Aug 22, 2007
Throughout Europe
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Rosenbaum tours with Verbier Orchestra
Ian Rosenbaum plays the drums. He has played them since he was 5, and continued through elementary school, middle school and high school. And now he is playing them, along with other percussion instruments, as part of the Verbier Festival Orchestra, based in Verbier, Switzerland.
“It was really amazing,” Mr. Rosenbaum told The Ledger. “It’s interesting to see how different people do the same thing.”
Mr. Rosenbaum joined 97 other musicians from 27 different countries this year, when he began playing with the orchestra at the Verbier Festival at the end of July. In November, the orchestra will go on tour, playing in four cities in the United States and five in Europe.
The orchestra played seven concerts at the festival, which lasted from July 20 to Aug. 5. As the orchestra in residence, it played with guest conductors, which offered Mr. Rosenbaum an opportunity to stretch his musical talents. During the concerts, he played more than 20 different instruments, ranging from drums to instruments related to the xylophone.
“There’s no better person to learn how to play in an orchestra with than a world-class conductor,” he said. “They really know why we’re having problems, and they can fix them immediately.”
When the orchestra goes on tour, it will be playing under conductor Charles Dutoit, former artistic director for the Montreal Symphony and the Philadelphia Orchestra’s summer festival, and winner of two Grammy Awards.
“It’s kind of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” said Mr. Rosenbaum. “It’s a great rush, to be on stage with 80 other people.”
Musical training
For Mr. Rosenbaum, a graduate of John Jay High School and a resident of Goldens Bridge, music is more than a passion, it is a career. When he was a junior in high school, he attended the pre-college division of the Juilliard School in New York City.
After graduation, he spent a year at the Manhattan School of Music before entering the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University, where he is now in his second year and studying classical percussion.
It was one of his teachers at the Peabody Institute who recommended that Mr. Rosenbaum try out for the Verbier Festival Orchestra, which was founded in 2000 as a training orchestra to provide experience to young musicians between the ages of 17 and 29.
Mr. Rosenbaum auditioned for the orchestra in January in Manhattan, one of 2,038 candidates who applied for the orchestra in 10 cities around the world. Only 991 were granted auditions, and 59 were ultimately chosen. Mr. Rosenbaum was one of just three new percussionists, bringing the orchestra’s roster to six.
During the audition, Mr. Rosenbaum had to play five or six different instruments, just a fraction of the number he is expected to know how to play. Classical percussion ranges far beyond the reach of the drums that some people think of when they hear the word “percussion.”
“The marimba ... is one of my favorite instruments,” he told The Ledger. “It has wooden bars like the xylophone, but they are thicker and it has a lower range than the xylophone. It sounds much different; the xylophone is high and bright while the marimba is much darker and more beautiful.”
It is too soon to say if he will be returning next year.
“If they like you and you did a good job, they invite you back,” he said. “If I was invited back, I would probably go back — it’s a great experience.”
The tour will start in Los Angeles on Nov. 6, and will spend 20 days visiting Houston, Chicago, New York City, Genoa, Italy, Stockholm, Sweden, Zurich, Switzerland, Lyon, France, and finishing in Düsseldorf, Germany.
More information: verbierorchestra.com.
© Copyright 2008 by Hersam Acorn Newspapers
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