Tree Symphony

by Gina Marie Wylie

  “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I am Taylor Ford, the conductor of the Arizona Symphony and your host this evening.” There was another round of applause.

  I stopped being distracted, and listened to him carefully, listening to the applause, hoping that after I played, the audience would be at least as polite.

  “You will see from your program tonight a change from what we had earlier announced in our season listings.”

  Mr. Ford grinned and paused, looking at the audience. “Were you to ask my wife and children, you would find that I am terrible at birthdays and Christmas: I can’t wait to find out what a present is; I always try to peek ahead of time. Tonight, we have a beautiful present for you. I could not bear the thought of making you wait for the normal course of events.

  “There are a number of programs in our schools that seek out young musicians, start them playing, teaching them to know and love music. There is another purpose in these programs: the search for raw talent.

  “My very good and dear friend, Jerry Gora, called me last fall and told me about an extraordinary young musician who was playing for him in the Phoenix Youth Symphony. Teachers are always proud of their students -- it goes without saying. He was insistent and so I went and listened.” Mr. Ford paused. “I could go on and on for some time about this young lady, but I won’t. Instead, the best way I can think of to introduce you and her, is for you to listen to what she has written and above all, how she plays it.

  “Ladies and gentleman, Miss Kira Kinkaid, our soloist this evening and the composer of what you are about to hear.” He extended his hand to me and I walked out onto the stage, towards my chair.

  It wasn’t what I’d expected. I knew the auditorium was filled with people, but the lights made it hard to see them, and without my glasses I couldn’t have seen them anyway. And as bright as the lights were, I was unprepared for their warmth.

  I heard a soft whisper of encouragement. Could I hear trees here? I looked out at the audience, trying to feel grown up, like someone they would expect would come and play music for them.

  In my mind, I saw my parents sitting on the couch in my dad’s office, glowing in the early evening shadows. I fought the tears from my eyes. I could do this! I could! It would be wonderful, marvelous, beautiful! Nothing else mattered, nothing else at all!

  The applause was polite, but I thought it was tentative and unsure. Well, I wasn’t very old, and I looked that way, particularly without my glasses. At least I wasn’t short like Rachael. I thought they probably expected someone older.

  Mr. Ford smiled at me, and I walked over to the young man holding my cello, smoothed my very most beautiful dress I’d ever owned and sat down. Mr. Ford looked at me as he’d done so many times during the rehearsals, checking to see if I was ready. I nodded and he lifted his baton and the orchestra lifted their instruments. He hit the downbeat and I started playing.

  The music flowed, slow and fast, low and high. Beauty. It was easy to forget about the rest. I let myself go, playing for myself, playing for the trees.

  Except there were thousands of people in the room. It wasn’t the same as anything I’d known before. With so many people present the emotional feedback was stronger, very different than anything I’d experienced. My emotions kept trying to run away. I tried to keep them in check, but with the music... it was hard. Very hard.

  I reached a point where, I thought, it was about balanced. I could keep from rushing completely away, feeling the music that was so beautiful, deep inside me! And with the reflections of all the people, it was very, very deep; deeper than anything I could imagine. No matter what I tried, it was like a lake, with occasional gusts of very strong wind, stirring the waters.

  There were four breaks during my piece, short ones between the movements. At the first one there was silence, then at the second, a short smattering of applause. The third and fourth were as silent as the first. I tried not to think about what the different moods of the audience meant. As I neared the end I wondered what the audience had thought about Tree Symphony. For the first time I really was nervous, but it was right at the end and I didn’t think it hurt how I played. I finished the last notes with an exuberant flourish I’d never done before. Finished, I looked up, still blinded by the lights.

  For a long moment there was silence, there were hardly any sounds at all. Then, as people realized that Tree Symphony had concluded, they began to clap.

  It was, I thought, one thing to contemplate praise when a few people tell you you’ve done well, even when you hear their words. It was quite something else to hear thousands of people clapping. The volume of the applause rose and rose and rose and I didn’t have the least idea of what I should do next. Every thought and preparation vanished as if they’d never existed; my brain was utterly empty.

  Mr. Ford appeared next to me, gently putting his hand on my shoulder. I stood, still unable to see the audience, wishing I could. “A little bow, Kira,” his voice was gentle and soft, barely a whisper.

  I remembered not to nod, instead I made a bow like Mom had made me practice.

  “It takes a little getting used to, doesn’t it Kira?” Mr. Ford said quietly when I had stood back up. I almost nodded anyway. He let my arm go and stepped back, faced me and began to applaud himself.

  I tried to think. This hadn’t been part of the rehearsals. No one had said anything about this part of the concert. When I played for the Youth Symphony, I was asked to stand and people had clapped. It was nothing like this. This was... different. I had to do something, so I bowed again, this time not so deep, towards Mr. Ford.

  The sound increased in volume and a very young girl, nine or ten, in a pretty dress of her own, appeared in front of me with a bouquet of flowers and handed them to me.

  I was triply baffled; I had no clue what to do. What would I have liked, if I was her age, handing beautiful flowers to someone else? The girl did a little dip curtsey; I didn’t have time to think any more. I handed her one of the yellow roses and bowed to her as well. The applause had been loud before, now it was deafening.

  Mr. Ford was next to me again, speaking to me over the applause. “I think they would like you to play a little something else, Kira.”

  He took the flowers and held me by the hand and faced the audience. He gestured for me to play. The clapping redoubled again. How could anything that loud get louder?

  I thought, maybe if I sat down and played something it would be quiet again. I walked to my chair and sat down again, taking up the cello once again.

  I took my bow in hand and drew it softly over the strings, making sure they were still in tune. The sound from the audience ratcheted quickly down, and I looked up, still unable to see a single person out there. What should I play? They’d heard Tree Symphony, it never occurred to me that someone would want to hear part of it over again so soon.

  I’d been working for a few weeks with the trees on another of their favorite pieces, so I choose that.

  It wasn’t, I thought as I started, nearly as good when I played it by myself as it would be if a full orchestra played it. But the cello part was substantial and I condensed a few long rests with just a few bridging notes, so it sounded okay. Concentrating on how to do the music got me through the piece. Only when I realized that it was finished did I try once again to look at the audience. The applause was as loud as it had been before. Well, “Storm Fury” was a pretty dramatic piece.

  I stood and smiled, pleased that they liked the music. The sound from the auditorium was loud enough to make my ears hurt. And the audience was standing, I noticed. Mr. Ford came over, took my hand and presented me to the audience once more. He moved to the microphone, pulling me along with him and took it in his hand. It took a bit for the hall to quiet down enough for him to speak.

  “The first time the Symphony heard Kira play, I asked them if they liked what she had to say. They did. Some of the comments I won’t repeat, but well, now you know, too. Thank you, Kira.” I blushed, remembering what th
e man had said. Oboe. What else could you expect?

  Rachael appeared, grinned, and took my hand, leading me away. Away from the lights, the audience, and the applause. The world seemed to dim. It was hard to see the steps that led to a room downstairs, where I’d waited before the concert.

  “They liked it, didn’t they?” I asked Rachael, half sure they’d liked it, half still concerned that perhaps they hadn’t.

  I’d settled into one of the comfortable over-stuffed chairs in the room while Rachael stood a few feet away. She laughed at what I’d said. “Kira, there has never been any doubt that people would like it, the only doubt was how much.”

  “I did okay?” I pressed, wanting to be sure.

  Rachael shook her head. “No, Kira, that was not okay, that was perfect!” She nodded in the direction of the auditorium. “Right now the other musicians wish they could play that well again; you really drove them!”

  “I don’t understand. All I did was play,” I told her. “Mr. Ford conducted.”

  “Music is like a lot of things: you get on a roll and what comes out is better than you would ever hope or dream. The orchestra was like that tonight. You kept rising above the way they played and they rose to meet you. It was like a race: you trying to play better than them, they trying to keep up.” Rachael shook her head. “Extraordinary. I’ve never heard anything like it in my life.”

  Someone came in the door of the room, looked around, and Rachael jumped up. “Father!” He was a tiny man, like a wizened gnome, just a few errant gray hairs on top of his head, shorter even, than Rachael.

  He ignored Rachael, coming to stand in front of me. He looked at me very solemnly, up and down; then he grinned. “So tall! So very tall! You should be more like her, Rachael!”

  Rachael grimaced, and I looked back and forth between them at a loss for words. What would I say if my father told me in front of someone else, that I should be more like them?

  Rachael’s father went on. “My daughter mugged me, Miss Kinkaid! She simply mugged me to get that cello for you! And then she wouldn’t let me come to a single rehearsal to hear you play! She told me I had to wait for ‘the fullness of time!’” He looked at Rachael with an odd, fond expression on his face.

  “So I waited. Now, I’m going to ground her for a month! At least! Too long to wait! Too long! If you are going to play Grandpa Daniel’s cello, I want to hear every note! Every single note!”

  It had been nearly one AM before we got home and I got to bed. Try as I might to stay awake, I talked to the trees for only a few minutes before I fell asleep. The next morning I was appalled at how late I’d slept, even if it was a Sunday and there was nothing I had to do.

  I stretched and yawned and the trees seemed to be laughing and content. Finally I took a shower, got dressed, then went down the hall to the living room. Dad was sitting, reading; he looked up when I came in. “Morning, Kira.”

  I nodded, still feeling light-headed and some of the nervous excitement from the night before. It was a strange exhilaration; I have no words to describe it. I took a deep breath. Everyone said I was going to get to do it again. I wished it could be tomorrow. Today, even.

  “There’s a surprise for you on the kitchen table, Kira,” my dad told me.

  I shrugged. After last night, what could be left? I went into the kitchen, made some toast and finally sat down at the table. The only thing on the table was the Sunday paper, the main part unfolded. I glanced at it, then started in surprise.

  My own face looked back at me. A color photo, taken during the concert. So skinny, I thought. Do I really look like that? The picture showed a very tall, a very thin, a very young woman. She had a pretty face with an expression I couldn’t place. Oh, it was when I was wondering if I’d done well! At the end! At least Mom would be happy -- I wasn’t squinting!

  My eyes caught the caption underneath the picture. I wasn’t sure how I had missed it before, the letters were an inch high! It was just one word in bold letters: “EXTRAORDINARY!” I looked closer at the words under the caption. After a few seconds, I was having trouble reading, because tears were leaking from my eyes.

  EXTRAORDINARY!

  I’ve been the Republic Music, Theater, Movie and Arts critic for 22 years. I’ve gone to opening nights, concerts, performances, auditions and recitals every week, usually several times a week, over that entire time. In that time I’ve heard some incredibly wonderful music and some music so bad you wonder why the artists bothered, and a large, large fraction that fell some place between.

  Last night a young woman debuted on stage at Symphony Hall. To call what we heard a virtuoso performance is like saying the Versailles Palace is a modest home in the ‘burbs. Kira Kinkaid is, beyond doubt, the most extraordinary talent I have ever had the privilege of seeing perform. On top of that, it wasn’t just a brilliant musician playing Bach or Mozart or Vivaldi, it was an incredibly brilliant young woman playing a symphony she wrote herself! Extraordinary!

  Tree Symphony (Kira doesn’t use an article) isn’t some pallid student piece, for all that Kira Kinkaid is just twelve. It is on a par with anything the great classical composers might have written. I am not exaggerating; Tree Symphony is one of the greatest pieces of classical music ever written, and it wasn’t written in the classical period, but now, today, by an incredible chit of a school girl. A school girl, I am told, from whom music bubbles like a fountain. Extraordinary!

  For an encore Kira played five minutes from a piece that makes Night on Bald Mountain sound like a Sunday School picnic, with less effort than I spend shaving in the morning. Solo, yet you’d swear there was a full orchestra behind her. A piece as stunning and powerful as anything I’ve ever heard in my life, used as a throwaway encore! Extraordinary!

  I wish to apologize to Taylor Ford and the rest of the Arizona Symphony! I have no idea what else they played last night. When I left my seat for the intermission it was to beg and opportune the technicians doing the taping for a copy. No matter what blandishment I offered, even my season tickets for the Suns, I was ignored. All they did was smile! Suns tickets have always worked before! Extraordinary!

  There was more, but I had to wipe my eyes. I felt Dad come up, laying his hand on my shoulder. Mom did the same thing on the other side. “I guess they liked it, eh Kira?” Dad said.

  I nodded, then wept, burying my face on his shirt. His arms went around my shoulders, strong and firm. After the longest time I looked at him, then over at Mom. “All I have, all I ever will be,” I told them, “is because of you, both of you. Thank you. Thank you for the music.”

  Mom nodded, but Dad laughed, shaking his head. “Kira, it’s your music that’s important. Anything I can do, anything your mom can do... we’ll be there for you. Whatever it takes.”

  I nodded, feeling oddly empty. I straightened and asked to be excused. I stood in front of the mirror in the bathroom, looking at myself.

  When I’d played for the intermediate orchestra concert I’d been one among many, not even seated first among the cellos. Oh, at the end I was named and stood, and people applauded me, just as they had applauded “Snow Melting at My Feet.” It had felt good, really good and I’d liked it an enormous amount.

  But last night had been as different from that concert as the first time I played for Mr. Ford and the Symphony and when I’d tried out for the state symphony. Last night had been the most beautiful, the most wondrous event of my life. Even now the exhilaration was still there, just not so intense.

  What had Rachael said once? Applause is like a drug? I didn’t know much about drugs except what they’d said in school. I didn’t even take vitamins. A couple of Tylenol during the month and that was all. And not always then. But I knew you were supposed to “get high” on drugs. I’d never understood that, but was this what they meant?

  I reached out for the trees. It was as odd as everything else. A calm acceptance, a strong tinge of regret. Nothing about me or said to me.

  Was the magic gone? Had I ruined my
friendship with the trees because I’d enjoyed one night of some forbidden fruit? Years of very occasional Sunday School attendance ran through my head.

  I went back into the kitchen and told my mom, “I’m going for a walk.”

  Yesterday morning I’d sat beneath the trees for an hour, reading poetry for my English assignment. Hiawatha.

  I walked briskly. The morning was nice, but it would probably be warm in the afternoon. I crossed the street, looking carefully both ways. Halfway across the street the sign caught my eye.

  It wasn’t a large sign. It was six or eight feet long, maybe half that wide. A picture of a block of apartments, the words “Clarendon Oaks” above them, then in smaller type, “Completion: March ‘10.” Down on one side was a small note: “Developed by Soares and Marshall.” For a moment I stood, incredulous. I’d seen signs like this go up all my years. Never once, did I ever think I’d see a sign like this here. The trees were forever!

  “Nothing is forever,” one tree whispered. “Soon we will not be.”

  I took a few steps forward, into the shade, under the leaves, beside the stream.

  Suddenly I felt what “not be” meant. The emptiness, the vast nothingness... blank, black nothing. It was an understanding I’d never sought, had no desire to experience. I found myself on my knees, being sick, shaking and trembling.

  The emptiness faded, replaced by the calm acceptance again. “What will be, will be. Sooner or later, it will be. For us. For you. Always for all.”

  I shook my head, not understanding, I was terrified of feeling like I’d felt moments before.

  I felt a hand on my shoulder. I heard my dad say, “Are you sick, Kira? Are you okay?”