Edward S. Palanker
Edward S. Palanker (Eddie) was principal clarinet and personnel director with the Eastern Philharmonic Orchestra for 25 years, from 1965 to 1990. He has played bass clarinet with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra for over 40 years. He is professor emeritus at Towson University and just retired from Peabody Conservatory after 18 years. Eddie lives in Phoenix, MD, a suburb of Baltimore.
Life in Bryan Dorm
One of the joys of EMF in the “good old days” was life in Bryan dorm. We moved in there in my 4th or 5th year. Besides having A/C and only four units to a suite, we had the “courtyard.” That’s what made social life so much fun. Most of the faculty chose to live there, despite having to eat in the cafeteria for many years until several members got food poisoning one summer and we convinced the college to allow us to live on campus without having to sign up for meals. We often had a badminton net set up in the evening, and people took turns playing as the rest of the faculty sat around watching, drinking a beer (or two) and socializing.
For several summers, the kids of faculty members built a lemonade stand and used the profits to make a kids’ pizza party at the end of the summer. The courtyard was also the place for what became an annual event called “the graveyard concert,” putting the festival to rest for another summer. Everyone was invited after the last student concert of the summer, and we would have a big party in the courtyard with faculty members doing skits and performing chamber music and jazz into the early hours of the morning. One summer, Wynton Marsalis, a former EMF student, was at the festival giving a master class. He came by and participated in our graveyard concert to everyone’s delight. He played into the wee hours of the morning.
Pig Pickin’
One of the faculty highlights at the end of many summers in the “good old days” was our pig-pickin’. In the great North Carolina tradition, we would have a bar-b-que near the lake and hire a “pig picker” to arrive early in the morning with his cooker and slow cook a pig all day. The faculty raised the money and invited the board members and staff, had soft drinks, and all the trimmings, and literally picked our dinner off of the pig, as well as having it chopped up NC style. The tradition was started by a trombone player named Woody, but then John McElroy, principal trumpet, and I continued it for many summers after. We would pick up the pig the day before and keep it in the college kitchen refrigerator all night. No students were invited to this one.
Happenings at EMF
One summer evening at about 11:00 pm, right in front of several faculty members, a young child pulled the fire alarm. OK, you’re asking why a young child was up at 11:00 pm. Because it was EMF, that’s why. When the security guard came over, he insisted that the entire dorm be evacuated. We argued with him that we saw the child pull the alarm so he should call the fire department and tell them it was a false alarm. It took a long time to convince him that there was no need to wake up all the good children and parents that were sleeping when we knew there was not a fire. After a while, he finally relented.
One of the highlights of every summer was our weekly softball game every Sunday morning. Not too early though; after all, so many faculty members partied after our Saturday evening Eastern Philharmonic concerts. Most of us who were up ended up at Ham’s, a local watering hole that made the best homemade fries in NC. (We used to go to other places in the very early days of the festival, but they wouldn’t let us back because we could get very noisy.) We often tried to get the students involved in the ball games and would have faculty against student games when we had enough of each to man, or woman, two teams.
As personnel manager, I took it upon myself to announce the upcoming softball game at every orchestra rehearsal and at times would stand in the middle of the courtyard at about 11:00 am Sunday morning and announce the start of the game. I considered it my duty as a principal player and personnel manager to see that this important event was successfully done every Sunday, and by the way, I couldn’t stand losing.
Favorite Stories
Two of my favorite stories involved two very famous musicians. One was Ricardo Morales, now principal clarinetist of the Philadelphia Orchestra, previously of the Metropolitan Opera Company at the ripe old age of 21, only a few years after his last summer at EMF. Ricardo arrived as a student from Puerto Rico at the young age of thirteen, his first of five years at EMF. He showed up at my studio for his seating audition and began, in broken English, making every excuse under the sun for why he was not going to play well. His clarinet was in poor condition, his reeds weren’t working, he just traveled the whole day to get here, etc. etc. I was ready to hear a beginner since he told me he played clarinet for only about a year, so I was wondering how he got into the festival. After a while I told him there were other students waiting to audition and to just play for me and stop making excuses. After he left, my wife, Carol, who heard him play from the adjoining room, came out and said, “Who was that? He talked so much but he was fantastic,” and he was. He played the first movement of Weber’s 1st Concerto and blew me away. I told him I couldn’t wait until he “plays” his best. Of course we all found out what that was like soon enough. I think the other kids waiting outside my studio to audition couldn’t believe it when they saw the young kid walking out of my studio after hearing him play his audition.
Because he always had a clarinet in his hand, I tried to get him to come play softball for several summers. One summer he finally came down to play, and as luck would have it, he was on the opposing team from me and I was pitching. Of course the first time he got up I assumed he would be an easy out until he hit a homerun way into the outfield. As he was turning the bases, I yelled, “I thought you never played softball before,” and he replied, “I didn’t.”
One summer the famous cellist, Leonard Rose, a frequent guest soloist at EMF, got sick and called Shelly Morgenstern and asked him to accept a young man as his replacement. He assured Shelly that he was one of the finest young cellists around and that he would not regret it. His name was Yo-Yo Ma. It turned out that Yo-Yo had recently gotten married and was moving into his new house with his new wife, but when asked to replace Rose, Yo-Yo could not refuse, even though he felt guilty for having his wife do all the work.
The week before his arrival, our suitemate, Owen Carmen, principal cellist of the EPO that summer, had traveled to three East Coast cities and picked up three cellos to try in his pursuit to purchase a new one. We would sit in one room while Owen played them in another, asking my wife, Carol, and me which one we thought sounded the best. We were happy to see Yo-Yo arrive at the festival because he and Owen knew each other, and we were relieved to allow Yo-Yo the challenge of helping Owen decide. Owen didn’t choose any of them and the following week made a return trip to bring them all back.
For many years it was the practice to perform the last Philharmonic concert in the Aycock Auditorium at the University of Greensboro. One particular summer we performed Mahler’s 2nd Symphony with chorus, soloist, and orchestra, and, as usual, it was being taped for TV by a local TV station to be played at a later date. For some reason, this performance was cursed. A whole section of lights above the chorus and off-stage brass burst, letting broken bulbs fall all over them and the back of the orchestra, making some very loud blasts as they exploded and fell. To everyone’s credit, they didn’t miss a beat, but it was rather disturbing to say the least. Scared some notes out of me. At another time during the performance, some wild man ran out of the hall yelling something out loud and slammed the heavy door with a big bang. To say the least, the performance was not approved for broadcast.
One summer we were performing the great Symphonie Fantastique by Hector Berlioz. The guest conductor asked me to provide four pianos for the performance to double the chimes in the last movement. Even as he insisted, I told him it was not possible to move four pianos onto our stage at Dana. He eventually asked for two pianos with two pianists at each piano. I told him we had only two faculty members available to perform with the orchestra, but he was insistent, so I arranged to have two students help out even though I told him that would create an ensemble problem. After the first rehearsal he believed me and we released the two students. We never did get along well after that. I’ll refrain from mentioning his name.
One summer a new reed company contacted me and asked me to try out their new brand of clarinet reeds. I asked them if they would send me a box for all the students and other faculty members to try as well. After a few weeks of trying them, we all agreed that they weren’t very good and went outside to the courtyard at Bryan dorm and built a beautiful bonfire out of all the reeds. We all got a kick out of watching them burn.
One of the fun things I did with our clarinet students was to form a clarinet choir. I would bring an alto, bass, and contra alto clarinet with me from the university where I taught, and we would perform a concert in the Bryan courtyard sometime during the summer. My wife played the contra alto, Sally McElroy, English horn player in the EPO, played the alto clarinet, and Donna O’Brien, head counselor who was a former student of mine from home, played too. We had a grand old time. (I think we put the EPO to shame.)
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