Great Performances

(ominous music) JAMES ZABAWA-MARTINEZ: I have this pre-concert ritual.

Well, I wouldn't say that it's by choice, but I usually will throw up before I go on stage because I'm so terrified.

My whole body is shaking.

You have to force yourself to be vulnerable on stage.

You do have to let that guard down and allow yourself that openness.

(dramatic classical music) (audience applauding) (waves lapping) (bright classical music) (bright classical music continue (bright classical music continue (energetic violin music) We have so many concerts here that stage fright is a huge, huge concern of mine.

Particularly, my first season here was terrifying.

And New World is a place that we give concerts every weekend.

You have no choice but to, like, get with the program.

(somber violin music) On average, I spend about four hours a day practicing.

When I get my music, I'll come back to my apartment.

I will usually put on a practice mute and run the entire symphony with my practice mute on and with the recording on the Bluetooth speaker.

And if there's any hard spots that I, like, just can't play at all, then I'll mark it with a pencil, and then I'll go back and work on this stuff slowly.

(somber violin music) (somber violin music continues) I was born in Austin, Texas.

So I lived in Austin until I was about 15, and then I moved to Minnesota.

(somber violin music) I think as far as I can remember I've wanted to play the violin.

For some reason, my parents always said that I was gonna be a violinist.

It just seemed predestined for me, at least with them.

My parents didn't make a lot of money, so when they had any extra funds, they would go to Goodwill and find me, like, a variety of different violin things, like these little electri violins that are about this big and when you put the bow on the string it starts to play like, Eine Kle There was even, like, a violin ashtray at one point that I received, which was nice.

I do feel like maybe I was born to be a violinist, even though that does sound cliche.

But what they did definitely help.

(bright classical music) (bright classical music continue (people chattering) GEMMA NEW: Good morning.

It's great to see you all.

Welcome.

Let's start with th Tchaikovsky from the very top.

(dramatic classical music) (dramatic classical music continues) So he does not write a crescendo at two after B, but then he writes one into the third bar of B. Yes, so this we need to come out.

And then he writes one four after B.

(imitating classical instruments) (soaring classical music) (soaring classical music continues) That was really good.

Can we have just the upper strings two after E?

(dramatic classical music) Yeah, the issue is, sometimes when we wan something to dance and prance, when we have a down bow, you stop the bow, and it kills the sound.

Could I suggest that we do down, up, down?

GEMMA NEW: Okay.

JAMES ZABAWA-MARTINEZ: Just so we could get some lift, perhaps?

GEMMA NEW: Ah, yes.

If it's hooked, its... that's why we're stopping.

- It's a little, yeah, GEMMA NEW: Let's.

Yes, please.

Down, up, down.

(dramatic classical music) Yeah, that's much better.

Okay.

Yes, well keep that.

(dramatic classical music) (dramatic classical music continues) (dramatic classical music continues) I love this.

This is really waltzing.

For the firsts and violas though, you can have more nudge in your hairpins.

And then for the trombones and horns: two after D, these are like bells that should come out.

For this, violins, see that line that connects from one to the other?

Let's get more connection here.

Two after F, we must b singing through the note more.

You are dying on these notes.

They are long, but they need to feel growth throughout.

(dramatic classical music) I love Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony.

(dramatic classical music) It's actually a work that I was pretty unfamiliar with before we started studying it.

The darkness in this Symphony, it's not lost on me.

Tchaikovsky's life was much more difficult than my life, but I really do my best to put myself in those shoes and try to relate my own experiences to them.

(mellow classical music) (people chattering) Yeah, that's what I was gonna figure out.

Like, are we gonna do it the second time?

MARIO RIVERA: Yeah.

What does this mean?

-Where was that?

Yeah, yeah, like... (bright violin music) And then the second one.

(bright violin music) I'm rushing so much.

I had a more stressful experience with Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony last season.

So, when I saw that I was assigned again to Tchaikovsky Five, I was a little bit nervous, and I had a little bit of, you know, is it Tchaikovskys just a curse for me, you know? So leading into my rehearsal today, I was feeling a little bit nervous, like, my heart racing and stuff.

I need to try to keep going up from here with this week's rehearsal, so I have some work I need to do tonight.

(bright violin music) My mom played saxophone starting in middle school through high school.

And my dad, I think he really had a shot at doing something with athletics.

He was a basketball star at the school.

That all kind of got cut short because they had me when they were in high school.

(mellow classical music) You know, it was kind of an up-and-down situation.

Like, sometimes my family had money.

I mean, not like money money, but sometimes we could afford to have an apartment.

But things like that always went up and down.

There was times where we lived in my family's car for a little bit.

But I feel like my parents did a really good job of being kind of like a hydraulic system of like catching all of the trauma for me.

(mellow classical music) I started listening to violin recordings pretty early.

My mom bought me like a cassette that I would play on repeat Paganini's 24 Caprices.

I believe at the time, we were living in the car, because I remember being very comfortable in the car and popping the cassette into the player in the car.

And I remember the first note well, I can't even say note because Paganini's First Caprice is just so crazy that it was the first, like, 20 notes.

(lively violin music) I was blown away by the sound.

It's not the usual string sound.

It was something crazier.

It was choppy.

It was exciting.

It was electric.

(lively violin music) (mellow music) When you play concerts and you look into the audience and you see the amount of young people, it feels very motivating.

Even if it's one person changing their life through classical music, I would say that it's like doing its job.

It never gets old to see like, people's hands and faces just, like, clapping, and you think, like, is that for me?

You know?

And it is.

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