Cameron Behning MUS 103B Sturman April 25, 2013 Symposium Reaction

On Thursday, January 25, 2013, I had the opportunity to attend and assist in the

rst concert of the Latin American Music Symposium. I had the job of turning pages for Meily Mendez. I have turned pages for other concerts before, but they were always just high school level. The music in these cases is never that hard and easy to pick up on so there was never that much pressure around turning the pages. This concert though was different. It not only was a collegiate level concert, but Meily was playing for a world famous autist, Merrie Siegel. To top it off, the musical composition they they would be performing, some selections from her CD Flute Music of the Americas Vol. II, was incredible difcult to stay together. Rhythmically and harmonically it was atypical. This fact made getting back in sync if the pianist got lost, say because of an inappropriate page turn, nigh on impossible. The stakes where going to be high. ! As I arrived to the practice that morning, I was surprised to see Meily was the

pianist. I had not heard who the pianist was, only that I would be turning pages. Meily had been in my piano studio. During master class I had often turned pages for her. I had learned to pick up some of her cues, how she nods her head when playing verses signaling a page turn. We sat down on stage and began talking about how the page turns work with the autist and such. Merrie was playing from memory, so I had to be on

my toes. Meily was going to be the one to x any mistakes that either of them make because she was the one with the score. We practiced a few times and I was not doing very well. The piece was just to weird that I couldnt gure out a logical time to consistently turn pages. That is when Meily explain some things to me. She had been working for the Tucson Symphony as a page turner for the past several years. On many occasions, she had not had an opportunity to practice with the people she would be turning pages for. With her experience, she had learned a trick on when to turn pages. She always did it 2 measures before hand. She found that every musician liked it that way. We practiced one of the pieces and I tried this new method. It went awlessly. I went from being stressed about screwing up during the concert to being condent that I could get though it. ! Later that night was the concert. Dressed in all black, I arrived thirty minuets

early as I was told to do. After a small delay due to technical difculties with the piano, the concert began. Meily and Merrie were performing mid concert. As the time to turn pages approached, we began to wait in the stage wings. Dr. John Milbauer nished playing his pieces form Manuel Ponces Mazurcas and it was our turn on stage. Meily and Merrie entered to applause and I trailed a few moment after them an set the music out. Meily ofter a last look of encouragement and then they started. ! Things went well. I had a great time hearing the music and being to close to the

performers. Every page turn was made on time, that is until the tango section. Here, the piano part is nearly identical for four pages. Only slight differences in accidentals made the chords different. I closed my eyes to blink and I was lost. Every measure looked the same. I was not familiar enough with the piece to hear see the different chords. It was a

moment of panic. Meily caught my desperation and did the next page turn. This gave me time to catch up. Thankfully, there was one measure that was distinctly different from the rest. I waited until then. I got back on and everything went well. ! Im glad to have had the experience of turning pages for such a major concert. I

never really realized how stressful the job can be and I have newfound respect for those who do it as a living. The advice from Meily was quite helpful and using it in the future. I found that it was helpful even on the seemingly impossible to follow pieces. Its funny how all musicians can like the same thing, but Meily was on the something and Im going to stick with it.