This is the third of three essays about musician and composer Chris Brubeck‘s teaching in Wilbur Cross High School’s music classes from Feb. 27 to Mar. 5 as part of his artist in residency program with the New Haven Symphony Orchestra. The first essay, written by Brubeck, ran the day before yesterday. The second essay, written by Stephanie Persiani, a sophomore at Wilbur Cross, ran yesterday. Lewis Nelken is a junior and started playing trumpet in band last year, but now plays French horn, tenor and alto saxophone, trombone, and clarinet. He is also learning to play double bass. He is on the band leadership team and is drum major/band captain.
I had seen Chris Brubeck perform on the Green last summer, and I was a little intimidated that a musician like him would be listening to my work and giving me advice. I marked off the days on the calendar, anxious for his arrival.
When he first entered the library where our recording studio is located, I was struck by his towering presence, but by the time we had all been introduced and sitting, I realized how many things I had wrong about him.
He wasn’t the condescending musician I had expected. He knows what music is about, and that is having fun and expressing yourself while doing it. He gave a great talk on the subject of composition about where to draw the line between the progression of music and the degrading, using the brilliant metaphor of remaking the chair, but in a way that it was still good enough to sit on. He gave a lot of other great advice to each student in my class on what sort of direction they could take on a project we were doing to write a score to a short video clip. It was really enjoyable to talk to him on a personal level about our passions for music and how to express them.
I also had a chance to work with him in my band class. He started by playing along with us in one of the tougher songs we have prepared for a concert in May. After we had gotten a thorough run-through, he gave us some helpful insight on how to approach playing it. He opened our eyes to some of the compositional techniques he found in the piece.
One of the biggest highlights of my year had to be jamming with Brubeck to the blues. Brought together by twelve bars and swingin’ rhythms, my director Mr. Barnes, our jazz drummer Aaron, Mr. Brubeck, and I put out a solid four minutes of music right from the heart. I listened to Brubeck play for a couple choruses and was amazed by the way he strung together lick after lick of cold hard blues. When it was my turn to blow, I got so nervous my knees began to buckle but I still managed to make some music. I had never been so excited to play and it was a tremendous experience, something I could talk about for the rest of my life.
The next class, we played one of Brubeck’s original compositions, “Ghost Walk,” conducted by another amazing fellow that runs the NHSO Pops, Mr. Tipton. The thing that made playing this tune so special was that we had the composer to the tune sitting in the room with us. We had the liberty to question the piece and how to play it the way it was meant to be played.
Having such a pleasant guy like Brubeck around made for a really fun time. Though he only visited Cross for about a week, I think I’ve pulled more out of those couple of days than I had in months before. I think I speak for all of New Haven when I say we were honored to have him, and that he’ll always have a place here.
