Victor Vener: A Man & His Music

It was the occasion of our first time at a “Music, Martinis & the Maestro” performance in the Romanesque Room at Castle Green. Advised by the California Philharmonic’s publicist that I might have a chance to meet and chat with the ensemble’s leader for a few minutes before the show began, I remarked to my husband, “I wonder if I’ll be able to pick him out when he arrives.”

Mark made a nod toward the door at that very moment. “I really don’t think that’s going to be a problem,” he observed.

At Castle Green—just as at Il Fornaio in Old Town Pasadena for our luncheon interview a few weeks later—it would be impossible for Dr. Victor Vener to slip into a room unnoticed. His entrances—like his music—can be compared to an overture that instantly commands attention and keeps one’s listeners spellbound until the final note.

Now in the tenth season of the orchestra he founded in 1996, Vener’s passion for his craft has literally taken him around the world, garnered him award-winning acclaim as a hornist, allowed him to conduct performances featuring the finest musicians of Europe, and commit his musical genius to posterity in film and television recording studios both in Hollywood and abroad.

And yet beneath the unabashed aplomb of a Renaissance showman, there beats within Vener’s chest a heart capable of giddy skips of surprise. “How did you know it was my birthday?” he exclaimed, accepting the card I handed him as he sat down at the table I reserved.

No, I can’t claim credit as a reporter with psychic powers. It was Vener himself who made the announcement of this impending date at the Castle Green concert. His eyes mist briefly that a total stranger would commit it to memory. In the very next moment, he’s excitedly inviting me to his birthday party that weekend with all the anticipatory glee of a kid. From 60 to 6 in 0 seconds and back again in the next sentence; I hadn’t even turned the recorder on yet and was already wondering if I’d brought enough tape.

So if you could travel back and meet any composer in history—“ I begin.

Vener is already shaking his head and gesticulating that it’s not a good question.

Why is it a bad question?” I ask.

Because it suggests I’d have a favorite,” he matter of factly replies. “How could I name just one without offending the others?”

Like many artists, he feels the presence of history’s great composers in everything that he does, concurrently conscious that not all of them would make for scintillating lunch dates. “A better question,” he offers, “would be: When I walk on stage to conduct, what’s my favorite piece of music?”

Consider it asked,” I tell him.

Vener laughs, pausing just a moment to deliver his punch line. “It’s the one I’m conducting at the time!” If he had a “more favorite” piece of music running through his head, he explains, he couldn’t give 100% of his emotions to whatever selections the audience had come to hear.

The Cal Phil's programs alternate seasonally amongst the Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown LA, the Arboretum in Arcadia, and the Ambassador Auditorium in Pasadena. The physical venue, he goes on, has a lot to do with influencing the selection of the program itself.

Certain pieces of music such as chamber music and smaller arrangements don’t lend themselves to large, open spaces. Conversely, a lot of the grander pieces don’t fit in a small room.” The analogy to finding the perfect frame for a beloved picture symbolizes his ongoing quest for the best showcase of his musicians’ talents. He’s particularly excited about the program planned for this fall at the Ambassador Auditorium. “The acoustics are phenomenal!”

It’s not just the season’s regular patrons, however, whom the Cal Phil aspires to please. “We encourage families to attend our concerts and to introduce their children to the wonderful things an orchestra is capable of bringing to their lives.”

Among the organization’s aggressive outreach programs are such events as Family Nights, Classical Concert Camps, and drawing contests for young people in which the ‘models’ are musical instruments. “We even do a ‘petting zoo’,” he explains, “in which children get to touch flutes and French horns and such and learn how to make sounds with them.” Even ‘trading cards’ of famous composers find their way into the Cal Phil’s methodology of making music as fun and accessible as possible.

The thought behind some of the free concerts we give,” he continues, “is the recognition that running a professional, unionized orchestra company costs money, money that derives from the sale of tickets. Families with children or those who are looking for multi-generational activities they can all enjoy together might not otherwise have this opportunity to hear exceptional works of music.”

Vener himself grew up in a household that was musically inclined. “There were always classical records, jazz records and popular tunes—the radio at our house was always on.” When he was 11, his older brother Tom would take him via the Pasadena municipal bus line to the library listening room where they’d listen to one classical LP after another. Though 15 years older than Vener, “he was always generous with his time and in explaining to me who these great masters of music were and what had influenced their styles.” Vener smiles.

In all honesty, Tom is the reason I’m doing what I do today. Left to my druthers, I probably would have become a professional baseball player. I was always an athlete, hit home runs and threw the ball pretty well but all of a sudden there was something new and exciting that had my attention.”

He started on the trumpet, “after failed relationships earlier in life with the piano”, then moved to the French horn where he became “a hot shot player almost immediately”.

Following the acquisition of two doctoral degrees from USC, his professional debut as a conductor came at the age of 25. So what was going through his head just before he stepped out in front of the orchestra, I asked.

This brings forth a chuckle. “It’s like being a lion tamer,” he candidly replies. “You don’t stand in front of them if you can’t. And do you want to now why? It’s because you will become lion food in a second. They can smell fear.” He proceeds to illustrate. “There they are with their big horns and their big bows and all of their giant instruments and there you are with this little pencil-like stick that you’re supposed to wave at them to ‘do this’ and ‘do that’.”

He leans forward as if to pounce. “And if they don’t think you know what you’re doing, they won’t hesitate to eat you.”

He also divulges an insider secret that most audiences aren’t aware of. “Really good conductors are completely in charge,” he says. “Unfortunately, lots of orchestras have really bad ones who are up there furiously waving their arms and following the orchestra instead of actually leading them anywhere. They’re playing and he’s doing a fussy ballet with his hands while the person they’re really taking direction from is the concert master who functions as the conductor’s assistant.”

In his first experience of conducting a professional orchestra, he shares the anecdote of starting the program with Beethoven’s Third Symphony. “My baton broke off at the third downbeat and went spinning out into the violin section. So there I am in my debut in front of hungry lions and now I don’t even have a stick to hit ‘em in the nose with.” And what did he learn from this experience? “Always bring spare sticks.”

To make matters worse, his tie came off, his shirt came open, “and I looked like the ‘Wreck of the Hesperus’ by the time I turned around to take a bow.” Could it get any worse? “Three news networks were there to cover the performance, a performance that I was called in a week before to cover for another conductor. Nobody had ever seen me conduct. At the time I was teaching a university orchestra and they called me to see if I could jump in and learn somebody else’s program. No sooner did I say ‘yes’ than there was all of this ‘Can he do it? Is he any good? Where did they get this guy?’ No pressure, right?”

During the performance, he was so focusing on a particular piece that he didn’t realize a cameraman with a hand-cam had climbed up on the stage directly behind him and was shooting the orchestra’s performance live right over Vener’s shoulder.

I really wanted to give him some sort of nasty sign to go away,” he says, “but I also realized I was on network television at the time…”

Vener is particularly outspoken when it comes to the continued cutbacks in public school music programs, a correlation he draws to the escalating problems of crime, drug abuse and “kids with way too much time on their hands that’s not going to a useful purpose”.

The steady elimination of school bands, orchestras and even music appreciation classes, he observes, is categorized by administrators as a “frill subject”. What educators and politicians fail to recognize, he points out, is that “Music is a science, not an art. It’s a mathematical, theoretical activity involving focus and physics. Once you figure out how to make the actual sounds and interpret the precision of the timing and rhythm, you realize that music teaches you how to follow through, how to concentrate, how to lead, and how to cooperate.”

He offers, in comparison to math, the fact that “nothing in a mathematician’s life says he can’t take a cigarette break two minutes into working on a formula or daydream about his beautiful new wife in a bikini”. The concentration exerted in doing math problems, he continues, is done entirely on the user’s time. “To do something at a particular speed and on command requires a level of concentrated energy and intellect. The only thing I’m aware of that really teaches that discipline is music. Take some of these kids with attention deficit disorders or splintered/computered/text-messaged brains or the ones gravitating to gangs because they have nothing else to do. Give them a way to express themselves and focus to the point of performance and I think you’d see a lot of our problems start to go away.”

He quotes the late Louis Armstrong as saying, “Teach a kid to blow a horn and he won’t learn to blow a safe.”

In closing, he relates a story in which a colleague once asked him, “If you were Prince Charles and had unlimited financial resources and a lifetime of security for you and your family, what would you spend 20-30 hours on a week for free that would give you complete satisfaction?”

Vener doesn't hesitate for a moment in replying, “I’d conduct an orchestra!” He wistfully reflects how sad it is that most people don’t have a choice when it comes to pursuing what really fulfills them or that their sense of self-worth convinces them that something is too dangerous to try to go for.

Sometimes,” he explains, “all it takes is to generalize your dream rather than to define something specific like ‘I’m going to play for the NBA’. If you were to say, instead, ‘I want to work in the world of basketball’, there are any number of things you could do that could range anywhere from being a star player to being a sports physician to being a trainer to being the guy who sells peanuts during games. Maybe they’ll never be the one that shoots the winning basket for the team but, in the end, they’ll still be living the dream of being part of that world instead of always looking in from the outside.”

If the dream is broad enough, he emphasizes, there’s no telling where it can take you. “Just be careful what you wish for,” he facetiously adds in postscript. “I had the opportunity at a fairly young age to make a career at something I really loved doing. I feel that I never failed myself by saying, ‘Well, I think I’ll just go do something else’ or that ‘music is too tough to make it in’. I look back and I think to myself that if something were to happen tomorrow and I never played another note, it would still be okay. What better place to be in life than to realize you got paid doing what you really wanted instead of always making excuses why you couldn’t even start.”

He circles back to the reference to Prince Charles. “When I get up every morning and give a prayer of thanks for all of the family and friends and fellow musicians and donors and vendors who make my life so phenomenally rich, I now AM Prince Charles. And I wouldn’t change a single thing.”

Additional information on Vener and the Cal Phil’s 2006-2007 season (listed below) and educational outreach programs can be found at www.calphil.org.

The California Philharmonic opens its third season of "Cal Phil at The Ambassador" concert series Saturday, Nov. 4, at 8 p.m. with a concert presentation of "Show Boat" featuring Cal Phil Artist-in-Residence mezzo Suzanna Guzmán, soprano Elissa Johnston, baritone Cedric Berry and tenor Robert MacNeil, as well as the California Philharmonic Chorale. Selections from "Oklahoma!" and "Slaughter on 10th Avenue" will be performed as well. Tickets: $30 to $90. Ambassador Auditorium, 131 S. St. John Ave., Pasadena. (626) 300-8200, www.calphil.org.

The California Philharmonic continues its third season of the "Cal Phil at The Ambassador" concert series Saturday, Dec. 2, at 8 p.m. with "Holiday Spectacular," featuring music from "The Nutcracker," "Hansel and Gretel," "The Hallelujah Chorus," plus Christmas carols and other holiday songs, performed with the California Philharmonic Chorale. Tickets: $30 to $90. Ambassador Auditorium, 131 S. St. John Ave., Pasadena. (626) 300-8200, www.calphil.org.

The California Philharmonic continues its third season of the "Cal Phil at The Ambassador" concert series Saturday, Jan. 20, at 8 p.m. with a night of music by Mozart: "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik," "Symphony No. 39," and selections from "Cosi Fan Tutte," "The Magic Flute" and "Don Giovanni." Baritone Rodney Gilfry and mezzo Carin Gilfry are featured artists. Tickets: $30 to $90. Ambassador Auditorium, 131 S. St. John Ave., Pasadena. (626) 300-8200, www.calphil.org.

The California Philharmonic continues its third season of the "Cal Phil at The Ambassador" concert series Saturday, Feb. 17, at 8 p.m. with a celebration of love, "Four Visions of Romeo & Juliet" featuring music from four composers' works based on Shakespeare's tale of star-crossed love will be presented: Prokofiev's "Romeo & Juliet Ballet," Berlioz' "Romeo & Juliet Dramatic Symphony," the Overture from Tchaikovsky's "Romeo & Juliet Fantasy Overture," and Bernstein's "West Side Story." Tickets: $30 to $90. Ambassador Auditorium, 131 S. St. John Ave., Pasadena. (626) 300-8200, www.calphil.org.

The California Philharmonic continues its third season of the "Cal Phil at The Ambassador" concert series Saturday, March 24, at 8 p.m. with "Two Fifths of Beethoven" featuring the master composer's "Symphony No. 5" and "Piano Concerto No. 5, Emperor" with pianist Gayle Martin Henry. Tickets: $30 to $90. Ambassador Auditorium, 131 S. St. John Ave., Pasadena. (626) 300-8200, www.calphil.org.

The California Philharmonic concludes its third season of the "Cal Phil at The Ambassador" concert series Saturday, April 28, at 8 p.m. with "Fantasia" featuring music from the animated motion picture classic: Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain" and Dukas' "Sorcerer's Apprentice," along with tunes from such Disney favorites as "Cinderella," "The Little Mermaid" and more, including the world premiere of a new work by California Philharmonic Resident Composer Roger Allen Ward. Tickets: $30 to $90. Ambassador Auditorium, 131 S. St. John Ave., Pasadena. (626) 300-8200, www.calphil.org.