Last Thursday, Audrey Vardanega,
the fabulously talented young concert pianist from Oakland, was in her
apartment in New York City, where she's beginning her junior year at Columbia,
practicing "Scarbo," the final movement of Ravel's suite
"Garspard et la nuit."
Suddenly, the phone rang. It was
her mom calling from Oakland with the news she'd been dreading for months: Her
beloved mentor and surrogate grandfather, the great conductor George Cleve, whom
poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti called "one of the great Mozart interpreters of
our time and place," had died from liver failure earlier that day in his
home in Berkeley.
"I was truly, truly blessed to
have him in my life," she says. "George took me in when I was 11
years old. He coached me, arranged some of my first appearances with
orchestras, watched old movies with me, and taught me the importance of
respecting the integrity of the composer. He never missed a concert I gave.
"He taught me how to give some
of myself to others through music. He showed me how to use music to express
love. I am so thankful for his grand life, his stubborn love, and his support
for all my endeavors. I know that he's listening when I play, and I will never
play another bar of Mozart without thinking of him. I will always miss him."
Then, when the phone call was over,
she paid tribute to him in the only way she could think of: She went back to
practicing "Scarbo."
"I felt it would be OK because
wherever there's music, he's there. That's the beauty of George: He WAS the
music. He wasn't just a conductor; he let the music consume and define him. I
was supposed to play that piece for him next December, but now that's not going
to happen."
But she did get a chance to play
for him one last time the week before he died, when she went to his house to
see him before boarding the plane for New York. She played some of his favorite
pieces, including "Ondine," the first movement of "Gaspard et la
nuit," and the "Petrarch Sonnet" by Liszt.
"I'm so happy I did that. I
would have regretted not seeing him one last time. He didn't look very good,
and I had a horrible feeling that I wasn't going to see him again. I knew that
this was it."
But, in a curious way, she's still
learning from him.
"That night I wasn't able to
go to sleep. I kept hearing a motif from Brahms' 'Romance,' and it was as if he
was coaching me on it, giving me advice. He loved Brahms, and this motif kept
repeating and repeating in my head. It felt like George was planting it there."
And she'll keep learning from him
for as long as she lives.
"I'm not a religious person,
but whenever I play anything I played for him that he loved to hear, I'll feel
him listening. He gave so much to so many, and he asked for so little in
return."
And the feeling was mutual. I once
asked George how good Audrey was for her age, and he laughed and said, "Martin,
she's good for ANY age!" Then he added, "But the best part is that
she's such a great person."
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