Page 18 - Spring2020

American Luthier: The Art and Science of Carleen Hutchins
concert of The Hutchins Consort (see hutchinsconsort.org), the first American octet, the only professional ensemble in the United States to perform on a Hutchins violin octet, a concert inspired by the passion of one bass player, Joe McNalley (Figure 5).
This was no small accomplishment. Over the past 30 years, various efforts to sustain enthusiasm for the violin octet had failed in the United Kingdom, Sweden, Russia, and Iceland.
Besides being a gifted bassist and widely versatile musician, McNalley was above all an eternal optimist. Beyond musical inspiration at home, McNalley studied at the New England Conservatory (Boston, MA) and then the University of California, San Diego (La Jolla; UCSD), mentored by two cel- ebrated bassists, David Walter and Burt Turetzky, both gifted teachers and maverick professionals pushing the solo potential of their instrument at a time when no one else was doing it.
In 1983, when UCSD hosted the ASA Symposium, Turetzky organized a concert featuring the Hutchins violin octet, per- forming to a packed house of 500 that left people standing in the aisles cheering. Still, Turetzky found it increasingly difficult to sustain interest among players: “The octet vio- lins are quite fantastic, but one of the things they say in an interview of a famous player is what instrument do you play? — meaning what Strad do you play? That’s prejudice. Carleen punched a hole in it, but it’s got to be the players who say, ‘Listen to this!’”
That’s exactly what happened to McNalley. He recalled the
first time he played a Hutchins contrabass in an orchestra. “I played the Hutchins big bass, felt the earth move beneath my feet, and saw an entire first violin section bounce out of their seats at the low-G sound of this bass playing the Brahms
First Symphony.”
Over the next five years, McNalley built a contrabass violin and began consulting with Hutchins over the phone. When he learned that Hutchins had a complete octet at 112 Essex Avenue, McNalley began to work out a two-year plan to pur- chase an octet. McNalley: “Within just two days, I had four of the best players in southern California interested in the octet. The stars aligned. I thought it would be two years planning and instead in it was just two months!”20
20 Interview with McNalley, October, 2011.
Figure 5. Seated, left to right: AJ Fanning playing alto violin, Peter Jacobson playing tenor violin, and Sarah O’Brien playing baritone violin. Standing, left to right: Andres Martin playing contrabass violin, Bethany Grace playing soprano violin, Steve Huber playing treble violin, Batya MacAdam-Somer playing mezzo violin, and Joe McNalley playing bass violin. Courtesy of the Hutchins Consort.
Democracy of Sound: A New Palette of Sound
Just as Carleen Hutchins busted apart the long-held tradi- tions and paradigms of the violin world, her violins do the same thing in the violin octet. In terms of the ensemble dynamics, Hutchins did nothing less revolutionary than invent a “new democracy of sound.” Each octet violin has its own unique sonority, resonance, and range, yet all eight vio- lins are tonally matched. Consequently, under the direction of Joe McNalley, all eight violins share the limelight, alter- nating roles that include carrying the melody and blending harmony. Original compositions and arrangements initiated and performed by the Hutchins consort range from medi- eval and renaissance music to jazz and contemporary works, with no preordained roles for any musician. This open concept revolutionizes our experience of traditional string ensembles, expanding options for duos, trios, and quartets within the consort. In addition, the violin octet presents a totally “new palette of sound,” a “mini-orchestra,” in which the audience hears sonorities, colors, and tonal combina- tions never heard before in a string ensemble, including truly amazing pizzicato!
18 | Acoustics Today | Spring 2020