Putting It All Together: Conversations with the Yings

Part two in a series of recent conversations between the Festival and new Artistic Directors David Ying and Phillip Ying.

We were curious how these two brothers manage to create the varied programs that are packed into a very short six-week season that encompasses more than 100 concerts, master classes, community programs, chamber coaching, and teaching. The Monday Showcase, Wednesday Upbeat! and Festival Friday schedules alone seem more than daunting. How do the Yings pull it all together under the umbrella of this year’s theme of “The Art of Friendship”?

BIMF: How DO you handle the scheduling, when you also have to juggle your professional careers, your duties at Eastman, and then pulling all the other elements of the Festival program together?

David: Fortunately for me, I enjoy every part of my life. I love being a father and husband, I love working with my students at Eastman, I love getting out for performances, and the Bowdoin Festival is without a doubt a very big responsibility that we both love working on. It really helps that we can do the Festival work together. Our manager handles our concert career, which has to work around our teaching and Festival responsibilities as well as our family commitments. At Eastman we have mostly private students and chamber music coaching, which sometimes get interrupted by our traveling. At the Festival, which we work on year-round with the help of the full-time staff on Park Row, it helps that we can do it as a team using everyone’s special skills to create the whole.

BIMF: I think of those Russian nesting dolls – Matryoshkas –  where one doll fits into another that fits into another…..

Phillip: That’s pretty much how it works if you look at the big picture. We think about how teaching works and what we do at Eastman and how that fits in with what we do at the Festival.

David: I want other teachers to be highly successful with their students, and if everyone is successful together the whole Festival will lift up everyone.

Phillip: We don’t have to do it alone. Everyone who helps the Festival come together brings such passion and quality here. Lewis always said that if the teachers aren’t  teaching right, the whole audience will know it during performances. We all have to do it right to make the Festival work as well as it does. Each piece of the puzzle fits into the bigger whole.

BIMF: Planning a season of Festival programs, knowing who will play what when, seems like a daunting task for even the most well-organized person or team.

David: Well, planning for the Festival is certainly more complicated than programming for our quartet. There are lots of factors involved: incorporating 300 years of great classical compositions and diversity – blending the old with the new; presenting music from different countries; factoring in diversity and quality; blending pieces that are comforting with those that are unknown or at least lesser-known and that, to some, may be jarring. Next we always ask the faculty members and guest artists what they want to play. Whatever it is, they’ll play it better if it’s something they are interested in, so the more input from the faculty we get, the better. Then we need to know who is available when. Faculty members may be here for two, three, or six weeks. We have to juggle their schedules with those of the students and Fellows who are available and know who will play what in ways that blend with the other players to produce a superior concert.

So there are lots of logistics that go into the planning; you can see how we need to rely on the staff to help us put all the pieces together. The largest Matryoshka is the big picture, which then incorporates everything down to the most finite detail, which is the smallest, but no less important, element. Programming orchestral works costs more to produce – what can the budget cover? We juggle a lot of pieces of paper until once again, it all fits.

Phillip: Then there is juggling rehearsal time so that it doesn’t interfere with teaching. We have to trust the faculty to arrange their own rehearsals so they can produce a great performance. They and their colleagues have to basically get inside a chosen work. They may have played it many times, but they may have to learn how to re-play it if they are working with colleagues they haven’t worked with before. It’s like a chemistry experiment in many ways. But that’s what is so great about this Festival. There are lots of old friends who have been working together for years, but they stay fresh because new faculty rotate in and the quality of the students and Fellows just gets better and better.

BIMF: Do you have any short- and long-term goals for the Festival?

David: Short-term, I’d say I’d like to build on the strength that’s already here, the wonderful tradition of teaching and performance.

Phillip: Focus on the quality of the concerts and the variety of programming. We do like to champion new music, but we want to blend it in so that it creates a cohesive program. After all, at one point, Beethoven’s music was considered “out there,” but thank goodness someone had the foresight to champion his cause! There are lots of opportunities to showcase new works here, especially with the expanding composition program and the ability to premier works by our composition Fellows.

Long-term would involve developing and strengthening the already excellent faculty. There’s always turnover, which creates opportunity to introduce newcomers. This year we have the Miro, Dover, and Pacifica quartets (all with Festival alumni as members), we have Peter Serkin, Paul Katz, Kurt Sassmannshaus, Wang Guowei, Pei-Shan Lee, Kevin Puts, Chen Yi and so many others who will provide new dynamics and new opportunities for faculty and students. It’s very exciting.

We are also introducing new collaborations and venues – we’re doing two ‘Music at the Museum’ concerts at the Bowdoin College Art Museum, for example.

David: We’d like to figure out ways the Festival can reflect the music world that is more diverse and without boundaries. There will be three “Festival Conversations” where long-time BIMF faculty will share their wisdom and thoughts on music in conversation with someone they mentored. So you’ll hear Lewis Kaplan talking with Renee Jolles, Mikhail Kopelman with me, and Martin Canin with Doug Humpherys.

BIMF: So we’re back to the theme of Mentoring, which is reflective of this year’s theme: “The Art of Friendship.”

Phillip: Exactly. Mentoring fosters friendship in music as in other aspects of life, and the circle keeps widening.

BIMF: Before we leave, let’s discuss changes with the Quartet. We understand that after this season Ayano Ninomiya will be moving on to new adventures. Tell us how you found your new first violinist for the Ying Quartet, who will start work with you after this year’s Festival concludes.

Phillip: Robin Scott is a superb violinist whom we didn’t know and hadn’t heard in performance before. When someone comes to audition with an existing group such as ours, within the first minute you know instinctively whether he or she will be a good collaborator and will blend in. The three of us all picked up on that almost instantly when Robin began playing with us during a session. You listen for his/her musical voice. He’s got it, and we’re so looking forward to having him join us in September and having him here at the Festival next year.

We’re going to miss Ayano, who has been such a wonderful partner and collaborator, but we have to respect her professional goals and are glad she’ll be with us through this season. When Robin picks up where Ayano leaves off, we’ll be able to weave his expertise into the overall picture of mentoring, teaching, and playing chamber music in the multiple configurations we have mapped out. It’s exciting for us, and we hope it is also for our students and eager and enthusiastic audiences listening at nursing homes, concert halls, libraries, museums – wherever there is space to play.

From Jessup, Iowa to Brunswick, Maine, the art of music echoes the art of friendship.