Whenever violinist Zina Schiff is about to give a concert, she says the Shm'a as she waits backstage for her cue. Then, as she goes on stage, she invokes the memory of virtuoso Jascha Heifetz, the teacher who had the greatest influence on her, and "I ask him to be with me."

Schiff performs this private ritual no matter what music is on the program she is about to play, but come 7:30 p.m. Monday, March 31, the spiritual connection between star student and teacher is bound to be at its most intense.

The concert at the Lawrence Family JCC has been titled "Homage to Jascha Heifetz:: Zina Schiff in Concert."

For six years before graduating from high school, Schiff took lessons from Heifetz, first as a private student and later as the youngest member of his "master class."

The March 31 concert may prove to be the most emotional evening of the Center for Jewish Culture¹s Fourth Annual "Celebrating Jewish Music" Festival. Schiff says she selected the program to "be an expression of Mr. Heifetz.

The program will begin with Praeludium and Allegro, composed by Fritz Kreisler. The Heifetz connection? For Schiff, it was the foundation of their relationship. When auditioning for him at the age of 12, she played this piece, among others, to try to win Heifetz's favor and be accepted as his student. Beyond that, she said, "Kreisler inspired him. Kreisler encouraged him to do transcriptions," to interpret pieces not originally composed for the violin, and was "a mentor in this way."

How well she remembers that audition. A family friend, Irwin Webb, drove her to Heifetz's home in Beverly Hills, where Webb accompanied her on piano. Her mother, Rose, waited in the car, perhaps equally nervous about how well Zina would perform and the "Beware of the Dog" sign on the Heifetz property.

Rose Schiff need not have worried about either. The "dog" on his property had neither bark nor bite; it was the original porcelain RCA Victrola dog. The warning was an example of Heifetz's whimsical sense of humor.

As for Zina's performance, Rose (who today is a San Diego resident) learned  all she needed to know when Heifetz walked her daughter from the audition back to the car, his smile telegraphing his praise.

Later, the mother received more nachas when she received an excited congratulatory phone call from Peter Meremblum, the impressario of a Los Angeles youth orchestra where Zina had been serving as concertmaster.

Meremblum reported that Heifetz had remonstrated with him, demanding to know why he had kept this talented young violinist hidden from him for so long.

Five years with Peter Meremblum's California Junior Symphony, first in the beginners orchestra as a 7-year-old and later in the "big" orchestra, was hardly keeping Zina Schiff "hidden," but that was the way the old friends and classmates teased each other. Heifetz and Meremblum had known each other since their salad years in St. Petersburg, Russia, when they were both
students of the master violinist Leopold Auer — for whom Piotr Ilich Tchaikowsky composed his well-known violin concerto.

Following her performance of the Kreisler piece at the upcoming concert, Schiff plans to perform Concertino, a work written for Heifetz by Menachem Avidom.

"It is very interesting," Schiff says of the music, which had its premiere in Jerusalem. "It starts off with an Oriental, deserty, parched feeling to it. The second movement is like davening (praying) and then it breaks into a cadenza that is like jazz. It is a delightful piece depicting the land and
the people, while capturing the scene of Israel."

The selection is not often performed publicly, perhaps because "technically, it is very challenging, requiring the kind of color that Mr. Heifetz was known for, the nuances. That was his trademark."

In the octagonal music room where Heifetz taught Schiff, "he gave me images that I could latch onto. He gave me images with his language. He was precise. He would say 'make it feel like the wind is blowing — the lightness of your bow.' He knew I also was studying ballet, and he would give me images that pertained to dance. 'You have to hold the note like an arabesque.'"

When Heifetz performed, said Schiff, "he had a very relaxed stand, but it was almost immobile. You see a lot of violinists today — as he was fond of saying — who play with motions, not emotions. I definitely was in the 'motion class.' Perhaps because of my ballet training, I always associated music with movement. But I am much more constrained than a lot of other violinists. He believed you should put energy into your arms. ... You have to define what your body can do; each body is different."

During her recitals for him, Heifetz would stand at his music stand or sit at his desk in the big music room. Sometimes he would rise to go to the piano to play a brief accompaniment. Yes, the great violinist also played piano.

Although musicians praise Heifetz for all aspects of his violin playing, a special portion of awe is reserved for his "left hand technique— the slides and little things he did with his left hand," Schiff said.

Those who have attended Schiff's recitals know that she often plays "with her eyes closed," so deeply does she immerse herself in the music. However, while she was learning, Heifetz "didn¹t want me to close my eyes; he wanted me to look at my fingers and talk to them. 'Tell them what they need to do. Talk to your pinky.'"

Schiff said Heifetz understood that people can learn better if they engage more than one pathway to the brain, in this case augmenting the sense of touch with the sense of sight. "I found it very magical to watch the fingers," she said.

On March 31, Schiff also will perform a number of short works by Jewish composers— three of them who were members of the Russian Jewish Folk Music Society, which so influenced Heifetz in St. Petersburg. These works include two pieces by Alexandre Krein, including one transcribed for violin by Heifetz, and another piece by Joseph Achron, whose brother was Heifetz¹s
first pianist in the United States.

Another short violin piece, sure to be a crowd pleaser, will be Banjo and Fiddle by William Kroll. It was one of Heifetz¹s favorite encores.

The only work on the March 31 program not by a Jewish composer will be Johannes Brahms' Sonata 3 in D Minor. Schiff explains that Heifetz "loved Brahms, and the Third Sonata was his favorite. It was something he played very often. The Brahms is very dramatic, fiery, passionate, gorgeous, and Mr. Heifetz taught it to me."

Heifetz died in 1987, and Schiff today is a grown woman with two post-college age daughters with distinguished musical careers of their own. Nevertheless, Schiff speaks today about her former teacher as she spoke to him as a student. He was and forever will be "Mr. Heifetz."

"His approach was to give me an assignment of some repertoire and then I would come and play it for him," Schiff said. "Usually he would let me play it for him once without stopping, so that I could get the feel of it and then we dissected it. If it wasn't going well, he looked really sad, but he never got angry with me. ... This was the thing; it was always like we were
in it together.

"I never felt that he was there listening, waiting to pounce on my mistakes. I always felt that he was playing it with me, and if I didn't get it right, he failed. So then the question was, 'let's solve it together.'  I never found any negativity. So it was encouraging. He would say, 'Let's see what
we can do.' It was really terrific."

The next step typically would be for Heifetz to pick up his violin and play the piece for Schiff. "He taught by example; he demonstrated."

As a younger student, first under the tutelage of her older sister Eileen Wingard (the present-day Heritage columnist and San Diego Symphony violinist) and later under Meremblum, Schiff learned quickly, but hated the routine of practice. Rather than focus first on the basics, the young
Schiff, something of a rebel, preferred to master them only as each musical composition required.

Despite the unorthodox procedure, she obviously performed quite well, or she never would have been considered talented enough to be accepted for an audition with Heifetz in the first place.

Feeling at that point in her career Schiff still was too inexperienced to enroll in his master class, Heifetz hired Israel Baker to work with her on scales. He knew that Baker had a gentle way of getting students to practice for him.

It was Heifetz who "taught me to love the process," Schiff said. "He made the practicing fun. He broke it down into manageable bits, and made me feel I was succeeding. He had such enthusiasm. He would tell me to start doing one scale ... 1, 2, 3, 4 ... Four notes to a bow. Later on I graduated to eight notes ... and eventually he taught me how to do 32 in a single bow."

Those who focus on Schiff during a concert quickly notice the economy of motion in her bowing, extracting in a single long stroke notes for which other violinists must lift and replace their bow. Her technique really is her own, an amalgam of what she learned from Heifetz and from another of her famous teachers, Ivan Galamian at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where she studied during the early part of her high school years.

She returned to Los Angeles on vacations to continue studying with Heifetz, sometimes learning that the two master musicians differed on matters of technique. Galamian, who numbered Itzhak Perlman among his students, had a teaching style that "was generic; he had a fingering that you copied," Schiff recalled. Heifetz would see the markings and change them. Then Galamian would see what Heifetz had done, and tell Schiff, "Oh you must have copied it wrong."

There were other differences. Heifetz was very concerned that violinists not physically strain themselves. He kept rehearsals to four hours; Galamian favored much longer sessions. Heifetz said if rehearsals are too long, musicians simply practice their mistakes. Additionally, "Mr. Heifetz said 'never, ever play if something hurts;' Mr. Galamian said 'play through it.'"

There will be a change of mood following the Brahms Sonata on March 31. Schiff plans to play three excerpts from George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess that were transcribed for the violin by Heifetz. "He had a personal relationship with Gershwin," she said. "They were dear friends."

"It was fun to see this program evolve," Schiff reflected. "It will have playful elements as well as serious ones, and it will be entertaining. Mr. Heifetz felt he was a humble servant to the music and to the public. He wanted them to enjoy the music. He loved the little short pieces, the little
bon-bons as he called them.

"He liked to introduce new things, so I think he would have liked this concert. I hope so. That was the whole thrust of it, the whole intent."

Mary Barranger, who has accompanied Schiff on compact discs and at previous concerts, will play the piano in the March 31 salute to Heifetz. A staff pianist with the San Diego Symphony, Barranger has worked with other violinists, and says Schiff stands out because "whatever she plays, it has her stamp of expressivity. It kind of dances sometimes.

"A lot of the other violinists are extremely musical and expressive, but they don't add that individual stamp on things. I think that personal stamp is Heifetz¹s influence. He did that with all his playing. He made it unique and memorable, and that is where Zina gets that...

"She makes the rhythms dance, she makes the melodies sing, or cry, or laugh," Barranger said. "She brings out whatever she needs to bring out with her voice, and the violin is her voice."

Schiff expressly does not use the word "accompanist" to describe Barranger¹s relationship to her, preferring to describe the pianist by her instrument.

That's typical of the consideration that Schiff shows other musicians, Barranger said. While she appreciates such niceties, Barranger added, she recognizes that Schiff "is the primary voice, but the piano has to support that voice. It is not that it is not noticeable; it is like a picture frame.
The piano frames the experience."

When they rehearse for this or any other concert, Barranger said, Schiff "clearly has a vision of what she wants to do. You align yourself with that vision. ... She encourages me to be more expressive. ... She is never a diva, never feels that she is perfect and you are not.

"When she is learning a piece, she is not afraid to say it didn't come out the way she wanted," Barranger added. "And she will praise. ... I love the way she does it. It is like playing tennis with a better player than you are. You surprise yourself. She has brought out aspects of my playing that have surprised me. She brings out my best. I get a lot from the high level of musicality with her."

* * * 
Schiff's "high level of musicality" perhaps became apparent even before she was born. Her mother, Rose, relishes the memory of going to see Molly Picon in Yidl with a Fiddle, "and I thought would I ever live to see my daughter play that way." When Rose and her husband, Abe, returned to their home in Los Angeles, "he started playing the piano and I started dancing. ... I
couldn't go to sleep. I wanted to dance, and the next day she was born."

Abe Schiff could pick up almost any other instrument and play it intuitively. Zina Schiff remembers her late father taking her to Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, where she would enjoy listening to him chanting the prayers. He was one of her first important influences. 

Schiff's oldest sister, Eileen, played and taught violin, and her late sister Louise was quite accomplished on the piano. When Eileen gave violin lessons at the house, young Zina would tug at her skirt, wanting to be next.

She quickly learned to play the French ditty "Frere Jacques," and approximately at kindergarten age she won a competition on the Rocket to Stardom television program. Her mother Rose remembers her playing the Russian melody "Two Guitars" and the Spanish "Malagueña."

Interviewed on the program by actress Betty White, Schiff was asked what her mother's musical talent was. Remembering how her mother would cook dishes to bring to their synagogue, but sometimes let them slip through her fingers, the youngster replied, "she makes the dishes for temple and that makes music."  It¹s a favorite family story, although Eileen hastens to add that in
fact Rose Schiff always performed well singing in choirs, and even today performs in one at Jewish Family Service's College Avenue Senior Center.

Not long after the television show, it was on to Meremblum's junior orchestra, where young Schiff was exposed not only to other talented youngsters but to many notable adult musicians. Meremblum's orchestra used to perform in an auditorium at Plummer Park in Los Angeles, where there was a kitchen off to the side. Meremblum's friends would come to have lunch and
hear the talent. Heifetz came on occasion, and so did the cellist Gregor Piatagorsky, movie score composers Elmer Bernstein and Ernest Gold, and comedian Jack Benny.

Benny actually played the violin far better than he ever let on, his comedy shtick revolving around the idea that he was a frustrated violinist. In one bit, performed with the Meremblum orchestra, he brought the young Schiff onto the stage and pretended to become distressed when she played a solo better than he did. The gag was "he got upset and threw me off the stage."

Next, Schiff won the National Federation of Music Clubs' scholarship to study for nine weeks in Aspen, Colo., where she came under the eye of Olga Rosenthal. It was Rosenthal who arranged for Schiff to audition for Heifetz.

While she was studying at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, Schiff received tutoring in English from Ronald Eisenberg as part of her nonmusical curriculum. Eisenberg, who was advancing from undergraduate studies to medical school at the University of Pennsylvania, remembered that he and Schiff first got to know each other at a break-the-fast dinner following Yom
Kippur.

When it came to music, Eisenberg, who had taken piano lessons as a youth, was in a sense tutored by Schiff. "I took up the piano again after I met Zina," he said. "She gave me some music that we could play duets together. One was a Mozart sonata, and then the Beethoven Sonata No. 2 for Piano and Violin."

Schiff returned to the Los Angeles area for her final year of high school at Beverly Hills High and formal entry into Heifetz's master class at the University of Southern California. Eisenberg, by then smitten, came out to visit her, and remembers a party at Heifetz's beach house.

"He was an incredibly good ping-pong player," Eisenberg remembered. "He was also an excellent pianist. He wrote the piano accompaniment for some of his violin pieces. ... He was a delightful person."

Schiff went on to studies at UC Berkeley. After Eisenberg and Schiff married, they pursued their respective careers in medicine and music. She made a debut at Carnegie Hall, then had her European debut, and later still came another important debut in her world. Her daughter, Avlana, arrived.

The young family moved from the San Francisco Bay Area to Shreveport, Louisiana, where  their other daughter, Cherina, was born. Schiff obtained her master¹s degree at Louisiana State University, all the while continuing to concertize and tour.

Schiff said that, as a young mother, "I don¹t feel I changed my focus, I just enlarged it." She brought her children on concert tours with her because "there was no way I was going to leave them with a nanny. I found their antics delightful. So I took them with me, and probably shocked a lot of orchestral managers when they found themselves pushing a stroller back stage."

It was at that point in her career, she recalled, "when we got a lot of articles with headlines like 'Violin Baby Bounces to Bach.' They were always part of it; it was very exciting to be able to share with them."

Schiff said that, given the time requirements of raising a family, she was glad that Heifetz had taught her to practice slowly with full concentration over a relatively short period, rather than continuously over a long period.

"He also said if you practice in the morning, it counts double" — a good way for a mom to rack up music points before the children were up and needing her attention. The family eventually moved back to the San Francisco Bay area.

On occasion, reviewers would suggest that Schiff brought "feminine perspective" to Heifetz's music, a concept that Schiff suggests is far too limiting.

"Yes, I was associated with him and part of his genius was helping me to find my unique voice," she said. "He didn¹t want students to sound like him, or be like him, but to try to figure things out in their own way, what fit their hand, what fit their expression."

"Heifetz could play the most sensitive, delicate— if you associate that with female— and he could also play aggressive. When you are an artist, you have a whole palette."

Both daughters became involved in music. Avlana Eisenberg formed and conducted the Silliman Symphony at Yale University, has soloed in violin, and recently completed a year's study of music conducting at the Paris Conservatory, following in her aunt Eileen Wingard¹s footsteps as a
Fulbright Scholar.

Avlana has been conducting the past two summers at the Young Musicians Foundation summer camp in Los Angeles. She is now a student at Stanford Law School/

Cherina Eisenberg dances ballet, accompanies her mother on piano on several CDs and recently graduated from the University of Washington with a major in music. Like her mother an avid vegetarian, she recently completed course work for a certificate at the National Gourmet Cooking School in New York.

"I wouldn¹t be surprised if she wrote a Broadway musical and choreographed and composed it," said the mother. "And Avlana maybe would conduct it."

The Eisenberg sisters speak about their mother the way Schiff talks about Heifetz, with a deep appreciation both for her talent and the impact on their lives.

Avlana said her mother brings a "soulfulness" to her music. "It is so deep, it is who she is. It is the freest I ever have experienced her as a mother, a human being. She is a conduit to incredible music, the way she gives it a certain lilt or inflection. The way she sings it gives it incredible warmth and beauty. ... Jewish music provides a nexus of two of the most powerful forces of her life. Music is a professional and personal means of expression. She has a very deep connection also to her Jewish heritage, family and ritual. I think Jewish music provides an incredible merging of those two passions, and she has an incredible voice. She can easily go from chanting a haftarah to doing a piece by Jewish composers."

Daughter Cherina described Schiff's work in evocative terms as "some sort of heavenly spark; there is something so pure, it's a tone that touches the soul. ... You have the feeling that there is some sort of angel playing and you have the honor of listening to these beautiful notes. ..."

She added:" I think my mom is very inspired by Judaism and, through a lot of research with my father, she has learned so much about Jewish composers who are very unknown. ...

"It makes her very happy to be able to mine music and Judaism, two of the things that are so important to her. Most violinists aren't doing this. It is very special."

Characteristically, Schiff credits Heifetz for her interest in making the works of Jewish composers known to the world. "He did that," she said. "In fact he commissioned a lot of Jewish composers. He felt that Jewish music was important; it was music that he grew up with, and that he loved. There is a tradition I am following."

"Whether the music is 'Jewish' or from other traditions, Schiff brings to it a spirituality.

"Often times when things go well, I feel connected to the universe in a special way," she confided. "Sometimes I feel I am an observer of something much higher, something a lot bigger than I am, something coming through me."