to you in a wind ensemble. And one of the things that happens is the there can be overuse because of doublings in a wind ensemble. So, I think the more specific a composer can be about the numbers of players they intend, the the better it is for everyone, for the composer as well as the performers.

That would be nice if we got to do that sometime.

You know, I think there's actually now, and maybe every year that goes by, there's less difference than there was at one time. Uh, and one of the things that has caused that difference is probably because since I've been involved with the Dallas Winds and my work in other places, having to put things together quicker has has changed the way maybe I would pace a rehearsal at UT as well. Um, and also it's there's a little bit difficult for me to talk about it because just this year we were in the midst of our first year of a new kind of rehearsal pattern anyway here, uh, that we were trying out. So, um, it's almost it's difficult to sort of go back in time and and make that relation, but I could I knew that I could be more expansive. I and I'm not just saying I could blab more, I could talk more. But I could go into more storytelling about, uh, maybe background of the piece. Or if I had felt that I maybe had been pressing a little too hard, the pedal was on the gas a little bit too much. I could I knew that I could take a half of a rehearsal or something to ease back a little bit and maybe uh, bring some levity to the situation, to ease some tensions, whatever. Whereas, you know, in a professional situation, the the culminating event is the concert which is going to take place in a rehearsal or two rehearsals or three or four rehearsals. It's interesting, I'll I'll never forget this comment, but we had done a concert here at UT. On the next it was on a Sunday. On the next Tuesday, it was executive committee day. And so I'm sitting there in the meeting room, and uh, one of my colleagues who never paid attention to anything is on the other side of the room. He's a great guy. He always had a book in front of him, you know. So, you never knew whether he was listening at all. One of my other colleagues walks in the room and as they're going by, they say, hey, Jerry, great concert on Sunday. Man, it was really good. I loved it. It was so professional sounding. And this other person sort of raised his head up and said, why would you insult him like that? What do you mean professional? You mean a little under-rehearsed, a little out of tune, a little out of it? It was way better than that. You know, it was way better than that. So, I mean, sometimes the having that luxury of more expansive time, obviously, um, you're you're able to get to a deeper level that happens in the professional world once pieces become repertoire pieces for for an orchestra or maybe the second or the third performance of the fortnight run, whatever it is. At a certain point, and I've talked to so many musicians in orchestras who say this that they don't really feel like they get it until maybe the third performance. And that's a luxury in academia we don't have. So, it's a tradeoff. You know, you have more rehearsal time but fewer performances.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, I I'm I will, I hope that I will never reach a point where I feel like I've got this. You know, I mean, I'm constantly viewing myself that I'm learning things, you know, whether it's dealing with students, and I learn a lot from my students. I love the teaching aspect of it. I wouldn't I would never want to give that up as a tradeoff for the other. I I adore it. I love my conducting students, I love the students who are performers, the whole situation. I'm I love my colleagues. So, I'm very, very fortunate in that way. Um, so I try to keep the students at the forefront of it so that when I can transfer something and I don't want to like big time people like, well, let me tell you and sitting on an audition panel, that would never, you know, all of those sorts of things. Yeah, forget that. So, but if there's something that you can transfer from one to the other, it's all you're hoping to do with students is save them some time anyway, right? You know, that's the best thing you can do in some way.

Yes. Uh, and I think uh, some things transfer, some things don't. The, okay, let's just talk about one specific part of it. This is the worst part of the job if you're a music director in a professional situation, and that's the dismissal process. Terrible. Agonizing for everyone involved. It's agonizing for me, it's agonizing for the musician involved clearly, but the players committee all this stuff. It's a terrible, long, protracted thing that no one enjoys, no one wants to go through it. But for the health of the group, you have to you have to make these decisions, you have to do it. And if you just put it off and wait too long, it's ultimately it's not good for the group, etc. But dealing with students, that's different. What if a student is just having a hard time coming up with it? And maybe they have performance anxiety or there are things going on in their lives that are keeping them from from preparing at the highest level. Not to get in their business, but I want to know what's going on with them. So I'll have a different kind of a conversation with a student, than I would with a professional because with a union involvement, you have to say to a professional, here's what's here's how you're not cutting it. This is what is unacceptable. Maybe I will say it to a student, but I'm going to say it in a much kinder way because I want to know what's going on with them because I know that they have potential. They wouldn't have been accepted into an elite music school without someone seeing that potential. So if there are family things, maybe I can help with that. You know, what what whatever it is. So it's it's a way of dealing with people and dealing with the situation. Maybe one informs the other for me.

This is quick.

You too.

Right. The I'm again, I'm very fortunate because we have a program that I it's limited in size. There are never more than five graduate students at a time. I have no strictures that are placed upon me to accept, okay, that means two of them have to be masters, three doctorate. You have to have this formula. Every year I just accept the best conductors who apply. Doesn't matter what the level is of degree or rather which degree they're going for. And then we end up with five really great people and it's on if it's working correctly, it's on a rotational thing where like one person graduated this year, so one is coming in and then the next year probably two will leave, you know, so it's constant like that. So, I'll just tell you, I have great students because we have a lot of interest in the program and so we're able to be really selective about it. So, with the graduate students, we will focus in a seminar sort of situation where they are conducting a chamber group and I'll make comments with them. We'll review video, etc. And then when they're working with the large ensemble on a piece that's going to be performed on a concert and there's at least one of those on every concert where a graduate student is conducting. Those conversations usually I'll have outside of rehearsal as a review, so I'm not dealing with them right there in any way that would sort of affect the way the group uh, looks at them. But that's a long way to say I don't accept students who have technical problems. So, the technique if it's worked out it has to be worked out before they get here because there's so much to do in terms of depth of knowledge of the pieces that they're conducting that there's no time to work on pure technique. Now, I will make technical suggestions. I'm not saying I don't ever talk about that, but someone who maybe is a brilliant musician, but is coming to this late but who has technical issues, I don't feel like I that's not how I want to spend my time with a graduate student in conducting.

I hope so. I think so. Yeah. I I yeah. I to be honest, it's look, I'm 63 years old. It's taken me till I was 61 probably to where I would be able to say out loud, I'm good at my job. You know, because there's always all of this, you know, it's like you're not nice people aren't supposed to say things like that. But I'm not as good at my job, hopefully as I'm going to be in two years, in four years, in you know, you just keep getting better all of your.

Yes.