June 3, 2004
Chamber of fun: Bass player at center of ensemble he creates, playing music he chooses
It’s every child’s fantasy to play only the games he wants to play with the friends that he likes best. Music Professor Barry Lieberman gets to live the adult version of that fantasy every year when the American String Project comes to town.
The American String Project is a string orchestra made up of virtuoso players from around the nation who come together to perform new arrangements of chamber music. This year the concerts will be June 10, 11 and 13 in the Illsley Ball Nordstrom Recital Hall at Benaroya Hall.
The project is Lieberman’s fantasy come to life because he picks the music and the players, and he gets to add his own instrument, the double bass, to music that didn’t previously include it.
“I do this because I want to have that opportunity to play great music,” Liberman says. “But I couldn’t do it without my friends. I’m happy that they benefit from it too.”
By “friends,” Lieberman means his fellow musicians, people he’s known, in most cases, for many years, and whose musicianship he admires. He invites them to come play with him, and they do so, forming a cohesive, conductorless group, united in their efforts to play difficult but rewarding music.
The project was born one ordinary evening three years ago when Lieberman was walking his dogs in Magnuson Park. While there, he ran into his friend Alan Morgan, a retired surgeon and music lover, and decided to use him as a sounding board for an idea he’d had for a long time.
“I wanted to enlarge the repertoire of chamber music for the bass and I wanted to have the chance to play with all the string player friends I’ve made over the years,” Lieberman said. “And I wanted the group to be conductorless so that we could make decisions for ourselves.”
Morgan was impressed enough with the notion that he went home and worked up a detailed budget for the project, which he sent to Lieberman. And within a short time, Lieberman was recruiting a board of directors for a brand new nonprofit organization. The first American String Project concert was in 2002.
Lieberman prepares for each concert by listening to hundreds of musical compositions, looking for just the right combination of music and then creating new arrangements. Most chamber music, he explains, does not include a bass part, so he adds one by, in most cases, having the bass play the same part as the cello. But the combined “voices” of the cello and bass are overwhelming to the other instruments, so the traditional chamber music quartet is expanded to a 15-member string orchestra.
“A lot of people think it improves the pieces because it gives them breadth and depth,” Lieberman said. “It’s also kind of an amazing vehicle for the virtuoso element of the players because where you usually have one person playing the first violin part, which is hard, now you have five people playing it together in unison so it’s even more treacherous.”
Showing off their virtuosity is just one of the reasons the players like to come for the concerts. There’s also the fact that the group has no conductor, which means that at rehearsal, anyone can suggest different ways of playing and the ideas will be tried — something that wouldn’t happen in the typical orchestra.
“Let’s just say that it’s inappropriate for a musician to make a suggestion to a conductor during a rehearsal,” Lieberman explained with a smile. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen that happen on stage in a regular orchestra rehearsal.”
In the absence of a conductor, the concertmaster (the first violinist) takes charge of rehearsal — or in this case, concertmasters, because each piece being played has a different concertmaster. And as for performances, the musicians simply follow the person with the “leading voice” at any given time.
In choosing the music, Lieberman looks for unfamiliar pieces. This year, the group will play Schubert’s Quartet in g minor D 173, a piece that Lieberman said neither he nor any of the group was familiar with. Sometimes he’s influenced by the talents of a particular musician. The Shostakovich Quartet #2 A Major Opus 68, for example, was chosen with violinist Jorja Fleezanis in mind. “It had her name all over it,” Lieberman said.
The group will also play pieces by Mozart, Nielsen and Brahms, along with a trilogy including works by Atterberg, Britten and Barber. Each concert features a different program.
“This is by far the greatest experience I’ve ever had as a player,” Lieberman said of the project concerts. “I’m getting to play music that no other bass player ever played, though they probably wanted to. I get to pick all the people I’m going to play with. We get to play in a great hall. I get to include my non-musician friends in the process as board members and supporters. I feel like I’m the center of the ensemble.”
And that’s an unusual place for a bass player to be.
Tickets for the concerts are available through Ticketmaster or in person at Benaroya Hall. The Thursday and Friday programs are at 7:30 p.m., with pre-concert lectures by Michael Steinberg, award-winning critic and author. Sunday’s 2 p.m. concert will be a “Musically Speaking” performance, meaning that Steinberg will provide commentary between each piece on the program. For more information information go to http://www.theamericanstringproject.org.
