Interview with David Ehrke, guest clarinetist with the Argenta Trio

Conducted by Forrest Hartman

 

Name: David Ehrke

Age: 65

City of Residence: Reno, NV

Year with Argenta: Intermittent guest member who has been at the University of Nevada, Reno for 35 years

 

Forrest: As I understand it, you were never an official member of Argenta, but you’ve played with them on and off through the decades. Is that correct?

 

Dave: Right. I have a long history with some of the members. John Lenz, the former cellist and French horn player, and (pianist) Jim Winn and I were all at the New England Conservatory in Boston together. I was a little older than they were. I was finishing a master’s degree, and I think John was just starting his master’s… We never knew each other that well, and I don’t think I ever played with Jim, but John was principal cello in the orchestra the second year that I was there. I was there two years for the masters. All I knew was that John had a great arm for throwing snowballs.

 

Forrest: How did you know that?

 

Dave: (At New England Conservatory, John and some friends) were throwing snowballs at students, who were hanging their heads out of about a three-story window, and he was pegging them. That was the first night I realized he wasn’t just a geek cellist. I thought, “Wow. That guy’s got an arm.” Then, when I got the job at UNR, John was already here because he’s a Reno local. Originally, it was John and Ron Williams on piano, so I played with them occasionally. We did the standard Beethoven Trio, the Brahms Trio, and then every once in awhile we’d bring in some extras and do the Mozart Quintet, the Brahms Quintet. You know, all the really nice clarinet literature.

Forrest: At that point was the group still mainly piano, cello, violin?

Dave: Yes. It was always that, pretty much. Then, they would bring in an extra violin and a viola. Or, they’d bring me in if it was a piece for piano, violin and clarinet or piano, cello and clarinet. There are a couple piano-cello-clarinet pieces that are great: The Brahms Trio and the Beethoven Trio. Also, there’s the Mozart “Kegelstatt,” which is viola, clarinet and piano. Over the years, John’s sister-in-law, Ginny Lenz, would play with them sometimes. She was at the New England Conservatory when we were there, and is a world-class violist. When fine players came to town we would often invite them to play with us. It was just a matter of, “Oh, we’ve got this instrumental combination. What can we play?” So, we’d figure out things to do. When Jim Winn came to town and it was John, Jim and I, we went through all the literature again. We’d do the Bartok Contrasts, which is clarinet, violin and piano. We’d do the “L’Histoire du soldat,” which was originally a Stravinsky septet with mime, but we did a trio version written by Stravinsky. Then, sometimes we’d do a recital where we would play together, then do some solos and some duos. Jim would accompany us on sonatas, and we’d do things together. It was just a really nice collaboration. It was basically what kept me here because I wasn’t real impressed with the place when I came here the first year. I figured I would be here one year and gone.

 

Forrest: When was that? Thirty-five years ago?

 

Dave: It was ’77.

 

Forrest: So, playing with your colleagues is what kept you going?

 

Dave: Yes. Well, I got fired my first year here.

 

Forrest: How did that happen?

 

Dave: My job wasn’t a tenure track position, and at the end of the year, they fired about 250 of us due to budget cuts. But I had played quite a bit that year, and the dean liked me. It was funny because I got a job playing downtown. The minute George Hernandez heard I got fired, he called me. He was the band director at the Sands and he said, “Hey Dave, you want to play lead alto in my band?” I said, “Yeah, what are you doing?” He said, “We’ve got all these Broadway musicals coming in from New York City. They’re stopping here with Douglas Fairbanks and Dick Van Dyke.” So, I took that gig, and I started playing. About three weeks into the summer, I got a call from the dean and she told me, “I saved your job.” I thought, “Good, I think.” Then, I was back at work here, and I was playing six nights a week downtown. That went on for a couple years. 

 

Forrest: Things must have changed at UNR to keep you around for 35 years?

 

Dave: They did. A few of the older guys retired, and we had this nucleus of younger players, including John and me. I can’t remember the exact order, but we soon got Jim and Larry Engstrom and, later on, Phillip Ruder. We had people with really high standards. When the older guys would retire, it wasn’t like we were going to replace them with average players. We said, “We’re going to get the best people we can.” It started with Jim and then Larry Engstrom, hiring outstanding people and artists. We went through a couple of violinists, and then we hired Phillip Ruder, a world-class violinist and Cincinnati Orchestra concertmaster. It was really a nice run. Our faculty could teach anywhere. I don’t think we could do any better. 

 

Forrest: During what era did you do most of your playing with Argenta?

 

Dave: I was playing with them right from the first year I was here in 1977.

Forrest: You don’t play with them much today, do you?

Dave: I do occasionally. I think we did the Mozart or Brahms Quintet four or five years ago. They bring in guest artists a lot more now because I’ve become one of the old guys. David Shiffrin was the last clarinetist to play with them, and he is terrific.

 

Forrest: It just depends on whether they want to perform something with clarinet?

 

Dave: Yes, because they’ve been really doing the piano trio literature and the string literature. And, I’m getting older. I don’t play in the Chamber Orchestra, the Ballet or the Opera, anymore. I just do the symphony now. I wanted my life back. I mean, I was gigging six nights a week all the time. Some of my colleagues still do that. You know, you’d go from the Opera to the Chamber Orchestra to the Philharmonic. It was just like a dance. I got married 15 years ago, and I have a stepson. My life changed then and so did my priorities.

 

Forrest: You were playing all sorts of different styles if you were going from Broadway to classical to jazz.

 

Dave: Yes, but I’m not a jazz player. I stopped playing jazz in college. I’ve done a lot of musicals throughout my life both as a conductor and instrumentalist. In fact, I conducted the Ballet for several years, including the yearly production of the “Nutcracker” at what was the MGM. Downtown, I had my own band at what was the Sands at the time. After George Hernandez left, the Sands brought more Broadway musicals in, and they asked me to conduct. So I did those for a few years, which was really nice. I was doing a lot of conducting for a period of time, including the Lake Tahoe Summer Music Festival with the Reno Philharmonic. I was also playing a lot of clarinet during the same time frame, including tours with the New Sousa Band and performances with the California and Las Vegas Symphonies and the Midsummer Mozart Festival Orchestra in San Francisco. But I just got tired of being on the road and on a bus and never having a moment to breathe.

 

I had a great sax quartet here at UNR that was instrumental in my receiving the Teacher of the Year Award in 1986. I played with the students who were all undergraduates. We were together five years, and we became Yamaha artists and made the finals in the Chamber Music Chicago National Discovery Competition held in the Chicago Public Library, competing against some of the best chamber ensembles from all over the country. There were graduate groups from Juilliard, Eastman, The San Francisco Conservatory and the Curtis Institute of Music, to name a few. It was the big time. We rehearsed 15 or more hours a week when preparing for a competition. So, I’d play with Argenta, then I’d go in another direction. Conducting and playing downtown was very demanding because it was two shows a night and six nights a week, which made it tough to get up in the morning and teach. So, I went in these different musical directions for a few years, and by that time, Argenta was ready to do the clarinet literature again. That’s kind of how it worked.

 

Forrest: Do you play out much now or is the Reno Philharmonic your main gig?

 

Dave: That’s my main gig now. I’m going to retire probably in the next two or three years. For 15 years, I was playing all summer in the Midsummer Mozart Orchestra in San Francisco, which was comprised of players from the San Francisco Symphony, San Jose Symphony and the San Francisco Opera. It was a fine orchestra and the season lasted most of the summer so I was going pretty much year round.

 

Forrest: Can you go way back and talk about how your interest in music started? Where did you grow up?

 

Dave: San Mateo. My mother and father loved Lawrence Welk when he first came on TV. I’m kind of a TV baby, being born when it was still in its infancy.   I remember, we had some of the earlier TVs that had a tiny screen and a huge console full of tubes. I was born in 1947, so I was raised with it. My parents loved Lawrence Welk. My mother said to me when I was 9 years old – I was in 4th grade – “David, would you be interested in playing the accordion?” I said, “I guess so.” I started playing, and within about six months I was actually playing professionally.

 

Forrest: On accordion?

 

Dave: Yes. I had a teacher who played 21 instruments. He was a local band leader, and within six months at one of my lessons, he said, “Go stand in the corner.” So, I stood in the corner  facing the wall so I couldn’t see his fingers. He said, “Alright, what am I playing?” I said, “C minor.” “What am I playing?” “D seven.” He said, “You have perfect pitch.” When I was around 3 or 4 years old, my parents had Bing Crosby, Caruso and Mario Lanza records. They were good singers and I loved listening to them. My mother taught me how to use the record player. She always told the story that she would take me for walks, and Mrs. Davis, who was always gardening on the corner, asked me one day, “David, what’s your favorite song?” And I said, “ ‘Pagliacci,’ the clown song.” I was listening to that kind of music from an early age. I think it mattered. I think the Mozart effect is sort of true. At least it was for me. So, I started on accordion, and by the time I hit 7th grade, I was really into the idea of being a musician. My teacher said, “Well, you’re not going to find much work with the accordion. You should play a wind instrument.” So, I switched to saxophone, and I was fortunate to be in outstanding public school music programs. The high schools and the junior highs all had full-time orchestra, band and choral directors. The arts were alive and well in San Mateo.   

 

Forrest: What was the reason for switching instruments. Just that there wasn’t enough accordion literature?

 

Dave: Yes. How do you make it as a professional accordionist? Walk around with a stomach Steinway, playing dinner music in a nightclub or cafe? I was serious about music. When I was a freshman in high school, I met a senior there who also played great saxophone, but he was a terrific clarinet player, having switched to clarinet early in high school. I just mirrored him because when I heard the San Francisco Symphony it was a life-altering experience, and you don’t play sax in the symphony full time. Occasionally there are saxophone parts in Ravel or something, but I wanted to play full time in a symphony so I switched to clarinet, and I studied with a member of the San Francisco Symphony when I was a senior in high school. From that time forward, I was always working with the best players I could possibly study with. I played jazz early in high school and junior college. Then I decided I didn’t have time to do both, so I focused on classical clarinet.

 

Forrest: You started music at an early age, but you started clarinet and saxophone when you were older.

 

Dave: Yes, sax in the 7th grade and clarinet my freshmen year of high school. But I was young. I started clarinet when I was 13, and I graduated when I was 17.

 

Forrest: Is it hard to catch up at that point or are wind instruments different than strings? I talk to violin players and it seems like they all start at 4 or 5 years old.

 

Dave: Yes. It’s a little different. Earlier on, there’s the muscle thing, the embouchure development and all that. It just takes time. It’s not like you can start on a little instrument and play, play, play all day. You can only blow and hold your embouchure together for so long. So, you practice a couple hours a day and then you get up to two or three and then maybe even four. You can play even longer than that as you progress and your facial muscles develop. When I was playing a lot, I was playing five, six, seven hours a day, and I was touring and rehearsing and doing all that. But it’s a little different. It’s not like being a keyboard or string player.

 

Forrest: It sounds like you took to it pretty well.

 

Dave: Yes. I was always first chair, and I was really competitive. So, if I wasn’t first chair, I made it a point to work as hard as possible until I made it to the top. I went to San Francisco State… We had guys like Laszlo Varga conducting the San Francisco State Orchestra. He was principal cellist in the New York Phil and one of the great cellists in the world. You know, these are world-class musicians. So, I was in a great environment. We used to do full-blown Broadway musicals in high school as honor bands, where all the high schools in the San Mateo Union High School District got together. We’d do “West Side Story,” which is a very difficult score with lots of doubling. We’d do Gilbert and Sullivan. We’d do all kinds of different things. It was just a great arts environment. That’s always helpful to be around. It’s not like that anymore. It’s really sad. In fact, that’s another reason that Reno is special because we actually have a strong vibrant arts program here. You compare Reno to San Mateo, and Reno wins hands down. 

 

Forrest: You’re talking about in the lower-level public schools?

 

Dave: Absolutely. I don’t think San Mateo even has strings at the elementary levels anymore. I know because I was going back every year while I was in school in Boston and LA and conducting at music camps in the San Mateo area. You could just see the deterioration, year after year. It used to be that most everyone in band studied privately. All the absolute best students were in the music program. It seemed like everyone that was in band, choir and orchestra was going to Cal, Yale and Harvard. It’s not like that anymore. I went to Hillsdale High School, which was a terrific school with a great reputation, but they actually had a Columbine type of incident there a few years ago.

 

Forrest: Interesting. I don’t remember that one.

 

Dave: They caught him before he hurt anybody. Basically, they had a kid come on campus armed to the teeth, and they got him before he was able to do any damage. But it was a real wake-up call.

 

Forrest: A good news story, then?

 

Dave: Yes. It was good news. They stopped him but the fact that it happened at all spoke to how much times have changed. On a happier note, our high school football coach and my PE teacher was Dick Vermeil. 

 

Forrest: The old Eagles coach?

 

Dave: Yes, and he also won a Super Bowl with the Rams. It’s funny because when I was at USC doing my doctorate, we were football fans and we were at the game. Who’s coaching UCLA but Vermeil. He followed me around, or I followed him around.

 

Forrest: Talk about college. How did you decide where to go?

 

Dave: Well, I followed my friend Mark. He was at College of San Mateo (CSM). He played lead alto in the CSM Jazz Band, which was a great jazz band. Bud Young was teaching theory there. Bud Young was one of Lawrence Welk’s top arrangers and a great jazz tenor player. They had an incredible faculty, and it was free. So, I went to school there for two years. Then, Mark went to Juilliard for his third year. I was studying with the same guy, Bud Bibbins, that Mark was studying with. He was a Reginald Kell protégé. Kell was one of the greatest British clarinetists of all time and a very famous clarinet soloist. So I stayed at San Francisco State because I enjoyed it there and it was a good music program, with the instrumental faculty being mostly members of the San Francisco Symphony. Then I just looked around. I was really a player, and I wasn’t that much into the whole academic thing. The New England Conservatory looked good because it was a two-year master’s program, eight credits per semester… Four of those credits were your private lessons. Then you took two electives, and none of them were academic. I did not want to be into book work. Also, the Boston Symphony was there, and they had a great rep. So, I applied and got in. I studied chamber music with Rudolf Kolisch. I studied conducting. I’d take my four credits of clarinet, then two credits of chamber music and two credits of conducting. That’s all I was doing: playing, conducting and performing in great chamber music groups. Then, there was the orchestra, of course. Out of the 30 clarinets that were there, they only used two or three of us at a time and rotated us in and out the second year I was there. I auditioned and made it, so I played in the orchestra mostly.

 

My move to USC was just strange. We had walked through graduation at the New England Conservatory and a friend and I were walking across the street – I still remember this – and he said, “What are you doing now, man?” I said, “I don’t know. I guess I’ll just practice and take auditions. I asked him what he had planned, and he said, “I’m going to study with Mitchell Lurie,” who was one of the great clarinetists of a generation and one of the most famous teachers around. I said, “Lurie is at USC?” He said, “Yeah. He’s got a great studio. You ought to check it out.” So I did, and the DMA program was, again, really focused on performing. You didn’t have to write a thesis, but you had to give four doctorate recitals… So, I auditioned and Lurie and I really hit it off. I really thought the world of the guy. I was in L.A. three years, and they were three of the best years of my life. They had a great orchestra and chamber music program. The Thornton School of Music at USC is a great school. We were around the best players, and it was a nice studio. It wasn’t cutthroat. Students got along and were supportive of one another.

 

Forrest: Did you end up in Reno just because the job opened up?

 

Dave: Yes. It was funny. They got the funding for a clarinet position, but they got it really late. They knew about Lurie and USC, so they called Mitchell and said, “Do you have anybody who would be good for the job?” He gave them my name, so they called me and said, “Do you want a job teaching at UNR?” I said, “Sure,” because getting your foot in the door at the college level can be difficult. So, I came up here. Then, because it wasn’t a tenure-track position, after that first year, I had to reapply for the job and go through a national search. But they all knew me by that time, and they liked me, so I got the job after a national search.

 

Forrest: So, here you are.

 

Dave: So, here I am.

 

Forrest: And it’s worked out OK? You’ve liked living in Reno for three decades?

 

Dave: I have. My parents were older. They lived in the Bay area, so it was close by. I was offered a job at the New England Conservatory actually but turned it down. I’m a West Coast boy. I love the mountains. I love to ski. I love the outdoors. My Dad and I hunted birds together from the time I was 9 years old. That was our special time together. We always used to have pheasant, dove and quail in the freezer and my mother was a great game cook. My friends would always tease me because we had pheasant for Christmas and Thanksgiving rather than turkey. I still remember those great pheasant and cranberry sandwiches Mom would pack in my lunch box. 

 

Forrest: You’ve been involved in the Reno music scene for a long time. What’s your assessment of it these days? Do you like the direction it’s going?

 

Dave: Yes. When you look at the quality of the orchestras here in town now and the players, I think it’s hugely improved. The local orchestras can hold their own with other regional orchestras quite nicely. A lot of the principals are from UNR, and they’ve increased their budgets now to where they are augmenting the strings a lot more. If they need strings, they bring in really fine players from Sacramento, the Bay area, or even further away.

 

Forrest: What sort of role does a group like Argenta play in the musical life of a city like this?

 

Dave: You know, they’ve got the orchestral careers program, which includes the Nightingale String Quartet, the student version of Argenta. The students in that group work with Stephanie and Dmitri, both members of Argenta. They go in and they pull down chairs in the local orchestra. All of those students are playing in the Philharmonic. They’re not principal chairs, but they add a great deal to the overall quality of the orchestra, which also gives the students experience, so it’s a nice symbiotic relationship.

 

Forrest: You said you’re thinking about retiring in a couple of years. What are you going to do then?

 

Dave: We have a great dream house that we built over at Lake Almanor about five or six years ago. I love to fish, I love the outdoors, I love to hike. I don’t hunt anymore. I just don’t like shooting things. But I like catching a big trout and cooking him up. My wife and I are avid golfers, and there’s some great golfing over there… We’d like to travel. Honestly, being a musician is like being an athlete. To continue to play at the level I feel comfortable gets harder to do every year. You know, I work out a lot. I do an hour on Stairmaster everyday then home to practice. It’s not like your average 8 to 5 job.

 

Forrest: Are you going to give up playing then when you retire? That would be a hard choice.

 

Dave: It doesn’t feel like it would be hard. It feels like it would be really easy to put the horn in the case. But Philip Ruder did that. He sold his violin. 

 

Forrest: I’ve talked to him about that. He ended up coming back.

 

Dave: Yes. You know, right now, because of the fact that I’m old and tired, it feels like it would be so nice to have that monkey off my back. But it has been what I am and what I do since the time I was a kid. So, I think you don’t realize how much you will miss something until you’re away from it.