A little while back I was able to live-blog Jorja Fleezanis' appearance on Midmorning. As a follow-up, I was lucky enough to go to her performance as a part of the annual White Pine Festival. Here's what I wrote about my experience:
Musicians, the likes of which one generally sees in the context of large orchestra halls across the country, from Carnegie to the Library of Congress to our very own Orchestra Halls performed in the sanctuary of Trinity Lutheran Church in Stillwater, MN Thursday evening as a part of the third annual White Pine Festival taking place through Sunday, June 21.
Outgoing concert master of the Minnesota Orchestra Jorja Fleezanis performed Bloch’s Violin Sonata with longtime piano accompanist Karl Paulnack. In the spirit of the festival, which merges various art forms, her performance was complemented by poetry, first read by renowned musicologist and author Michael Steinberg, and the two were interspersed. After intermission, poet from Trinidad and Tobago by way of Brooklyn, Roger Bonair-Agard read a poem he’d written inspired by the music, after which Jorja played through the entire piece (sweating profusely, head bobbing, bow hair flying…) And I was in the audience. What a treat.
“Very few composers will never be in the shadows,” Steinberg said in introduction, noting Beethoven, for instance, as one of the few. He described Bloch’s life, working at the Cleveland Institute and the San Francisco Symphony, as a way to, I believe he hoped, inform the experience we would have with the music. His poems focused on events during the time period of Bloch’s life and the time around which the piece was written or captured the sense of tragedy and resignation to God that he interpreted as classifying the interwar period.
In Abraham’s earnestness to please the Lord, as the story in Genesis goes, he ends up deciding to sacrifice his son even after an angel tells him he’s proven himself. This parable lent definition and direction to the already engrossing experience of watching Jorja’s bow flick the individual notes out of her violin and hearing them fly around your ears—it became reminiscent of Abraham’s behavior. Thomas Hardy’s “The Convergence of the Twain” describes the sinking of the Titanic as almost alien, light eerily illuminating the edges of the ship and the iceberg as the passengers meet their icy death. And, truer than anything I’ve heard in my life, the portion of the piece Jorja played to accompany sounded just as eery, with whispy, distant harmonics characterizing the excerpt. On Midmorning with Kerri Miller Fleezanis had described herself as visceral, “as if there were an electric current running through [her]”, and, watching her perform, it was obvious she had not overstated this in the slightest. She was sweating, her face was contorting…and the music was beautiful.
After an intermission, the group came back, this time with Steinberg replaced by Bonair-Agard. After relaying a message that all the artists would be available to sign merchandise following the show (which produced much laughter from the audience) and poking fun at himself for, he joked, according to Fleezanis, mistakenly hearing a riff of “Wade in the Water,” the old Negro spiritual, in the piece, he launched into reciting the poem he’d written to accompany the work that immediately raised goosebumps all up and down my arms. He read with such power and verve, I was completely sucked in, overcome by the questions he was asking, like “What does it mean when a song remembers in several directions at once?” and the descriptions he was concocting of freed slaves escaping north, further layered by the elements of the music. It was artfully, though not obtusely done, and I was able to catch his meaning.
Less than two seconds after his finish, Jorja tore into her complete portrayal of Bloch’s hectic, eery, and fanfaric (totally invented that right there), never at the same time, sonata and didn’t let up on her impulse and verve until the final note had faded to nothing. Throughout the course of the night, she’d sweated buckets and lost a few bow hairs, but it was all in sacrifice to the music, and well worth it. I jumped to my feet with the rest of the audience and gave this Minnesota legend a well-deserved standing ovation.
I, of course, took advantage of the opportunity to buy one of Fleezanis’ CDs, stood in line, hugged (despite her sweat) and talked to (despite my being totally star-struck) perhaps the most influential and most talented violinist I’ve seen perform in my, as of now, very short musical life. She and Karl told Kerri last week about the glass wall that used to exist between musicians and the audience long ago. Let’s just say this visceral, enthusiastic woman who truly feels everything with every fiber of her being obliterated that glass wall, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself.
Looking for something to do for Father’s Day? Check out the internationally acclaimed Miro Quartet, performing at Trinity Lutheran June 21 at 4 p.m. as the final event of the White Pine Festival. The performance will be recorded to be aired on Performance Today on American Public Media June 29.
Feel free to leave any comments about this event, my reaction of this event, your own comments about Fleezanis as an instrumentalist, or anything you'd like for her to take with her as she makes the transition to teaching at Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music.
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Eliza Hartley
Digital Media Intern
Minnesota Public Radio
American Public Media
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