By Mary Barber, Jackson Citizen Patroit, Staff Writer
Sunday, April 18, 2004
 

But he's really cranked about conducting Brahms' "Symphony No. 2" later on in the show.

"It's a greater piece of music," said the violinist. "It's joyful, triumphant. ... The whole concert is great."

Heald, 37, teaches violin at the University of Georgia in Athens, Ga. He played with the JSO for several years while he was earning master's and doctoral degrees at Michigan State University, and returned three years ago when conductor Stephen Osmond asked him to be concertmaster.

That means returning to Jackson five weekends a year for rehearsals and concerts. It seems like a lot of effort, but Heald said it's worth it.

"It's a nice atmosphere and good music-making," he said. "I always came away feeling I played better."

He said Osmond and the JSO are in line with his own professional credo: to play like a professional with amateur instincts.

"Meaning you still love and enjoy what you do," he said. "You can't teach that."

Tchaikovsky's "Violin Concerto" is a big, dramatic piece, full of Russian folk influences, Heald said. It begins with a "very hard, very technical" section, inserts a "love song" in the middle, then ends with a "romp -- party music," Heald said.

"It's very hard for the orchestra," he said. "It could fall apart -- but it won't."

Heald said Osmond asked him to play the 35-minute concerto several years ago.

"I said no," Heald said. "I wasn't ready."

He certainly was familiar with the concerto. He said he was 9 when he first heard Pinchas Zukerman's recording of it, while he was growing up in Hereford, England, the home of composer Edward Elgar. Tchaikovsky's concerto -- and Zukerman's playing of it -- was a huge influence on him, he said, second only to Elgar.

He practiced it in 1990-91 as part of his studies, he said, and he's taught it to students five or six times.

He finally agreed last year to close this season with it, and he began working on it seriously while home in England last summer.

Preparing a major piece like that is like building a house, he said.

"You have to have a concept of the whole house," he said. "Then you go into each room. ! Eventually, you end up dusting the mantelpiece."

Or not. Sometimes, he said, the house doesn't quite get finished. He said he will struggle with it "all the way up to the night."

"It's a huge challenge," he said. "Whatever happens on the night, I will come away a better player."

-- Reach reporter Mary Barber at 768-4971 or mbarber@citpat.com.

© 2004 Jackson Citizen Patriot.
All rights Reserved. Reprinted with permission