[PLAYING VIOLIN]
CYNTHIA PHELPS: Hi, I'm Cynthia Phelps.
And I'm the principal violist of the New York Philharmonic.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I grew up in Hollywood, California.
I'm the fourth of five girls.
And we all play instruments.
So we did grow up going to music lessons
together, playing in youth orchestras
together, and playing a lot of chamber music.
I started on violin.
The sister just above me and the sister below me
also play the violin.
My mother also plays the violin.
And it was just way too much E string surrounding me.
I would beg to be able to practice in the room
next to my sister who played the cello.
And once I did get a viola, it was clear
that it was an instrument that really spoke to me.
I felt that I could draw a sound out that I really loved.
I mean, I was very passionate about it,
where I was not at all about the violin.
So my mother figured it out.
I got some good early training.
And when I was about 11, I switched to the viola.
And I never looked back.
So my three daughters-- my eldest, my stepdaughter,
is in musical theater.
She has two children of her own.
So we have two grandchildren right now.
We have such a big family.
Our Sundays are kind of reserved family times.
We like to cook a lot.
Between family and exercise and reading
a book at night, that's about all I have time for.
The responsibilities lie on me to really
be a translator for what the conductor would
like to hear from the section.
If we're lagging behind, if we're
playing in a stroke that doesn't match
with the other upper strings, I keep an eye out on all of that.
I coordinate the bowings with the concertmaster.
If there's a question from the section,
did you want to take time before the downbeat of this next bar,
that kind of thing, I'm the one who sort of gathers up
the information and works in a way that
helps the rehearsal flow.
You know, I did not start out studying music and going
to university thinking I'm going to be the principal violist
of the New York Philharmonic.
My goal was always to play with people that I really respected.
It really makes this job so wonderful
to have such incredible colleagues.
On any given day--
I mean, we're all tired.
We work really hard.
It's really hard to pull these four performances in a row
out and have it sound as if it's the first performance.
And I have to say I so rely on my colleagues,
my other principal colleagues, the principal winds,
the people who have solos that just make
me so happy and responsive.
And that's the case in this orchestra.
You really hear so much incredible music-making
going around you all the time.
It's very, very inspiring.
And that's really worth everything.
The ideal that we want to make this music-making process as
excellent as possible and as committed as possible,
that's very universal.
And that's a big thing to share.
So I think that that's a bond that even in New York, where
everyone's an individual and has their own thing going on,
we all drop it all and come together on stage.
And that's really an exciting thing.
[MUSIC PLAYING]