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I was a school kid in Hopkins when I started on the bass. Why did I choose bass? Simply because when it came to choosing an instrument, the flute was taken! The director showed me a room with a cello in one corner, a bass in the other, and I thought if I took that great big instrument someone would surely get me a flute because no one would make me carry that all my life — would they? I studied four years, then, starting when I was 12, with a member of the Minnesota Orchestra, James Clute, the principal bassist. He called my parents and offered lessons. My family couldn't afford it, but I paid for the lessons by ironing Clute's shirts and babysitting his kids. Every
summer Clute would send me away to study with someone else, fine
teachers, including Pablo Casals, at the Marlborough Music Festival, maybe 1967.
Though Casals was a cellist, it was under his instruction that I actually fell
in love with the bass and, after that, could think of no other instrument.
Casals was so old then, in his 90s, but such an inspiration and very kind to me.
I started my professional music career as a bassist
for the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, in 1967, I think, when I was 17, and I
played with them till age 30, when I left the orchestra and had a child. With my
husband Bruce Allard, who's a violinist and trumpeter, I'm in the business now
of signing music acts that come through town. Bruce takes care of all kinds of
jazz and corporate events, and I do orchestral things, that is, I employ and
contract with musicians who play shows at the Ordway Center of the Performing
Arts. All shows that come through, I'm in charge of all those people. I do
budgets and payrolls, and frequently play the shows. In my free time — and, believe me, there's never a
boring day — I play the Musical Offering, private parties, and first backup
bassist for the Minnesota Orchestra. Private parties? I play for people,
or organizations, that want and can afford a string quartet; adding a bass
expands the possible literature immensely and provides a completely different
sound. These private events might be parties, weddings, celebrations (even
finishing a new bathroom!). I don't know that I have favorite composers or pieces. I love to play whatever I’m doing at the time. The Offering is an interesting group for me, because some of what I do is based on the cello. That is, the group likes a bass in some pieces without a cello, so I have to make parts, playing in the cello octave at times and then, when it's more appropriate to be in the lower register, in the bass octave. This is true, for example, in the C.P.E. Bach sonata [from the November program]. When the bassoon is playing, as in the Telemann sonata [also from November], I try to get down to the lower octave to be more supportive for the bassoon, but if it’s just the oboe then I need to be in the cello octave. So it involves a lot of transposing of the notes, mostly by the octave, to make a part that will sound right. When there's a cello in the piece, like the Schubert quintet [November], the bass plays continuo, shadowing what the cello is doing. How do we get classical music across to those who
resist it? Well, I come from a family without any classical music training. My
father had a beautiful tenor voice, sang in a barbershop quartet, but I
wouldn’t have heard anything classical if my school hadn't bused us once to
Northrop Auditorium and a little girl came out and played the violin with the
Minnesota Orchestra. I vowed that’s what I wanted to do. I didn’t know how,
because I didn’t even play an instrument then, but I knew that one day I was
going to do that. Yes, it's a shame they're cutting back music in the schools. What kind of choices do kids have when they don't hear this kind of music, or have a chance to find an instrument in the corner — however large and unwieldy it may be? |
Susan Allard —
bass