INCITE PROJECT

The Reminiscences of

Pamela Frank

Columbia Center for Oral History

Columbia University

2019

PREFACE

The following oral history is the result of a recorded interview with conducted by Gerry Albarelli on August 21, 2019. This interview is part of the INCITE Oral

History Project.

The reader is asked to bear in mind that s/he is reading a verbatim transcript of the spoken word, rather than written prose.

ATC Session #1

Interviewee: Pamela Frank Location: City, NY

Interviewer: Gerry Albarelli Date: August 21, 2019

Q: Okay, this is Gerry Albarelli interviewing Pamela Frank. Today is Wednesday, August twenty-first, and this interview is taking place in . So, if you would, start by telling me where and when you were born, and a little bit about your early life.

Frank: [00:00:37] I was born June 20, 1967, in New York City, New York Hospital, and I grew up in this very apartment building. My early life, well, my early life was fun. It included very entertaining parents who, seemed to play music for fun. I thought that that was their hobby, so, the apartment was filled with music all the time, with rehearsals, and practicing, which never seemed like practicing; but they were very European in the sense that my father used to always say, “If it weren’t for the war, you would have been brought up in Europe.” So, they jokingly said they didn’t want me to grow up American, so my first language was German, so I could speak with my grandparents; and then they put me in a French school for elementary to high school, which was an offset of the Lycée Français [de New York] called Fleming École

Française, which doesn’t exist anymore.

I was very interested in school and very interested in many, many things. I was being carted around to concerts all the time and was given a toy when I was three, sort of as a joke because everybody thought I’d be a pianist. I precociously or perhaps obnoxiously said, “It doesn’t play! I want a real one,” and they denied my request for two years. They made me beg Frank – Session 1 – 4 for a violin. They used to joke that “we discouraged her from being a musician.” That’s not exactly true. They encouraged me to be interested in many, many things, but obviously, the violin stuck, so I kept asking. They finally (probably to get me to shut up) gave me a real one when I was five. I started studying with Shirley Givens, who was an incredible violin teacher, especially for children, whic was only fun. I never was forced to practice, or had to practice. I chose to practice if I did.

I went to this Fleming, and when it came time to leave that school, I chose to go to Dalton

[School], which was an intense academic school, with the intention of going to Yale [University] or Harvard [University] or Princeton [University], to an Ivy League, because I was very interested in academics. I was already interested in psychology, but I also attended the Juilliard

Pre-College on Saturday. I had been in the New York Youth Symphony, which still exists, and that was on Sundays. But to give you an idea of how my parents wanted me to have as normal a life as possible: When I said I wanted to go to Juilliard Pre-College, my mother said, “Well, your entire weekend cannot be wasted on music! You need to have a weekend day to just have fun.” I had to choose between the New York Youth Symphony and Juilliard, so I chose Juilliard, and that was fun because I got to be with other musicians where I was otherwise not.

And, yes, I spent four years in high school, junior and senior year at Juilliard Pre-College, then came the time to decide whether to go to Yale or to Curtis [Institute of Music], because my teacher at the time, Szymon Goldberg, was teaching at both places. I almost went to Yale to study psychology and violin on the side, and then at the last minute I had this sort of yanking, tugging feeling that it would be hard to have enough hours to play the violin even for fun, so I Frank – Session 1 – 5 chose Curtis. But for the whole first year I really regretted it. I took every class that Curtis offered, because I was so afraid of becoming stupid, and it may have happened anyway

[Laughs]! But I enjoyed my four years at Curtis, and then I continued to live in because it’s an extremely livable city: everything’s right there within ten walking blocks. The airport’s close and the train’s close, and it's a very, very easy, comfortable city to live in.

So I lived there for another ten years after I went to school, but by then, I was playing concerts. I moved back to New York in 1996.

Q: Okay. So that’s a good place to stop and for me to ask you to go back and tell me a little bit about the family history, and then stories about your mother and your father.

Frank: [00:05:07] Okay. Family history. Well, as I mentioned before, my parents really played music for fun, and I never got the sense that that was their career. My father and I would play ear-training musical games from a very early age. He used to call it “the party trick,” where he would play a note, and I’d identify immediately whether it was a black key or a white key. He thought that was the most amazing thing that I was always right, and so he would do it for his friends, like I was like a circus act [Laughs]. But we always played ear-training games for fun, and we played music in the house also for fun. My parents had an incredible relationship because they were both such phenomenal musicians, who didn’t threaten each other.

It was kind of amazing. They played a lot of the same repertoire, but they had so much respect for each other. They played together, and when they did, that was the most incredible example of Frank – Session 1 – 6 synchronicity I’ve ever seen, even though they were very different. To say that the ensemble was phenomenal is an understatement. They sort of had one brain, separated in two. It was beautiful to watch, and they never were competitive.

So, there was always just a very positive, healthy vibe in the house, but my father was the real kid. They used to say that “we tried so long for one child, that one was enough, we didn’t want to have to go through that process for more.” But he was really my other sibling. I have memories of waiting for the school bus when I was five, and every morning he would take me down. He would draw hopscotch on the sidewalk with chalk, and we would play hopscotch for half an hour before the bus would come. And then I’d come home from school, and we’d play puppet show, or he’d be a student in my imaginary class [Laughter], in my room. So I was never lonely. I was not an only lonely child, by any means, and I never missed siblings at all. I really had a grown-up kid with me, all the time, sometimes to the horror of my mother, but mostly to her delight.

Q: Okay, so tell me about how they got here, some of those stories, yes.

Frank: [00:08:11] My father was from Nuremberg, and my mother was born in Prague but lived in Vienna from the age of five, and due to the circumstances of the war, obviously, they both had to flee.

My father actually fled Nuremberg when he was twelve, went to Brussels briefly and then to

Paris. He stayed there until they were forced to leave by the German occupation. They then walked across the Pyrenees to Spain where they lived illegally. He was overheard (word got Frank – Session 1 – 7 around) at the piano and invited to a party given by the Brazilian Ambassador. The American

Consul happened to attend the party and offered him a visa to Brazil instead of a performance fee. But my dad asked for one to the US instead. So actually, playing the piano saved his life. It shaped his entire future. He then went to Lisbon and awaited passage to New York.

Simultaneously, my mother was forced out by the Nazis as well. She went to Switzerland then to

Portugal. Now this is the amazing part: while they were both waiting for a ship to the US at the same time, they were allowed to practice in the same piano store in Lisbon. She was five years younger. He remembers seeing her in that piano store! Then they met again in Tanglewood

[music venue in Massachusetts] in 1947, when they were both students. My mother had lied about her age to get into the older program. They met because they were singing in chorus right next to each other on the first day.

He liked to say that they had already met in Lisbon, because “Lillian was shown to me,” and they were predestined [Laughs] to be together

My mother came to Flushing [Queens, New York City]. My father came to New York, and my father actually went to Columbia [University]. He enrolled in Columbia when he was sixteen, and he never finished because he was drafted into the US Army in 1944. But he studied humanities, conducting, music history, and math. He started studying with Artur Schnabel, my mother started studying with Isabelle Vengerova, and then as I said, they’d met in Tanglewood; they were sort of traveling in the same circles. They had many of the same friends, and my father used to say that he proposed to my mother for seven years, but she neither said yes nor no. She finally gave in [Laughs] seven years later, and then they moved here, to this apartment. Frank – Session 1 – 8

Q: I realize that for the transcript, we should have their names.

Frank: [00:11:08] Oh, [Laughter]. My father’s name is , and my mother’s name is

Lilian Kallir.

Q: Okay, and you said your father was already known, so tell me a little bit about his getting to be known, and his life in Europe, and when did he flee Nuremberg? Was that in the—

Frank: [00:11:29] When I say “he was known,” I’m just directly quoting him. They left

Nuremberg in 1938. They were in Paris for two years and then he and his family walked through the Pyrenees to Spain. I think he tried to take practice on any piano he could get his hands on just to stay in shape. So perhaps just word got around.

Q: Tell me about his family, a little bit about his—

Frank: [00:12:44] His father, Louis [phonetic] Frank, was an insurance lawyer, and his mother,

Irma, was an amateur singer, and they divorced when my father was three. He had a brother,

Peter, [phonetic] who was in the cotton business, actually, but was an amateur violist. He gave me my first full-sized instrument, as a matter of fact. They had very close friends, the

Seidenbergers, who basically were like family. They fled Germany with the Seidenbergers, and hid in France all together.

Frank – Session 1 – 9

Q: And did he have very distinct memories of fleeing in the Pyrenees and all of that? Did you hear stories?

Frank: [00:13:27] Oh yes, he did but, he didn’t talk about it a lot. But when he did, he’d talk about it as if it was a huge adventure, for a fifteen-year-old. Talk about glass half full; that just sort of says it all. He describes the whole war like it was like this fun thing for a kid. Meanwhile, you have parallel stories by others of horrific memories. He wrote an account of his fleeing, and it’s somewhere in this rubble that I’ve been going through for years, but I haven’t found it yet.

But no, he never talked about the atrocities of the war except to say once that one day, at the end of 1938, the Nazis took his Uncle Emil out of his home in Frankfurt to Buchenwald [Nazi concentration camp]. Four weeks later, they sent his coffin home and told my aunt she was not allowed to look inside. He would say this totally in passing, just to illustrate the sadism of the

Nazis.

He did say with horror that his mother was so obsessed with him having a good education, that she chose to put him in a school that had no Jews, because it was the better school. So being was the only Jew in his school, he was taunted and ridiculed and bullied regularly. He was only referred to as Jud [pronounced “Yud”] like he didn’t even have a name. People would just call him Jud, and he would laugh about it. He laughed telling it, but obviously, that’s going to scar you in some way. But he had a way of turning everything into something good. He never thought of himself as a victim in any way, and I know other people who would see it differently, being called Jud without a name. He used to always say, “You have two choices in your life: to laugh or to cry. I choose to laugh.” Frank – Session 1 – 10

Q: How about your grandmother? You knew your grandmother, and—

Frank: [00:15:35] She died in 1985 when I was a seventeen. She was a very elegant woman, and she had a sister. Her sister, Ella, is the one whose husband perished in Buchenwald, and so they came together to New York and lived together until their death. They all came together, and they were—what’s the word for making hats? They were in the hat business. It’s a—

Q: Milliner?

Frank: [00:16:03] They were milliners, right. They were milliners, and they lived together on

West End Avenue and 89th Street. They were lovingly referred to as “the ladies,” The ladies were huge music lovers, and had one party after another for either my mother or my father, or even friends like the Quartet. Whoever was playing the concert in New York got to invite all their friends; and so the ladies’ parties became infamous for their elegance and their fantastic food. Irma was a great baker, and her sister was a great chef, and so together, they really knew how to entertain. They had people over all the time, very social people. They played bridge. I loved going to the ladies’.

My parents, they rarely traveled together. This is just a tangential story but it says something about them: When they did travel together [to the same destination], they traveled separately so that, in case one of the planes went down, I would still have one parent, which I still find very touching. But I loved it when they both went away, because at the ladies’, we watched TV, all Frank – Session 1 – 11 afternoon, games shows and soap operas, and I could stay up late. I had a very strict upbringing, and the ladies just let me do what I wanted. They spoiled me rotten, so, I loved the ladies. They were wonderful.

Q: What is some food that you remember from—

Frank: [00:17:34] Okay. Ella made brisket, an incredible brisket, and mashed potatoes from scratch. And roast beef, and Yorkshire pudding, unbelievable Yorkshire pudding; and my grandmother made Kugelhupf [cake], you know, one of the things with the hole. She made incredible cookies, all very buttery. What were those called, the ones with the sprinkled powdered sugar on top. Oh yes, Vanillekipferl, but they were in the shape of a—

Q: A horn?

Frank: —a horn. Ah, it was wonderful. They introduced me to coffee. I actually drank coffee for the first time with them, because one had to dunk these things into something!

Q: Yes, that’s great. How about politics, your family, and did they discuss politics or—

Frank: [00:18:35] Never. Strangely, silent about—I only realized that in retrospect. It was never discussed the way it is discussed at every dinner table here, now. Nothing. Nothing. I don’t know if it was a reaction to what they left. I don’t know if they lost interest, but they certainly didn’t focus on it at all. All I know is that they voted as democrats. Frank – Session 1 – 12

Q: Okay, I thought I would ask you to talk a little bit, maybe, just some memories of early performances. I know you were eighteen at , right? I think.

Frank: [00:19:14] Well, the first time I actually played in Carnegie Hall I was sixteen. There’s a poster in there, I can look at the date, with Sascha [Alexander] Schneider, and that was incredible because I’d been to all of his midnight concerts. Every December twenty-fourth, which was also my dad’s birthday, he always did midnight concerts, and I thought, oh my gosh, maybe one day

I’ll be good enough to be in the orchestra. So I auditioned and I got in and then, he assigned me the [Antonio Lucio] Vivaldi four-violin concerto [from L’estro armonico], to play with him as a soloist. I was so nervous. My roommate at the time was Becky [Rebecca] Young, who is the assistant violist at the [Orchestra] now, and she still remembers that the night before the concert, I was screaming in my sleep, “Turn the page! Turn the page!”

[Laughter]

So apparently, I was nervous, but that concert was fun, and then I guess it went fine. Thrilling though, to walk out on that stage—I’ll never forget it—and then two years later, he had me come and play a solo: Vivaldi Concerto, and that was very exciting, because I got to work with him almost every day on it. With Sascha you couldn’t be nervous, because he wore his heart on his sleeve, and he was screaming all the time (to exaggerate)! So you were always playing with the most conviction, the most articulation, the most passion, the most of everything. You were playing a thousand percent, so there was actually no room to be self-conscious at all. It was fantastic. Frank – Session 1 – 13

I think I played the best with him, because it was really liberating. Then I went on tours with his

“grown-up” orchestra. I used to call it the grown-up version of the Christmas Seminar which was the Brandenburg Ensemble. We went to Bermuda, and he took me on a long beach walk one day and he said, “I have something very important to talk to you about.” Fine. He said, “You need a new bra. You need a better bra.” [Laughter] I thought it was going to be some great musical insight. No. No. Just sartorial advice for him. He was fantastic. So, he was very paternal in many, many ways. But then I played a lot with my father, and that was—

Q: Yes, talk about [unclear].

Frank: [00:21:32] That was, actually, that was so incredible, on so many levels, because he exercised no paternity ever, where he should have! He should have been coaching me, or at least suggesting but he never did. We would just play, and we’d play something again and we would discuss it. He treated me completely like a grownup, which empowered me to such a degree that

I actually became a grownup. He had so much respect for what I thought that we were discussing music as if we were equals, which is really to his credit. If he were here, he’d say, “But we were equals,” but we weren’t.

So I learned so much just by—I used to say that I’d just follow him. I know whom to follow, and that would be the guy to follow, but it wasn’t about following. I was just trying to play with him.

I just rode his wave, and he, of course, would say the same thing, which is nonsense. But I remember—I can say this on record now—we really would never rehearse, or should I say, we Frank – Session 1 – 14 hardly rehearsed, because we were so in sync, actually, and telepathic. We had this unspoken language that the few times that we rehearsed a little more than normal, those concerts were terrible. Suddenly we became conscious of what we were doing, and self-conscious in a bad way.

And so, we learned a lot from that experience and didn’t repeat it. But I’ll never forget, we were supposedly rehearsing, but we were really just playing once in my apartment in Philadelphia. We were playing Opus 96, the last [Ludwig van] Beethoven sonata. We played the slow movement, and both of us just stopped. Even though there’s an attacca to the next movement, both of us just stopped, and we turned to each other, and both of us were in tears. My father said, “Can you believe that this is what we do? How lucky are we to just figure out how this goes, that’s our job?” It was almost like twins, reacting the same way at the same time about something.

So, it was such an honor to just ride that wave. It was just incredible. And then we recorded all the Beethoven sonatas and that was a huge lesson for me too, because he cared so much more about communication and spontaneity, and the foibles of expression—I mean the possible foibles of expression. He didn’t care about perfection at all, we did entire movements at once; and even if there were mistakes, he didn’t want to go over them again. Then, when we were forced to go over them again, he would stop and say, “This is starting to sound ‘recording-ish,’” and he was right. The minute you start doing something over and over, the x factor, it goes away.

And so, we did complete takes of movements and left in mistakes, and I’m fine with it. I learned so much because he did the same thing with his thirty-two Beethoven sonatas, which is a huge undertaking. He said he left in mistakes because he would rather have the better take musically, Frank – Session 1 – 15 even if it has blemishes. So that was his philosophy about all playing anyway. He just went for broke all the time. So that was a treat to record with him. We did [Franz Peter] Schubert sonatas also, and it was just like talking to each other when we played. I was so spoiled by that, because with other people, I actually had to rehearse [Laughs]! I wasn’t automatically on the same page, and not to say that that’s bad, but, I was really spoiled, really, really spoiled. Yes, it was really fun.

Oh, speaking of Opus 96, here’s a story that sums him up. It’ll be self-explanatory but I’ll explain why anyway: In the last Beethoven sonata, at the end of the last movement, there is a big, fiery, virtuosic passage for the violin, that goes all the way to the top of the instrument, and that material gets imitated immediately by the piano. It goes very quickly, just a few seconds later. We always took that Opus 96 on tour if we could, because we loved it so much. By concert number ten, I was feeling particularly courageous. I went for that “lick” as you’d call it. I went for that. I completely went for broke, and as a result, I missed the top four notes, in a horrendous way. All four of them wrong. And he imitated that screw-up exactly with the same four wrong notes, a few seconds later.

So what does that say about him? His reactions are off-the-charts; but also, it says everything about him as a father. He covered my butt. It says everything about a chamber musician, because if one does something, you imitate it. He’s just a great musician. Like if the music is the same, you play the same way, no matter what. He protected me and Beethoven equally. And even when

I walked off stage, as we were walking off stage, I said, “Dad, how could you do that? How did Frank – Session 1 – 16 you do that?” He just said, “Well, it’s an imitation.” He didn’t think anything of it. So, yes, that says a lot about him.

Q: Yes, it does. Great story. Tell me some stories about your mother.

Frank: [00:27:13] She was [an] equally great musician, but we didn’t have the same playing relationship, because we didn’t have the same relationship. It was sort of like good cop/bad cop, as far as that goes, and they played wonderfully together. But when she and I played together, especially when I was younger, she definitely did exercise her maternity, so that didn’t work as well during the adolescent years, obviously. But later on, we shared concerts where I’d play something with her, I’d play something with him, they would play together, and that was really nice.

She was a very elegant, strong, liberated woman, especially for the time. Even their marriage was sort of an anomaly. He was Jewish and she wasn’t, and she had her own career. She actually had a bigger career at the beginning of their relationship than he did. He was sort of slow to the party, and she was very much heralded. She didn’t want to have children, and he did, because she was enjoying her career, and he’d tried to convince her that you can have both. But of course, as soon as I came, she hardly played for the first three years. She tried to, and she hired nannies, but she was so jealous of the time that the nanny was with me, that she fired them all, and she said, “I want to do this myself.”

Frank – Session 1 – 17

She was definitely a multitasker. She did everything, so many things well. Short example of multi-tasking: when she was a chain-smoker, smoking seven packs a day, she would practice hands separately so the smoking wouldn’t be interrupted! And she took care of my father, but not in any kind of Leave It to Beaver kind of way. My dad adored opera. When he couldn’t get tickets to opening night at the Met and was [unclear], my mom took out his tux and had it cleaned. Then she bought the finest champagne. One opening night, she dressed him up, sat him in the living room. She turned the lights out, played recordings of whatever opera it was, and served him champagne at both intermissions. She made everything possible. They were very, very independent, but had a wonderfully symbiotic relationship, and she played so beautifully.

They were so different. She played much more freely, and with fewer blemishes—he would say that himself—and she knew how to balance everything in a day. She really believed in a little bit of everything in a day, and they were very modest people. But what did he used to say about her?

I forget what this expression is. “She doesn’t know the value of a penny, but she knows the value of a thousand dollars,” or the reverse, like she was very careful in a day-to-day way. She was very frugal, but when there was something to spend on, like a celebration, she splurged. She knew how to throw parties, or send people on trips, on vacations. She knew how to celebrate.

She was really good that way. So she would not spare any expense or any energy when it was for somebody else.

Q: Tell me some memories from Curtis, the Curtis years.

Frank: [00:29:59] Let’s see. Well I was studying with Szymon Goldberg and I was going to New

Haven [Connecticut] every two weeks for double lessons. Otherwise, we had theory solfege, Frank – Session 1 – 18 normal musical studies classes, and as I said, I took every nonmusical course that was offered: all the English, all the poetry, all the art history, whatever. It’s too bad that I don’t go to Curtis now, because now they have an affiliation with Penn [University of ], which would have been wonderful. But I took everything I could, and I loved living alone, because there were no dorms then, and I couldn’t wait. I loved my parents, but I couldn’t wait to live by myself.

So I lived a few blocks from school, and I just loved everything about it. I loved the independence and I loved the intensity of the school, and I thought, what a privilege to be in the

Curtis [Symphony] Orchestra. I had heard the Curtis Orchestra as a kid in Carnegie Hall and I thought, that’s better than most professional orchestras. So I lived for orchestra rehearsals. We had one great conductor coming in after another, whoever was down the street with the

Philadelphia Orchestra would grace us with their presence. I played under all those guys,

[Riccardo] Muti, [Christopher] Eschenbach, [Wolfgang] Sawallisch, [Charles] Dutoit, and it was unbelievable. And then to be with peers who were much better than myself—I learned as much from them as I did with my lessons, just as much. Just playing chamber music with people that will stretch you, it was irreplaceable. That’s something, and then I kept reminding myself, that I may not have had that at Yale, necessarily; I may not have been stretched to this degree.

And then of course I had Chamber Music with Felix Galimir who became like my second grandfather, and I coached every piece that he was willing to teach. I had multiple coachings every week, and then we started to have Monday night dinners. He became an integral part of my schedule, until his death. We became very, very close. I’m partial to the old guys, I think. They all can teach me something. Maybe it’s because I had older parents: my father, relatively older Frank – Session 1 – 19 for the time. My mother was thirty-six and my father was forty-one. Since I was an only child, I was always around older people, and I was not only allowed to but encouraged to mix with their friends. They would try to arrange playdates for me and I’d say, “Well I don’t want to be with people my own age; those are children.” [Laughs]

So, I became very close to Mr. Goldberg, Mr. Galimir, and then Jaime Laredo whom I studied with for my last year. Then for my graduation recital, I hired my father [Laughs]. He’s my built- in pianist, so, my time at Curtis ended I ended very happily. Then I lived in Philadelphia for the next ten years, because it was so nice. But nowadays people stay much longer at Curtis. They extend their stay, although that was inconceivable to me. It was not an option at the time. It was small but not claustrophobic, for me, just small enough that it was really intense, but in a healthy way. Good competition, I thought.

Q: So after Philadelphia, do you—

Frank: [00:33:13] I continued to live in Philadelphia because it was affordable, and livable. But I was already playing some concerts, from having gone to Marlboro [Music School and Festival]. I went to Marlboro in the summer of 1986, and that kind of changed my life, because I got to play with Mr. Galimir and Rudolf Serkin, and a number of other heroes of mine. I went for four summers, and as an outgrowth of that, I was lucky enough to go on numerous Marlboro tours, which went all over this country and in Europe. I think I played the [Felix] Mendelssohn

[Bartholdy] Octet a hundred times in this country and in Europe, to give an example.

Frank – Session 1 – 20

And so, as I was starting to get concerts from the Marlboro tours, The Chamber Music Society of

Lincoln Center asked me to play, and that led to playing concerts here and there. Then, I was given the honor of giving an Alice Tully Hall recital in 1991, two years after I graduated, but still living in Philadelphia. Thank goodness I didn’t know this at the time, but a lot of people were there spying on me, one of whom was . As a result, I was recommended to be given management by what was then ICM [International Creative Management], and is now Opus 3

Artists. Thanks to chamber music, they contacted all the places that I had played, and so I started just playing. Then, I moved to New York in 1996, and by that time, I was playing a lot more.

Q: Yes, I think maybe we should slow down a little bit at this point and talk about some of those concerts, because you get the [Avery Fisher] Prize the next year, right, and in a few years, so—

Frank: Oh, my gosh, okay, well, the [Avery Fisher] Career Grant came first, actually. The Avery

Fisher Career Grant came in 1988. That was—

Q: Yes, talk about that then.

Frank: [00:35:19] I distinctly remember I was rehearsing for a Marlboro tour in Steve Tenenbom and Ida Kavafian’s apartment. We were rehearsing the Mendelssohn viola quintet [String Quintet

No. 2], and Steve said, “At 10:30 this morning, you and Ida are going to have to take a phone call.” Okay, fine. I didn’t know what that was about. Turned out, it was a call from Avery himself. Frank – Session 1 – 21

He said, “You’ve been awarded the Avery Fisher Career Grant,” and I remember just dropping the phone. I just could not believe that, because I had heard about the Avery Fisher Career Grant and the prize, of course, from my father who had been on the committee, on the Executive

Committee for many, many years; possibly from the beginning in 1974. So he had a long relationship with Avery and Janet and Mary Lou from 1981. The Avery Fisher Career Grant was for other people. That [Laughs] couldn’t have possibly been for me. But coincidentally, it was also given to Ida Kavafian, who was there in the same apartment that day.

That was my first exposure to Avery and Janet and Mary Lou. The ceremony, well, the playing ceremony was at WQXR or with Bob [Robert] Sherman. I was so nervous. I just remember thinking, I’m not worthy of this prize; now I have to play and show that I am? It terrified me, but

Avery was so sweet—that, I remember the most. He was so gentle, and warm, and he was so reassuring, both before, during, and after. He was just so supportive. His presence was soothing; he was so quiet but so loving, and he said after that ceremony, he said, “Pam, you played great.

I’m going to give you a present.” I said, “You’ve already given me a present. You really don’t need to give me anything else.” He said, “I want you to have my rosin,” and he gave me his rosin, because he was a violinist himself. I still have that rosin. That’s a treasured article for me.

He really placated all my nerves and my feelings that I didn’t deserve the grant. But somehow, it emboldened me, having gotten that career grant, because I thought, oh well, maybe I’m not terrible. It gave me a lot of confidence. And then in the next, I guess, nine years, with the aid of the Marlboro tours and the management, I really did start playing a lot of concerts, concertos, recitals, and chamber music. I don’t know what you want to know about those years, but— Frank – Session 1 – 22

Q: Well, even before you go to those years, because you mentioned that your father and mother knew Avery and Janet and they had a long relationship and Mary Lou, can you say more about that?

Frank: [00:38:26] I believe he joined the committee at its inception in 1974. Well, all I remember is that my father used to go to these executive board meetings, and he would study for them. He would do his homework. He did a lot of research on who was out there. He would go and try to hear people, and he took notes. He took the whole thing very seriously, and he used to say,

“Those meetings were very intense but very relaxed, thanks to Avery.” He used to go to all those ceremonies of the career grants and the prize. I never went with him, but he used to talk about them as if they were the most illustrious events to be even invited to. He felt really honored to be even on the committee, and to attend all of those ceremonies. The Fishers saw my parents at concerts and probably at parties, also. I remember meeting Avery and Janet as my parents’ daughter, at many concerts. But I remember thinking, oh, well that’s Avery Fisher; I know about what he does for people, and how seriously my father takes that role.

Q: What do you remember of Janet?

Frank: [00:39:33] First of all, when I was a little girl who was interested in clothing, I thought she was so beautifully dressed. She was impeccably put together all the time, and she and Avery really were a team. I never saw one without the other, actually, so they were a great couple that way, and she was always smiling. She always had her arm around his arm, and they just seemed Frank – Session 1 – 23 like forces of nature, but really friendly. She was also very approachable, just as Avery was. She was a very strong presence, very strong presence.

Q: The career grant, how much was it and did that have an impact in—

Frank: [00:40:37] Yes, definitely. So, the career grant, I think at the time, was, $5,000, which was an enormous amount to me, obviously. And unlike the prize, one was required to do something good with it—in other words, do something that could help your career somehow. So what I did with it is, I bought two bows. I’d never explored equipment, instruments. I just played on a chopstick with hair and it was fine. So I started bow shopping. That opened up a whole new world for me. Also I commissioned a piece to be written, which was the opening piece on my debut recital at Alice Tully Hall, by Vivian Fine. She was wonderful and she called the piece

Portal, which obviously had multiple meanings. It was also supposed to be the opening into my career, but it happened to be also the opening into the recital. I worked with her on the piece— my first experience with a living composer. It was a beautiful piece. I felt like that was a good use of the prize money.

Q: And, what are your memories of that, Alice Tully Hall?

Frank: [00:41:59] [Laughs] So, just as I didn’t think I deserved the career grant, when I walked by Alice Tully Hall maybe a month before, and I saw a poster that had my name on it. I completely flipped out. I said, “Why would anybody come to hear me for an entire evening?

That sounds horrible.” I just couldn’t imagine it. I just thought, oh my gosh, I can’t do this, and I Frank – Session 1 – 24 don’t want to do this, and I don’t deserve to do this, and blah, blah, blah. But then I walked out on stage and I was fine. The anticipation of it was much worse than the actual event.

When I’m playing music, I’m happy, but I’m not really a PR [public relations] person. That’s an understatement. I am not a PR person, and I didn’t grow up in that kind of environment. I don’t like undue attention on myself. I don’t need to see my name in lights. I don’t need to see my name anywhere. I just want to focus on the music and not the peripheral stuff. So it freaked me out. But the recital itself, I really enjoyed, and I especially enjoyed the party afterwards which was at Gary and Naomi Graffman’s, and yes, it was a—

Q: What do you remember—

Frank: —beautiful event.

Q: —of the party?

Frank: [00:43:25] [Laughs] there was a lot of vodka, and my father wore a fez that Gary had gotten in Morocco, because he was very drunk. But there were all the luminaries that I didn’t know had been at the concert, like Isaac Stern and all his friends and Sascha Schneider. It turned out to be a big celebration with wonderful people that I’m glad I wasn’t aware of that had been there. But it did feel sort of like a coming-out party, like a debutante evening.

Frank – Session 1 – 25

Q: Yes, great. You mentioned about PR and then you had management, right, so what was it like suddenly having management?

Frank: [00:44:09] Well, I had to work hard to keep my chamber music roots going. It was very important for me to stay grounded in what I knew the best and what I loved the most. But I had many meetings with Lee Lamont, and Pat [Patricia] Winter, both of whom said, “Well, you may have to make some compromises. Give us five years. If you’ve paid your dues, then you can go back and do whatever chamber music you want,” and the truth was somewhere in between. I couldn’t face giving up all of that, but I recognized that in order to get to the position in which I could pick and choose, I would have to do something out of my comfort zone. So they made a plan, and they had a beautiful mixture of all types of orchestras, all levels of orchestras, where I could try out repertoire, but it was all very alien to me to make lists of pieces that I played, lists of pieces that I want to play, what could I play on short notice, programs, programs far in advance. I kept saying, “Well I don’t know what I’m going to want to play in two years,” but that’s just the business.

So it was a steep learning curve, steep, but I also got a huge stroke of luck bestowed upon me. In the early 90’s, Yo-Yo Ma and Young-Uck Kim were playing the Brahms Double Concerto, with

David Zinman and the Baltimore Symphony [Orchestra], and they were each playing a concerto as well. Young-Uck was playing [Wolfgang Amadeus] Mozart A Major and Yo-Yo called me up on a Wednesday. He said, “Young-Uck just cancelled Mozart A Major and the Brahms Double, in Baltimore. Can you come tomorrow and play both pieces this weekend?” Of course, right?

Frank – Session 1 – 26

So, luckily, I’d played both of those pieces. Cancellation concerts are wonderful because you can do no wrong. You can do no harm; you’re saving the day. But it actually went really well, and so that led to a lot more collaborations both with Yo-Yo but also with and the

Baltimore Symphony. And so, I just feel really lucky. It seems like I’ve been in the right place at the right time, for a lot of things. Did management help at that point? Of course, it did.

Management built on previous relationships that I had, and cultivated new ones. But it was daunting. It was daunting to suddenly be really busy and playing a different concerto every week, and learning new repertoire quickly. For instance, the Boston Symphony [Orchestra] asked me to play with them. They wanted me to play [Igor Fyodorovich] Stravinsky, but I didn’t play Stravinsky. So, I had to learn the Stravinsky concerto and then the management had to get run-outs. So, it was exciting but there was a lot of pressure too.

Q: I’m supposed to be interviewing Yo-Yo Ma for this project, so, I think you should tell some stories about your experiences. It’s nice when they overlap.

Frank: [00:47:44] Well, he might tell you this himself, but I remember Yo-Yo when I was my parents’ kid at Marlboro. My parents went to Marlboro in the summer, and so this might have been 1973, ’74. I might have been six or seven. And you may find this hard to believe but I was very shy. I actually am still shy in certain situations, but I was very shy, and I hardly spoke. But

Yo-Yo and I apparently had endless staring contests. In other words, he would sit down on the ground with me, and we would just look at each other, and he never forced me to talk. He said,

“We would just stare and,” he said, “it was incredibly intense.” [Laughter] so he remembers me there, and I actually remember him there also. That’s Yo-yo: he will me you at your level. Frank – Session 1 – 27

But later on, in that context with the Baltimore Symphony, we also played a Mendelssohn Octet and that led to other chamber music collaborations, with Manny Ax for example. He truly makes people around him feel like they’re the only people in the world. When you’re with Yo-Yo, you're the only person that exists for him. First of all, he’s got so much interest and curiosity about people, but also, his retention is phenomenal. I’ve seen him meet somebody, and then see that person three years later and recall everything about that person. I really feel like he’s an anthropologist who happens to play music. Playing cello allows him to get him to go around the world and study people and culture. My father used to say, “Yo-Yo really should be President of the United States, but he doesn’t have the time!” [Laughter] He’s also the most loyal friend you could have. He’s my go-to person. When things go really wrong, he’s the person I call.

Q: Give me some examples.

Frank: [00:50:04] When both my parents were declining, and dying, and had died; when I had physical problems, and injuries; and when I had marital problems in my first marriage. He’s the best psychiatrist anybody could ask for. He always puts everything in context, and he knows how to reframe things without being Pollyannaish. He just knows how to redirect one’s thoughts to the right things, actually. And he’s totally trustworthy; he’s a vault. You tell him something, it’s never going anywhere. So I feel very, very lucky to count him as a friend, let alone as a collaborator.

Frank – Session 1 – 28

Q: Okay, good. Any other experiences with him that come to mind, anecdotes, a couple of anecdotes?

Frank: [00:51:15] There’s so many things. We did a Live from Lincoln Center on Valentine’s

Day, 1992, where I saw his whole comedic talent [Laughs] at play. He’s the biggest ham I’ve ever seen, and it was with Manny Ax, who is equally hammy. So, the two of them, they were like

Mutt and Jeff together on that show. The most beautiful anecdote I can tell is that he played for my wedding, to Howard [Nelson], four years ago. It was so unbelievable, because he flew in just in time and left as soon as the ceremony ended. He played background music for the first hour while people were coming in, [Laughter]. He was basically just practicing. Unfortunately, I was late because I couldn’t get my dress buttoned, and so he just had to keep going, and going for about an hour. And the funny thing is, half the people there, didn’t actually know who he was!

During the ceremony he played a [Johann Sebastian] Bach Cello Suite as a surprise for us, and then he and I played “Air on the G String” as a surprise for Howard. But the best part of the story

[Laughs] is that, when he was done and he sat in the audience, one of Howard’s friends turned to him and said, “Good job,” and he had no idea who he was [Laughs]! Yo-Yo said, “That was just the greatest thing.” He likes to be just a civilian, and he said to play for people’s weddings is the best job that he could have. That says everything about him.

Q: Yes, great. Okay. Now talk about the prize, and take me through it, so slow down, like in the sense that—

Frank – Session 1 – 29

Frank: [00:52:57] Sorry. Okay, I remember exactly where I was when I got the call about the prize. I was in Naples, Florida, at LaPlaya [Beach and Golf Resort] Hotel. It was November

1998. I was playing Beethoven Concerto with the Naples Philharmonic for that run. I’m in my hotel room and I get a call, and it’s Mary Lou. She says, “Sit down,” and I said, “Okay,” and I thought something terrible had happened. She told me that I’d been given the prize, and I remember my legs just went to jelly, and I thought I had misheard. I was sure I had misheard and

I said, “Could you please repeat that?” [Laughter]

I was speechless, and all I could think about is, “Boy, I better be worthy of this.” And from that moment on, that night especially, I played so much better than I ever had before. It made me rise to that occasion or to that level. I thought, wow, if I got this, I better really reach that potential, because otherwise I’d feel like a fraud, like they made a mistake [Laughs]. But it inspired me tremendously. My level of playing changed, and probably not in any kind of audible way, but my standard rose, and my expectation of myself rose, and my fulfilling my own potential grew tremendously from that day forward. It did a lot for me spiritually, psychologically, artistically, and maybe in ways that nobody would know, but I knew.

For the ceremony, I spent days on my acceptance speech, because I was so afraid of crying that I had to write it out. Normally, I never write anything out, I just speak, but I wrote it out. And as I was writing, I became more and more grateful. I got choked up even writing it. I just felt so lucky and I didn’t know how I had gotten there, but then of course, I was forced to think about who had gotten me there. Besides Avery and Janet, they were my parents and my teachers and my friends. It just reminded me of all the wonderful influences that I have in my life ever, just as Frank – Session 1 – 30 a person. Of course I got choked up anyway, and I didn’t read one word of it [Laughs]! But we had this beautiful party on the stage of Avery Fisher Hall. All the tables were on the stage—

Mary Lou’s idea. I had all my closest people there surrounding me, and it was like the best of a wedding.

Q: Who were some of the people you had?

Frank: [00:56:09] My childhood friends; my parents’ closest friends; my closest friend from

Camp Greenwood [Greenwood Music Camp] when I was thirteen, Eric Savage—he’s still my friend—my friend who I grew up with since I was five, Nicole Schmidt; Felix Galimir; Steve

[Stephen] Prutsman, one of my closest friends who’s a pianist. Basically, all my nearest and dearest, and of course, my parents were plotzing all over the place which was a little embarrassing, but I cut them some slack that night. But to give an acceptance speech, I had never given that. It was like being at the Oscars [Academy Awards], but it was very surreal. It was very surreal to be getting something, to be receiving something, and to speak about it, but it’s good to be reminded where you come from, and how lucky you are. It was beautiful, and Janet was there, of course; Avery was not. I have a lot of pictures of Janet and me from that night of us. It felt as if Avery was being honored, also. It was just as much a party for Avery, actually.

Q: Right. And then, is there more you can say about what followed, or—

Frank: [00:57:33] There’s no way to actually directly link the prize with future events because I don’t know how that works, comically speaking. All I know is that, unlike the career grant which Frank – Session 1 – 31 is about talent and a promising future, the prize recognizes what you’ve already done. Maybe then I was more worthy of being asked to play, because certainly, my career was already going in a beautiful direction. But it seemed to have exponential momentum after that. It felt like I sort of became a person. I became an entity, or something. I think the prize gave birth to another level of stature.

Q: Say a little bit about Mary Lou.

Frank: [00:58:33] Mary Lou is truly one of the smartest people I know. She is smart about humans, and how humans work, and what’s going to bring out the best in people, and what is always the appropriate way of speaking, behaving, celebrating. She just always knows the right thing to do. She knows how to put something in the forefront without ever seeming like she’s doing it. In other words, she knows how to give the right kind of attention to people and events, and it’s with such class. She is class personified, down to her taste of flowers and centerpieces and food. Her attention to detail is phenomenal, phenomenal, and it’s always at the highest aesthetic level. And when she speaks, everything could be transcribed, she speaks so beautifully.

She’s so unbelievably articulate. She is a jack of all trades. She knows the right thing to say to the right person and how with respect and dignity, and I admire her for always being able to handle every situation with the most class and aplomb. She’s a force of nature, for sure.

She also has sort of—what’s the word?—fortune telling, she has fortune telling qualities. Like a chess player, she can see many moves in advance. She can see how this action will affect that and cause a domino effect. That’s what I mean by she can see the future. She knows that what Frank – Session 1 – 32 you do today will influence something a year, ten years down the road, and so she knows how to plan accordingly. It’s astounding, actually.

Q: How about interaction with other members of the Fisher family, Nancy [Fisher] or—

Frank: Well I have more interaction now with them than I did when I was younger, because I’ve been lucky enough to actually replace my father on the committee.

Q: So talk about that, yes.

Frank: [01:01:07] Here’s another anecdote to have him remembered. When I was being considered for the career grant in 1998, my father was on the committee at the time, and so clearly, he wasn’t allowed to vote. But the way Mary Lou put it was, “We sent your father out of the room when we discussed you” [Laughs]. So, when my father stepped down from the committee, Mary Lou told me a similar story. They again sent my father out of the room to discuss who could possibly replace him. He used to brag about it. He enjoyed being banished from the meeting twice because of me. She guaranteed me there was no nepotism involved, which is good. They asked me to take his place, which was a huge honor, in that capacity.

They could have chosen anybody, but they chose me, and I don’t think it was just because I was his daughter, but who knows? That might have been good enough reason, actually, because he was an excellent arbiter of taste, and a good judge, judgment of playing and judgment of character. So I felt again, oh my gosh, I have to be worthy of this honor. And so, in that capacity, Frank – Session 1 – 33

I’ve encountered much more Nancy and Chip [Charles Avery Fisher]. Nancy’s at all the meetings and she’s a great mixture of seriousness and fun. Chip is there also and he knows a lot about music as well, and they’re obviously trying to uphold their parents’ values. They’re very involved, and so I enjoy those meetings because that’s the only time I end up seeing them.

Q: Yes. What year would that have been?

Frank: [01:02:59] I will confirm this with Mary Lou who knows everything. But I believe my father stepped down in 2006 and I joined in 2007.

Q: So now talk about being—

Frank: Maybe 2010.

Q: —on that. Just tell some—

Frank: [01:03:24] Well, it’s just so odd for me to be partially in charge of giving such a huge, huge honor, but also, I’m proud to be on the committee. I feel like I do have my finger on the pulse of what’s going on. I have so much contact with young people, and I hear so many young people, and I work with so many young people. So I feel like I can help in that way because I’m exposed to a huge pool of potential candidates. The meetings are totally democratic and the discussions are candid and respectful, and if only one person has heard somebody, that’s not Frank – Session 1 – 34 enough. Usually we don’t take just one person’s word for it. It has to be a certain number of people that have heard a candidate live. There is a lot of trust within the group.

It fascinates me because taste is such a random thing, in a way. I have colleagues whose values I share and yet we can hear completely differently. People can have many different opinions of what’s beautiful or not, what’s touching or not touching, what’s impressive or average. But in the end, a musician that really moves somebody is going to be appreciated by the majority of the people. I think that the choice of people on the committee is phenomenal. They all represent the right values, that is to say, they look for someone who isn’t going to be just a flash in the pan, but somebody who’s going to actually really contribute to the artistic fabric of the country. Someone who’s going to have longevity, who’s going to really make concrete contributions to culture.

They’re not necessarily interested in who is the latest fashion.

So I feel like the prize and the career grants are in good hands with the committee as it stands now. The committee is also very sensitive to the changing times and politically aware—I don’t want to use the word “politically correct” because that almost has a pejorative connotation—but it is sensitive to the needs of many different departments of the business. Occasionally, I still feel like the new kid on the block in those discussions, but I like to listen and hear what people say.

I’m fascinated by how people hear, because people hear such different things, and that’s what’s beautiful about music, it’s subjective. But as I said, the cream always rises to the top.

Q: You were one of, I think, the first, one of three of the first women to receive right, and you should just say something about that. Frank – Session 1 – 35

Frank: [01:06:45] Well, in fact, it was a big deal, and that was also a Mary Lou brainchild, I believe. The story goes, that since the committee couldn’t decide, they decided to give it to all three of us. But the fact that three of us were women, that was a trip. It was like a triple threat that year, and I think it made a bigger statement that it was three instead of just one. It just happened to work out that way, but then Mary Lou intelligently framed it in such a way so that it made a real statement, I guess. But honestly, I hate to say this; I’m sure this is not going to go down well, but: I don’t actually feel like a woman. I don’t. I know that I have the body parts that identify me as such, but I don’t. When people say, “What’s it like to be,” like you said, “one of the first female violinists?” I don’t know. I feel like a violinist. I feel like a musician, who happens to be a violinist, who also happens to be a woman. I don’t ever think about it. I really don’t.

Frank: [01:08:06] I just feel like a person. And in the world too, I don’t flirt, and I don’t wear clothes to attract people, I dress for myself. So I just don’t think of myself as a woman; not as a person, and certainly not as a musician. It was like, oh yes, you guys are women, okay, fine. We were taking the pictures, and we happened to be women, but—

Q: Yes. I mean, just say—

Frank: —I didn’t notice.

Q: —something about the other two, [unclear]. Frank – Session 1 – 36

Frank: [01:08:40] Oh, well Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, she’d been around for quite a while. I remember hearing her when I was a kid, and just loving her playing. I remember her playing in

Aspen [Colorado]. I remember it distinctly, in fact. It was the [Charles-Camille] Saint-Saëns

Havanaise [in E Major], and she may have been fifteen and I might have been five or six, and I thought it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard. She played with such heart. So, I had held her in such high esteem for so long. was younger than I am, and she was the new hot sensation, the prodigy starting to grow up. It was like a Pam sandwich. It was this older woman that I revered, and this younger woman who I also really admired. It was an incredible cross section of types of players, actually. It was a good idea, probably a Mary Lou’s idea to have good representation of diverse styles of playing. It was a smorgasbord, something for everybody.

Q: Two more questions. Curtis, going back to teach at Curtis Institute, talk about that.

Frank: [01:09:52] Well, it’s another honor. All I’m doing is talking about how lucky I am! But, yes, I graduated in 1989, and I was already sort of helping Felix Galimir, because he was aging and he asked me to share two of his students with him. So I was sort of like his assistant for a while after I graduated school. Then Gary Graffman asked me to teach on my own, and again, I said, “Well, I can’t teach.” He said, “Well everybody else does; why not you?” [Laughs] I said,

“But I’m not qualified.” He said, “But how do you think you get qualified? You just have to teach. It’s on-the-job training.” He said, as I said, “Since everybody else does it, so can you.” But

I felt the weight of that responsibility. I felt like it was like parenting, but without some of the Frank – Session 1 – 37 advantages. But I bit the bullet and took his advice. Slowly I got my legs and I realized that it’s just about music, and so I started teaching.

I first started with chamber music, and then I “graduated” to violin students too—so that’s been officially since 1996. In the last ten years I’ve done a lot more of both. I’m there every week for at least twelve hours. This year I have seven students and a million chamber groups. I’m trying to, how should I say, impart the values that I was taught both at Curtis and by my parents. I find myself quoting my teachers. I quote Felix all the time. I quote Mr. Goldberg all the time. I quote my parents all the time. I don’t really like the term, “giving back,” because that’s so presumptuous. Let’s just say I am carrying the torch and I’m just trying to keep my beloved mentors alive. I was so blessed with all the training that I had and all the information that I was given. It gives me pleasure to pass it on. And there’s no better place to do it than at Curtis because that’s my school. I have tremendous loyalty. Just walking in the building, it’s a privilege every time.

Q: Fit as a Fiddle [Inc.], that’s my last—talk about [unclear]—

Frank: [01:12:27] Fit as a Fiddle. Well, okay. Fit as a Fiddle is—“a company” sounds too businesslike. I’m not a businesslike person. It’s a mission, in a way, that my husband, Howard

Nelson—he’s a physical therapist—we embarked upon for injury prevention and treatment of musicians. Of course, he sees civilians in a private practice also. But this venture just has to do with musicians because he’s the physical therapist that got me back to playing after my own injury. He’s a wonderful physical therapist who uses “movement analysis” to treat patients. Frank – Session 1 – 38

Instead of the normal modalities, ice and heat and electro-stim. [stimulation] etcetera, he analyzes how you could be using your body that could be causing injury. And he will teach you how to retrain your body to use it for good instead of for evil. It was empowering because he teaches you to become independent.

Q: You should probably say about the injury.

Frank: [01:13:33] Oh, yes. In 2012, I sustained a terrible injury to my neck. It was actually from wheeling my father on the first day in his wheelchair. I had herniated two discs in my neck. I played through pain, and I played on a tour, and I couldn’t feel my whole left side. Then I hoisted luggage over my head and I felt something go in my neck, and by three weeks later, I felt nothing. But I couldn’t move my head, I was in agony, and I was totally numb. And so I got an

MRI and went to a surgeon, who said, “You’re going to need cervical fusion. You’re going to need spine surgery.” I was on tour. I came home. I said to my doctor, “I need spine surgery?” He said, “No, no, no, no, no, you go see Howard Nelson.” So I had to give up teaching, playing, and training for six months. I had physical therapy three times a week, and I spent the rest of my days doing the homework.

Six months later, not only was I not having surgery, I was getting better! A year later, I was much better. A year and a half later, I was playing again. So we had to get married, because he’s such a good physical therapist and I was such a good patient! He got me back to playing completely and changed my life. Also, I now have a totally different way of playing. My whole setup has changed. I had to start from scratch, like a child, with only ingraining newly ingrained Frank – Session 1 – 39 biomechanical habits, which is not a quick fix. It’s a slow fix, but it’s a fix for life. It’s a forever fix. And so, I again felt so grateful. Because, after thinking it would never happen, I was given this huge gift of playing again, where I thought I would never be able to: so I would like to help people twenty years earlier, if I can, to prevent this from happening to begin with. Of course, hindsight is twenty/twenty, and if I had known then what I know now, I might not have gotten into trouble. But I might have still gotten into trouble.

The point is, I feel missionary about this thing. Howard had put my whole case study on videotape. He had videotaped all my treatments and recovery and he made a story out of it. It’s called “Don’t Let This Happen to You, the Pam Frank Story,” [Laughs]. It’s an hour-long presentation that we give to anyone who will have us: universities, competitions, conservatories, summer festivals. We go everywhere and present my case, and sometimes we have a Q and A about my recovery. Sometimes we have a demo: a musician will play for a few minutes anything that cause pain or tension. We troubleshoot using our respective expertise. We also talk about a list of strategies and things you can do to prevent injury; but also, if you are injured, here’s how you can get out of it. The whole point is to de-stigmatize injury, because this is a taboo subject that people don’t talk about, and as a result, people play through pain. As Howard always says,

“An ache will become a pain; a pain will become an injury, if you don’t deal with it, so rather deal with it at the beginning.”

So, we’re trying to help people just come out about any problems that they have, get them to talk openly, and it seems to be helping. We also work with people privately, where it’s two on one.

The client will come in with their instrument, but first get a biomechanical physical assessment Frank – Session 1 – 40 by Howard. He watches them walk. He watches how they sit and watches them simulate their sleeping postures. The point is that all the things in a day add up, not just your playing. But the other twenty-two hours of the day matter equally. He’ll analyze how everybody uses their body in their daily activities, including writing sitting at a desk, at the computer, etcetera. We’ll discuss the findings. Then I’ll do an instrumental assessment of the person, and of course, there’s always a correlation. There’s always a correlation. Because everything is connected.

Together, we customize people’s equipment to their unique anatomy. The setup, we deal with the setup in every session. Howard gives them exercises, of course, and strategies about how to modify their movements to be more beneficial and less risky. We both give them strategies to reduce tension, use their body in better ways to improve alignment on and off the instrument; how to practice more efficiently—a wide variety of things. For me, this is the most important work that I can do. I love dealing with phrasing, and up-bow, down-bow, and fingerings, and all of that on the highest level. But if I can help people play healthily, for the rest of their lives, that will be the best thing that I could have done for somebody. It’s very important work. It’s the most important work that I do right now.

Q: Okay. Great.

[END OF INTERVIEW]