Tesserae teams with Colburn School to mentor young students in Baroque playing
By Corey Carleton
It’s Wednesday night and I’m sitting in on a Tesserae rehearsal in a classroom at The Colburn School. Conservatory students, who look impossibly young, are playing alongside Tesserae’s seasoned Baroque players on a program that includes Vivaldi, Telemann and Valentini. The ensemble is led by Colburn alum, Elicia Silverstein, who has returned for this venture after recently releasing her first solo album. Dr. Ian Pritchard, one of Tesserae’s founders and Colburn faculty, is the common link for this performance mentor pilot.
The musicians tune in silence, and then begin with Vivaldi, playing a choppy, separated figure – very tough to play together. Elicia stops a few times to give words of encouragement and direction. She gives the students an example on her violin, and they start again. “You can hear the difference,” she says to the ensemble, and they keep playing. She’s right. What previously sounded OK, suddenly sounds full, interesting, even exciting. No easy task in a small, dry classroom jammed with fourteen players and their instruments.
The students are having an experience most music students never get – the chance to play and perform with professionals. With direction like, “We come like a bat out of hell here,” or, “don’t accompany me – give it right back to me,” Silverstein focuses the ensemble’s sound into a bonafide Baroque orchestra. The Vivaldi Concerto in A Major goes from proficient to vibrant and alive.
There’s a mishmash of period instruments in the room. Tesserae’s members are playing with authentic instruments (as always). Some of the students are playing with Baroque bows, or gut strings, but not always both at once. Elicia herself is playing on a modern Vuillaume violin strung with gut strings and a baroque bow. It makes for an interesting sound overall – not exactly authentic, but still an historically-informed performance.
Now they finish the Vivaldi. Several students leave, and new ones take their seats to rehearse the Telemann, where two additional student violin soloists tear it up. This isn’t their first rehearsal, and you can tell the students have received direction in Baroque phrasing. I start to become excited about the concert, and begin texting everyone I know to come hear this incredible thing happening this weekend. Not just the music (which is phenomenal and played so well), but also the act of handing down the Baroque style to a younger generation.
The clock just struck seven. Rehearsal is supposed to end, but they aren’t done. With the exception of two students who are scheduled to play in a recital in a few minutes somewhere else on campus, everyone stays to finish the Telemann.
Fifteen minutes later the students are done, and Elicia and Tesserae’s members stay to read over the Valentini – an expressive piece that opens with aching figures. It takes the smaller pro group all of 10 minutes to find their core. The vibe relaxes and both the direction and playing begins to sound more like a conversation.
Already concert-ready, the students and professionals will come together two more times to rehearse before their first concert at Thayer Hall on Friday night at 7:30 p.m. at The Colburn School. Saturday night Tesserae plays a similar program with Elicia at All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Beverly Hills, at 7:30.