There aren’t many horn players out there who are as revered as Julie Landsman. Recently retired from 25 years as principal horn of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, she continues to teach at the Juilliard School, and was recently in Philadelphia doing some visiting teaching at the Curtis Institute and playing extra with Philadelphia Orchestra on Strauss’ Ein Heldenleben. She said she is having the time of her life playing 6th horn and playing some low notes for once! My husband and I took the opportunity of her visit to have dinner with her, and she graciously agreed to allow me to pull out my cassette recorder and tape an interview with her.
As we were talking, I was reminded (not as if I had forgotten…) of what attracted me to seek her advice and guidance in New York. I never officially studied with her, but after I graduated, had been in a job for a year out of the country, and moved back to New York to freelance, I sought her out for lessons whenever she could manage time for them. One of the greatest things that Julie does (at least for me) is to keep the ultimate purpose of horn-playing elevated and inspired, while bringing the process of getting there into the here and now, very practical, rooted in the body, no fuss-no muss. When I left my lessons with Julie, I always felt as if I not only had a vision of where I needed to go, I had a plan of how to get there – something that I could incorporate the very next time I picked up my horn. I felt stretched both upwards and downwards – elevated, but grounded. It had the effect of bringing a fuzzy lens into very sharp focus. This is powerful, and no doubt why so many of her students have had such great success in the professional horn world.
I chose the words presence, clarity, and courage to describe my conversation with Julie, not because we talked extensively about those traits, though they were touched upon peripherally somewhat, but more because these are qualities that often have defined the time that I have spent with her, and qualities I believe she fosters so beautifully.
I wish I could capture for you in the written word her presence, the intention with which she spoke, and the generosity of heart she shared through the following conversation, but I will have to leave that to your imagination as you read her words.
Enjoy!
BEGINNINGS
I understand you were born in Brooklyn, right? Can you tell me a little bit about your childhood and how you found the horn?
When I was 12 in Ardsley, NY, I wanted to be in the band. And I went to hear a band concert and it just looked like fun. So I told my mother I wanted to play the English horn – I didn’t even know what it was. She went to my band director, said, “My daughter wants to play the English horn.” He said, “We need French horn players. The English horn will cost you $7 a lesson, but I’ll teach for free if she wants to play the French horn.” My mother spotted a bargain and she said, “Ok, she’ll be a horn player.” Simple economics. And he said, “OK. Send your daughter to me. She has to have a good ear and good teeth.” So I showed him my teeth, which he approved of, and he plucked a few notes on the piano and he made me sing them back, and he said, “OK. Go rent a French horn.” And I did. Having heard a band concert and seen baritone horn bell pointing forward, I couldn’t understand how horn players sat. I didn’t get it. I thought, “Well, do they use mirrors and sit backwards?” So that was how I started my career. Horn was in the air, bell up, going “OK! I like the horn!”
When was it that you realized you wanted to be a horn player?
From very early on. I could play it right away. There were very few things I could do well – very few. I was a bad student, I got in trouble from my parents for doing all kinds of things, but I could play the horn. It was easy.
What can you tell me about studying with James Chambers at Juilliard?
He was imperious….I think that might have been shades of his teacher Anton Horner with the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Curtis Institute — funny to talk about them here.
[We were dining at Parc in Philadelphia right across the street from Curtis].
He was very much about sound. I had never heard about tone, and I had never heard about support – air. My teacher had never mentioned them to me in high school. Not once did those topics come up. And in my first lesson with Chambers when he mentioned using support, it was like, “huh? What’s that? Use my air? Never even heard of it! What’s air? Have a sound?” I mean, I had a sound, but my playing was not based on sound at that time. So Chambers changed my entire sensibility pretty quickly. No regrets!
Where were you after school? Did you go immediately to a job?
I had a job in Canada because my boyfriend was a horn player in the Toronto Symphony, and I wanted to be near him. And the National Ballet of Canada had a first horn opening, and I took the audition and I won. And I guess that’s the first job I had out of school. We went on the road a lot and made a lot of money, quickly, which was not my goal, but it happened kind of young, so that was my first professional job in a semi-full-time way.
Then after that I was a freelancer. I played a bit with St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and extra with the [New York] Philharmonic. I played with Orpheus – way back when! – and American Symphony. You know there was a lot more work in New York. A lot more work. This was in the late 70’s – a very busy time. I played extra with the Met. Stage band. I thought it was the greatest thing. I used to kiss the ground when I walked in the stage door. To me it was a sacred place.
The Met?
I had my eye on the chair.
From way back then…
From age thirteen. Because I met the first horn Howard Howard who became my teacher – that was when I was 13, so from 13 to 18 I was at the opera five times a week in standing room, with opera glasses. I didn’t really look on stage. I was [looking] in the pit. I’ve spent much of my life involved in that Met pit, in one way or another.
Then you were in Houston for three years, then to the Met from there.
Twenty-five years at the Met.
THOUGHTS ABOUT A LIFE IN MUSIC
So, I wonder, what are the things that you find the most satisfying about being a professional musician?
Two things come to mind: the first one is collaboration. The second one is sound – the composite of sound. I like that. I like finding someone’s sound. I like working within it. I like the partnership – the partnership of sound. I’m not sure that the average person would get that, but that’s the joy – that’s so cool! Hard to teach, but I try.
What for you have been the biggest challenges of being a musician?
Maintaining Self. It’s so important to have yourself intact when you’ve got your horn in your hands. Your ego, who you are, what you have to say. And that gets thrown off by other influences, be they conductors or colleagues, or people who might have their own agendas. To not get thrown off my path, and really stick strong – it has been a big learning curve for me, big learning curve.
Yes, it seems there’s a very fine balance when you are a part of an organization or an ensemble, and must give up something of yourself to be a part of that, to be part of something larger than you are….
…and then not lose who you are, especially in the hot seat. See, it’s easier as a section player, and more acceptable. But in that hot seat, if you’re missing pieces of YOU, that’s a stressful situation, and I’ve had plenty of that. To me that is toxic…that’s poison. I used to have to work pretty hard inside to conjure up lots of strength inside of me to go out there and do it. Unbelievable courage.
Yes, courage…
Major acts of courage on a daily basis.
I’m not sure the average person understands what it’s like to put yourself out there like that.
No…or you get a reviewer going after you… It doesn’t matter [if what they say is true or not]. It comes from a place where they don’t understand what it takes to get out there, and put yourself out there.
THOUGHTS ABOUT THE STATE OF THE ARTS AND TEACHING
One thing that has been on my mind a lot recently is the state of the arts and how things are changing so quickly. I believe it is in part because of technology – people are participating in music in different ways than they have in the past. And the economy is not helping these days either. I often feel like it’s the end of an era in a certain way. But I wonder if you could share some of your thoughts about the music business and about changes in the world and technology and the way people are participating in music or not participating, as the case may be….
I have a way in terms of the state of the arts of trying not to go there, because I think it’s awful, and I don’t know how much I can do to influence it, so I try to keep [my approach] very basic. “Can I help this person be a better horn player?” As a teacher, I can’t even at this point imagine what job they’re going to go for, but can I help them play the horn better? Can I help them be a better person in how they approach their work with other human beings? How [can I teach them to] take responsibility? There’s much to be taught. Yet it’s a very different world than when I started teaching…
Another question I have along these same lines: what are the biggest challenges for young horn players these days, in your opinion, and do you have any advice or thoughts for them?
I do have some thoughts. Unless it means everything to you, don’t waste your good time and money. There still we be jobs for the few-and-far-between exceptionals, but in order to be exceptional, you have to put 100% in every day for many, many years with no guarantee at the end. So those are tough odds, but if that’s where you’re at, don’t let anyone talk you out of it.
Teaching is very important to you, I know, and I know many of your students. And I wonder if you’ve had any observations over the years about the ones who are most successful in the horn world and if there are qualities that these exceptional students share?
Yes. Self-motivation. I don’t have to tell them to work. They bring it in. I don’t want to waste my time telling a kid to work. It pisses me off to even think about telling someone to work! And unfortunately I do have to do that on occasion. For me the perfect formula is someone who is gifted naturally musically, because I cannot teach someone to feel. I don’t even know how to teach someone to listen. I try. That’s a toughie too. But a gifted student who has a natural, musical feel who needs to grow up, be exposed to how to put it together in a beautiful package, bring them to me, but they have to be 100% self-motivated. Do not look to me for motivation. I’ll support yours. Emphatically.
FAVORITE THINGS
Who have been some of the most influential people in your life?
Carmine Caruso. Without skipping a beat!
Tell me about him.
I loved him. He was a great human being, a great teacher, a fantastic influence on my playing, my life, and my teaching. HUGE influence.
You worked with him for a long time?
I did. He taught my high school band teacher trumpet. And then he started working with my high school band. So, since I was 14 I’ve been doing his stuff – that’s when I met him. He also started to teach my horn teacher – all through my high school band director in Ardsley, NY. Carmine came and coached the band. We would do the 6 notes and intervals and pedal f-sharps and chromatic scales as a band for our warm-ups every morning.
Could you tell me about his philosophy and approach?
Yeah. He taught with a very gentle hand, with a lot of love and a lot of kindness, and taking a lot of responsibility as the teacher to teach you. It was not a negative “you can’t do this. You sound like &%#!.” More like, he took the job seriously of making you sound better and teaching you how to do something and really dispensed with the negativity that some teachers use. I so ate it up. For me, it was like having Mr. Rogers as my horn teacher. The main philosophy is, “I like you just the way you are, and now if we’re going to like you even more, I will teach you how to get from point A to point B. All you have to do is do what I teach you.” And I did. It worked like magic. Magic! Wow! I like that!
The exercises are sort of like calisthenics, right? And based on timing….
Yes, it’s a fairly physical approach. And the point isn’t so much to keep at a physical plane – it’s to free the body to play music. So it’s about training so that you’re completely free when you play without having the physical issues that hang up a lot of players. It works really well.
Someone I know equated it to Iyengar Yoga.
Which I love! That’s the kind of yoga I’ve been practicing.
I remember that – so I find it very interesting that you are attracted to both things.
How did they make those parallels?
I think it was the exactness of the Iyengar approach – the scientific, sort of physical focus of it that seemed to this person to be similar.
You know I haven’t figured out exactly what it is about it that appeals to me in a similar way. It might be that it’s structured, with very specific instructions, that I just find that works. In both situations it works! I like structure. I need it. I really do, because I’m not that structured in my being. So I enjoy: “Do it like this.” I like that very much!
Now I remember a few years ago we had talked about Jack Kornfield’s book A Path With Heart and we shared an affinity for it. I wonder if there are other books out there that you really love and that you like sharing with people.
Well along the lines of meditation, I’m a real fan of Sylvia Boorstein. Do you know her? She is what they call a Jewbu. She’s one of my people. She’s a little Jewish lady from Brooklyn – I relate to her very well. And her meditation style is “Metta” meditation – loving-kindness, and it’s absolutely beautiful. And this is the stuff I would do before my performances where I really wanted to hit a home run. I did a lot of Metta mediation. It really made a difference. Huge difference. I would still do it today for particular performances should the occasion arise. The Pavane – do you remember what happened for that concert?
[a concert Julie and I did together while on tour with Orpheus Chamber Orchestra several years ago]
Before the concert? Yes, I remember. You were in your own space.
Yes, I was doing a meditation for a friend who had just died in Cleveland – the bassoonist Lynette Diers Cohen. Frank Cohen’s wife. Do you remember that?
Yes, I never met her, but know her as Diana’s mother.
Yes. I just spent Christmas with the rest of the Cohen’s who are left, which we’ve done since Lynette died. But that was shortly after she died and it was Valentine’s Day when we played in Cleveland. And that Pavane was for her. I still cry thinking about it. She was onstage with me, and I really played for her. And there’s no better place to play from than your heart – IF you are secure technically. And that’s where the Caruso piece fits in. All I’ve got to do is set my timing up and make sure I take a nice breath and use it, and that’s all the technique that I need besides the flow of the subdivision to keep it structured. So that all my attention could be on sound, expression, seeing Lynette in my heart. Huge stuff. You have to be pretty evolved on many levels to do that. In other words, you have to be pretty secure with your technique. I can’t really think of a first horn player who wouldn’t get their shorts in a bunch over the Pavane, which, my shorts were a little bunched. But I certainly was able to shift over to a much more spiritual base for the performance.
One last question: is there anything that you’ve learned over the years that you keep coming back to, something that strikes you as a big truth and very important?
Something does come to mind. And that’s about being a good colleague. I think it’s really important to treat people respectfully. What goes around comes around. I believe in that really strongly.
That seems to be a good place to conclude – in thinking about how to treat others. Julie, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and feelings with us and for being so open and giving of yourself in answering these questions.
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