A Real Page Turner
The Source
I looked all over the program but couldn’t find his name. The singer was listed, the pianist was there in bold type, the names of the songs, the sponsors, the composers, and even the name of the hotel where the guest artists were housed, but in the eight pages of programming, no mention of the kid who turned the pages. Jacksonville had coaxed one of its bright and shining stars back to town for a concert at Rammelkamp and the place was brimming with fans of both Ryan Kuster and good music. The stage held only IC’s new Steinway grand, a piano bench, and a single chair beside the piano. Three men walked onto the stage… singer, pianist, and page turner. The concert began and the attentive young man began his job of turning pages for the pianist. I guess I’d never really studied concert page turners, so I studied up a bit and found that there’s an art to the job. Certain rules apply: • Sit on the side on the pianist furthest from the audience. Makes sense. We want to see the maestro at work. Disregard this if at least half of the audience has come to see the page turner. • Don’t wear a coat. It’s hard to for the piano player to see Beethoven’s scratchings when your blue blazer flaps open in his face. • Turn the pages from the top. A bottom turn may end in an arm-wrestling match with the pianist. • Stand up to turn each page. A seated turn will bring your arm directly into the trajectory of the pianist’s hands. The only exceptions are pieces written for four hands. (One manual on the subject actually asks the pianist to make a couple of test “windmills” with his arms to make sure that the page turner is out of the way. I would think that this sort of acrobatic would disrupt the flow of the sonata, but I’m not an expert.) • Be quick about it. The experts recommend a rapid, two-fingered grab, and the licking of one’s fingers is okay if done discretely. (No advice was given on how to discretely lick your fingers in front of 400 people.) • The most common cue for time to turn the page is a nod from the pianist. It helps, of course, if you can read music, but when it doubt, look for the nod and hope that the musician is not prone to neck spasms. • Beware of music pages with accordion folds. Horrible tales have been told of musical scrolls sent reeling out on the floor of the stage when the multi-fold works have exploded due to errant page flip. • Do not make a sound with either your fingers or any other parts of your body. That’s the job of the pianist. So you would think that a job with so many required skills would at least get a mention. …a nod….maybe a bow? There was room in the concert program for entire songs by Mozart and Schubert with words in both English and Italian, instructions for contacting the college on Facebook, voluminous biographies of both the gifted singer and collaborative pianist. Why not a one line: “Oh, by the way…Johnny Doe is turning pages tonight, keeping the pianist on the right page, the soloist on track, and keeping the entire concert from coming to a dead halt right in the middle of “Wohl denk’ich oft.” Reminds me of the lady who faithfully puts flowers on our church altar every Sunday. Even when she’s out of town she sees that fresh blossoms grace every service. She’s never mentioned in the service and gets no notice in the program. I don’t know if she licks her fingers. I’m rehearsing a play in Springfield’s Hoogland Center at the moment and the names of the actors and myself will be listed prominently in the program along with costume, tech, and support help of all kind. But there’s one little guy who’ll open the theatre on the night of the show, turn on the lights, and quietly see to the needs of our audiences. My guess is that his name won’t appear anyone on the program even though his absence would leave us all standing out in the cold of Springfield’s Sixth Street. Perhaps we’ll have to wait until the handsome young symphony page turner dies and his obituary reads, “He was kind, he led a good life, and man, could this kid flip pages!”