weekend in viola land

This weekend I'm taking a masterclass with Imai Nobuko, renowned Japanese violist who teaches in Geneva.

So far, it has been quite inspiring, living up to my expectation that studying music here is altogether different. At lunch today, Imai told me that at the beginning of her career she used to send many of her students to the U.S. to study because all the great European teachers were there. Now, however, none of the people teaching have studied in Europe and approach has become too technical, she said. She said she doesn't like it, this tendency to just play loud all the time: to play clean and loud. Yeah, I said, that is the New York style.

Imai is quite a personality: exuberant, with a gleeful laugh, but quite serious about teaching and playing the viola. Today a student played the Bartok concerto in masterclass with a bit of the wrong attitude for her: virtuosic instead of what the piece really was for Bartok: a plaintive and sorrowful meditation before his death (the viola concerto was his last piece). I think it was the stongest language she used: this is wrong for me, she said of his approach.

But that is what music is about: strong opinions and feelings. Indeed, this is what she lectured me about. You play this music, but you are not saying anything, she said of my rendition of the hoffmeister concerto.

At the end of the weekend she told us we could contact her, come to Geneva to observe lessons, etc. I'm excited to have the possibilty of learning from her as well as my professor in Lausanne.