Avers looks forward to Paris, back to Oberlin

Senior Randall Avers is one of the few members of the relatively new classical guitar department. He recently completed his senior recital and will be going to France next year to continue his studies at the Paris Conservatory. He talked with Review reporter Anna Hiller.

Anna Hiller: So, you're a classical guitar major...

Randall Avers: Yes, yes I am.. . and this is my senior year, and I transferred from North Carolina School of the Arts which is in Winston-Salem. I studied with Aaron Shearer who is considered to be the leading pedagog in the United States for classical guitar. I worked with him for a year aand then I transferred to Oberlin to study with Stephen Aron, who I worked with beforehand. He was an excellent teacher and I thought I could learn some more from him. And things worked out great. I worked with him beforehand over at Akron University. When I was about12 years old I started working with him and I worked with him for a time. Then I went to a private high school in Boston, or, near Boston, in Natick, Massachusetts. I studied with Neil Anderson over at the New England Conservatory for two years. And really it's been great working with all these teachers. They all have their own strengths - they have some pretty incredible strengths - each in their own individual sort of field. So I've learned a lot from each of them. Steve I've known forever and he seems to be a close relative... he's always been there. It'll be unusual to leave him after this year and go off to France and study with someone else.

AH: Do you know who you're going to be studying with in France?

RA: Yes; his name is Olivier Chassin. And he recently replaced Alexander la Goya, who retired, and was supposed to be the Man in France. But Olivier Chassin is a magnificent teacher. His studio is probably one of the most remarkable - well, it is the most remarkable that I've ever seen. Anywhere. For guitar.

AH: It's very rigorous?

RA: It's extremely rigorous... and you really have to work hard to maintain. What you might call their "worst student" is great. You have to do a competition in order to get into the school and basically all the people that are in the school are competition winners. They've all competed against 50 or 60 other guitarists to get one or two select spots in the program. I was the first one to be selected for Olivier Chassin's studio. There are only two studios in the [Paris] Conservatory for guitar and I was the first American in several years to be chosen to be part of the studio.

AH: This is at the University of Paris?

RA: Uh, no, the Paris Conservatory. Yeah, it's going to be hard living out there...

AH: How long will you be there?

RA: Three years. Three years from what I understand. I might be there longer, who knows right now... but I think three years would be just fine. You don't really get degrees like you do here. You don't get a Bachelor's or a Master's or anything like that. You get, um, you get prizes which is a level... you're expected to play up to a certain level and if you play well beyond that you get a "first prize," if you play somewhere a little less you get a "second prize" or whatever, you have to really... it's extremely hard to get. They can give any number of first prizes or second prizes it's just based on this sort of standard what kind of prize you get after a few years of studying with them. I'm planning to spend three years there, try for my prize, and while I'm there I'm going to do some concertizing, there if I can. Any sort of way to support myself while I'm out there... because it's really hard if you're an American, not a European, it's extremely hard for you to get a job... benefits and stuff... getting a paying job where you can get a check. It's a lot easier to work under the table over there, and that's probably the only way I'll make money.

AH: When do you actually leave for France?

RA: I'll be leaving in October. I'm going to be spending the summer in Montreal to brush up my French. I'm going to do some "busking." Do some playing around the city, playing restaurants, see if I can make some money that way.

AH: Are you nervous about going to France?

RA: Yeah... This is the first time I've ever been dropped in a situation where people are speaking a language other than English. My audition [in Paris] was the first time I'd ever left the country. So I had to take a huge risk and go on out there just to get into the program. If I would've flown on out there and not gotten into the program that would have been very, uh, extremely unfortunate.

AH: So all the stresses of senior recitals kind of pale in comparison, do you think?

RA: Well, yeah. That's kind of like the end of the road. You have the anxiety when you're first there, but then once you get to know the people, and stuff like that, and it starts to feel like home after a while. But you know, you've eaten beforehand, you know that you're still living. But it's the future... that you've got to worry about. How are you going to live, how are you going to get along with people, especially people who are coming from a different country, a different lifestyle, a different way of thinking. It isn't entirely different but...

AH: So what are you going to be doing with your last month here at Oberlin?

RA: Well I just finished my senior recital, so what I'm doing is, uh, I'm first and foremost... it's the grades, I have to do well in my classes. Especially since I left for the audition to Paris and also because I went to a competition this past week. I ended up getting second prize in the ASTA guitar competition which is a national competition. Because I've missed so many days of school I've been playing a game of catch-up pretty much all semester. Really it's been hard trying to keep up. It's been extremely hard and that's first and foremost. I have to make sure I graduate. And secondly, Rami Vamos and I are playing a concert on the 12th of May, on Mother's Day. We're playing our premier of our "12 Silly Songs for 12 Silly Strings." It's just a collection of hokey tunes, like, really outrageously silly.

AH: You said earlier that they are full of musical jokes...

RA: Yeah, oh yeah. For instance we have... this one piece which we took the letters of Bach's name. B, which is B-flat, A which is A, C which is C, and H, which is B-natural. We took those four notes and we turned it into a little melody for, actually, this Latin tune... Rami and I, we both played one of our songs at my senior recital on Tuesday. And everyone that we've played them for seems really interested, really likes them a lot. There have already been some people that have come up to me and are really excited about hearing all 12 of them. But we're still working on them (laughs). We haven't finished composing all 12, but, um, we're going to do our best to, uh, to hit it (laughs).

AH: What pieces did you perform at your senior recital?

RA: I played some pieces that I did at the ASTA competition. I worked on a quartet, um, it's actually a concerto, that I played with a string quartet. And we really did some really outrageous things in that piece. I called up Dan who's the first violinist right before the concert and we messed around during rehearsals and we did all these... what you might call "Connie jokes." We did all these Romantic slides and glisses and made it just so cheesy, so soupy... I really got a kick out of it. And the thing is, the quartet got together right before the performance and worked out some of these things for the performance itself... so I had no idea what they were going to do. Dan was telling me, "We're not responsible for anything that happens out there." I remember one in particular - Dan threw something in and it was right at the end of the orchestra, right before the solo part, and it was hilarious. I started cracking up and I almost screwed up. It was full of surprises. Rami and I played our silly song, the quartet was ridiculous and we really had a great time out there. I played "Let it Snow" for an encore, because, uh, it snowed that day. And then I realized that my recital had lasted for an hour and 40 minutes... My grandmom and my Mom baked some cookies for the reception afterwards... Little guitar cookies.

AH: So are your parents excited about you going to France?

RA: Oh, yeah. Things have been working out so well lately. My dad really likes talking about me a lot. I had some people from back home stop by and hear the concert; took a two-hour drive to come up. I had a fantastic time. I also announced that I'm releasing a CD before the encore. It's going to be coming out May 14 hopefully. I'll be selling that at the Co-op Bookstore for about $12, and I'm going to try to sell some tapes there too. I'm really excited about that. It's a project I've been working on with an ex-Connie, his name's Elbert McLaughlin, and he did all the engineering and the editing for me on that disc. It's turned out to be something else. I spent a long time slaving on the program notes, so it's a complete and total project. Elbert and I, we pretty much did the whole thing. It's taken a lot of time... finally it's coming out, months and months after I had thought. I'm going to take some to France and sell them at concerts, you know, give them to local record stores. And then maybe, eventually, I'll look for a label, so I won't have to worry about distributing everything myself, keeping track of everything myself. That would be nice. Right now I'm just excited that it's finally coming out. It's been on my mind for years now.

AH: So, now that you only have one month left, any regrets?

RA: Well, I wish I had spent some more time with the people that I've been meaning to get together with, but I suppose that that's what commencement is for. A lot of my friends are graduating too. I'll miss a lot of the people. Fortunately I'll get to see my girlfriend while I'm in Montreal. But I've made some really good friends here, and there are some people I wish I had gotten to know better... and we'll never have this chance to have them all together again. I suppose I'll come back and visit if I can. But it's going to be a long plane trip... It's a really small world, though, it really is. Hopefully I'll get a chance to see a lot of these people. That's the biggest thing. I also wish I had worked harder while I was here... But I would say I'm pretty happy with the way things have turned out. At least I know where I'm going to be for the next three years... and I feel that Europe will give me a lot of incentive to work very hard with the music. Hopefully it will get my name out over there and the more that that happens, the more chance I have at making myself a career as a performance musician which is what I really want. If I could do that... If I could do some sort of Artist-in-Residence, which is something everybody dreams of, which is where some school kind of owns you and whenever you're not on tour you go back and you teach lessons and master classes and stuff like that... That would be a dream come true. But right now that's a long way away... Right now I think I need to learn my music...

AH: So what about fun? When do you get to relax?

RA: Never! (laughs)