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Orchestra’s new principal oboist, 27, speaks frankly
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By: TED S. STRATTON Staff Reporter
As a student at the Cleveland Institute of Music, Frank Rosenwein trekked down East Boulevard each week to the Cleveland Orchestra at Severance Hall.
To him, passing up any chance to see and hear the oft-proclaimed “best band in the land” seemed like a sin.
Seven years later, Rosenwein finds himself in that same august venue, not as a spectator, but as a principal oboist. The short rise to the top has been surprising even for the self-confident and assured Rosenwein, 27.
“It sort of feels like I’m living in a fairy tale,” he says.
The Chicago native auditioned for and got the prestigious position last May. He succeeds principal oboist Laura Griffiths, whose contract was not renewed after two seasons with the orchestra.
Rosenwein attended the Cleveland Institute of Music and the Juilliard School and is aware of the demanding nature of his job. Long-time Cleveland principal oboist John Mack was regarded as one of the finest players in the world, and Rosenwein knows he has big shoes to fill n Mack was his teacher at CIM.
“In Cleveland it’s a higher artistic level,” says Rosenwein, who served as principal oboe with the San Diego Symphony from 2002-2005. “There’s more music to learn and more pressure.”
Musical career
Rosenwein grew up in Evanston, Ill., where he started playing piano at a young age. In fifth grade, he picked up the oboe for the first time. Originally, he planned to play clarinet, but Rosenwein was intrigued by the piercing, plaintive tone of the double-reed instrument.
He practiced and trained on the difficult instrument throughout high school, playing with the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra and at Interlochen Arts Camp.
Following graduation he decided to come to Cleveland and its well-known music school. “I knew the reputation of John Mack,” Rosenwein says. “It worked out that it was the best.”
He continued his education in New York at Juilliard, where he earned a master’s degree and worked on the craft aspects of oboe playing, such as reed making (the reed of an oboe is two small pieces of cane tied together).
In San Diego, he played under the baton of Jahja Ling, former resident conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra and director of the Blossom Music Festival. The Cleveland auditions were grueling. Twenty people competed in three rounds before a committee of orchestra members and officials. After each piece, the committee would say “again” or “pass.” Finally, the group of 20 was cut to six, and finally to one n Rosenwein. His reaction was “jubilation,” he says. “It’s overwhelming when it gets to that point. It seems sort of amazing, unreal. It didn’t sink in.”
The position of principal oboe requires a probation period of two years; renewal depends on how well the musician adapts to the ensemble and the direction of conductor Franz Welser-Möst. The stringency is necessary, says Rosenwein, because the oboe is “really the leader of the wind section. It establishes the tenor and style of playing.” The oboe also plays the tuning note for the entire orchestra, an important task.
Fitting in
After he moved back to Cleveland, Rosenwein jumped straight into rehearsals with the orchestra, playing pieces like Mahler’s “Ninth Symphony” and Brahms’s “First Symphony.”
A favorite piece has been “St. Matthew Passion” by Bach n odd for a nice bar mitzvahed Jewish boy, but the subject matter doesn’t bother Rosenwein. “Music rises above the elements of religion,” he says. Non-classically, he’s also a fan of rock and hip-hop groups like Public Enemy n more a sign of his age than his musical tastes, he says.
“Franz (Welser-Möst) is aware that I’m young, with only three years’ orchestra experience,” he says. “They took a chance on someone who can grow into the role.”
So far, the orchestra musicians have taken to Rosenwein, and he to them, he says. Mostly, he enjoys learning from each section, whose members are all world-class musicians. “I was struck by how each soloist in the orchestra is such a master,” he explains. “I hear timpani, and I think, this is the best timpanist n what timpanists listen to.”
Would he one day be the standard by which oboists are judged? Maybe, Rosenwein says. “I hope I get to that point.”
He’s well on his way, at least according to Plain Dealer music critic Donald Rosenberg, who attended the orchestra’s October concerts at the Musikverein in Vienna. Rosenberg wrote that Rosenwein’s “ripe sound and penetrating musicality promise to fit into the ensemble’s aesthetic beautifully.”
That praise must sound like music to a principal oboist’s ear.
The Cleveland Orchestra performs Beethoven’s “Fifth Symphony” and other pieces under the direction of James Gaffigan on Jan. 6, 7, and 8, and again on Jan 13 under Franz Welser-Möst.
To him, passing up any chance to see and hear the oft-proclaimed “best band in the land” seemed like a sin.
Seven years later, Rosenwein finds himself in that same august venue, not as a spectator, but as a principal oboist. The short rise to the top has been surprising even for the self-confident and assured Rosenwein, 27.
“It sort of feels like I’m living in a fairy tale,” he says.
The Chicago native auditioned for and got the prestigious position last May. He succeeds principal oboist Laura Griffiths, whose contract was not renewed after two seasons with the orchestra.
Rosenwein attended the Cleveland Institute of Music and the Juilliard School and is aware of the demanding nature of his job. Long-time Cleveland principal oboist John Mack was regarded as one of the finest players in the world, and Rosenwein knows he has big shoes to fill n Mack was his teacher at CIM.
“In Cleveland it’s a higher artistic level,” says Rosenwein, who served as principal oboe with the San Diego Symphony from 2002-2005. “There’s more music to learn and more pressure.”
Musical career
Rosenwein grew up in Evanston, Ill., where he started playing piano at a young age. In fifth grade, he picked up the oboe for the first time. Originally, he planned to play clarinet, but Rosenwein was intrigued by the piercing, plaintive tone of the double-reed instrument.
He practiced and trained on the difficult instrument throughout high school, playing with the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra and at Interlochen Arts Camp.
Following graduation he decided to come to Cleveland and its well-known music school. “I knew the reputation of John Mack,” Rosenwein says. “It worked out that it was the best.”
He continued his education in New York at Juilliard, where he earned a master’s degree and worked on the craft aspects of oboe playing, such as reed making (the reed of an oboe is two small pieces of cane tied together).
In San Diego, he played under the baton of Jahja Ling, former resident conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra and director of the Blossom Music Festival. The Cleveland auditions were grueling. Twenty people competed in three rounds before a committee of orchestra members and officials. After each piece, the committee would say “again” or “pass.” Finally, the group of 20 was cut to six, and finally to one n Rosenwein. His reaction was “jubilation,” he says. “It’s overwhelming when it gets to that point. It seems sort of amazing, unreal. It didn’t sink in.”
The position of principal oboe requires a probation period of two years; renewal depends on how well the musician adapts to the ensemble and the direction of conductor Franz Welser-Möst. The stringency is necessary, says Rosenwein, because the oboe is “really the leader of the wind section. It establishes the tenor and style of playing.” The oboe also plays the tuning note for the entire orchestra, an important task.
Fitting in
After he moved back to Cleveland, Rosenwein jumped straight into rehearsals with the orchestra, playing pieces like Mahler’s “Ninth Symphony” and Brahms’s “First Symphony.”
A favorite piece has been “St. Matthew Passion” by Bach n odd for a nice bar mitzvahed Jewish boy, but the subject matter doesn’t bother Rosenwein. “Music rises above the elements of religion,” he says. Non-classically, he’s also a fan of rock and hip-hop groups like Public Enemy n more a sign of his age than his musical tastes, he says.
“Franz (Welser-Möst) is aware that I’m young, with only three years’ orchestra experience,” he says. “They took a chance on someone who can grow into the role.”
So far, the orchestra musicians have taken to Rosenwein, and he to them, he says. Mostly, he enjoys learning from each section, whose members are all world-class musicians. “I was struck by how each soloist in the orchestra is such a master,” he explains. “I hear timpani, and I think, this is the best timpanist n what timpanists listen to.”
Would he one day be the standard by which oboists are judged? Maybe, Rosenwein says. “I hope I get to that point.”
He’s well on his way, at least according to Plain Dealer music critic Donald Rosenberg, who attended the orchestra’s October concerts at the Musikverein in Vienna. Rosenberg wrote that Rosenwein’s “ripe sound and penetrating musicality promise to fit into the ensemble’s aesthetic beautifully.”
That praise must sound like music to a principal oboist’s ear.
The Cleveland Orchestra performs Beethoven’s “Fifth Symphony” and other pieces under the direction of James Gaffigan on Jan. 6, 7, and 8, and again on Jan 13 under Franz Welser-Möst.
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