By Jacque Day
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wkms/local-wkms-940844.mp3
Mayfield, Ky. – Graves County High School senior bassist Clay Burgess has been named to the 2011 National Honor Orchestra. He'll travel to Indianapolis in March to perform with some of the nation's top high school musicians.
Jacque Day spent a morning with the Graves County High School Chamber Orchestra, and brings us this story highlighting Clay, and the program that produced him.
A Note on Music: The entire story is overlaid with the Graves County High School Chamber Orchestra rehearsing "Greensleeves," and senior bassist Clay Burgess performing portions of Mahler's Symphony No. 1 in D Major.
In an orchestra, the bass can be serious, or calm. It can be forceful, or conversational. It can walk. It can even tiptoe.
We're listening to a rehearsal of the Graves County High School Chamber Orchestra. They're performing "Greensleeves," a traditional English folk ballad and the basis for the hymn "What Child is This." Bassist Clay Burgess, a senior, rocks with the music. His head dips as if to coax the resonance. Though he's well over six feet tall, his bass is taller yet.
Next March, Clay will perform with the 2011 National Honor Orchestra in Indianapolis. To audition, he sent a video recording of himself performing from Mahler's Symphony No. 1 in D Major. According to sponsoring organization Music for All, candidates were evaluated by faculty members of some of the nation's leading universities.
Burgess says he was inspired to go out for the national ensemble by another musician he admires. "A kid from last year, who's now at U of L... that's where I want to go to college. He applied for it, and he got it, so... I was like, hey I could do this."
To see the broad-shouldered young man on the street, one might peg him for a lineman. In the hallway behind the auditorium, he unpacks a custom-made Samuel Shen bass from its gig bag. He tells the story of how he came to play the bass, through his beginnings on the violin. "Eighth grade year, I walked into Ms. Hill's office and we were having class, and I was like, Ms. Hill, I can't play violin."
Laura Hill is director of orchestras for Graves County Schools. She's a cellist who performs with the Paducah Symphony, and during vacations, tours with the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. She taught Clay through his elementary school years.
Hill: "He was sweet little guy... when he started in elementary school. Well, he kept growing and growing and growing. And it got to the point where it was hard for him to put his fingers together. You have to have fingers that go tight together on the violin."
Burgess: "She was like, why don't you just try bass? I was like, What's the bass? I'd never seen one before. And she showed me one and I just started playing it."
Hill: "And he took to it."
Graves County is unique in Western Kentucky because it offers orchestra as part of the curriculum. Clay is one of seven in the school plus one alternate chosen for the 2011 Kentucky All-State Orchestras.
Hill: "It's one thing to be a big fish in a mud puddle. But to compete on a state level, and then on a national level, they're brave. I'm very proud of these kids that come from Sedalia, come from Wingo, Cuba, you know here in Graves County, these tiny, tiny towns. It just goes to show that the town is supportive of the arts."
So what's this sound that got this young bass player picked for the national scene? Here, he plays the Mahler that he used for his audition piece.
Clay Burgess says he'd like to major in performance with an education minor. His teacher Laura Hill says she pushes her students hard, because she knows how tough it out there. Earlier this month, the Louisville Orchestra filed for bankruptcy, and ensembles all over the country are in financial straits. She says, she encourages her students to diversify and keep up with their academics as well as their music.