A native of Amsterdam, Holland, percussionist Frank Epstein came to the United States in 1952, settling in Hollywood, California. A graduate of the University of Southern California, the New England Conservatory, and the Tanglewood Music Center, Mr. Epstein has been a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra since 1968. He is a faculty member at the Tanglewood Music Center and at the New England Conservatory, where he also founded and directs the NEC Percussion Ensemble and is Chairman of the Brass and Percussion Department.

Mr. Epstein has made recordings with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony, and the Boston Pops, as well as with Collage New Music, which he founded in 1972, and of which he was music director for twenty years. As music director of Collage, he has overseen the commissioning and performance of more than 200 new works written especially for that ensemble as well as the production of seventeen recordings. Mr. Epstein is also involved with the Avedis Zildjian Company, as a consultant on new product development (including the recent introduction of the Classical Orchestral Cymbal Selection), and as a clinician, conducting workshops and seminars throughout the country.

Mr. Epstein holds a bachelor of music degree from the University of Southern California and a master of music degree from New England Conservatory. His teachers included Robert Sonner, Earl Hatch, Murray Spivack, William Kraft, and Everett Firth. Before joining the Boston Symphony Orchestra he was a member of the San Antonio Symphony. Mr. Epstein was recently awarded a Presidential Commendation from the New England Conservatory for his work with Collage New Music.

This interview was conducted in Boston by Robert Leroux , January 19 2004

RL : Where, when and how did you start percussion and music?

FE : I was born in Holland and started piano as a child. When we immigrated here, I continued to study piano and ended up, probably like a lot of people, wanting to play in the school orchestra. In my school, there were about seven pianists who wanted to play in the student orchestra, and no percussion player; so the teacher said, “The four of you will play percussion, and the other three will stay on piano…”. That is how I became a percussionist, in junior high school in California.

I actually enjoyed it, and when I was in 10th grade, I went to a music camp. A gentleman there liked what I was doing and became my teacher for many years. His name is Robert Sonner. He originally came from Chicago and taught at the University of Southern California . 40 years later, he still is a good friend and colleague. He is also the editor of the book I am writing on orchestral cymbal performance.

After Robert Sonner left USC, I ended up studying with Bill Kraft, and that was a very productive relationship as well. During my years at USC, I also studied with a lot of different people including: Charles White (timpanist of the LA Philharmonic), Earl Hatch (well known mallet teacher), and John DeSoto. I also studied drum set. I was a very busy guy.

Just before I graduated from USC, someone phoned Bill Kraft and said they needed a percussionist in San Antonio, Texas . He suggested that I go. At that time, I was subbing with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, a very exciting job for a young 18 year old. I spent two years in San Antonio in the Orchestra. Then I decided that I wanted to go back to school. I had gone to Tanglewood and got interested in Vic Firth, and his particular approach on timpani. So I came here to Boston to study with him at the New England Conservatory. At the end of my first year there was an opening in the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Tommy Thompson (BSO cymbal player) had died in a tragic car accident. I won the audition and started playing in the orchestra while I continued going to school, and completed my degree program the following year.

The audition was in May, and in July and August the orchestra performed at Tanglewood. The first piece programmed that summer was Bill Kraft’s “Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra”. The concerto was originally written for 4 percussion players, but since the BSO has a section of 5, Bill added a part and I got to play in it. I have played with the BSO ever since.

RL : You are and have been known as the cymbal player with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. How and when did this cymbal thing start in your career?

FE : It’s funny you know, because in the LA Philharmonic where I was subbing, there was no official cymbal player. It was a small percussion section at the time, so small in fact that when they needed an extra player, a violist in the orchestra came up and usually played the cymbals. He had a minimal amount of training but was highly enthusiastic about playing percussion. Then it just happened that whenever I came in to play extra percussion, I ended up playing cymbals. The only real training I had was a couple of lessons with Bill Kraft. Then later, when I was a student in Tanglewood, I also had lessons with my predecessor, Tommy Thompson, a unique personality and a great cymbal player.

What I learned most in what I do and think is from the recordings as well as constant critiquing of radio broadcasts of my own performances with the orchestra. I listened again and again especially to the French music recordings of Charles Munch and the BSO. Of course I had all of Thompson’s cymbals available to me, and they provided me the means of critically listening to the recordings while getting to know those cymbals intimately. I had available a whole collection of beautiful instruments. That’s how I got my sense of sound and tone as well as the basis for a lot of the ideas that I have developed.

RL : So would you say that your cymbal playing technique is something you developed on your own?

FE : Yes and No. While many people play striking the cymbals on the way up (I did when I was very young), somewhere along the way, I got the idea to strike them down. I don’t remember how I got this, perhaps from Bill Kraft, but somehow I started striking them downward and then developed various other concepts and techniques for playing the repertoire.

Actually, there are obvious reasons to strike the cymbals on the way down rather than up. When you play up, you block your vision of the music, the conductor as well as the moment of contact. Also, when you play down, gravity is working with you. It’s more of a natural movement, I think. The difference may be minimal, to be honest, but striking down actually seems more related to the music: cut offs are down, and phrases finish downward most of the time

RL : Everyone who hears you play notices your beautiful pianissimos. Now you have said that while most players switch to smaller cymbals when it’s time to play piano, you get a better controlled sound using the same cymbals for piano and forte playing. In your view what is the relation between the effect you want to get at a soft level and the type of cymbals you use?

FE : It’s all very simple. Everything to me is pitch-related: high, low,and in between. Everything I do is related to pitch and to the sound of the orchestra at any particular moment in the music. Symphony Hall, which is very live, yet acoustically very warm and beautiful, is very helpful for playing the softer dynamics. I am very conscious of playing within an overall dark pitch sonority that exists when I play my note. I feel as I would be playing in the “wrong key” if I were to use small high-pitched cymbals to play a soft passage, such as Rachmaninov’s 2nd Piano Concerto. With the twenty-inch cymbals that we have today, the pianissimo is richer, warmer, offers a better blend of overtones, and, for me, offers a better blend with the sonority of the piano.

RL : What are the most important influences your teachers and conductors have had on your personal musical evolution?

FE : My analytical approach came from Bill Kraft. He was a percussionist and a composer, and when I studied the timpani repertoire with him, everything was related to the score. All his ideas came from studying the score. Actually, Bill was equally at home as a player and as a composer. He, of course, went on to compose some of the great classics in the percussion ensemble repertoire.

When I came to Boston , I studied with Vic Firth for his rhythmic force and personality. One could not help but follow that precise kind of playing. I learned to play cymbals rhythmically. To many people, cymbals are more of a colouristic instrument, but in my mind it should also be a very rhythmic instrument. One plays all this music with the brass section, especially in Tchaikovsky, where the music is often more rhythmically punctuated. I must say that Vic Firth really dominated the orchestra rhythmically, and one could not be a meek player in his section.

RL : What about conductors?

FE : Most conductors don’t have much to say about percussion. For many of them, at least in my early days, the less percussion, the better. But with Seiji Ozawa, with whom I played for 28 years, the approach was simple: if you play at the right time, he is happy. One can play loud, one can play soft, I could do anything, including all of my special strokes and techniques that I have developed over the years. On the other hand, your former conductor, Charles Dutoit, did have some very specific ideas. I remember, I thought that some of his suggestions were crazy at first, but then I got to like them. Pierre Boulez made several special cymbal requests. Rafael Kubelik also had some special insights into cymbal performance.

RL : You are mostly known as a symphony orchestra cymbal player, but another important part of your career has been devoted to the creation of new music with the founding of the group “Collage New Music”. How did this start?

FE : Very simple. First of all, I love music. I love orchestral music. I have always loved it and I have always wanted to play in an orchestra. When I first came to Tanglewood as a student in the early 60’s, I got involved in chamber music, in the truest sense, and specifically 20th century chamber music. I enjoyed the exposure, most of which was under the guidance of Gunther Schuller. I got completely soaked up in that experience, and the idea that one did not have to be in the back of the orchestra to make music. One could have a very intimate kind of musical relationship and experience while performing chamber music, of the 20th century.

At that time, I roomed with a composer. I got exposed to the “composer lifestyle”, the craziness of that profession and the anxiety that comes with it, and the need to compose and the need to have new works heard and performed. I got very close to that kind of aesthetic. And so, when I joined the BSO, the first thing I did was form a professional percussion ensemble; and that has helped me stay in contact with contemporary music.

During my first year of teaching at the Conservatory here, I prepared a faculty recital exclusively of 20th century music, and it was great! Many people were enthusiastic about it, and so we decided to keep doing this type of concert. I ended up organizing the group, with some initial bookings and promotion. Slowly it developed into a permanent group. During our first years, we performed at the Boston Fine Art Museum ’s Contemporary Gallery, and it was wonderful. We tried to relate our programming to the works of art presented in the gallery. Then the gallery closed and we moved to different halls in the city. Today I am president of the board of Collage New Music and, of course, still perform with the group.

RL : What type of repertoire does Collage play?

FE : We commission a great deal, which is one of the main reasons for our existence. We play Boston and New England regional composers, and, of course, American, Europeans as well as some of the Asian composers. We have done all sorts of things: operas, staged works, electronic music, everything! For 20 years we rehearsed in the basement of my home. At the time we worked only with guest conductors. I remember, when Seiji Ozawa conducted a concert for us, he used to bring his bright orange ski jacket to the rehearsals because it was so cold down there…

I acted as the music director/manager all in one, and did all the programming, hiring, etc. I really had to educate myself. After 25 years, we decided to have a permanent music director. We hired David Hoose, a brilliant conductor who has been with us now for 11 years. His presence has not reduced my input, but it has reduced the stress, the feeling of being responsible for everything. So Collage has been my baby. My biggest desire now, is to make sure this organization goes on when I step down.

RL : Let’s talk about your teaching career and your view on how percussionists should be trained today compared to how your generation was.

FE : Well, first I must say that my teaching career is closely tied to the New England Conservatory, where I studied and then started teaching after joining the Orchestra. So my view about teaching is related to our mission here at the Conservatory which is mainly to train orchestral musicians.

Technical levels have risen dramatically over the years. Initially it was led by the important timpanists of the day Saul Goodman (New York Philharmonic),Vic Firth (Boston Symphony Orchestra), Fred Hinger (The Philadelphia Orchestra, then later the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra), and Cloyd Duff (Cleveland Orchestra), to name a few in the U.S. alone. Today we are experiencing a renaissance in marimba and mallet performance due to the contributions made by so many innovative solo marimba players. Now with the high level of incoming students, partly due to these solo mallet players that have brought new approaches to pedagogy and repertoire, musical possibilities and challenges have risen as well. I would say that all around musicianship has not increased as much as has sheer technical facility. I also sense a slight diminution of attraction for timpani, performance and pedagogy among young players over the last few years. This may be related to the fact that professional orchestra life has gotten more and more hectic over the years, allowing less available time, commitment and energy by players for extensive instruction and coaching. Perhaps this is only a momentary blip. The study of timpani playing is more subtle, and learning the repertoire takes a huge amount of time. We take the time to study the important excerpts from the repertoire, but that seems to be as far as we get. I am not really happy about that and hope to increase the emphasis on a stronger pedagogy with timpani.

If you look at the BSO schedule today compared to 30 years ago, it’s three times the amount of work. I can remember when I was a student that a lesson might last 2,3, or 4 hours. I know I can’t do that for my students today.

RL : What about the specialization that seems more and more to happen with young percussionists after a while, as opposed to the training of “well rounded” percussion players?

FE : As I mentioned before, here at the Conservatory we have committed ourselves exclusively to the training of orchestral musicians, which I think has been quite a healthy approach. It has certainly contributed to attract wonderful musicians as teachers. I think we have our hands full training those students who want to play in orchestras

The future is hard to predict in terms of orchestral life, and especially today, in so many communities, the future seems closely tied to the economy. It is true that nowadays students have to struggle to get that first job. With this school’s focus on orchestral playing, I stress going beyond exclusively preparing for the auditions, and try to give a broader sense of music. In general, I try to stress music’s inherent value as part of our culture and on a personal level as well. Hopefully my students are better prepared for their everyday careers, lasting many years into the future, as well as the audition.

RL : Tell us about the book you are writing on cymbal playing.

FE : There are quite a few good books out. This one will be different though. Based on more than one hundred examples from the repertoire, each excerpt highlights a special technique that I want people to know about. The whole idea really is to try to initiate a concept of playing cymbals. Everybody plays cymbals differently. There are no schools of playing cymbals, and one can get a good sound on cymbals in different ways. Unfortunately, it is just as easy to make an ugly sound. I simply hope I will create something which others can build on, not just teaching how to play the cymbals, but rather what kind of sounds and techniques one might use to play in different kinds of repertoire and most importantly to instill the cymbal player with a sense of creativity and adventure. I just hope people will get into it as much as I do.

When I do my master classes, people enjoy learning about the techniques that I use. One of my greatest sources of satisfaction is when I see students that I have worked with use those special techniques and follow through on things I have talked about in class. You can easily tell whether someone can play cymbals or not. You can tell if one is comfortable with cymbals, even before one makes a sound. The idea that there is a technique, there is a source and a concept of interpretation on which to build, is the main purpose of this book.

RL : To conclude, please tell us about your work with Zildjian.

FE : I consider my work with the Zildjian Company to be really important. The main problem with Zildjian in the past was that they did not make cymbals specifically for orchestral players. They made cymbals for jazz players and set players, in the broadest sense. People would have to struggle to find a cymbal that they could use in an orchestra. When I approached them 10 years ago they were interested in making cymbals for orchestral players and we developed the “American” line. It was very interesting because there was a left cymbal and a right cymbal. One could select a specifically engineered right and left cymbal and make a good match.

The idea was good, but in practice it did not work that way. Even I would go in and end up matching two “right” cymbals. For that and other reasons, they stopped making them. A bit later, we re-started discussing orchestra cymbals again, and decided to concentrate our efforts to make a first class orchestral product. The result is what is now called the “Classic Orchestral” line of cymbals

RL : Your relationship with Zildjian is, on your part, based on the fact that you are an experienced cymbal player and that you have the sound in your ear. Reversely, has the sound of the new cymbals coming out of the Zildjian factory affected in any way your playing with the Boston Symphony, or have you kept pushing to obtain that sound that you hear?

FE  : Good question! Of course, having the sound in my ears, knowing how I want the cymbals to sound is key to my relationship with Zildjian and the orchestra. I think I have tried to get the cymbals to sound like what is in my ear, and what works in Symphony Hall. Unfortunately, I have found out that what works in Symphony Hall does not automatically work in every other hall. So I have come back looking for slightly heavier cymbals that will work in other halls. I strive for a cymbal sound beautiful in color, rich in lows and highs (overtones) that one can produce in any hall. Today the sound we get is quite consistently acceptable. The playability factor is a concern as well. Cymbals must be in round and be easily played. Basically I have tried to develop a cymbal which is not used to make just a lot of noise - contact sound – but remains musical at all times, with a good follow through sound after contact is made. Perhaps your question is motivated to find out what my thinking is on the Contantinople and the newer Vintage cymbals being produced today? I have used the Constantinoples occasionally and enjoy working with them. The future for the orchestral cymbal player is very good.

RL  : Frank, on behalf of all our readers on PERCUweb, thank you!