Roger Bobo's Travelogue 2007

• Time Travel to Nostalgia - Tokyo, February 8, 2007
• Somewhere over Siberia - February 16, 2007, Somewhere over Siberia
• Het Concertgebouw - Amsterdam, February 24, 2007
• Switzerland Days - On the train from Lausanne, Switzerland to Italy, March 7, 2007
• Echoes - Riva del Garda, Italy. March 10, 2007
• A Very special Masterclass - Firenze, Italy, March 16, 2007
• Florence-Firenze - On the Euronight, the night train, between Firenze and Lausanne in the middle of the night, March 18, 2007
• Coda - A Retrospective of the Retrospective - March 24, 2007, Virgin Atlantic Flight # 900, London to Tokyo

Time Travel to Nostalgia

Since I left Los Angeles in summer 1989 I've lived a life on the road. I'm quite aware that to many, perhaps most people, the very thought of that kind of existence is extremely unattractive. Not me! For seventeen years I've been on the move and with the exception of a few weeks on the Greek island of Lesvos, all my travels were destinations of concerts or masterclasses.

In those 17 years I lived and worked in Firenze and Riva del Garda in Italy, two years in Amsterdam, 8 years in Lausanne, and a job in Manchester, but rarely was I in any of those places more than a couple of weeks at a time and usually not that long.

My life in Japan for the last year and a half has changed that and I've learned the many advantages of staying in one place. First of all I've learned that teaching works better when you frequently and regularly spend time with your students! That's quite a change from the way I was doing it while in Europe. Another big advantage is the absence of the chronic checking in process at airports. I don't look forward to doing that again even this one time next week.

This is the end of the school year in Japan and now we're on a two-month break. Although I may do a small masterclass in Amsterdam and one in Italy, this trip is primarily one of nostalgic curiosity; it will be a visit to a time passed. What I'll see I don't know yet but I do know I will write about it. What ever happens on the trip, for the next week before I leave I have little time to think about, there's a lot of things to take care of for five weeks on the road.

Time travel can be scary, it can be sad, it can be turbulent but it can also be exhilarating and in any circumstance it will be enlightening.

Tokyo, February 8, 2007

Somewhere Over Siberia

My God how I don't miss flying! I remember when I first took that flight from New York to Amsterdam in 1962 to audition for the Concertgebouw Orchestra; I was so excited, so very curious, everything was going to be a first!

This morning I had to get up at 4:00 am, catch a taxi at six and then catch the limousine (bus) to Tokyo's Narita Airport. Everything worked like clockwork until I saw on the flight information board at the airport that my flight (Virgin Atlantic #901) was cancelled. Damn!

I'm getting older; I need the legroom and the option to move a little! So this was the first time I had decided to fly business class when I was the one paying for the ticket and I'm really glad I did. Changing to another flight went easily, comfortably and quickly. The reason I choose Virgin is because I didn't want to fly BA, which has a proclivity for too many problematic issues. Well, they changed me to a BA flight! Damn!

When I made a very small protest they asked me if I would like to fly ANA, which was my first choice before I bought the ticket; Virgin was ¥300,000 less expensive (that's a lot). ANA is a great airline and I feel lucky to be where I am.

But now is the hard part even on business class on a great airline. Half way to London, 30,000 feet somewhere over Siberia, after a superb Japanese meal and after a restless 3 hours of sleep, I awoke to the fat European woman sitting across the aisle lighting a cigarette. Fortunately, she took just one big inhalation and put it out. But now I face six more hours in this seat, the movies are not interesting, I can't get back to sleep, my musical consciousness is shut down so it's clearly not a good time to start another musical article; I'm inpatient and bored. Damn!

So it looks like it's going to be a therapeutic blog! This should take about an hour then I'll only have to wait five hours until we touch down in London. Damn!

This vacation is intended to be a writing vacation and all I can say at this moment is that I hope I have something interesting to say once I settle in the hotel and jetlag is over. Tonight I'm looking forward to an Indian dinner with my daughter Melody --- if I can stay awake; this day will be nine hours longer than a normal day. Damn!

February 16, 2007, Somewhere over Siberia

Het Concertgebouw

The Concert Building

It's been about two years since I've visited the Concertgebouw and it may be a very long time before I visit it again. Last time they were expecting me, Perry Hoogendijk, a friend, old student and the present tubist in the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, had arranged ahead of time that I could come in and listen to the rehearsal. Thirty years ago they still knew me and it was Oh! Mr. Bobo, welcome back. Today that stage entrance, of course, has become a high security portal; this time, after ten minutes and a couple of phone calls, I was welcomed and free to go into the hall.

Even though I had probably averaged a visit a year since I left the Concertgebouworchest in 1964, while entering the hall, that powerful feeling of a deep reverence struck me again. I was happy to be the only person there and I instinctively went up the stairs from the public seating section to the tuba position where I had sat for two seasons. It wasn't the first time I was alone in that hall; I used to practice there when the hall was not in use and somehow even forty-four years ago, I sensed that someday I would look back on those private practice sessions in the Concertgebouw as the The good ol' days; I was right.

Today time stopped for some minutes or hours, I'm not sure which, as I felt the echoes of the musical magic in concerts of Brahms, Bruckner, Wagner, Strauss, Mahler, Verdi, Stravinsky and others with conductors like Haitink, Jochum, Szell, Monteux, Leinsdorf, Boulez, Giulini, Kubelic and Maazel. I was 25, it truly was a magical experience and today, sitting in that tuba chair alone in the hall, it seemed time had allowed me to keep clearly the intensity and aw of those years.

Some 30 or so years ago I had a similar experience returning into the hall the morning after there had been a nachtconcert in the concertgebouw, these were a series of concerts, jazz concerts that were slowly moving toward the rock and roll direction; they started at midnight and would run very late into the wee hours. On this particular morning after the nachtconcert there was a smoky haze in the historical hall, a huge sign hanging over the podium that said NO SMOKING and the heavy aroma of hashish in the air. Amsterdam was embarking on some extreme changes and the Concertgebouw Association was capitalizing on the new ways. I'll leave it up to the Amsterdam's historians whether this new direction enhanced of diminished the legacy of the Concertgebouw; clearly, its image was changing along with the entire city of Amsterdam.

There's an old joke that was going around the Los Angeles at the time I left in 1989 particularly among the Hollywood studio musicians (known as session musicians in most of the world) regarding changing times and the aging process, it has to do with which musicians are being hired for work. The four stages go something like this; I'll use my own name as an example only, you can replace it with any name you wish, even your own:

1. Who's Roger Bobo?
2. Get me Roger Bobo.
3. Get me someone who sounds like Bobo did.
4. Who's Roger Bobo?

I still have a few friends here in Amsterdam but it's clear I've moved into the stage four of that joke.

I may return to Amsterdam someday, but it's absolutely certain it will no longer be every year; there are too many places I've never seen; my wanderlust is still dominant and Tokyo is a wonderful point of embarkation for discovering new places.

And the echoes still resonate.

Amsterdam, February 24, 2007

Switzerland Days

After eight cold, rainy days in Amsterdam and arriving to a very sunny, warm, clear Switzerland, one would think I would be very happy to be here. The view across Lake Geneva to France on the other side is amazingly beautiful and the sharp silhouette of the snow covered alps makes it feel wonderful to be an inhabitant on this extraordinary planet, what incredible beauty.

The last three years of the time I lived in Toscana I also had a small apartment in Lausanne and I would commute to fulfill my responsibilities at the Conservatoire de Lausanne but I always found myself relieved to be returning to Toscana and I never really understood why. Since I arrived yesterday I feel that uneasy feeling again and I search for the reason.

Progressive is not an appropriate word to describe Switzerland; it was 1971 when Women were first granted the right to vote and it was 2002 before Switzerland joined the United Nations and the resistance to becoming a member of the European Community is dominate, especially in the German speaking part of this quadralingual country. When the Swiss Confederation was founded in the 13th century, its principal purpose was to protect itself from external entities. There is a very long history here of protecting the mountain valleys where Switzerland was initially founded, these are their secluded paradises.

Warm is not the correct adjective to describe the Swiss character. It's abundantly clear that Switzerland has a centuries old history of xenophobia. Very quickly I want to point out the difference between xenophobia and fascism. Xenophobia is the fear of foreign influences and fascism is the hatred of foreigners. The Swiss are not fascists. Sometimes I feel even xenophobia might be too strong; perhaps shyness would be simply strong enough, especially in the small alpine communities. Many of the Swiss are quite content in their secluded comfortable communities and they don't want to change.

In my fourteen years of teaching at the Conservatoire de Lausanne it seemed to be a confusing time for the CdL. At one time I had 12 students and 11 of them were Foreign, they were from Japan, Taiwan, Israel, Norway, Great Britain, Canada, Ukraine, Germany and America. The director of the school asked me if I could please try and make my class mostly students from Lausanne! I was also told that my students practiced too much and that they used the Internet too much; the CdL did not like having to pay the long-distance costs of my foreign students using the Internet! Well, we've all become more cybernetically sophisticated since that time. What the CdL did not know is that I had several other foreign students in the school, I called them ghost students; their lives centered in the school just like the other students and no one ever discovered that they were not enrolled in the school. So perhaps the Conservatory de Lausanne had reason to see the tuba class and me as a problem!

Still, even with their discomfort with the foreign students and with me, I have to point out that they made it possible for STUBA, a tuba/euphonium ensemble made up of my Conservatoire de Lausanne and Bern Hochschule students, to travel to Canada and participate in the 2003 International Tuba/Euphonium Conference in Regina.

Now, as I ride in this train from Lausanne toward Italy and I see Lake Geneva on the right and the Swiss Alps on the left, it is not so difficult to understand the closeness of the Swiss. Through the mist I can see one very small village framed by the clouds, as if floating in the sky, in a spotlight of sunshine, a small church with a sharp white steeple and a row of small houses on either side, it's breathtaking and there are hundreds of such villages. Why would anyone ever want to change that fairytale environment and why would anyone ever want to leave?

And as my train crosses the frontier into Italy my spirit lightens and I anticipate the dinner table tonight with my friends and Italian cuisine; I've been gone much too long.

On the train from Lausanne, Switzerland to Italy, March 7, 2007

Echoes

Riva del Garda is a small town located in the Dolomite Mountains of Italy at the northern tip of Lake Garda, the second largest lake in Europe. My history in Riva goes back to 1992 with the Musica Riva Festival, which I did the next ten years. Since the finish of Musica Riva my association with the town Riva continued with numerous independent masterclasses, the 1997 ITEC, (International Tuba/Euphonium Conference) where we hosted a gathering 500 tubists and Euphoniumists from all over the world. And starting tomorrow, March 11, 2007, I will have another masterclass in Riva, a very special masterclass.

I'm very proud to say that most of the professional tubists (and many other brass players) and the teachers in Italy have been my students, many of them will be at this masterclass and most of them will bring their students; I'm happily anticipating meeting the new generation of Italian tubists--- just call me Maestro Grandpa! There will be a separate blog (with pictures) about this masterclass when it's over.

But the most significant part of my Riva del Garda history is that it was the venue where I decided to play my final concert before retiring from 50 years of tuba playing. With the help of my manager and secretary, Emily Harris, we organized my final concert for May 29, 2001. Riva is one of the most beautiful small towns in the world and it's more or less central in Europe, which made it easier for my friends to come. And they did come! Four very full carloads of students and friends came from Lausanne, friends from Hungary, Germany, Holland and France (mostly students) were there and, of course, the friends and students from Italy. I played several solos with piano with my accompanist of many years Roberto Arosio, the Aratiunian Concerto, which was dedicated to me, with the Corpo Bandistico Riva del Garda and finally I conducted the Band. I played well, it was a good concert, however, the parties that followed were absolutely unforgettable, most of my favorite people in the world were there helping me celebrate my 50 years as a tubist.

I've had two extraordinary parties in my life that I will never forget, the party after my Carnegie Recital Hall concert in New York on March 31, 1961 and this Riva del Garda party on May 29, 2001.

Early this morning I got up and went into the Rocca, a lakeside medieval castle surrounded by a moat and with a picturesque drawbridge; this was the location where I played that last concert. I suppose the time this morning in the Rocca could appropriately be called a meditation; I sat for a long time, there was a lot to remember and the memories were all good. I heard a lot of echoes during this meditation.

After the final notes of the final encore of that final concert six years ago, I quickly escaped to my dressing room in the Rocca and had about thirty seconds to consider the magnitude of my decision to stop playing before all my friends would come to the dressing room door; for fifty years I played the tuba several hours a day and the decision to stop would have a huge effect in my life.

I had one small but very special personal thing planned for the moments my friends and students would come to that dressing and say whatever words they were going to say. I wanted to give my mouthpiece to my very special student, my best student, and my good friend Shuko Kuramoto. It was highly symbolic to me, like passing the torch on to the next generation. The mouthpiece was in my pocket and I was ready.

Strong men don't cry and I have embarrassed myself more than once by loosing control in emotional situations, but I was determined not to loose control at this high profile moment. I was very happy and relieved that the first person to arrive at the dressing room door was Shuko. When she arrived I took her hand and placed the mouthpiece in it; no words were spoken, she stepped back and leaned against the wall and I lost control of my emotions only for a few seconds. I regained control very quickly and the next person to arrive was my daughter Melody who is very socially aware and has an uncanny gift of always saying and doing the right thing; I was very happy to have her there at that moment.

For the next twenty minutes or so I met all my friends and made jokes, especially about the party we would soon enjoy at the Pizzaria in Riva where even today they still have the Pizza Bobo printed in their menu: cheese, tomatoes, mushrooms, garlic, spicy salami and anchovies, which I will have tomorrow evening after the first day of the masterclass!

Shuko is still a good friend and the translator of all my articles for rogerbobo.jp, my Japanese web site, and Pipers, a very well known wind instrument magazine in Japan.

And I keep my eyes set toward the future while I keep the sights and sounds of the rich memories and resonant echoes alive.

Riva del Garda, Italy. March 10, 2007

A Very special Masterclass

Related:

• Recensione del masterclass (in italiano) e foto - www.tubaforum.it di Mauro Cadei

At first I was a little disappointed that many of my old students in Italy didn't come to my masterclass in Riva del Garda until I was told that the reason they were not there is that they were working. That's a good reason and a great feeling; my students are working! However, Many of my old students did come, and it was wonderful to see them again.

As well as seeing old friends, the focus of this masterclass for me was to meet and hear the new generation of Italian tubists; I was not disappointed, and the future of the tuba in Italy is healthy and bright.

I was very happy that Davide Viada, one of my younger students two years ago at the Fiesole Scuola di Musica, had just won the position in the prestigious pan European Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra with Claudio Abbado as music director. He has made huge progress since I last heard him. My joke in circumstances like that is: If there is one thing I hate, it's when I don't see a student for a long period of time and the student has greatly improved without me; I find that very rude! ---- It's a joke!

Perhaps I even encountered the future generation; I had the opportunity to meet and work an eleven-year-old euphoniumist named Pietro Vittorazzo, a student of Emily Harris who has a formidable studio of very young and talented players; she seems to have the mixture of patience, skill and wisdom that opens the door to a positive musical world for these young players. Great credit and respect needs to be given to Emily and the many teachers around the world that take that huge responsibility of starting young musicians and guiding their first musical steps; it is one of the most difficult and under paid jobs in the world.

Twenty years ago I was wise enough to find teachers for my daughter Melody in her musical endeavors. She tried piano, violin, guitar, and horn and nothing really worked. This following story is very painful for me: I remember very clearly once when she was practicing I tried to help her. I pointed out to her that one note was very sharp and I asked her to play it again. She did, in fact she played it several times and the note stayed sharp and I kept pointing it out. Finally I noticed tears flowing down her face and she told me she didn't know what sharp meant. I tried to remember that teachers (parents) learn as well as students and that was a big lesson for me. Now the painful part: The next day when she was practicing I tried to help her again (really stupid) and she cried again. Very soon after that she insisted on stopping violin lessons. It breaks my heart to tell this story. Of course, every parent thinks his offspring has the potential to be a great musician but I fear I'll never know. I will only say further that during her piano studies, Melody learned the rather complicated piano part to Morning Song by Roger Kellaway and learned it well enough that we could play it together. I'll always wonder--- if only I was just wise enough to not to help!

So I have the deepest respect for the teachers that help young musicians get started, they receive very little credit and sadly very little salary. Emily Harris is a real hero, she supplies the young players who will later step in and continue the great Italian tradition.

Frequently, these teachers are viewed, and I fear view themselves, as failures in musical performance and therefore go into teaching young children. The Japanese have a wonderful attitude about this. Many Japanese music students, very fine players, look forward to returning to their small towns or villages and teaching young players; consequently, there is a very high level of young players in Japan.

I hope that I will have a chance to return another time and hear to progress of the tuba in Italy.

Firenze, Italy, March 16, 2007

Photo L-R: Davide Borgonovi, Gianni Gatti, Francesco Nicoletti, Pietro Vettorazzo, Alfonso Paltrinieri, Roger Bobo, Mauro Cadei, Davide Viada, Emily Harris, Alberto Azzolini, Walter Fillipi, Lorenzo Di Spazio

Florence-Firenze

Since I write in English I should really refer to the city as Florence, but Firenze is such a phonically beautiful sounding word, far more befitting of the beautiful Italian city. To me Florence brings to mind a smoggy Los Angeles suburb of the same name.

I don't remember from where or from whom I heard that Italy possesses half the art of the world and Firenze has half of the art of Italy. I've always been dubious about the validity of this old adage but it still points out how unbelievably rich Firenze is in it's inventory of art. A walk through the city can expose one to several museums worth of art in just a few blocks, its abundance is numbing; it's possible to have a cappuccino on the Piazza della Signoria and see Michelangelo's David and many other formidable sculptures across the on the other side. And if one goes up to the Piazza Michelangelo and looks down on the city, the view, with its overwhelming profile of historical and beautiful architecture, is beyond description. And that's just the beginning. Just outside of the city there are rolling green hills rich in olive orchards and grape vineyards; this is the home and inspiration for many of those great Tuscan creators of monumental beauty --- and some of the best olive oil and wine in the world.

One morning in the fall we got up, had breakfast and Melody got on her bicycle to go to the American School, which was not far away. The sun was trying to break through the fog resulting in a golden haze. Watching her disappear on her bicycle into that magical golden mist was one of my most memorable fragments of fatherhood and it also made very clear where some of the inspiration came from for many of the great Tuscan artists; The golden mist was real!

Just one bottle of Chianti just outside of Impruneta with Mario Barsotti, friend, former student, and tubist with the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino

After three years we left Toscana to move to Amsterdam while I was teaching at the Rotterdams Conservatorium. Two years later we returned to Toscana and lived several more years on another farm in the small town of Impruneta, just 20 minutes outside of Firenze. We stayed there until Melody graduated from the American School of Florence and started her studies at the University of Wales at Aberwrystwyth and I moved to Lausanne, Switzerland.

Firenze was not just another location where we lived during the escape from Los Angeles; it was our home, our real home.

Tonight at 23:00 I will get on the Euronight again, that same train that I've taken hundreds of times, and will wake up in Lausanne where I will stay just long enough to buy enough chocolate from Blondel's, the secret best chocolate the world, to take back to Tokyo as gifts for all the important people in my life in my new home. What else could one bring as gifts from Switzerland, kuku clocks, and watches? too difficult to transport, too expensive! Chocolate is the perfect thing.

And the day after tomorrow I will see Melody in London for three days before flying back to Tokyo.

On the Euronight, the night train, between Firenze and Lausanne in the middle of the night, March 18, 2007

Coda

A Retrospective of the Retrospective

Sometimes it's good to look back, it helps us to better understand looking forward. Perhaps a six-week retrospective is a little long but I'm very happy to have had the chance to take this trip; Amsterdam, Lausanne, Riva del Garda and Firenze are places that are rich in my memory. Now, at 37,000 feet over Siberia flying at 850 KPH toward Tokyo, it seems almost inappropriate to dwell too much on the views of my past that I've experienced on this sentimental journey; the future is the way to go, the only way, and I will land in the future in just a few hours. Any experienced traveler knows what baggage to take on a journey to make the trip enjoyable and what to baggage leave behind.

It looks like I may be back in Europe sooner than I expected, but if so, it will not be another journey of retrospection; that's done and it was great, but there is no need to repeat it. It seems now that March 2008 may very well be a concert and masterclass tour that will include Amsterdam, Italy, and Greece; I hope so, working is great but vacations can get long.

But the immediate future is the thing I look forward to the most for three reasons:

1. I look forward returning to my classes and my second full year at the Musashino Academy of Music in Tokyo, a great school with great students.
2. The Masterclass DVD that I have been organizing for the past year will take place this May.
3. Third and perhaps most importantly, is to apply all my resources to learning the Japanese language. This has to be done to make the most of the opportunity I've been given in this extraordinary country. I've never been a good studier on things other than when there is clear connection to a musical end.

Do I have to ask myself what it all means, this retrospective journey? Not really. Time supplies us answers best when there are no deadlines, no exams, no concert dates. Knowledge comes to us at its richest without due dates. Unlike an exam or a concert, the real beauty of life is in the learning process itself, not the answers or a performance.

For the time being I know that my passport is American but I also know that in my heart I'm also a little bit Dutch, a little bit Italian and I'm starting to be a little bit Japanese. So what am I really? I think teacher is the answer.

I will be very happy to be home and get back to work.

Sayonara

March 24, 2007, Virgin Atlantic Flight # 900, London to Tokyo