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You needn't have worried. He lights into his piece with vigor. In fact, if you close your eyes, you could be listening to a much older performer with a sophisticated sense of nuance, phrasing, timbre, and touch. Afterward, he bows twice, thrice, accepts a white rose with no evident surprise, shoves his free hand into his pocket and exits without having made eye contact with anyone. He has forgotten to acknowledge the orchestra, a breach of etiquette commensurate with his inexperience.
The slighted orchestra acquits itself with honor in Peter Warlock's Capriol Suite—though a Beginner I violinist has fallen asleep in the back row of the auditorium—and there is a further distribution of flowers and praise, with a presentation to Kitchen of a handmade quilt signed by her students and a public reading of a letter of tribute from the North Carolina representative of the American String Teachers Association. Ballantyne mistakenly invites audience members to head for a reception at the Mary Duke Biddle Music Building, but the audience knows better. There is in fact no time for a reception, for the daylong concert is about to move into its second phase: performances by nine chamber ensembles.
I ask the kids, always, ‘Which piece did you like best in our last concert?' " says Kitchen, sitting, weeks later, in her office in the basement of Biddle. She has the orator's knack of building a sense of drama into her conversation and speaks with palpable energy about what she calls students' "trajectory of excitement in music."
"Not just the excitement of learning," she explains, "but the fact that music is a naturally occurring form of expression, and that you learn how to use it by the technique."
Her office is bursting with stacks and racks and cabinets stuffed with sheet music ("Originally it was just piles"), old concert posters, a watercolor ("That's a picture of me teaching, oh, many, many, many years ago"). It's summer, and although Saturdays are a little quieter, the stacks of music are not gathering any dust. DUSS has begun preparing for its two summer chamber music camps, for which it stopped advertising years ago because there was just too much interest. Demand had to be controlled by limiting applications to those in the know.
Kitchen describes herself as partially retired but quickly adds, "I cannot imagine that I would ever stop teaching. I'm happy with what I do."
"There's no next Dorothy," says DUSS assistant director Stephanie Swisher, director of the beginning ensembles and conductor of the Intermediate II Orchestra, a full-time DUSS employee who has been with the school for twelve years.
One of the things that has made the program so successful—and that will make replacing her difficult—is her philosophy that the teaching staff should be given plenty of latitude. "We have a good deal of autonomy," says Swisher. "At the same time, Mrs. Kitchen's very helpful in working with us, giving us feedback whenever we need it. She's been a mentor to me."
"I have a couple of really strong teachers," says Kitchen, "who are also really good organizers, and who also have generosity of spirit. We've been trying to create a base of people who are interested in the forward motion of the student, as opposed to their forward motion." Asked whether she watches the teachers teach, she instantly responds, "No, I watch the students learn." She is confident that DUSS will continue if she ever retires. "And you can't say, ‘Well, it'll be better next year,' " Kitchen says. "You have to say, ‘This is what I'm going to do now.' And so, in a way, success is having a continued now."
The school's ongoing success has led to comparisons with conservatories. Kitchen characterizes it as "a mini-conservatory based on the New England Conservatory of Music model." By definition that would limit it to the elite, inviting comparison to tennis camps where hard-driving parents send prepubescent prodigies in the pursuit of fame.
But there's something different going on here—a sense of creative tension between ambition and fun. "There's no audition process," says Kitchen. "If you want to study the violin, you study." But, she adds, make no mistake: "This is a school; it's not a place where you're coming to do a recreational activity on Saturday mornings. Our primary purpose is not enjoyment. It's learning."
Unlike the vast majority of conservatories, DUSS is not competitive. The orchestras, for example, do have principal players in each section, but they rotate. "The people who are soloing are not necessarily gifted," explains Kitchen. "They are competent or hard working or interested. When you have faith that they can come through, they come through."
The evening concert, featuring the Intermediate II Orchestra and the Youth Symphony Orchestra, is festive. A photo collage and poster in the lobby proclaims "Mrs. Kitchen/DUSS 40th Anniversary!" It's almost a full house now (if you include the violin cases), and the auditorium feels more welcoming than in the stark daylight, its dome tastefully lit, and the evening air cooler. Surprisingly, the house lights never go down, perhaps in testament to the fact that the parents, alumni, and siblings in the audience have made as many sacrifices as the performers themselves to create this moment, and so, in a sense, it is their performance, too.
Kitchen is more in evidence tonight than during the day. She is the general directing her troops, which include the audience. She waves to indicate chair placement, issuing commands and marshaling her lieutenants with a practiced air. As the evening goes on, she periodically seizes the microphone from the emcee. "I want you to clap for these kids like crazy," she says after one piece. "I think they deserve another round of applause," after another. "Stand, Bill!" to composer William Robinson after a third.
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