Toronto Summer Music Festival master classes

My new favourite element of Toronto Summer Music is the master classes. (Although Cecelia says I said that last year!) These, to me, are the heartbeat of the Festival. Here youth meets experience, the future meets the present, the up-and-coming meets the established. The inspiration felt by the students in these classes is palpable, and it's infectious.

Yesterday my first stop was Mayumi Seiler's class. We have great masters coming to the Festival from all over the world. Maybe because they've come from far away they seem more glamorous, but we should not forget that we have among us one of the very best in Mayumi Seiler. I defy anyone to attend one of her master classes and not laugh. There is so much humour in her teaching style, all lovingly served up to her students, and anyone else lucky enough to be around. At one point, describing a sound on the violin she said "if you play that way it sounds too much like an Indian restaurant". Another time when reminding a student to keep her fingers in place on the neck, she said "your fingers look like they're on a hot oven". To bring life into the piece Seiler suggests images to the student: She describes one section as "cossacks dancing", and for the next she says "the old ladies are shaking".

After Seiler's class ends I move down the hall to Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi, whom I just heard one of the cello students refer to as "the best in the world". The small classroom is packed with cello students (half the space is taken up by their bulky fiberglass cases). Some of the violinists from Seiler's class decide to join me as well. Oh, and there's fellow TSM board member Diana Wiley (She's probably blogging
too!)

Tsutsumi tells one student to keep her eyes half closed through a passage. "Most important is the colour of the sound. Not how you look." He assures her though that she looks fine, and he's right. "Play it like you've had too much vodka!" he says for one phrase. Next up, a student plays two movements from Bach's C minor suite. After the applause, Tsutsumi asks if she has any questions or anything she wants to work on. She asks a couple of technical questions but more importantly she asks a very broad question: How should I play Bach? She feels it romantically but is not sure that's the right approach. Tsutsumi responds: Most important thing is the music should be "alive"!

On to Pressler, whose reputation precedes him. First he has a reputation for stamina. No breaks. I notice the students, and the auditors, having to step out for multiple "bio breaks", but he just keeps going and going, like the Energizer bunny. I also hear he is brutally honest with his students -- no sugar coating here. Spoke
with one of the promising young piano prodigies who had played for him the day before and I asked what Pressler's comments had been. "Oh, he ripped me to shreds. But I need that".

Here are a few Pressler quotes:

"You are like a soccer player on a breakaway about to score a goal, and then he stops running and starts walking. Don't you want to win?"

"The F is like the cherry on top of an ice cream soda"

"You are pressing a button and going on cruise control. I want to hear the accelerator"

"Trills are like the salt and pepper you put on your food"

"This sounds too much like a woodpecker"

"You're playing like somebody who reads a joke, and can't laugh"

Finally, as one of the students has finished his time on stage and is walking back to his seat, Pressler calls after him and asks his age. When he hears that the boy is only 14, he responds: "I would say that's nice. I would say that's very nice. I would say that's extremely nice!"