6 The Daily Collegian Wednesday, July 21,1976
Conductor's enjoyment belies schedule
By KATHLEEN PAVELKO
Collegian Arts Writer
Maurice Kaplow likes tennis and baseball
and Beethoven and ballet. He is also an
energetic young man who has founded an
orchestra and helped bring a ballet company
to national prominence.
Kaplow is the musical director and con
ductor of the Pennsylvania Orchestra, which
accompanies the Pennsylvania Ballet. The
Pennsylvania Orchestra t was formed by
Kaplow in 1970 from the unnamed orchestra
that had accompanied the ballet since 1964.
Both the orchestra and the ballet are at Penn
State for their third residency during Nittany
Mountain Summer.
This summer’s schedule includes three
shirt-sleeve concerts by the orchestra, six
performances of the ballet, three “At Ease”
sessions with the ballet and endless
rehearsals. If that kind of schedule can be
called restful, Maurice Kaplow is on
vacation. “It feels like coming home to come
to Penn State,” Kaplow says. “The dancers
and musicians relax here, glad to be in one
place for as long as three weeks. The
pressure seems to be off.”
Kaplow is a tall, gangly man with a ready
grin and a vigorous handshake. He works
hard during his weeks at Penn State, but his
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obvious enjoyment of it belies the crowded
schedule.
According to Kaplow, the orchestra and
ballet are here to build an audience for the
performing arts in central Pennsylvania.
One of the reasons the orchestra performs
informal shirt-sleeve concerts is to en
courage families and students to attend.
“In Philadelphia and New York, families
don’t usually attend concerts together. Here
they do, and I’m glad about that,’’ Kaplow
says. There is little difference between a
shirt-sleeve concert and a more traditional
one except that avant-garde music would not
dominate an informal program.
Kaplow is determined not to patronize his
audience too many prestigious orchestras
traveling outside New York City give only
pop concerts. “We’re here to present a
variety of fine music,” Kaplow says.
The orchestra performs well here, ac
cording to Kaplow, because the University
Auditorium is one of the best new halls in the
country. “This is our home. This is where we
sound best.” Kaplow says the auditorium’s
sound is very clear. The “lows” are also
good, although the “highs” are sometimes a
bit brittle. “When Penn State’s fine facilities
become known, many orchestras will want to
play here,” Kaplow says.
Kaplow has been the musical director of
the Pennsylvania Ballet since 1964, when he
resigned as a violinist from Eugene Orman
dy’s Philadelphia Orchestra. It was like leav
ing the Yankees to play with the Bumblebees
because at the time, the Pennsylvania Ballet
performed only four times a year. But the
ballet has come a long way in these 12 years,
Kaplow says. “I have an- emotional at
tachment to the Pennsylvania Ballet —I saw
it grow up.”
Accompanying a ballet company is an
important, masterful art, says Kaplow. “In
accompanying, you submerge your ego. I
may get my ego gratification from the or
chestra, but I like accompanying-and I think
we accompany well. ”
A ballet without an orchestra is only a half
an art, according to Kaplow. When a com
pany performs with taped music, the dance is
stilted, always at the same tempo. Kaplow
can vary the speed of the orchestra to suit the
individual dancer, and it is the whole
music and movement that makes the
performance powerful.
The three-week residency of the orchestra
and ballet comes at the end of a 25-week
season which began in October on Aug. 1, the
company and orchestra and Kaplow will
have a few weeks off before the new season
begins. Kaplow hopes to spend some time
with his family without hearing a single note
of music. His wife, Judy, is a violinist who
teaches music in the Philadelphia public
schools. They have three boys, and the weeks
they spend here are almost a family reunion
because Kaplow tours alone most of the year.
Kaplow, who-is 46, was born in Cleveland
and attended' the Cleveland Institute of
Music. He spent the Korean War in Special
Services at Fort Knox, Ky., where he played
the viola in the camp orchestra. To forestall
any attempt to send him overseas, he learned
to play the french horn well enough in eight
weeks to join the Louisville Symphony. He
even played first horn for a short time “until
a real french horn player showed up,”
Kaplow says.
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He doesn't play much now, but does miss
playing chamber music with other
musicians. “I would like to think that with
four weeks practice, I could play again,”
Kaplow says, "but I may have passed the
point of no return.”
With all the plans Kaplow has made, he
simply may have no time for the viola. His
first objective is to develop the Pennsylvania
Orchestra as fully as .possible. “We’re a
versatile and young orchestra,” Kaplow
says, "and as good as any orchestra of this
size. But we’re not resting on our laurels
we haven’t got any yet. We’re a Penn
sylvania orchstra and we want to continue
our touring throughout this state.”
Nittany Mountain Summer is an important
part of that goal. In future years here,
Kaplow would like to bring in a guest com
poser to work with the musicians and
perhaps to write a work that would be per
formed the next year. “I’d like to leave
something permanent behind,” he says. He
would also like to bring in talented students
for chamber music and for conducting and
other workshops. Children’s concerts are
another possibility.
‘‘An orchestra in 1976, approaching the 21st
century, cannot just sit and play for 30 weeks
of the year,” Kaplow says vehemently.
What Kaplow envisions is an eight-week
residency, but he knows that it is an ultimate
goal which may take years to achieve. “I
have learned the hard way that I must go
slow with these ideas,” Kaplow says. ‘‘When
I went to a foundation once with a grand idea,
but nothing else, I was turned down. People
are usually satisfied with the status quo and
you must convince them of what you have to
offer.”
This year Kaplow will be performing the
third symphony of Beethoven. ‘‘l know how
long we’ve been here by the number of the
symphony we play. I have six years to get a
chorus for the Ninth. After that, we’ll start
the Brahms.” And after that, who knows?
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Maurice Kaplow at work
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