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 PSO timpanist drums out call for education
By Caroline Abels, Post-Gazette Staff Writer Self-described musical "schizophrenic" Timothy K. Adams Jr. - also known as principal timpanist of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra - describes what might reach his ears on any given day:
"I can go from Rachmaninoff's 'Vespers' to Kirk Franklin to Corey Glover to Puffy to Faith Evans and then to Strauss," he says. In one day? "In one day. That's what I listen to." He's on a lunch break from a PSO rehearsal as he reveals his musical tastes, referring to rapper Puff Daddy and the Russian Romantic composer Sergei Rachmaninoff in the same sentence as if the two had performed on a double bill together. It's no big deal to Adams that he enjoys both classical music and rap - or, for that matter, classical music and gospel, classical music and jazz, classical music and hip-hop. "I listen to what my spirit needs, whatever that is," he says. Rare as it is to find someone with such wide-ranging tastes, Adams himself is a rarity: a black musician in a symphony orchestra. Nationwide, very few African Americans play in classical orchestras, although the PSO, with four black members, is better represented than most. Adams and other black musicians attribute the scarcity in part to a lack of interest in classical music among black children. Kids who are immersed only in culturally dominant hip-hop and R&B are not likely to enter a musical conservatory with an eye toward the orchestral life. Adams, however, born in Georgia 37 years ago to a mother who was a singer and a father who directed a school band, has been around all sorts of music "since I was out of the womb." He was taken to concerts from the time he was 6 months old, and he joined the Atlanta Youth Symphony at age 13 as its youngest member. He's been fascinated by percussion instruments for as long as he can remember. Adams says kids today are able to enjoy classical music like he did despite their immersion in pop music. He says kids go wild when he visits schools and shows off his timpani. They don't harbor any of the common prejudices against classical music because they've never heard it before. In fact, Adams will show off his timpani to a nationwide audience of children on a new episode of "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" set to air Wednesday on PBS. Adams' school visits leave him feeling positive about the future of blacks in classical music, though he says more elementary education and outreach are needed. He believes symphonies should continue to recruit only the best musicians, no matter what their race. He also is heartened by his impression - gleaned from his perch behind the timpani at the back of the stage - that there are more blacks in the audience at Heinz Hall these days. Still, the dearth of "brothers" performing classical music often has left Adams feeling alone since he earned his bachelor's and master's degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music. He was the only black member of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra when he was principal timpanist there in the early 1990s. Before that, he played with the Florida Philharmonic Orchestra and Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, which also had few minorities. He can remember when he got the Pittsburgh job in 1995 and met up with PSO violinist Paul Ross, who is black. "He hugged me like he was my dad," Adams recalls. "When I was in Indianapolis, I never thought I'd see the day when something like that would happen." Adams, who also teaches at Carnegie Mellon University, is planning to write a book about black classical musicians. He wants to document what he calls "an important part of America ... to know that I haven't been alone." To counter his loneliness over the years, Adams has turned to jazz and rock. In the mid-1980s he played in a rock band, Exotic Birds, which recorded two albums and a music video. When in Indianapolis, he would change out of his tuxedo after symphony performances ended at 10:30 p.m. and head to jazz clubs to play the drums in 11 p.m. sets. He would stay until 2 a.m., relaxing in the improvisational atmosphere. Adams, who lives on the North Side, says he doesn't play as much jazz in Pittsburgh, where 11 p.m. sets are less common. But he has made the rounds of places like James Street Tavern, Crawford Grill and Paparazzi. "People in the jazz clubs welcomed me," he says. "They heard they hired another brother at the symphony."
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