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FROM THE HEART
by Jagan Nath Khalsa

I have been with CHSO "before time began" (2000). Before that, Paul contracted ad hoc groups of musicians for productions at Franklin School of Performing Arts. At that time (1996 or so), my wife worked for his wife Sue at a transcription business in Milford. Sue invited us to a Christmas party at their house on Claflin St.

I met some fellow musicians there, I got hired on for "King and I" and "Guys and Dolls" at FPAC and segued into CHSO when it started up. In the first CHSO concert (May 2000), we did ?Orff's Carmina Burana with a ?Dvorak Wind Serenade.

Nearly twenty-two years later. The camaraderie was amplified in our work towards the most recent concert on February 5, 2022. Shostakovich, Prokofiev and Borodin. Paul said he plans four rehearsals for each show. At the fourth rehearsal (the performance itself!), the audience gets to come! We are constantly striving to meet the challenge and make it better the next time (albeit in a different program, the next set of repertoire.)

The performance crystallizes us at our best at that moment in time. We are acutely aware of our stand partner, our section, our distant sections of the orchestra, listening like hawks, amplifying the markings printed in the music, and the personal notes we took from our experience in the three prior rehearsals. Invariably, the Hippocratic oath, "Do no harm!" (meaning don't be a soloist during a silent moment or play loudly out of tune in an exposed passage), and in every case, make the good resound more clearly than you ever did before. It is group-think of a very noble kind.  

In a busy orchestra texture, the good and desired intentions reinforce each other, and the anomalies get buried – fortunately! -- the result is miraculous if the conductor has prepared the way for us in our good thoughts.

In the Shostakovich, Paul perceived that Shostakovich intended some sections as machine-like and needing to move forward without dwelling on specific notes and adding in extra emotion that some phrases might imply.   ...because that slows the momentum of it all. Even if a bit of some melody could be a snatch of a love ballad in another context, he needed us to play it dispassionately. He illustrated it by voice…. two robotic people conversing... "Would  you  like  to  go out   together   Saturday  night? …….. "Yes  I  would  like  to  go   out.   Thank    you."  

In the opening Violin II passage, Paul said, "Play warmly." I penciled in "Warm" in my part, and with warm imagination played it so at the concert.   The warmth there was as cogent as the robots elsewhere!

After the concert, Paul remarked, "I was afraid I'd have a heart attack whipping those string players along at tempo!" We did our best, he did his best, and we all achieved an elevated state of being in those moments.

My memories of all the conversations and comments helped me make it happen in my little corner of the ensemble.

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