Part 2 of Season 4 Episode 6: George Marriner Maull -- Conductor, Public TV Personality, and...

The more we notice in music, the more interesting we may find it to be. And to that end, we have found that providing a listening guide can be very helpful in noticing all sorts of things in music. So let's jump right into the Infernal Dance of King Kostya from Igor Stravinsky's 1919 suite taken from his ballet The Firebird, originally composed in 1910. At number 1 in your listening guide, it says the melodic pattern is played how many times? And also asks which instrument joins the French horns and bassoons? So here's the pattern one time. Would you like to listen to that again? Here it is, here it is slower. Sing it with us on "da da da" as we play this pattern slowly at number 1.

"Da da da." Oh, hold on.

Let me get the orchestra going. "Da da da da da da." Now, I know that you can sing that with much more energy.

Okay? Here we go again. "Da da da da da da." Yeah, much better.

You fill in the gaps in your listening guide in the information before we get to number 2.

Is something funny?

Okay, so how many times did the pattern occur? Zero, right. Some of you may have noticed that was not the same piece of music. And we played the wrong piece of music on purpose. Just to see if you were really listening. That music was from an opera about another legendary bird in Russian folklore. In this case, "The Golden Rooster," composed by one of Stravinsky's teachers and perhaps his strongest influence, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. And Stravinsky found a lot of inspiration for his ballet score "The Firebird" in his teacher's opera. The Golden Rooster. Stravinsky also learned from Minsky-Horsakoff how to choose which instruments play which notes in the score, a technique called orchestration. But playing the wrong music also gives us an opportunity to briefly discuss the difference between hearing music and listening to music. The truth is we have all been trained to ignore music as a kind of sonic wallpaper The electronically reproduced music that accompanies almost every activity in our lives: dining in restaurants, shopping at the supermarket, driving in our cars, waiting in waiting rooms. We could make a very long list of things we do every day while music is in the background. We have to make a conscious decision to actually listen to music, to make it the center of our focus. And to be completely present with the music. So, knowing that we must choose to listen, once again, at number 1 in the listening guide, we'll ask you to keep track of how many times the pattern occurs before we get to number 2, and which instrument joins in at the end of this short pattern. We promise not to tease you this time. Well, the instrument that joined at the end of the phrase was which?

Tuba! It was the tuba.

The unique sound of each instrument is just one of the things that we can focus on if we decide to give music our undivided attention. Another aspect or element we can pay attention to is the form of the music, how the music is put together, as in How many times did the melodic pattern occur before we got to number 2 in the listening guide? And that was— 3. Exactly. 3 times it is.

Hello, piano enthusiasts. You are tuned into The Piano Pod with me, Yukimi Song. Today we're delving deeper into the second installment of this season's 6th episode with a phenomenal conductor, educator, and TV personality, Maestro George Marino Maul. In case you missed our captivating conversation in Part 1, where we explored Maestro's fascinating journey with the Discovery Orchestra, a groundbreaking New Jersey-based musical initiative focused on teaching listening skills and dedicated to transforming classical music experiences for general audiences through innovative engagement with classical masterpieces, don't worry, you can catch up on all the excitement on your favorite podcasting platform. A warm welcome to all our new listeners! This podcast is your all-access pass to the captivating world of piano. In each episode of The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song with Yukimi Song, I interview a guest speaker who has been breaking exciting new ground in the industry. Please rate the show and review it on your favorite podcasting platform because every rating and review will help people discover my show. So as we approach the season of Thanksgiving, we want to extend our heartfelt gratitude for your loyal listenership. Since 2020, we've been exploring how to make classical music resonate in fresh ways with today's audience. To keep bringing you these episodes, we rely on your support. Every contribution aids in covering essential podcast expenses. So, do you want to be part of this journey? Click the PayPal link in the show notes or visit thepianopod.com to donate. I'll personally mail you The Piano Pod's snazzy logo sticker as a token of gratitude. So, my friends, here is Part 2 of The Piano Pod Season 4, Episode 6 with Maestro George Marinow Mall. Please enjoy the show.

Where does this passion come from? I really want to know your life, right? Uh-oh.

Are you sure? Are you sure?

Oh, yes, I'm very sure. You are, you know, obviously a classical musician. You started out as a violist and then the conductor. An amazing, accomplished conductor, and then TV radio personality, educator, and producer. So can you share the story of how your journey with classical music began and what inspired you to become a musician, and that led to be an educator and then a conductor?

Fasten your seatbelt.

Okay.

You know, the story began absolutely with my mother, Helen. Who was a very well-trained and accomplished classical pianist and was the neighborhood piano teacher in my neighborhood in Philadelphia where I grew up. And I sometimes wondered, because I know that babies, while they are still in the womb, in the last month or so in the womb, apparently hearing begins to develop. And I've thought to myself, how many times did I hear my mother practice that Chopin étude or that Debussy Prelude, or that Mozart Sonata, while I was still inside her. You know, it was like I was a captive audience because she would sit at the piano and of course practice every day. And then once I was born, you know, although I didn't understand or realize what was happening, obviously at the beginning, there was music going on, it seemed like 24/7 in our house. You know, she would invite other musicians in, string quartet members to play with her, or opera singers from the Philadelphia Lyric Opera. To come over and sing while she played for them. So the seminal event, because we talked about this, we all, you said, we all remember that moment when we were first so moved by some classical music. I was 4 and a half and of course living at home just before I started kindergarten. My mother had purchased an LP recording of Dvořák's New World Symphony. Now we lived with my mother's mother father, and aunt. So there were 7 of us in the house, including my brother, me, my mother, father, and these other 3 individuals. And so my mother was out shopping for groceries, and my great-aunt was babysitting me, and the mailman arrived with this LP record. So I didn't know what it was, but Aunt Enda knew what it was, and she got out our portable department store monophonic, disgusting record player. I mean, the sound of this device was really inferior, and it even wasn't wired properly. It would— the tonearm could give you a little shock electronically sometimes. But in any event, Aunt Edna said, I will put this record on, and I was absolutely transfixed as a 4-and-a-half-year-old. I began crying. I was having goosebumps. I had never heard violins playing so high or, you know, crescendos that took over the room, even on this stupid little monaural record player. The sound of that symphony orchestra just really got me. And so I divide my life in two parts. There is before Dvořák, those first 4 and a half years, and then there's everything that happened after Dvořák. Now, my mother, of course, began giving my brother and me piano lessons as little children, quickly realized that not probably a good idea to teach your own children music. They may not give it their best. So she farmed us out to piano teacher friends of hers. So we were studying with colleagues of hers. And then my mother and father and grandparents decided to send my brother and me to an Episcopal choir school for boys called St. Peter's Choir School in Philadelphia. School had been started in 1836 or something as a day school for, for kids, co-educational. But in the early 1900s, it then was switched. The organist who switched it was trying to model the cathedral choir schools of England, and so he made it only for boys. And so the education now would not only include a lot of academic preparation— I mean, when I was there, we had to stay in addition to math, science, um, history, English, Latin, French, and other things. We also had sightseeing class, mandatory piano lessons. Every day after school there was a rehearsal. So this was a very thorough saturation in music. And it was really— that was when I became a performer. I mean, all the boys in the choir felt like performers because we sang 2 services a Sunday, every Sunday from September through June. And with different repertoire. And during seasons like Lent, in the evening, we would sing a different cantata, Bach cantata or something else, you know, so there was a lot of repertoire to learn. And in addition to the 45-minute rehearsal after school every day, on Friday, uh, after some playtime, you had dinner with the men of the choir in the cafeteria and then rehearsed with the men. Uh, because of course we sang in four-part harmony in church, and then on Sundays there was a rehearsal before each service. So it was a lot of rehearsing, and there were special concerts. I mean, we would sing Messiah at the Academy of Music with the members of the Philadelphia Orchestra accompanying us. Uh, I mean, uh, when the Philadelphia Orchestra needed a boy choir, we were the choir that would perform with the Philadelphia Orchestra when they needed a boy choir. So You know, we felt like we were something, right? We had a real identity. So obviously it was a tremendous shock to leave the choir school and begin 8th grade at my local junior/senior high school in Philadelphia. I went from having 45 boys in my school, so like my classes only had like 6 or 7 kids in them, 10 at the most. It was like being tutored in all these subjects. So Here I get to a school that has 5,000 students, coeducational, and I was scared to death. But my mother knew that that public school had a really good music program. And so she felt that I would flourish there once I got over the shock of being with so many other kids every day. So it worked. And, um, and this was the next most important moment in my growth as a musician because the choir director was very fine. She was a very fine vocalist herself and a very fine conductor. The director of the orchestra was not the greatest conductor in the world, but, you know, he was more than willing to lend me a stringed instrument when I finally got up enough nerve in 11th grade to ask if I could borrow a stringed instrument from the school. They had all these instruments that they would lend to kids for free and they would give you lessons on these instruments. But anyway, So in 11th grade, I asked the orchestra conductor if I could borrow something. He said, I have a cello and I have a viola. And I said, I think my grandmother played the cello. I'll take the cello. Now, I had already fallen madly in love with the sound of the strings of the orchestra. And that was from just going to the Philadelphia Orchestra concerts as a child. My mother would take us and also some of the members of St. Peter's Church would have subscriptions at the Philadelphia Orchestra. When they couldn't use the tickets, they would give them to the choir boys to go to the concerts. So I was listening to the Philadelphia Orchestra live all the time. And that sound of that string section just captivated me. So at a certain point, I got up enough nerve to ask this gentleman if I could borrow this cello. He said, come back this afternoon. And he said, I have a cello and a viola. And when I got back, and I know he did this on purpose because he didn't have enough violas in the orchestra. He feigned absent-mindedness and he said, oh, I gave the cello to someone else. Would you take this viola? That is how George Marinermole became a violist, totally by accident. So, so in any event, the other really important thing that happened at this school was the first year there in 8th grade. It was, it was again, one of the, they didn't have middle school in those days. They had junior high schools and senior high schools and junior high school was 7th and 8th grade. And then senior high school was 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th. So when I got there in 8th grade., sitting in the cafeteria, first week, I'm sitting and I hear coming down the hallway the New World Symphony, the finale. And I'm thinking, I gotta find out where this music's coming from. So I left my lunch and went down the hallway, and there was a separate wing for all the music classes and ensembles. There were two large rehearsal rooms and one smaller rehearsal room and several classrooms and offices for the faculty, but it was built in such a way that the noise pollution that musicians make did not reach the math classes and the English classes.

They—

we were walled off from the rest of the school. So I walked down this corridor to get to the music wing, and of course the music was pouring out of this room. And the first thought that I had was, why are the students not misbehaving? Because I, I grew up in a working-class neighborhood, and all my friends thought that my obsession with classical music was rather nutty, you know. Eccentric. What's wrong with this kid? Because they— I mean, it wasn't that I didn't like rock and roll. I mean, I loved Elvis Presley. I loved the Everly Brothers. You know, I had my own 45 records of— 45 RPM records of them. But most of them really poo-pooed classical music. And so I'm thinking the teacher in that room, he must either have bound and gagged the students or something, because there's no peep coming out of them. They're just sitting there. So I sat down outside the classroom and after a few minutes, Mr. Feinberg, the teacher who ultimately got his doctor's degree, Dr. Feinberg, he came out and said, um, wouldn't you rather sit in a chair? Why don't you come into the room? Saul Feinberg's whole mission in life was to teach teenagers how to listen to classical music. Wow. And he, he had written his doctoral thesis on this subject. And developed a course which he called the Perceptive Listening Course.

Really?

I learned everything I know about teaching music listening from that man. Now, because I was in the choir, I mean, obviously coming out of St. Peter's Choir School, the choir director grabbed me immediately and put me into the choir because I could read music and all those good things. So I thought, well, I'm just going to have to come to this class on my lunch hour and go as often as I can. So I began attending his classes strictly auditing them, not for credit, not for anything, because I did not have to take those courses. No one who was in a music ensemble had to take this music listening course, but everyone else in the school did. So he affected the lives of thousands and thousands of kids over the decades he taught there. And he was a very fine pianist and a composer. Eventually I asked him to be my piano teacher. And so I had 3 years of studying piano with him as well. But I just soaked in his methodology. It's he who believed that answering problems, giving people problems to solve by listening, was the best way to teach this material. And also to tease them and taunt them and make sure they had that aha about whether they were listening or not. He would set them up so that students would say, well, that's not fair, Mr. Feinberg, you know, because he would say, you know, I'm going to give you all the grade of C, just all of you. And they would say, that's not fair. And he said, of course it isn't. But why don't you say that when I ask you to give your complete attention to this next piece of music? I could say you're not being fair. And of course, adolescents are possessed, preoccupied with the idea that life is not fair. And of course, it only gets worse as we become adults, as we know. But we accept this idea somehow, to some degree. But in any event, He, he was a genius. Now, the man is still alive. And when I got out of music school in Louisville, uh, no one in Louisville who played in the Louisville Orchestra or the opera company or the ballet orchestra or whatever, none of them made enough money to live off it. So everyone had a day job, and all professional musicians rehearsed at night. The Louisville Orchestra rehearsed at night. So you had people in the orchestra who taught music at a local public school, or like my stand partner in the viola section worked for the newspaper. He worked for the Louisville Courier News, you know, and there were just all sorts of people in that orchestra who were very fine musicians, highly trained, but had other day jobs. And the principals of the orchestra were the faculty members of the University of Louisville School of Music. But when I got out of school, I realized I'm going to have to get a day job now. So I took a job teaching at a private school.. And having had very little instruction in music education at the university, cuz I was a performance major on the viola, I called Dr. Feinberg and said, I'm gonna come up and visit my dad for a week in Philadelphia. Can I just hang out at your house all day long and talk to you? And so I did that. And he, well, before you get here, I want you to order a copy of my doctoral thesis from the University of Michigan where they had copies of all these things on microfilm or something, and they would print you a copy of a thesis. He said, Before you get here, read my thesis and then we'll talk about it. So I did that. And of course it was an unbelievable week and it only added on to what I had experienced as a young man in Lincoln High School, sitting in his classroom, you know, and he really helped guide me into what I would do with the kids at private school. So put that experience into George Maul. Now George Maul is married to a wonderful woman who's an opera singer. And I told her, if we don't move out of Louisville, you will never sing anywhere but Louisville, Kentucky. It just— we have to move to New York City. We have to find you an agent. And then if things go well, you can have a career as an opera singer. So in 1975, we moved to New York City. And it was scary because I didn't know anybody in New York City. Very few people, you know, just an occasional person here or there, someone I'd met at the Aspen Festival in 1970, whatever, you know, but no real contacts. And so my first wife and I got there, rented an apartment, and of course I started playing the viola with anybody who would let me play with them. You know, in other words, I met someone who was a musician, I said, can we play quartets together? Because I wanted them to be able to tell the people who were the personnel managers and contractors for the freelance orchestras, this guy plays well, you know. Hire him, hire him. And of course I joined the union, all that sort of thing. Now my wife's career, we got her an agent and her career took off and she was away for 6 months out of each year for a few years running there. And, um, not all at once, but she made her Carnegie Hall debut that first year we were there with the Oratorio Society of New York, singing the Bach B Minor Mass as a soloist. And, you know, I was super happy for her. Problem was it was difficult for us to keep our marriage intact being apart from each other so much. And so at a certain point, we just decided that we would amicably part company. Not that that wasn't traumatic because we had been married for 10 years, but here began my life in New York. And it was challenging. We were constantly running out of money and we would call her father in Louisville and say, can we please borrow X amount of money? And he would say yes, knowing we never would be able to repay him. And then the next month we would call my dad and say, Dad, can I borrow some money for the rent? Or whatever, you know. Long story short, you know, I finally began to be able to support myself as a violist. I got enough work, and when I was playing with the freelance orchestras in the city, and I, and I also, you know, my first wife said, hey, George, you sing very well, you know, from your training at the choir school and that sort of thing. I'm going to give you voice lessons, and I want you to audition for a church job. Where you will be the baritone soloist. So I got a church job at a church in New Jersey where I was the baritone soloist in addition to playing the viola. And I also auditioned for and became a member of the professional choir of the New York Philharmonic at that time, which was called the Camerata Singers. And, uh, that was when I got to sing under Pierre Boulez for the first time, um, as, as a member of that chorus. So There were lots of very exciting experiences to go through. Obviously, I was totally bewildered and amazed and in love with New York City. It seemed like the greatest thing in the world. And I remember my friend from the Aspen Festival who had lived in New York for 10 years already said, enjoy it while you can, George. It will get to you after a while. But in any event, at a certain point, I became of the oldest, for the Opera Orchestra of New York, which is conducted by a woman, Eve Queller, who had founded that ensemble. And they were giving concert performances of unknown operas by people like Verdi and Puccini and all the canon of composers, but operas that never get staged at the Met or anything like that. And they would do them just singing them, stand up singing them with the orchestra. And she would hire world-famous singers to be the leads. Uh, Montserrat Caballé, Marilyn Horne, people like that. It was just, it was amazing. And then the lesser roles, she would populate with young singers. She would go on trips to Europe to find young singers who were unknowns, so they would come over and sing the other lesser roles. And she was so good at picking singers, often after a performance with the opera orchestra, the next year they would wind up being offered a contract at the Metropolitan Opera. You know, she launched their careers. It was just, it was incredible. But what a thrill. I mean, she was the first conductor to hire me, and, um, what a thrill that first January to be sitting on the stage of Carnegie Hall playing with this wonderful orchestra, this incredible music. And, um, so I loved that life quite a while, but I still wanted to be a conductor. That was something that had entered my mind in the choir school, watching Phil— Philadelphia Orchestra, watching Eugene Ormandy conduct the orchestra. Uh, you know, it was, you know, I just thought, I, I I would love to do that, but I never told anyone for a long time. In fact, when I told my viola teacher in the Philadelphia Orchestra that I wanted to do this, just before I left for music school in Louisville, I said, I want to be a conductor, and he said, are you out of your mind? I just loved it, but I persisted. And of course, I was very lucky in Louisville. Before I left Louisville, I had become the conductor of the Louisville Ballet and the assistant conductor of the Kentucky Opera and, um, and the conductor of a choral group there, as well as a theater that did Broadway shows. So I, you know, I was getting a lot of conducting experience and it was a lot to give up to move to New York City to help my wife's career. And she had, she had a lot to give up too. She was already on the voice faculty at the university by that time. And, you know, it was hard. To pull up roots again. But we struck out for New York, and, and it all paid off because Eve Queller asked me at one point to be her assistant conductor. This allowed me to sometimes prepare the chorus for the Carnegie performances, and it also allowed me to work on the parts for the orchestra. She needed help in making sure the parts— you talk about how the orchestra at my concerts are right on the You have to mark the parts for an opera incredibly carefully because there are often cuts. This entire section of music is left out, so you have to mark them so that the musicians are in no way tempted to play the music. And, and her rule was, if they can't see it, they can't play it. So whereas the usual method was to make a, a vertical mark and then make a slanting horizontal mark to the music that you want them to go to and put another vertical mark at the beginning of that measure, she would have me cut up paper, scrap paper, and paste it over, Scotch tape it over the parts you didn't want them to see. So they never played the wrong music in rehearsal or in concerts because we made sure the parts were absolutely prepared for that performance. And, uh, in any event, she liked me. And now that my marriage had ended, I, I remember there was an occasion when I told the personnel manager of the orchestra that I was dreading the next week, and he said, why, George? And he said, I said, well, I'm going with my first wife to tell her Southern Baptist parents that we have decided to divorce. And he says, boy, that sounds bad. Now, as it turns out, Marcia, my present wife, was a rehearsal pianist for the Opera Orchestra of Newark. She'd been playing in rehearsal, piano rehearsals with Marilyn Horne and Montserrat Caballé and Nikolai Gedda and whomever, you know. So she overheard this conversation. Now, I knew Marcia. I thought she was very cute. And she was listening to this conversation. Now, I had never anything to do with Marcia except professionally at the opera orchestra. But she seemed like a nice person. But she came up and she said, you know, George, I had this same conversation with my parents a couple of weeks ago. My husband and I are divorcing. I said, oh, she said, when you get back from Louisville, why don't we go out for dinner and trade war stories. She asked me out on our first date. That was March 11th, 1979.

Wow, you remember exact date.

Oh, I do.

At a certain point, I was told about an opportunity at the League of American Orchestras to study with an Austrian conductor named Richard Johannes Laert. Now, Dr. Laert had played in the Berlin Philharmonic under Artur Nikisch, who at the turn of the 19th century was deemed to be the greatest conductor in the world at that point. And Dr. Laird not only played under him in the Berlin Philharmonic, but also became a conducting student of his. Dr. Laird's parents had been friends of Johannes Brahms, and when Dr. Laird was a little boy, Brahms had bounced him up and down on his knee when his parents would visit sometimes. So this man's— and Dr. Laird had also studied conducting with Richard Strauss. So his credentials were unbelievable. And because his wife had a career that he felt was not advancing in Europe, he made the decision because she was a Hollywood film script writer to move. I mean, she was a film script writer to move to Hollywood, California, so that she could have a bigger career as a script writer. So he became the conductor of the Pasadena Symphony and stayed there for many, many decades. And at a certain point, his reputation as a conductor and guru and teacher began to spread. And so the League of American Orchestras said, Richard Laird, Richard Johannes Laird— his parents had named him for Brahms, his middle name— Richard, would you teach 10 American conducting students each summer with an orchestra, how to conduct. And he said, I will. So this program started, it went on for many, many years, and I heard about it and I had to ask for a recommendation. So I asked Eve Queller to write a recommendation, and then I asked Lukas Foss, who at that time was the music director of the Brooklyn Philharmonic, which I also played in. He also wrote a recommendation for me, and so they invited me to audition. Audition for a fellowship to study with this man. I did the audition. The audition was with the New Jersey Symphony on this East Coast. The people who auditioned were on the East Coast, and I was selected as one of the 10 people to go study with this man, uh, who held forth in Virginia. They had this ancient resort that it was built during the Civil War era. Big hotel, wooden hotel, little wooden cabins, and, uh, That's where they had this, and they would play in the ballroom of this hotel. So the orchestra would assemble and Dr. Laird would work with his students. So anyway, that was another total seminal moment in my life. He was the greatest conducting teacher I ever had, and he certainly was one of the greatest conductors I ever saw conduct. He, with his eyes and little gestures of his hand, could elicit the most unbelievable responses from an orchestra. It was quite something to behold. So anyway, after that, a year later, the music director of the New Jersey Symphony, who had watched me in the competition to get this fellowship, conduct his orchestra. He remembered me. And when he needed an assistant conductor, out of the blue, called me in my apartment in Manhattan, said, George— he was Polish— George, I might have some work for you. Come have lunch in Newark. So I go over to Newark and I almost dropped my spoon in my soup when he alded with, I'd like you to be my assistant conductor. I thought, you've seen me conduct for like 10 minutes in this audition, you know. Anyway, I guess he liked what he saw. So wow. That was when I got my first real big, with a larger ensemble conducting job. And, um, things have sort of progressed from there.

Oh my goodness.

It's been a wild ride and I wanted for the worst way just to be a symphony orchestra conductor at that point. I mean, my first goal had been get a job in a symphony orchestra like my teacher at the Philadelphia Orchestra, play in a symphony orchestra. Well, I did that, then get some conducting work, which I did. And, um, it seemed like that was the main driver. But somewhere on the way to the forum, as they say in that play, I realized that the best thing I could do with my time however much time I have left, is to try to help people be very moved by this music. What could I do to do this? And that's really what started us on this road that we're on right now with the Discovery Orchestra. I just felt like I had to reach as many people as I could with what I call the good news of classical music. It's, you know, it's, it's, it's a life force. That once you become entangled with it, it changes your life forever. I knew from age 4 and a half, remember?

But where was the turning point where you wanted to be the conductor, then in the end, you wanted to do this work?

Yeah, right. Well, we, you know, we had started the Philharmonic Orchestra of New Jersey. That began when at a certain point, I realized I wanted to have my own professional orchestra. And that's a very difficult thing to achieve. You can audition for those few jobs that come up. You can submit your resume and go meet the board members and what have you. But without an agent, it is very difficult to get a really decent conducting job in this country. So I thought, I know the freelance players, I've been one of them. I know these people. I'm going to start an orchestra in central New Jersey where there is no orchestra and we'll play symphonic concerts for the audiences out there. So that was the, rational behind starting the Philharmonic Orchestra of New Jersey. Now, I would tell any conductor who thinks this idea, don't do it. You're nuts. I mean, it was anguishing to create the Philharmonic Orchestra of New Jersey, but we did. I mean, there were rough patches, times when I thought we were going to totally run out of money, but didn't. And we got it going so that we were a respected concert series to go to at that point. And as I said, playing at Richardson Auditorium and also, in Princeton and also at the Arts Center in Newark. And, um, we, you know, we were going all guns blazing. I mean, the orchestra had a good reputation. We got wonderful reviews, although I said that's not important to me as much as hyping the concerts before they happen so that an audience wants to attend them. But it was all from starting that music listening class in response to people asking us, what can I do to learn about classical music? And then it was sort of like, all that work with Saul Feinberg came blasting into my brain. And it was like, we have to do more of this. And the thing just snowballed until, you know, the board said, this is the most important thing we do. This is what other orchestras are not doing. We need to do this.

Wow.

So since the start, the whole entire, let's say, concert series at that time, concerts were all like you are holding the microphone and say, oh, all Discovery.

Oh, yep. Everything we would do was a Discovery concert.

You know, you also have that as a skill set, as a presenter, TV host. Where does that come from?

St. Peter's Choir School. One of the courses that every child, every one of the 45 students who were there at any given time, had to take was a course in public speaking. Taught by the choir master, who was also the headmaster of the school. He was a very fine public speaker, and he made the kids— first of all, there was a recitation contest every year, sometime in the spring. You would be required to either recite prose or poetry from memory in front of your parents and your grandparents and all the other kids in the school. Prizes would be awarded for what they thought were the best recitations. And in the weekly classes, you had to extemporaneously speak on a given subject. Dr. Gilbert would give you a subject to speak on, and then he would have you go out of the room. And while you were out of the room, he would point to various kids to do distracting things while you were talking. In other words, he would tell this kid to drop his pencil at a certain point on cue, and this person to rustle a piece of paper or whatever, just to try to get you jolted while you were doing your extemporaneous speech. I never had training like that before or after in my life. It was incredible. Now, because I felt so comfortable talking to people, when I got to high school, I joined the debate team, which also put me in front of other people. But anyway, so it was the choir school. The choir school gave all of the students who went there an amazing education, not just musically, which it was amazing musically, um, but public speaking. How about Latin, you know, when you're in 7th grade? You know, you don't do that normally. The kids who went there, many of them were middle class or lower middle class on scholarship. There were a few kids from the upper classes, you know, from wealthy families, but most of us were not. And so, um, he had his hands full, you know, turning us into polished little kids who function well in polite society.

But I guess you were prepared to be who you are today.

I think so. It made a difference. And it's interesting because many of the choir school graduates also became professional public speakers in that many of the choir school graduates became Episcopal priests. So they had to speak publicly every Sunday and also had to be speaking in other situations as the rector of some Episcopal church. It affected many, many people. Lawyers. There were a bunch of lawyers that came out of that school.

I mean, life is long and then also beautiful, but also challenges and then so many unexpected twists and turns.

Yeah.

I mean, you know, and, and, and the reason that my mother sent us to the choir school, my mother's mother and her father, my grandparents, had a job as the servants of a wealthy family. On the main line of Philadelphia. I don't know if you're familiar with Yukimi with the main line. There's this string of communities on the main line of the railroad. That's where the term comes from. And these are people who are incredibly wealthy, wealthy. They're the, they're the tycoons of industry and, and the, the CEOs of big corporations in Philadelphia. And they live incredibly extravagant lives, uh, in this area called the main line. One of the towns is called Belle Kinwood. It's a Welsh name, Belle Kinwood, Pennsylvania. And they're all suburbs of Philadelphia. And these people are on the boards of things like the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Lyric Opera and the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Ballet, et cetera. You know, they just, they're big people. My grandparents were the gardener. My grandfather was the gardener and my grandmother was the maid for this family. The daughter of this family was married to the priest and rector of St. Peter's Church, St. Peter's Episcopal Church. And they said to my grandmother, your grandsons must go to St. Peter's Choir School, which she had never heard of in her life. That's how they found out about it. All these little twists and turns. It's, you know, you just can't.

I have to say, you're meant to be who you are.

And I feel that way.

Yeah. Maybe this is not something that you dreamed of as a child or as a young person.

Well, my mother did not want me to become a musician. She felt that it was a very precarious life in which you were apt to have many disappointments. She definitely was disappointed that she did not have a career as a performer. You know, she did a lot of accompanying. She also played the organ for a church. But she was disappointed that she did not have a solo career as a pianist. She certainly played incredibly well, and I can still hear her playing in my mind's ear. But sadly, when I was a senior in high school, she contracted cancer and she died. And on her deathbed, we had these conversations in which I said, Mom, I know that Nana, my grandmother, my grandmother wanted both my brother and me to become Episcopal clergymen. That was her dream for us. And I, my brother actually went through with this and became one, although he left the church at a certain point, but he actually did what Nana hoped he would. And I was sort of on target to do it, but I said to my mother, I want to go to music school. I just, I want to be a musician. And she said, no, it's a terrible life. Don't do it. Finally, after enough of these conversations, she said, okay, I give you my permission to go to music school. To school, but you must promise me you will never marry another musician because you will both be poor together. Can you imagine your dying mother saying such a thing to you? And of course, I've done it twice, Yukimi. I've married two musicians. But you know, what can I tell you? It's, um, I'm, I'm certainly glad I went to music school. It was definitely felt where I wanted to be.

And I really can sense your passion and love for music through everything you do.

I, I would hope that comes through because it's definitely felt on my end.

It's contagious. That's why I was like in tears watching that video and really fell in love with music all over again. That's a really fantastic sensation, right? I remember the first time when I heard the Beethoven Fifth Symphony in the music school and then fell in love with the— Oh, yes. You know?

Right.

And how scary that triplet sounded, you know?

Yes. Yes, it sounds really foreboding.

I know.

You know, I mean, people have said all sorts of silly things about it. It's Beethoven knocking on some door or something, you know. No. It's a statement about Beethoven's feeling life, his internal life of feeling. And he was one angry dude.

Yes.

And I understand. I get it. I mean, what— I mean, here was a brilliant pianist, you know, capable of being out there on stage with the best of them. And now to lose the ability to hear sound in real time, you know, Ouch.

Yeah. Such an— it must be such an isolating feeling too. Not a lot of people would understand that.

Understand that. Yes, exactly. Cut off from friends' circles and what have you. It just— because of his suffering, he is one of my favorite composers because he was so willing to bear his emotions to us. We all suffer from time to time.

Yeah, yeah. But that's why this work is important. That's why music is important. That's why classical music is important. So what is your thought on keeping classical music relevant in this fast-paced, crazy world?

To me, the only way is to teach as many people as possible to listen. In other words, I can't tell them stories. I can't show them movies about the life of a composer. I can't, you know, I can't go down the street with a bullhorn like some campaign for office and say, "Come to the concerts!" You know, you're going to really— I mean, that's not practical. Somehow, I often say that if I were the king of the United States, which I am not and never will be, we will never have a king if I have anything to do with it. But I would decree that every child would study the art of listening to music in school so that, like the people who grew up in Hungary having been raised on the Kodály method— I mean, when I conducted in Budapest, the one time I conducted there, conducting Carmina Burana, I will never forget the sensation of the audience because I knew that they were all trained to read music at sight and were very musically literate. I've never felt an audience so clinging to every sound that we made that night. And so it's not that it can't be done, but of course, that was a socialist country with a dictatorship, and it was just decreed that everybody would study the Kodály method in school, you know. So I don't know if it's— I don't know it's still the case at this moment under Orbán. I have no idea. But it was definitely the case at that point. And that's what I would do to try to make it happen. Now, we can't do that, right? That's not going to happen in the United States. So the question is, what is the method by which we can teach the most people how to listen? And I'm convinced it's electronically. In other words, if we can somehow get someone to click for just a minute, click onto something that catches their fancy or their attention. I mean, obviously, I'm always telling people, you will never have an experience like this. If you have this experience, you will become addicted to it. Although it's not a drug, it's completely addicting.

You know, why is this so important? Why is classical music so important to us?

Because I think it changes our lives in ways that we cannot even imagine. First of all, because we learn to listen to music and feel our own feelings very strongly. We also begin to feel the feelings of the composers, these other people. I mean, it's an amazing thing that someone who's been dead for more than 100 years can, through the goodwill of a bunch of musicians who are reproducing the score that they created, it's like they're sitting in a room with us pouring out their deepest feelings about everything. So in terms of developing a sense of empathy and in life. I think that's a very important reason to become sensitized to art, including painting and sculpture and poetry, all of the arts. But music, I've always felt, is the most direct route into our hearts. Uh, it's, it's like an electrical force. You can't even see it, you can't touch it. As Saul Feinberg always said, it's invisible. And it's not like a painting that you can hang at the Philadelphia Art Museum and it will always be there, and you can go look at it whenever you want. This thing occurs in time and then it's gone.

Yes.

So if you're not there with it every second, you're going to miss something important. I mean, when Brahms changes that one chord the last time that melody comes back, if you're there from the beginning, it will seem shattering, just earth-shatteringly emotionally moving to hear that one chord change. Same thing with a Bach chorale. You know, but I think if you were severely emotionally disturbed in some way, if you were filled with so much either self-hatred or I don't know what, sadly, you might not receive those benefits from classical music. But I think most people, certainly more than the less than 5% of the American population that regularly listens to classical music— and I mean listen, not hear, not have it on in the office while they're working in the office or have it on while they're cooking in the kitchen. And no, actually, you know, something less than 5% of the US population sits down and listens, or stands and listens, whatever they do, but gives it their undivided attention. That percentage needs to grow somehow.

That's right. Yes. Maestro, I can be with you forever talking about wonderful—

I won't tell Marcia you said that. But it's really nice to be with you.

So I know we have to really end our conversation soon, so before we go, I just want to say to my audience that the Discovery Orchestra is obviously available on YouTube channel, and also you have a podcast show, Notes from Under the Piano. And then also you have— so for Discovery Orchestra, you can go to discoveryorchestra.org, and then your app is AHA Classical app, so you can find them on any app store, correct?

And on PBS Passport, uh, our television shows are there. If you're a member of your local public television station, you get free access to PBS Passport. You can watch any shows, including ours, on that particular, uh, site online. And, um, trying to think if there's any other venue. Well, again, you can tune in to the radio online on 2nd and 4th Saturdays of the month, 7:30, WWFM.org.

So before I let you go, we have one more thing to do, which is the rapid-fire questions where I get to ask fun questions. So no explanation is needed. So let's go. All right. All righty. What is your comfort food?

Comfort food is chocolate.

How do you like your coffee?

With cream and artificial sweetener.

Cats or dogs?

I love both, but cats have been my pet of choice through most of my life. I've had both. Love dogs, but cats are it.

Summer or winter?

Neither. Fall is my favorite season.

Okay, yes. What skill have you always wanted to learn but haven't had the chance to?

I would say to play the electric bass or the acoustic bass in a jazz ensemble and improvising.

Improvising, yes. What is your word or words to live by?

Love one another.

Beautiful. What is the most important quality you look for in other people?

A genuineness. Someone who does not have pretense or some facade. That you feel like you're getting right to them when you meet them.

Name 3 people who inspire you, living or dead.

Well, obviously we're going to say Sol Feinberg. We're going to say Richard Laird, Richard Johannes Laird, and Marsha, my wife.

Beautiful. Name one piece in your current playlist.

In my current playlist, Bach Brandenburg Concerto No.

4.

What do you believe is the key to a fulfilling life?

Learning to appreciate yourself fully and other people.

Last question, fill in the blank: music is blank.

Music is the world to me.

Ding ding ding! Thank you so much, Maestro. It's been a wonderful conversation, and this concludes this episode of The Piano Pod with Thank you, Mr. Maul, for joining my show today and sharing your stories, insights, expertise. You can learn more about Maestro Maul and his incredible work at the Discovery Orchestra. Please visit their website at discoveryorchestra.org. And don't forget to check out the interactive music appreciation, appreciation app, AHA Classical, at aha-classical.com. All the links are listed in the show notes. And thank you to my wonderful audience fans for tuning in. If you enjoyed today's episode, please rate and review it on your favorite podcasting platform. Remember to hit the thumbs up, uh, and subscribe to my YouTube channel if you are watching this episode. Follow The Piano Pod with on social media to get the latest piano news via Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. I will see you for the next episode of The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song with Maestro.

Once again, Yukimi, thank you so much for inviting me to be your guest.

Thank you.