This part of my website is entitled "The Long Biography." I decided to begin work on this because of a surprisingly large interest in the little details of the course of my life! I admit, it has been quite a long ride from San Antonio, Texas, to Luxembourg, Europe. The interest has mostly been from those doing research papers and doctoral theses. However, I am aware of a lot of family members and friends who would find this section to be quite interesting.
This section is a work in progress - thanks for your patience!
I have noticed that many people have been reading my biography. Although I have nothing against this, I must stress the fact that this is merely the bare bones outline of the thing. I will later be filling in a plethora of details, memories, anecdotes and even pictures. Right now I am simply trying to lay the ground work.
I, Kerry Drew Turner, was born on October 16, 1960 in Kingsville, Texas. Kingsville is the center point of the famous King Ranch which stretches across much of South Texas. Many years later, when concert and music promoters got wind of this seemingly insignificant fact, the official line became “Kerry Turner was born on the famous King Ranch of South Texas”. They thought that this gave me an exotic sort of flare. After all, there aren’t just a whole lot of “cowboy composers” out there; at least that’s how the world outside of the U.S. viewed it. My father was a band director in the small neighboring town of Bishop. I don’t really remember much about this part of my life, not surprisingly. I have however been back to Kingsville, touring with the American Horn Quartet, and I took the time to drive past the hospital where I was born. It is now a giant storage space.
When I was about 2 years old, we packed up and moved to the beautiful city of San Antonio, and this is from whence I to this day claim to hail. San Antonio has a very large Hispanic community. Everyday life is affected by this cultural majority. Indeed it has imprinted its recognizable accent on most of my works. The Mexican-American population of that city enjoys fiestas, bright colors, happy music, afternoon siestas and spicy food. I too have incorporated these enjoyments into my own life, even in the grey, cold and rainy “old world” of Luxembourg.
There was always music in my family. My mother’s father was a violinist and my mother herself is a very gifted artist, excelling on the piano, the organ and in singing. As I mentioned, my father was a band director. Indeed, he was a very gifted one, his bands winning awards and honors throughout his illustrious career. It was into this family that my brothers and I came and grew up. My older brother, Ken, is a very accomplished choral tenor and has done many musical theatre and operetta roles as well. He has been a highschool choral director for the past 15 years. His boys’ choir (Jefferson Highschool, an innercity school) was awarded State Honor Choir of Texas in 2004, an honor not to be taken lightly in this huge state! My younger brother, Kyle, is an extremely talented and successful tubist. He was the interim tubist with the New York Philharmonic from 2001-2004, playing virually every concert with them. Prior to that, and now that his stint with this most reputable organization is over, he has been, and will continue to be a frequent recording artist of movie soundtracks, commercials and other sorts of entertainment, such as Broadway and his continued association with New York’s finest orchestras.
As a child, I was already quite active in the fine arts. Most notably are my role as Young Patrick in the musical “Mame” with the San Antonio Little Theatre at the tender young age of 10, my award with my brother Kyle when we were only about 12 or so, at the Arneson River Theatre’s All City Talent Contest, where we sang and played altoniums (a sort of small baritone), and my first award as a composer which was presented to me by the Holloway House of Music for my Fugue for Wind Quintet. I was 11. My family was frequently hired to present variety shows for various clubs and organizations around San Antonio. We even did several television commercials for companies such as Morton’s Ice Cream, Parade of Homes Real Estate and Zenith TVs by George. By the age of ten, I began to show a keen interest in classical music. I had found some orchestral scores lying around the house. I believe on of them was the Mozart "Prague Symphony". After combing through it one day, I told my mother that I knew how this piece goes now. I could hear it in my head. My parents were incredulous and thought I was just trying to show off. I also began to dabble in composition, trying my hand at a small fugue and even attempting a make-shift cantata. Many, if not all, of these manuscripts still exist. I had composed a very short, Mozartean sort of woodwind quintet for my mother for Mother's Day. My parents noticed this interest and presented me with my first classical music records- the complete Brandenburg Concertos (J.S. Bach), the Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (Mozart) and the complete Beethoven Symphonies (NBC Orchestra Toscanini). Needless to say, I listened to them non-stop and still know every note of those works.
I was also active in sports. I think most boys were in Texas. I played "Little League" football from the age of 8 to 12 and then joined the team of my Junior Highschool, Ed White Middle School. I was a fast runner. The story goes like this: I was born a breach baby. That is, I emerged from my mother´s womb arse first. I did not however emerge smoothly. About half way out, everything stopped and I was trapped for about three hours in a doubled over position. Indeed I was permanently doubled over at the waist for several months after I was born. The doctor put me in some sort of a brace which was supposed to straighten me out. The whole unfortunate process caused my feet to turn inward. Apparently the doctors said that I would be quite fast on my feet because of this slight malformation. Whether or not this is sound scientifically, it remains that I was an extraordinarily fast runner. I ran track and played running back and safety positions on the football teams. When I reached the 9th grade-about 15 years of age, my father took me aside and advised me to make a decision. I was already quite successful as a horn player and, whereas the other boys on the football team seemed to be getting larger and meaner, I wasn´t really growing much bigger and the injuries one experiences in that great American sport were happening more and more frequently.It may have had something to do with my personality. You see, I do not do things half way. I have always charged into the melée as it were, putting my face to the wind (as well as caution) and attacking opponents and challenges alike with uncompromising bravery. Now this may be a positive attribute as a horn player and it certainly served me well in later years as a world traveler and linguist. But it can take its toll on a smaller framed youth trying to win the big game for his school. The question was, should I go into sports or should I seriously consider concentrating on music or perhaps theater. In Texas, football may be huge, but so is the band! There was certainly no shame in chosing band. The fact that my father was the band director and the Roosevelt High School band was extremely successful helped me make my decision.
The horn section at Roosevelt was quite good. We played "Till Eulenspiegels Merry Pranks" (Strauss), "Feste Romana" (Resphigi) among many other very challenging works. Two of us qualified for All-State and another boy was certainly gifted enough to have done. He was however more interested in the Rodeo. One fond memory I have from this time period was an incident at the Roosevelt Summer Band Camp. We were playing a rendition of Mancinis "Moon River" which opened with a long horn solo. One rehearsal, after playing the beautiful passage, my father stopped the band and said, "You know kids, I‘m not supposed to play favoritism here with my own boys, but that which you just heard was absolutely beautiful!" He was visibly moved and, needless to say, I was as well. If you have ever striven for your fathers approval, then you would understand what this meant to me.
I think however that the deciding factor happened much earlier. My mother sang with the San Antonio Choral Society. She was, and still is, a very gifted soprano. In 1971 or 72, this fine ensemble performed Mendellsohn´s Elijah and they, of course, hired an orchestra for the performances. Somehow, and I shall never fully understand how, I was hired as the 3rd horn player, and this at the tender young age of 11 or 12. If you are not familiar with this mammmoth work, I can tell you that is impressive to say the least. And the third horn part is very challenging, the worst part being the neccesity to transpose. In other words, the notes on the page are not the notes one is supposed to play. They must be either higher or lower, depending on the key of each movement and on what the composer has indicated. I had never heard of transposition before. And that was a problem....especially on the first rehearsal. I can still see myself now: sitting there, in panic, trying to figure out what the heck was going wrong. I would play a note here and there to try to find the key, but to no avail. Everyone else just seemed to play along fine with no apparent problems.
I did however eventually figure it out, not really understanding why in God´s name Mendellsohn had played this horrible trick on his 3rd (and 4th, by the way) horn player. But despite this setback, I was awed by the experience. I was inspired by the music and thrilled to be surrounded by other serious classical musicians. I belonged there, and I knew it with every cell in my body. I remember once, during the break, I passed by some string players who were talking about this and that. One of them said something like, "Oh the usual, Brandenburg Concerto Number 3 and some Vivaldi stuff". I was riveted with happiness. I knew these pieces too, and I knew them well! And these guys were talking about them as if they were discussing the latest football scores. My experience of performing the Elijah with the San Antonio Choral Society made a delible impression on me that has lasted throughout my life. (It is interesting to note that "Elijah" has remained one of my favorite works. I know that many orchestral musicans find it long-winded and boring, but not I. In fact, many years later, when I was going through several major crisis at the same time, I listened to "Elijah" almost every day and found hope and inspiration in it.)During this time, my father decided that it might be a good idea if I had a lesson or two with a specialist. So he took me to Mr. Clearance Bading. I rarely, if ever, mention Mr. Bading when asked whom I studied with. I am not sure just why. In fact, he got me started on Kopprasch etudes at the age of 11. He also told my father that I had talent and that I should get very serious about the horn. But the sports took priority at that age and this aggravated Mr. Bading to no end. In fact, I think he dismissed me from his studio because of that decision.
In high school we formed a sort of club called the All State Club. Anyone from Texas knows what a big deal it is to make All State in Texas. It has often been the determining influence in many a musician’s life to become professional. During my sophomore year there was a large group of individuals at Roosevelt High School who made All State. One first has to pass All District, All Region and then All Area in order to qualify for All State. A group of us would meet after school and play our audition material for each other, which was then followed by an intense critiquing of one another’s performance. We played inspirational recordings and talked about music and its high ideals until late into the night. I think this was most unusual for a group of 16 and 17 year olds. We were all very active in the San Antonio Youth Orchestra and North East District Orchestra as well. As a matter of fact, I was appointed student conductor of the latter and conducted Haydn´s Third Symphony at the age of about 15. I remeber having written a small piece for string quartet. I took the piece to the director of the San Antonio Youth Orchestra, a local free-lance violinist whose name I cannot recall, and showed it too her. She immediately took the best four players from the string section, and along with me, we went into another room and read the piece. She had them read it several times for me, I suppose until they got it right and until I heard the things which I did not like. It was a very important encounter with the composition world and I am gratefull to this lady for having showed such insight!
My father became aware of my growing interest in orchestral music and it was he who got me involved in the San Antonio Youth Symphony. He drove me clear across town to Edison Highschool each Monday evening and waited while I played the rehearsal. It shows a lot of sacrifice and dedication on his part.
During my high school years, and this is just for the record, I was awarded quite a lot of prizes and distinctions: as a freshman I was 1st alternate to the All State Choir (tenor), I was awarded a prize by the Optimists Award Society for music accomplishment, and I was named student conductor of the North East Orchestra. As a sophomore I made the Texas All State Symphony Orchestra, All Area Choir, Gold Medal at the Texas State Solo and Ensemble Competition at the University of Texas at Austin, and won a prize at the Tuesday Musical Club’s Solo Competition. Anxious to move on into a “more serious college” environment, I chose to graduate early and therefore had no junior year. As a senior, I was the student conductor of the high school choir, in the All State Symphonic Band, and was awarded Outstanding Soloist at the Texas State Solo and Ensemble Competition. During my high school years, I was also very active as composer, paid tenor at the Madison Square Presbyterian Church and played major roles in theatre productions as well. Yes, I was a very busy young lad.
These are the pieces which I composed in years between 1974 and 78.
“To My Mother” (Wind 4tet.Gift for Mother’s Day) 1974
Symphony Nr. 2 1975 (?)
Introduction and Fugue (some sort of Cantata) ????
Toccata Fantasy (for band) ????
Reverie Overture (orchestra) 1975?
His Death and Resurrection (a tone poem) 1975?
The Death of Johann (an operatic tragedy) 1975
Symphony Nr. 3 (“Solo Symphony”) 1975
Concerto Nr. 1 for Oboe and Orchestra 1976?
Three Nocturnes (for various chamber settings) 1977 (?)
An Alpine Symphony 1977
Four Choral Pieces 1978
A Mass in a Fantasy 1978
(Performed at St. Joseph’s Church in San Antonio)
Woodwind Quintet 1978?
Serenade for an Unusual Trio (horn, tuba, bassoon) 1978
The 55 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins 1978
As one can see, I was rather prolific during these years. Oddly enough, as I was browsing through these old manuscripts, I couldn’t recollect ever writing many of them. And whatever happened to Symphony Nr. 1? Nevertheless, they were impressive enough, I suppose, to warrant a large composition scholarship to Baylor University in Waco, Texas.
In the 1970`s, Mr. Leland Sharrock became the most successful horn teacher in San Antonio. Many of his students consistently made All-State and some of them even "gigged" from time to time, for example, the 1976 Bicentennial Band, the Rodeo Band, musicals at Trinity University, etc, all paid gigs which were important in the development of my taste for the professional world. Mr. Sharrock was, as I recall, a bit put off by my pretentiousness. At the age of 14, I took the Strauss 1st Horn Concerto in to my lesson and rushed, clammed and slopped my way through it. Recognizing my need for the basics, he set to work drilling me with scales and arpeggios and much easier repertoire. He also changed my embouchure. Leland Sharrock was trained at Indiana University with the famous Phillip Farkas, and the Farkas embouchure was regarded as almost holy. And with this change I began to make huge leaps of progress.
The music section at Roosevelt High School was of the very highest standard. I cannot emphasize enough the huge impact my involvement in it had on me. First of all, my father was my band director. I came into a tradition at that school established by him, which demanded your commitment to the very highest level possible at that age. I remember performing in high school (!) the Kalinakov Symphony Nr. 1, Till Eulenspiegels Lustige Streiche, The Pines of Rome, Feste Romane and many other difficult works for band and transcriptions from the orchestra original. Even in the marching band, we were playing classic repertoire, competing with the state’s finest ensembles. Life in the choir, under Maryann Winden, was no less challenging. That was where most of the All Staters were. We performed all over town and consitently won every competition we entered. I also had the option to take music theory during my senior year.
One of the more fun projects the choir used to do was the yearly Madrigal Dinner at Christmas time. The members of the chamber choir, about sixteen in all, I think, dressed up in Rennaisance costumes and staged a Christmas feast, complete with brass fanfares, roast suckling pig and a script for the master of ceremonies which was done up in original-sounding lingo. The gig didn´t however end on the two evenings it ran. Mrs. Winden booked the group to perform at various Christmas parties all over the city. We were very busy, not only after school, but during it as well, running around for going on two weeks or so, performing various parts of the production for different groups of people whom we never met and were never to meet. We simply sang our stich and moved on to the next one. Professional musicians will see what a beautiful foretaste of my life to come that this offered. During my senior year, I was asked to play horn for the San Antonio Playhouse Production of "Caberet". I was also hired to play at Trinity Baptist Church´s televised production of "The Gift of the Maggi". Oddly enough, this production was shown on television at Christmas time for many years to come, and I frequently found it on the air while channel surfing. During Christmas of my senior year, I had many such productions on my agenda and was swamped most of the time with various gigs, bith as a singer and horn player. During that year, I also composed a work entitled "Mass in a Fantasy". I organized a group of instrumentalists and singers and we read and rehearsed the piece. Somehow, and I really have no idea how, I managed to book a performance of it at St. Joseph´s Lutheran Church in downtown San Antonio. And there was even an audience!
This kind of stress however took its toll on my health. At the age of 16, I developed an ulcer in the duodenum. Its odd beacue I do not remember feeling particularly stressed out. But having two teenaged boys myself, I know that boys at that age often do not listen to their bodies or even notice when they are over taxed.
The honorable horn pedagogue, Mr. William Robinson of Baylor University, was the first to offer me an irresistible scholarship. And combined with the composition one that I mentioned earlier, it became rather clear that this was to be my next stop. I began my first semester at Baylor University in the autumn of 1978. Not being able to decide which way to go in the vast field of music, I at first, and rather naively, went in as a “triple major” in voice, composition and horn. This was reduced within a month to horn and composition.
I remember meeting my composition professor, the honorable Dr. Richard Willis. When I attended my first class with him, he showed us some abstract paintings and asked us to describe them. Then our first assignment was to chose one painting from his collection and write a small piece about it. Well all he offered us were very modern, brash, garish sort of works and I really had trouble picking one to write about. I mean my style of composing even today is not terrible compatible with this sort of art, and it certainly wasn’t back then. A few weeks later, Dr……..staged a recital of his works. I was shocked! I sat stunned as I listened to a tape of train sounds and car crashes and the like. There were no performers that I could see. I couldn’t even hear any melodies. I think however that it was his piano sonata which put me over the edge and caused me to quit his class right then and there. A person came out and proceeded to bang mercilessly, and without any aim or calculation, all over the keyboard. It was if Dr. Willis wanted us to know that he thoroughly hated all kinds of music and that this was how he was going to express it.
One of the assignments I do remember having was to enter this composition contest for the combination of clarinet and marimba. Procrastinating the work up until the day it was due, I finally sat down in a practice room and wrote any old garbage I could think of. I didn’t attempt any form, harmony, counterpoint or even melodic development. I didn’t even check on the piano to see how the thing sounded. I just turned it in. And bingo! I got an “A”.
That was it. I began to skip my composition classes. There was a large field between my apartment and the music building. On the third floor was the window to Dr. Willis’s room. One day while walking across that field, blatantly skipping the comp class, I looked up and saw the professor, looking down at me while lecturing to his class. It was so obvious and I had had enough. I marched into his office the next day and withdrew from the program.
My dedication to the horn however continued to climb as did my ability. Although I was enrolled in the Bachelor of Music Performance program, I really never intended to go through wiith the academic courses. I simply could not see why they were important to my musical career. I did take a "History of Western Civilization" course which was extremely interesting! My fascination with history evetually reached obsessive proportions and its roll in my composing career, and even in my daily life, is evident. But at the time, I couldn‘t see the point. So I took as few academic courses as possible and practiced like a fiend. I recall practicing in the large concert hall at Baylor, late at night. I knew where there was a window in the back of the building which was never locked. So I used to sneak through it, make my way in the darkness to the stage, find a stand and proceed to play concertos. I was enamored with the idea of being a soloist back then and had learned to play these works standing. This was many years before it became standard practice to stand while soloing.
Bill Robinson recognized my penchant for the solo reperotire and encouraged it. The director of the Baylor Wind Ensemble (Dr. Dick Floyd), on the other hand, didn‘t seem to see any talent in me and I was consistently placed in the lower level bands. Contrasting that, I won the audition for the Waco Symphony as a sophomore and played that season on third horn. I was also the principal horn in the Baylor Symphony. But something about me rubbed the band director the wrong way. In hindsight, I see that this was a trend, a curse really, in my life that was about to come.
...to be continued!
In 1979, the great French flautist, Marcel Moyse, was invited to come to Baylor to give a week of masterclasses. Mr. Moyse was the most honorable gentleman who premiered Debussy's Prelude d'Après-Midi d'une Faune and was also in the orchestra during the infamous riots that occured during the Sacre du Printemps performances. His main emphasis was chamber music for wind players. Mr. Moyse liked me and invited me to participate in his chamber music seminars up at Brattelborough, Vermont, just a few miles away from Marlborough. I headed up there that summer with my compadre, Dan Vimont. There I met musicians from all over the U.S., but mostly players from New York City. I gravitated to these people and asked them all sorts of questions about living and working there. They really encouraged me to make the move and come to New York to study.
So it was at the end of August 1979, that I decided to pack up and move to New York. My father and I made a few phone calls to horn players like Martin Smith and Joel Winter and then to my grandmother who lived just off the Cherokee reservation in Nowata, Oklahoma. The plan was to have my brother, Kyle, drive me up to Nowata, convince my grandmother that New York was indeed the right place for me and then ask her to help pay for my bus fare up there.
And that is exactly how it happened. Three days later I was arriving at Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York with an old Reynolds horn, a black trunk, a "New York on 20 Dollars a Day" book, and about 200 dollars in my wallet. While at the chamber festival at Marlborogh, I had met a nice clarinetist from NY named Lorraine. I don't remember her last name, but I knew she had a tiny studio on the 11th floor of Carnegie Hall. I contacted her and found out that she was planning a three-month stint with a spa orchestra in Germany and was willing to sublet her place to me. But I had to hang out at least a month until she left. Looking at the apartment for rent ads in the paper, I found something called a "cubicle", about 6 feet by 4 feet, for $80 a month. It was on 28th Street and 8th Avenue in what is now Chelsea, but back then it was called "Hell's Kitchen." This substandard building still exists. It is still called the Vigilante Hotel and seems to attract a lot of "down and outers". I remember the communal showers on my floor! The floor was covered in a sort of black goo and the shower heads only trickled a little cold water down on to your head. There were no roofs on the cubicles. A piece of metal mesh was nailed over the top of each of them and you could hear everything going on from the other "dwellers". You locked off your cell with a pad lock which you bought yourself.
Thankful that I passed my entrance exam for the Manhattan School of Music, I began at once to sink my teeth into intensively serious studies and practice. Joel Winter had studied with Carmine Caruso and had put together his special "routine" that his students were supposed to do every day. It was a grueling hour-long warm which covered every aspect of horn playing and did wonders to build up strength and endurance. Although I had made it clear to Joel that I wanted to chiefly study concertos for horn, he nonetheless did his job as a horn teacher at a major U.S. conservatory by drilling me with the orchestral excerpt agenda. I was exposed to a very clearly defined mentality and school of horn playing, which I suppose would be known today in the horn world as the "old New York school". During that first year of studies in New York, I experienced many new things. I joined a young professional wood wind quintet called the Kammer Quintet. This group used to meet once a week at flutist Carol Brown`s house, which I believe was on West End Avenue and 103rd street. The Kammer Quintet was awarded a prize at the Artists International Chamber Music Competition in 1981. Part of the award was a recital at the Carnegie Recital Hall. My parents and my grandmother from Oklahoma all flew up to see this concert. I also met my future wife, Karen Sherwood, during this time. One of the students at the school had posted a sign announcing the start up of a student Christian prayer group at MSM. Karen and I were the only 2 people to show up. We met every week at this little gathering and developed quite a nice little friendship.
By younger brother, Kyle, decided to join me up in New York in January of 1981. It was a thrill to have him with me so far from home and also to have him join me on this incredible adventure. Kyle was quite a sensation at MSM. He was a student of Toby Hanks, whose records he had listened to for years. The same girl who started the student Christian group also helped Kyle and me find lodgings in the Student Christian House which was associated by the Broadway Presbyterian Church. I think it is important to point out the important role my Christian faith played in my ability to cope and succeed during these years. I had been raised a Southern Baptist and changed to a Presbyterian before journeying to New York. Without getting into too much detail- my faith is a very private and precious thing to me- reading the Bible and study guides daily as well as prayer were a constant source of strength, consolation, courage and hope to me. Within a few weeks of my arrival I was drawn to the 5th Avenue Presbyterian Church and became a member shortly thereafter. The Reverend Bryant Kirkland was the head minister. To this day, although I attend the Anglican Church in Luxembourg, I continue to consider 5th Avenue Presbyterian my true spiritual home.
In the Summer of 1981, Kyle and I were both invited to be in the orchestra at that year`s AIMS Festival (American Institute of Musical Studies) in Graz, Austria. Needless to say this was a very significant step toward the realization of my dream to eventually go to Europe to study and work. Our summer in Graz was a magnificent experience in every way. While we were there, we befriended three other students from MSM, Kathy Bearden and Tolli Birgisson, who were very successful violinists and shared my brother Kyle`s and my special sense of humor and Blaire Tendall, oboist and recent successful author of the book "Mozart in the Jungle". We rehearsed daily in the beautiful Minoritensaal in Graz and performed twice a week in the Stephaniensaal. It also gave me the perfect opportunity to practice speaking and understanding German. A highlight of the stay that summer was a trip down to Llubliana, Slovenia and Porto Roz on the Adriatic Coast.
I remember returning to New York that summer with quite literally nothing in my pocket. My dear friends Kathy and Tolli had lent Kyle and me 200 dollars to get back on our feet. We did some apartment searching and were very lucky to find a nice place on West End Avenue and 110th street. Since Kyle and I could not afford to pay the rent ourselves, we invited a good friend of mine, Liza Disavino from Manhattan School, who also happened to be a dynamite horn player, to be our room mate and she accepted. It was also during this time, beginning of the new school year, that I proposed to Karen Sherwood.
My second year in New York, 1981-82 was probably one of the happiest years of my life. My studies and other activities at MSM were a blast. Kyle, Karen and I spent much of our time exploring New York City. I had to do something though to earn money. I had several odd jobs (and I mean "odd"). For one, I prepared and served kosher coffee and cookies to concert goers at Merkin Concert Hall, which is around the corner from Lincoln Center. Kyle and I also traded off reading stock reports to a blind business executive who lived on the Upper East Side. The woman used to put Beethoven on the stereo, a football game on the TV, and have us read, what seemed like to me, mindless figures and stock reports while she slept! She only awoke to pass gas and tell me to continue reading. But somehow, between these odd jobs and playing the occasional gig, we managed to scrape by.
A few years earlier, while discussing my future plans with Daniel Vimont, a very important idea was planted in my head. When I mentioned my desire to ultimately move to Europe to study and begin my solo career, Daniel Vimont had said to me, "why don`t you get a Fulbright Scholarship and let good old Uncle Sam pay for it all?" That suggestion never left my mind. I spent a full two weeks prior to my trip to Graz filling out the incredibly long and tedious application forms and supplying documents for the Fulbright Commission. It was my plan to go to Germany and study with the great soloist, Hermann Baumann. I adored his playing and owned everything he ever recorded. I wanted to be able to supply the Fulbright Commission with a written invitation to study with the great master. After learning that he was scheduled to appear at Carnegie Hall with a chamber orchestra from Philadelphia, I secured tickets and promptly sent him a cassette of my playing along with a written (in my German at that time!) outline of my plans. As part of the Fulbright application I had to submit a recording of my playing. During the aforementioned 2 weeks, I went to my father`s band hall in west side San Antonio and recorded a program with pianist Letti Austria, who was a class-mate of mine in high school. This recording was on reel-to-reel and I simply made a cassette version of it for Mr. Baumann.
Herr Baumann replied to my letter and cassette! I couldn`t believe it. He said I should come to meet him back stage after the concert. I went to the concert at Carnegie Hall, where he played Haydn`s First Horn Concerto and after the concert, proceeded backstage to meet my childhood idle. I remember being very nervous. He told me that I should come to his hotel, the Mayflower (which is not there anymore) on Central Park West and come up to his room and please bring my horn. So there I stood between two beds in his hotel room, playing the Schumann Adagio and Allegro while we circled me and observed hand position and embouchure, etc. We spoke briefly about the Fulbright idea. He said he would love to have me as a student that I should do everything I can to be at the school`s entrance examinations in October. He was at that time, the professor at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst (Stuttgart College of Music and Performing Arts) With that we said our farewells and I left the Mayflower really rather please with how things had turned out.
But a lot was riding on me being awarded that Fulbright Scholarship. I simply couldn`t afford such a venture otherwise. I had successfully completed the huge application for the Fulbright grant, but I still had to undergo a German language proficiency test, a lengthy interview with some of the MSM faculty and then present a recital. I managed to pass my language test and putting together a recital was no problem. After all, it was what I loved to do! But the interview with the faculty board did not go well at all. I thought I spoke rather well. They asked me all sorts of questions about the music business, the music scene in Germany as well as various questions about the school and city of Stuttgart itself. The acting dean of the Manhattan School at that time was Dean Pollisi. Dean Pollisi had something against me, I am convinced. I never knew what it was. Whenever I had anything to do with him, it ended up not in my favor. This included orchestra placement auditions, the school concerto competition and now the Fulbright interview. In the end, I was indeed awarded the grant. But I scored "below average" on the interview by the faculty board. I never knew why. But thank God the Fulbright panel did understand and approve my goal.
I graduated from the Manhattan School of Music with an Artist`s Diploma on May 23, 1982 and the great opera soprano, Birgit Nielsen handed me my diploma. To celebrate, Kyle, Kathy Bearden, Tolli Birgisson and I went bowling...of all the ways to celebrate in Manhattan!
In Summer of 1982, the Fulbright Commission sent me a round-trip ticket on Lufthansa to Frankfurt Airport along with instructions that I was to make my way to the town of Bad-Godesberg, which is outside of Bonn, that time the capitol of Germany. There I was to attend a two-day meeting with other Fulbright students and sit in on numerous lectures on politics, art and insider tips for students studying in Germany. Following these two days, the other students travelled to various german language schools around Germany, mostly Goethe Institutes. My language schooling however was to be delayed by a month. Hermann Baumann had invited me to attend his week of masterclasses at the Conservatory in Bern, Switzerland. These classed, open to the public, were to take place a month before my first day at the Goethe Institut in Grafing, outside of Munich. I had to somehow purchase a ticket and make my way down to this beautiful Swiss city. The money from the Fulbright grant was not to be alocated to me until I began my Goethe Institute courses, so I really had to survive by my own very low cash flow and good wits. So I went to a travel agency for youth in Europs, situated near the main railway station in Bonn and purchased a super low fare ticket first to Bern and then, one month later, to Munich.
The masterclasses at the Bern Conservatory were inspiring, to say the least. There were about twelve participants, all of whom were accomplished players. And they were from all over the world. I took lodgings at the student dormatory which was somewhat outside of the city.But I spent most of my time, of course, at the school, practicing, listening to others in their lessons, having my own lessons and attending a concert of Mr. Baumann and the Camarata Bern in a performance of the Othmar Schoeck Concerto. During the course of the week, Mr. Baumann approached me to offer me a gig once I got to Stuttgart, where I was to study with him at the College of Music and Performing Arts. It was my first encounter with the word "Mucke", which is German for "gig". It was a good sign. It meant that there was work here to be had and that I was with the right people to obtain it. But first, I had to travel over to Munich for my intensive language course at the Goethe Institute. This course lasted three weeks and each day we had class from about 8 am till 4 pm. I met many people there from all over the world. My roommate was an Egyptian boy who was learning the hotel business. I also hung out with a couple of Portugese girls and an Italian from Bologna who were all training to be professional translators. The courses here took place in late September, and given our advantageous location so close to Munich, we of course attended the famous October Fest there.
At the close of the Goethe Institute German course, I made my way to Stuttgart, which was to be my new home for the coming year. I quite liked the city and enjoyed exploring it when I had the free time to do so. But I was above all, a goal-oriented, ambitious and single-minded young man who had come to Germany to study horn with Hermann Baumann and to become as great a horn player as I could. I quickly made friends with Mr. Andrew Hale, who was more or less the king of the horn class there at the Hochschule in Stuttgart. Andrew was a "military brat" from the old days when there were hundreds of thousands of American soldiers stationed in Germany. He had been raised in the Stuttgart area and spoke the language perfectly.
The aforementioned "mucke" was a good opportunity to meet two other horn students enrolled in Stuttgart, Regina Weitbrecht (now Kleefoot) and Peter von Deckend. Regina was especially kind to me in those early days and offered to let me stay in her apartment until I found a place of my own. The Fulbright scholarship paid enough, in monthly installments, to cover my food and rent. However there wasn't much left at the end of the month. But with Regina‘s help, I managed to find a cute little (!) basement studio which was only a few hundred meters from the brass building of the College of Music. I didn‘t have many possessions. What college student, especially in a foreign country, does? But I settled in nicely in my new home. My object was to not only practice obsessively for one full year, but also to learn, under Mr. Baumann‘s tutelage, as much of the solo repertoire as humanly possible. That year, 1983, Hermann Baumann was arguably the world‘s most successful and sought after horn soloist. So he wasn‘t in Stuttgart an awful lot. But when he was there, we each got intense lessons which would sometimes last 3 hours! He also requested that the other students audit the other lessons as well so that you received as much exposure to him as possible. Andrew Hale and I were incessantly auditing these lessons. Before Baumann would depart on his next concert engagement, he would assign me a plethora of concerts to learn. I never said no or even showed the slightest hesitation when he would assign me, for example, the Gliere, Weissmann, Gordon Jacob, Haydn 2nd and Förster Concertos, telling me to have these works prepared for next time (about 3 weeks usually). On the contrary, I was delighted and wanted even more! For the record, the list of repertoire I studied (and have never forgotten) during my year with Baumann at the Stuttgart Coillege of Music is as follows:
Bach Brandenburg 1st Concerto
F. J. Haydn 2nd Concerto
Christoph Förster Concerto in Eb
Franz Danzi Concerto in E
Antonio Rosetti G-minor Concerto
Atterberg Concerto
Gordon Jacob Concerto
Erik Larson Concerto
Jiri Pauer Concerto
Paul Hindemith Concerto
Britten Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings
Saint-Saens Morceaus de Concert
Various recital pieces from Cherubini to Schumann Adagio and Allegro.
Works that I had already either learned or performed prior to Stuttgart but studied again:
W. A. Mozart Concertos 1-4
Richard Strauss Concertos 1 and 2
C. M. v. Weber Concertino
Othmar Schoeck Concerto
F. J. Haydn Concerto Nr. 1
Michael Haydn Concerto
Schumann Konzertstück for 4 Horns
Andrew was the perfect study mate for me. He seemed so full of energy and spoke almost non-stop about all things "horn". We talked about the personnel of each of the horn sections in Germany, collected records of obscure concertos and monumental performances, practiced wagnertuben and natural horns, compared editions of various concertos and strove to increase our range at a fanatical rate. It was during this year that I achieved the 5-hour practice day. One incident that comes to mind, Mr. Baumann was going to play a concert at the palace in Ludwigsburg. The concert was to promote a recent recording he had just completed for Phillips Records- Mozart Sinfonia Concertante with Heinz Holliger, among others. It was also one of the very first performances of the Trio for Horn, Violin and Piano by Ligetti. Anyway, we were having trouble getting in (admission was too high) and we went around to the back where we heard the artists warming up through a window. We managed to get Baumann`s attention and he leaned out of the window and pulled us both up through it.
Another humorous incident occurred at the “brass building”. The brass students shared a house with the drama students. It was here that we had our lessons and ensemble playing as well as marathon practice sessions. But we were officially supposed to stop and leave the building by 10 PM. There was a family which resided in the apartment on the top floor and they did not wish to be disturbed after 10. But you know, you can`t hold ambitious horn students down. We frequently stayed later than that and one night, the man from up stairs came down in a fury and told us to leave immediately. We did, but we were back the following night (we must have had exams coming up, or something). This time he said he was going to take our names if we did it again and that we was going to turn us in to the school authorities. The next night we were prepared. Sure enough the poor fellow came downstairs around 10:15 and after yelling a bit at us, he asked for our names. I said “Dale Clevenger” (American accent being obvious), and Andrew said “Barry Tuckwell” . Oblivious of who these gentlemen were, the man wrote these names down and took them to the office the next day. Upon Professor Baumann`s arrival the following week, he was in for a surprise. He showed up at our lessons, sat us down, smiled and said that he had received a report which stated that during his absence, hornists Dale Clevenger and Barry Tuckwell had been practicing in the brass building past the permitted hours.
Toward the end of my Fulbright year, Professor Baumann began to suggest that I start taking auditions for orchestras in Europe. I had not really planned on staying in Germany. I wanted to return to New York. But conversations with Andrew and our other friends and Baumann`s insistence persuaded me to begin submitting my application to various orchestras. I was invited to several and subsequently auditioned for the Principal Horn position in the Southwest German Radio Orchestra in Baden-Baden as well as the Principal Horn position of the Gürzenich Orchestra (Cologne Opera). I was a finalist for the latter. I also received an offer to hold the Principal Horn of the Nüremberg Philharmonic, which for some odd reason I declined.
A Short Trip Back to New York
I had already proposed to my sweetheart at that time, Karen Sherwood. I proposed to her upon my return from the AIMS Festival in Graz. Karen and I had met at a Christian Students Meeting at Manhattan School of Music. This was organized by a vocal major at the school who simply stuck a small, hand written ad on the bulletin board at school looking for "any other Christians besides herself" at MSM. Well, as I have said, my Christian faith had played a very important role in my move to New York. My daily Bible readings and prayer time were a constant source of comfort and happiness to me. I felt truly plugged into a higher being. It was Paul Coelho who wrote, "when you are young, the forces of the universe conspire to help you fulfill your destiny." And this was certainly how I felt about my own destiny back then. Seeing the ad on the bulletin board about the formation or a student Christian organization seemed like exactly the sort of thing I should be doing. So I went to the first meeting. The girl who had organized the event was present, and so was Karen Sherwood. Karen was studying violin with the great and charming violinist Mrs. Carroll Glenn. Karen and I hit it off straight away and we hung out for quite a while after that initial meeting. Actually, we hung out longer after the second meeting, to which more students came. Karen lived on 102nd Street and West End Avenue. I lived in Carnegie Hall down on 57th Street. But by Christmas, I was forced to vacate the studio at that grand old residence and move uptown. And through the girl who had organized the Christian student meeting, I found, along with my brother Kyle, a room at the Student Christian Center which was owned and operated by the Broadway Presbyterian Church.
While I was at the College of Music in Stuttgart, Karen decided to continue her studies and MSM for the Fall semester and then we would work out something for the Winter-Spring semester. She moved over to Stuttgart to join me in my extremely tiny studio near the Brass-Actors Building of the Stuttgart College of Music and Performing Arts. But her parents never really approved of this action and desperately desired her to return to New York and finish her degree. We had already set the wedding date and she and her mother were quite busy setting up the details. Keep in mind, this was pre-internet days and also at a time when over-seas phone calls cost a fortune! But they managed most of it the old-fashioned way- those red, white and blue air mail fold-over letters that took over a week to be delivered. Due to Karens parents insistence that she return to school, I also decided to go back to New York and try to freelance. I was really starting from scratch in the freelance world. I had made a few small connections during my 2 years at MSM, but certainly not enough to get me on my feet and make enough money to support my wife. From the start it became evident that living quarters were going to be a problem. My brother Kyle and our best friend, Daniel Vimont, who was a bassoon major at the Mannes College of Music, were also looking for a place to stay. So it was decided that the four of us would find something together. We were all willing to share a tiny space somewhere in Manhattan. And we found a place. There was a small, 2-room apartment on 49th Street, between 6th and 7th Avenue that was available, and the landlord agreed to let four of us live there. Kyle and Daniel took the living room and kitchen area while Karen and I got the only private bedroom. The four of us shared the only bathroom. Now I needed a way to pay the rent. So I started to apply for jobs around the city. Kyle was already a member of the Saturday Brass Quintet which toured the U.S. for many years. The horn player in that group, Larry Dibello, had been working as a cashier at B. Dalton Books on Maiden Lane, right across the street from the World Trade Centers. They only required you to go in 4 hours a day, 5 days a week. So I took the job. Most of the employees were either freelance musicians, artists or writers and there was a very pleasant and congenial atmosphere at that store. I auditioned for the National Symphony of New York, a sort of paid youth orchestra for graduates of Julliard and Manhattan Schools. I had hoped this would get my foot in the door at Lincoln Center and open up some freelance connections. Now I have to ask the reader to trust my integrity about this. Anyone who knows me and knew me back then would agree that I have a fairly high standard. And I usually always give an honest, if not over critical assessment of my playing. Yet at this audition, I played at the top of my game. And when asked at the end of the audition to play a passage from memory from Mahler's Fourth Symphony, and after having flawlessly executed it, I really thought that I had passed the audition and would be a member of that horn section. But to my surprise, I was named 2nd alternate and put on the sub list. Consequently, when I performed with the orchestra, which occurred more than a few times, I was truly shocked at the low level of some of the horn players, Mind you, a couple of them were excellent! But I think that there was never a better example of politics, connections and rigged auditions than that year for the National Symphony Orchestra of New York's horn section. And I should have learned my lesson!
I became witness to blatant similar behavior in the music business, seemingly everywhere I turned. I was repulsed by it. I firmly believed that only those truly deserving of advancement and success should make it in music, especially at the upper levels. I was told by many horn players and other freelance musicians that I should call up the "top dogs" and take lessons from them. It was the best way for them to hear your playing and pass your name on to contractors. But for some reason, I was terribly thick skulled about this. I simply refused to play that game. And I didn't really start to recognize the significant role that connections play in the classical music business until it was much too late. I still do not condone it. Promotion, success and employment should go to the best player. One can take experience into the decision as well. But to hire somebody simply because he or she is your friend or studied with your teacher or performed sexual favors or is likely to repay you with a similar advancement is unethical and repulses me to no end. What's more, it is suicide to the musical organization. There have been countless examples of an orchestra or a chamber group declining in quality due to such hiring methods. It is the epitome of unfairness and I have never condoned it.
That year was an adventurous year. It was also incredibly tough. The four of us just barely eked out a living. I did play a few gigs, many of them in Carnegie Hall in fact. But the letter that "rescued" me from this bleak beginning was from the Gürzenich Orchestra of Cologne or the Cologne Opera. I had auditioned for principal horn of this very fine German orchestra just before returning to the States. I was in the last round with a man named David Bryant. In the end they hired David. He did after all have a few years more experience than I did. He had been playing in Florence the two years prior. A few months after this audition, and while I was settling in to a long New York winter, another principal horn position in the Gürzenich Orchestra opened up. Evidently I had made a good enough impression on the horn section that they offered me the job straight out. And of course, I accepted it. With one letter I went from earning 6000 Dollars a year to the promise of almost 40,000 Dollars a year!
But this job was not officially open until the following season starting in September. So I still had to survive somehow. Karen and I continued to attend the famous Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church where I was a member. That was the year New York State began to charge 5 cents more for bottles and cans and you could return these for your nickel when you were done. Needless to say, hundreds of starving musicians and artists like ourselves began to comb the streets of New York collecting cans and bottles and attempting to cash them in. I say "attempting" because there were many store keepers who would not cooperate with this rule. Many of them were Greek grocers. When we pointed out to them that it was the law that they return to us 5 cents for every can and bottle we brought in, they just yelled back at us,, "This is Greek law!"
I remember performing the famous horn aria from Händel's Judas Maccabeus. It was a small production down on the Lower East Side in the "alphabet streets". This was a notoriously dangerous neighborhood and I can vividly recall making my way through dark, dank dirty streets to a back sage theater door and entering the orchestra pit. I also performed 1st Wagner Tuba on an all-Wagner concert with the National Orchestra in Carnegie Hall. That was also the year Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life" first came out. This film was a huge success in Manhattan. The audience roared like I have never heard a cinema going audience laugh before. That year was also the year of "Yentl" which played at the Ziegfeld Cinema, as well as "The Bounty" with Anthony Hopkins and Mel Gibson. It was a superb year for movies.
Two years earlier, back when I resided in Carnegie Hall, I had sometimes played my horn on the street to try to make a little cash. It usually didn't amount to much. I used to also practice up on the 11th floor of my building with the window open. And more than likely I had practiced the melancholy horn solo from the second movement of Tchaikovsky's 5th Symphony. The Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church is on 55th Street and 5th Avenue. Carnegie Hall is on 7th Avenue and 57th Street- not really very far away from each other. So one Sunday morning, the Rev. Brant Kirkland, the head minister at the church, used an interesting analogy. He told of a lone horn player, sadly singing the strains of Tchaikovsky's 5th Symphony. I think he was trying to make the point that despite Tchaikovsky's tragic life, the notes of his beautiful melody cascade through the streets of Manhattan 100 years later. I thoroughly believe Dr. Kirkland had heard me playing, and I told him so. But he seemed, for some reason, rather doubtful. I suppose it seemed to him to be just too coincidental.
That year, I was also a member of the Kammer Woodwind Quintet. The members were Carol Brown (flute), Jonathan Towne (clarinet), Susan Johnson (oboe), Becky Noreen (bassoon) and myself. These fine young musicians kept me focused during this year in New York. I earned a little bit if money with them, and I kept in touch with the freelance world. But more importantly, I had my Carnegie Hall Chamber Music debut with the Kammer Quintet. I had actually begun performing with the group while still a student at the Manhattan School. We had entered the Artists International Competition and had one a prize. And part of the prize was a debut recital in the chamber music hall at Carnegie Hall. This was a very big deal for me. We also played live on WQXR Radio and had an interview as well. During the preparation week for this concert, my parents and my grandmother flew up to attend the important event. My mother had bought me a Pierre Cardin shirt that I was going to wear with my suit at the concert. The shirt unfortunately did not fit too well (it had been a lean year and I had lost a bit of weight). We declared that we ought to exchange it for a better fit, and where better to do it that in New York! I got out the Yellow Pages and we found an address that looked good. It was on 5th Avenue, and it wasn't too far away from us on 49th Street. So we made our way over there, entered a huge skyscraper, found the address in the elevator, and shot up about 30 floors. The elevator doors opened and there we stood, face to face with Pierre Cardin's personal secretary. We were in the private offices of Pierre Cardin. Undeterred, we strode up to the secretary, and in our finest Texas accents declared that we wished to exchange this shirt because it doesn't fit like it should. The dear lady recovered from her shock, and informed us that this was not especially the right place for such a transaction and could we please take the shirt to one of their many retail stores in Manhattan?
Back to "The Old Country"
1983-1984 passed, and at the end of June, we all moved out of New York. Karen got a Summer job working at a clothing store in Red River, New Mexico, where my parents had been building a beautiful a-frame house. I was preparing for my year as principal horn of the Cologne Opera. Unfortunately the timing for Karen was not ideal. She really only lacked one more semester at MSM before she would have her diploma. So it was decided that I would live alone in Cologne that first year while she finished. And graduate she did. She was then promptly invited to join the violin section of the New York City Opera National Company (the touring group) and of course she didn't turn that kind of an offer down. So I spent much of my year in Cologne alone. I lived with a horn colleague, Herr Hans Günther Zschäbitz, who had apparently had the idea to ask me to come to Cologne and assume the job of principal horn. I lived upstairs in a small apartment in their house. Hans Günther and I commuted too work quite often together. I believe he sort of wanted to adopt me as a son. But I really didn't want to be "fathered" and I rejected his patronizing way with me. I also had some trouble fitting in with the horn section there. They were a jovial enough group of guys. They seemed to know every opera ever written. I on the other hand knew practically none at all. I was literally sight reading performances all the time! I sight read what were for them old repertoire, polished performances of Lohengrin, Madame Butterfly, Tosca, Carmen, Salome and many others. Then came a new production. It was Janacek's "Katje Kabanova" and Gerd Albrecht was the conductor. I was granted the privilege of attending several rehearsals for this production. And I practiced the part quite industriously. I thought I was doing pretty well in the rehearsals. And then I developed an eye infection. I believe it was conjunctivitis. I couldn't see anything and the lamps on our stands in the orchestra pit made it even worse. Now like a fool, I still wanted to do the rehearsals and premier of the opera. I should have stayed home and recovered because I wasn't playing so well with the sight problem. And as conductors will do from time to time, Gerd Albrecht had one of his famous panic attacks and anger fits. He had discovered that many of the players at the dress rehearsal had not been scheduled to do the premier performance and he simply went berserk. He got very angry at each section and publicly declared that he did not wish the following people to be part of the production at all. And one of these musicians was "yours truly". This decision turned out to be devastating for my trial year. The orchestra colleagues had a great deal of respect for Herr Albrecht and they took this authoritarian action to heart. The vote for my trial year (tenure) was to be within one week of that day. And so for the next several weeks, although I never actually received official word about the decision, the colleagues of the orchestra began to look long-faced at me and avoid conversation. And then it happened, I opened the "Das Orchester" magazine, which is the official publication where one can find job openings in German orchestras (and other European countries), and imagine my shock to see my job advertised, clear as a bell! I supposed this could mean only one thing. I had not passed my trial year.