Category: Workshops

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AMN mentors Percussion Workshops

Meet Samba Percussionist Ami Molinelli

Are you ready for some rhythm? Our June 12 online workshop, Samba Syncopation, features guitarist Edinho Gerber and percussionist Ami Molinelli, who’ll share their insights into Brazilian music’s complex, infectious beats. We asked Ami—a respected educator as well as a performer—to give us a preview of what is sure to be an exciting hour.

You’re a San Francisco Bay Area native. What drew you to Brazilian percussion?

I grew up in Burlingame in a not-especially-musical family. My father played the accordion—he was semi-forced to, being of Italian descent—and that’s my earliest musical memory. My mother rented a piano for all of us to play, and it stuck with me. I took piano lessons until high school, when I quit. At UC Berkeley, I took a steel-drum ensemble class and an African drumming class, and that’s when I fell in love with percussion. 

For workshop participants who may be new to Brazilian music, how would you describe samba? How does it differ from other Brazilian musical styles such as bossa nova or choro?

Brazil’s earliest music is choro. Urban samba, which is both a dance and a musical style, evolved in Rio de Janeiro in parallel with choro in the early 20th century. It derived from samba de roda—roda means “circle” in Portuguese—which originated in Bahia, in the northeast, and ultimately from West Africa.

Brazilian samba is written in 2/4 time signature. The constant 16th-note motion that you hear in a shaker with the big bass drum, the surdo, emphasizes beat 2: It’s the heartbeat of a basic samba. The melodies are a mix of African, Indigenous, and European, often in call-and-response form. The widely known bossa nova is a variation of samba.

The original melody of “Girl from Ipanema,” by Tom Jobim, is very syncopated. One of my teachers, Jovino Santos Neto, once said in a lecture that the Portuguese lyrics to “Girl from Ipanema” have that syncopation while the English lyrics are all eighth notes and don’t reference the melody of the song!

In non-pandemic years, the last weekend of May is when San Francisco holds its Carnaval. How did you mark the occasion this year?

We had a very successful virtual Carnaval! Musicians from all over—the Bay Area, Santa Barbara, Chicago, Brazil—got together to present “Raizes do Choro e Samba” (Roots of Choro and Samba). It was a free online event in partnership with Red Poppy Art House, a small art gallery and music venue in San Francisco’s Mission District. 

What else have you been doing, musically, during the last 15 months of pandemic restrictions? 

I was very fortunate to receive a San Francisco Arts Commission grant to produce a live performance, Historia do Choro, which I’ve turned into a virtual presentation. I’m also promoting the Historia do Choro album. I’ve been recording from my home studio, and I did a couple of livestreams. Just last month I did my first few in-person gigs—at Rocky’s Market in Oakland, as part of their weekly music series, and at the Healdsburg Hotel. It’s been really lovely to be out again!

LEARN MORE ABOUT “Samba Syncopations”

Watch the preview of the May 29 virtual Carnaval event, “Raizes do Choro e Samba”:

Watch the full video of the event.

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AMN mentors Woodwinds Workshops

Meet Clarinet Mentor Jerry Simas

On May 15, we’ll welcome back to Amateur Music Network Jerry Simas, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music professor and San Francisco Symphony clarinetist, to teach a online master class on Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto—one of the most played, and most beloved, pieces in the wind repertoire. We reached Jerry at his San Francisco home to chat about what makes this concerto so richly rewarding. And we asked him about his musical life since March 2020, when he contributed an early-pandemic guest post to our blog.

Last March you wrote: “During this time of uncertainty, let music be your go-to place. Make music if it means singing your own tunes, producing your creations on your computer, or fumbling your way on a dusty old accordion or ukulele.” Have you been able to follow your own advice?

Yes and no. I go through incredible bursts of creativity where I’m practicing a lot. We’ve had online opportunities—master classes, ensemble mashups. But I’ve realized how much of what I do involves making or teaching music with other people, in person. We all miss that! In the meantime, I’ve been serving on several San Francisco Symphony DEI [diversity, equity, inclusion] committees, and doing a lot of reading about anti-racism such as Ibram X. Kendi’s How to Be an Antiracist.

Is there any non-virtual performing in your future?

Yes! In May and June the symphony will do some indoor concerts at Davies Symphony Hall with restricted audience sizes. [Check the calendar for updates.] These concerts will initially be with strings and percussion only, but I’m optimistic that winds and brass will be added to the mix for outdoor summer concerts. I’m super-excited about that.

So are we! We’re looking forward to your May 15 master class, too. Tell us a little about your history with the Mozart Clarinet Concerto.

When I was 14 or 15 and playing in the Sacramento Youth Symphony, I received a recording of the concerto with Robert Marcellus and the Cleveland Orchestra, conducted by George Szell. It was revelatory. It’s one of the first pieces every serious clarinet player tackles. It’s often used as an audition piece for players of all levels and backgrounds—for youth orchestras, honor bands, and certainly every professional audition. It’s a piece with many different traditions and ways to interpret.

How will you approach this online master class?

It will be run like a traditional master class. I’ll talk about the concerto and about my own evolution with it—from youth orchestra to hearing great recordings to conservatory level to the professional audition circuit to performances with orchestra, and now teaching it.

I’ve invited three serious amateur or semi-professional performers to join me from their remote locations. For all of them, music is part of their identity, but they do other things professionally—one is a middle-school teacher, one is a fitness instructor and book editor, one is a lawyer. Each one will perform a segment of their assigned movement.

What can our amateur participants expect to gain from the workshop?

The great thing about these workshops is that they’re available to people in a wide cross-section of experience and ability. Everyone can try new techniques without the pressure of having to perform.

With Mozart, we tend to get stuck on the “rules” of rhythm, intonation, and beautiful sound. Good musicianship is important, of course, but I want to take it to a higher artistic level. How can we keep this classical standard fresh and alive? That’s what’s important to me.

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AMN mentors Chamber Music Strings: Violin, Viola, Cello, Bass Workshops

Meet Conductor and Music Director Ben Simon

Calling all string players! Our May 8 workshop, At Home with the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, is designed to inspire you and boost your playing to a new level. SFCO calls itself “San Francisco’s friendliest ensemble,” and good-humored conductor Ben Simon sets the tone. We talked with Ben recently about his life as a violinist turned violist, about why he switched to conducting (“the dark side,” he joked), and what we can expect from the May 8 workshop. 

Tell us about your musical beginnings. When did you first pick up an instrument?

My mother had been a cellist and pianist who quit music in high school to spite her mother, and regretted it later. She was determined that all four of her children would have music in their lives. And we do! My brother’s a percussionist, one sister plays flute, and my other sister plays the cello. But I’m the only one who became a professional musician. I began taking violin lessons when I was 6.

When did you switch from violin to viola?

I spent my first eight years in San Francisco, and my first violin teacher—Manfred Karasik, who played with the San Francisco Symphony—was actually a violist. We used to play Béla Bartók duos together. My family moved to New York, and I continued to study violin there. We returned to the Bay Area when I was 15, and when I left again, to attend Yale, Karasik gave me a viola and said, “This might come in handy.”

And did it?

It did, but not at first. I was pre-med at Yale, with no intention of becoming a musician. But I missed the violin so much that I dropped my pre-med studies and became a music major. During my second year, the Yale School of Music hired Raphael Hillyer, a brilliant violist who’d been the Juilliard String Quartet’s original violist. I was very lucky: He took me on as a student—it was a turning point in my musical life.

While I was still in school I auditioned for the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, which used students as well as professional musicians. There were a lot more violinists than violists, and the conductor asked whether any violinists played viola. In my youth and inexperience I said yes. I got the job as a violist, and I’ve never looked back.

What appeals to you about the viola?

Many composers have called the viola the intellectual voice of a string quartet. You’re playing the inner lines that control the rhythm and harmony. Also, the sound is richer and more mellow than the violin, and you don’t have to worry about that pesky E-string. It suits my personality really well.

How about conducting? Does it also suit your personality?

I’ve always been interested in score-reading and analysis. I had studied conducting since high school and had conducted a few little things here and there. Then, in my mid-40s, I became the director of The Crowden School in Berkeley—I succeeded Ann Crowden, the founder. The best part was getting to conduct the school’s orchestra. It was my first time conducting since college, and I loved it! In 2002 I was offered two jobs: as music director of the Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra, a fabulous strings-only youth orchestra; and as the conductor of the professional San Francisco Chamber Orchestra. I’m more of a mentor and coach than a boss—we’re all friends. I make the process as collaborative as possible.

And have you continued to play the viola?

I practice every day, and I play with friends and colleagues when I can.

We’re thrilled that the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra will play for us in the May 8 workshop. Will you be performing together or in separate Zoom rooms?

We’ll be together, live, at the composer Paul Dresher’s studio in West Oakland. It’s an industrial warehouse with some renovations that make it sound better, and with wonderful theatrical lighting. We’ll run through the Praelude of Grieg’s Holberg Suite together, and then the section leaders will talk about the musical challenges of each individual part. At the end, we’ll go back to the top and do a little performance together. It’s a brilliant movement, and everyone gets a chance to shine.

You’ve played in orchestras and string quartets. What’s the main difference?

Playing in orchestras is a good way to make a living and a terrible way to make music. Playing in string quartets is the opposite: a great way to make music—it’s a collaborative effort—but a very difficult way to make a living!

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AMN mentors Strings: Violin, Viola, Cello, Bass Workshops

Meet Violinist and Educator Dr. Lynn Kuo

What’s the secret to making music fearlessly and joyfully? In our April 24th online workshop, Dr. Lynn Kuo—assistant concertmaster of the National Ballet of Canada Orchestra and founder of Violin with Dr. Lynn —will talk about what it means to be a “Musical Ninja”: how to harness harmony as your secret weapon in order to develop musicality. 

We reached Lynn at her family home in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, where she returned as a professor in early 2020 and where she is currently staying during the pandemic-forced cancellation of the National Ballet of Canada season and of her freelance work in Toronto.

You came to the violin relatively late, didn’t you?

Yes, my first instrument was the piano, which I began playing at age 7. At the time, my family lived in the small town of Stephenville, Newfoundland and Labrador, which had formerly been home to a U.S. Air Force base. I began taking violin lessons later, when I was 9, from a local fiddler. I started formal Suzuki method training when my family moved to St. John’s [the provincial capital]. Most Suzuki students start much younger, at 3 or 4. When I started violin, I could already read music, because I’d had two years of piano training. 

I continued both my piano and violin studies until I was 17.  I then entered into my bachelor of music degree at Memorial University of Newfoundland. All first-year music students were required to participate in choir, and I fulfilled the requirement by accompanying the choir on the piano, even though I was a violin major!

You’ve been in the National Ballet of Canada Orchestra for more than 20 years. How did you get the job? Were you especially interested in ballet?

I went in completely inexperienced! I had never even seen a ballet when I auditioned for the orchestra. I was still in school, in the second year of my master’s degree at the University of Toronto. I was aiming to win a section violin position in the orchestra, and I used the assistant concertmaster audition the week before as a dress rehearsal for the section violin audition. For my own selection piece, I chose to play the Bach Chaconne. What was I thinking? To my surprise, I won the assistant concertmaster audition! 

Lynn with her 20-year anniversary pin from the National Ballet of Canada.

How is playing in a ballet orchestra different from playing in a symphony orchestra?

In a pit orchestra, it’s imperative to keep your eyes on the conductor at the end of every number. Unlike symphonies, operas and ballets require the conductor to coordinate very tightly with performers onstage. Ballet dancers need very specific tempi and musical flexibility. The conductor watches for what the dancers need onstage: do they need a little extra time to finish a lift? Did the dancer land earlier than usual? 

In traditional ballet repertoire, which can be extremely tightly choreographed to the music, experienced pit musicians will know to watch the conductor very closely at final cadences. Otherwise, it’s tempting to go on autopilot and end up playing in an empty hole in the music, when the conductor is pausing to coordinate the music with a final movement onstage. More-contemporary ballets may not be so tightly choreographed to the music in this way. As you gain experience, pit musicians will know when it’s important to stay particularly alert on the job.

Do you have a favorite ballet?

Yes! I love Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet and Cinderella. 

You also practice karate and you’re a salsa dancer! How do those activities mesh with your musical life?

I started martial arts in 2017. I was never really a sporty or athletic person, and I only started exercising as a young adult. After years of fitness classes, I found myself tagging along with a friend to a karate class at a dojo. Initially, I felt out of my element and overwhelmed, but I found myself returning for the next class. After all, they had given me a free gi and white belt! I never stopped going—we’ve been training online during the pandemic—and it’s now been three and a half years.

My dojo has a lot of musicians and dancers, and we’re all very respectful of each other. The other students know I need to protect my hands! Martial arts training is not about punching and kicking; it’s about cultivating respect, discipline, courage, and perseverance. I love the training because it instills these values, which I also bring to my teaching as a violin educator.

Eight months after starting karate, I walked into the salsa studio next door, and I became a beginner salsa dancer.

That sounds brave!

My motto is “Feel the fear and do it anyway.” It’s the title of a book by Dr. Susan Jeffers that peak performance psychologist Dr. Don Greene assigned me to read. “Feel the fear and do it anyway” has helped me approach the violin—and life—with a sense of fearlessness. I apply it to performing, in the dojo during a belt exam, in dance class when I’m learning a new step. It also helped when I returned to St. John’s last year to become a first-time professor. As a full-time orchestral musician, I was accustomed to being obscured in a pit or in a sea of other orchestral musicians onstage. All of a sudden, I was standing in front of university violin students looking to me for direction. 

I also took this mentality while pivoting again during the pandemic. After my teaching contract ended, I ventured again into the unknown and turned myself into an online educator and entrepreneur. I now teach violinists exclusively online, and I’ll be leading my third Violin Bootcamp for advanced violinists between July 5 and August 28, 2021.

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AMN mentors Talking about Music Vocal and Choral Music Workshops

Meet Singer and Actress Karen Mason

On April 17 we’re raising the curtain on an online event sure to delight lovers of musical theater and cabaret: a conversation between singer/actress Karen Mason and her longtime friend (and AMN curator) David Landis. To give you a preview, we spoke to Karen at her home in Jackson Heights, Queens—“from our roof we can see the Manhattan skyline”—about her life in music.

What was your early musical life like? Did you always enjoy performing?

I was born in New Orleans, and we kept moving north when my father’s job was transferred—Atlanta, St. Louis, Chicago. There was always music in the house: my mother trained as a classical pianist, and my parents took us to musicals and concerts. My all-girls Catholic high school didn’t do musical theater, but the boys’ school did, so I auditioned and was cast as a townsperson in Annie Get Your Gun. And I was hooked! I was a dorky kind of kid, and this was where I felt accepted and at home. I’d had no training at that point other than singing around the house. But I just had to do it. From there, I went on to play bigger roles: Mrs. Paroo in The Music Man, Carrie in Carousel.

And after high school?

I should have jumped in, but at the University of Illinois the musicals were more actor driven, and the music school itself was more classical, which wasn’t where I felt joy. I eventually left college and did a lot of community theater while unhappily working at a regular job. I wanted to be closer to people who were getting paid for doing what I was doing for free, so I auditioned to be a singing waitress at a Chicago restaurant called Lawrence of Oregano. And that’s where I met Brian Lasser, a brilliant musician, actor, songwriter, and pianist. We left the restaurant and started doing nightclubs and concerts, moving up the foodchain. In 1978 or 1979 we moved to New York. We worked one night a week for two or three years at the Duplex in the Village. That didn’t pay the rent, so in between shows we’d fly back to Chicago, do enough work to make three or four grand, and come back to New York. We worked together until Brian’s death in 1992. I still perform quite a few arrangements he did early in our career.

You’ve also had an impressive career in theater.

I’m not just a cabaret person, or just a theater person. I enjoy the diversity, going back and forth.

This is probably an impossible question, but we’ll ask it anyway: Can you single out a highlight of your stage career?

Probably the first time I understudied the role of Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard. This was in Los Angeles, and Glenn Close was starring. I got two days’ notice—Glenn’s doctor had told her to take one of the Sunday performances off. She did the matinee and I did the evening show. You don’t get a lot of rehearsal time as an understudy or standby, but this was February and we’d opened in November, so I was ready! I’d watched from the back of the theater and gone through all the choreography. I still had to learn all the costume changes—with three dressers!—and learn the props and set. It was an amazing set—the mansion would lift up with hydraulics, and there’d be an entirely new scene underneath. It was weird the first time I rode up in it, but I learned to love it.

I stayed with the show after it moved to Broadway, and I understudied the next two leads, Betty Buckley and Elaine Paige. Over the course of two years, I did about 250 performances.

There haven’t been many live performances since March 2020. What’s your musical life been like during the pandemic?

My last performance was in November 2019, in Chasing Rainbows: The Road to Oz at the Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, New Jersey. I got sick after that and wasn’t able to do any Christmas shows, and then, of course, I had to cancel all of 2020.

I was getting bored, so I decided to learn how to do self-taping and streaming. Every Thursday since April 2020 I’ve done a show, “Mason’s Makin’ Music,” where I sing to tracks. It’s been fascinating. In cabarets you have 60 to 100 people in the audience. Online I’ve had 3,000 people listening! It’s great to connect with them, but I do miss seeing eyes in an audience and feeling that energy. And singing with a piano—oy, I can’t wait for that!

I’m doing a few things this summer, though. On May 15 I’m doing a free indoor concert at the Frank Campbell Funeral Chapel in Manhattan—it’s a beautiful historic building, and it’ll be the first time I’ve sung with a live piano in over a year.

I’ll have a new CD out this fall. My previous CD, It’s About Time, was produced by Paul Rolnick, who also wrote the title song—he wrote it for some friends shortly after marriage equality became legal in New York. I sang it at those friends’ wedding. It’s not just about gay marriage equality; it’s about all marriage equality. If people are in love they should get married!

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