Between Bass And Treble: An Alto Story

BY AJ TRAGER

YPSILANTI – Amidst the cobblestone roads and waterways of Dusseldorf, Germany, Barbara Zmich-McClellan and Celeste McClellan-Zmich met while working in the instrumental arts. They kept running into one another throughout Europe at various functions or coffee houses.
"There was something; there was just this moment where I thought, 'This is the person I'm going to spend the rest of my life with,'" Barbara said.
Thirty-one years later, the couple celebrated their anniversary on Dec. 4 here in the United States, with wine from Vinology, chocolate from Schakolad and a re-polishing of their wedding rings from Abracadabra, all located in Ann Arbor.
Both musicians play in what is considered the alto clef, located between the treble and the bass clefs on the music scale, which allows them to move in the middle and work as a connective force in an orchestra.
"Alto is so neat because you bridge upper and lower clefs," Celeste said.
"Sometimes we'll play our parts together to see how things fit in and pace our stamina," Barbara added. "We don't often have a lot of melody where we are. We provide a lot of rhythmic support and sometimes we'll get some fantastically cool melodies. If that voice is brought out, it brings a lot of seniority that otherwise you might miss. It adds a lot to the body of the orchestra."
Barbara began playing the viola in her Birmingham middle school and Celeste began her French horn study around the same time in her home state of Texas. While in Europe, they played for large orchestras like the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, the Dutch Radio Orchestra and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. Today they both work as freelance performers for various groups around the state, Barbara contracted with the Ann Arbor Symphony and the Michigan Opera Theatre Orchestra and Celeste performing with the Dodworth Saxhorn Band, the Ann Arbor Symphony and the Christ Church Grosse Pointe.
"It's really exciting to play with the Ann Arbor Symphony because sometimes you'll just get those moments where things will happen in a performance that you don't anticipate are going to happen," Barbara said. "It's everybody getting into a mental groove, and it's really thrilling and the audience picks up on that."
The couple was married at Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts, and for the first time since they said their vows, they will take the stage together in an upcoming performance by the Ann Arbor Symphony.
"It's an amazing thing to be able to play music at such a high level that you can play professionally and make your living off of it," Barbara said. "We played in full time orchestras in Europe, and when we came back we decided that we didn't want to do that anymore. But we still wanted music to be a big part of our lives."
They lived together in Europe for a total of 12 years before returning to the U.S. and say that living in very open, LGBT friendly cities like Amsterdam helped to establish a good foundation for their identities and their relationship. In the Netherlands, a couple, or any two people, sharing household expenses and a residence under the same roof are granted all the rights and benefits as a couple who are legally married.
"I had a hard time adjusting to the different culture when I came back," Celeste said.
"The big thing for me coming back was health insurance, because they had fantastic health insurance. It's not an issue at all. We think America is so progressive, that we are such an advanced culture, but their culture has been around a lot longer than ours and they really have figured a lot of things out that we haven't figured out yet," Barbara said.
After moving back to the states, Barbara and Celeste pursued applied powers of attorney, joining trust accounts and estate planning, and years later in September of 2013, they married.
"In the arts, it (prejudice or discrimination of LGBT people) tends to be less so than in corporate America," Celeste said. "I've never felt like that, even in Holland. But one of my colleagues in Holland did make a rude comment to me as I was getting on the bus. You never know where it is going to come from. It could come from enlightened peoples, those who know other gay people."
In January, they will travel to Japan for a 26-day tour, playing 14 concerts with the Hollywood Festival Orchestra, accompanying three Japanese singers. Barbara and Celeste started learning the Japanese language earlier this year during a trip they took out west and are excited to travel abroad again to play with other musicians from around the globe.