Westminster Remembers Stephen Paulus

Westminster Choir College of Rider University mourns the death of composer Stephen Paulus.  Dr. Paulus delivered this Address to the Graduating Classes at the Westminster Choir College Commencement on May 14, 2011.        

To the students of the graduating class of Westminster Choir College of 2011, I offer hearty congratulations. To the parents, grandparents, the siblings, the aunts, uncles, and friends and colleagues, I also offer a very hearty and well-earned congratulations.  And to the faculty and the staff, and the administrators who have delivered to us yet another class that exemplifies decent, wonderful human beings who are geared toward accomplishing excellence, I also say thank you very, very much; we're all extremely grateful.

One of the defining moments in my own career was working with this- not this particular choir- but the Westminster Choir under the direction of Joseph Flummerfelt who had commissioned and premiered a piece called Voices of Light. I wrote the piece in honor of Joe's 30 years of commitment, service and dedication to this wonderful institution, and he conducted the work for chorus and orchestra with the New York Philharmonic at Avery Fisher Hall, and it is truly something that bonded me with this wonderful college. 

If I had a dollar for every time one heard the words “hard work,” “commitment,” “dedication,” “perseverance” and “tenacity” in speeches like this, I probably could pay off my mortgage and retire.  But, I'm sure those of you in the audience who are musicians as well as this wonderful graduating class already are aware of the fact that musicians don't retire, they simply go on and on like the Energizer Bunny, and eventually the batteries run out and we sort of flop over and we're done. Well it's true and I don't need to provide examples here.
           
There are a couple of things I want to touch on before I get into my main point, and one has to do with the fact that we're living in an era of change.  That's nothing new to any of you, I'm sure.  Change has occurred for centuries, but I think one of the things that are putting a new little twist on the change is the pace of change that's occurring.  It's accelerating, and I would advise you graduates that one of the things you need to do is to be open to this change and the accelerated pace and to be aware of new information that will constantly be coming your way and diluting you - or deluging you (same thing, I guess) - with tons of new tidbits, facts and concepts.  Paradigms are shifting, and all kinds of things in the music business are changing rapidly.  You need to be aware of this and conscious of it and do the best you can to incorporate that in your daily life.  
           
Another thing that I want to mention is that you and I are all involved in a profession that involves criticism- sometimes good criticism and sometimes not so good.  Every time you pick up your trombone to perform in a group or pick up your baton and give the downbeat or walk into a classroom to teach or pick up your violin bow, you're opening yourself to criticism.  This is a part of the game; that's the nature of the beast.  Sometimes people will offer good things about what you're doing and sometimes not so good.  And some people are even paid to offer not so good things about your recent accomplishments.  I'd like to suggest that in the future there should be some lightness and brevity to your approach to these things, whether they're in print or not. 
           
Two of the things I'm reminded of are little quotes that I sort of hold close to my own heart.  The great impresario Saul Hurok, who managed legendary people like the pianist Arthur Rubinstein, had several witty aphorisms that he would use, and they might come in handy for you.  I know one in particular is where he walked up to a soprano after a performance backstage -and it was a soprano who had apparently not achieved greatness that night- and he said, “My dear, fantastic simply does not describe it.”  And the nice thing is that everybody went away happy.  Dominick Argento, the dean of American opera, wonderful composer for the voice and operatic works, as well as solo voice is a good friend and colleague of mine.  I studied with him a little bit at the University of Minnesota, and one time I was complaining to him about a rather dismal review, and he said “Oh, well, doesn't matter that much.” He said, “You know, critics have ruined many a breakfast of mine, but never lunch.”  Keeping things in perspective. 

The main thing I want to offer you is an awareness of the transforming power of music.  Music has the ability to transform those who create it, those who perform it and those who listen to it - all of us.  It transforms composers, performers and audience members; and never forget that's the sacred triangle that sort of binds all of us together.  We need all three elements in order to be part of a performance and the birth of a new work or a performance of an older work.  Music cuts across everything-nationality, gender, race, age.  Music is a great binder, it communicates to any audience, anywhere.  That's a magic, transforming power, and I want each and every one of you to be aware of the fact that you now have this power by virtue of the skills that you've acquired.  When you participate in some sort of performance or you teach a class and are enlightening a group of young students, you have a transformational power.  This is a great gift and it's not to be taken lightly. 

I wanted to tell a couple of stories to sort of put my own spin on this.  We all know that music can enlighten, is a great gift to educate and everything.  Some years ago I had an orchestral piece performed by the Spokane Symphony in Washington state.  I took my seat in the hall next to a middle- aged couple, I would say they must have been in their forties or so, nicely dressed and everything.  As I sat down next to the woman she turned and started talking to me and said, “It looks like a good program, doesn't it?” and I said, “Yes it does.” And she said, “Except for this one piece by a composer we've never heard of,” and I was about to say “Well...uh,” and she said, “I hope it's not as dreadful as some of the modern things they've been playing,” to which I said, “Me too.” 
           
At that point I simply decided to listen.  The conductor, the late Bruce Ferden, now went through all the Mozart and the Brahms and everything and got to my piece and played it and the woman leaned over as the double bar was reached and she said in a loud stage whisper, “That wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be,” to which I said, “I agree.”  So, the conductor gestured for me to come up to the stage and take a bow, which I did, and after the intermission I went back to my seat and I noticed that I now had two vacant seats next to me.  I like to think that in light of the little embarrassment, that the woman might have had a slightly more open attitude toward the next contemporary piece that the orchestra was going to play.  I never did find out; that's not important. 

On a little deeper level, one experience that I remember with great passion took place in 1987 when I went down to Atlanta to hear the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra premiere a violin concerto that I wrote for them and their concert master at that time, William Preucil.  The conductor at that time was still Robert Shaw.  I'm sure there are people in the audience who know by first-hand experience, or some of you who may have heard of these legendary stories, that Mr. Shaw could be, to say the least, slightly intimidating on occasion.  He asked me from the stage where I was going to sit, and I started to point about a third of the way into the hall so I could get some balance and everything, and he said, “Sit here.” And he had a stagehand bring a chair and I sat about three feet away.  Now this is not a great position for a composer of a new work because you're actually close enough to see the third stand violinists eyes roll if he or she thinks they've gotten a particularly stupid passage or to tell that the third horn is actually doing a crossword puzzle from The New York Times.  I'd rather not know those things.            So Mr. Shaw started with the first movement, and he had a very nice, methodical way of working through it- we'll do the first 10 bars, then 12 bars, then stop, then 14 bars, then 28 bars.  We sort of chopped up the whole first movement, and ended up getting to the double bar and things seemed to be going okay in spite of the close proximity of the composer to the ensemble.  He started the second movement, and I could see from his worksheet that he had a system of the same approach.  He started conducting, and he just started continuing on and he didn't stop.  And I could feel from the sense of what was going on that the players were acting as if they'd played the piece before.  The soloist, who was one of their own, was blending with them and merging in a wonderful way, and Mr. Shaw was lost in creating this new, second slow movement.  And when he finished, he turned in the typical 'blue shirt with the gym towel around his neck, beads of sweat running off his face', and he said four words to me, which spoke volumes.  All he said was, “Now we're making music.”  You could write a thesis on that, but you don't have to. 

I spoke a couple of minutes ago about Arthur Rubinstein, whom I heard perform in one of his last recitals at Northrop Auditorium.  Northrop is a behemoth of a hall on the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis campus, and it holds 5,000 people.  Not exactly your intimate recital venue, but nevertheless that's where Rubinstein was playing, and of course the place was packed.  The defining and transforming moment for me, which I can't begin to quite capture for you but I can talk about, is that the last piece on the program was a Chopin Ballade, I think it's number three, the one that ends with four chords (mimics sound of chords) - like that.  And Rubinstein chose to put a little agogic accent, just a sliver of a pause, between the third and the fourth chord so that, I won't do it right but it's like (mimics sound of chords) - like that.  And to this day I can recall the sound of 5,000 people gasping in unison.  What an amazing...it gives me goose bumps right now even to think about it.  I'll never forget that sound.  And that is another example of your power to be transforming.  That you can get a disparate audience like this, people coming from all backgrounds, and at some point in time when the chemistry and the magic comes together, they will all react the same way.  Whether it's a gasp like this, or whether it's standing up on their feet, or all yelling, “Bravo!” in a manner that sounds like a sonic avalanche. 

The last little thing I want to mention in this ability to transform is on a much smaller scale.  I decided after a long day of writing music that I would go out and get something to eat and bring it home, and as I put down my credit card at this little eatery the young woman, who must have been maybe 20 I would guess, said, “The composer, right?” and I looked up and I said, “What?” and she said, “You're the composer, right?”  I know St. Paul is a smaller town, but anyway, I felt good about that.  And I said, “Why, yes I am.” And she said (and then everything changed from lightness), “They sang your song Pilgrim's Hymn at my mother's funeral.”  And right away I knew exactly who she was talking about, I knew who she was.  I was not at the funeral service, but I knew that this woman who was a wonderful educator at the University of Minnesota and knew that she was going to die, had planned her whole service, and the last thing she wanted sung was Pilgrim's Hymn.  And immediately there was a wonderful, intimate sense of bonding and I was witness again to the transforming power of music. 

I'd like to say two final things that are just sort of tidbits that I wanted to mention.  One is: there are times when you will work really hard.  As a matter of fact, you'll have worked so hard that you think there's no way that you can possibly not get the job.  You've practiced more hours, your skill is greater, you know the other people who are auditioning, you even heard all the auditions, and not only do you know that you really nailed it but you were better than everybody.  You wouldn't think this in an arrogant fashion, just confidently I'm sure.  The unfortunate news is, and I think young people - all of us - don't hear this enough, but especially young people today, there is no entitlement.  No matter how hard you work, no matter how good you've been told you are, and no matter how good your inner spirit tells you you are, sometimes things don't go your way.  And it's just something you have to get used to and you pick yourself up and you dedicate yourself to the next opportunity, because things continue to change and there will be more.

The last thing I want to mention is risk.  I have to mention that when I graduated for the third and final time from the University of Minnesota, I had two options; one was to become a teacher and apply for a college position.  And I wanted to do that, I have a lot of respect for it.  I think it's a very difficult job to do well, and you obviously have had wonderful teachers here or you wouldn't be as good as you are.  Instead, I decided to opt for being a composer.  Based on some, perhaps faulty, logic, but I figured as a teaching assistant making $2,500 a year, if in the next year when I was officially graduated I went to making $1,200 a year as a composer, it wouldn't be a...it's a short stool to fall off of. So, I opted for that, and I never looked back.  And I decided if after three years I was still, you know, making $1,200 a year perhaps I should consider applying for a teaching job. 

I have two sons, and one is a musician who lives in Brooklyn and another will graduate from Georgetown University next weekend, and he's in business and finance, so they're completely different people, thank goodness.  I don't think I could handle two musicians in the family.  The older son did the same thing I did in a sense.  He actually had a job in Manhattan, which he could have continued to pursue and it would have ended up being okay.  But he quit the job, even though I had helped him get it.  And he said, “You know, Dad, when I come home I don't have time to make my music and that's what I want to do.” So I continued to support him, and he took the risk.   He worked very, very hard, and in February he started paying the rent, so...take the risk. 

My other son called me two nights ago, and he said had two job opportunities after he graduates from Georgetown University.  And he wanted to ask my advice-not really- he just wanted to talk out the decision that he had made.  There was a secure job that would pay a lot more than the riskier job.  The riskier job gave him more opportunity, some equity in the company.  He said, “I think I want to take the job that's a little  riskier and it will be more fun, and I'm really into hoping that things will develop much more than the secure job.”  So, two sons, one in business, one in music, and they're both opting to take the risker path.  I can hear parents’ gnashing teeth already, “You know what we paid for that education?”  I'm not advising you all to just throw in the towel and do something silly, but if you have something in the back of your mind, a passion, a desire, something you think, “Well, that'd be kind of risky” -- there is no better time.  You don't have to do it, but there is no better time to do it than right now - starting today or tomorrow - because you will never have fewer things to lose.  So, I just want to mention that in passing. 

Last night Dr. Joe Miller gave us a great gift; a marvelous, extraordinary concert by the Westminster Choir, which we were all, those of us who were there, privileged to hear.  And he makes comments in between the numbers that they're singing, and he referred to the choir as 'musician servants', and I love that.  And I would say that we should extend that definition to all of us who work in music.  We are all servants in the name of music.  Some years ago, actually 38 years ago, I co-founded the Minnesota Composer's Forum, which became a national organization not too long ago known as the American Composer's Forum.  And, by default, because no one else wanted to do it, my job ended up being fundraiser.  You can take the 'fun' out of fundraiser as far as I'm concerned, but at any rate.  One day I went to the Minnesota Humanity's Commission and pitched for the Composer’s  Forum, asking for money for young, emerging composers to write our music and fellowships and scholarships and such. And the woman in charge that I met with sort of dressed me down.  She said, “How can you come in here and ask for something as silly as money for new music when we have people all over starving, people who go to bed hungry or people who don't even have a home, or people who are sick, mentally and physically beyond repair?  This seems like a silly request.”  So, I left there, needless to say, rather dejected, and I came back to the office and one of my buddies said, “How did it go?” and I said, “Not well at all.”  And he said, “What happened?” and I explained.  I said, “What would you have done?” and he said, “Oh, that's easy.  Every human being needs three things: food, shelter and meaning.” And he said, “That's what we provide.  Meaning in their lives.” And, ever since then I've felt much more comfortable about that. 

All of you provide meaning, and you have the ability and the wherewithal to transform people's lives.  You won't always know when that's happening, but every once in awhile you'll get a glimpse of it.  And I can only stand here and wish you all a great success and joy as you pursue this journey and your dreams.  Thank you.