Simply put, early music runs on homestays. Practically every early-music group and every early-music presenter EARLY MUSIC in the U. S. and Canada relies on IN THE HOUSE local supporters and fans to open their doors and provide lodging, gratis, to out-of-towners. They can be oases for the weary traveler, according to Debra Nagy, artistic director of Cleveland-based Les Délices and principal oboe of the Handel and Haydn Society: “If there’s a place you can go which you know and can go to time and time again, where you understand the rhythm and your hosts, Sackbut player Greg Ingles, from Dark Horse Consort, performing
and you care about them and they care Photo by Bill DiCecca with Piffaro in Philadelphia in March 2018. about you, and you’ve created a symbiosis that doesn’t drain your energy, there can be stability and predictability, and that’s a beautiful thing.” Homestays are such an unquestioned out there, too, in Main Line mansions Homestay hosts are more or less part of early music that even those who and the occasional 21st-century invisible to audiences, except as named Homestays have offered them for years don’t really architectural showpiece. among “volunteers” in concert programs, know much about what other providers are key but they provide a major portion of the People become hosts for reasons as do or why they do it. varied as the lodgings they offer. Some components complex operation that has made early music the vital and exciting force it As it turns out, homestays vary are already deeply involved in the music of the field has become. greatly in length and accommodations. of a particular group and eager to learn Musicians may need a place to stay as more about their own organization or Musicians are the stars of American brief as an overnight or as long as—for others the musicians work with. early music. But homestay hosts are an opera production—several weeks. unsung heroes. Without homestays, Some enjoy showing their area off to RafaelSpaces Sánchez may Guevara be as modest as a spare room, people they admire. Hawaii Early Music Homestay host Nancy Wright surprised America’s vibrant early-music activity
Photo by Lisa Terry a home office with furniture shoved would be much diminished. has brought in an impressive series of her guest, cellist-gambist Lisa Terry, with aside, or the room a child left to go off gifts on her birthday. groups for concerts and workshops over A to college. There are grander homestays the years and shares its tropical paradise by arranging homestays in Kona, near the beach. “We’ve got a reputation By ANNE SCHUSTER HUNTER for really treating groups with the traditional aloha,” says HEM’s Ian Capps, singer, public radio host, and retired media executive. And some get to meet personal ife on the road. It’s the stuff of rock ‘n’ roll legend: town after town, show after show, heroes. A veritable Who’s Who of homesick regrets, your sweetie on your mind. But rockers don’t have an exclusive on the stars like the Flanders Recorder Quartet, Quicksilver, and members of Litinerant lifestyle. Pretty much every day of the year, early-music specialists are traveling. Anonymous 4 have trooped through They’re heading to gigs, workshops, and tours all over America and beyond. They’re buying the spare rooms of North America over second tickets for cellos, arguing with flight attendants about stashing sackbuts in the over- the years. “I like to joke that our guest head, stuck in traffic jams on I-95, I-90, I-405, and I-495 with a hatchback full of theorbo. room absorbs musicianship,” says law At the end of their journeys, however, early-music artists are spared the archetypal rock ‘n’ roll professor Deborah Malamud, who hosts in Manhattan with her partner fleabag motel with flickering neon out the window and brawls in the hallway. What’s usually and fellow singer, Neil Plotkin, a retired waiting for gambists, lutenists, and baroque violinists, thanks to the goodwill of early-music computer administrator. “We like to supporters, is a comfortable bed in someone’s well-kept home. think some comes back to us!”
Ciamarella (Jason Yoshia, Aki Nishiguchi, Rotem Gilbert, Adam Gilbert, Malachi Komanoff Bandy) in the Kono district on the Big Island of Hawaii. 8 | EMA g september may 2018 | 9 But are homestays, in fact, comparable? early-music homestay hosts are often life in addition to the portion we share Hotels remain a recurrent fantasy on exceptionally nice people who lead by hosting a musician,” says Indenbaum. the early-music travel circuit. As private, interesting lives. Retired engineer Neil “It’s a fun thing.” anonymous places to creep away to Seely, for example, and Liz Neureit- Making those matches and finding after a long day’s work, the idea of hotel er-Seely, a professor of languages and the right chemistry between guest and rooms exerts a strong draw. And to know both gambists and recorder players, host can be an art form in itself. Most that chamber ensembles, such as string provide homestays in Rochester, NY, organizers who are themselves musicians quartets, are staying in hotels when early- where Neil has designed and built and long-time homestay veterans get music groups on the exact same series beautiful wooden pull toys—a delightful really good at it; they also keep close, stay in homestays can seem just plain diversion for a musician guest coming ongoing tabs to be sure that everything’s mean. This happens because fee structures home after a hard day’s work. running smoothly—and have no aren’t fair; a string quartet is smaller than Degrees of sociability can differ compunction about knocking questionable Tempesta di Mare percussionist Michelle Humphreys and host Larry Lindsay, some early-music groups, and, yes, on between different guests and hosts or stay sites off the list or dropping
Photo by Jon Snyder an attorney, in the Kimball Street Community Garden in Philadelphia. occasion they are paid more. even the same guests and hosts at musicians who are not good guests. And it’s true that not every homestay different times, although simple But basic relationship smarts is really is great. There are plenty of stories out cordiality is, of course, de rigueur for what makes homestays succeed, people there about bad homestays involving everyone. There’s an incredibly wide say. If all parties allow the household to unreasonable expectations or conflicting range, from sharing a periodic glass of keep operating smoothly and adjust meal personal boundaries between guest and wine or a couple of minutes with the and practice schedules accordingly, keep host; sleeping arrangements that are fine family in front of the Academy Awards an appropriate level of tidiness, remain for millennials but not for boomers; to shared meals and celebratory brunches sensitive to when guest or hosts want malfunctioning home security systems; and even to vacationing together. company or to blow off steam or to be Once started, many people People who play the rarest instruments live hundreds or thousands of miles dogs. These stories are the folk legends Some homestay guests and hosts have left alone, and provide a periodic “thank continue offering homestays for years are, not surprisingly, rarest. “The more apart, and, all told, you get a massive of the early-music trade. been part of each other’s lives for years. you” (within reason), they may have or decades. Some guests who’ve moved esoteric it gets, for example, if you do heap of frequent flyer miles. But homestays and hotels aren’t really Hosts like Miriam Indenbaum and truly made music together. on to other groups or other lives keep Renaissance winds or vielle consorts, a fair comparison. They’re like apples Wilfredo Rodriguez, psychologists in If you consider early music as a large A up friendships with their former hosts, the more you have to pull people from and growing entity, then homestays and oranges: they each have their ups Philadelphia, and violinist Emlyn Ngai, staying in touch about children, family, different cities together,” says Greg are one of its essential weight-bearing and downs. The Ritz-Carleton is a totally who’s guested with them for 16 years, A rich vein of idealism has run accomplishments (“She just finished her Ingles, sackbut player and multi- supports. Administrators say hotel appropriate object of fantasy, but reality have known each other since everybody’s through early music from its modern CD! I’m so proud! Here’s the link!” instrumentalist. Members of his Dark lodging for a small group of, say, five to would far more likely be a Holiday Inn children were little. “We have this other beginnings, some say, during the hippie says a homestay provider). Horse Consort, specialists in 17th- ten players offering a local series of four Express miles away with a bachelorette unusual connection to another person’s years of the ’60s and ’70s—a sense that One thing guests and hosts have in century brass, don’t even live in the to five programs a year would easily cost party next door starting shot games common is the belief that homestays same time zones when they’re at home. $20,000. Organizations with a large at 3 a.m. are essential to the ongoing health and Meanwhile, with fees as modest musician roster like Apollo’s Fire, which And when homestays work, they vitality of early music. And they’re right. as they are, constructing a full-time relies heavily on homestays for out-of- work. Over and over, musicians tell professional career requires almost all towners, estimate the amount to be A of how much homestays mean to them. players to freelance with several—or greater than $100,000. Just the basics are deeply appreciated: Homestay makes early-music travel many—organizations, bouncing from That’s real money for many music a comfortable bed, temperature control, possible. And early music has to travel. group to group over the course of groups. Without the support homestays the Wi-Fi password, space in the American early music’s player every year. provide, they would have to offer fewer, refrigerator, a dependable way to get population, while growing, is still And then there’s touring, which allows less varied programs with smaller en- in and out of the house, the sense that stretched thin over a very big country. audiences around the country to sample sembles, less challenging repertoire, less adults are in the vicinity who know Virtually no American city has sufficient early-music flavors from elsewhere and incentive for young musicians to join where you are and care about your numbers of local early-music specialists helps regional groups establish a national the field, just—basically—less. And if well-being—the latter invaluable when to fill a roster. Not even strings are presence. Touring brings Blue Heron to the sum that homestays represent did, a guest needs help in a far-from-home immune to the scarcity of early-music West Virginia, Musica Pacifica to Austin, miraculously, fall from the sky one day, crisis like car trouble, a broken tooth, expertise, but baroque winds are in Ciaramella to Honolulu, and so on. self-respecting groups would never in or illness. particularly high demand. Bassoonist and Add to that the desire for challenge good conscience spend it on lodging And then there are the extras. Hosts, multi-instrumentalist Anna Marsh, for that drives people into this field in the when it could go to program expenses or and getting to know them, can provide instance, has spent as many as 200 days first place and the creative affinities that artist fees—not if a comparable alterna- musician guests with real insight into a year in jobs away from home. draw colleagues together even when they tive is available. what their audiences are thinking. Plus, A Homestay hosts Elizabeth Neureiter-Seely
Photo by Gwyn Roberts and Neil Seely in Rochester, NY. 10 | EMA g september 2018 | 11 The the early-music world is fairer, perhaps, “We couldn’t do it without the Tempesta. “I think it’s in a way civil. and more egalitarian than the world hosts, and the hosts become part of the It pulls the arts and daily life together, baroque orchestra Lost in Time outside. After all, homestay providers community,” says Deborah Fox, lutenist intertwining them at the most basic level. Jacques Ogg have space and love music, and musicians and director of upper New York State’s It becomes much more than the sum of artistic director Press have music and need space: “from each Pegasus Early Music and NYS Baroque. its parts.” New works and according to his ability, to each according “They come to concerts and bring At a time when large, old music arrangements to his needs,” as written by Karl Marx— friends and make financial donations, organizations like orchestras are searching the political theorist, not the composer. the community builds, and then we can to find new ways to connect with Twin Cities, MN for recorder ensemble do more concerts. So it’s about necessity, A audiences and communities, early lyrabaroque.org Compositions by but it’s also about community. They go music may have something to teach Frances Blaker “It seems embedded in the whole nicely together.” them. At some point, early music may Paul Ashford idea, doesn’t it?” says Neureiter-Seely, Some communities have made their outgrow its homestays. For the sake of Oregon Coast the Rochester host. Like many homestay local early-music organization a real the movement’s maturity and stability, providers, the Seelys are involved in Recorder Society focus of civic cooperation. A number that would be a gain. But if homestays Harold Owen music-making activities organized by of neighbors in Philadelphia around went away, there would be losses, too. groups like the American Recorder and others . . . Tempesta di Mare’s offices, for instance, “We’ve had so many positive experiences,” Society and the Viola da Gamba Society take local participation seriously: they says art historian and neighborhood Inquiries of America, in which musicians of all founded a community garden in a vacant activist Carla Puppin, one of the Corlu Collier degrees of expertise co-exist in harmony, lot, champion a public park, and, almost Philadelphia hosts. “You meet wonderful PMB 309 as do homestay guests and hosts. “It’s so 20 years ago, started providing homestays people, and sometimes they rehearse or 2226 N Coast Hwy democratic, just like polyphonic music: for Tempesta. practice in the house and you have all Newport, OR 97365 everybody gets to play a melody part,” “I think it’s really warming,” says one this wonderful music coming through.” www.lostintimepress.com she says. [email protected] of their guests, Ngai, concertmaster of And that’s a beautiful thing.
Anne Schuster Hunter is a writer, art historian, and teacher of creative writing in Philadelphia, where she has provided many early-music homestays. One of her fondest memories is listening to Grammy Award-winning tenor Aaron Sheehan making coffee in the kitchen and talking to her cat.
http://www.toot.org or [email protected] On tour : Dowland’s Lachrimae Booking : [email protected] Photo by Richard Termine Photo by Richard www.lesvoixhumaines.org
Photo by Anna Lewnhart Pegasus Early Music
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