With world class artists and ensembles right in our backyard, the DMV is known to be fertile ground for nurturing young talents to their full potentials. Ethan Shrier, a graduate of Juilliard (BM) and Rice University (MM) who will be joining the Vancouver Symphony next year as Second Trombone on a one year contract, is a prime example. He is one of only a handful of American musicians selected for a place in the prestigious Academy of the Verbier Festival in Switzerland. All told, just 140 musicians were selected from among nearly 2,400 applicants worldwide. Ethan speaks about how growing up in the DC area has shaped him musically and personally, and fills us in on what it's like to make music on the highest level in one of the most beautiful places on Earth.
Ethan Shrier: Every musician spends their career chasing those unforgettable concerts that were ultimately the reason we decided to pursue music in the first place. Last night I was fortunate to have one of those concerts here at the Verbier Festival. The Verbier Festival Orchestra performed Verdi’s Requiem under the direction of Daniele Gatti, with a star-studded cast of soloists and the Chorus of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in a concert that I could hardly believe I was onstage for. The amazing thing about performances like these, in places like this, is the spirit of exchange and dedication to excellence in a group made up of young people who all bring different backgrounds and skill sets to the table. Growing up in a place like the D.C. area, this same spirit of exchange felt woven into every day of my childhood.
Like so many D.C.-area families, my family was taken abroad – and then back to the U.S. – by work for the federal governments. My father works for the State Department, and after stints in Saudi Arabia, where I was born, and China, where I spent the first five years of my life, we returned “home” to the States. “Home” was an interesting concept to my abnormally well-traveled five-year-old self – but if there was one place where the cosmopolitan mindset that I had become so accustomed to was the norm, D.C. was that place. To a young child still forming my memories and sense of self, it felt like an extension of my time abroad, with a seemingly unlimited supply of cultures and unique backgrounds to learn from and engage with.
The diversity of the D.C. area is well chronicled, with many of the most diverse communities in the country right in my backyard of Montgomery County, MD. Whether it was spending Chinese New Year at my Taiwanese friend’s house or Nowruz with my Persian friends, my exposure to these varied and beautiful ways of life brought me deep appreciation for disparate cultures and their values – and gratitude for how my life has been enriched by my own. It was inspiring and moving to be invited into someone’s home for such an intimate look into their identity. It was always after events like these that I would make a point of inviting my friends over for Shabbat dinner in an effort to share part of myself in what would hopefully be an equally enriching experience for them.
This same attitude extended into my musical community in D.C.: I was always encouraged by my mentors and colleagues to be unapologetically myself. In the Maryland Classic Youth Orchestra program, we played many lesser-known works that pushed the boundaries of what a youth orchestra would ordinarily program, performing works by composers of different backgrounds as well as works that blurred the lines between classical music and other musical idioms. There was something extraordinary about the experience of being invited to expand the capabilities of our art form from the inside out at such a young age, rather than being boxed in (as so many are) by centuries of performance standards and traditions that we are so often beholden to.
Fast forward a few years, and I am now in my second summer in the most stunningly beautiful place I have ever been, making music with colleagues who are some of the best educators I could ever ask for – and I realize those same values that were instilled in me from a young age are only being reinforced by my experiences here. Each person in this orchestra has been shaped by their individual socio-cultural experiences, and the beauty of music is its ability to accommodate intense expressions of individuality for each person within the context of a communal event. The more vulnerable we each allow ourselves to be, the more we are all able to crystallize the best version of ourselves through our music making. And when this happens across a stage of 150 people like it did last night, the end result is absolutely magical.
I cannot wait for the concerts that I will both play and attend for the next two weeks here. Verbier is a special place in the way it humbles even the most venerated artists of our generation into an honest and unfiltered expression of themselves and their talents. I’ve learned so much about myself and the world at large just from the music I’ve heard here, and I feel so grateful to have had the groundwork for this kind of experience laid by the places and circumstances in which I grew up. I’m confident that if I had not been encouraged to be so open in the early part of my life and career, I would not be fully living and appreciating the experience that I’m so privileged to have today.
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