Neal Cary
Neal Cary, currently principal cellist with the Eastern Festival Orchestra, has played at EMF every summer since 1984. He is principal cellist with the Richmond Symphony and is on the adjunct faculty at the College of William and Mary and Virginia Commonwealth University. He earned his M.M. at The Juilliard School, and his teachers included the world-renowned Leonard Rose.
One of my favorite memories from EMF dates from a summer in the 1980s when I was co-principal cellist with Diane Chaplin. Diane was a marvelous cellist with a very outgoing personality who always liked a good joke. Although we were friends, we were a little competitive and enjoyed playing light-hearted pranks on each other.
After a few weeks had passed, I finally found the perfect opportunity for one prank when I noticed that each week she had a new and wild nail color for her fingers and toes. The timing I chose for my prank was when she was scheduled to play principal in Shostakovich’ Symphony No. 1. As you may know, this symphony has many difficult cello solos and ends with a sad and quiet, extensive, and especially difficult cello solo.
In the first rehearsal of the Shostakovich, I took special care to turn each page with my left hand. Since I was sitting on Diane's right side as her assistant that week, she couldn't see that the nails on my right hand looked absolutely ridiculous. (My friend Carol Havelka had painted the nails of my right hand all the different colors Diane had used that summer!) However, most of the rest of the orchestra could see it -- notably Lisa Johnson (later Lisa Sutton), who sat in the violin section opposite Diane. With each cello solo, quiet giggles and smiles traveled across the orchestra because everyone knew I had something up my sleeve. With each cello solo, Diane became a little less secure because she thought something was wrong -- first with her playing, and then with her clothes. All the while, Sheldon Morgenstern remained the total professional and just kept rehearsing.
Finally, when Diane was just about to begin playing the last big cello solo at the end, I very carefully and slowly adjusted the music to the left with my right hand. Diane let out something best described as a “horse laugh”!
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When I arrived at Eastern Music Festival in 1984, I heard many stories about things that happened in the past. One story involved the president of the board locking the door in a board meeting until board members donated enough money to keep the festival going. [ed. note: it was E. R. Zane Jr.]
Back then, the workload was pretty light. Faculty coached chamber music twice a week, maybe taught one or two students each, and there were usually no extra orchestra concerts off the Guilford campus. Faculty chamber music was performed only once a week, so usually faculty would perform only one or no chamber works each summer. Instead, faculty would often gather until the wee hours of the morning, reading various chamber music works at informal parties.
Orchestra concerts were Saturdays, but the rehearsals for the next week didn't begin until Wednesday morning. Many faculty would leave for either the beach or the mountains Saturday night after the concert and return just in time for the 10:00 AM rehearsal on Wednesday.
One of my most pleasant memories was one of those trips. Lindsay Groves (cellist), Bob Anderson (bassist), and Lisa Johnson (violinist) invited me to Wrightsville Beach where I learned how to windsurf. On another weekend, I went hiking with Lindsay up Grandfather Mountain.
The extra free time we had back then meant that we had more time for practice, relaxation, and just to hang out and make friends. We stayed in Bryan Hall, which had connected balconies on each floor, and often faculty would get together to have cookouts on the balcony or would stay up late listening to music and talking. Bryan had a courtyard which was another gathering place for faculty. There were quite a few squirt gun and water balloon fights in the 80s.
One night, several of us threw our mattresses off the balcony and slept in the courtyard. I remember waking up to someone taking my picture.
Usually, John Feddersen (timpani) would string a badminton net across the Bryan courtyard late at night, hang lights on the balcony, and faculty would play until 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning. One night I made the mistake of playing too long and then had to struggle with a shaky bow for my performance of Appalachian Spring the next night. It was torture, but worth it!
The last Thursday late evening of the festival was always reserved for the "Graveyard" -- skits performed by the faculty for the faculty. These skits usually made light of funny things that happened over the summer and were funnier than the best skits one could find on “Saturday Night Live.” It's too bad that these performances were not videotaped!
Of course, Jeff Multer (now concertmaster) and Jennifer (Perk) Combs (cello) were always funny. I remember being invited to a ballet performance by Jennifer where she danced out of one room, twirled around as she went across the living room, and then into the next room where it sounded like hundreds of pots and pans came crashing to the floor.
I'll never forget the time Jeff spent an entire morning learning the Meditation from Thaïs just to give me a private performance of the piece after I had mentioned it was one of my most favorite pieces.
One summer, I remember marching across the lawn late at night with 20 other faculty members toward Milner (the student dorm) singing the soldiers’ song from The Wizard of Oz (Oh wee oh, ohweee - oh) and launching hundreds of bottle rockets in a mock attack. The students retaliated by playing a brass quintet concert at 5:00 AM the next morning in the Bryan courtyard.
EMF has come a long way since those carefree early days. Many of those early personalities on the faculty, on the board, and administrative staff -- people like Shelly Morgenstern, Leah Tannenbaum, Perk, and others too numerous to mention -- helped mold EMF into the world-class festival we have today. Today, we still know how to have fun, and I'm sure there will be plenty of memories in store for our future!
