Backstage with Matthew: Kay Stern
For almost 30 years now, Kay Stern has been leading the San Francisco Opera Orchestra, working with maestros and section principals to shape the sound of the orchestra and connect the many facets of the orchestra together. I had a chance to sit down with Kay at the end of the first week of orchestra rehearsals and talk with her about the role of an operatic Concertmaster and how she came into this role.
Kay Stern in the orchestra pit.
We’ll get to Kay’s journey in a moment, but let’s explore the role of a Concertmaster first.
Fundamentally, a Concertmaster is the leader of the orchestra. She serves as an intermediary between the conductor and the other section principals and, by extension, the whole orchestra. The Concertmaster is always the principal of the first violin section. They are constantly looking to impact the orchestral cohesion based on the needs of the conductor, working to translate the conductor’s vision into orchestral sound—translating the smallest movement of a conductor’s hands or eyes into interpretations of attack, of emphasis, of bow length, of articulation, of timbre. It’s all in service of creating cohesive drama through music. Kay talks of it as a two-way process, ensuring that the conductor has everything that they need from the orchestra and conversely that the orchestra has all the information they need from the conductor in how to interpret the piece. Kay likens it to balancing a Slinky between two hands—you’re constantly adjusting one side or the other to keep everything in equilibrium.
Kay speaks with great animation about what it means to play together as an orchestra and the magical transcendence of 60-70 people intuiting the same musical direction under the leadership of a conductor. For Kay it’s like a murmuration of birds, following a leader, but also knowing intuitively how to move as a flock. She also uses the analogy of a mycorrhizal network—the hidden underground network that connects trees together and that transfers water, gases and minerals, as well as knowledge of environmental impacts. The pit is so wide that it’s impossible for any one musician to fully hear and know the totality of what is happening in the whole orchestra. So Kay relies on these subliminal interconnections between musicians, to ensure that these subtle inflections and nuances of music making can transfer through the orchestra in a symbiotic way. And, for Kay, it is the totality of the orchestra that makes possible transcendent music; a melody can be gorgeous but it’s how that melody is supported that coaxes out the true beauty in it. That only happens with a group of musicians playing together every day.
This hidden network also must respond to different conductors, composers and pieces, which all require different layouts in the orchestra pit. The strings sections can be placed in different configurations arched around the conductor, and in earlier operas there is a keyboard or two in between the strings Generally, the winds are in the middle of the pit, but sometimes they can be placed to the side. Sometimes this layout is based on conductor preference, and at other times it’s a manifestation of historical tradition for particular pieces. At other times (like Frau ohen Schatten) it’s a fundamental mathematical reality of how you get 96 people into a small space! But it does mean that this hidden network has to be able to morph on a nightly basis as the configuration, conductors’ styles and singers’ styles change.
Incidentally, if you’ve seen Kay playing in the pit you may have noticed that she doesn’t sit on the on the “outside” of the section, or the row of players closest to the audience, as you would typically see in a symphony orchestra. Kay tells me that this stemmed from when she was playing principal viola (more on that in a moment…!) under former principal guest conductor Sir Charles Mackerras. The orchestra was playing Janáček and Kay was wanting a greater musical connection to the principal cellist. Mackerras told her to just switch with her stand partner and be next to the cellos. It was a subversion of the norm that stuck!
The orchestra in rehearsal for Il Trovatore. Kay is just to the right of Eun Sun Kim in the turquoise top.
So how did Kay arrive at the Concertmaster seat at San Francisco Opera?
As with many musicians, her journey began early, at around age 5. Her father was a very accomplished amateur violinist and he would pull out his violin on Sundays at home in Marion, Ohio. It inspired Kay to take up the instrument. A few years later, her father took her to the Columbus Symphony where the Concertmaster of the orchestra was playing the Korngold Violin Concerto—an extraordinary work that synthesizes so much of Korngold’s classical and film score work. As she listened, she found herself visualizing images to go along with the music and was hooked. There was just one female violinist in the orchestra at the time, and her father turned to her and whispered, “that could be you.”
For Kay, music was a safe space. A place where she could be playful, where she could truly express her emotions. It was even a place she could flirt with the music. She found fun and joy in interpreting pieces; working out the rules of a piece and then figuring out how to push past them.
She went to Ohio State where a conductor of the orchestra helped her develop more of a real sense of honor for orchestral playing. When she transferred to Juilliard, she realized how few people saw that honor in the teamwork of an orchestra; most people didn’t take orchestral playing as seriously as she had imagined—many violinists were looking to be soloists. At the end of her first year, she saw a sign posted for Concertmaster auditions—if you won one of the four possible Concertmaster positions at Juilliard, your tuition would be paid. She won Concertmaster of the top orchestra, and that led to an embrace of Concertmaster work elsewhere: at the Aspen Music Festival, at the Orchestra of St. Luke’s in New York, and in a number of other places.
Kay then took a break from the Concertmaster seat, and spent almost six years focusing her attention on chamber music. She became a founding member of the Lark Quartet—a New York based all-female string quartet. Kay was the K in Lark! It was a prolific group, funded by annual salaries that allowed the group to carry out over 140 performances a year, but also engage in community work. From there Kay went on to teach at the Cleveland Institute of Music, but, having been born and raised in Ohio, she was craving new horizons, and wanted a stable role in a beautiful part of the country.
She decided to audition for three wildly different positions that fit her criteria: i) a teaching position, ii) a Concertmaster role, and iii) principal viola at San Francisco Opera.
Now here’s the twist for #3 on her list. Kay had never, ever played the viola! Friends had told her that her hands would be well suited to the instrument, but she’d never tried it. So in 1993 she rented a viola for a month for the audition, devoted every moment to learning the repertoire, studied the scores, and won the audition! Suddenly she was on the inside of the orchestra—no longer in the stratosphere and melody of the first violin, but part of the harmony, and she loved it! Her first engagement with the San Francisco Opera Orchestra was the Strauss Festival of 1993. Strauss, as you may recall from our recent Frau ohne Schatten, is some of the most complex orchestral music written. And she was playing a new instrument in a new clef (the symbol at the start of a line of music that orients you as to the pitches)—the viola plays with the C-clef which was completely alien to Kay. But with determination she powered through.
It was just a year later that then-music director, Donald Runnicles, was looking for a new Concertmaster for the Opera Orchestra. He was auditioning guest Concertmasters from around the country but there hadn’t been the right chemistry. Despite her love of the inner harmonies of the viola, Kay was missing the Concertmaster role and so left Donald a voicemail letting him know that she was actually a violinist and might be interested in the role. Some months later, Donald called her to his office and asked her if she’d like to play Concertmaster for a performance of Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito the next evening. And thus began her audition process and ultimately a beautiful relationship with the company in the first chair!
It wasn’t always easy. There were almost no precedents for female Concertmasters at the time. Jorja Fleezanis, Concertmaster at the San Francisco Symphony, was one important inspiration. There was still significant misogyny in orchestras and many players who weren’t comfortable having a woman leading the orchestra. But Kay persevered and in doing so became a role model for others. Over the years she has given us so many extraordinary moments of beauty including the Act III solo from Die Frau ohne Schatten when the Empress is standing before her father in the temple.
Kay adores leading and playing under Music Director Eun Sun Kim. For Kay, Eun Sun brings a complete mastery of every score—she immerses herself not only in the notes, but in the context, the language, the zeitgeist of the piece and communicates that with such clarity, meaning and purpose to the Orchestra. Kay has seen many maestros come through the pit, and knows with Eun Sun that she is deepening the very capacity of the orchestra—building a deep, reflexive capability, taking in every aspect of every musician’s playing and bringing it into a cohesive whole. It’s thrilling to hear Kay talk about Eun Sun and the impact that she’s having on the orchestra.
Throughout her career, Kay has been devoted to inspiring the next generation through teaching and mentorship. She adores helping violinists hone their craft and find their own way to sculpt music and storytelling. Kay has given masterclasses around the world, has taught at Juilliard, the Aspen Music Festival, Music Academy of the West, and is now a faculty member at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. And when Kay isn’t at the Opera or teaching her students, it’s chamber music that continues to bring her deep satisfaction.
I asked Kay about the instrument she’s playing at the moment. She told me that she had had a French instrument for about 23 years, but then moved to a very elegant Italian instrument built in 1755. She likes to imagine that the instrument was used to perform the premieres of works by composer like Mozart. But while she loves the instrument, she can’t get a ‘gritty’ enough sound out of it when she needs it—it’s too refined of an instrument. So she’s now using a 1926 American Becker instrument which she finds more responsive for the many emotive states that opera requires.
Kay’s 1926 violin that she uses currently.
This past summer was a very special time for Kay. Kay’s daughter, Shaleah Feinstein, played as a substitute violinist in the Opera pit. Without Kay pushing her into music, Kay’s daughter Shaleah Feinstein has become a prodigious violinist herself. She has been playing substitute violin at the Metropolitan Opera, and has worked with Jon Batiste and others. Shaleah has opera in her DNA after hearing Kay practicing most of the repertoire through her childhood, as well as watching videos and listening to recordings together. In fact, as a child, Shaleah would get very upset if Kay would ever fast forward an opera video she was studying during long moments with no violins!
What an incredible time for Kay to know that her daughter was there with her in the pit, continuing the beautiful tradition that Kay’s own father had inspired in her. Music is all about inspiration and it’s wonderful to see generation upon generation inspired to carry forward the tradition.
Here’s to a glorious fall season ahead full of the most transporting music from the artistry of musicians like Kay in whom the great integrity of our musical tradition is so deeply ingrained and connected, just like the deep roots of the forest.
Kay with her daughter Shaleah Feinstein in the pit this past summer.