Berginald Rash, clarinettist

Who or what inspired you to pursue a career in music and who or what have been the most important influences on your musical life and career?

Growing up I had always been interested in music as long as I can remember. I sang; I learned recorder; I pretended the recorder was a clarinet; I wanted to play Ravel’s Bolero and would do so on the recorder along with a London Symphony recording; I continued singing and learned saxophone. It wasn’t until, after only having been playing the clarinet for 2 years, I got accepted to the Boston University Tanglewood Institute that I knew for certain that music and specifically classical music was something I wanted, had, needed to do. The entire experience transfixed me. I met people who I had felt like I had known my entire life, since forever, as if we, perhaps by way of our shared love of music, had been lifelong friends even though we had only just met. To this day I still count some of them amongst my closest friends. Recently, while I was giving a series of lectures and masterclasses at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, I reconnected with one such person. It was a full circle moment and it truly warmed my heart to see how far we had both come from that summer of 2000. I think the most important influences of my musical life besides my teachers would have been my family and the Black church – gospel music. Spending a part of my life in Miami with my mother, sister, and grandparents there was always afro-cuban jazz playing in the background. My grandfather loved it and I gravitated to the sound of the flute, its effortless freedom and expression in this dense mixture of rhythm, harmony, melody and pulse. My family spent a lot of time taking road trips. It was one of our favourite things to do and on those trips we would listen to all kinds of music. Music was always on. Whether it was Anita Baker on a Sunday morning singing about that Same Ole Love from beginning to end, 365 days of the year and signalling to us that we’d be deep cleaning, or Helen Baylor testifying about her “praying grandmother” music was ever present. My paternal grandmother sang. My aunt sang. My dad sang. I sang. It was a very real connective thread between all of us. James Brown, Bobby Blue Bland, Marvin Gaye, this was the backdrop of many a roadtrip with my father while Vicki Winans, CeCe Winans, Andre Crouch, Richard Smallwood, Yolanda Adams, Daryl Coley provided the soundtrack of my life with my mother. To this day I can still place myself geographically based on the songs that were playing at the time.

What have been the greatest challenges of your career so far?

The greatest challenges of my career so far have been overcoming the low expectations that people in potentially influential, career defining roles and places have and have had of me. Disabusing myself of what I think success is based on a model that mightn’t serve me or a path that has been decidedly made difficult for me. The ‘isms’ that keep people disconnected whether it be racism, homophobia, etc. Self-doubt and imposter syndrome. The weight of having to be twice as good while getting half as much. Choosing myself and self-advocacy when doing so runs the risk of me being perceived as difficult, angry, threatening – all language used to justify the extrajudicial killing of people who look like me. Finding safe spaces where I can be me, make great music with great musicians and not have anyone sacrifice their integrity. Answering the pervasive and insidious question, “if there’s diversity can there be excellence?” and often being tasked with representing a huge population of people or being seen as an “”exception to the rule”. I guess dealing with people’s ignorance and the real, material effects of that. The quiet, insidious violence of hate.

Which performances/recordings are you most proud of?

When I was actively running my not for profit chamber music collective, Vivre Musicale, I performed the Weber Quintet, Brahms Quintet and the Mozart Quintet within the same year and I was so proud of how well I had prepared my music while wearing dual caps as curator, co-founder/artistic director and performer. The performance of the Mozart was for me truly sublime and it remains a moment I try to recapture. The Weber was fiery, engaging and energetic and made me feel for the first time like I was a professional musician. Which is a funny concept because you graduate from music college or conservatoire, at least in the US, and it’s never really certain when you can consider yourself a professional. Is it when you finally win an orchestral or university teaching job? Is it when you graduate? And there aren’t many mechanisms for students to make that clean and supportive transition from emerging artist/pre-professional to professional musician. This particular series of concerts did that for me. It was a moment where I felt I could hold my hand up and say, “yes, I’m a professional musician.” I had prepared all of my music by myself, without the aid or support of a teacher and it was a brilliant outcome. Not that one has to prepare their work alone to be considered professional. Tangent moment: In actuality, I’m a huge proponent of continued education and learning. I think more instrumental musicians should, like vocalists, regularly have coachings with other players and continue the pursuit of excellence where possible. I think there’s this idea that once you become a professional musician you have all the answers and can do everything well when that’s simply not true. I would have loved as a student to see and know that my teachers also had mentors or colleagues with whom they checked-in because they too were striving to be great. Of course one must see greatness not as a destination but as a journey, a path. The Brahms which was performed in a cute and cosy piano bar in Baltimore was decadent. I am to this day still very proud of the work and reward that came from that series.

Which particular works/composers do you think you perform best?

Conventional wisdom would have me say,” whatever i’m being paid to play” but to be honest this is a difficult question. Modesty prevents me from jumping boldly into this question. What I can say is that I have a strong affinity for the works of Debussy, Françaix, Prokofiev and Ravel. I also think I have a solid grasp and understanding of classical, read Mozart, Beethoven phrasing. Now whether I can always do them the way I hear them is another story completely, but I think my musical understanding of those composers comes naturally and intuitively. As far as particular works I love Françaix’s Clarinet Concerto. By-and-large, I think the timbral colours of French composers resonate with me for some reason and, whatsmore, I feel that neoclassical writing is very gripping and compelling. I’m a big lover of chamber music. I think my heart lies firmly with chamber music so any work that allows the clarinet to converse with other voices is a win. Clarinet and strings, clarinet and voice, clarinet – voice – and strings all of it so lush.

What do you do off stage that provides inspiration on stage?

I’m often looking for inspiration and to be honest, I find inspiration from my friends and colleagues. The work itself, the music itself has to serve as inspiration for me and when it doesn’t I find myself struggling to connect with it. Perhaps I need to experience more things or other things in life to find that inspiration that will allow me to connect authentically to certain works. I’ve recently started studying French as a way to engage my brain differently and challenge it in other ways. Perhaps I’ll find inspiration in that. I think the greatest amount of inspiration comes from living a life well lived with ups and downs. Finding inspiration in the quotidian and mundane and not relying too heavily on inspiration to do your job.

How do you make your repertoire choices from season to season?

Most of those choices are above me, particularly if I’m coming in to say sit in with an orchestra or play chamber music in a concert that I’m not curating. I don’t make the call on repertoire. Now if it is a concert I am curating then I make those choices based on a few factors. I keep a running list of repertoire I like or I love whether it’s from a concert I went to years ago or something I heard on the radio or a streaming platform, I write it down. Then, when it’s time to pull together a programme, I pull from that list based on the pathos it generated in me. I like to curate a mood and/or experience and I do so from a place that centres great work and prioritises work from subaltern voices. Voices historically left at the periphery. I like to curate in a way that sees the past sitting comfortably amongst the present and that present is diverse and wildly entertaining. I love emotive works. I love works that ask something of the performer, the audience. I love work that tells a story or can accompany a story. I love contemporary music that doesn’t derive its impact from in-group, niche knowledge that can be seen as a form of gatekeeping. If the audience has to be well-versed in a certain modern style of composition in order to be appreciated and understood I’m going to look at it and wonder why. Who does that serve? One shouldn’t have had to have read a dissertation to feel welcomed in the spaces I curate. I curate for a sense of belonging.

Do you have a favourite concert venue to perform in and why?

The Royal Irish Academy of Music has recently opened their Whyte Recital Hall and I have to say the acoustics there, especially for chamber music, are unparalleled. I’ve only played there once and it was in a chamber orchestra setting but I got those goosebumps one gets when they know they’re experiencing something special. My hope is to get back there for a chamber music concert or series and see what that hall can do. It might be the premiere chamber music venue in Dublin if not Ireland; only time will tell. Besides that I really enjoy playing in Birmingham’s Symphony Hall where the space seems to support the spinning of sound. The Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and similarly the KKL in Lucerne are sublime spaces as well. Perhaps it’s time I get into more chamber music spaces and see. I really enjoy unorthodox spaces that serve other purposes like a museum gallery or a library. Places where people visit for other reasons only to discover there’s music happening here.

What do you feel needs to be done to grow classical music’s audiences?

To grow classical music audiences I think organisations, institutions, artists, promoters, etc. need to take a good hard look at what has come before and do some self-reflection, examine the ways in which this unyielding, unending marriage to the past has placed us all in a position to have to ask this question. We should be asking ourselves why must classical music remain one of the last bastions of white supremacy and patriarchy and a museum of the past when vibrant, living composers and works are being written at an astonishingly brilliant level? We must then become prognosticators and project ourselves into the future, envisioning a world where classical music thrives, in abundance. Where we’re not competing for audiences, and where space is created for all of us to experience this great, universal work. Then begin envisioning the steps it would take to get there and do the work today. Why must classical music function within the confines of global, capitalist economics and not benefit from robust governmental support as a national, necessary good? During the lockdown people flocked to the arts for succour, connection, humanity. We know the value of our work and our art and it shouldn’t be left to the market to decide that. Great art requires great investment. We also need to look at the way classical music is marketed and projected in popular media. How many times have you watched a television series or film and a classical concert or opera was set as pique boredom, disconnect, inaccessibility? It’s become so normalised to view this art form as exclusive, which I think a lot of artists sort of relish that feeling of prestige and exclusivity that comes from being involved with classical music, that in popular media one needn’t say something is exclusive or prestigious they simply need to align it with classical music. Classical music needs a better PR team and a host of governmental lobbyists to advocate for it in tangible ways that yield tangible results.

What is your most memorable concert experience?

My most memorable concert experience was either the time I performed Scott McAllister’s Black Dog Concerto or the time I played Rhapsody in Blue for the very first time in performance, or when I played Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier Suite. All three of those were pretty memorable but for different reasons. McAllister’s piece marked my first concerto performance and competition win and the piece itself is fire. I had a fire-engine red mohawk for the performance and wore all black to play up the Led Zeppelin connection. I think my teacher at the time was mortified with my hair choice but it was thrilling to be a rockstar for a night. The Rhapsody in Blue experience started out as nerve-wracking. You’ve got to remember that this piece opens with the very famous, very daunting clarinet solo that only hope, prayers and preparation can prepare you for and even with all of that it can go sideways. The very first time I read through the piece in rehearsal with full orchestra I just remember my eyes seeing white. I don’t know whether it was from stage fright, anxiety, or what but I went temporarily blind and couldn’t read the music on the stand, heck I couldn’t see the stand. Everything went white. It’s only because I had practised it so much and had it memorised that in that rehearsal I was able to get through it. My heart was racing and immediately after I ran to my teacher for my lesson and told him what happened. I hadn’t experienced adrenaline like that ever before, nor since. After that initial moment it was much easier to play and the concert went very well. The Strauss was just a moment of sheer camaraderie. The full orchestra is going for broke, playing loud, fast, richly dense music and in the centre of all of that is the clarinet section, 4 or 5 deep, with each one of us from principal down to bass playing a completely different line unrelated to the others and yet at the same time indelibly linked. Being with that group of musicians and playing autonomously yet collectively in this larger than life work with notes flying, swirling all around was transformative. Truly one of my favourite and most memorable performances.

As a musician, what is your definition of success?

My definition of success has evolved over the years and I reckon it will continue to do so. Presently, success for me is based on artistic integrity, playing great music with great musicians and being able to support myself in doing it – being open to the possibilities of what success can look like and open to that definition evolving as I grow and evolve. I think we so often get held to an idea of what success is based on what success has been defined as externally by others. Oftentimes that definition, that role, doesn’t fit with who we are innately or are becoming but the frisson and friction, the disconnect and dissonance that arises when these two seemingly diametrically opposed possibilities arise is where we lose our moorings and feel unsuccessful or unworthy, or whatever. I love collaboration and playing in situations where we bring out the best in each other and if I can do that and be inspired by my colleagues then I’m doing okay.

What advice would you give to young/aspiring musicians?

Advice I would give young, aspiring musicians would be to practise but also live. Don’t be afraid to experience life and don’t allow yourself to be governed by fear, fear of failure, fear of your own greatness. Lean into it. I think in order to create great work as an artist we have to live great lives, experience love and loss, success and failure, highs and lows so that we can connect and communicate. I also think it’s important to remember that, as one of my teachers used to say, “practise doesn’t make perfect, it makes permanent.” So that when we practise we’re doing so intelligently and not out of sheer force of will. We don’t just wake up being great, we practise greatness, the reaching for greatness, the coming close and not succeeding, the achievement of moments of greatness, all of it is practice and we must practise. I would also encourage young, aspiring musicians to be gracious and supportive, especially with and of themselves. I’ve been learning how to extend grace to myself so that I might extend it to others because often, our most critical voice of others is the voice of critique we lodge against ourselves. I think it’s also important to lift as we climb, build networks and relationships. None of us are an island and this work often requires us to lean on others, ask for help, support and provide help and support. Making space for others ensures that there will be space for you and, in this business, where a deficit mentality – the spectre of lack – can loom we must remember that more is more and it’s our job to create space at the table, help build tables, and extend a hand so that others can interrogate and demolish the table if and when it serves to do so.

What’s the one thing in the music industry we’re not talking about which you think we should be?

I think there’s presently a lot of talk about and around equality, equity, diversity, inclusion, access, interculturality and belonging but in that not enough talk about how classical music is fueled by and thrives off of the exclusion of others and the exclusiveness of our work. A lot of us, by virtue of the public nature of our work, crave and court celebrity and in doing so strive to cultivate all the things that are anathema to equity, equality, inclusion and diversity. Even those who publicly champion this work still benefit greatly from the exclusivity their educational and/or institutional pedigree brings. Some of us shroud ourselves in the guise of the great artist, being aloof, or distant, or some untouchable, infallible entity further propelling this narrative, and encouraging others to bask in that narrative, in our presumed greatness, in order to gain reflective glory from us. There are many gatekeepers and many forms of gatekeeping in our work and they can come in any guise even that of a person from a historically marginalised community. Heck, often as a person from a historically marginalised community who’s been canonised as the “great exception” and often has a more than traditional path to the proverbial table. We need to understand that diversity of thought, experience and a challenging of the status quo is in greater service of moving the EDI needle forward than mere physical, outwardly facing diversity. We’ve all been inculcated in this white supremist, patriarchal, homophobic, heteronormative, ableist, neurotypical, society and daily we must disabuse ourselves of the machinations of that indoctrination and do the work to dismantle it.

What’s next? Where would you like to be in 10 years?

In the next 10 years I would love to co-run an artist retreat somewhere warm where visual and performance artists come together to expand, reflect on, or engage with their artistic practice and I curate a small, boutique summer chamber music festival not unlike Marlboro filled with friends, food, and the joy of making great music with great artists.

Dathanna: Hues and Shades by Berginald Rash, clarinet, and Fiona Gryson, harp, is released on 9 February 2024 on the Orchid Classics label. Find out more

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