Cincinnatians in Estonia

How do two young Cincinnati conductors end up in a small town on the Baltic Sea in the middle of July?
   You might say they heard it through the grapevine. From Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra music director Paavo Järvi, that is.
   Brian Cole, conducting assistant of the CSO and the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, and Demetrius Fuller, music director of Arc Chamber Ensemble, attended master classes led by Järvi's father Neeme Järvi in Pärnu, Estonia last summer. It was their first international conducting workshop and they brought back encounters with greatness and a very surprising country.
   The classes were part of Pärnu's annual David Oistrakh Festival, a three-week music festival held in the Estonia's summer capital for the past 30 years.
   The elder Järvi, music director of the Detroit Symphony, emigrated from Estonia with his family, including then 17-year-old Paavo, in 1980. He began the conducting classes -- official title is The Neeme Järvi Conducting Academy -- in 2000.
   After illness sidelined Järvi at the 2001 workshop, Finnish conducting guru Jorma Panula took over teaching duties. The two have been co-instructors ever since.
   Cole and Fuller, graduates of the conducting program at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, arrived in Tallinn (Estonia's capital) on the Fourth of July. Never having been to Estonia before, they found it different from what they expected.
   "I just assumed it was very Russian," said Cole, 28. "In reality, that was such a small part of their history (Estonia was under Soviet domination from 1940-91). It's really more Scandinavian."
   "I don't know who said it, but it's perfect," said Fuller, 26, who is also music director of the Northwest Florida Symphony. "Estonia is like post-Cold War Russia meets Finland."  
   Tallinn "was magnificent," he said. From their hotel, they could look at the rooftops of Tallinn's beautifully preserved Old Town dating from the 14th century.
   By contrast, Pärnu, a 90-minute drive from Tallinn on Estonia's southern coast, was "a charming little place," said Cole (population 45,000 swollen by sun-worshipping Scandinavians in the summer). However, they were unable to enjoy its number one attraction, its white sand beach, until their very last day. "We thought all of it was that little walking district downtown and the concert hall."
   Cole and Fuller, both Northern Kentucky residents, and 11 other conductors (representing eight countries in all) spent ten days testing their mettle before three orchestras under the exacting gaze of Järvi and Panula. It was both trying and inspiring.
   At each morning and afternoon class, they took turns rehearsing assigned repertoire with one of the orchestras in preparation for a concert. The classes were taped for analysis at video sessions afterward. There were three concerts, all part of the Oistrakh Festival.
   Cole and Fuller were "thrown in" at the very first class. Cole, being at the top of the alphabet, went first. His assignment was the opening movement of Dvorak's Serenade for Strings, Op. 22, with Estonia's excellent Pärnu City Orchestra.
   "I was definitely, really nervous because I had never done any international workshops. It went OK, I thought. I looked at Neeme and kind of asked permission to go back and work on things. He said, -- 'Yes,' then walked up and gave me about three minutes of what he saw and thought I needed to work on."
   Fuller, who went immediately after Cole, was "a little nervous," also. "He didn't really say much to me, just a couple of pointers."
   There were hairy moments in the next few days as Järvi and Panula took them to task. A low point for Cole came at a rehearsal prior to the first concert. "That day Neeme really kind of shook me up."
   Cole, Fuller and fellow student Chris Kim (of Boston's Kalistos Chamber Orchestra) nursed their wounds over lunch at a nearby Hungarian restaurant.
   "The experience exposed weaknesses that I thought were gone," said Cole. "Things like confidence and connecting better with the orchestra. I tend to look at the forest - the whole orchestra as opposed to the first or second violins. You have to make eye contact. That's how you deal with people."
   For Fuller, the problem was "being more clear, things I need to refine."
   Järvi and Panula -- Panula is retired master teacher at Finland's Sibelius Academy -- were very different in their teaching methods.
   "Neeme makes you think about what you're doing with the music and why you're doing it," said Fuller.
   He's very much the "music director," added Cole. "He's in charge. There's a kind of noble sense to Neeme. He commands respect. But he doesn't really command it, it goes to him. I was in awe of him from the get-go."
   Panula, who has taught a whole generation of conductors, including Esa-Pekka Salonen of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, was more unassuming, said Cole.
   "He's no-nonsense, kind of rustic and unrefined. I was never intimidated by Jorma."
   Panula was more concerned with technique than Järvi, they said. "He gets to the heart of the matter really quickly," said Cole.
   For Cole, one of the highlights of the summer was "watching Jorma conduct a piece I hate and make me like it (Sibelius' "Finlandia")."
   A highlight for both conductors was working with the famed Moscow Chamber Orchestra. "That was the best conducting I did out of the whole course," said Fuller. (The other orchestra was the Edinburgh Youth Orchestra, where there was the initial task of getting the notes right.)
   The last two days of the workshop were a kind of crescendo. "Neeme pulled me aside and we talked for a long time," said Cole. "He gave me some really good advice." Fuller basked in Järvi's observation, "I can tell your mother is Greek. There is a certain fire in you."
   After so much work and no play, Cole and Fuller enjoyed a post-workshop weekend in Tallinn where "we had one really, really great (Italian) meal. We had a really big beer after that and stumbled back to the hotel."
   They brought home a new perspective on the world and ammunition for their careers.
   "I usually enjoy trying to pick up languages," said Cole, "but Estonian was so different I kind of gave up. I couldn't apply it to anything."
   The Estonian people's famous reserve was another experience, he said. "It would be easy for an American to take it as harsh or indifferent. But the people at our hotel were so accommodating. They went out of their way to do stuff for us." Eighteen-hour days put things in a new light, too (being so far north, Estonia has long days in the summer and long nights in the winter).
   Cole came back renewed.
   "Neeme let me know -- not in the easiest way, but the best -- that I have to get a whole lot better and I have to do it now. Everybody else was that way, too, at different levels.
   "I needed somebody to come down hard on me and he did, but in a very supportive way. I'm kind of relieved because now I know what I need to do. He did me a great service and I'm very, very grateful."
(first published in The Cincinnati Post Sept. 26, 2003)