“One, and two, and cellos now.”
It is cacophony. Cellos screech, violins come in early, and at the front of the room, Marshunda Smith stands, poised, her face not giving in to the grimace that anyone else would make.
This group of children is just beginning to learn how to hold their instruments and bows, and while they might want to play the theme to Star Wars, they have quite some time before that is possible. “Everyone, stop. Stop playing. Cello and viola start, and then violins come in.”
Once a week, Smith and her colleague Chris Nourse come to the White Mountain Waldorf Academy in Conway, NH to teach the fourth and fifth graders string instruments. This is done in association with the nearby Mountain Top Music Center where she also teaches private cello lessons. Teaching cello is her forte, but her heart lies in conducting.
Smith is the only graduate student currently studying conducting at USM. Under the tutelage of Robert Lehmann, she assists with both the Portland Youth Symphony Orchestra and the Southern Maine Symphony Orchestra (in which undergraduate and graduate USM students can participate) as orchestral manager and conducts at least one piece in each concert. Her conducting in the recent youth concert was magnificent.
Lehmann describes her as his “right hand person.” All of this experience has led her to go for her heart: she recently became musical director and conductor for two local youth orchestras.
The executive director of the Music Center, Ellen Schwindt, caught Smith playing and conducting in the Composer’s Ensemble concert last December. She saw that Smith “projected confidence and style” in her conducting. Schwindt knew that this young woman would bring “a new perspective on string playing and a fun, positive personality,” so she contacted the music faculty at USM and eventually tracked Smith down at home to offer her a job.
Augusto Salazar had been looking to step down from his position as conductor of the Odeon Youth Orchestra and Junior Ensemble in Rockport. He mailed area conductors and schools to see if there were any promising candidates to take his place. Lehmann gave him Smith’s name.
Perhaps what is most interesting about her success in both cello and conducting is that Smith is black. She has not faced much racial prejudice here in Maine, but people are shocked when they learn what she is studying, particularly when told that classical music is her favorite type of music and that most of her CDs are classical in nature.
Currently, Smith is the only black graduate student in the music department; blacks have comprised less than half a percent of the undergraduate and graduate music programs in the past decade at USM. Smith maintains a sense of humor about it. “At least everybody knows who I am.”
The disparity of color is not native to Maine. Barely two percent of those participating in the top 25 American orchestras are black, and black enrollment has decreased to two percent in Juilliard’s orchestral studies program in the past year.
Smith thinks part of the reason is black culture, which does not relate to classical music as well as it does to gospel, rap, or hip-hop. According to Smith, “it is deemed as the ‘white folks’ music,'” and she is looked at as ‘weird’ by those not educated about classical music in the black community.
That uniqueness has served her well elsewhere. “People are more apt to pay attention to me and think I’m interesting, simply because I’m black and passionate about classical music. Then they realize I’m just a normal musician.”
Smith originally comes from Chattanooga, Tenn. and started playing the cello in middle school. She originally chose the cello “because of a boy,” but orchestra became “an escape from all the people that teased me.” The actual music intrigued her, and she and her best friend would rock out to classical music on car trips together. In fact, she still has only ever been to classical concerts.
After graduating from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville with a Bachelor of Arts in Music, Smith worked with the Knoxville Youth Symphony Orchestra and the schools in Oakridge, Tenn. as a teacher’s assistant in the orchestral department. Working with the children daily in Oakridge solidified her decision to be a conductor, and she enjoyed “the excitement of introducing new music and helping them learn,” which helped her choose to focus on children and teenagers.
Further study was a necessity to become a better teacher and conductor, and Smith decided to obtain her Masters of Music in Conducting.
Why leave mild Tennessee for cold Maine? Robert Lehmann.
Her mentor in Knoxville had gone to school with him, and out of several professors she contacted throughout the United States, Lehmann was the only one that answered her questions and agreed with her philosophy of conducting: to closely perform the selected piece the way the composer intended.
On Lehmann’s part, he recognized that she was a “driven, enthusiastic and passionate person” and says that he “could not ask for a better student to work with.”
Smith is definitely passionate about her conducting philosophy.
“It’s like country music. There are certain things that make it country music, and you can’t make a country song into a rap song without ruining it-so you wouldn’t play a Beethoven piece like one of Debussy’s, all ambiguous and impressionistic. If you can’t value the composer’s wishes, why do it at all? It’s not worth it.”
She also considers it part of her job as a conductor to make her students professional, and that shows through in her lessons. She is a stickler for correct bow hold, finger placement, and posture.
The students in Conway vary in age and ability, as do the children she conducts, and she patiently works with each of them using illustrations and metaphors, physically correcting errant holds, and even trying to rope parents and friends into being “cello slaves,” which helps the students train their arm to not let the bow creep up the fingerboard of the cello as they play.
By the end of the fourth graders’ lesson with Nourse and Smith, the children are playing the correct strings, and the violins are coming in at the right time. It is music to her ears.
An orchestra including members of the Portland Symphony Orchestra and the Southern Maine Symphony Orchestra as well as other musicians will perform under the baton of Marshunda Smith when she gives her graduate conducting recital at 5 p.m. on January 26, 2008 in Corthell Concert Hall on the University of Southern Maine Gorham campus. Admission is free.