Seeing a master
Trip Start
Jun 22, 2007
1
13
43
Trip End
Sep 25, 2007
Shelter Island, New York
Friday, July 20, 2007
To do this, we needed to move the First Forty up a narrow creek about 5 miles to a small lake-like anchorage at the end of this creek. We would then take the dink about a mile to a town dock and then walk two miles to the music camp. This was fairly aggressive as the entrance to the creek looked small and shallow. And we had no guide book as we often have which might explain the nuances of making such a run. Well, no guts, no glory.
So we head up this creek. Somehow we transverse the narrow inlet by following the marks. We are getting a lot of looks from people in small fishing boats likely wondering what this big, odd looking vessel is doing coming up this creek. All is going well. First Forty draws 4' 8". We are seeing depths of 8', 7' and all of a sudden we are seeing 6' and then 5.5'. Somehow we glide by...but the tide is not as low as will be tomorrow when we want to leave... One more bend and then we are in the anchorage. Its beautiful...about a mile across and no one around. Perfect.
We drop the dink and off we go. We tote a couple flashlights, hand-held vhf, cell phone etc. We have a hard time finding what was called "town dock" in the hand-out we picked up in Sag Harbor. It turned out to be a rickety old dock in the weeds. We tie up hoping no one will come out with a shotgun to greet the intruders. No problem and before we know it we are hoofing down the wooded roads with the map in hand.
After about a half hour walk, we find it. It is clearly identified as "Perlman Music Program" summer camp and see the performance tent. Its a rustic camp on the water. Presumably we would see a rehearsal of talented young people led by one of the great maestro's instructors.
We take a pair of seats near the front. Only a couple people are there along with a string quartet and a female instructor. She leads them through a work by Beethoven. Awesome. They plan and replay and she is doing a great job. But we had expected to see the whole group. Soon, the quartet packed up as we saw more studious looking young people bringing their instruments in and getting set up.
Soon there was a stage full of young string musicians. They tune up and get ready. The rehearsal was led by the first chair violin player. She did a good job, but I wasn't that impressed. After about 20 minutes, I start looking at my watch when a gray haired man in a motorized wheelchair appeared to be coming into the tent from behind the stage. It took a couple minutes to get the idea. This was him, this was Itzhak Perlman coming onto the stage 30 feet in front of me. Soon, he was seated in front of the group and the real session began.
While the group of 40 musicians was impressive when their peer was leading them, when Mr Perlman come on they came alive. This was impressive. This was a "wow". For the next hour he drilled them, scolded them, made them work and made them improve. This was a master at work doing what he does best. We even got to hear him take a few licks with a violin as he borrowed an instrument from one of the violin players to demonstrate how a particular passage should sound. Even that was electrifying. While they never played the complete work, seeing the world's leading violinist and a group of highly gifted young people play was a thrilling event.
It was getting dark, so we made our way back to the dink and putted back to the First Forty arriving just at dark. This was a terrific experience.
