Strings Attached
Page 28
Joe Dizney, Edward Felsenthal, and Amy Stevens were early readers whose suggestions improved this book immeasurably. For their insights and encouragement, thank you as well to: Katie Couric, Kevin Goldman, Jeff Greenfield, Andrew Heyward, Karen Lyons, Inge Reichenbach, Bruce Rockwell, Tony Schwartz, Bob Scully, Ivan Selin, David Shipley, Phyllis Strong, and Barbara Walters. Thanks also to Maestro Riccardo Muti, Deborah Rutter, Vanessa Moss, Martha Gilmer, Rachelle Roe, John Deverman, Anne MacQuarrie, Frank Villella, Ann Smelser, Benjamin Zander, and the Ladies of the CSO Locker Room, especially Catherine Brubaker, Rachel Goldstein, Florence Schwartz, and Susan Synnestvedt.
Books take a village, and we are lucky to live in ours. Kerri Kolen and Elisabeth Dyssegaard are brilliantly talented editors who helped shape this book in ways both big and small—and made every step a pleasure. The Black Russians are on us! We are enormously grateful to Ellen Archer for her passion, support, and vision, and to her Hyperion colleagues, including Diane Aronson, Shubhani Sarkar, Laura Klynstra, Maha Khalil, Kristin Kiser, Nancy Tan, Theresa Karle, Christine Ragasa, Bryan Christian, Elizabeth Hulsebosch, and Jonathan Bernstein. Special thanks to Allyson Rudolph and Sam O’Brien for their assistance and attention to detail.
The incomparable Suzanne Gluck has been our partner throughout this process. She saw the potential of this book right at its inception, and she has been a tireless advocate and critical reader all along the way. She is simply the best, and so are her colleagues at William Morris Endeavor: Cathryn Summerhayes, Tracy Fisher, Claudia Ballard, Anna DeRoy, and Eve Attermann.
Most of all, we are grateful to our husbands for their sound advice, encouragement, sympathetic ears, and willingness to pick up the slack at home. And to our children, who are an endless source of inspiration and love.
The reunion brunch before Mr. K’s memorial concert. Standing, left to right: Miriam Simon Cotter, John Stine, Miriam Perkoff, Michael Grossman, Joanne Lipman, Jonathan Friedes. Seated: Melanie Kupchynsky and Edward Harrison.
MR. K’S BLACK RUSSIANS
Mr. K’s signature cocktail was the ultimate gesture of affection, best when shared with one (or many!) friends. He often mixed up a batch and poured it into his oversize flask, which he packed into his suitcase before a concert tour to share postperformance with fellow teachers—and in later years, with Melanie’s Chicago Symphony Orchestra colleagues.
Serves eight—or fewer. Depends on your crowd.
Na Zdorovya!
4 shots Kahlua
8 shots vodka
Flask or pitcher
Secret Ukrainian incantations
Combine ingredients in a measuring cup. Stir.
Pour contents into large flask or pitcher.
Serve over ice.
Don’t forget the secret Ukrainian incantations—but be careful: one wrong accent could curse your entire family for generations.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
FOREWORD
Stanford psychology professor Carol Dweck has written extensively about over-praising children. See Carol S. Dweck, “The Perils and Promises of Praise,” Educational Leadership, 65, no. 2 (October 2007): 34–39, available electronically at http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/oct07/vol65/num02/The-Perils-and-Promises-of-Praise.aspx.
In addition, researchers have found that people who experience moderate stress in childhood are more resilient and better able to cope with stress as adults. Linda J. Luecken of Arizona State University has published several studies of resilience in children. Other studies include: David M. Lyons, Karen J. Parker, Maor Katz, and Alan F. Schatzberg, “Developmental Cascades Linking Stress Inoculation, Arousal Regulation, and Resilience,” Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 3, 32 (2009). Prepublished electronically July 10, 2009. Published electronically September 18, 2009. doi: 10.3389/neuro.08.032.2009 PMCID: PMC2759374; and Mark D. Seery, “Resilience: A Silver Lining to Experiencing Adverse Life Events?,” Current Directions in Psychological Science, n. page (2011). Accessed October 6, 2012, http://seery.socialpsychology.org.
Malcolm Gladwell popularized the concept of 10,000 hours of practice required for true expertise: Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2008).
Gladwell cited research by K. Anders Ericsson. For Ericsson’s early research, which focused on violinists at the Music Academy of West Berlin, see K. Anders Ericsson, R. T. Krampe, and Clemens Tesch-Romer, “The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance,” Psychological Review 100.3 (1993): 363–406.
For Ericsson’s later work applying his research to business success, see K. Anders Ericsson, Michael J. Prietula, and Edward T. Cokely, “The Making of an Expert,” Harvard Business Review. Available online at http://www.uvm.edu/~pdodds/files/papers/others/2007/ericsson2007a.pdf.
CHAPTER 5
British composer and musicologist Cecil Forsyth was witty as well as erudite in his description of the viola, and his observations still ring true almost a century later: Cecil Forsyth, Orchestration (1914 edition) 395–396, Cornell University Library. Available online at http://books.google.com/books?id=m9_CTe8qNWIC & pg=PA395 & lpg=PA395 & dq=forsyth+viola+anxiety & source=bl & ots=gkP3wxsypz & sig=XilDJ9HQebJcnb2Y-lNVAmwoaCM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=-A0ST5riHIH20gHY9cX5DA&ved=0CCcQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=anxiety&f=false.
A good overview of the viola’s history can be found at viola-in-music.com: http://www.viola-in-music.com/history-of-the
For additional background on the school reform movement, please see: Maureen Stout, The Feel-good Curriculum: The Dumbing-down of America’s Kids in the Name of Self-esteem (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Perseus, 2000).
CHAPTER 8
Soyuzivka’s colorful history is described in Roma Lisovich’s “Soyuzivka: A Look at Its Beginnings as Nonkanahwa,” The Ukrainian Weekly, LXXVIII, no. 27 (July 4, 2010). Lisovich recounts how the property was purchased by John Foord, who was editor in chief of the New York Times from 1876 to 1883. The property was turned into a sanitarium by Foord’s son, Andrew, a psychiatrist and society figure, and it grew to greater fame under one of Andrew’s sons, Federick “Fritz” Foord, a landscape painter and industrial designer who was a member of the famed Algonquin Round Table in New York City. According to Lisovich, the sanitarium “offered treatment for depression, ‘neurasthenia’ (a popular nervousness condition of the 1900s), alcoholism and post-operative recuperation.”
James Thurber wrote a number of letters from and about Foord’s Sanitarium, collected in The Thurber Letters, edited by Harrison Kinney with Rosemary A. Thurber (Simon & Schuster 2003). The editors describe Foord’s as “a popular drying-out place for New Yorker writers and editors.”
CHAPTER 9
Theresa Chen writes about peer pressure on adolescent student musicians in her “The 6 Stages of Piano Students: Why and When Piano Students Quit Lessons,” Private Music Lessons, Opus Music Education Blog, August 19, 2011. Accessed electronically October 6, 2012, http://www.opusmusiceducation.com/blog/2011/08/the-6-stages-of-piano-students-why-and-when-piano-students-quit-lessons. Her work draws on research by Sidney J. Lawrence, who specialized in the psychology of music education. See “This Business of Music Practicing: Or How Six Words Prevented a Drop-Out”; to access this article, see: http://www.amazon.com/This-business-music-practicing-prevented/dp/B0007EWSLS.
CHAPTER 16
Timothy Snyder’s Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin (New York: Basic, 2010) is an indispensable resource for understanding Ukraine before and during World War II. The author, a history professor at Yale University, generously provided additional insights in an interview.
Mr. K recounted his early years in several essays published in Ukrainian in conjunction with school reunions of the Berchtesgaden refugee-camp gymnasium. He also wrote Ukrainian-language articles about his youth for Svoboda (Ukrainian for “Liberty”), a newspaper for émigrés published in the United States. See “Dyvnym i neperedbachenym ruslom: spomyny pro Berkhtesgaden z pryvodu 50-ykh r
okovyn taboru ’Orlyk,’ “Svoboda (July 23, 1996): 2; Svoboda (July 24, 1996): 2–3; and “Spomyny pro ’Ridnu Shkolu,’ “Svoboda (June 30, 1998): 2, 5. To access these articles, see: http://www.svoboda-news.com/arxiv.htm.
He also described his wartime experience in several English-language newspaper interviews, including the following:
“Recent DP Now College Student Here,” The Ukrainian Weekly, XV (January 27, 1947): 2.
Marie Kidd, “Shawneetown Director Is Hero of Metropolis Festival,” Paducah Sun-Democrat, April 14, 1957.
Pat Ordovensky, “The Old World and the New,” The Town Crier, XII, no. 3 (March 1960). Published by the Sentinel Publishing Co., New Brunswick, New Jersey.
Additional descriptions of Mr. K’s teenage years and/or life in the refugee camps were provided by Ihor Hayda, Olga Sawchuk, and Helena Melnitchenko. Taras Hunczak, history professor emeritus at Rutgers University and a native-born Ukrainian, shared both his knowledge of Ukrainian history and firsthand descriptions of life during the war.
For additional information about the Holodomor and its effects, see Steven Bela Vardy and Agnes Huszar Vardy, “Cannibalism in Stalin’s Russia and Mao’s China,” East European Quarterly, XLI, no 2 (2007) Duquesne University.
The lives of forced laborers are vividly documented in Forced Labor: The Germans, the Forced Laborers, and the War, a companion volume to an exhibition produced by the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation.
Other valuable resources that were indispensable in tracking down original documents and providing historical context include the International Tracing Service in Bad Arolsen, Germany; the U.S. Holocaust Museum; the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard; the Shevchenko Scientific Society in New York City; the Ukrainian Canadian Research & Documentation Centre in Toronto; and the Petro Jacyk Central and East European Resource Centre at the University of Toronto.
PHOTOGRAPH CREDITS
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reproduce the illustrations in the text: Here, here, here, here: photographs courtesy of Arthur Montzka. Here, here: clippings courtesy of the East Brunswick Sentinel. Here, here, here: photographs courtesy of the Lipman family. Here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here: photographs courtesy of the Kupchynsky family. Here: photograph courtesy of Albert M. Simon, aka “Papa.” Here: photograph courtesy of Miriam Simon Cotter.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reproduce the illustrations in the photo inserts.
Photo insert one: Here–here: photographs courtesy of the Kupchynsky family. Here: photograph courtesy of the Kupchynsky family; here: photograph courtesy of Arthur Montzka. Here and here: photograph courtesy of Arthur Montzka; here: photograph courtesy of the Kupchynsky family. Here: photograph courtesy of the Lipman family; here and here: photographs by Burton E. Lipman, courtesy of the Lipman family. Here: photograph courtesy of the Kupchynsky family; here: photograph courtesy of Arthur Montzka. Here: photographs courtesy of Arthur Montzka. Here: photograph by Kwok Ying Fung; here: clipping courtesy of the East Brunswick Sentinel.
Photo insert two: Here: photograph courtesy of the Kupchynsky family; here: photograph courtesy of the Lipman family. Here: photograph courtesy of the Lipman family; here and here: photographs courtesy of Arthur Montzka. Here: photograph courtesy of the Kupchynsky family; here: photograph courtesy of the Lipman family; here: photograph by Kwok Ying Fung. Here: photograph courtesy of Carol A. Turrentine; here: photograph courtesy of Miriam Simon Cotter. Here: Reprinted with permission of The Wall Street Journal, Copyright © 1983 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.; Here: photograph courtesy of the Rosenthal Archives, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, photo by Jim Steere. Here: photograph courtesy of Miriam Simon Cotter; here: flyer courtesy of the Kupchynsky family. Here: photograph courtesy of the Lipman family; here: photograph courtesy of John Henry; here: photograph courtesy of the Kupchynsky family. Here: photograph courtesy of Leslie A. Foodim; here: photograph courtesy of Albert M. Simon; here: photograph courtesy of Darius J. Cotter.
To hear a playlist of the music from
STRINGS ATTACHED,
please visit our website at
StringsAttachedBook.com.
Reading Group Guide
STRINGS ATTACHED
JOANNE LIPMAN
and
MELANIE KUPCHYNSKY
Introduction
Praised as a book that “makes me believe that one man can make a difference” (Yo-Yo Ma), Strings Attached is the moving memoir of a tough teacher who made a real difference to generations of students. He is Jerry Kupchynsky, Mr. K, an irascible and revered public school music teacher. Joanne Lipman—former student turned award-winning journalist—and Melanie Kupchynsky—student, daughter, and Chicago Symphony Orchestra violinist—collaborate to offer two separate and overlapping perspectives of the man who, over the years, brought a profound experience with music to thousands in and around East Brunswick, New Jersey. Despite traumatic boyhood experience in the Ukraine, decades of caring for a wife with multiple sclerosis, and even the tragic loss of a daughter, Mr. K worked over the years to teach hundreds of students not just to play an instrument or be part of an orchestra, but to be disciplined, develop confidence, and to believe in themselves.
Discussion Questions
Who was your Mr. K? Who were important mentors for you? What made these people different than the other teachers/coaches/mentors you experienced?
Lipman and Kupchynsky share their view that Mr. K’s most valuable lesson might be resilience. What was the valuable lesson you learned from your mentor? Describe it, and how it makes a difference in your life.
As we read in STRINGS ATTACHED, Mr. K did not believe that there were untalented children; there were only children who failed to work hard. Do you agree? What are the pros and cons of this perspective? Did reading STRINGS ATTACHED make you redefine “talent”?
If you are a parent, how would Mr. K’s approach be viewed if your child was his student? Would the long-term perspective the book provides make you change your mind, given that his students seem to have been very successful?
Did you ever study a musical instrument? What was the experience like? What role does music play in your daily life? Did you find that this book made you think more about the importance of arts and music programs in our schools?
Throughout his life Mr. K strongly emphasized the importance of discipline. Why was it so important to him? What are possible dangers of such discipline?
Did your perspective on Mr. K change as you read the book? How?
At the heart of this book are several mysteries. One narrative thread involves the disappearance and fate of Stephanie Kupchynsky. Another is Jerry Kupchynsky’s own life story—a mystery that is answered in great part by the authors’ exhaustive research. Did you like how these suspenseful stories were woven throughout the book? What surprised you about them?
Thinking about co-author/child prodigy Melanie Kupchynsky: did you have a reaction to the rigorous training she experienced? What are the benefits and risks of rigorous training for very young children?
How are the two narrative voices of the two authors different? What does each bring? What was your reaction to reading their different accounts of the same event?
Discuss Joanne Lipman’s statement to Mr. K. about why she wouldn’t pursue music professionally: “I love music. That’s why I could never do it for a living.”
Listen to “Meditation” from Thais by Massenet (you can listen to Melanie Kupchynsky performing this piece by visiting the website StringsAttachedBook.com). This was Mr. K.’s favorite piece of music, one he had Melanie play at her mother’s funeral, her sister’s memorial, and for him when he was in the hospital. What does the piece suggest or reveal about him?
After reading STRINGS ATTACHED, did you think about contacting the person who was your mentor? What would you say to him/her if you could today?
What does the title STRINGS ATTACHED m
ean to you now?
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CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Welcome
Dedication
Epigraph
Foreword
Prologue
PART I
CHAPTER 1 The Debut
CHAPTER 2 The Rehearsal
CHAPTER 3 The Students
CHAPTER 4 The Concertino
PART II
CHAPTER 5 The Viola
CHAPTER 6 Academic Overture
CHAPTER 7 The Mendelssohn
PART III
CHAPTER 8 Baba
CHAPTER 9 The Audition
CHAPTER 10 Stage Fright
CHAPTER 11 “Mr. Jerry”
CHAPTER 12 Yesterday
PART IV
CHAPTER 13 The Conservatory
CHAPTER 14 The Gig
CHAPTER 15 Duets
PART V
CHAPTER 16 The Disappearance
CHAPTER 17 The Gift