Fellows Feature: Catching up with Katia

Clarinet fellow Katia Sofia Waxman is winding up her first and likely only summer at the Music Academy of the West after earning a master’s degree from Juilliard while majoring in both music and economics at Oberlin. The Chicago native said she was lucky to get to attend the “pinnacle summer festival” for its faculty and well-rounded performance opportunities, but the fact that it sits on a campus adjacent to Butterfly Beach didn’t hurt either. 

“I’ve been hopping around to beaches all year,” she joked, citing a performance with the Newport (Rhode Island) String Concert last September and a season as the Sarasota (Florida) Opera’s acting second clarinet. 

We chatted with Waxman about her experiences here, her spots in the festival’s final weekend, and her plans for the future. 

Q. What has been your highlight of the summer so far?

A. Playing the Samuel Coleridge-Taylor “Nonet”in the x2 series, sitting between (oboist) Eugene Izotov and (bassoonist) Ben Kamins. I grew up listening to Eugene play in the Chicago Symphony, so getting to share the stage with him was really a special experience. When you sit between two great artists, you go up three levels in performance, just rising to the occasion. I also had great orchestral experiences: the Kodály’s “Dances of Galánta” with conductor Xian Zhang in the Academy Chamber Orchestra concert, which is a holy grail clarinet part that’s very luxurious, so I got to flex my creative muscles in a safe and inviting place. That piece appears on a lot of auditions for clarinetists, so playing it with a full orchestra creates a memory of how it’s supposed to sound which you can use when you have to play by yourself. It’s such an invaluable experience the Academy provides. I also did my first Rite of Spring which was also unforgettable. 

You’re playing in the final Fellows Fridays concert on Nico Muhly’s “Measured to Fit.” It’s a new piece that premiered in 2021 in Australia, and you can’t even find it online. What can you share about it?

I think that was the only time it was played. There are no recordings, nothing to reference, so we put it together entirely based on the score, working with teaching artists and using our imagination, a real challenge to mount a piece of this complexity. The music is tricky but it’s gorgeous, and I think audiences will really love it. (Because) Nico worked with Philip Glass for many years when he was a student at Julliard, so it’s very much influenced by that post minimalist looping style. The tempo marking at the beginning is propulsive, so it’s very forward moving, with a built-up sense of kinetic energy. The relaxed lyrical section in the middle still requires intense mental focus and a lot of hyper independence from each of the members of the group. But then there’s also great moments where we all join together at these super powerful unisons. So I’m really looking forward to it, and I hope that we can give the universe a great recording they can hear online. 

Mahler’s 6th is the last symphony concert on Saturday. What’s it like for a clarinetist?

It requires everyone to use all of the skills that they’ve ever learned. Mahler requires the absolute most of orchestral players – all of the technique, the musicality, the determination and mental focus. So it’s a fitting finale because it’s the summit of the orchestral journey for Music Academy fellows. What I love about Mahler’s writing for clarinet is it’s a lot of tutti, meaning all five of us play together… Also it’s just really loud and that’s pretty fun. 

What’s coming up for you?

I’m still living in New York, so I’ll be trying to sink my teeth into the wild freelancing scene, the plentiful opportunities there that don’t really exist anywhere else in the music industry. Then I’ll be starting with auditions for an orchestral position, going at it for as long as it takes. The unfortunate reality is that this is a hyper competitive industry, and that process can last a long-time during school and for many years after. So I’m trying to steel myself and stay committed to my goals and have the patience to wait it out. Once I get somewhere, I will cultivate the community connections for playing chamber music and solo opportunities. Later, I’d love to teach at a university, partly to give back and also, frankly, to be a great female role model in an extremely male dominated instrument area. I think I would love to be that person for young people who are coming up. 

I know you came here for the music, but what have you done here in Santa Barbara that’s not MAW-related?

I went to Santa Cruz Island for the day, kayaking and snorkeling, which was on my national parks bucket list. It was amazing! We saw all sorts of great creatures. And it’s quiet. I love the Music Academy, but it’s very loud all the time. There’s just a silence to the air out there on the islands, which are very untouched. 

The end is here. The eight-week wonder that is the Music Academy of the West’s summer festival is finito after this weekend. But there’s still time to catch samples in nearly every category of what MAW offers in just three short days. The even better news? Tickets are available for all of the events as of this writing. 

Thursday, August 1: The final violin masterclass of the season is led by the studio’s sixth teaching artist of the summer in Nathan Cole, the LA Philharmonic’s first associate concertmaster. Cole is trading coasts this summer to step into the concertmaster role of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. (Lehmann, 1:30 pm; $10)… Lehrer Vocal Institute closes out its masterclass series in a session run by John Churchwell, the longtime MAW faculty member and a leading collaborative pianist of his generation who became co-director of LVI last summer. (Hahn Hall, 3:30 pm; $10)… 

MAW’s x2 concert series – which matches teaching artists with fellows for side-by-side chamber music performances on stage – comes to a close with six faculty members and 11 fellows featured on a fabulous program. David Lang’s “Cheating, Lying, Stealing”is the composer’s attempt to counteract what he calls classical music creators basically boasting about their skills and insight. “What would it be like if composers-based pieces on what they thought was wrong with them?” he muses in notes for the piece. “I wanted to make a piece that was about something disreputable, looking at something dark. It’s a hard line to cross (because) you have to work against all your training. You are not taught to find the dirty seams in music. You are not taught to be low-down, clumsy, sly and underhanded. There is a swagger (in this piece), but it is not trustworthy.” Indeed, the instructions for playing the work scored for Bass Clarinet, Cello, Piano, Percussion, Antiphonal Brake Drums is “ominous funk.” Also on the bill: Schumann’s rarely performed “Andante and Variations” in its original instrumentation of two pianos, two cellos and horn; and somewhat more standard Brahms’ “String Sextet No. 2 in G Major, Op. 36.” (Hahn Hall, 7:30 pm; $45)

Friday, August 2: MAW’s final fellows competition for 2024 is also the granddaddy of them all, the Marilyn Horne Song Competition in which there are no preliminary rounds, meaning all of the vocal fellows and pianists will perform during the daylong event, vying for what remains of the most prestigious prizes of the summer. Even a directing fellow is part of the proceedings, as Paige Cameron Dirkes-Jacks worked with the singers on their presentation techniques. (Hahn Hall, 11 am; $10)… In addition to Muhly’s “Measured to Fit,” the Fellows Friday concert’s fascinating finish also features movements from Rachmaninov’s “Piano Trio Elegiaque No. 1 in G Minor,” Prokofiev’s “Quintet in G Minor, Op. 39,” and Smetana’s “String Quartet No. 1 in E Minor” (From My Life). Julius Eastman’s landmark 1973 work Stay on It, with the 10 instrumental fellows, as well as the Grammy-nominated Sing! director Erin McKibben and the program’s choral directors joining in on the vocal line, coached by Conor Hanick, come together to close out the program on a joyous note.
(Hahn Hall, 7:30 pm; $45)

Saturday, August 3: Finnish conductor Hannu Lintu, who has been praised for his “scrupulous ear for instrumental color and blend” (Washington Post) and brings ‘a distinctive dynamism to the podium’” (Baltimore Sun), returns for a third consecutive summer, this time for the last event of the summer. The Chief Conductor of the Finnish National Opera and Ballet leads the fellows-powered Academy Festival Orchestra in Mahler’s monumental “Symphony No. 6,” the epic work known as the “Tragic” through its exhaustive journey/profound meditation on the human experience, ranging from absolute ecstasy to total despair. (Granada, 7:30 pm; $18-$115)