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tape of his performance th at day.
A good part of Willie's pr ep aration
included sessio ns with Ben Sh ak tm an,
founder and former director of the
Pittsburgh Public T hea tre, wh o was
acting as text director. " He's a wonderful,
natural performer," Shaktman
quickly discovered , " an d h e is ver y
serious abo ut learning something of
the cra ft needed in performing the
spoken word.
"The challenge ca nnot be understated.
After all , this is a conce rto written
for the spo ken voic e. Stargell is
really the solo ins tru men t. This is a
task th at wou ld challenge a n experienced
actor. "
Stargell wa s comm itted from the
outset to interpret the text in th is own
way. "I ha ve mad e it a point, " he said
during the reh earsals, " not to listen to
King's speeches. I don 't wan t him in
the back of my mind . I don 't wan t to
try to duplicate him . I want to be able
to do his readings, but to do them my
way and in a way that complem ents
what he wa s all abou t. "
After five December reh earsals
together , Stargell and the orchestra
were int errupted by Christmas break.
By thi s time , they wer e getting along
like old friends. When ever yon e
returned to the stage on January 10,
th ere wa s only one more R ochester
rehearsal to go befor e the W ashington
debut. " It was go ing to be," as Robert
Kraus put it, "a frantically bu sy
week. "
Composer Schwan tner watched the
week's reh earsals from a seat in th e
middle of the house, holding on hi s lap
a large brown fold er conta in ing the
score- h is score. Ben Sh aktman stood
in various places, all th e whil e
scru tin izing Stargell's every utter an ce.
Alternately sitting on a stoo l and
stand ing , David Effron conducted the
young mu sicians, talking and coaching
along the way.
At one point, th e conductor, afte r
addressing his orchestra , turned away
from the stage and ask ed out loud:
" C an you hear eve ryth in g you want to
hear, Joe?"
Schwantner, in respon se , sugges ted
a couple ofminor alte ra tions . T he
rehearsal cont in ued.
Many composers, to be sure , do not
get the op portunity to watch their work
come to life under the kn owing hand of
a good friend . Schw antner and Effron,
6
however , are getting used to it; they
hav e collabo rated before . Schwantner
prefers this arrangem ent in gen era l. " I
like to write for peopl e I ca n rely
on - who will do th e righ t thing for my
music. . "
Effron enjoys working with
Schw an tn er as well , bu t declines to
gen er alize on the su bject of working
with co mposers he kn ows. " I didn't
kn ow Beeth oven ," he reflects, " b u t I
still feel really special conducting
Beethoven ." More im portant, he
stresses, th an merely kn owing
Schw antner is liking him a nd liking his
necessary for ca rting around a
109-piece orchest ra performing in fiv e
cities in five nights were checked and
double-ch ecked . There wo uld be three
bu ses for the studen ts, and one fortyfoot
truck for the instru ments. H otel
accom modations in each city were all
set, as were arra ngement s fo r the
alu mn i reception s that were to be
given in eac h city after th e conce rt.
Ab ou t the only detail of the logistics
th at could not be tak en care of in advance
was the weather ..Ianuary is not
u sually th e easiest month in whi ch to
tr avel around the Northeast in gene ral
Sta rgcll and stu d en ts: " T h is has been more th an a n a ssign m en t to me," W ill ie Stargell sai d when
it was all over. "The stu de nts tell me how much they've enjoyed working with me. Wbat th ey
do n 't kn ow ," he added , "is ho w I've com e to enjoy and care about them ."
music-the latter being " the crux of
the matter."
As Effron worked the Philharmonia
thi s fin al week, he emphasized the importan
ce of loosen ess a nd spo n ta ne ity .
" Let's please look up," he adm
oni shed . " You' re buried in th e
music over there."
" In spite of the rh ythm," he in ­
stru cted , "play with abando n ."
" Freedom !" he blurted . " We can 't
be hung up on every littl e note . That's
not the point ofthis piece ."
" L isten to it! " he exho rte d. " P retend
you're sitting in the balcony.
Listen to it. . . .",
As the orchestra geared up for th e
b ig trip, all the a rrangeme n ts
and around upstate New York spec ifically.
T ed DeDee , who has arran ged
many a tour an d knows of all th e little
things that can go wro ng , was worried
mo st abo ut th e wea ther.
" We looked in to the possibility of
gett in g ca nce llation insu rance . But we
found th at the cost of the insuran ce was
barely less th an the cost of pu tting on a
whole performan ce." They d idn 't buy
any .
T he be st insuran ce the tou r could
h ave had might well have been a little
paperweight that De Dee bou ght in
Washington and kept on his desk for
the last two months before the tour. It
was one of th ose globes with littl e