I recently had the opportunity to chat with Utah Symphony Associate Principal and E-flat Clarinetist Erin Svoboda-Scott about her son Wesley, another new addition to the Utah Symphony family. Erin’s relaxed demeanor and definitive way of speaking made it a pleasure to speak with her.
Erin says that her son Wesley is doing quite well at 16 months. He is walking and beginning to develop an interest in how things work. She and Wesley have met up with fellow musician Evgenia Zharzhavskaya and her daughter Kaya (born three days apart) several times. Erin explained with a chuckle, “Of course they don’t play together at this age, but it’s fun to see how they react to each other. It’s very cute.”
Erin spoke glowingly about summers as a child of a musician in a major symphony orchestra and the lifelong friends she made at Tanglewood: “One thing that I loved about being a symphony brat in Massachusetts was that my dad played at Tanglewood in the summer (with the Boston Symphony Orchestra). That’s a very unique place. They would rehearse at the Shed and then I would go to work with my dad and play backstage with my friends, which was really, really fun. Those are some of my favorite memories. We played Gameboy and tag, and we played cards. That was just the best thing – getting to go to work with my dad so that I could play with my friends. The music was fairly secondary to me as a kid. It would be great if that could be the case with Wesley and Kaya. Of course you can’t have kids running around backstage at Abravanel Hall. It’s a totally different thing, but you know…maybe they could go to family concerts together or other outdoor concerts that we have. They could share a blanket and have a picnic. Just to have that part of their upbringing together; that would be really nice.”
When asked about the role music would play in her child’s life, Erin explained, “For me growing up, I was always required to play an instrument, so that was never up for debate. Yes, I will require piano lessons or something like that. I don’t want to force him but there will be some music involved.”
As is the case with most parents of young children, the pandemic has thrown a wrench into Erin’s routine. Thinking it was the proactive thing to do, she toured preschools very early on in her pregnancy: “I got on the waiting list when I was three months pregnant, only to find that’s not good enough. Finally we got a spot at a daycare when he was 11 months old, as it took that long to get off of the waiting list. That revolutionized our lives. Before then my husband and I were trying to make our schedules work and kind of tag-team parenting, and it was exhausting. All I did was work and take care of him. So it was the best thing that ever happened – getting into daycare. We were there for a month…we barely got him used to going. He was just getting settled in when we had to go into lockdown. Of course it’s nice to be with him every day, but it’s also nice to have day care!”
Other plans, such as a first birthday party planned by Erin’s mother in Florida, had to be canceled: “The first birthday was just me, my husband Robbie, and Wesley. He doesn’t know the difference. I made a cake for him and took some pictures. It was really sad to have to miss out on a big family celebration.”
Erin’s sister, who lives in Philadelphia, had a baby in June and she had originally planned to go visit and help her with the baby. Regarding the postponement of those plans, Erin said, “I still haven’t met my niece and I don’t know when I ever will! Just stuff like that – family things. My family are all on the East Coast. That has been kind of a bummer.”
Wesley’s daycare has since opened up again. On Wesley’s return to daycare, Erin had this to say: “Taking care of a toddler is a full-time job. Now he is back in daycare part time. I’m trying to ease him in so that he’s acclimated by the time we go back to work. They are very careful at the daycare. It is a risk for sure, but they’re doing a good job. The teachers are wearing masks and they’re taking every precaution.”
I asked Erin if she had any advice for professional and working or not-working moms. Chuckling, she joked, “Oh wow, I don’t know if I’m following any of my own advice. I don’t know, just try to lower your standards! One thing I have been doing is I got a Panda Planner. My life is so unstructured and I feel like I’m just running around just doing stuff all day and I’m exhausted, and I think, ‘what have I actually done?’ So I’ve been writing things down and kind of setting an intention for the day. What exercise am I doing, and how am I getting it done. Or I want to get this task done. Then you can look back at the end of the day and say, ‘oh, this is what I did.’ It feels like I didn’t do anything, but for example today I went to Costco and I put everything away. And therefore that’s a win!”
Wesley’s interest in music perked up when he heard her perform in a recorded
collaboration with Principal Clarinetist Tad Calcara and Bass/Utility Clarinetist Lee Livengood on a swing-era jazz piece entitled, “Mr. Bach Goes to Town.” Tad recorded clarinet and drum parts and Erin and Lee recorded their parts later, to be layered on top of each other. While Erin was listening to the piece after adding her part, “Wesley was right there…and he just perked right up. He was smiling and dancing…He loved that!”
With regards to her professional career and studies, Erin got her Master’s degree with Ricardo Morales (Principal Clarinet, Philadelphia Orchestra) at Temple University. When asked about that decision, Erin explained that she wanted to study specifically with Morales: “He taught there, so there I went. When I was in high school I was practicing things like the Nielsen concerto. I thought that being good meant that I could play fast notes! And then when I got to college my teacher was Tom Martin in the Boston symphony. One of the things that he did was to go through the first clarinet part of each of the Beethoven symphonies in my Freshman year. We were working on such minutia; really concentrating on clean articulation and subtle phrasing. Then during my Master’s degree with Ricardo it became, ‘this is how you play a note, and then this is how you go from one note to another note’…very much going back to basics. Lots of people hear Ricardo play and they try to emulate him in certain ways that are maybe counter-productive. For example, he has a very dark sound, but he was teaching me fast air, high tongue position, and lighter reed strength. These are standard, basic sound production things that people would associate with a bright sound. He was teaching those techniques.”
Erin also had the opportunity to record composer Bright Sheng’s “Tibetan Dances,” from the album Spring Dreams, for violin, clarinet, and piano with renowned violinist Cho-Liang Lin. Erin explained how this came about: “It was fairly random. At Tanglewood one summer I was part of the New Fromm Players, which is a group that specializes in contemporary music. That summer we played Bright Sheng’s Clarinet Quintet. Bright Sheng was our coach, and he liked the performance. So he later asked me to play on his CD with Cho-Liang Lin, or ‘Jimmie’ as his friends know him.”
It was a pleasure to chat with Erin. Look for more interviews with other Utah Symphony musicians in upcoming issues!
–Lynn Rosen
View Erin Svoboda-Scott’s bio here