Yesaroun' Duo :: F.A.Q.

What does "yesaroun'" mean?

"yesaroun'" is inspired from a little filler lyric from the Otis Redding tune "Hard to Handle" (covered by the Black Crows) and doesn't mean anything. The barely intelligible lyric was pointed out by Sam's Dad one day as the Black Crows version played on the car radio. At the time we decided that it might be "yes around," which didn't make any sense, but sounded cool. It wasn't long before "yesaroun'" surfaced in one of our name brainstorming sessions. It turns out the lyric is "gets around," not "yes around," giving us a truly unique name!

The music that we perform is extremely eclectic, and we didn't want a name that imposed any musical category or stylistic connotation upon the ensemble. Because "yesaroun'" doesn't mean anything on its own, it can only mean us.

Some of the more amusing rejected names included DUO 2000, The Duo Brothers and the Yaba Daba Duo.

How did you two meet and form the Duo?

We met while playing with the Greater Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra (GBYSO), a high school orchestra program run out of Boston University. Sam had been a member since 1993, Eric joined in 1995, and our friendship grew over our two remaining years in GBYSO, including a tour to Italy. We were big fans of each other's playing and decided we should collaborate sometime. Towards the end of our high school career, we finally found a piece for saxophone and percussion but could never find time or practice facilities to rehearse (and we still have never played that piece.)

In 1997, Sam went off to Juilliard in New York and Eric stayed in Boston at the New England Conservatory. During his second year at Juilliard, Sam became interested in forming a chamber ensemble and was working to put together a group with string quartet, piano, clarinet, flute, harp and percussion - this project was eventually abandoned. In the spring of 1999, he was speaking to Eric about his ideas for the ensemble and realized, "Hey, we should start a duo together."

At the time, Eric was beginning to put together a recital for the following December on which he would be giving the world premiere of Gunther Schuller's Sonata for Saxophone and Piano. He had already planned to play one piece with Sam on that program (Christian Lauba's Dream in a Bar), and since we planned to continue as a performing duo, we decided to make this recital our big debut. Eric was going have a solo piece written for the concert by his good friend Shawn Crouch, so we decided to have Shawn write a piece for the both of us instead (from which came Suspended Contact). We added one more duo piece (a collection of Charles Ives songs) and on December 5th, 1999 in NEC's Williams Hall, we made our maiden voyage as the yesaroun' Duo.

Where did you come from? When did you start playing your instruments? How did you come to focus on new music?

Sam:

I was born and raised in Sharon, Massachusetts, living with my parents Robbie and Helen and my older brother Byron. Since my father was a cantor/composer and in a rock band (Safam), I was surrounded by music while growing up. My parents stuck me in piano lessons for six years, starting at age five, during which I tried to persuade them to let me study drums. In an attempt to avoid the inevitable cacophonous racket in the house that would ensue if they were to encourage me to hit things any more than I already was, my parents kept steering me away from drums and toward piano. Finally when I was ten years old they gave in and signed me up for drum lessons at my elementary school to study with the band director, Mr. Fleischer. I began on snare drum and in about a year moved on to drumset, studying with Paul Bell and John DeSantis at the Music Machine in Easton, MA. The Music Machine is a small music store and school where an 11 year old drummer could find all the drum stuffs he could ever want, get weekly lessons and participate in big group recitals.

I focused on drumset though middle school, playing in the school concert band and jazz band and other local and regional groups. I had a brief encounter with the vibraphone in seventh grade after hearing it for the first time at a recital given by Bob Schultz. I remember being so delighted by the sound that I just had to learn it. My parents got me lessons with Bob and bought me a little student vibraphone, but drumset still held my primary attention.

In the following year I began studying with Jerry Scholl (now timpanist of the Tulsa Symphony) who had me audition for the Greater Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra (GBYSO). I was accepted and began the following fall as I entered high school. I slowly gathered the skills I would need to participate in the orchestral world, grappling with the vast number of instruments with which I was now expected to be proficient (i.e. timpani, xylophone, etc.)

At this point I started studying with Richard Kelly and then in the next year with Timothy Genis, percussionist/assistant timpanist with the Boston Symphony. I spent all four high school years in GBYSO, schleping into Boston from Sharon every Sunday to rehearse and perform with the orchestras and percussion ensemble, and in 1996 I joined the New England Conservatory Youth Philharmonic Orchestra with Benjamin Zander and the NEC Preparatory School Percussion Ensemble.

I spent the summers of '95, '96 and '97 at the Boston University Tanglewood Institute (BUTI). BUTI provided me with an amazing education through rehearsing, performing and working with great teachers and colleagues, but mostly by having a chance to hear concerts by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, BSO and TMC chamber ensembles as well as visiting artists. This exposed me to hundreds of hours of repertoire, famous conductors, famous orchestras, famous chamber ensembles, soloists and composers. In addition, Tanglewood provided startling and overwhelming exposure to contemporary music to which I would eventually devote myself. I also had my first brush with composers my own age and had my first experiences collaborating with them.

In 1997 I entered the Juilliard School to study with Daniel Druckman and Roland Kohloff of the New York Philharmonic. I spent summers at the Bowdoin Summer Music Festival in New Brunswick, Maine, in 1998, and back to Tanglewood again in 1999 and 2000, this time as a Fellow of the Tanglewood Music Center. At these venues my love for chamber and solo settings continued to grow and with it, my love for contemporary music. Since the chamber and solo repertoire for percussion dates back only to the early and mid 20th century, a percussionist with chamber and solo aspirations has little option but to love the music of his or her own time. This is a requirement I have been pleased to fill.

Eric:

I spent my first 9 years in Everett, MA and my second 12 in Medford, MA. Although neither of my parents are musicians, I have a musical extended family and family history. My father plays the guitar in his spare time. I can remember growing up listening to him play me songs by the Beatles, and the beginning of a Bach guitar Partita that he still has yet to finish learning. My uncle Chris is a professional guitarist who began as a blues/rock virtuoso, and now playing traditional Celtic music for a living. My uncle Paul was a tenor and an actor who lived and worked in New York City for 15 years. My great aunt Ursula attended the New England Conservatory for piano-forte as part of the class of 1925. Music is in my blood, and my family is blessed with good ears.

I began to play the piano at age four at the Malden Music School. I played until I was 9, but was only successful in the early stages, and never got very good. I began recorder when I was 9 in preparation to learn the sax. My parents tell me that there was a picture of a saxophone in the music school, and ever since the first time I saw it I had wanted to play sax. I don't remember that at all, but I'll take their word for it. I began saxophone in the fifth grade, and I honestly don't know how old I was. I guess I was 10. Anyway, I loved it right off the bat, and apparently had a knack for it.

As I proceeded into junior high, and high school music became the most important thing in my life. I chose my high school, Boston College High, for its Jazz Combo and Big Band programs. I played in the Jr. and Sr. Massachusetts Youth Wind Ensembles at the New England Conservatory, as well as studying with Ken Radnofsky from the age of 12. A friend who played the trombone named Joe McGettrick introduced me to my first orchestra recording. It was the New York Philharmonic with Zubin Mehta, playing Holst's The Planets. From that moment forward I became a classical music nut/geek/freak/expert, and devoted my life to it entirely. I wanted so badly to take part in orchestra so I could play Beethoven, Shostakovich, and Mahler (esp.) But... I play the saxophone... you can see the dilemma. I therefore had to find an answer. I decided I would play in orchestra no matter where it was, or what the rep. I auditioned for GBYSO because they were playing Bernstein's Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, and Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet. I won the audition and was in that orchestra for two years, where I met Sam. I also played with the Youth Philharmonic Orchestra at NEC under Ben Zander, and the following year won the concerto competition at GBYSO. At that point I was on my way.

I began at NEC in 1997. When I arrived I had devoured most of the pieces I liked from the classical saxophone repertoire (Glazunov Concerto, Creston Sonata, Husa Concerto, Ibert Concertino, Debussy Rhapsodie, Dahl Concerto, Desenclos, Bonneau). By the middle of my sophomore year I was bored, and discontent with my instrument to the point that I almost gave it up all together to pursue playing trombone or French horn full time. Then, I started working on the Donald Martino Concerto, and my perceptions changed. It began my freshman year with the Denisov Sonate, but culminated in Dr. Martino's concerto. I wasn't playing a piece by a composer I thought was bad, or unimportant, or uninteresting. I was playing a major work by a major 20th century composer.

I finally felt like I had something to contribute to art and the world. I then started learning a bunch of new pieces (Albright Sonata, Berio Sequenza VIIb, Stockhausen IN FREUNDSCHAFT, Xenakis XAS, Webern op.22, Schuller Sonata, Lauba Dream in a Bar, Zorn Cobra). From there I found great support in my community at school from John Hiess, and Steven Drury as well as Ken Radnofsky. I sort of dove in head first into the avant garde and, as a saxophonist I haven't looked back since (though as a conductor, my other life, I still revel in the world of Bach through Mahler). With Sam, I have been given the gift of working with composers, which feels even better than playing strangers' new music. Almost all of yesaroun's repertoire has been written for us. We're building a body of literature that barely exists, and that feels great.