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sai-national.org • Fall 2021 37 A Wld of Music aer he performed all twenty-seven Chopin etudes at a recital in Los Angeles. e next day the three of us visited Disneyland. Later, I was a guest in their London home for five days. e friendship of the two pianists led to musical partnerships. In 1963, their dream to perform a two-piano recital came true. Aer ten days of rehearsals at the Moscow Conservatory, they performed an electrifying recital: Mozart's Sonata in D for Two Pianos, K. 448; Schumann's Andante and Variations for Two Pianos, Two Cellos, and Horn; Chopin's Rondo for Two Pianos, Op. 73; and Bártók's Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion. I own the Melodija 33 1/3 RPM re- cord with their USSR performances of Schumann and Bártók. eir Decca collaboration of the Mozart and Schumann recital was nominated for Grammy Best Chamber Music Performance in 1966. Later, the two pianists joined forces in Mozart's Concerto No. 10 for Two Pianos in E-flat major, K. 365/316a with several orchestras. Vladimir became an Icelandic citizen in 1972 and for a while lived in Reykjavik. Back on the bus en route to the ship, when the tour guide mentioned that she had been his neighbor, I told her about my family's connection. e next morning she sent an email with thrilling information: Ashkenazy and my brother — both still in their twenties — had performed the same Moscow program together on Reykjavik's Arnarhóll (Arnar's Hill) on June 17, 1964, the twentieth anniversary of Iceland's independence. Attached to her message was a black-and-white photo I had never seen before — or even knew existed: the pianists onstage with the huge well- dressed crowd in attendance. Later in the day on a panoramic city tour, the bus driver kindly stopped allowing me to take a photo of the venue where they had performed. Atop the empty hill, a statue of Ingólfr Arnarson, founder of Reykjavik in the ninth century, stood guard as it did over a half century ago for the special concert celebrat- ing Independence Day. Jayne I. Hanlin is an initi- ate of Alpha Omicron and current member of the St. Louis Alumnae chapter. Mrs. Hanlin, the sister of famed pianist Malcolm Frager, is the co-author of Learning Latin Through Mythology (Cambridge University Press, 1991). pandemic. dddFrom October 2020 to May 2021, WWCMF presented two programs a month. The first was a monthly music appreciation class called "A Touch of Class." We covered all manner of topics from the use of scales in Tchaikovsky to the concept of musical interpretation. The second was a program of chamber music set in a variety of locations around the country using the mobile studio. We called it "The Virtual Concert Hall" (not very original, I admit). By convening performers and audience twice a month we were able to sustain the sense of connection that makes the festival special. We did what we had to, and we made it. The Grand Pause for WWCMF ended on June 22, 2021. We made our entrance at an outdoor concert that began with a world premiere, a set of violin duos by Kenji Bunch commissioned for the 2020 festival. The duos waited more than a year for their first performance. Like I said, Grand Pauses are always followed by something great, in this case something the world had never heard before. And I think that's what concerts will continue to mean going forward. Every performance is a performance the world has never heard, and therefore every performance is special. Maybe WWCMF will use its mobile recording studio again in the future. But for now let's consign it to a Grand Pause of its own, and only return to its use out of choice rather than necessity. Timothy Christie, an SAI National Arts Associate, is the Founder and Artistic Director of the Walla Walla Chamber Music Festival. As a violinist and violist he enjoys a busy career as a performer, teacher, public speaker, and recording artist. CONTINUED FROM PAGE 8 8 Fall 2021 • sai-national.org Music Perfmance By Timothy Christie A Grand Pause (G.P.) is the mother of all rests; coordinated and intentional silence. All of the players in the ensemble cease making sound at the same time and wait. A Grand Pause can be brief, maybe just and eighth or quarter rest. Other times, the silence is much longer, even unmeasured. The expression of silence in musical notation can be as simple as this symbol //, what we musicians call !railroad tracks." Or it can be more imperious, perhaps even more ominous, with the stamp of those two letters, G.P. Good form during a G.P. in most ensembles means keeping one"s head up, instrument at the ready; no slouching. The performance is far from over. Silence, it turns out, is among the most poignant of musical gestures. For example, silence defines music itself, framing the beginning and ending of a piece. Encountered in midstream, silence amplifies time— how long is this rest? Alas, it is unmetered. We are in suspense, alert, instruments up, ready to spring back into action when the Grand Pause concludes. Young musicians are taught to !play the rests." At first this simply means counting with purpose,accounting for silence as rhythmically as sound. Later it means something else. There is a universe inside the rest. If one can listen to the rest, experience the rest, live in the rest, sound takes on new meaning. We're in the thick of it, "playing the rest" in perfect ensemble with you. The music continues around us and in us, even in silence. What follows a Grand Pause? With great music the answer is always the same: something really good. It will be dramatic, graceful, devotional, humorous, thunderous and thrilling. And so, we rest, instruments at the ready, like you, eager to resolve the question of "what"s next?" When the time comes, we will answer in unison. And it will be thrilling. —Timothy Christie, March 25, 2020 I wrote the essay above the day after I met with the board of the Walla Walla Chamber Music Festival (WWCMF), of which I am the Founder, Executive, and Artistic Director. When I founded the festival in 2007, my title meant that I set up the chairs and didn't get paid. Latterly, the title has come to mean an ever-expanding catalogue of administrative tasks and thankfully, a paycheck. Oh, and I also get to play great chamber music in wine country with a cast of extraordinary musicians from all over North America and beyond. On March 24, 2020, our meeting had only one actionable item, cancellation of the June 2020 festival due to the coronavirus pandemic. I didn't know it then, but the Grand Pause I described in my essay would last a total of 522 days from our final performance of the 2020 Winter festival to our return to the stage on June 22, 2021. How did we spend those 522 days? We played the rest. WWCMF was fortunate. When I wrote to the festival audience to inform them the festival had been cancelled, I assured them we would begin issuing ticket refunds soon. To my great surprise, half of our constituents told me to convert their purchases to donations. With deep appreciation, we sent thank you letters and tax receipts, and refunded the remaining half of sales. Concert halls around the world were closed, and musicians were out of work. However, the generosity and commitment of the WWCMF audience meant I could still hire our musicians and preserve the continuity of our annual festival experience. Like many musical organizations around the globe, we turned to the internet. We cut our teeth on low-production videos using smartphones and rudimentary editing. Our living rooms, bedrooms, and even kitchens served as the stage. That was fine to get us started, but the pandemic only got worse. In July 2020 I met with the board again. We preemptively cancelled the 2021 Winter festival, and approved only the most tentative plans for June 2021. Additionally, we suspended a search to fill a vacant staff position and closed our office in downtown Walla Walla to save rent. The Grand Pause would prove immense. My solution to help WWCMF "play the rests" was to put together a kit of video, audio, and lighting equipment that could be shipped around the country to our sequestered musicians. I called it our mobile recording studio. Consisting of 3 LED light towers, tripods, 3 GoPro cameras, a reasonably high-end audio recorder, and as many lithium-ion batteries as the law would allow, the mobile recording studio weighed 41 lbs. Each month from October 2020 to May 2021, the kit made its way around the country capturing performances by festival artists at every stop. When all was said and done, the kit traveled from Tacoma to New York, Chicago, Boulder, Columbus (GA), Ann Arbor, Charleston (SC) and finally back home to Walla Walla. I also included one of WWCMF's banners that adorn lampposts in downtown Walla Walla during the June festival. At every stop, musicians affixed a local sicker (think, "I ❤ NY!"). When the banners hang once more in downtown Walla Walla, there will be one in particular that helps tell the story of what we did together to play the rests during the Grand Pause of the COVID 19 The Grand Pause, A Chamber Music Festival Amid Global Pandemic CONTINUED ON PAGE 37 Vladimir Ashkenazy (left) and Malcolm Frager (right) performing on Reykjavik's Arnarhóll (Arnar's Hill) Vladimir Ashkenazy (left) and Malcolm Frager (right) performing on Reykjavik's Arnarhóll (Arnar's Hill) on June 17, 1964. on June 17, 1964.

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