In partnership with the Curtis Institute of Music, WHYY presents the following program.

♪♪ ♪♪ My name is Ben Price.

I play the oboe.

And I study music at the Curtis Institute.

It's a very uplifting feeling actually, especially now because the 21st century is a very, very strange place.

Especially for what it means to be a classical musician in the 21st century, I feel like I've gotten a lot of skills that I didn't even know were possible just by going to Curtis, because there's some really great people who are like, "Use me as a resource because I do all the cool stuff."

They don't say that, but that's me describing them because they're cool.

You know who you are.

I mean, I think the education that I've gotten at Curtis is going to be invaluable for the rest of my life, in that I learned many things here that I learned what I thought I would learn and I learned so much more of what I didn't even know was something to learn.

The way that I somehow stumbled backwards into the Curtis experience of I'm leaving with a sense of, "Oh, so all of that stuff that I'm like, oh is that even possible?"

It probably is.

You just have to do it or find the right people to help you do it.

There's just a lot of mythos surrounding Curtis because for the longest time it was like purposefully cultivated to be this sort of hole-in-the-wall place that didn't market itself to the outside world, but people that were in music and were serious about it knew what Curtis was and knew what it stood for.

And I was really drawn to that because when you look at the legacy of what has come out of Curtis and the lineage that has gone to Curtis and then taught at Curtis, it's pretty impressive and you learn a lot from that.

They're always saying just three generations removed from Beethoven or whatever, but it's not just Beethoven.

It's the modern performance practice, at least in the United States of the 20th century, and it can all be traced back to Curtis.

[playing in bright rhythm] ♪ ♪ I think firstly it's a generational thing, 'cause my mother and I have talked about this a lot in recent years, but when she was at the breakfast table in 1970-something, her parents would put on the Descent into Hell from Don Giovanni at the breakfast table, and they would just sort of be singing along under their breath.

Which is not usually what you would hear at breakfast, but that left a big mark on her because then she played a ton of classical music until she was around my age.

And she would still practice a lot when I was younger, and so I was like, "Oh, this thing is kind of cool."

I wouldn't say I was ever possessed with a "I have to do this right now," but it was more of an innate curiosity.

And then I kind of stumbled backwards into being more serious about it.

And then once that veil was lifted, I was like, "Oh, I don't think I can actually quit.

You know, I'd be leaving behind too much."

I was saying this, I was rehearsing with someone yesterday, and I was saying to him, I was like, you know, I think one of the reasons that we all are drawn to music and that we don't quit is because if you're, when you're playing music, you never have to grow up, you know?

And so like when you're actually playing, there's never any kind of pressure to grow up or whatever.

And so you can stay in touch with that world where nothing really matters except what you're doing right now, which is not the case in real adulthood, but it's very much the case when you're a kid.

So it's nice to have that.

It's also just nice because it's got a lot of potential to just help people communicate, even though there's no semantics at all.

Maybe that makes it easier.

I don't know.

So the first recital that you'll be hearing is Jean Coulthard's Oboe Sonata, which she wrote in 1947.

And I got to play that during my third year.

And it was a very different piece than anything I'd really played before, because you kind of have to get really angry and edgy.

And it's got a very, very unsettling ending, where if you do it right, everyone's like, "What just happened?"

And they're like scared to clap.

And you'll see what happens at the end.

(gentle music) - I started playing the oboe at 10, which I still feel like a child, but I was much more a child at 10.

And that's about a normal time to start playing the oboe.

I had a brief affair with the violin before that when I was like three or four because my mother was a violinist and her mother was also a violinist.

So there was a lot of that in my house growing up.

And so my mother was like, let's take Ben to violin.

And that ended about three months later when I, my mother realized that I was more interested in my violin teacher's necklace than I was in practicing, which is okay.

And then I started piano lessons shortly thereafter and that went slightly better and I was a little more into it.

And then for whatever reason, I picked up the oboe.

[Oboe plays] And I've always been a little bit more like, "Oh, that's a thing that I should do with the oboe."

Maybe it's because it has two reeds, and my dad was a saxophone player, and the saxophone only has one reed, so I'm sure there's some kind of mental health psychiatrist's field day there.

But also I just think I really loved the sound of the instrument and was like, "Oh, this is something that you can do a lot with."

So practicing was usually a guided affair until I was maybe eight or nine, and then I was more self-driven.

But one of the things that was always a challenge for my eternally patient parents is that I was not the most patient of children.

I was very used to things happening immediately and with any instrument that's just not how it works.

You have to develop technique.

And so I actually do think it was a great character building exercise for me to like have to actually sit down and really work something out and get from point A to point B and chart a path.

So it gave me a lot of really good problem solving skills.

You know I think what originally prompted me to like take the leap and play music a bunch is just curiosity you know.

Curiosity because it seemed it's I mean it's always for anyone like I think you could pluck a million people off the street and they'd give you a million different versions of the answer that music is extremely evocative you know and I think for me it was like okay how does that work and why but also what is what is it that I am doing that makes it like that and that's kind of it's not like throwing paint into canvas and just seeing what sticks you know but it's very much a sandbox of okay let's figure out how to crack the code for whatever formula seem and it's not a but there is a certain logic in syntax to putting something together that people will be like, "Wow, what was that?"

You know?

And that's always really rewarding when I've put a lot of work into something to make it really compelling and people are compelled by it.

It's like, oh, good, I'm not just making reeds all day for nothing.

I mean, there's a lot of reasons.

In particular for this instrument, the legacy of teaching at Curtis is really terrifyingly strong.

Because the first oboe teacher at Curtis, Marcel Tabuteau, sort of started the American school of wind playing, if you will.

His teachings at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia have undoubtedly been the strongest single influence in instrumental playing in America over the past 40 years.

Since Mr.

Tabuteau's retirement in 1953, he has been visiting his native France, and his recent return to America happily coincided with our preparation of this series.

He readily consented to film a short talk with us.

Because he had some pretty revolutionary ideas about phrasing that he would teach in wind class, but he also taught some string classes, and he was a pretty big influence on a lot of people, but especially the oboe students.

You can trace all of the teachers at Curtis since then, you can trace directly back to him, and they all studied with him at Curtis.

And so that connection to a true, it's not tried and true, that's kind of trite, but connection to a strong tradition of music making with integrity was a big draw for me.

[Music] I think that's it, yeah?

Yeah.

Very good.

Bravo.

[Applause] I really like your embellishments.

They're quite nice.

The beginning was fine.

Just some general things that I would do differently.

It's mostly articulation.

If you can let me watch some things.

Quite a lot of things I would play shorter.

It's like the... I can't remember from the beginning.

But when you have like these things.

Dahim, deem.

The last note of the slur is always short with us.

Like in Vienna we play it this way, like especially the Vienna classics.

[Humming] I would play that shorter.

I don't know why, it's just the way we grew up.

That's my school that I learned from.

The reasons that I'm drawn to Curtis now are certainly related to the reasons I was drawn to Curtis in high school, but they're very, very different now because you, once you're there for a long enough time, you uncover a lot of things that are not like as well known about the institution, but just like specific teachers that are really, really great or specific classes and stuff that you can do that are really unique.

(orchestral music) Before I came to Curtis, I was really, really big on just like listening to recordings all the time and just like internalizing that way because I learned things aurally really well.

I'm not sure why, but I've all, and like my parents would tell you this as well that I had a really, really honed ear from a very young age.

(orchestra music) And so as a result, I would just kind of memorize everything by accident because I would know it well enough that it was memorized.

I play more with sheet music now, not because I've gotten lazier.

I'm saying that mostly for myself because it's hard sometimes to not feel like I've gotten lazier, but for two reasons.

One, I play probably 20 times the amount of music now that I did in high school.

And two, there's so much detail, you know, and it's actually really, really hard to memorize all of those details, you know, and you don't have to.

But if it's a piece I've played five, six times before, then I don't need the music.

But if it's a piece that's newer to me, I'm gonna use the music.

[MUSIC] I guess what I would tell my younger self is, well, a lot of things.

I would tell my younger self a lot of things.

Mostly, it will be fine.

Take a deep breath and live a little.

And also, you know, don't, like, I guess, there's a few moments actually that I can remember of like me being younger, realizing, don't lose this feeling, you know?

And one of those was after a particularly impactful performance.

I was like, don't forget this, because if you do, then you'll have lost your way.

And I haven't forgotten it, you know?

Forgetting that things being important is okay.

(orchestral music) And then I guess, what would I say to my older self?

Well, also a lot of things like, what is a Roth IRA and how do I start one?

But also like how what is the it's more questions for my older self actually like how do you get to how do you get there?

And I suppose the answer is just charge forward.

Fail a lot.

I used to be very scared of failure.

I'm very excited by the prospect of failure now you know because what's the worst that could happen.

You know I'm not a brain surgeon.

No one no one dies if I screw up.

You know, just that's a really comforting thought, believe it or not.

What would I say to my older self?

I hope you're not jaded.

I don't think I'll ever be jaded.

[music]