[“Fashionably Late: Juliet White-Smith Debuts!”; Centaur 2982 (2009)]
Juliet White-Smith, DMA, is Professor of Viola and Coordinator of String Chamber Music at the University of Northern Colorado. She is also the new President of the American Viola Society. Her first CD, released in May, is “Fashionably Late: Juliet White-Smith Debuts!”, Centaur 2982 (2009). It includes a world premiere recording of George Walker's “Viola Sonata.” The disc also features two works of Maurice Gardner: "Tricinium: Sonata for Solo Viola" and the "Suite for Violin and Viola." Finally, the composer Michael Colgrass is represented by his Variations for "Four Drums and Viola."
When we interviewed Juliet White-Smith yesterday, she had just returned home after performing at the “Bravo! Summer String and Keyboard Institute” at the University of Minnesota School of Music in Minneapolis. In less than two weeks, she will represent the American Viola Society at the "37th International Viola Congress” at Stellenbosch, South Africa. She and violist Tim Deighton will perform the premiere of a work by her U.N.C. colleague Prof. Paul Elwood, "Capricious Apparitions" for bowed banjo and two violas, with Elwood on bowed banjo.
This is the first installment of the interview:
Q. “I understand you're from Baton Rouge, is that right?”
A. “I am, born and raised, with a few years as a youngster moving around, but we ended up back there actually right before I started playing violin.”
Q. “About when was that?”
A. “That was when I was in fourth grade, about halfway through, I think it was in the second semester. I broke my arm in the Fall.”
Q. “In your fourth grade year you started the violin, and then you continued it for several years, right?”
A. “I did, through my undergraduate degree and actually through my first year of my Master's Degree.”
Prof. White-Smith explained that she received her Bachelor's of Music Degree in 1984 from Louisiana State University, then pursued a Master's Degree in Music at the University of Houston.
A. “The second year of my Master's, I decided.” “When I got to Houston I had the opportunity to hear some fabulous playing from my teacher there as well as in the Houston community. The viola section of the Texas Chamber Orchestra, I believe it was Bartok's Divertimento they were performing on a concert that I went to. I was just - I was stunned, I didn't know you could do that on a viola!”
“A month into my second year, I was taking hour-long viola lessons, hour-long violin lessons, and it just dawned on my, 'I love this!' I was having a blast!" "I was in my element and I found my voice basically.” “The range of the instrument just felt right and some of the technical things that I was struggling with on violin became easier on viola. I'm a tall person, got long limbs and I'm close to five-ten, and I felt cramped on the violin. On the viola I just was freer physically.”
Professor of Viola
African American Violist
President, American Viola Society
Fashionably Late: Juliet White-Smith Debuts!
University of Northern Colorado
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