Overture

Music Faculty Active Internationally

Jul 28, 2008 Keyboard, Music Tech
Posted by music

Music students at UCM frequently cite the faculty as the greatest strength of the department, and all of our professors are well-known throughout the state and region as expert musicians and dedicated teachers. Over the past several years, more and more of our faculty have developed reputations for excellence around the nation and even internationally. The 2006-07 issue of Overture featured an article about double reeds professor Sheri Mattson’s trip to Ukraine. This year, several faculty members performed abroad: Alan Wenger toured the United Kingdom with the national award-winning Fountain City Brass Band and Kenneth Wood performed in Bulgaria. Carla Jo Maltas presented at the Victorian Orff Schulwerk Association Conference in Melbourne, Australia. Mia Hynes and Eric Honour were each kind enough to provide stories and pictures from their performances in Serbia, Paris, and Greece.

 

Mia Hynes: Serbia to Paris and back again … 

In November 2007, Mia Hynes travelled to Novi Sad, Serbia where she presented a lecture at the European Piano Teachers Association 2007 Conference. The conference took place at the Isidor Bajic School of Music and the Novi Sad Town Hall. Hynes reports that just getting there was an adventure: four plane rides starting in Kansas City through Atlanta, Paris, Munich, and Belgrade followed by an hour drive from Belgrade to Novi Sad. Accompanying her on the trip were her husband, Dr. Jon Hynes (also a pianist and fellow presenter at the conference) and her then 5-month old son, Liam. Not accompanying her was her luggage – which only made the last two legs of the trip the night before her scheduled return to Paris! 

Town Hall Square, Novi Sad, Serbia

Although the conference was ostensibly centered on European representatives of the pedagogical field, the scope was truly global. She did try to avoid the handful of other Americans presenting at the conference, and is pretty sure they did the same with her! Of particular note were presentations she attended on new music compositions for children from an Icelandic composer, and a duo-recital of music by UK composers. This was the first time she attended a professional conference where it really felt like there was new information at every turn. She observed that there were no sessions on “what to do with students who won’t practice.” In most of Europe, and particularly in the formerly Eastern-bloc countries, piano study is still a great privilege that students do not take lightly. Work ethic is not as great a concern as it often is in the United States! 

 

Travelogue

The adventure of travelling to Serbia made this trip very exciting for Hynes and her family. After super modern Paris and Munich, the Belgrade airport was a jarring blast from the past. It was all grey. Hynes says that it might have been from the thick cigarette smoke or the décor (1970s drab), but she’s not sure. The drive from Belgrade to Novi Sad revealed beautiful countryside still scarred by the remnants of a violent history – a lot of buildings were barely standing, or just shells of themselves. Novi Sad itself has a town square that is filled with fabulously beautiful, palace–like structures which call to mind some great cities like St. Petersburg, Russia. At the same time there are very modern, very drab structures built between and around them. Featured prominently in the downtown area was the opera house/performing arts center. The music school was just a short walk from the town square. 

Everyone they met was very friendly and helpful, regardless of the amount of English they could speak. Hynes and her family learned to say thank you in Serbian (“Hvala”) very quickly! Their first Serbian word, however, was for “diaper” (which they just called “Pampers,” like we call soda “Coke”). Since Hynes’s luggage did not arrive in Serbia, neither did the diaper reserves, and any parent will tell you that this constitutes a major emergency. Luckily we found a convenience store nearby and were able to buy their only bag of diapers. 

While their hotel was “5 Star,” it was also an all-smoking hotel. They found that highly amusing since there was a large medical convention going on at the same time as their visit for doctors who deal with the respiratory system. All the doctors were smoking as well. Hynes was very curious to know if anyone thought of presenting a lecture on the dangers of cigarette smoke. 

Taxi service in Novi Sad was incredibly cheap. For approximately 2 dollars, you could get anywhere in town. Serbia does not use euros as their currency, and Hynes’s pocketbook appreciated that fact immensely! 

Hynes did try and get out of the hotel to sample some of the local cuisine (her dream job is actually to work part time as a food critic). Every street is dotted with tiny bakeries that sell wonderful sweet and savory pastries. Often times the most rewarding thing to do when travelling outside one’s home country is to go into a place where no one speaks your language, and you must try and communicate in theirs. These bakeries were just such a place, and while the bakers appreciated Hynes’s efforts at language, she certainly appreciated their talents with flour and sugar! Unfortunately, she cannot report as to the contents of anything she ate (so much for that food critic job), but it was all very tasty! 

From Serbia, Hynes and family travelled to Paris, where they took up residence for 5 days. The purpose of their visit was to perform at the Emmanuel Baptist Church. Hynes’ husband had been a member of this congregation during his student days at the Paris Conservatory, and it was a great privilege for him to return and perform on their newly purchased piano. They also visited a local music shop and Hynes purchased a number of French piano method books to share with her piano pedagogy class back at UCM. 

Hynes at the grave of Chopin in Paris

One highlight of the week was a visit to Pere Lachaise cemetery. This enormous cemetery is a resting place for some famous celebrities such as Maria Callas, Jim Morrison, Colette, Rossini, and Chopin! Hynes and her family were able to make their pilgrimage to the grave of Chopin, which is covered daily by hundreds of fresh flowers (from anonymous donors) and houses his body – but not his heart. (Piano lore aficionados will remember that his heart is buried in Poland as a sign of affection for the country to which he was never able to return.) 

 

Eric Honour: With the Athens Saxophone Quartet

In the summer of 2006, Eric Honour had the opportunity to produce a compact disc recording of Leo Saguiguit and Peter Miyamoto (both music professors at the University of Missouri) performing a piece titled Saxologies by Greek composer-saxophonist Athanasios Zervas. The event served to reunite Honour with Saguiguit and Zervas. All three were in graduate school together at Northwestern University in the late 1990s. Following the recording, Zervas began to explore the idea of re-forming the Athens Saxophone Quartet, which he founded in the early 1990s, and Honour and Saguiguit accepted his invitation to join the group. In February 2008, Honour, Saguiguit, and Miyamoto all traveled to Greece for concerts with the quartet in Athens and Thessaloniki. All three gave other performances as well. Honour was invited to give a lecture-recital on new music for saxophone and electronics at CMCP.GR, the Greek national contemporary music center in Athens, and reprised the lecture later in the week for the Fourth Hellenic Saxophone Alliance Conference. As of this writing, the quartet is scheduled to perform in September 2008 with the Louisiana Sinfonietta in Baton Rouge, at UCM, and on the University of Missouri campus in Columbia. In Spring 2009, they will return to Greece for several concerts.

 

Travelogue

Honour has nothing but excellent things to say about Zervas: “Given the schedule in Greece, it was wonderful to have such an amazing host. Before most rehearsals, we made a point of getting some Greek coffee – metrios (medium, with a single measure of sugar) – and afterward, we always had plenty of time for meals and socializing.” That was important, because the rehearsal schedule was grueling. With two of the members living in Greece and two in the United States, the quartet had never rehearsed before, and they had to learn all the music for two concerts in six days! They rehearsed for more than five hours almost every day they were there, in addition to each of the Americans playing a solo concert one of the nights. Still, that gave Honour an excellent opportunity to play a lot of fantastic music, and to meet the fourth member of the quartet: Dionisios Roussos. Roussos is young but has already won one of the international Londeix saxophone competitions; he missed the first day of rehearsal because he had just returned from a concert tour of China.

Honour performing Phantasm at CMCP.GR

Honour’s lecture-recital at CMCP.GR went well. The space at CMCP is very small. However, it is very pretty inside, in a post-modern sort of way, and it sounds excellent. Honour was very pleased with the acoustics. The attendees seemed to enjoy the presentation very much. They asked many questions and gave a lot of excellent feedback. Honour gave a lecture titled Maturation, Exploration, and Musicality: New Music for Saxophone and Electronics, then performed three works by American composers, including the world premiere of his own piece, Phantasm (recently accepted for performance at the 2008 International Computer Music Conference, to be held in August 2008 in Belfast, Northern Ireland).

From left, Honour, Miyamoto, and Saguiguit in front of the Parthenon

Of the week they were in Athens, Thursday was the big day for sight-seeing, since Zervas had to spend that day in Thessaloniki. They visited the National Archaeological Museum, one of the great museums of the world, as well as the Acropolis. The Acropolis is an enormous check mark on the list of sights of the world, along with the Eiffel Tower, Angkor Wat, and of course the statue of Old Drum in Warrensburg. The path up to the Acropolis is fairly steep, and it is even worse with a saxophone on your back, but it is totally worth it!  The path empties out beneath the Temple of Athena Nike and the entrance to the Propylaia. As one would expect, it’s an amazing experience to walk around the top of the Acropolis next to the Parthenon and the other sites. The views from the top of the Acropolis were also fantastic.  Athens is a huge city, and it just goes on and on… and on!  They could also see all the other places they visited, including the Temple of Olympian Zeus and Filopappou (“Philosophers”) Hill, where Socrates, Plato, and the other Greek philosophers gathered.

One of the highlights of the trip for the quartet was their visit to Zervas’s home, where his wife Sophia prepared a traditional Greek dinner for them. It was so good! Dolmades, beans with sausage, feta, salami, salad, and meatballs made with oregano she picked near their house in the Peloponnese. They drank homemade wine from a farmer near the same house and tsipouro, which is similar to Italian grappa. Sophia taught them bad words in Greek while Athanasios was busy getting everything ready for Saturday’s conference. They had a fantastic time.

The quartet performed its first concert on Saturday night, in Athens. The program was entirely composed by Michael Adamis, one of the most important Greek composers after Iannis Xenakis. Before the concert, they recorded the full program for eventual release on a CD. Honour enjoyed being on the other side of the microphones, for once! The concert and recording were both in Parnassos Hall, the second-largest concert hall in Athens, and a superb performing space.

On Sunday, they made the drive north to Thessaloniki (also called Salonica). The drive is beautiful, with stunning scenery and, of course, fascinating historical landmarks. It is about 550 km from Athens to Salonica, and the drive takes roughly 5.5 hours. Along the way, they stopped at the Thermopylae monument, which is very close to the spot where the Greek troops fought that famous battle. They also saw Mt. Olympus, which was very impressive, and passed by Volos, which is the town from whence Jason and the Argonauts are supposed to have set off on their journey.

Salonica is a beautiful city, set right on the Mediterranean Sea. Salonica has a very different history from Athens. It is now the second city of Greece, but for centuries before, it was the second city of the Byzantine Empire. The Byzantine influence is very obvious in Salonica, and leads to very pretty, very Eastern churches and other buildings. Before the Byzantine influence, however, the Romans were in Salonica, so there is also a tremendous Roman influence on the architecture. All in all, it adds up to a very different-feeling city from Athens.

View of Thessaloniki from Megaron Concert Hall

Megaron Concert Hall in Thessaloniki is a world-class venue, and the quartet felt truly honored to be contracted to play there. The hall has a fantastic setting, right on the water, with great views out to the sea and back across the city’s seafront. The concert went well, although Honour was surprised to see how many people came back after intermission: “We only played one of the pieces from the Athens concert in Salonica; the rest of the program was much newer, much more avant-garde music. The audience was a subscription series group, and this music was very challenging. In the States, I expect we would have lost quite a few people during the intermission! When the concert was over, many people came back to the dressing room to wish us well, and that was very nice.”

After the concert, the real problem was that, not understanding how far Salonica is from Athens, Honour scheduled his return flight for 6 a.m. from Athens! They had to drive all night to get there in time. So they said goodbye to Roussos, finally hit the main highway at around 11:15 p.m., and the race was on. They stopped at 1 a.m. for gas and again around 3 a.m. for Zervas to take a seven-minute nap. They stopped one final time at 4 a.m. for frappés all around. That was an excellent idea: Zervas woke up quickly after the coffee, and hit 170 km/h a couple of times after that! They got to Eleftherios International Airport with only an hour to spare. That is usually a recipe for disaster, but apparently “Greek time” rules even the airport. Honour checked in with no problems and even got exit row seating for the transatlantic flight! Tall people get very excited about that. 

Honour looks back on this experience as one of the best of his life. It was a fantastic time, with great musicians and friends, and he looks forward to the return to Greece in 2009.