Dyring Music

Seattle Symphony In the News: October 15, 2014

Posted on October 15, 2014 by Wesley Dyring

from You You Xia at Seattle Symphony

ANNOUNCEMENTS

We are thrilled to let you know that recordings on Seattle Symphony Media have received wonderful coverage in major national and international media outlets this month. Releases appeared as a full-page collector review in Gramophone, and the first four recordings received five stars in BBC Music Magazine, see the attached. Additionally, The New York Times’ ArtsBeat called the Ives a “luminous conception” on a recent classical playlist. Stay tuned on news of our next release in November!

In the meanwhile, Become Ocean is still #1 on the Billboard Classical Traditional chart two weeks after its release! Buzz on the Symphony and this commission is rapidly spreading across the country once again. It was recently heard on Radiolab, Performance Today, All Things Considered, WQXR, Radio Open Source, Studio 360, in addition to receiving an Editor’s Choice from iTunes, which they posted along with a video on the iTunes Facebook page.

Back at home, this weekend marks the start of this season’s free Community and Side-by-Side Concerts. Come see us at the Chief Sealth High School on Friday night at 7 pm and hear the Symphony play Side-by-Side with the West Seattle Community Orchestra. On Saturday at 2 pm, we will give a free Community Concert at the Rainier Valley Cultural Center. The Seattle Symphony’s Community Connections program has worked with nonprofit organizations in the Rainier Valley area for the past three years in an effort to invite marginalized communities to attend Symphony performances for free, attend pre-concert workshops and participate in in-depth creative projects. Collaborations have included visits by Symphony musicians and teaching artists to Full Life Care to provide free recitals and instrument exploration, as well as plans to launch a 4-week songwriting residency for all three Full Life Care locations. Other Community Connections partners in the region includes the Mockingbird Society, Lighthouse for the Blind and the Southeast Seattle Senior Center. These ongoing community partnerships have resulted in the Symphony’s decision to bring a free Community Concert to this region, and the October 18 concert at Rainier Valley Cultural Center will be the Symphony’s first appearance in Rainier Valley.

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Dvorák’s Trip to the New World

Posted on October 5, 2014 by Wesley Dyring

This file has been identified as being free of known restrictions under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights.

Antonín Dvorák

This past week in the Seattle Symphony we played Dvorák’s New World Symphony as the final week of a three-week mini Dvorák festival. As we performed our concert this evening, I could not help remembering the time that we did the New World Symphony seventeen years ago in what used to be the Opera House. At that time the Ninth Symphony made a big impact on me, and Principal English Hornist Glen Danielson played such a rich and heartfelt rendition of the famous “Going Home” solo in the second movement. It was during that week that my sister Cheryl called me to let us know that we needed to get on a flight right away if we wanted a chance to see my grandmother Mary Vercoe before she passed away.

My four-year-old son Alexander and I got on the next morning’s flight for the trip from Seattle to Clarkson, Nebraska, near Omaha. We were able to spend her last three or four hours with her. She had been holding on, waiting for us to arrive, since she had yet to meet the son of her eldest grandson. Even in her weak state, she was thrilled to meet Alexander. I played some music for her on my viola, and I was holding her hand as she slipped away.

I had spoken with Glen Danielson about the English horn solo and gotten the score ahead of time to take with me, along with some manuscript paper. While all of us in the extended family were at my Uncle Earl’s house, I was busy writing an arrangement of the solo for viola and organ to play at her funeral four days after her passing. I felt that my performance of it at the funeral went well and was amazed that I managed to get through it without breaking down.

My uncle shared with me the history of Dvorák in relation to that part of the country, where there is quite a large Czech community. He told me that Spillville, Iowa, in which Dvorák spent the summer of 1893 visiting family, was not too far away from Clarkson. I felt privileged to have such a connection to that part of history and the piece that helped me to feel closer to my grandmother.

Playing Dvorák’s great final symphony this week brought back both warm and sad memories. I am left in stunned amazement that the first of this week’s three performances in Benaroya Hall was on October 2, seventeen years to the day from when my grandmother passed away. I believe that everything happens for a reason and nothing that seems to be merely coincidence, in the final analysis, truly is.

Posted in Arrangements, Symphony, Viola | Tagged Czech, Dvorak, Iowa, Nebraska, New World | Comments Off

Alex Dyring’s New Website Is Up!

Posted on September 24, 2014 by Wesley Dyring

My son Alex is an electric/upright bassist, composer, arranger and instructor. He graduated from Berklee College of Music in Boston a month ago, taking just three years to finish a four-year degree, and he is now living back home and working in the Seattle music scene. This past weekend, both of us were very busy getting our brand new websites ready to publish on the web, and here we are!

Alex has a great site with lots of fascinating music and video, some of it his own compositions and arrangements. A bunch of the tracks on his site are from his time in the Global Studies program at the Valencia campus of Berklee in Spain his second year. He had a fabulous time there studying, working and recording with the graduate students in the program. He also had the opportunity to perform on stage with bassist Victor Wooten and in a quartet with Latin jazz vibraphonist Victor Mendoza.

You can find his site at alexdyring.com. Check it out!

Posted in Fretted Instruments | Tagged Alex Dyring, Bass | Comments Off

My Grandfather’s Violin

Posted on September 23, 2014 by Wesley Dyring

scrollangle1 The image of the violin in the header on my website represents a bit of family history. My dad Glen D. Anderson’s father, Harry Anderson, made the instrument circa 1932 in South Dakota. This, his third violin, was the last instrument he ever made, and it is the only extant playable one.

When I was in high school, I learned violin on an instrument that had been owned by my grandfather that was repaired by H.C. Middlebrook in 1906 in Huron, South Dakota. There is an intriguing story about the history of that violin that warrants telling in another post!

My grandfather never had the opportunity to study violin making. He learned from a second edition 1885 copy of Violin – Making: as it was and is by Ed. Heron-Allen, which was popular among the many who were interested in joining the burgeoning violin-making field at the time.

fclose My dad tells me that on his birth certificate his father listed his occupation as “Piano Tuner & Violin Maker.” Apparently he was serious about violin making but never had the opportunity to develop it past this point, undoubtedly due to the unfortunate effects of mustard gas from World War I.

I asked my father to take the Anderson violin to Alf Studios violin shop in Ann Arbor, and Adam Ginsburg kindly obliged in taking a thorough set of photos of the instrument. The image in this site’s header is from one of them. When I have time, I will add some of the pictures to the Gallery page.

Posted in Instruments, Violin | Tagged Violin, Violin Making | Comments Off

The Relationship of Archery to String Playing

Posted on September 20, 2014 by Wesley Dyring

For many years, I have used archery as a powerful and useful image in my violin and viola teaching. String playing and archery have a surprising amount in common, starting with the use of the bow. The violin bow functions like the arrow and the strings on the instrument are similar to the bowstring in archery.

For their greatest success, both require, among other things, calm and focused concentration, excellent posture, precise form, balanced use of left and right arms in different but complimentary functions, and a constant refinement of aim.

Keshet Eilon, a string camp in Israel, builds upon the connection between archery and playing the violin. The founders discovered a striking similarity between violinists and archers in terms of coordination, posture, and use of certain muscle groups, so that violinists achieve remarkable results in archery. The connection between the two disciplines continues to prove itself consistently. All participants are taught archery, which is practiced every day. Several Seattle Symphony musicians have attended Keshet Eilon.

Archery Experience

In my youth, I had some archery experience, which has captured my imagination throughout my life. This summer I realized that archery analogies were such an active part of my string teaching that I decided to relearn it myself. I started with a private lesson and some classes at Next Step Archery and obtained a membership at The Nock Point Archery Center.

After just two months, I have already developed my archery skills to a moderately advanced level. As a result, I discovered that my playing has improved, my posture is better and my mind is more focused. I also am able to share my insights and enthusiasm for the benefits of archery with my students, with noticeable positive effects on their playing as well.

Resources

Next Step Archery – Greater Seattle’s Archery Education Center
22313 70th Ave W, Suite U1A
Mountlake Terrace WA 98043
(425) 977-2770
www.nextsteparchery.org

The Nock Point
22313 70th Ave W, Suite U5A
Mountlake Terrace WA 98043
Pro Shop: (425) 672-8080
Lessons: Next Step Archery (425) 977-2770
www.thenockpoint.com

Keshet Eilon Music Center
Kibbutz Eilon, Western Galilee 22845
ISRAEL
www.keshetei.org.il
Video of Keshet Eilon archery practice
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keshet_Eilon

On Giving Back to the Community

Posted on April 4, 2013 by Wesley Dyring

I believe that it is essential to give back to the community in order to create a better world. Through my violin and viola teaching near my home in Lynnwood, I have the opportunity to affect the lives of children, youth and adults who come weekly into my studio for instruction. For me, teaching music is not merely the means to help students enjoy music and learn to play the instrument; it allows me to help them shape their own attitudes, thinking, discipline and problem-solving ability.

I love to participate in the process of transformation. Working with young kids especially is so satisfying, since their minds are so open and they have so much enthusiasm. Guiding my students toward those “Aha!” moments, seeing their faces light up and hearing the results gives me so much energy! I feel that I gain so much from teaching that my performing would not be the same without it. I really learn from my kids.

There is another way I give to the community as well. I am active in the Lynnwood Bahá’í community and have served on its local governing council for the past eighteen years, much of that time as elected Secretary. Since the majority of the members of the Lynnwood community are immigrants from Iran or have escaped the persecution of the Bahá’ís there, I get plenty of intercultural experience. I grew up with an intercultural perspective. My mom grew up in Africa, many other family members have lived literally around the world, and my extended family is multi-national and multi-racial. Having learned Spanish from living in Chile in the 1980’s and later from my Colombian wife, I feel right at home with listening to people speaking to each other in their native language. I have gotten to the point that I can make correct interjections in English into a conversation that my Persian friends are having in Farsi, much to their surprise!

Working in the Seattle Symphony is a source of joy for me on many levels. For me, one of these satisfactions is the level of diversity within the orchestra. Working with my colleagues who come from so many different places just feels right to me. I feel that one of the benefits of my job is to be able to hear several different languages backstage. The diversity of our musicians is one of our strengths that enable us to reach out to the community and engage. I hope that the Symphony will continue to grow and expand its community interaction.

Wesito & Friends is a very natural expression of my deep belief in the oneness of humanity. I wish to share not only what the many kinds of Latin music mean to me, but more importantly, to help people to understand in a meaningful way that the diverse means of cultural expression all come from the same human spirit.

Enjoy! Happiness makes everything possible and worthwhile.

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