you Hi there, welcome to Notes from the Stage,
a show from the musicians of the Calgary Philharmonic.
We're the people playing our hearts out every
week of the orchestra season. I'm Adam Zinatelli.
Usually I play first trumpet in the Calgary Phil,
but today I'm your host and I'm here with Matt
Heller, bassist in the orchestra. Hi, Matt, how
are you? I'm great. Great to be here with you,
Adam. Yeah, thanks for making the time. You know,
we're back to work now. We're all facing the
realities of our schedule again, and it's nice
to make time to sit down and have a chat instead
of... looking at all these new folders coming
in and, you know, back on the rehearsal schedule
that we've got. And I have to say, Adam, I am
very much admiring your practice and recording
studio. This is a lovely space. Oh, thank you.
Yes, we're recording in my home trumpet room,
which I've somehow managed to also wrangle into
a temporary podcast situation here. and it is
the situation that we are all balancing several
folders now on our on our music stands and doing
triage on what needs the most attention but the
programs once the fall starts they come fast
and furious yeah you know actually this is a
good thing to maybe mention like when when do
we get our music for things i mean this is something
that for a general audience they might not know
this so let's say it's the beginning of the orchestra
season great you know when do we know what we're
going to be playing And when do we actually have
access to the music for that so that we can start
preparing? It might be a little different for
you actually. I know in the past I've had this
conversation with you and as the principal trumpet
you've gotten things that are from the end of
the season. For string players we kind of take
things, we go with the flow and as soon as they're
bowed they get out to us usually three weeks
or so before we're going to perform them okay
yeah and for more information on the boeing process
see episode one of this podcast where i talk
to diana cohen i am glad you got into boeing's
because this is our obsession playing players
in boeing's yes we think about it a lot. Yeah
where is for us the in the winds and brass where
is just one player on a part you know the part
is the part doesn't have to be prepared for us
before we can start working on it yeah so depending
on the music right if we're playing you know
beidhoven symphony or something like that if
it's something we have to practice well in advance
we can get those parts you know anytime we've
also got them a lot of the republic domain for
something like beidhoven for example. But if
it's something a little more off the beaten path
or something brand new or something more popsy,
usually those folders roll in about two weeks
before the rehearsal starts. So sometimes we're
quite limited in our time to prepare. It can
be. Yeah, there are certain pieces that I really
want to start working on as soon as I possibly
can. And I've I've always looked to you as someone
who's quite proactive, actually, and in. Seeking
out what you need to seek out and getting those
those parts. So yeah, you're my model. Oh, thanks,
Matt. Yeah, for me, like, you know, there are
things that I really do have to prepare in advance
and I, you know, really go deep on. But a lot
of the things are a bit like, you know, in auto
manufacturing, how there's this idea and probably
other sorts of manufacturing as well. There's
this idea of on demand delivery where like shipments
of parts come to the factory, like right when
they're required to go on the assembly line.
That way there are no warehouses, there's no
storage. You don't have all those fees and all
that overhead. But it does mean that things arriving
at the set time is of mission -critical importance.
That feels like such a good analogy for the orchestra
because we are booked for these rehearsals and
we have exactly the amount of time that we'll
need and nothing can go wrong. No one can have...
a wrong key of the part on their stand because
then the whole machine falls apart. So it is
very much a situation of everything falling into
place perfectly. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes you have
to be an expert at music. That's a lifelong project.
And sometimes you have to be an expert at music
that you have to be great at for three days of
your life. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, Matt, you were
busy this summer. You know, some people take
big vacations when they're when we're off for
the summer. I mean, travel vacations or just
some time off their instruments. Some people
are working pretty hard and you know we all have
sort of a degree of discretion of how we're going
to use our time but you have a summer gig. I
do yeah I'm one of two members of our orchestra
who are part of the colorado music festival the
other one being david morris right david morrisy
tell us is in the orchestra he's been in the
orchestra a little longer than i have in colorado
yes he started the gig in it's in boulder colorado
and he started the gig maybe one or two years
before i did. I joined the Calgary Philharmonic
in 2007, and you were class of 2009? 2008, I
won my audition. I started in 2009. I remember
that audition, though, because it was late. They
started late. I was taking a red eye home that
night. And I was, you know, I was just, you know,
vibrating with energy having won this audition.
And I was in. in the line to board the plane,
and I had a trumpet case on my back. And this
guy says, hey, did you take the trumpet audition?
I was like, yes, I did. He said, oh, I took the
cello audition. And he said, how did you do?
And I said, I won. How did you do? He said, I
also won. Wow. It was it was big fun. Big fun.
We both felt pretty pretty good that day. I actually
have an airplane story after I won my audition,
too, because I flew I was living in Miami Beach
at the time and I flew back through Houston and
the guy in the row behind me, this seems like
an unbelievable coincidence, the guy in the row
behind me was our former principal trumpet, guy
named Howard Angstrom, and he was flying to Houston.
Oh, that's so funny. On my same flight. Yeah,
he's from, that's his hometown. I got to meet
Howard, really, really sweet guy, and it would
have been incredibly awkward if I had not won
the audition. I think I was thinking that at
the time, I was like, I'm really glad I won this
audition because if I had not, I would have just
pretended I was just like going to Calgary just
to see the mountains. I would be like, yeah,
I'm up from Miami Beach, not here for the orchestra,
just doing a thing. No, definitely not. You know,
I mean, this sort of brings another question
to mind though, right? Like I play the trumpet,
a smallish instrument, and sometimes we have
to travel with, you know, a small herd of them,
which becomes a challenge. But, you know, usually
we can travel and put in the overhead compartment
when you're flying with a double base. Like,
what is involved with that? That has to be immensely
stressful. Yes, my wife refers to it as the coffin.
The coffin has a space in our garage at the moment.
I haven't used the coffin in a while, but it's
a big fiberglass white hard case. It does a beautiful
job of protecting the instrument from stuff falling
on it. So you can put it in the hold, it goes
in the hold of the airplane, and pile as many
suitcases on top of it as you want. You cannot
drop it. It is not built to withstand drops from
a height. I won't go into the story, but that
does happen and it's not pretty. Yeah. And just
point of reference, I think that a double bass
is visible in a mirror. I think it's probably
indifferent to garlic, but probably keep it away
from running water. I haven't taken an audition
in quite some time, but. Everyone I know and
people who are on the circuit, who are taking
auditions, do everything in their power to avoid
being on flights. It's just, as I think is the
case with flying without a double base, things
were bad and things have somehow gotten worse.
So flying with a double base was never fun. It
has become steadily less fun. So people with
bases... Put a lot of miles on their car and
I as well playing in this festival in Boulder.
I have gotten really well versed in the the route
down to Boulder, Colorado. It's I know all the
turns at this point. Yeah, I started doing that
festival in 2015 and the very first time I actually
did fly and then never again. So driving down,
it's a beautiful drive. Boulder is a wonderful
city. It's. it's in the foothills of the Rockies,
the same as Calgary. But as I guess I'd say,
similar to the orchestra, it's like kind of a
parallel universe. And it's one of the things
I love about that orchestra is I get to experience
a different orchestra culture, a different group
of people. You know, it's really cool how the
personalities of an orchestra, you know, you
don't stop and think of it. We're playing the
same music by the same composers all the time,
but the people around you on stage from the conductor
to the principal trumpet player to a section
string player can really influence the experience
that we all have. And I think ultimately the
experience that the audience has. You're absolutely
right. Yeah. There have been some exciting developments
recently at CMF as well, right? Yeah. And I was
just this past year, I was my first year being
part of the orchestra committee. So do do do
do tell tell the audience what what is the orchestra
committee what do they do what is the orchestra
committee experience like yeah orchestra committees
almost all orchestras have them we're not in
the brochure we don't you know get our names
up on the awning or anything but it's a group
of people from the orchestra it can be section
string players principals whomever and they're
they're elected by the the body of the orchestra
right yeah and the orchestra by the players in
the orchestra i should be clear exactly the orchestra
elects these people they've decided you know
these are the colleagues who kind of know what's
what can represent everyone pretty well and it
can be a challenge to represent everyone really
well to be honest you know we're 66 musicians
in the calgary fill give or take depending on
vacancies um And 66 people can have a lot of
opinions. But that's the role of the orchestra
committee is to try and synthesize or filter
or come up with what the consensus view and really
represent those things to our administration,
to the people upstairs. And in this case, Colorado
Music Festival, this was a really exciting time
to be on the orchestra committee because we were
also negotiating the first ever and you can stop
me and ask what this is, but the first ever collective
bargaining agreement. What's that? A collective
bargaining agreement is the document that captures
all the rules and the working conditions. It
also captures the pay scales and a lot of that
information for what happens if we go into overtime.
If that rehearsal doesn't run absolutely perfectly
and according to plan, what happens then? What
are the work rules around when we can be scheduled?
There's all kinds of things that go into collective
bargaining. One of the most important things
actually is hiring, hiring musicians and how
we retain musicians through the tenure process.
Yeah, that's really important stuff. And it's
very much sort of in the orchestra consciousness
these days as we become more aware of what are
and are not good ways to do things. It's it's
really true. And I think. Even over the course
of this summer, I've had some really interesting
conversations about what we can do better with
the 10 year process and the hiring process. Well,
that's a whole other big subject, but working
on this new collective bargaining agreement,
which the Colorado Music Festival has been in
existence for 48 years. Wow, this was this was
48th season and actually one of the. One of the
people who founded the festival, a guy named
Chris Broccoli, was there. He's in his 90s and
we celebrated his birthday. So really cool history,
really cool place. But until now, until just
this past year, there was no union representation,
which was also part of this process, was to actually
affiliate a local union and to have someone as
part of that be our representative in the bargaining
process. So I got to be on that committee. We
were on a lot of Zoom meetings. We had a lot
of, for orchestra players anyway, really interesting
discussions about what we wanted for this orchestra,
how we wanted this orchestra to, you know, what
kind of workplace we wanted it to be. And I think
we got a lot of really good things done. just
in a lot of the bargaining process was just capturing
what had been done before how already some things
had been decided and there were precedents for
how rehearsals would would run and things like
that so just capturing them in language and also
working on some areas that maybe we weren't entirely
satisfied with sure sure so we here in the cpo
are also union members we're unionized orchestra
we're members of the american federation of musicians
we have our own chapter here. And you, Matt,
are currently the president. Yes, I've been the
president of the Calgary Musicians Association
since January of this year of 2024. And previous
to that, I've been in different roles with the
local union. It's local 547 for anyone who's
keeping score. I've been part of our negotiations,
which we do every three years or so, sometimes
it can vary depending on what the needs and the
contract are. But we have a tradition of three
-year agreements in our orchestra, and there's
something nice about that length, just to be
able to have a length of time just long enough
to plan and not too long so that everything can
change. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, Matt, I think
I speak for all the members of the orchestra
and other musicians in town who are, you know,
members of the union to say thank you. for your
work representing us and looking out for the
musicians of this city so that we can do what
we do. Oh, well, you're welcome. And I mean,
it's an honor. It's really an honor to be able
to represent and to fill a role like this, because
we have so many musicians from different communities
in our local, a little bit over 600 members of
the local and I don't know how many musicians
we have in Calgary, but it's a bigger number
than that. And it feels like we're in a special
place and we have a special role and purpose.
Well, Matt, I know that when you're not practicing
or performing or working behind the scenes for
the musicians of this city and the musicians
of CMF, I know that one thing you like to do
is host play readings. Yes, actually, we had
a play reading beginning of the summer. You and
Catherine were over and we read the play The
Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde. Actually,
my parents were also in town and it was at least
in part it was in honor of my dad's name is Ernest.
He'd never read the play though and it's a funny
sort of play because Very tongue -in -cheek the
whole way and there's several characters. Well
a couple characters Anyway, whose names are not
earnest or at least they don't think they are.
Yeah But they find it convenient to be named
earnest at least to some it's really a play a
lot about how we switch in different In different
roles in our lives in different relationships
and how we we can find it useful to our purposes
to be different people in different settings.
That's right. And, you know, at those readings,
you know, I'm always excited when I get an invitation,
but there are a few other familiar faces to long
time CPO attendees that they might recognize
that those who else who else tends to come to
those Jeffrey Plotnick, formerly our principal
second violinist. He makes a wonderful Malvolio.
And he loves reading. Oh, it is such a delight
to get him started. He actually hosted his own
play reading not too long ago as well. His wife,
Teresa, is also a beautiful actress, wonderful
guest in one of these things. Our former principal
violist, John Thompson, who's English, and he's
great. His partner, Pippa Fitzgerald Finch, our
principal flutist. It's sounding like all our
former principals, our retired principals. Yeah,
retired. It's sounding like all our retired principals
just spend all their days play reading. I'm sure
that's not the case, but I don't know. You kind
of get that performing bug a little bit, and
it's fun. I can only imagine that when you're
not doing it every week for work that you still
want to do it sometimes for fun. Yeah, I first
started doing these things or got switched on
to these things when I was in school. I went
to New England Conservatory in Boston and I had
a solfege teacher named F. John Adams. One of
the many people named John Adams in the musical
community. That's right. But he would invite
people over, his students, and we would read
Greek tragedies. And the most pleasurable, enjoyable
reading of a Greek tragedy I've ever been part
of. And we would all, you know, As college student
ages, you know, we were all in our early undergraduate
years and just have a glass of wine and a wonderful
conversation about endless topics. Yeah, I came
away from having him as my solfège teacher. I
like to think I improved my sight singing and
my ear training and all that, but as as you do,
I mostly just had a great time getting to know
all these people and having wonderful conversations
about music. But, Matt, your literary interests
extend beyond the stage. I know that you particularly
are an appreciator of Proust. Marcel Proust is
my favorite author, and he has been my favorite
author since probably those college days too.
I probably attempted to read Swan's Way when
I was in high school, but if you haven't, they're
intimidating books. They're kind of doorstop
books, and there are seven of them in the novel.
The novel is translated as In Search of Lost
Time often. It's a journey. It's like a life
journey that you work your way through and you
sometimes get lost and you sometimes feel a little
alone. But Proust guides you through it and it's
just wonderful. And there are passages and sentences
that I think about all the time and I have to
just race back to my bookshelf and find them.
I don't read French, at least not very well,
so I've never gotten to read it. in the original,
but there are some beautiful translations. And
it's one of those things that if you're a Proustian,
if you're someone who loves Proust, you find
your people, you find other Proustians. And you've
read a bit of Proust, I know. I think I started
Swan's Way at some point, but these days I have
young children. So a large scale reading project
like that seems, you know, beyond the scope of
my calendar. That's okay. There will come a time.
There will come a time. Maybe Bobby will want
to read Proust at some point. Maybe. His French
is already better than mine, so he can read it
in the original. So Proust is known for A la
recherche du temps perdu, but he's also known
for having filled out a little survey at some
point, you know, with something that you would
do in a Paris salon. There would be a little
book with questions and all guests would sort
of make quick answers to those questions. And
this sort of thing has come to be known as a
Proust questionnaire. Yeah, and he was quite
the bone. I mean, it's a funny thing about Proust
is that he he spent most of his life procrastinating
and putting off writing and just going to parties
and being a social guy. And a lot of the novel
is about that, about when will I ever get around
to writing this book? Yeah, it's kind of the
subtext of the novel is that he was something
someone who as much as he wanted to be a writer,
he would never get around to it until he did
and he laid in his life. He didn't live a long
life, unfortunately, but he wrote this huge,
massive, and wonderful book. I think the funny
thing about this questionnaire, too, is it wasn't
only to Proust, but his answers to the questionnaire
were so wonderful that he became so closely associated
with the questionnaire that now it's called the
Proust questionnaire. Matt, in honor of your
love of Proust, I've got a little modified Proust
questionnaire here for you. Oh, my gosh. That's
wonderful. And very much in the spirit of that,
you know, if you want to expound at length on
any of these, that's great. But a one sentence
answer is sort of in the spirit of the of the
tradition here. So let's see. Where shall we
start? What is your favorite music to play? I
would say this is a tough one for any orchestra
musician. I'm going to say Hector Berlioz's Symphony
Fantastique. Maybe I'm just in the French mode
right now, but it's such a wonderful, characterful
piece. So many great, memorable passages and
characters, yeah. Yeah, Symphony Fantastique
is an amazing piece and it's got, you know, it's
a lot of fun for me to play as well. But boy,
you know, I'm always shocked every time we play
it. Not only was it like a graduation piece for
him when he was so young, but also it was written,
I think, nine or ten years after Beethoven nine.
Like they're so close in time in a way that always
shocks me. OK, what is your favorite music to
listen to? Right now, I've been very into tango
music, Piazzolla, so I'm really just loving that
whole mood and that whole. drama of the tango.
I'm not a dancer, but I also love watching people
dance, and yeah, tango music is something that
I've been very into lately. Great, that's very
interesting. Okay, what is your favorite opera?
Oh, I'm going to pick... These are such challenging
questions for an orchestral musician because
it's like, what am I playing right now? thinking
about right now and what are the wonderful things
that I've thought about and played in the past.
But the opera that I think sticks with me the
most is Der Rosenkavalier by Richard Strauss.
It's very special. I love the character of the
marshalling and the journey that that opera takes
us through is wonderful. The trio at the end,
that moment of apotheosis is such special, special
music. Even when you just play the orchestral
suite, when you get to that point, it's such
magic. really in the opera when you go through
this four -hour journey and then you get to this
like exquisite exquisite music. It's a real experience.
I can still remember the first time I heard that
music of the trio at the end of the opera and
just my jaw dropping and just I did not know
music could be that otherworldly. What is your
favorite cafe or restaurant in Calgary? Favorite
cafe, I'm going to say Higher Ground in Kensington
just because I lived a block away from that place
and it was just such a wonderful meeting spot.
It was my version of a Proustian salon where
you could always go and you could always find
someone you knew. Okay, and last question for
you here, Matt. Who's someone in the orchestra
who's playing you admire? I'm going to say...
Our principal viola, his name is Laurent Grier
Kim, and I think he's such a dynamic player.
He has so many great musical ideas, and it's
a really cool thing when there's a prominent
viola solo. It doesn't happen that often. Maybe
it happens a little more often than a double
bass solo, but... I always really look forward
to getting to hear Laurent play a solo. And I
also just really admire the way he leads the
section. So go with Laurent. Fantastic. No, I
agree. He's a great player. And I think to a
lay person, it's very non -obvious sort of the
influence that. you know the principal viola
or the viola section can have on the orchestra
because they play such a supporting role almost
all the time the influence they can have on the
whole ensemble and the way things feel and the
way things uh how colorful things are in the
orchestra they are much more of an influence
on the whole group than than i think immediately
meets the eye yeah and it's something i've been
thinking about a lot lately the nature of leadership
in the orchestra and how we're able to hand things
off, you know, as a big chamber ensemble. And
I love players like that who, you know, he's
not leading my section, but I still look to him
and I still find direction and inspiration in
the way he plays things. And I think that's true
of a lot of the players in our orchestra. I had
to kind of scratch my head and think for a while
when you asked me that question. I know, I know
it's hard. I'm making everyone pick somebody.
Well, I hope at some point you get a chance to
talk to Laurent because I will definitely tune
in for that too. Yeah, absolutely. Well, stay
tuned. Laurent, if you're hearing this, send
me a note. All right. Well, thank you so much,
Matt. This has been such great fun sitting down
and talking with you. It's been a real pleasure.
Thank you. Notes from the stage is an independent
production of the Calgary Philharmonic Players
Association. The opinions expressed here are
our own and do not reflect those of the Calgary
Philharmonic Orchestra. Our thanks to Nathan
Chandler for his technical expertise. The music
you heard in this episode was Kicho by Astor
Piazzolla, performed by Matt Heller and pianist
Charles Forman, and the Intermezzo by Enrique
Granados, performed by Matt Heller and pianist
Kathleen Van Moerik, both at this summer's Mountain
View International Festival of Song and Chamber
Music. Let us know what you think of the show
and check out our concert calendar at CalgaryFilmmusicians
.ca to see what we're all up to outside of our
regular performances at the CPO. On our next
episode in two weeks, I'll be talking with Principal
Trombone, Jim Scott. Talk to you soon!