Earlier this December, I took the number 1 subway up to 125th Street to catch a daytime performance by the Orchestra of St. Luke’s at the Apollo Theater http://www.apollotheater.org/ for schoolchildren. The program, “What is American Music? NYC: The Great Migration and Ellis Island,” focused on twentieth-century migration to the United states, through the music of Aaron Copland (Fanfare for the Common Man), Dvorak (the “New World” Symphony), Bohuslav Martinu (“Charleston” from La Revue de Cuisine, Suite for Orchestra), William Grant Still (Symphony No. 1, “Afro-American”), Scott Joplin (“The Entertainer”), and George Gershwin (Rhapsody in Blue). Conductor Damon Gupton (who has also worked as an actor) led the orchestra, and the young Brooklyn pianist Simone Dinnerstein was the soloist in the Gershwin.

Also attracting notice in Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue was Romie de Guise-Langlois, a young clarinetist playing up a storm in the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, who came to New York a year and a half ago from her home city of Montreal to become a Fellow in The Academy, a joint program of Carnegie Hall, The Juilliard School, and The Weill Music Institute in partnership with the New York City Department of Education. The Academy helps postgraduate musicians get performance opportunities, advanced music training, and intensive teaching instruction, and the educational programs of the Orchestra of St. Luke’s also provide music instruction to students in New York’s public schools. A few days before the performance at the Apollo—for children from elementary through high school grades—the St. Luke’s orchestra had played a program with most of the same music at the Brooklyn High School for the Arts.

Shortly after the Apollo Theater concert, Romie de Guise-Langlois dissected for me that famous clarinet glissando that opens Rhapsody in Blue, and we also talked about what it’s like teaching in the New York public schools and the differences between performing for adults and for kids.

Jennifer Melick: Tell me a little about how you came to New York.

Romie de Guise-Langlois: I am actually from Montreal, and I started speaking English only four years ago. I came here to do my master’s at Yale University, with David Shifrin as my clarinet teacher. And I moved here in New York a year and a half ago, to be a part of The Academy program. So that’s part of the reason I moved to New York; I also wanted to play a lot of chamber music, which is my main focus.

Jennifer Melick: So in The Academy program, do you have one school or lots of schools you go to?

Romie de Guise-Langlois: There are about 34 fellows in the program, and each of us is assigned to one public school. So what I do is I go for 36 days during the year to the same school. And I collaborate with the music teacher who is already there, and I try and bring new things, help to make the music program better. I try to bring more activities that are more creative for the kids to participate more. And I try to use my clarinet as much as I can, because for the kids they can’t hear that all the time, so that is good for them.

Jennifer Melick: Which school are you assigned to?

Romie de Guise-Langlois: P.S. 112 in Brooklyn—Lefferts Park School, an elementary school. I teach from grades 1 to 5. Grades 4 and 5 have a band program, and 2 and 3 is general music, with recorders; grade 1 is violin lessons—I don’t teach violin, so I just give some general lessons.

Jennifer Melick: Do the children in band all get instruments through the school system?

Romie de Guise-Langlois: They have instruments that are provided by the school.

Jennifer Melick: So, with you as a teaching fellow in the school, is there an unusually large number of student clarinetists in the school right now?

Romie de Guise-Langlois: [laughs] We try to keep it equal in every instrument. Also, we don’t have so many clarinets.

Jennifer Melick: You said you came here a year and a half ago, meaning you’ve been an Academy fellow for more than a year.

Romie de Guise-Langlois: Yes, it’s my second year now, so I will be done, actually, in June. It’s a two-year program.

Jennifer Melick: What would you say are the most important things you brought to your students, and the things they taught, from this teaching experience?

Romie de Guise-Langlois: Well, the Academy program in general is focused on both education and performance. And we get some workshops about education. With regard to performance, it’s about all the ways that we can have a music career, not only the conventional ways. They actually open doors to us to different ways that it’s possible to create new companies. So for me it has been really helpful to see that all these things are possible, and basically just open my mind to so many opportunities and ideas that I thought were not possible, and realizing that today it’s all about what you want to do, and that you just have to do what you like the most. With the kids, I’ve learned a lot from it for sure. When you first get in an elementary school, and you get in front of 30 kids, it is something! There is some discipline to do, but once you get to know them more and they get to know you more, there is something really nice that happens. I really feel like they want to learn. And kids, they are just really real, the reaction from them is so real that you won’t have to doubt whatever you are doing with them. And also I learned a lot about doing mistakes. They don’t really care. I used to care a lot about mistakes. And basically it’s like, you’ve just to be yourself, and they will go with it.

Jennifer Melick: It’s true also that for a lot of professional musicians, the older they get the more forgiving they are of mistakes, and that the average concertgoer is quite forgiving of a minor mistake here or there.

Does the Academy mentor you, to prepare you for teaching in a public school music program?

Romie de Guise-Langlois: There is a whole orientation week, where we have so many workshops and professional development sessions. They bring in some experts in the field, and also we get some teaching artists to help us with our school and follow us the entire year with our experience and try to make things better. My TA from the Academy has maybe 8 or 10 fellows assigned to him. We keep in touch, and he comes to our school maybe twice a year, and sees how we are doing, and gives us some advice, and talks to the teacher we are working with.

Jennifer Melick: Have the kids at your school given any concerts so far this year?

Romie de Guise-Langlois: They will. At my school this year they are renovating the auditorium, so construction was not finished in time for Christmas. They have been getting ready for the concert, and I think we are going to have one in January anyway.

Jennifer Melick: What will the students be performing?

Romie de Guise-Langlois: The fifth-grade band is going to play the Nutcracker Suite—it’s an easier arrangement. We also have a choir, from third to fifth grade, and they sing some Christmas songs. That’s about it. Our fourth grade they just started, so we are going to make them play a bit later in the year.

Jennifer Melick: So tell me about how you got hooked on the clarinet.

Romie de Guise-Langlois: Actually, my dad plays the clarinet, but he doesn’t play it classically, he plays jazz. He is pretty good at improvising, which I am not good at—I guess I got a little bit of inspiration from him for the Rhapsody in Blue solo that I played for the Orchestra of St. Luke’s concert. I started clarinet when I was twelve; I tried all the instruments, and clarinet was just easier for me, so I kept it. It was more natural. I remember when I was sixteen, hearing the Gershwin, the Rhapsody in Blue solo, and it was like the dream of my life. This performance was the first time I did it, with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s.

Jennifer Melick: I like the story about how that glissando originated, because it wasn’t supposedly written in the music that way.

Romie de Guise-Langlois: It isn’t written in the music as a glissando, it’s written in the music as a major scale. It’s not even chromatic. But the story, apparently, is that at the first rehearsal they did with Gershwin playing the piano, the clarinetist, Ross Gorman, made a joke by ending the opening scale with a glissando, and Gershwin really liked it, so he said, keep it.

Jennifer Melick: How difficult is it to do that glissando? There are the obvious instruments that can slide pitches like that, such as trombone or string instruments, but you don’t automatically think of it for woodwinds.

Romie de Guise-Langlois: You need to practice it. It is like a sport: if you don’t get the right muscles moving, it’s not going to work. Basically, there are three parts of the scale. It starts and it’s chromatic, and then from the concert F you go up one octave, and then you get to the open G (which is equal to a concert F,) but an octave higher, then you start mixing the fingers and mouth together. So it’s a mixture of the two, and when you get to the higher D, then you use only your mouth, at least that’s how I do it. There’s a way that you lower your lower lip, you open your throat, and you have a lot of flexibility with the sound, but it’s much easier in the higher register.

Jennifer Melick: So beginning on the D, where you use only your mouth to make the glissando?

Romie de Guise-Langlois: Yes, I try to make it smooth from the opening clarinet open G, and very slowly transition to the real glissando. You get basically one octave of glissando.

Jennifer Melick: I think I’ve seen clarinetists slide their fingers, mostly on the open-hole keys.

Romie de Guise-Langlois: And some clarinetists do that from the very bottom of the scale. It’s harder – I actually have never seen it –we want to start the glissando earlier, so it’s longer.

Jennifer Melick: Is this sort of passage easier if you have bigger fingers or smaller fingers?

Romie de Guise-Langlois: I don’t think the size of the fingers changes it. As you slide the fingers, you try opening the holes in a very smooth way, so you open a little bit at a time; that’s how you get from one note to the other. But in this piece, you have to do it so fast that you really need to use your mouth.

Another aspect of this solo, which makes it even more special, is that as the opening of the piece, it begins with the trill which is slower first and gets faster, little by little. The effect of the trill gives the illusion of a timpani roll, which is often used before a very intense musical event, preparing the listener for something grandiose. The fact that the glissando follows the trill creates a level of anticipation even stronger. I think that since the clarinet solo is the first statement of the piece, it has the role of “opening the curtains” to the entire concerto, setting the mood with an exciting touch of virtuosity and jazz inspirations, which is then taken by the piano. It is extremely gratifying to perform this solo.

Jennifer Melick: It’s interesting to watch younger children taking in music like this—you can tell when they are engaged, and if they’re not paying attention, they do something like fidget in their seats. Sometimes they fidget in their seats even when they ARE listening.

Romie de Guise-Langlois: It’s true, that’s what I learned. The bigger the crowd is, the more you’re going to get some kids that won’t be completely focused. But even if some kids are talking, there is so much that they can find meaning from in the music. I used to think that it needs to be completely quiet, you know? So that they get something out if it, but actually it doesn’t matter. I like the fact that in the audience when you play a concert for kids, you’re going to hear them. You’re going to know when they’re with you. That’s more of a real experience. I played the Rhapsody in Blue solo in my school for a smaller group of kids, and it’s very nice to see their reaction, because they react RIGHT AWAY. When they hear the glissando, they can’t help it, they use their voice, and they go “Whooo.” Right while I’m playing. I feel like this glissando, the solo it creates a strong level of anticipation. The thing is that the pitch ambiguity of a glissando, which is the fact that at one point the listener cannot identify the exact the pitch of the sound, that draws the listener’s attention as if people know it’s going to resolve, but they don’t know exactly when it’s going to happen. That is the suspense of it.

Jennifer Melick: You mentioned that you came to New York so you could play more chamber music. Have you been able to do that as much as you hoped?

Romie de Guise-Langlois: Yes. With the Academy, that’s the main performance that we do: chamber music and music for chamber orchestra, and we are doing a lot of that. I actually have two groups – a wind quintet, plus a trio of clarinet, violin/viola, and piano. I played with the chamber ensemble of St. Luke’s last November. I’m also a member, and that was really enjoyable.

We played a clarinet quintet with strings by Bernard Herrmann called Souvenirs de Voyage—a beautiful piece. And we played an Ibert wind trio and a Vaughan Williams quintet for piano, violin, cello, clarinet, and horn.

Jennifer Melick: When your two years with the Academy finish, do you anticipate continuing to teach in some way?

Romie de Guise-Langlois: Yes, of course I will do teaching. I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen, but I definitely want to keep that as part of my life, even though performance part is more the main thing for me right now. Teaching is going to become more of the principal thing later in my life. You know, living in New York, there are just so many different things, it’s not only one job, there are many kinds of opportunities, and that’s what I love about being here.

I believe that playing for children is one of the most meaningful actions that a musician can take. Children are a reflection of who we are, and I’ve been lucky to have had the chance to work with them closely and realize that they’re very open-minded. In my opinion, the energy that the music communicates is what kids, and any audience, connect to. Music is one of the most direct languages in the world, and it is always illuminating to be part of this exchange.

Jennifer Melick: Rhapsody in Blue seems like such a New York City piece.

Romie de Guise-Langlois: Yes, it is New York, and it makes me think of Broadway, you know? I actually never came to New York before I was 21. I think it is wonderful that Rhapsody in Blue is mixing jazz and classical, both. So it’s making it more accessible for everybody. I really like the fact that we get to play jazz when we are classical musicians.

Jennifer Melick: Do you have a favorite piece or composer?

Romie de Guise-Langlois: I always really love to discover new music, for example the Bernard Herrmann clarinet quintet was so beautiful. And the Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue is quite something, and is one of my favorites. As a chamber musician, my favorite composer is Brahms, so I would say my favorite piece from him for the clarinet is the quintet, and it’s inspired by klezmer music, you know. I love Brahms for the emotional impact his music has. I am fascinated at the depth of emotion he could communicate with his music.

Tags: clarinet, Classical Music, Gershwin, Jazz, Performance, Rhapsody in Blue