Young Violinist To Present First Solo Recital On North Fork

RIVERHEAD, NY — Ben Eager, who lives in Riverhead, might be just 15 years old, but he possesses the soul and spirit of a passionate classical musician far beyond his years.

Ben, a violinist, will present his first solo violin recital on Sunday at 3 p.m.at the Jamesport Meeting House, located at 1590 Main Road in Jamesport. He will be accompanied by pianist Lea Kendall; donations are optional. Any donations received will be split evenly for his education and for a fundraising effort for the North Fork Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, which uses the meeting house for its Sunday services.

According to his mother Jennifer Eager, Ben is a serious violinist, playing for three-and-a-half years, who hopes to study music in Germany.

Speaking to Patch this week, Ben said it was almost four years ago that his dream to pursue a career as a violinist was born.

"I ended up really enjoying it," he said, adding that he finds it almost better that he began playing at a slightly older age. "I'm extremely self-motivated," he said. "Maybe I wouldn't have liked it as much if my parents had pushed me to begin earlier."

Ben, who also plays the viola and the piano, said he far prefers the violin because not as much music is written for the viola; the violin, he said, "had had hundreds of years of excellent music, dating back to the 1600s and 1700s. I really just like the repertoire of the instrument."

With his professional path before him, Ben said having realized his calling so young "makes me extremely happy. It gives my life purpose. I've put so much time into it, and I really enjoy the music that's written for it."

He's set his sights on Germany, where, he said, there are three tracks of education; one, the gymnasium program, is basically similar to a college prep track for those who want to go into a professional field or study in college. Not only would the pre-college program provide a specialized education in music, but courses in math, science and other generalized courses would also be offered.

Ben's plan is to travel to Germany in December for auditions to the pre-college programs, and then, hopefully attend during his senior year and study for a 13th grade, offered in Germany, before attending college in Germany as well.

Ben said he's excited about Sunday's recital. "The reason I wanted to do it is because, since I want to be a performer, it's very important that I get a lot of experience," he said. Classical music, he said, is far more exacting than rock or jazz music. "In classical music, so much more importance is placed on learning all of the notes exactly correctly," he said.

That's why so many, he said, might feel anxiety about forgetting a note or performing classical music live.

But Ben said he welcomes the jitters. "If I want to go into performing classical, I need experience in front of a lot of people. It's not really a matter of not getting nervous. Pretty much, there's no way to do that. Being nervous, letting yourself get nervous enough that you know how to deal with it and view it in a positive way, so that nerves and excitement are sort of a similar thing — getting nervous puts me in performance mode and makes my performance better," he said.

His goal with the concert, he said, is to get of lot of experience and develop as a performer.

During his performance Sunday, Ben will present pieces by composers including J. S. Bach, Niccolo Paganini, Henryk Wieniawski, Fritz Kreisler and P. I. Tchaikovsky.

Most are entirely solo works, he said, adding that Bach's work was revolutionary because he wrote sonatas for solo baroque violin.

Ben, who is home schooled, studies music privately with Song-A Cho on the South Fork. He practices four hours every day, for a total of 28 hours a week.

Playing the violin, he said, is vastly different than, for example, the guitar, which a person might play in high school, getting progressively better until heading to college to study another field, such as medicine.

That person, he said, could continue to play on the side and later, forego medicine. "You might then say, 'I want to be a rock star,'" he said. "The thing about classical music is, you can't do that. It requires so much dedication and practice. You really have to know from an early age that you want to do that so you can put in the time, and get to a very high level of playing so you can really start interpreting the art of the music. That's really the only way to be a classical musician."

He added, "I really enjoy hearing great musicians play classical music because I know the dedication that they put into it and the love they have to have of the music to make it bearable to put that much time into it."

Music, he said, is a very big part of his and other aspirants' life. "I don't really want to say it's your entire life, but you do have to be very ambitious and career-oriented to go into it because not only is it art, but the dedication requires personal energy, thought and feeling."

Making the decision to pursue a career in classical music, he said, must be made early, and Ben said he's always been ambitious and interested in what job he'd have as an adult.

" I just enjoy hearing a mixture of composers' intentions and performers' interpretation of the work that people play in classical music," he said. "I really enjoy the idea that it’s a field full of people who have also been extremely dedicated and made their lives revolve around music."

His mom, Jennifer, spoke about her son's passion for music: "I am in awe of Ben's dedication. When he first asked about violin lessons at age 11, I figured it would be something he'd enjoy for a while but maybe not stick with," she said.

Her son, she said, had never expressed a desire to play an instrument before then, though her family has been involved together in musical theater since he was 9.

The family has performed with the North Fork Community Theatre in Mattituck since Ben was in The King and I in 2012, she said; the family has been involved with Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Carousel, Into the Woods, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Camelot, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and Cabaret — and Ben was in NFCT's Youth on Stage productions of Thoroughly Modern Millie and Urinetown; he is currently playing Schroeder in You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, which Jennifer is producing.

Her family, she said, also does shows at the Riverhead Faculty and Community Theatre, where she is the board, most recently Gypsy last fall, but also the summer youth shows for the past six years.

"I thought an instrument was an extension of interest in music, but I never thought it would become his life. He is totally self motivated in his practice and the hours he spends every day sometimes impede things we want to do — the opposite of what most parents deal with," she said.

Ben, Jennifer added, "has been serious his entire life; we used to call him the 40 year old toddler. Maybe everything has been leading to this — we are onboard for the ride, in any case."

The other thing Ben's passion for music has done, Jennifer said, is fostered music in her daughters as well.

"Ben taught our youngest daughter, Emma, how to read music and the basics of the piano, and now she takes lessons. He started teaching himself the guitar, and now Emma and our second daughter, Julia, have taught themselves how to play the ukulele," she said. "So they all play music and sing together as much as they can. My husband and I don't read music, so it's really neat to see our kids excelling at something we have no knowledge of ourselves."

Down the line, Ben's goal would be to become a soloist, performing with an orchestra that's giving large-scale recitals and making recordings.

"It's an extremely difficult goal to achieve but I think if I try hard enough I'll either hopefully be able to achieve that goal or fall short of it, but be somewhere that is still allowing me to do classical music on a very high level orchestra or chamber ensemble," Ben said. "Hopefully I’ll go far enough where I can really be making an impact on classical music and the people who listen to it."

Photo courtesy Eager family.