'The Jalisco Philharmonic Orchestra's Charles Nath puts his heart and soul into the talks he gives prior to each Friday performance of the orchestra at the Degollado Theater.' - Photo By CR File Photo
Nath obtained his doctorate in music at Stoney Brook in New York and now teaches at the University of Guadalajara. For the last five years he has been giving music appreciation classes to the general public and just recently began charlas (talks) pertaining to the current JPO program prior to each Friday evening performance.
Last Friday The Colony REPORTER met up with Nath after his entertaining and informative charla about the JPO's first program of the February-March season featuring "The Planets" by Gustav Holst. His unparalleled passion for music and candid wit make a conversation with him a memorable one.
CR: How did you get
started in music?
CN: I liked my parents' recordings of the clarinet. When I was eight years old they gave me a clarinet for my birthday. I don't know how I kept going because the teacher was really, really boring, a terrible, terrible teacher -- sufficient to discourage anybody from being interested in music. Maybe [I continued] because my mother just kept taking me to live concerts there in Fort Collins, Colorado. There weren't that many concerts every year, but she'd take me and I was, you know, a little jerk like most, but for some reason I behaved myself in the concerts. When I was 13, the Denver Symphony came and they played Brahms' "Third Symphony." It changed my life, waves of emotion, just an incredible experience, just emotions that I never even knew existed. I didn't know a human being could experience this.
CR: When was your
first performance?
CN: My first concert was in fourth grade. Just a little melody called "The Blue Bells of Scotland." I loved it so much that I just wanted to share that melody with the people in the class. I thought, "You know, I love this music so much so I'm going to play it for them." It wasn't because I wanted to show off or anything. I think that's the best motivation [for performing] ... sharing music with people.
CR: Do you have any
inhibitions with speaking
before an audience in Spanish?
CN: No, I was always shameless. I gave [a talk] when I came down here to do a recital 13 years ago. I spoke about music to the audience and it was just disgusting; my Spanish was terrible and I was just standing out there in front of everyone, you know, no shame, just slinging out this garbage -- no problem.
CR: How has the response
been to the Friday talks?
CN: It has always been really, really positive. I had one man say these talks are not just a luxury, they're necessary to really understand music. I've had people say they've heard an awful lot more in the music based on what I said.
CR: What can a person
get out of a concert?
CN: People get here an hour early so they're already focused in, and that's one more hour that you're out of daily life. That's where we go in music, that's where we go in a great concert; we get into a different state of mind, we get into a different world. That's why we usually open with an overture, a nice noisy piece, because you need a buffer between you and your day. It gives you a chance to just sit there and relax and forget about all the crap you had to deal with, you know, at your job, all the problems you had with your damn car, and that your daughter just ran off with a snake-oil salesman from Kansas and she's in Algeria. It gives you a chance to forget that kind of crap and just focus on the music. So, people come early and they've already started thinking about music. It gives them a chance to put things in historical perspective and get that mind expanding to the past and to the future and considering other things in their lives -- considering the way the music fits into their lives.
CR: I understand you
spend a lot of time
researching for
the Friday talks.
CN: I think about [the talk] all the time. I've known a couple of priests, they just think all week about what they're going to say to their people. I spend all week thinking about it.
This is, to me, like church. Church is where you go and you put your life into perspective as it relates to whatever discipline you have selected as your own. I don't have any religion except for music. So to me these concerts are where we focus [on] the state of your emotional life, your mind, how much can it expand, what's the state of your spirit, what you are capable of feeling. It's kind of a way to get in touch with who you are right now this moment.
CR: Have you made any
great discoveries you're
going to share this season?
CN: In two or three weeks we're going to have Brahms' third. And I can tell you things that nobody can tell you. That piece has got some magic in it. You have to know where to look and I know where to look. So I can tell people where to look and that's where they find the treasure. The treasures are there, anybody can hear them, but you have to pay attention.
CR: Where does this passion
for music come from?
CN: [Music] focuses your feelings, it expands them. The greatest feelings of my life probably have been playing and listening to music. It takes all the other feelings you have in your day or your past, your history, your dreams, everything, it just focuses them. And you have these magnificent explosions, dopamine is released in the brain because you have so many beautiful things happen ... you have dopamine and endorphins just slamming around in there and bashing against the walls.
CR: Any final words on music?
CN: That's one thing about music: It makes more sense than life does. It's so beautiful. It's just as though your whole life made sense, which it doesn't: We just go along having this and that experience. You get some money and then you lose some money, then you get a girlfriend then you lose a girlfriend, then you get a job and another job and then you get sick and then you die... it's just as though your life really made sense. What if your life really made sense?
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