Transcriber: Maricene Crus Reviewer: Mile Živković
(Music)
So, when I was five years old,
I'm sitting at home watching television
and suddenly somebody comes on the TV screen playing the violin.
I was mesmerized.
And so I started begging my parents:
"Please bring me a violin. I want to play the violin!"
So, my parents came home with a teeny weeny little violin
and I'd never seen one or touched one before,
so what did I do?
I open up the case, take out the little violin,
go to the front door to my parents' house,
open up the door, put the little fiddle under my chin
and yell to the people across the street: "Hey, look at me!"
And my parents go: "Oh, my god. We've got a performer in the family!"
(Laughter)
So, to make a long story short,
I practiced my rear end off
and became an international concert violinist.
But for me --
it's a long story short.
(Laughter)
But for me,
what was most exciting for me was not just the aspect of playing the violin
or the aspect of playing beautiful music. It was about the emotion.
What I wanted to express
and what would be communicated to you, the audience,
in expressing the music.
So, let me give you two examples of what I'm talking about.
Here's a piece written by the Italian composer Tomaso Vitali.
This is the opening of it.
(Music)
Now, that was well played --
(Laughter) (Applause)
but it didn't say anything.
So for me, this melody feels like
a majestic "Hello, how are you?"
The king walking into a room.
So, how does the king stand?
How do you feel majestic in your body?
And the magic is the breath before the first note.
So, when I play this piece, it becomes this.
(Music)
(Applause)
And it is different... different.
Let me give you one more example.
Not only to express your emotion, but to make the music your own,
from your own heart, with what the composer is asking.
So, let me play for you the opening of a piece by composer Ernst Bloch.
He was a Jewish composer,
and he wrote this beautiful classical piece called The Nigun.
Here's the opening,
and I'll play exactly the way the composer wrote the music.
(Music)
It's exactly what he wrote.
But for me, it doesn't relate to my own experience, I'm Jewish,
my mother is a Hitler refugee
her relatives went to the gas chambers under the Nazis.
I grew up with the cry in the synagogue, that kind of a sound.
So, when I play this piece,
I make it more my own, personal and it becomes this.
(Music)
(Applause)
Thank you, thank you.
At the beginning of my career I had a life changing experience
and it set my whole career path on an additional avenue.
Now I was the first person in the country to take classical music into a prison.
So, I went into a prison, the Tombs, in Manhattan,
and again, to make a long story short, I performed for the prisoners,
and was completely shocked at the response.
It was so intense, they were so excited.
And then the warden came up to me and said:
"Mr. Heifetz, this was a bigger response than last month's when Johnny Cash came in
and played for the prisoners." And I was like:
"Oh, my God! Classical music can have that kind of an impact?"
It made me realize that, if it's delivered on a basic level
of human experience, of guts, of your emotion
with a willingness to connect and project,
it's accessible and excitable for anyone.
And that was a huge lesson which set me up on what I would do with my career
which has culminated in the Institute.
So, at the Institute, we tackle the issue of teaching young musicians
how to perform with emotion, how to project it,
how to become the music, instead of just playing the music.
So, the first week for these brilliant, young violinists, violas and cellos,
they take singing lessons,
because everything we do in life is a song.
I'm singing an aria to you.
When you talk on the telephone, that is a musical phrase, it's a duet.
You say "Hello?", "Hello!"
You can tell when it's reaching a high point in the conversation,
you can tell when it starts to cadence.
You say "Goodbye", "Goodbye", you hang up...
Ah! That was a musical phrase.
And how often have you been on the phone where you're just not in sync,
you kind of talk at the same time to each other
you say "Goodbye" at the same time, you hang up
and that just didn't feel right 'cause you weren't in tune to the rhythm,
to the silences, to the feeling of the interplay of the song
between the two of you. Very important.
The next week, the young musicians take public speaking lessons,
not to learn how to make a speech,
but to realize that when you speak to someone, you're connecting the eyes,
to each individual, person in the audience you're playing to
you as individuals, not just to a mass.
And to be able to review who you are
when you're speaking with someone, not speaking at someone.
And to be able to walk on a stage and to tell an audience
what you love about the music,
what do I want you to enjoy from what I feel about the music?
Why should you buy a ticket to hear me play?
Very important, and it creates this bond between the artist and the audience.
Then the third week, I bring in a pop blues artist,
which freaks out these young classical musicians.
In order to figure out how to believe in your own persona,
how to think out of the box, how to explore your creative potential,
don't try to imitate me, or a Yo-yo Ma or an Itzhak Perlman or any of us.
Each one of you is golden and perfect, but you have to take away the barriers
and with the confidence to allow who you are to shine through.
In the fourth week we bring in a movement expert.
It's very important to become comfortable in your own skin.
How do you make this piece of wood become a breathing part of your body?
And do you understand physically how your body responds
when you're feeling and projecting an emotion?
Really important. If you are a stiff vessel,
the magic, the emotion will not come out.
And in the last two weeks
we bring in a theater director, which is the most difficult.
Can you identify an emotion? Can you bring it to the surface?
Are you willing to reveal the emotion? And many times husbands, wives, partners
behind closed doors don't reveal their deepest emotions.
But we have to in front of all of you, strangers, completely open.
And then, can you find the energy to take that revealed emotion,
project it through this piece of wood, that is now part of your breathing body
with what the composer is asking you to do and to project it
to the last person in the balcony, yes, you all the way up there,
yeah, in the black coat. You have to feel the energy, all the way up there.
So, when you can accomplish all that, that's when the magic happens.
Now what I'd like to do is to show you a video of one of our students.
In this video you see how important it is for the student to understand
how to sing the phrase
and then how that relates to the way the student will play the phrase.
So, please, show the video. Thank you.
(Music)
Thank you. Would you sing it for us?
Whichever part you want.
Student: ♪ (Singing) ♪
And what were you expressing?
I think is kind of like a memory,
which I'm not expressing very well in my singing,
but it sounds really nostalgic to me.
Would you sing it with that expression?
♪ (Singing) ♪
(Music)
(Applause)
Thank you.
Now will you please join me in welcoming
Madison Vest on violin and Zachary Mowitz on cello?
(Applause)
They will be playing a duet by Handel,
which was arranged by Johan Halvorsen, a century later.
It's a Passacaglia, and when they play this duet
notice how they interplay, the conversation between the two of them.
(Music)
(Applause)