I was lucky enough to travel to Lucerne, Switzerland for the 10th Conference of the World Association of Symphonic Bands and Ensembles this July. What an opportunity to hear some amazing ensembles, fantastic repertoire, and meet some truly great people. This was my second WASBE conference and despite the lack of "newness" of my first experience at a truly international level conference, I came away recharged and inspired.
There was more of an emphasis on a true variety of wind configurations at the Lucerne Conference. Ensembles such as the Detroit Chamber Winds and Sweden's Omnibus Wind Ensemble demonstrated the exciting and varied repertoire for smaller wind groups while the Wind Orchestra of the Bruckner Conservatory in Linz, Austria and The United States Marine Band presented outstanding programs for a larger instrumentation. There was a number of works performed for choir and band, including the world premiere of Rolf Rudin's ...bis ins Unendliche..., the complete Nicholas de Flue by Arthur Honegger, and even a work incorporating a Swiss yodeling choir.
The motto of this year's Conference was Art, and there were daily sessions with leading conductors and composers on The Art of Conducting, The Art of Interpretation, The Art of Score Reading The Art of Chamber Music Coaching, The Art of Rehearsing, and The Art of Programming. Glenn Price presented a session on conducting that discussed conducting as a holistic art that encompasses the many facets of score study, conducting technique, interpretation, communication and more. In addition to the excellent information imparted by Glenn, it was great to see members of the WASBE Council (some of whom have recording contracts with major classical conducting labels) up on stage as part of the demonstration groups working to improve their own technique.
The discussion panel on programming offered a truly varied view of the problems of programming for advancing the repertoire and for getting and keeping audiences. Some presented the concept that all aspects of classical music is in a popularity slump due to musical directors' seeming inability to present programs that are, as a whole, an artistic presentation. We spend an awful lot of time ensuring that the music we present is well prepared and is performed to the best of our groupsā ability, yet so often we slap together programs of music that happen to be in the book, or we force music together because these are piece the group or the director wants to play. The ideas presented at this session often talked about the appropriateness of a work to the audience, the players and the pieces surrounding it on the program.
Larry Rachleff opened a window on the rehearsal techniques of a truly amazing conductor in any medium. His open rehearsal of the final movement of Hindemith's Symphony in Bb with the WASBE International Youth Wind Orchestra was inspirational in that he truly knew every facet of the score and was able to work at an amazingly high level of detail with little reference to the score. I have to admit that the Hindemith is a piece that I have avoided because I found it too inaccessible for my audiences, and I have never heard a performance of the work that has inspired me to want to perform it. I came away from this rehearsal and the subsequent performance of the work understanding better why this piece has maintained a special place in the repertoire. More importantly Mr. Rachleff's work reminded me how much communication can happen between the conductor and the ensemble when the score is truly internalized and essentially removed from the rehearsal and/or performance process.
Perhaps the biggest benefit from attending this Conference, however, was not in what was planned but in what issues surfaced as the programmed events unfolded. What was considered a milestone by many at this Conference was the amount of discussion revolving around the repertoire played as opposed to the technical details of the groups. Often at gatherings of bands, we tend to get sucked into discussion on the athleticism of performances — the ability of some groups to play faster, louder, quieter, better in tune, more expressively, etc. than others. Rarely do we talk about the ability of a piece to touch us or the way a program hangs together as a complete package. The appropriateness of some repertoire against other repertoire and the appropriateness of some repertoire for the venue was a constant discussion topic. Many of us complain about the fact that we, as band musicians, live in a "band ghetto" apart from our colleagues in the orchestral or opera world. A sign of coming out of the "ghetto" is that we have developed over the last fifty to one hundred years a body of repertoire that stands on its own at an artistic level comparable to that in the rest of classical music world. This repertoire warrants and encourages discussion of the music itself apart from the ensemble performing it.
It is likely that you are a school music teacher or are a community band director and may be thinking, "that's all very nice, Marc, but the cost of going that far can't possibly outweigh the advantages for me in my situation." It's true, the vast majority of the pieces performed by these world-class groups are totally unapproachable by any of my school ensembles and none of the sessions addressed the specific issues of daily life in a British Columbia music classroom. But I know of no other conference that you can go to where wind music is presented as the art medium that it can be.
There is little in the way of "functional" or "educational" music, or at least it is never presented that way. This is a conference where you can listen to great ensembles playing great music. Coming out of the classroom where we often feel that we have to sacrifice the quality of music so that we may "educate" our students, this is very refreshing. This is a conference where there are no technical limits — where the only restriction is quality of the experience.
The more tangible benefits of this conference include the building and reinforcing of international contacts (only Antarctica was not represented), hearing international repertoire and discussing repertoire with people in my situation worldwide, and the raising of my personal benchmark as to what the level of performance (personal and for my groups) must be. Often we get buried in our own musical situations whether it is in a classroom or community band. We get lost in the details of the day to day and can easily forget why we were inspired to pursue music in the first place. Taking ourselves out of the day to day and attending a conference that has such a large world view and is of such high quality in terms of performance, the conference itself helps to put things back in perspective and inspires one to reach to much higher limits. I sincerely hope that I can get to the next conference in Sweden in 2003 and the following one in Singapore in 2005 and hope that the Canadian (in particular the British Columbia) contingent is much stronger.
Marc Crompton is a High School Music Director in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada