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Cellist and music educator Scott Krijnen is only the third person to serve as the Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra music director in the organization’s 60-year history. Krijnen stepped into the role at the start of the 2023-24 season, taking up the mantle from Ben Simon, who was in the role for 20 years. The orchestra, called PACO for short, is made up of five ensembles of young musicians, who range in age from elementary school through high school.
Krijnen is a lifelong musician who grew up with music. He was born in Belgium, where he lived for the first six years of his life before moving to the Bay Area with his mother, a Californian and herself a violist who had been traveling through Europe for work.Â
This season isn’t Krijnen’s first outing with PACO by any means — he knows Simon well and has been active for many years with the organization. The Palo Alto Weekly caught up with Krijnen to get his thoughts as he winds up his first season of working as the group’s music director, ahead of a May 18 concert by PACO’s senior ensemble.
Palo Alto Weekly: How did you get into teaching?
Scott Krijnen: We moved quite a bit. There were some predictable struggles with going from one country to another. Every time we moved, my mother would usually start a new program. So if you go to a school, there was no music there, she would start a music program or an after-school club or whatever it might be.Â
The first few times that happened, I was a beginner, so I’m just learning with everybody else. But then as I got older, the program (at a new school) was brand new, so I was surrounded by beginners, but that was my fourth year or fifth year playing. And so I became teachers’ aid there to help kids. As a kid that didn’t fit in very well — I didn’t speak English till I was 7 so that was kind of one of those first hurdles, just kind of figuring that out. … Getting to teach and connect with people and see them be successful gave me a lot of confidence, gave me a voice. So I really wanted to become a teacher at a pretty young age of like 12 or 13.
Weekly: So down to the basics here: What is a chamber orchestra?
Scott Krijnen: A chamber ensemble, per definition, is one to a part. So it’s going to be a much smaller ensemble than, say, the San Francisco Symphony. If you go to the symphony,
You’ll have 16 first violins, 16 second violins; 10 to 14 violas; 10 to 14 cellos; six to eight basses. In string quartets, it’s one on a part. It’s all small.
For chamber orchestra, therefore, it’s just a smaller section: So maybe two to a part or four to a part will be standard. Since we’re in this educational field with the Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra, what we’re trying to do is have as many students as we can without sacrificing that small nature. We usually have between six and eight as a maximum per section. So we might have six first violins; six second violins; four to six violas; four to six cellos and one bass player. Our ensembles are on average, somewhere between 25 and 30. That means that we have access to music that was written specifically for that ensemble. With composers, their most special music is usually their chamber work because it’s the most intimate; it’s for individual voices, they can really work with their craft.
Weekly: What does that experience of playing in a chamber orchestra bring to students?
Scott Krijnen: Communication and listening are key to anything. With chamber music, if two people are playing an F sharp, and one of them is sure they are right and the other person is too, and neither one will adjust, then you just have something that’s out of tune, dissonant and unpleasant for everyone involved. But if both people are willing to accept that by playing together and in tune is better for the individuals involved and for everybody listening, then right away, you’re doing something together for a common good.Â
It just allows for this sort of mindset of flexibility and awareness. The listening skills that come with chamber music, the communication skills, the nonverbal communication skills — you learn how to exchange ideas and concepts live while playing through.
Also you just have to be incredibly diligent and responsible in learning and rehearsing your part and then be willing to be flexible after you’ve spent all this time learning in a certain way.
Weekly: What is a typical day like for you as a music director?
Scott Krijnen: A lot of emails. I knew that going in of course. I mean, when you’re running an organization, there’s a lot of needs: there’s of course, just managing the space and making sure this space is meeting the needs of the students.
There’s the vision part: “this is where we want to go, this is what we’re trying to provide and how we’re trying to get there.” There’s the fundraising component where you’re always trying to make sure that you’re solvent to be able to support all these programs and make sure that the students that have less access still have access to PACO.
We have five really dynamic faculty, so (I’m) making sure that their needs are met, they have the resources necessary, and that they’re able to communicate as they wish with all their students. There’s working with the office manager and making sure our facilities are set for rehearsals and for concerts. We’re always also looking to the future. So I’m reaching out and getting people from master classes.
There’s making sure that we’re being really inclusive, so, setting programs that make sure we have a variety of leadership, a variety in master classes and a variety of composers in choosing repertoire. So all those things are sort of sprinkled in throughout the day.
Weekly: What have been some of the highlights of your first year?
Scott Krijnen: Well, it’s been nothing but highlights. Even the board meetings — I leave the board meetings feeling good, which is something not too many people will say about board meetings. There’s just so many caring, thoughtful, capable people that want to see PACO do well.
What I find is that the best parts of my day involve the success of students, because there’s just nothing like seeing a kid go from not understanding to understanding and that happens all the time, which is really special.
All the highlights are involved with just connecting with the people that you’re working with. And I’m just very fortunate to work with a lot of great people.
Weekly: What are you most looking forward to in your work with the orchestra?
Scott Krijnen: I’m always most looking forward to the next rehearsal. I leave rehearsal with so much energy and excitement and joy, and drive home and I do all my blogs, then I do some score study and I still have energy. It’s so incredible the amount that the students are willing to put into those rehearsals.
Then of course, it’s really nice to work towards those concerts. It’s because it’s a moment to share.Â
Weekly: Speaking of the next concert, what’s on the program?
Scott Krijnen: I’m really excited to have Valeria Pelka. She’s an Argentinian composer. She has a piece based on Uruguayan dance rhythms that we’re going to be playing. So that’s going to be interesting and special.
The Grieg String Quartet is one of the pieces from my childhood, and a really impactful one. It was the quartet that I played at a summer camp that showed me what was possible beyond my undergraduate degree and put me on a pathway towards getting my master’s degree at the Conservatory in San Francisco. It was with these great young musicians from Oberlin and Manhattan School of Music and Juilliard and it just made me want to go get even more education. It started me on going to grad school. So sharing that with these kids is really special and fun.
We’re doing a piece by Frank Bridge, which is gorgeous and incredibly difficult. So we’re tackling that and just enjoying pushing ourselves to be great.
This is very different, especially for the Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra, but we’ll be doing an electric cello concerto which is all based on blues and hip-hop and speed metal. The cellist is incredible. His name’s Dr. Erik Anderson and he’ll be flying in and rehearsing with us before the concert on the 18th and that should be spectacular. And it should be something that our particular audience has never experienced.
Weekly: I did not expect you to say “speed metal.”
Scott Krijnen: That should be great. Then, of course, we feature our academy string quartets and we do a presentation earlier to honor all of our (graduating) seniors and that’ll be really special. I’m sure some tears will be shed — tears of joy. These are all bittersweet moments, you know, and that’s very healthy that it’s bittersweet. We know that they grow up and that they move on. It’s hard to say goodbye, but it’s also the natural order of things. So it’s always very heartwarming to share those experiences with everybody in the audience.
The Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra’s senior ensemble performs May 18, 7:30 p.m. at Cubberley Theatre, 4120 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto. pacomusic.org.
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