Meet Them Through the Music: PNB Violinist Tom Dziekonski’s Playlist
PNB is the home of so many artists: dancers, costumers, musicians, and more. Today on the PNB Blog, we’re starting a new series where we highlight PNB Orchestra members through their musical taste. First up, founding PNB Orchestra member and violinist Tom Dziekonski! Keep scrolling to read more about Tom while listening to some of his favorite tunes.
Answers edited for clarity.
I’m Tom Dziekonski (jeh • COIN• ski), one of the founding members of the PNB Orchestra, where I’ve been playing in the first fiddle section since 1989. Virginia, my wife of 42 years, is a founding member of the cello section. We’re the silly folks who put up the novelty lights in the pit for The Nutcracker. We also have an 8-car garage covered in about 2,000 license plates.
Handel in the Strand, Percy Grainger
Virginia and I were introduced to Handel in the Strand by Percy Grainger in a chance hearing of a piano trio performance on the radio, decades ago. It became a favorite of ours while playing with our own piano trio. The title comes from its inspiration, The Harmonious Blacksmith of George Frideric Handel, and from a fancy street and district of London during Handel’s time called “The Strand,” better known now as a theater district. We were very pleased and surprised when the piece appeared in the ballet Brief Fling choreographed by Twyla Tharp, but this time, it was a piece for the orchestra. The composer had written it for various combinations, and we were taken by surprise again this summer (2024) when a guest at a wedding reception where we were playing the piece as a string quartet recognized it as a very jolly number he’d directed with his concert wind band, another of the composer’s original arrangements.
Five o’clock Foxtrot, Maurice Ravel
In the summer of 1974, a student performance at the Blossom Festival of Maurice Ravel’s The Child and the Spells (L’enfant et les Sortileges) made a great impression on me as I played in the orchestra. George Balanchine choreographed the original opening performance in Monte Carlo. It’s a one-act opera about a rude child who trashes his room in a tantrum. Then, all the objects he’s damaged come to life, and even the wallpaper and his homework talk and sing. The music shows the influence of Gershwin and American popular music on Ravel in the 1920s. One of the musical “hits” from the opera was this tune, “5 O’clock Foxtrot,” a ragtime dance of the Wedgwood teapot and the China teacup.
String Quartet No. 1 in C minor, Op. 51, Johannes Brahms
Brahms’ String Quartet No. 1 in C minor, Op. 51 remains an absolute favorite of mine. I had the privilege to work on it and perform it at the Yale Summer School of Music and Art in 1973. I think the third movement in particular is one of the most profound and sublime pieces in the repertoire. By the way, the cellist in the Carpe Diem Quartet performing in this YouTube video is a friend of mine from Seattle who let Virginia use her cello when we had a quartet gig in Bethesda, Maryland a couple of years ago!
Sittin’ On a Backyard Fence, Norman Spencer
Back in the day, when I sang and played in a swing jazz trio, Sittin’ On a Backyard Fence was a favorite to perform. The song is from the 1933 Busby Berkeley movie Footlight Parade and a Looney Tunes cartoon. This recording was a hit version by Leon Belasco and his St. Moritz Orchestra.
Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye, Steam
Sometimes a hit song confounds the composer and performer. Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye was just the B-side song for a group of studio musicians that called itself Steam, a name inspired by seeing vapor rising from a manhole cover in the middle of the street. Their hoped-for hit flopped, but the B-side filler became a #1 multiplatinum smash hit in 1969. The lyric “na na hey hey” was there because the composer couldn’t think of a better lyric, and the drum and conga tracks were spliced in from a completely different session done previously in another state!
She Came In Through the Bathroom Window, Joe Cocker
She Came In Through the Bathroom Window was written and recorded by the Beatles on their 1969 album Abbey Road. It’s about a fan of Paul McCartney’s who broke into his house through his bathroom window. But it’s Joe Cocker’s cover in 1970 which reached #30 on the Billboard chart that year, with none other than Jimmy Page of Led Zepellin on the fabulous opening steel pedal guitar riff, that got me hooked on rock and roll. There is marvelous irreverent humor in the performance, in the improvisations, and in the instrumental colors of the music which back up the comedic lyric, from Joe Cocker’s raspy vocals to the goofy whimsical guitar fills between the vocal phrases to the tangled semi-ordered chaos of the solo guitar verse. It’s just a brilliant artistic creation and a collaboration of some of the greatest rock artists of that era.
Save Tom’s playlist on Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Spotify page, and make sure to follow us there for more PNB Orchestra features!
