Sharon Lavery enthralls Rotary Club of Downey
The Rotary Club of Downey had a rare treat: they got to conduct a full symphony orchestra in Sousa’s rousing march, The Stars and Stripes Forever.
And they did it at their Rio Hondo Event Center meeting, after a short lesson in conducting. To explain her job, Sharon Lavery. music director and conductor for the Downey Symphony Orchestra, demonstrated how to lead a band. Or a trio. Or 76 trombones.
Sharon Lavery, music director and conductor of the Downey Symphony Orchestra. (Photo by Lorine Parks)
“I have to look like the music,” said Sharon, as she led the club in a lesson on leading. “That’s how I show the orchestra how to play the notes.”
Centuries ago there was no conductor as we understand the word today, only one lead player with an iron bar clamped on his foot so he could beat time and keep everyone in rhythm.
That evolved over time to a carved wooden stick tipped in silver, much like what the drum major wields today, and fast forward to today, the slim white stick that a conductor uses. It’s white so it can be seen easily against the black attire of the performers.
By the late nineteenth century, said Sharon, the conductor was someone who no longer just kept time. And Sharon should know. Since 2007 she has been music director of the Downey Symphony Orchestra, an ensemble hailed as one of the best metropolitan orchestras in Southern California. Sharon is an Associate Professor at USC’s Thornton School of Music, where she holds the Chair for Conducting, as well as Winds and Percussion.
Sharon began her musical career playing the clarinet, but now she conducts the Thornton Concert Orchestra, and prepares the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra when John Williams is going to perform. She holds a Master’s in Music from both the New England Conservatory of Music, and Thornton. She has led Youth Orchestras at Carnegie Hall, and the San Bernardino Symphony. She especially likes to introduce Oscar’s Navarro’s Downey Coverture at musical festivals where she wields the baton.
Since Hector Berlioz, the conductor’s job is to interpret what he – “or she, whose time hadn’t come yet,” as Sharon said - feels that the composer meant.
Some composers leave notes in the score, for loud or fast and with feeling. But geniuses like Mozart wrote so fast that the notes tumbled out on the page ready to play, without time for him to leave a word as to how they should be performed.
Sharon played the opening measures from Tchaikovski’s Fifth Symphony, to show the unmistakable deep feeling, then played another composer as interpreted in two different ways by other conductors.
“Everybody on your feet,” said Sharon, and everyone rose and picked up the wooden chopstick-like wands she had distributed to each table.
“Do as I do,” she said. “First hold your arms out, like you were containing the music,” and everyone reached out around an imaginary barrel-shaped volume of sound.
“This is the horizontal plane,” Sharon said, waving her arms sideways. “And this is the vertical,” and she raised and lowered her arms. “Follow your wrists,” she said. “Let your wrists lead you,” and arms were gracefully gliding through the air.
Downey Rotary members conduct under the direction of Sharon Lavery. (Photo by Lorine Parks)
Sharon then showed a two beat tempo motion, up and down, and then a three beat, like a waltz, down and up and to one side. Then, she suggested, “Suppose you want to make it short, not drawn out.” And she made small swift motions. She added a four beat gesture, and soon all were rhythmically producing Row Row Row Your Boat in unison. Then Sharon turned on the recording and let Souza’s march music blast away.
But don’t think it’s this simple. Had Sharon not been given the signal that her time was nearly up, she would have explained what the left hand should be doing. Hint: it’s not synchronized with the right, but conveying emotion. That is quite another story. Coordinating several musical impulses and communicating this to 50 or 75 musicians who play instruments ranging from flutes and trumpets to tubas and timpani, takes time and practice. A lot of it.
Then the conductor addresses the rest of the players, the majority, who constitute the strings, from violins to cellos to bass fiddles. Now one begins to glimpse what the conductor means to an orchestra.
The Downey Symphonic Society knows they picked a winner 15 years ago when they chose Sharon as the Music Director and Conductor of the Downey Symphony Orchestra, after the unexpected death of Tom Osborn.
“Where do you get your energy?” asked someone. “It’s like an athlete,” said Sharon. “Once the event starts, the concert, it’s hard to contain me. I tell the orchestra, I get my energy from you. I feed off you.”
“The Downey Orchestra and the Symphonic Society are like one big family,” Sharon added. “I fell in love with the Downey Symphony Orchestra.”
And Downey audiences have fallen in love with Sharon. President Jesse Vargas presented Downey Rotary’s annual donation, a contribution for the fine music that raises the quality of life for all who hear it.