Gabriel De David and the New World Music School

 The New World Music School is a bilingual institution that teaches music to children and adults in Orlando, Florida. The school is located in a small building on University Boulevard, near Forsyth Rd; it was founded seven years ago by its current owner and president Gabriel De David. Mr. De David is an American musician of Puerto Rican descent who graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from the Inter American University of Puerto Rico, and with a Master’s Degree in Music Education from Florida State University.

He is a nice, smiley guy who is passionate about teaching music. He told me during our interview that his dream had always been to have his own music school, and that his only regret was that it took him so long to do so. He is retired from the Florida Public School System where he taught elementary school music for 20 years, give or take.

Most of the negotiations that Mr. De David does in his work involve his students, and their parents when the students are children. It is quite difficult sometimes, to find common ground when you are working with kids. Parents are very protective of their children and a lot of times they want other people to accommodate to their needs, especially with extracurricular activities they see as a hobby. Gabriel tells me that the most difficult situation to negotiate is when there are 2 or more kids from the same family who want to take lessons of different instruments during the same time slot, since this implies coordinating the schedule for the children and the teachers. Usually what he would do is ask the customer what day works better for them and then accommodate the schedule with the available hours his teachers have. However, it not always works.

Whenever there is a situation where an agreement cannot be reached, he uses objective criteria. Industry standards of how most music schools work around this area helps him make his customers understand that there is a reason behind the apparent madness, and that he is not being unreasonable, but merely looking out for the good operation of his school. He also told me that being upfront from the beginning about the school policy has helped him avoid any ugly confrontations. Thinking about the customer service he wants to offer at his school is the method he uses to separate people from the problem and always keep his cool. Nevertheless if an agreement cannot be reached after further negotiation, the school’s Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement is to offer the customer the opportunity to find another school that meets his needs better.

He also told me his students sometimes use dirty tricks to try and cancel a lesson, by faking to be ill (which is the only excusable reason to reschedule a lesson). If it is a one-time occurrence, he will let it slide because there is no way he can actually confirm if the student is sick or not. However, if he finds a pattern from a student, he told me he would talk to the student and confront him about this repetitive behavior he has noticed.

These are some examples of the kind of negotiations I will have to deal with in my career. Hopefully I will get to fulfill my dream as Mr. De David; I will already have a better understanding of the various ways to deal with some of the difficult situations I will be faced with.

Let's play!

Next May 28^th will see the launch of the first ever NY Phil Biennial, to take place. From that Wednesday until Saturday, June 7^th, music will take on New York City with 22 concerts taking place in many different scenarios in the city, with a roster of many well-known musicians, including Alan Gilbert and Alisa Weilerstein amongst others.

The truly amazing feature of this Biennial is that all the music that will be played is new. This spectacle will include contemporary composers from all around the world, bringing new sounds to a bunch of different corners of the city. Going against the common belief that the audience “isn’t ready” to listen to contemporary music because of its complicated musical language and sounds, the New York Philharmonic has opted to create a whole festival around new music, with a fresh take on the classical world.

This initiative coming from musicians means a lot when it comes to appreciating and not underestimating audiences. People are ready to listen to the music that is being produced nowadays and this festival reinforces that idea by only presenting fresh music. It also shows the beauty of arts working together to create amazing pieces that will float around and envelop New York City’s venues. From The Raven, an opera based on Poe’s brilliant poem, to CONTACT! At the Biennial, the US premiere of a musical piece inspired by outdoors sculptures in Salzburg, this event will be filled with references of our current environment and world, and that is precisely why people are ready to listen to it.

But as if it wasn’t enough, the NY Phil Biennial will also include events featuring young students from the city, creating another element of inclusion in their concerts. With the participation of the Julliard’s AXIOM Ensemble in the opera Gloria – a pig’s tale; the concert performed by the Kaufman Music Center's Special Music School High School, the only ensemble 18 and under dedicated only to the performance of music by living composers; to the Very Young Composers of the Philharmonic, a concert performed by Philharmonic musicians and teaching artists with music composed by students of the Very Young Composers program, and Jovenes Compositores de Venezuela program.

This event will truly be a musical revolution. It will have the great task of showing people how much they are ready for new music, and show those musicians clinging to the past how ready audiences are for new music. As Benjamin Zander says, “everybody loves classical music, they just don’t know it yet”. And what better way to find out that you love this music than to hear the interpretation of your current world through sounds, the sounds of today.  So I invite you to join the NY Philharmonic in their “musical playground of the here and now. Let’s go beyond. Let’s explore, let’s revel. Let’s play!”

The transformative power of classical music

Benjamin Zander is an English orchestral conductor and cellist. He was born in 1939, of German descent, started composing music at the age of nine and became the youngest member of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain at the age of twelve. He even caught the attention of composer Benjamin Britten who invited him and his family to spend three summers with him at his summerhouse.

He is now a living legend. Zander’s life has been so deeply moved and driven by his love of classical music that he devotes his time to teaching, conducting and speaking around the world. And in listening to his TED talk he did move me. He speaks with wisdom and passion about something that he is passionate about and that comes across: he is genuine and transmits his truth to the audience.

There were particularly two quotes from his talk that I find very interesting. One is musical. He says about conducting: "The conductor of an orchestra doesn't make a sound. My picture appears on the front of the CD, but the conductor doesn't make a sound. He depends, for his power, on his ability to make other people powerful. And that changed everything for me. I realized my job was to awaken possibility in other people. And of course, I wanted to know whether I was doing that. And you know how you find out? You look at their eyes. If their eyes are shining, you know you're doing it. So if the eyes are shining, you know you're doing it. If the eyes are not shining, you get to ask a question. And this is the question: who am I being, that my players' eyes are not shining? We can do that with our children, too. Who am I being, that my children's eyes are not shining? That's a totally different world."

The other quote goes like this: "It's one of the characteristics of a leader that he not doubt for one moment the capacity of the people he's leading to realize whatever he's dreaming. Imagine if Martin Luther King had said 'I have a dream. Of course, I'm not sure they'll be up to it'." 

Although one is embedded in a musical example and the other one is not, his words are about leadership. Having played in orchestras and sang in choirs for most of my life I understand entirely the meaning behind those words; and is that kind of leader, the one that empowers others, the one I aspire to be. I want to see the eyes of the people around me shine. A lot of times, being in a position of certain power blinds us to the things that are going around us and that are truly important. We get lost in the less important work and forget the passion and the motivation that drove us down the path we chose. We forget there is a bigger picture. It happens a lot in classical music with conductors who get stuck in their jobs and forget that it was the love for music what put them there; they just move their hands and expect the gesture to be enough to make good music. Or at least music. It also happens in many other aspects of life and career choices and it is something to fight against. Being apathetic is never a good thing.

I also loved about his talk the fact that he got an audience of 1.600 people to listen to Chopin. It seems like no big deal, right? Every day many more people go to concerts all around the world. But do they really listen? It is the true listening of the music, and the understanding, from our personal conditions and experiences what makes it such an amazing experience. As Zander himself says, everyone loves classical music, they just don’t know it yet.

Should you take a stand?

Classical music is probably regarded as the most perfect and intricate kind of music there is. And this is probably due to the fact that it actually is. Furthermore, classical musicians regard their art form as a Godsend gift full of mysticism and above all other mundane matters; and to some degree I can relate to this because that was the way I thought when I first started studying music. The mystique of it, the way it touches your soul makes you think there’s nothing in the world quite like it. And there isn’t.

Due to the recent turmoil going on in Venezuela because of the political protests, controversy has sparked in the classical music world. Venezuelan pianist Gabriela Montero has called on José Abreu and Gustavo Dudamel, Venezuelan conductor and classical music “wunderkind”, to speak up and take a stand against a totalitarian regime that is abusing and shooting its citizens on the streets and starving the people. However, Dudamel only issued a statement saying that he rejected violence and felt sorry for the lives lost, but nothing about politics, the government or the opposition.

This can be looked at from two different angles; Dudamel is a product of El Sistema, Venezuela’s music program for youth, arguably the best one in the world, that is being replicated in other countries such as Colombia and even the United States with the support of Dudamel himself and his orchestra, the L.A. Phil. His standpoint is perfectly respectable as he is still involved with El Sistema working in Venezuela a couple of times a year conducting their main orchestra and touring with Venezuelan kids. It is quite understandably that he does not want to say anything about the government because this programs depends on the government and, well, maybe he is a supporter of the Chavista regime, which is also fine. Maybe he simply believes art to be above and beyond all this political craziness as has happened with other cultural institutions such as the Metropolitan Opera.

Now, from Gabriela Montero’s point of view is also understandable that she is asking for some kind of support from one of Venezuela’s biggest star in her own field. Being thrown into the public eye like this musician have seems to demand a kind of big social responsibility towards their people and home country, especially in times like this where the violence is escalating and where the regime has been shown to have bigger shortcomings than benefits for the people. At least Montero thinks so.

So, who’s right? I honestly don’t know. I command both musicians for being supportive of Venezuelan people, each one through their own work. Should you take a stand? It’s difficult to say. When the Met decided not to “say anything” about the gay ban in Russia, they still said something; they didn’t dedicate their concert to the cause but still said that they speak through actions with the choosing of their repertoire (which includes gay Russian composers such as Tchaikovsky) and their cast and staff (which also includes some fabulous gay performers and workers). Maybe they are both right. I would take a stand and say something if it was up to me as a public figure. Sadly, because I'm not a public figure, my support doesn’t mean nearly as much as Dudamel’s.

Sex appeal and Classical Music

It is no secret that sex sells, from fast food to beers, clothes, beauty products, television shows, movies and of course, music. However, when it comes to music there is a double standard that comes into play; for pop and rock artists it’s ok to showcase their looks and have provocative performances including sexy dance moves. However when it comes to classical music, looking good has become a reason to be disowned by the purists and be automatically labeled as a bad musician. God forbid that besides your musical talent, you actually are easy on the eyes!

Controversy has spawned for decades now, since the 1989 release of some provocative posters of the English National Opera showing bare-chested men, to the 1996 cover of Lara St. John’s Bach album that shows her nude, with the violin strategically placed over her breasts, to the 2004 appearance of the British Bond String Quartet and so on.

I do have to agree with the purists in saying that much of the music being made today and labeled as “classical” isn’t really classical, but it’s classical-based. Crossover artists such as the aforementioned Bond String Quartet or Il Divo mix classical music with worldwide influences, electronic beats and pop harmonies. However, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Nigel Kennedy, Lang Lang, and so many others are actually amazing classical musicians playing amazing classical music and appealing to the masses because they know how to market their image. There is a sense of showmanship that is appealing to a broader audience and that does nothing to undermine their actual musical talent. Given, not all of the classical musicians that have a strong pop image and high record sales are good, but then again neither are many of the pop artists that are mainstream and successful. I’ll even go out on a limb here and say that Anna Netrebko’s career wouldn’t be the same if it weren’t for her smoldering good looks and vivacious personality. Not because she isn’t a good singer, which she is, but because she has the plus of looking great on stage and being able to actually act.

So, if the other genres are doing it, why not classical music? Is it a desperate cry for attention or an honest effort to try and entice new generations of listeners to market artist with a strong focus on their image? Manager Mel Bush, who worked with the Bond String Quartet, Vanessa Mae and even David Bowie said it quite nicely: “It’s really secondary, the looks, because if you have no music, you have no future”. It is a marketing matter. It is a matter of making music more approachable to younger listeners. Curiosity may spark because they like the way the artist looks, but they will keep coming back because they actually liked the music.

Classical music has been regarded as dead, stiff, elitist and aimed at old audiences. Classical musicians, then, have to start keeping up with the cultural changes. Much as the 1979 song states, “Video killed the radio star”, in an environment aimed mostly towards visual elements we cannot expect to keep classical music alive by staying within the nineteenth century tradition of concerts.