The Colburn Schoool

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The Colburn School offers programming for students ranging from infant to adult, and it champions open access and open enrollment. In 2006, the school provided approximately $125,000 in need- and merit-based aid, and the amount will increase to $300,000 this year. “What we’d like to do with the school,” says Beverly Ryder, who serves on Colburn’s Board of Directors and also studies piano with Ory Shihor, “is to make it much more visible just Downtown. It’s already global, and playing a much more visible role than ever before.” While music schools associated with high-profile conservatory programs tend to fight a perceived elitism, such a stigma has decidedly decreased at The Colburn School in recent years. Says McAllister, “The study of music at a high level can transform lives, whether students pursue careers in music or not. You can’t say that you believe in the value of music and not pay attention to beginning students.” At Colburn, the best faculty teach both community and conservatory students. “It gives the message that we’re all equally important,” McAllister continues. “You can be excellent and still have a heartfelt, compassionate attitude.”

Just that sort of attitude, in addition to an intimate environment and full scholarship, attracted rising sophomore Andrew Brady to the conservatory two years ago. A bassoonist from Tennessee, Brady visited as a high school senior. “It was a very small school,” he recalls. “It felt like home.” He also had a great lesson with bassoonist Richard Beene.

Brady, who began playing the saxophone as a sixth grader, graduated to the bassoon because of its complicated, unusual structure. It’s one of “the least developed of all the instruments,” he explains. “The key work of the bassoon is still pretty primitive.” Mastering that primitive, complex key work compelled him years ago and still compels him now. “We strive not to let the instrument tell us how to play it,” he says, and he’s spent much of his first year at Colburn learning how to manage and ultimately control the complicated mechanics of the bassoon – an instrument he’s still learning about, even though he’s already spent years studying it. Forming the bassoon’s double reeds is a particularly knotty task to perfect, and his reed situation was pretty dismal when he arrived as a freshman. He and Beene worked on fixing that. “I was bringing in reeds for him and not actually for me. He said, ‘Until you recognize that you need this, we’re not going to progress.’” Brady had to start seeing himself as the artist, not the student.

Brady’s particular breed of artistry has everything to do with phrasing and narrative. “If I were talking to you and I started a sentence and then stopped it at the wrong time, it wouldn’t work,” he says. “We try to have an arc in the music. It has to lead to something and then back away.” But rarely is the leading and backing away a solitary effort. Musicians speak to one another and speak together. “It’s very important that you don’t think only about yourself,” says Brady.

Gina Luciani, a rising senior and flutist, concurs. “Especially with ensemble playing, everyone relies on you,” she says. “As a musician, you just don’t want to let anyone down, even your teacher.” Luciani, who grew up in Salt Lake City and first fell for the flute as a four year-old watching Prince Eric in The Little Mermaid, applied to Colburn after meeting and taking a lesson with Colburn instructor Jim Walker at a San Diego flute convention. After that, she knew she wanted to study with him. At Colburn, she feels useful and embraced. “It’s almost like a family,” she says. “You know all the teachers, and you pretty much know what’s going on with everyone. Things happen because you’re all so close to each other, just like you might have a fight with your brother. But at the end of the day, you all just want each other to succeed.”

Before I sat down with Ray Ushikubo, John Collinson and others gently suggested that I ask Ray about subjects other than music. It isn’t that they aren’t thrilled by his virtuosity; it’s more that they want to make sure he’s really acknowledged, not as a protégé, but as a cool kid with a rich life. For the most part, however, Ray just wants to talk about music, though he does briefly venture into Mercedes-Benz makes and models. But the intensity of his work ethic – he practices six hours a day, and does school work for another three – is genuinely a result of a personal passion that matters most.

In November 2009, Ray performed at Segerstrom Hall in Orange County, with demonstrative, gregarious pianist Lang Lang. “It was the most exciting experience,” says Ray, again speaking in perfectly complete sentences. “I practiced for one month very much to prepare for the concert and my piano teacher, Mr. Ory Shihor, did great lessons for me.” But then disaster struck. “Two days before, Mr. Lang Lang said I needed to change the song. I don’t know why.” Ray quickly switched to Chopin Waltz No. 5 and practiced for the remaining 48 hours, then played in front of 2000 people. As he performed, it was completely silent. Then, when he finished, there was applause, “big applause.” He’s bound to hear bigger applause often in the near future, but it’s the happiness of students like Ray, and not the acclaim, that The Colburn School thrives on.

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