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8:31 a.m., May 6, 2009----While Brian Stone, assistant professor of music, has been directing orchestral ensembles and teaching classes at the University of Delaware, over the past year, he has also taken his teaching around the world, working with various ensembles and conducting them in concerts.
Within the last calendar year, Stone has experienced the Black Sea in Bulgaria while working with the Burgas Philharmonic, legendary concert halls in Germany while working with the Philharmonisches Kammerorchester Berlin, the unique tastes of Alabama cuisine while working with students at the University of Mobile, and the frozen tundra of Juneau, Alaska, while working with the Juneau Symphony, where he said bald eagles can be seen as frequently as we see pigeons in the Northeast.
“It's an interesting combination of work and pleasure,” Stone said. “There is very serious work with complex master works that take a lot time to work on. But there's always a little time to explore.”
In a foreign country such as Bulgaria, where Stone faces a language barrier, he said he has to communicate a bit differently to his performers in order to achieve success.
“Deprived of your language, it is all about conducting with engagement, commitment, and persuasiveness. You have to use your entire tool bag in rehearsals,” he said. “You just have to conduct with a capital C for it to work.”
Throughout all these experiences, there is one tool typically found in a conductor's tool bag that Stone does not use -- a baton.
“I am so tall and lanky as it is, the baton just exaggerates my defects,” the 6-foot 4-inch Stone said.
Stone said the role of the arms while conducting is to serve as an amplification, or external manifestation, of what is going on in the conductor's mind. Conducting without the baton helps to take away the filter of too much calculation for the performer and the conductor, leaving the audience to hear a more natural performance and projection of the music.
Junior Eric Daino, a music composition major and member of the orchestra, said the lack of baton is not too drastic of a change from traditional conducting techniques. What makes Stone unique, Daino said, is the way he interprets and understands the music.
“He has an ability to emanate such a confident drive from his conducting, and communicates with the performers as clearly as with the audience,” Daino said. “This all stems from the engrossing studying of the pieces he conducts. His marked up and analyzed scores are a wonder to look at.”
Stone said he likes to conduct in a way that sparks the intuition, getting natural human tendencies on his side and with the music.
“A lot of the times, the communication between the conductor and the performer is like telepathy, it is subliminal,” he said. “If you can get them to respond on an intuitive level, they will be much more responsive.”
At the University of Delaware, where he has been since 2002, Stone has directed the symphony orchestra, chamber orchestra and opera theater, and has also taught courses in conducting, symphonic literature, independent study and thesis advisement.
Stone said the music program has evolved quite a bit since he started working at UD. He credits that to excellent hires in instrumental faculty that lead to better recruiting efforts.
During his time at UD, Stone has started a University strings ensemble for non-music majors, which gives them the opportunity to perform. All in all, Stone said there are about 100 different students playing in orchestral activities at the University.
Daino is one of the students who has Stone as a thesis adviser. He said he meets with Stone regularly as he researches string instrument techniques.
“He is a wealth of information on orchestral repertoire, and has a brilliant mind for musical performance and analysis,” Daino said. “His influence on the way I think about music is huge, and he has been a significant help in my research.”
Stone has also developed a Study Abroad program in Vienna that gives a liberal arts perspective to music from the birth of classicism to the rise of modernism. Courses include Music Appreciation and Viennese Composers, a class that profiles six composers and relates them to Austrian culture. Visits are made to a number of historical landmarks and museums.
The trip is also appealing to Stone because his father was from Vienna, so he is able to visit family landmarks.
Among those who have gone on this Study Abroad trip is senior Alex Eiermann, a student in the Honors Program pursuing a minor in music, who went during Winter Session 2006.
“The Vienna trip was a great study abroad experience,” he said. “Dr. Stone was extremely knowledgeable of Vienna's musical heritage and was a wonderful guide. Classes were fun, but what really made the trip were the many excursions we made outside of the classroom.”
Eiermann has been a member of the orchestra for his entire stay at UD and said he has enjoyed his time in the orchestra, thanks to Stone.
“Dr. Stone makes orchestral music fun,” he said. “He has a great understanding of the repertoire, and always manages to pick a varied selection of challenging, exciting, and fun pieces for the orchestra to perform. Because of my experiences in orchestra under Dr. Stone's leadership and input, I have come to appreciate a broader array of musical styles, developing an understanding of playing techniques and nuances required to perform correctly in each style.”
Article by Jon Bleiweis