The Perlman Music Program

In this the winter of our discontent  has come merriment and cheer for hearts heavy laden by the troubles of our fair American republic.  I speak of the wonderful Perlman Music Foundation's heartwarming winter musical program for young musicians, a two week course of training culminating in an evening where the students first sing as a chorus, boys and girls who are not training to be singers perform as a chorus followed by their assembling into the seats of their instrument divisions to play partly chamber music that has been brilliantly enlarged for a much larger ensemble of stringed instruments.  The novelty of their playing these longer more intricate instrumental pieces is that they change places at the end of each movement thereby assuring the chance to play first violin second viola or what variation the music arranger has done, for instance, for an original string trio or quartet.  I am not a musician so that aspect of the evening in its finer aspects passes right over me; however, the shining youth of the group is deeply inspiring.  They are in their late teens for the most part, from all parts of the world, persons who have been studying their instrument from childhood, digging deeper and deeper in to a repertoire that will lead them to our leading conservatories and on to chairs in our major orchestras.  They are brilliant and ebullient--hey, they're just kids!--but from an early age they have accepted the discipline of practicing their scales, and then their scores.  They are committed, and in an age of teenagers who are unmoored from any family or school or group ethos or discipline, they come across as startlingly mature in the way they move, look to each other, submit to the conductor, and yet all the time preserve the innocence of the young.  You have a feeling that they just don't know or cannot care what a sordid deal is being cut in Washington.  Partly of course that is true because many of them are not Americans and probably don't give a rat's ass what the administration is concocting (which also leads one to thinking of the immense sums that must be donated annually to get this thing going summer and winter--I mean the airfares alone!).  Their conductor is the famed Itzhak Perlman, a gifted concert violinist as well as being a conductor.  He and his wife, the violinst Toby Perlman, who have a raft children of their own, are psychologically constituted to be teachers and parents to this horde of kids, all summer in a camp in Long Island, and for the two week winter warm up here in Sarasota.  We in Sarasota are blessed with a great number of symphonic and chamber music concerts during the winter season, but nothing can stir the heart, especially if you yourself have raised children, more than their shining eyes, innocent faces, their sincerity, their great gift and dedication to playing.  Oh, God, I am so sentimental.  But just looking at their faces!  These string musicians are formed into a chorus and they sing.  Scanning the faces of all these nationalities and races eagerly and earnestly and expertly lifting their voices in song is thrilling, especially when you come across the sight of a young man coming into the last lines like "dona eis pacem," and wiping the tears from his eyes.  Just the evening performance of so many gifted, innocent young people, shining in their youth and enthusiasm brought tears to my eyes.