Doctors take the musical stage
Members of the Los Angeles Doctors Symphony Orchestra will perform select classical pieces at the Grand Lounge of the Ebell of Los Angeles tonight at 8 p.m.
COURTESY of STEVE MOYER
Los Angeles Doctors Symphony Orchestra
Tonight, 8 p.m.
The Grand Lounge of the Ebell of Los Angeles, $10-$15
By Alyssa Stanley
Nov. 12, 2010 12:12 a.m.
During the day they save lives, but come evening, the story changes. These medical professionals trade in their stethoscopes and scrubs for sheet music, bows, brass and reeds to become the Los Angeles Doctors Symphony Orchestra.
Tonight, students and alumni will play in the orchestra’s 57th annual season opening at the historic Ebell in Los Angeles.
Together, they will share the stage with dentists, medical students, nurses, surgeons and other medical professionals as they debut composer Karim Elmahmoudi’s “Ancient Dreams.”
Other notable pieces, such as Robert Schumann’s “Konzertstucke for 4 Horns and Orchestra, Op. 86,” will also be performed.
For second-year medical student and harpist Christina Kopriva, the life between a musician and an aspiring emergency room doctor can be quite manageable. Kopriva spends most of her mornings in labs and most of her afternoons in lectures.
“As a musician it’s mostly by night with the orchestra rehearsals,” Kopriva said. “I also take my harp and play it in front of the hospitals around here … so it’s mostly nights and weekends for music, and then all during the week is for my school work.”
Kopriva and the orchestra will be performing the first of three concerts in their new home in the Grand Lounge of the Ebell. While the orchestra continues to transition into their new settings, Ivan Shulman, the musical director of the Los Angeles Doctors Symphony and a general surgeon, has plans to take the group to higher levels of performance.
“Having a stable place to play makes the orchestra sound better,” Shulman said. “If you rehearse in the same place you are going to perform you get used to the acoustics of the surroundings and that makes you better players. You understand how to adapt.”
Shulman also said he would like to take full advantage of all the opportunities at the Ebell by increasing the number of orchestra performances each season.
“Most community orchestras play one program, one concert and that’s it,” Shulman said. “But I like to treat the orchestra much more professionally, and by that standard I like to have them perform more than once.”
Cheryl Puntil, a cellist and clinical nurse at the Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital, has been a member of the orchestra since 1992. She said the orchestra’s strides toward musical professionalism wouldn’t be possible if it weren’t for the members’ strong friendships that have held them together throughout the years.
“The only time I stopped playing was when I had my daughter,” Puntil said. “My stomach was too big after six months. I couldn’t sit with my cello and play anymore.”
Although the orchestra has formed a closely knit musical family, made stronger through the many years they’ve played together, it is always looking for new members to bring aboard.
“We’d love to have young people join the orchestra,” Shulman said. “I mean, we always know that there are conflicts between work, school and the orchestra and we understand that. Having been there myself, I think I probably understand it better than anybody.”
According to Shulman, trying to balance being both a musician and a medical student can sometimes be overwhelming, but student life should not be all encompassing.
“I’d just like to suggest in particular for your medical students that in the big picture of life having something more than medicine is very, very important,” Shulman said. “You need something to balance life … so if they could take a couple of hours out every week and come play with us they’ll feel better for it.”
