At the beginning of the new year, we sat down with Almita Vamos and her family. The four of us have crossed paths with Mr. and Mrs. Vamos, the famous violin teacher pair (and Nurit’s parents-in-law), in various ways since we were children, and we have always revered them for their amazing lives. Mrs. Vamos is considered one of the country’s greatest violin teachers. She is currently on faculty at Roosevelt University and has received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching six times as well as the ASTA (American String Teachers Association) Distinguished Teacher of the Year Award. Many of her students have major solo, chamber, and orchestra careers around the world. It was an immense pleasure to spend some time with them, firing away questions over dinner and wine, reading music together, and then drinking more wine. This post is part one of three about Mrs. Vamos’ childhood, her teaching, and her politics.
ON BEING TAUGHT
Grandson Matan (age 10): When did you start playing violin?
My mother gave me a violin. Do you know why she gave me a violin? Because my sister Genie, who was 2 1⁄2 years older than me, was so gifted, they were very worried if I played the piano, I wouldn’t play as well as her. They gave me the violin when I was five so I wouldn’t be jealous of her and so they wouldn’t be able to compare us. Of course I got better than Genie…I’m just joking. I didn’t get better than her; she’s a great pianist.
Almita Vamos as a child
BSQ: Who was the best teacher you ever had?
I had two best teachers. I was very fortunate. I had two extremely different teachers. Mischa Mischakoff was very volatile. He was very busy as concertmaster of the NBC Symphony with Toscanini. He had a lot on his mind, and I was way too young for him, so he would lose patience. He was the typical Russian teacher who was not calm. We always laughed; every lesson I was always addressed as “Shtupid”: “Higher Shtupid” “Lower Shtupid”. I adored this teacher because, first of all, he was a wonderful violinist, so I could listen to his sound. And, just like he would get mad, he would sometimes get really happy. So when he was happy, I knew it was special; it was not the everyday lesson. My mom was great because when I would have a terrible lesson, and he would kick me out and call me all kinds of names, she would take me out and buy me a milkshake. Milkshakes were expensive – it was a quarter – so we shared it, but she let me have most of it. Vanilla milkshake…still my favorite. She would say, ‘When you have a good lesson, you don’t need a milkshake,’ because that was the reward in itself. So, instead of punishing me after a bad lesson, I got a milkshake. I never tried to have a bad lesson. I really didn’t know when he yelled at me what he was yelling about, and when I had a good lesson, I think it was just good luck, and he was in a better mood. I could never tell. He had such an incredible ear that I think that, if I played for him now, he would also go crazy and say I’m out of tune even when I’m perfectly in tune. I had a lot of respect for him, so nowadays I feel like you have to be careful not to offend and to praise a lot. When students do something well, it makes me so happy to tell them they did something well. So, usually in a lesson, I might be aggravated or something, but there’s probably something to which I say, ‘That’s good. That’s what I want.’
Mischa Mischakoff
Then he left and went to Detroit. I was 12 and he sent me to audition for Galamian. Galamian told my mother I would have to study with him and DeLay because he was very busy, meaning I’d see him every other week, and my mother was fine with that. At the audition he asked me to play a scale, and then he said faster, and then he said faster, and Mischokoff was never interested in faster, he was always interested in perfection – perfectly in tune, hold your fingers down, bow straight – and he never really said, you have to play it faster. So, anyhow, we went back to Mischakoff, and Mischakoff said, ‘You don’t go’. Dorothy DeLay was not a known factor, and he said that you don’t go from Mischakoff to DeLay. So he picked up the phone and called Persinger, and he said, ‘Mita, you will like Persinger, he is a gentleman.’
Louis Persinger
Persinger was the opposite of Mischakoff. He was very soft-spoken, and he would say silly things. First lesson, my sister was accompanying me, and he looked at me and said, ‘May I make a suggestion?’ and my sister looked at me like, what’s this all about? He was a great musician, and he believed – and I believe – so strongly that music and technique are one, that you don’t separate technique from music.
But, I could not tell you which teacher was my favorite. I think those two were great. Now, I also had the wonderful benefit of going to my sister’s lessons. She studied with Nadia Reisenberg, who was a great artist and a great teacher. We played sonatas together, so I got an influence not only from her but also from my sister who studied with her. And then I had a much older sister who was a pianist too and who studied with Friskin, so when I was a little child, I heard her practicing. My older sister lived with us when she was married, and she would practice late at night, until one in the morning. She played a lot of Bach, and I think the way I play Bach is very much the way I heard my sister playing Bach. We heard music all the time.
Can you think of a defining musical moment in your life?
One of the defining moments is when I was 11. In those days, Mischakoff was very slow moving. Everything had to be perfect. So when I was 11, I was playing the Vivaldi A minor concerto, the entire concerto not baroque style, in Chautauqua with the orchestra. The amphitheater seats 8000 people, and I played on my 3⁄4 or 1⁄2 size violin, I don’t remember. Probably my 3⁄4 already. Mischakoff was there for the rehearsal, and he was furious when I finished. He took me behind the amphitheater to the bushes, and he started screaming at me [sings] to play loud so they could hear me. I felt like at that moment, I learned to play with spirit. I just felt like, oh wow, you can play like this! That was my first defining moment.