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"I do not feel any distance or distinction
between teaching and performing. They are the two basic
aspects of being a musician. In preparing to perform, I
am constantly teaching myself, moving on with the perceptions
that were presented to me by teachers and colleagues. As
I pass these perceptions on to students, I assist them
in learning how to teach themselves and to develop their
awareness that performance is a part of a circle, not the
end of a line". |
John Graham has been teaching throughout
his long career as a performer. In the early 1970's, while
based in professional performance activities in New York
City, he became a part time faculty member of the music
department of the State University of New York at Stony
Brook, teaching both the viola and chamber music. During
the next twenty years he also taught at the State University
of New York at Purchase and at the Mannes College of Music
in Manhattan.
In 1983 he was a visiting professor for five months at
the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, China and
in 1988 he was a visiting professor at Michigan State University.
In 1989 he accepted the position of Professor of Viola
at the Eastman
School of Music and has since been a visiting
professor at the Kunitachi College of Music in Tokyo, the
Central Conservatory in Beijing and the Shanghai Conservatory.
He is currently an Artist-Faculty member of the Aspen
Music Festival and School.
His experience as a performer has been in a variety of
professional areas: as a soloist and chamber music player;
as a principal and section violist in symphonic, chamber,
ballet and opera orchestras; as a player in Broadway and
television musical productions and in the recording of
commercial and motion picture music. |
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"The primary role
of an instrumental teacher in a collegiate school of
music is to assist the student both in the preparation
that is necssary to enter the professional world and
also in the search that will develop his/her interests,
gifts and temperament.
In the four to six years of under
grad to grad training, a student may learn how the demands
of specific professional areas can be matched to a growing
awareness of his/her skills, proclivities and imagination.
This process of fitting knowledge about the professions
to a developing self-knowledge can provide a focus for
students that will appropriately guide them to their
future in music, or even into fields for which music
could be the springboard." |
John
Graham is a graduate of the University of California at
Berkeley. He also studied at the San Francisco Conservatory
of Music and San Francisco State University. His major
teacher was Philip Burton, violist of the Griller String
Quartet. He also studied with William Primrose, Renzo Sabatini,
George Neikrug and, in master class with Pablo Casals. |
"I discovered
the viola in my first year of college, and quickly
became even more interested in it than I had been in
the violin. None of my teachers used a pedagogical
system, but each was very particular about showing
me what it was they thought that I needed.
This approach
forms the basis of my teaching: noticing what students
lack and encouraging them to become aware and articulate
about what is not working and what it is that they
envision but cannot yet produce.
The imagination
needs at least as much nurture as the fingers need
exercise. I have never been able to separate the pursuit
of technic form that of making music. Sounding music
means literally having the muscles, the ear and the
imagination coordinate at an extremely rapid rate.
It takes as much imagination to figure the most minimal
way in which to move muscles as it does to figure the
shape of a phrase or the emotional quality of a sound.
If the imagination is not at work, if the study of
any part of the coordination is thus, mechanical, the
resultant music will be heard as mechanical.
Understanding
the use of the body in making music is as exciting
as understanding how to use our ears, and how to use
our intellectual understanding of the ways in which
music is put together and has proceeded through its
history."
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| John Graham has from the outset of his career
been identified with the development of the viola repertory. |
"My teacher, Philip Burton,
had studied with Lionel Tertis and was imbued with
his early twentieth century attitudes about the development
of all things concerning the viola, but most notably,
its repertory. The viola was thus linked in my mind
with new music, whether it was music that was new to
the era of Tertis, Burton or me.
A dichotomy between "old" and "new" in
music has never made much sense to me. My ability to
understand many kinds of music has been honed by my interest
in many kinds of music. Involvement in the new music
gives insight into the old. Working with a living composer
offers keys to unlocking the music of those who are no
longer alive. Participation in the history of the viola
means, quite simply, keeping the instrument alive in
one's own era."
" We all begin with an attraction
to music that can evolve into a career in music. However,
no matter which career tracks students choose to pursue,
I encourage them to recognize that a career in music
will only be a part of his or her life with music.
Most careers in music are not oriented around one fixed
professional venue. Many orchestral musicians, commercial
music players and soloists perform in chamber music groups
in their spare time; public school music teachers often
also perform in local symphony orchestras; some performers
also are involved in music management; many soloists
are also professors of their instrument; string quartets
have in - residence teaching positions in music departments;
many ensemble players present occasional solo recitals.
The training of a musician must
recognize the reality that some musical activities
will provide a living while other activities will offer
only continued artistic growth. Working with this awareness
offers a student the possibility of more clearly maximizing
his or her musical interests and gifts for a life with
music." |
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