A Juilliard-Royal Academy Collaboration

Voice Box

This winter, six Juilliard students returned to the Royal Academy of Music in London to continue work begun in the fall with conductor, soprano, and Creative Associate Barbara Hannigan. In the fall, they rehearsed for a week and then gave a sold-out concert of works by Stravinsky, Maurice Delage, and Oliver Knussen. In January, they spent a week rehearsing, performing, and recording Stravinsky including Concertino, “Dumbarton Oaks” Concerto, Octet for Wind Instruments, Ragtime, and Septet. The recordings will be compiled into a full-length album to be released in the fall on Linn Records. Third-year horn player Colby Kleven wrote about the experience.

By Colby Kleven 
When we first went to the Royal Academy of Music, in the fall, I was immediately struck by the grand portraits in the Duke’s Hall, each of an important person from the academy’s history. They lent the room a feeling of antiquity, and the first notes of Stravinsky’s “Dumbarton Oaks”—evocative of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos—set a mood of timelessness that lasted me the length of the project. 

The combined energies of the ages past, the freshness of new music and young performers, and the energy of our conductor, Barbara Hannigan, created a spirit that I have never felt in an ensemble before. I cannot speak highly enough of our colleagues from the Royal Academy; their efforts rendered the music so vibrant that every rehearsal felt like hearing it all again for the first time! I often would ponder the old faces in the portraits and how delighted they would be to know that their halls still ring with the music of young musicians so many years later.

The importance of new ideas can’t be understated, either. Although I’ve spent a relatively short time in the world of classical music, I can say with certainty that there are no conductors quite like Barbara Hannigan. Whether it’s the organic phrases, the experience that comes from vocal performance, or the strikingly apt pop culture references (many of which I’ve since written down), no conductor I’ve worked with has so effectively combined them into one style. She continually poured her energy into bringing out the musicality that already existed in all of us, and I am a better musician today because of it. “Dumbarton Oaks” was always a favorite piece of mine, but I fell more deeply in love with it under her baton.

When we returned to RAM in January, it was the first time I’d done a piece with the exact same ensemble and conductor more than once, and the venue changed everything. We’d switched spaces from the ornamented and brilliant Duke’s Hall to a theater stage for recording, and suddenly, it was a completely different piece! Acoustically, everything was so unfamiliar that we had to regenerate the crispness and verve that we had before. I loved getting to play “Dumbarton Oaks” again and also grew to adore both Stravinsky’s Ragtime and his Septet. And on these two pieces, I got to collaborate with my fellow Juilliard students as well as with RAM students a little more closely. One highlight was collaborating with the cimbalom player. I’d never seen the instrument—effectively, a sideways harp struck with various mallets—in person, and with a unique tuning system and a sound rather like a saloon piano, it was one of the most fascinating elements of the whole project. Even more daunting was getting the ragtime to sound pleasant. Playing a Stravinsky ragtime with Stravinsky rhythms and Stravinsky harmonies is a challenge, but Hannigan leaned into it. Whether it was with a comparison to a character from the Muppets, or a description of an imaginary landscape, she was able to send us in the right direction and create an artistically fulfilling rendition of the piece.

When it came time to record, the competent and talented recording staff was able to create a truly sublime balance, and the academy’s principal, Jonathan Freeman-Attwood, gave incredibly detailed and helpful feedback. His passion about this project drove us to a level of quality that I’m truly proud of. Even though all the pieces we recorded were written decades ago, I think our collective effort brought them new zest and vitality, and I’m very much looking forward to hearing the official release.

We ended our recordings with a toast to all we’d accomplished together and another to the composer Oliver Knussen, who’d had the idea for this project though sadly didn’t live to see it to its fruition. It is the finest of privileges that our two schools share a bond and that we got to be representatives of Juilliard in a place so musically rich. It will forever be my honor to have shared in the creation of art like this.

Colby Kleven is a third-year horn player