From Monaco To Seattle -- After A Royal Career, Violinist Joins The UW Faculty

------------------------------- Concert information

Ronald Patterson performs with Roxanna Patterson and Craig Sheppard, in a faculty debut recital that will include works by Poulenc and Brahms. 8 p.m. tomorrow; Meany Theater, University of Washington, Seattle; $5-$8, 206-543-4880. -------------------------------

It is not every University of Washington faculty member who has hobnobbed with the late Princess Grace of Monaco, studied violin with the legendary Jascha Heifetz and played chamber music with master cellist Gregor Piatagorsky.

Violinist Ronald Patterson, the U-Dub's newest addition to the School of Music faculty, has done all of this and considerably more. Local music lovers will get a chance to hear him in his first Seattle performance tomorrow in Meany Theater, where Patterson has invited his violist-wife Roxanna Patterson - the other half of the "Duo Patterson" - and faculty colleague Craig Sheppard (piano) to join him in a program that extends from Poulenc to Brahms to Martinu.

It isn't hard to figure out how Heifetz and Piatagorsky fit into a musician's life - but what about Princess Grace? Well, Patterson was concertmaster of l'Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo from 1979 until just recently, and the late princess not only was a patron of the arts, but also an enthusiastic walker.

"I met her for the first time in this country at the Aspen Festival," remembers Patterson. "What a lovely lady she was, so genuine and friendly. Later, when I went to Monte Carlo to take a one-year vacancy in the concertmaster position (at the invitation of conductor Lawrence Foster), Princess Grace asked me if I wouldn't stay on. Nobody could say no to her! That one year turned into 20.

"She loved to take long walks through the gardens of Monte Carlo, and when she found out I liked to walk, too, we went together. She knew about the effects of sun on the skin, and she always walked with an umbrella to shade her from the sun. I used to carry her umbrella while we walked. We'd talk about absolutely anything and everything. She was very knowledgeable about the arts, and we used to discuss the kinds of mental energies that go on when performers make music together. So many people depended on her for moral support; it's impossible to express how devastated everyone was when she died.

"Her son, Prince Albert, and I are buddies; he came over before I left to say goodbye and promised to keep in touch. He's a wonderful man. Really, the whole Grimaldi family are super people who are trying their best to survive so many tragedies while living in a fishbowl."

Patterson himself has been in something of a fishbowl over the past 35 years, as concertmaster for the orchestras of Miami (beginning at the age of 20), Houston, Denver and Monte Carlo, and associate concertmaster in St. Louis.

"I've just loved being a concertmaster, but I don't enjoy touring; I'm not a hotel person," he notes, explaining why he chose an orchestral career over the lures of the solo stage. Patterson gave his first public concert at 11, only five years after beginning musical studies on the piano with his mother, a concert pianist.

"When I entered school, I wanted to study trumpet or clarinet," he says, "and I thought the violin was kind of a sissy instrument. That changed fast."

Soon, Patterson was the kind of music student who brought replicas of Bach's manuscript sonata scores to the beach as reading material. It wasn't long before the New York Times was praising his "skill, authority and imagination" as a concert artist. Along with Patterson's devotion to music performance came a devotion to teaching; in 1974 he was hired by Rice Institute to write the curriculum for its new music school.

He left Rice and the Houston Symphony to take the invitation to Monte Carlo, though Patterson and his wife, Roxanna, brought some of their American roots along with them.

"We had an American household," he says of the Monte Carlo years. "I wanted our three kids to see `I Love Lucy' on satellite TV and to understand American humor. They do - and they also speak great French. At first, when we moved to Monte Carlo, I spoke almost no French, and I had to rely on a list of appropriate phrases from the previous concertmaster.

"But I've never been embarrassed by my lack of knowledge; I'm more interested in learning. I still have a terrible accent, but I've given master classes in French and done government business. I can get by; I do my best."

Back in this country, with English once again the language of instruction, Patterson says he feels "really fortunate to be at the UW, where I can grow and try innovative things." Innovation is important to this musician, who holds several pending patents to a variety of inventions (including a method of locking together a dinner plate and a drinking glass for cocktail parties and other on-the-go events).

Patterson also is interested in what he calls "interactive DVDs," multimedia discs that would combine home entertainment and fine-arts educational functions.

"Seattle is the center for the creation of software," he observes. "There's so much potential here, and I am full of ideas. I don't think a person has to be limited. If you have talent, it can be like a tree, with branches that go out all over."