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COSMIC symphony is powered by youthful energy
Friday, Feb. 26, 2010
 Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photos by REID SILVERMAN
Katelyn Lyons, a violinist for COSMIC Symphony Orchestra, attends Leonardtown Middle School.
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Just when you think COSMIC Symphony is about to earn praise from conductor Vladimir Lande, kind words are countered by his incessant belief that everyone in the room can work just a little bit harder.
Seven years ago, Lande — a Russian-born oboist and conductor who graduated from the St. Petersburg Conservatory of Music and has worked with numerous operas and symphony orchestras — was hired by COSMIC, a then-fledgling community orchestra. Except in summer, on Tuesdays he commutes from Baltimore to the Southern Maryland Higher Education Center in California to guide the local, volunteer musicians through a practice that starts at 6:30 p.m. and usually lasts three hours.
"Tuesday is a long day, that's for sure," says Lusby's Richard Stattel during a break. COSMIC's principal trombonist played in high school then put his instrument aside for two decades. These days, though, the engineer fits in an hour of practice around family time and work time, not to mention his daily commute to Washington, D.C. He joined COSMIC a year before Lande was hired. Pre-Lande, according to Stattel, the group "was more of a community orchestra and we didn't have a whole lot of outside people coming in." (It remains a community orchestra, though one with more professional polish.)
Two weeks before COSMIC's February concert, members of the orchestra, without complaint, stay late to work on Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E minor, which features 14-year-old violinist Jessica Lyons, the winner of COSMIC's annual Young Artist Competition. "You are exhibiting wonderful music abilities," says Lande to the group. He adds, "But you are capable of so much more."
He wants, among other things, for his rhythm and that of the symphony to be one and the same. So he raises his arms yet again; the musicians stare a bit harder at the music before looking up.
COSMIC has given former high school and college musicians a way to keep playing. Tuba player Rob Benner of Lexington Park via Indiana, moved there five years ago to work at Patuxent River Naval Air Station. He started playing in middle school, and he's back with COSMIC after taking some time off to atttend flight test school.
COSMIC has also given musicians a reason to dig their instruments out of the closet and shake off decades worth of dust. Carolyn Graessle hadn't played violin for 15 years before she moved to the area and heard about COSMIC at a housewarming party. She, too, had to recently take time off from COSMIC, while her husband, a Navy reservist, served in Iraq. With three young children, the commitment was too much, but Graessle knew she would return to COSMIC as soon as her husband returned stateside. "There's just something about being part of a group," she says after practice. "Musicians need that artistic direction."
Indeed, and that's part of the reason middle school-, high school- and college-age musicians find time to work COSMIC into their busy schedules. Robert Pratt, 20, a tuba player, grew up in Calvert County but now attends Towson University, where he majors in music performance. He continues to trek back home once a week for practice. "It's music," he says. "It's what I do."
With Lande at the helm, the orchestra has provided a more convenient and affordable alternative to the region's youth symphonies. On the other hand, Jessica Lyons, a participant in the National Symphony Orchestra Youth Fellowship Program, and her 12-year-old sister, Katelyn, are so ambitious that they do both.
Jessica was 10 when she joined COSMIC. Home-schooled, she practices for four hours daily. "Music is my life," she says, smiling. She'd like to go to the Juilliard School and, in time, land a job with a professional symphony. Katelyn, meanwhile, would like to follow in her sister's footsteps.
For youth, though, COSMIC is not just an academy where one acquires the prerequisite chops to move on. Rebecca Riley of Callaway, a junior at Leonardtown High School, does not think she wants to pursue playing violin professionally, but she nonetheless participates in COSMIC as well as Leonardtown's music program and tries to wake up by 6 a.m. so she can practice. No matter what, "I'll just keep playing," she says. "I'll never stop."
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If you go
COSMIC Symphony will perform in concert at 7 p.m. Feb. 27 and 4 p.m. Feb. 28 at Huntingtown High School, 4125 Solomons Island Road. The February performance, a family concert called "Voices of the People," will include Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E Minor, featuring Jessica Lyons; Britten's "The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra," narrated by actor Jack Williamson; Copland's "Rodeo" and Leroy Anderson's "The Typewriter."Buy tickets at Educate & Celebrate, Sacchetti Music, Maertens Gifts & Jewelry, Allegro Music, the Patuxent River Naval Air Station MWR and Stevens Studio or go to www.cosmicmusic.org. Tickets, $10, $8 for senior citizens and students and $25 for families, are also available at the door.
