This is one of the moments I love when it
comes to working with the Moonhanger Group restaurants. I am a huge
music fan, so to be able to sit down with one of the world's greatest
violin soloists was about as good as it gets for me.
Robert McDuffie is a very accomplished
musician. He studied at Juilliard. He has toured the world as one of
the most sought after violin soloists playing today. He teamed up
with composer Philip Glass to record Glass's Violin Concerto No. 2
“The American Four Seasons”. He is the head of Mercer
University's McDuffie Center For Strings at the Townsend School Of
Music. With all of that, if you ask me, the best thing about Robert
McDuffie is, he's from right here in Macon, and he still loves his
hometown.
McDuffie just took some of the very talented
artists from the Center For Strings to New York where they performed
“The American Four Seasons” at Le Poisson Rouge on February 4th.
I sat down to dinner with McDuffie in
December around Christmas time. We had a wonderful conversation about
music, his career, The Center For Strings, and Macon. This is just Part One in a multi-part conversation with violinist, Robert McDuffie.
RR: I saw you last Saturday at the
Grand Opera House. It was really cool that PBS decided to come to
Macon to record the concert. But, I'm sure you had a hand in making
that happen. How did you do it?
RM: Actually this was a Mercer
initiative. The McAfee family, who endowed the Townsend School of Music, wanted to do this for years. When I came on the scene six
years ago they were still talking about it. I said, "Let's just be
patient. Let's just wait til we have a real product to show." You
don't have that second chance to make a first impression so you want
it to be really good. It was then that I was dreaming of starting the
Center For Strings. I knew it would be good eventually and even just
after a few years I thought we sounded good enough to present to the
country.
 |
| Larry Brumley |
When
Larry Brumley, the Senior Vice
President for Marketing Communications at Mercer, was still at Baylor
he used a production company called
Brandenberg Productions that did
Christmas At Baylor about 8 or 10 years ago. They did really good
work. They do a lot of the Boston Pops specials. So they came in and
produced the thing. Former musicians who are now heading up the
company and had a really good track record. They're very well
respected and I liked them a lot.
From what I understand
GPB is going to
use it as their pledge show December 2013. Then we're just going to
just throw it out to 300 PBS channels around the country and see who
picks it up. I was honored to be asked to MC the thing. I still love
my home town and I'm proud of it. And I want more people to know
about it.
**Just then our server, Michael
Collins, visited our table to explain the menu. One of the items
available for that day was a Southern Style Lasagne. The lasagne was
completely crafted in house. It was made with smoked BBQ chipped
pork, creamed collards, a ricotta cheese made by our Sous Chef, Dan
Couch, corn meal noodles made by our Chef de Cuisine, Brad Stevens,
and a tomato sauce made by our Executive Chef, Doug Sanneman. After
Michael explained the new items, we turned to conversation on the
Dovetail dining room.**
RM: This is a great room.
RR: Thanks. If you could only imagine
what this room used to look like. This entire upstairs was all
storage and junk and stuff that had been thrown in corners since 1976
when The Rookery first opened. It was nothing but saw dust and dirt.
The idea came about after us doing all the Locavore Specials
downstairs at The Rookery. People really took on to it so we began to
think, 'Why don't we do an entire restaurant like this. We have all
that room upstairs.' So we went to cleaning this space out and
tearing it out. I wish I could put in your head what this room looked
like before because watching it evolve, when the day finally came
when it was ready I looked around and said, “I can't believe we did
this.”
The coolest part is, the wood around
the base of the bar, the wood behind the kudu head -the multicolored slats- and the wood in the wine cabinets in the private
dining room is also multicolored, that's all wood where we tore out
the floor to build the staircase. So that's all wood that we
reclaimed to make some of the fixtures up here.
RR: Yes he did.
RM: Well what do you think we should
order? I'm not going to get too much. I think the tapas sounds like a
good idea.
RR: Well my favorite is the Put-Ups.
Why don't I order one of those and we can split it and then you can
order one of the small plates and I'll do the same.
RM: Well we have to go with the
lasagne, don't we?
RR: Go for it!
**As we finished deciding, Michael
returned to take our order. McDuffie ordered the Southern Lasagne and
I ordered the revamped Duck Breast that now comes with a rutabaga
risotto. Sadly, I was so caught up in the conversation that I forgot
to take a picture of the Southern Lasagne. Even worse the chefs only
ran that dish that one day. - ): sorry! - After the orders were
placed we began to talk about how the idea of the Center For String
began to first take shape.**
RM: I wanted to bring something really
great here. Kirby Godsey, who hired me back in 2004, said, “Just
put Mercer and Macon on the national map in music.” Well, obviously
not the music that Macon is famous for but classical music. I didn't
know what that was going to be.
RR: How long had you been away before
this opportunity came up?
RM: Oh, I've lived in New York for 38
years. I moved up there when I was 16.
RR: So, 16, you went to Juilliard and
you never left New York. Was the city, for you, everything
they said it would be?
RM: And still is. It's a privilege to
live in New York. I may play in New York once or twice a year so I
don't contribute to the city as a performer. Being a soloist, I'm
just traveling most of the time. I've been doing that 30, 35 years.
So we worked out a situation where I
would just come down once a month back in 2004 and see what could be
done. So, I had my 3pm scotch on the veranda at the 1842 Inn, and
played golf with my best friends, and saw my parents and just had a
great time but I wasn't doing much because there wasn't much to do.
There was a fledgeling string department but they weren't even music
majors. They were education majors.
RR: You mentioned that you had your 3pm
scotch. What's your favorite scotch?
RM: I'm not a big expert. I'll take a
single malt. Glenlivet. I like a Knockando. I keep McCallan at home.
RR: You keep McCallan at home? What
year?
RM: I'm cheap. 12!
*laughter*
RR: The reason I ask this is because
earlier today Wayne (Temple our mixologist), Chef (Doug Sanneman),
and I were talking about an article that I ran across. A guy in
Atlanta paid $94 thousand dollars for a bottle of 55 year old
Glenfiddich. Glenfiddich made this batch of scotch that they named
after the granddaughter of the original Glenfiddich distiller.
They've been holding it back. They have some in reserve. On her
birthday this year they released a limited number of bottles to
auction. At auction, this guy in Atlanta paid $94 thousand for this
ONE bottle.
We sat down and we did the math on what
it would cost if we had the bottle here and someone wanted one drink.
RM: And?
RR: With our normal percentage of
mark-up, it would be $16,000 for one drink.
RM: I would have to borrow that money
from Amy Schwartz Moretti, my director, to get that glass.
*more laughter*
RM: That's really crazy.
Well I think the 1842 Inn had
Glenlivet. So I would just do my thing.
But then, it could have become a
boondoggle for me down here. But I really just love the town. I got
tired of hearing, “Macon has such potential.”
RR: Don't we all tire of hearing that.
RM: “It has such great bones. If only
we could do something with Macon.” You know, all that kinda of
stuff. And I realized how great Mercer was. How impressive both
Kirby's and Bill Underwood's visions were for the school.
A lot of people like to say Kirby teed
the ball up for Underwood and Underwood hit it 350 yards down the
middle of the fairway. Underwood's initiatives were really impressive
to me. I felt that if we could get something started here, it would
not only help put Mercer and Macon on the map in not only in
classical music but in education. We would be part of a rising tide
of excellence that was happening. So that's when I decided to make
the pitch to the university to start a conservatory for strings.
I identified ten of the top performers
from around the country who were at the top of their professions.
Concert masters of major symphony orchestras, principle cellists,
major soloists, to great pedagogs and they bought into having a
conservatory experience but with a specific curriculum that would
prepare them for real life.
RR: That is fantastic. When you
mentioned that Saturday, I could have jumped out of my seat. I wish
every musician had the opportunity to go through that, no matter what
the style of music is. To learn, this is what you need to know about
what you're getting into. Yes you need to be able to play great music
but you also need to know how to write a contract. How to read a
contract...
RM: How to negotiate. How to raise
money.
Musicians just aren't empowered in the
real world. In many ways classical musicians, especially orchestra
musicians are taken for granted. I just want my kids to be ready for
whatever happens. I don't know exactly what's going to happen but I
might be able to predict after having toured as a soloist with
orchestras for 35 years and seeing how they work.
You've got a board of directors, a
non-profit board, you've got the management, and at the bottom,
you've got the musicians. The talent. Hopefully one day it will be
inverted where it will be Musicians, board, management.
The chairman of the board of directors
of a major non-profit, that's in charge of a symphony orchestra
should be a member of the orchestra itself. A board, especially a
non-profit board, who actually donates money to be on a board instead
of receiving money if you're on a corporate board like American
Express. These people want something beautiful to happen in their
town, so they want to support the symphony orchestra.
They may not know how to pronounce or
spell Prokofiev, or Shostakovich (Don't worry. I didn't know either.
I had to look it up. -RR) but they want the right thing to be done
and they want the experts to do it. They will follow any pied piper.
I think that leader needs to come from the musicians. I think the
world is shifting towards self governing orchestras right now instead
of having boards and management decide so much.
As great as the musicians unions have
been for us, especially during the 50s and 60s when the typical
orchestra musician made $5000 a year. The unions saved us. They came
in and fought for our rights. They fought for rehearsal rights, you
know? It's kind of gone too far the other way now, where musicians
are being treated and have allowed themselves to be treated as rank
and file employees instead of as artists.
It's gotten to the point where
management especially, in many cases are looking at the musicians –
who have worked 4 hours a day since they were 6 years old to get to
where they are – as airport baggage handlers, or as assembly line
workers. They're not. They are artists. Artists who deserve to
determine their own future but they need to have the tools to do it.
Nobody has the tools to do it! I went
to Julliard I didn't know anything when I came out! I came out, there
was nothing.
RR: Well, how did you get over the
hump?
RM: Well, there was a much greater
margin for error when I came out. Many more slots were available.
Orchestras were doing pretty well. The NEA (National Endowment of the
Arts) had given a lot of money to orchestras and I think that kind of
backfired on them.
I'm talking about the symphonies even
though there are so many facets of the music world. The large
majority of conservatory graduates end up in symphony orchestras
that's why I keep bringing them up.
The conversation continued on with
more interesting stories from the world of music. Check back with us
soon to read more about what the Center For Strings is teaching its students and where it is headed in the future, from my conversation with Robert McDuffie.
Roger
