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Intended to teach Norma says Bruce was a major influence in her becoming a professional musician. She took a five-year degree in both music education and performance, intending "to play for enjoyment, teach and raise a family," she said. After graduation, she taught music at the elementary school level in Bloomington, Indiana, while Bruce completed his graduate work. Nashville summoned Then Bruce had to choose among "several job offers" he received in his field of public administration, and these included a position at the University of Tennessee in Nashville. "It's good to be in a capital city where the public officials are," said Norma.
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| The couple headed to Nashville for Bruce's position as an Assistant Professor of Public Administration, and then they looked into the Nashville Symphony Orchestra for Norma. (Bruce became a full Professor of Public Administration at Tennessee State University in Nashville in 1982.) Alex was born in 1974, after the couple had settled down and Norma had been playing with the Nashville Symphony for two years. |
Practiced 15 pieces "Bruce encouraged me to practice and audition for the orchestra," she said. Norma prepared "the standard selection of about 15 pieces, all containing major solos for flute within an orchestral composition." At her audition, she was required to play "about half of them," including the first movement of Mozart's Concerto in G Major for Flute and Orchestra, and Debussy's "Prelude to the Afternoon of a Fawn," she recalled. Left: The Tennessean published the photo of Norma in its Sunday edition, February 19, 1978, on the occasion of one of her many faculty recitals at the George Peabody College for Teachers in Nashville. A scanned photocopy silhouetted here is mounted on the first page of Claude Debussy's classic, "Prelude to the Afternoon of a Fawn." |
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Audition triumph She triumphed at the audition, and sat in immediately as principal flute "because the first flute had to be away for a family emergency." Then she could only wait. About a month later, there was an opening, auditions were held, Norma repeated her audition performance, and she won the chair she has occupied for the last 27 years. Third is best Norma insists the position of third flute and solo piccolo is the best chair. "I get to be in the limelight but, unlike the first flute, I don't have the pressure of being there all the time," she said. |
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"The second flute is the worst position because
you're noticed only if you play badly, and you have to constantly accommodate your playing
to the style of the first flute." The third flute, on the other hand, is also the
solo (and sole) piccolo. 90% boredom; 10% terror Solo piccolo is "just as difficult as principal flute," Norma said, ticking off the pros and cons of holding that chair in a symphony orchestra. Beginning with the disadvantages, she said, "Piccolo is more difficult to tune and more temperamental than the flute. You can sit for 100 measures without playing, and then you have to come in on a high note in tune without knowing whether it's going to come out well or not, because you haven't been playing for a long time." |
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Above: For a faculty piccolo recital in 1984, at the Blair School of Music in Nashville, Norma performed a piece called "Birds," which made use of "extended techniques" for both piccolo and piano. Pianist Enid Katahn used the inside of the grand piano to play some of the Norma's accompaniment. "She had to run the drumsticks across the piano strings," said Norma, who rented a 10-foot screen to show the 152 slides of photos of birds programmed to go with the music. Norma first encountered Michael Horwood's composition in 1983 in Little Switzerland, North Carolina, where she attended a piccolo camp. |
The hot seat When there's an intonation problem, the conductor inevitably singles out the piccolo. "It's the hot seat because the piccolo usually gets the blame," she said. A recent piccolo challenge that came to mind was the concert where the guest conductor was former Tonight Show Orchestra leader Doc Severinsen. The program featured three pieces without her, and then a selection from Tchiakovsky's Fourth Symphony with three "devilish" solo measures for the piccolo. "These three measures," Norma said, "are amongst the most difficult to perform in the orchestral literature for piccolo." Waiting The periods of waiting when there is no music for you to play do not bother Norma. "It's exciting to sit in the middle of the orchestra and be surrounded by all that gorgeous music," she said. |
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| Make the orchestra soar There is, of course, plenty of pure joy in playing third flute and piccolo with a symphony orchestra. The last movement of Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony, for example, is "fabulous for piccolo," Norma said. "Talk about everybody knowing you're there -- you've got the high notes -- you can be heard above the entire orchestra -- you can make it thrilling -- you can make the orchestra soar." Start with recorder Norma's musical life encompasses more than her chair in the Nashville Symphony Orchestra. She also plays recitals and teaches at the Blair School of Music, which is part of Vanderbilt University. Over the years, she has taught every age group, from second graders, whom she starts on the recorder, to busy professionals and the occasional retired person. Flute choir Her current crop of students includes a "flute choir" of six flutists, two college students who had never played an instrument before, and five fourth graders, two of whom she started on recorder in the second grade. Her adult students include a second-year medical school student and a third-year law school student who are studying flute, and a retired Navy physician who has taken up the recorder. Norma's adult flute students have included a neonatologist, a neurologist and an ophthalmologist. Great expectations When it comes to practicing, Norma has clear expectations.
"I don't expect more than 45 minutes a day," she said of her beginners.
But from serious students in high school, she expects "at least two
hours a day." |
