Symphonic youth
by Chris Slattery
Staff Writer - Gazette News

Mar. 9, 2005

Laurie DeWitt/The Gazette Harp and soul: Becky Brown, 14, of Olney plucks a few notes at a rehearsal of the Maryland Classic Youth Orchestras.

How do you get to Carnegie Hall -- practice, practice, practice, right? But Greg Jukes has been there, done that and, frankly, the 18-year-old percussionist prefers a venue that's closer to home.

"I can't say enough about Strathmore," says Jukes. "It's the most beautiful place. I've played at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center. Strathmore is among them, if not above them."

And he should know: A student in the Montgomery Blair Math, Computer Science and Science Magnet in Silver Spring, Jukes did his senior research project on the acoustics in the new music hall. He worked with acousticians and compared the projected sounds from the architects' scale model to the actual impulse responses once the edifice was nearly complete.

But although Jukes is passionate about science and math, his love for Strathmore, where he has already performed as a soloist with the National Philharmonic, stems from his all-encompassing love for music. And his love for music -- nurtured by the parents who bought him his first drum kit when he was 5, honed by his own enthusiasm and self-discipline -- finds its best expression through the Maryland Classic Youth Orchestra.

Jukes is the principal percussionist for MCYO, the elite organization designed to find and showcase the cream of the musical crop here in Montgomery County and beyond. Founded in 1946 by Chester A. Petranek, then an instrumental music teacher at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School, now Conductor Emeritus, MCYO is a Montgomery County institution that boasts among its alumni members of some of the world's leading orchestras.

Its 425 musicians are in grades four through 12, and they perform in five orchestras and a harp ensemble.

Philharmonic. Symphony. Young Artists. These are the three full orchestras of the MCYO, each with between 100 and 115 young members. The Sinfonia and Chamber Strings orchestras have 50 and 40 members respectively. They used to practice diligently in the cafeterias and all-purpose rooms of a handful of middle and high schools, but now they have the Music Hall at Strathmore. And it doesn't get much better than that.

All stars

Michelle Gajewski isn't planning on a career in music.

"I want to be a lawyer," says the 16-year-old. "Or maybe a judge."

That said, the 16-year-old, a senior in Richard Montgomery's International Baccalaureate program, sees the benefits of music as an extracurricular activity.

"It's really nice to have one day a week to hang out with my music friends," says the preternaturally poised teen. "Music generally can give you a lot of things you can't get other places. You get responsibility; you get a routine down. It's like a team sport."

To complete the analogy, though, you'd have to name her as captain of the All-Star team: Gajewski is the co-concertmistress of the MCYO, and she recently won -- along with Jukes and flautist Gina Mouser -- the honor of performing as a soloist with the National Philharmonic. In the audience were thousands of Montgomery County second-graders.

"They were so excited," she says, adding that she was, too. "I had worked really hard to win the competition to let me play."

With a name like Gajewski, she needs to work hard. Her dad is the director of the National Philharmonic and one of the engineers of the Music Hall at Strathmore dream. It's not a connection that makes the violinist the least bit self-conscious.

"My dad works at Strathmore," she says. "So it makes things easier."

Which is a fair point to make -- and a practical one, too. First violinist Madeleine Jansen travels all the way from Mount Airy to perform with MCYO, but she says the 45-minute trip is a small price to pay.

"It's the best one in the area," she says. "It's worth it."

Especially now that rehearsals -- and performances -- take place at the Music Center.

"It's really amazing. Previously, we'd been rehearsing at Hoover Middle School. Being at Strathmore makes us feel like a professional orchestra. It's easier to take the music seriously when you're in a nice building."

Elevation

It's a nice building, indeed, and with its new-building smell, gleaming wood floors and funky lighting, the MCYO rehearsal space feels a long way from any middle school cafeteria. It's a little like sitting on the main deck of some massive musical ship, where the sails that billow are actually acoustical clouds and the black night peers in through impossibly tall windows.

The music is delectable, like butter -- really -- melting all over this Ikea-colored rehearsal room where CityDance struts its stuff by day. Their contemporaries may be home watching "American Idol" tonight, but the teenagers in the MCYO Philharmonic are living the richer, more rewarding reality.

On the conductor's platform, Olivia Gutoff, MCYO's artistic director and the conductor of the Philharmonic, is bopping in her sneakers and waving her baton.

"This really takes focus," she says. And then she says it again. And again. "As we crank it up," she warns her musicians, "it takes another mental exercise in counting."

They crank it up as instructed, and the maestro is satisfied.

"The concert hall has that 'wow' effect on everyone who goes in to perform," says Gutoff, speaking from her home between private lessons. "That's the real coup de grace, that we get to perform in the beautiful concert hall.

"I marvel that here in Montgomery County, we actually have something like this," she adds. "To be able to achieve this, to bring the arts into our home!"

It's especially rewarding for the young musicians in MCYO.

"It's internal," she says. It changes them: It elevates them."

Rosemary Avery, who has seen three sons (as well as thousands of unrelated kids) go through MCYO during her 20-year tenure as Philharmonic manager, is more direct.

"It really is beautiful," she says, "It's gorgeous."

But even back in the days when they practiced in cafeterias, Avery believes MCYO gave its members something they couldn't get anywhere else.

"It teaches them self-discipline, gives them a lifelong love of good music. You get back what you give to it -- that's a good lesson to learn.

"The kids that want to do this," she adds, "are wonderful kids. They're motivated, they're achievers: There are no slobs!"

Indeed, even Gutoff says with some well-deserved pride that people have said they can listen to the MCYO with their eyes closed "and imagine they're listening to a professional orchestra."

But why close your eyes and rob yourself of the gorgeous incongruity? Drink them in, from their Birkenstocks and Champion socks and Chuck Taylors and Vans all the way to their stylishly messy ponytail-buns and shaggy retro moptops. They are teenagers -- some in baseball caps, even -- and acknowledging that makes the way they play even more exciting.

During rehearsal Gutoff eschews the ubiquitous "guys" and addresses her charges as "ladies and gentlemen."

As in "Ladies and gentlemen, that has no punch to it! Let's get some adrenaline!" And "This room is more transparent, ladies and gentlemen, than what we are used to."

That's all she needs to say, believe it or not, to make 115 teenagers stop chattering.

Alumni

"It was a different time," Lori Barnet is saying. "Everything was different."

The National Philharmonic cellist and George Washington University music professor got her start in the orchestra at Walter Johnson High School -- and in MCYO.

"We had an unusually high number of students who went on to careers in music," she says. For them, "It was a way of reinforcing what we were doing in high school: At the time, orchestra, music and choir were offered on a daily basis."

That was 40 years ago, and Barnet says that these days students take a much more specialized curriculum -- especially the students in MCYO.

"Many of them are taking incredibly heavy academic courses," she observes. "It's a pretty academic group of kids."

Of course, as a college professor, she believes that "being involved in the arts is an enhancement" to academia.

"There's something about playing an instrument," she says. "I think it really matters to them -- the music itself, but also the creative process. It's the antithesis of sitting in a cubicle with a computer. I find the cello more friendly than a computer!"

Joe McIntyre, also an MCYO alumnus, is a pianist and so can't speak to the friendliness of cellos. He will say that "The caliber of musicianship has really grown exponentially since I've been a member!"

That's 30 years or so ago, but McIntyre stays involved with the MCYO. He was just commissioned to create a composition -- his second for the organization -- called "The Firth of Forth," to mark its Music Center at Strathmore premiere. He's thrilled about the new auditorium as only a local can be: Born and raised in Montgomery County, he remembers that when he was a senior at Northwood High School in Rockville, the new band director there was none other than Olivia Gutoff.

Now, nearly three decades later, she is waving her baton at a new generation of students.

"OK, that's very good," she says. Then, "Excellent, excellent -- that's so much better."

And, finally: "I'm so proud of you."