2014-10-01 Update
Ricardo Morales, Clarinet
―We are really honored to have you as our regular member!
It is such an incredible honor and it is great happiness for me. I really enjoy the music while I’m in Mito with Maestro Ozawa. I’m extremely happiest while I’m here!
―You’ve played in Mito since January 2014. What is your impression of the Mito Chamber Orchestra?
I like the orchestra’s flexibility, first of all. They are mingled very well and they can play many different styles. It is interesting how the orchestra pleased to work each other. I really love the musical interaction, their openness to the music making.
―I’ve heard that your wife is Japanese-American.
Yes, her name is Amy Oshiro. She is Japanese-American and she is violinist and a member of the Philadelphia Orchestra. She also participates in the Saito Kinen Orchestra with Maestro Ozawa. We come together and we have great time playing in Matsumoto.
―I also heard that someone related to you is from Mito.
Yes, we have a child and our first baby-sitter was from Mito. Her name is Minagawa Elisa san. It was a great pleasure to meet her parents and spend time together with her family here in Mito in January. It’s a great connection! It makes me realize that the world is really small. It’s just amazing!
―Let me ask you first of all how you started the music in Puerto Rico.
I come from the family of musicians. I have four brothers and one sister, all of them are professional musicians. Two of them are composers, one of them is a cellist, a percussionist, and a conductor. Most of them are a little older than I. When I was 5 or 6 years old, they used to play something like Christmas carol with my father. By the time I grew up, I just wanted to join and have fun. That’s how I started.
―Are your parents also musicians?
Not at all. My father was a law librarian and my mother was a nurse. But they love music and they are good at playing a little thing together. We just blossomed from there.
I picked up the clarinet when I was 11. I remember the first day I played. I got my clarinet and I was playing for four hours! It was the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard. I remember my parents said “you may want to save your lips for tomorrow!” I have been interested, crazy and love it.
―Did you play any other instrument?
Yes, I started clarinet, and violin a little later. I used to go to music camp. My first two years, I was playing in the string camp. At the end of the rehearsal, it was time to practice. I just brought the clarinet and we had a lot of time. I found the clarinet was my main passion and I consequently concentrated on that. Had I kept the violin, I would probably have been the terrible violinist, which is better than nothing!
―Is the classical music popular in Puerto Rico?
Yes, it’s quite popular over there. The Conservatory of Music was founded by Maestro Pablo Casals in 1959 who used to go there and actually married with a young lady of Puerto Rico. Her name is Marta Casals and she has been very important musical figure. He also inaugurated the music festivals in 1957. They had been quite good tradition of music, started the music scene in Puerto Rico, and nurtured it happen. There are some public school specifically for music teaching and that’s where I started. The conservatory has many players who has come from the States to train.
―You started studying music in Puerto Rico and then moved to the United States.
My teacher, Lesly Lopez in Puerto Rico was a wonderful teacher and musician. He told my parents “he has good ability of music.” He encouraged my parents to let me move to the US. So I came to Indiana. Two brothers and one sister were already studying music in the Indiana University. I stayed with them, finished the high school, and started my artist diploma in Indiana University.
―At that time, have you already decided to be a professional musician?
I think from the first day when I got the clarinet, it was like “Oh, that’s my passion, that’s what I wanted to do!” I still remember the smell of the brand-new instrument. It’s a happy feeling!
―You’ve made a great career as the principal clarinetist of the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, the Florida Symphony Orchestra etc. How do you feel playing in such great orchestras in the world?
I feel extremely lucky. I have learned the great deal from my colleagues and maestros. I’m always learning and I always want to keep learning and nurturing the human spirit for knowledge. It has been great opportunity to do that. It’s so much more to work with maestro Ozawa. It’s great musical experience for me.
―You’re doing not only the orchestra, but also the opera and the chamber music.
I find that all of them have slightly different roles in terms of interaction that one has to do. When one is doing the opera, we have to be much more mindful of balance to play alongside singers. Hopefully never against! But sometimes it could. So we try not to do that. Actually, in chamber approach, there always has to be communication which is fluent between all the musicians, wood and wind section and string. I find that the most important thing is the musical communication or interaction. Also the openness in the heart and the mind to be able to keep learning. Sometimes I have played the Mozart quintet and several times Mozart’s concerto. I am always asked “what tempo would you like?” I always say “yes”! Because we always have certain preferences or ways about how the music should go and how we try to recreate the music. But when we are given the opportunity to interact, that’s when the real discovery happens. I don’t think anybody however great…. the actual principal that makes the music great is that there are so many opportunities and view point that can transcend and to makes it blossom in different way. That is really interesting. This is what we are doing. We are working on the beautiful little details in the rehearsal. These communication and flexibility always has to take place and makes it really wonderful experience. The music is never set.
One of my teacher, Anton Winber, the teacher of Guildford school of music and drama, and he was my teacher at Indiana. He’s book of musical quotes and thinking. One of the things he had written in the book which I have always remembered is that “music perpetrates itself by denying the definitive version.” There’s always the possibility that we can play Beethoven’s 5th symphony for another ten thousand times and it’s still the great opportunity for discovery. We always have to keep trying to do that growth. There’s also a quote from Pablo Casals. He was interviewed when he was nineties. He was asked “Maestro Casals, how come you still practice so many hours a day?” He said “because I think I might make some progress!” I think that’s the best attitude to have if we are to continue growing as a musicians and a human being. Music is the extension of being. If we have open heart and open soul, we can always have the opportunity for interaction.
―In your opinion, what is the key to let more people have interests in classical music? I think the important thing is the education to get people to know more. The more they are exposed to, the more they’ll be open to it. I also think that people don’t realize that classical music is sort of like wine or good sake. There’s certain stages where your body can digest it better and you can appreciate it better. But nowadays, I have found that more people are going to different things because of all kinds of exposure such as internet. So it’s not necessarily the classical music world is winding down. But people just have many more options and distracted many more times. I think that our mission aside from the promotion of early education is to make it more accessible like this concert for children. Sometimes it is just like a literature. There’s certain level of understanding one needs and that it makes it great. That’s how those classical world and orchestra come. There’s next generation of people who want to enrich their lives. But unfortunately, it doesn’t happen all at once. We as human being, are all in stages I believe. Just like my incredible passion for classical music and clarinet starts very early. There’re many different stages in life and I think that changes as our life experience changes.
―Could you tell me about your instrument which sounds very unique?
Actually, it was a while ago that we finished doing the whole clarinet. I could develop the line of clarinet with my friend Morrie Backun. The clarinet that I play is MoBa, Morrales Bakun, and we developed the instrument with cocobolo which is a different kind of wood from Granadilla. We have changed the design of the actual dimension inside of the instrument and the finger placement to optimize the intonation and the resonance. It has been very wonderful project that we have. We started ten years ago with mouthpiece, belles, and some barrels to improve the current instrument. One day we thought “why don’t we make our own instead of improving everybody else’s thing?” It was the wonderful experience to do this. At the beginning, we started with the profile of what we want: what I want to have in an instrument, what I require, what I dream of. The thing is, we just started blank. It’s like “imagine the plan like the most favorite piece. How you want to hear it.” No, this is what everybody does. Let’s just start from scratch to try to think about how to approach the music in the best way. That has been wonderful experience to look at the clarinet in a more objective way as a tool for expression, not just an instrument that we are fond of its sonority and that we use music to play it, but the opposite! How to make an instrument that I want to play the music to the highest degree possible.
―That sounds quite interesting. Is the clarinet you play is the MoBa model?
This one is made out of cocobolo. Most of the black clarinet is made of Granadilla. It’s an African black wood. They are from the same family of woods, but cocobolo tends to have a little bit more resonance. The Granadilla, most popular one, is just as hard and it’s a little bit denser. So one blows harder, it gets a little bit harder sound, edger. While as cocobolo tends to expand in a rounder fashion.
―Your clarinet sounds beautiful and has the rich colors of the sound.
We always say that we have to create our own sound. We can call the instrument like a microphone of what we are trying to do. As a tool, as a microphone, it should certainly be great for a tool and hands for what we are doing. But the worst scenario, it shouldn’t getting your way! Because music is difficult enough to portrait all the characters and the musical intent of the composers. Now it is interesting because many times, we are used to certain efficiency of the instrument. We are just used to working around it. If we’ve been used to two left shoes, and then you put right shoes and left shoes, you feel a little strange at the beginning not to have that shoe straining your foot. It has been interesting to try to unlearn some of the habit previous instrument have, that has made us get accustomed to.
―What do you think is important thing to succeed as a top player in the world?
I have no idea, when I get to be there, I’ll let you know! I think the key to success, what I suspect and what I try to do is to have what they call “zen mind”, “student mind.” Always look out for how things can be better and the openness. Whenever we get a conductor, he conducts Beethoven’s 5th symphony, and they may not what you want to hear, the musicians says ”it’s not like I know this piece”. When you get that cynicism, there is a closeness. As the individual or a musician, try as hard as possible to have the openness. There would be time that some ideas might not be our preferred ones, and it doesn’t work at all in totality. But sometimes we get one’s idea and you work for them, it’s not a wasted experience. It is important to keep the cynicism away and always strive to make it beautiful for people. What we’re trying to do is communication. In every concert, there are always some people who have never heard of that piece. We have to bring the love and vitality to bring the impact to that person. That is one of the most wonderful experiences. There has been many times I have seen somebody yawning, being able to hear Schubert’s great symphony for the first time and… it is just wonderful! If you do it really well, it’s such a great workout to finish triumphantly in such a symphony like that and to bring that energy to offer to the public.
―What would you like to do in the future as a musician?
One of the most important thing for me is teaching. I want to share my passion for the openness in discovery. Nowadays, music is very competitive and there’s a great deal of technical accomplishment that has to be required in order to “be good” and let them on great. But it’s very important to bring for the next generation the enthusiasm and the love for it. It’s not just an array of skills that we have to have in order to play an instrument. It’s an attitude and a passion for a life that you bring into it. In that way then, life and music become much more interconnected. It’s always a challenge to do that because we have to be specific and we have to do exercise, finger movement the right way. In that technical world, sometimes the important thing can be lost. To me, the greatest challenge as a teacher, as a mentor is to try to keep the open-mind and to keep the line of communication so that they can keep the context of all the work and become a poet. It’s not just craftsmanship so you can see it just clean what it is you’re writing. It has a content that inspires people.
I used to teach at the Juilliard School and now I teach at the Curtis institute of music and the Temple University. I am very lucky to have some really exceptional and talented students. Their flexibility is much greater to instill inspiration and love for the music. One of the favorite things about teaching my learning through the interaction. It is a double-rich experience.
October 2014
Interviewer: Maki Takasu
