Tokyo conductor returns to SEMO on positive note

Before Takamune Suzuki was the vice conductor of the Sony Concert Band in Tokyo, he was -- by his own assessment -- an at-best marginal tuba player at Southeast Missouri State University who didn't even pass an audition for the wind ensemble.

"When I left, I didn't really want to play the tuba anymore," he said Saturday. "I didn't feel like I was very good."

When he returned home to Tokyo after three years in Cape Girardeau, he joined a community band in Japan, pushed himself to play better and eventually wanted an even bigger role -- conducting.

After seven years of conducting the community band, he took a job at Sony as Web master for its travel agency divisionand now is the vice conductor of an all-employee orchestra that has a five-decade history, as well as a member of the Sony Symphony Orchestra and the Marunouchi Symphony Orchestra.

He feels that any seeds of success were cultivated here, which was part of the reason he was back in Cape Girardeau last week to participate in Southeast's wind conductors symposium.

"I learned a good deal here," he said. "I wanted to learn more."

Suzuki, 33, was one of four "international conductors" who attended the symposium, along with a total of about 25 other conductors from the region and some who came from across the country.

The symposium offered practical training in conducting and rehearsing bands. The conductors, including public school conductors from Cape Girardeau and Jackson, were offered tips from featured clinicians on improvement.

Robert Gifford, a longtime professor of music at Southeast, remembers Suzuki well. Gifford gave him tuba lessons, and Suzuki took other music courses before a parent's illness pulled him back to Tokyo and out of the program. Gifford said that Suzuki wasn't as bad as he lets on.

"He maybe was a little out of shape," Gifford said. "But he was very talented in music."

Suzuki came across Gifford's name on the Internet and fired off an e-mail. Gifford said it was exciting to hear from his former student.

"I hadn't heard from him in years," he said. "He asked me if I recalled what I called him. It is difficult sometimes for professors to pronounce Takamune, so I called him Taco."

Then, while Gifford was at a music conference in Sweden, he learned there was some scholarship money provided by the World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles for conductors to attend workshops, and four of them ended up here this week.

Traffic cops

Gifford said that conducting is more than waving a wand in front of musicians.

"It's sort of like being a traffic cop," Gifford said. "You're the one that keeps everyone going in the right direction. And there's a saying among conductors: There are no bad bands, only bad conductors. That's how much responsibility we take for the music."

Allan McMurray is the professor of conducting at the University of Colorado. He spent Saturday afternoon listening to conductors lead the university orchestra, and then he offered them advice. He said it will wind up helping students across the region.

"All great teachers want to get better," he said. "This stimulates that process, and then they take that back to the classroom."

Neil Casey, a woodwind instructor at Central High School in Cape Girardeau, said he's been to three of the events and it's always helpful.

"It helps us get better at our craft, examine what you do as a teacher and a conductor," he said. "It's rare to have something like this. You usually have to go to a national program."

Tim Broussard, who teaches music at Jackson's public schools, agreed.

"It helps us express what we're looking for more clearly," he said. "That helps the students express themselves more clearly in their music."

smoyers@semissourian.com

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