Asked to recall what year she joined the American Ballet Theatre Orchestra, Judith Mendenhall responds not with a precise date, but instead with a personal memory.
鈥淚 remember very specifically one morning going to play The Sleeping Beauty for the first time,鈥� Mendenhall says. The beloved Tchaikovsky ballet, an evening-length cornerstone of the canon, is a dream for listeners, but makes relentless demands on musicians. 鈥淎fter just the prologue, you need a nap, a meal, a massage, and a bath,鈥� she explains, laughing.
At the time, the flutist confided her concerns to her three-year-old daughter. 鈥淎nd she鈥檚 laughing at me: 鈥極h, mama, how can you be scared of music?鈥欌�
That daughter is now 30, which means Mendenhall鈥擯rincipal Flutist of the ABT Orchestra since 1995鈥攈as performed the greatest works in the ballet repertoire for more than a quarter-century.
Compared to most of New York City鈥檚 other tenured ensembles, the ABT Orchestra serves for a very compact season: presently five weeks at the Metropolitan Opera House and two more at the David H. Koch Theater. But the musicians鈥� skill, along with their devotion to the art form and to each other, guarantees an ensemble of exceptional range and assurance.
鈥淭his orchestra is amazing in terms of its flexibility,鈥� says Ormsby Wilkins, ABT Musical Director since 2005. 鈥淒espite the fact that the personnel changes over time, there鈥檚 a wonderful sort of passing of the baton that goes on. The DNA of the orchestra is still the same."
Players do indeed come and go, but longevity isn鈥檛 uncommon among the 65 players who comprise this distinguished house band. Jon Manasse, among the world鈥檚 most elite clarinetists, won an audition to join ABT as a Principal in 1988, almost immediately out of school.
Like his colleagues, Manasse juggles the myriad demands of a busy career as a soloist, chamber musician, recording artist, and teacher. But, he says, 鈥淚鈥檝e never wanted to leave, even when I got other things鈥濃攅ven an appointment as principal clarinetist for the Met Orchestra.
鈥淭o witness how this orchestra has evolved over the years has been extraordinary,鈥� Manasse says. 鈥淎nd I never tire of playing that repertoire.鈥� That includes canonical classics like Tchaikovsky鈥檚 The Nutcracker and Prokofiev鈥檚 Romeo and Juliet, works a ballet musician might repeat numerous times in a given week, and countless times across a career.
鈥淲hat we experience is the evolution of a relationship with a work of art,鈥� Manasse explains. 鈥淎re you never going to look at a Monet again? Are you never going to refer back to Shakespeare? What a gift, what a blessing, to be able to play these works over and over throughout your life.鈥�
Long before she set foot into the ABT pit, violinist Lilit Gampel had experienced those works as an audience member, watching great dancers like Natalia Makarova, Mikhail Baryshnikov, and Ivan Nagy. 鈥淚 never knew that I鈥檇 actually be playing the music one day,鈥� she says.
Gampel came into the ABT Orchestra over 25 years ago as a substitute for a member on medical leave and was invited to join after the following season. 鈥淚 remember the first two seasons, especially when we played Swan Lake, I could actually see what was happening on stage in my mind, because I鈥檇 seen them so often,鈥� she says.
Sometimes, from her vantage point in the pit, Gampel can still catch glimpses of dancers at work overhead. That鈥檚 a luxury not shared by wind players like Manasse and Mendenhall, or their brass and percussion counterparts. For those musicians, the conductor has to convey what鈥檚 happening onstage.
鈥淭here鈥檚 no way that I could approach the physicality of the dancers鈥攖hat鈥檚 way above my pay grade,鈥� ABT Principal Conductor Charles Barker says, laughing. 鈥淥ur job is to give physical representation to the music, so the musicians understand it and create it on their instruments鈥攁nd that, as a whole, is transferred to the audience. We鈥檙e a medium: the energy comes from the stage, hits us, and we have to kind of translate it and plug it into the right frequency, and it goes out to the audience that way.鈥�
It鈥檚 a tall order, made tougher by a tight schedule. 鈥淲e only start rehearsing perhaps a week before the season,鈥� Mendenhall explains, 鈥渕aybe a week and a half if it鈥檚 a brand-new piece鈥濃攆or example, the recent premiere Like Water for Chocolate.
Still, she asserts鈥攁nd Manasse and Gampel concur鈥攖he ABT Orchestra players relish the challenges and love working together to meet them.
鈥淥ur job is to provide the sound tapestry that will enable women to turn into swans,鈥� Mendenhall says, 鈥渢hat will enable Renaissance Italian teenagers to fall in love.鈥�
That the ABT players work such magic consistently despite the challenges, is what sets them apart, according to ABT Conductor and Music Administrator David LaMarche. 鈥淚t鈥檚 something about New York players, I think, and it鈥檚 something about ABT players,鈥� he says.鈥淭hey always come through, especially on opening nights, and they just have a sense of how to make things work."
