Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Scholz, piano, ship docked
Scholz, piano
Crystal Cruise’s “Crystal Symphony” ship docked on Grand Turk, in Turks and Caicos in the Caribbean last November. Colfax High graduate Matt Scholz, below, was chosen for the six-star cruise line to play piano in a six-piece ensemble, playing two shows per night on the ship.
His room is on the fifth deck, he has officer privileges and he works three hours a day.
“As a musician, it's steady work, that's hard to find,” said Matt Scholz, Colfax High class of 2006, the piano player in the house band of a Crystal Cruises ship.
On Jan. 29 of last year, he flew to Singapore and boarded the boat, met five other musicians, rehearsed before the lifeboat demonstration and performed that night.
A year before, while Scholz finished his Master's degree in piano performance at University of Idaho, his jazz instructor suggested he try playing on cruise ships.
Through an agency, ProShip, Scholz got an audition, which was done over the phone and online.
He was chosen for the Crystal Symphony, part of a six-star line of ships – the highest rank, along with the Silversea, Radisson and Seaborn companies.
The audition was in August. Scholz told them he would be available after Christmas.
DREAM/JOB
The band he joined were Americans – except for a French-Canadian bass player – on a ship with 560 crew members, 25 of whom were from the U.S.
The group is billed the “Galaxy Orchestra,” playing the Galaxy Lounge, for a show after each of two dinner sessions.
Scholz’s title is “Piano Sideman,” and it’s all he does, beside helping to check passengers in on embarkation days.
“If there's no show, we don't have to work,” he said.
The 781-foot vessel carries one thousand passengers, not counting crew.
“The band, we've got the easiest job, pretty much, on the ship, but we had to do it for 20 years before to get the job,” Scholz said. “I've got the best of all the worlds. It's a nice little waiting area between school and real life.”
It's a niche apart from most crew positions, which mean 10-12 hour days seven days a week with no days off.
“The musicians can't present any complaints to other crew,” Scholz said.
The work can lead to good money, as room and board are paid for and opportunities to spend are limited.
The ship's workers are mostly Asian – of which Scholz estimates 80 percent are Filipino.
“Anything below deck four, you hear a lot of that language,” he said.
Officers come mainly from Europe.
Night workers
Aside from the dinner shows, Scholz's band plays themed sets ranging from Dixieland to big band to rock and roll hits to backing an Elton John tribute artist, for “Rocketman.” Scholz plays solo sets as well, including “Mozart tea time,” in which guests arrive in period costumes and he – wearing a colonial wig from Moscow Costume Shop – plays an hour in the Palm Court, located on the ship's top deck at the bow, windows looking over the ocean.
Scholz, 28, is one of about 20 musicians on the ship at any one time. For his first roommate, he was paired with a 52-year-old trombone player from Pittsburgh, a veteran cruiser, sharing a no-windows room, with twin-size bunk beds, narrower.
“You can turn off the light and take a nap and wake up and you wouldn't know what time it is,” Scholz said.
He is assigned to a wing with other night workers; the casino crew, fellow musicians and Russian and British dancers.
The life
The crew bar is open every night, on deck four, no cash accepted, just deductions from your paycheck. Aside from general crew areas, musicians and dancers are allowed entrance to the officers' bar and officers' mess.
During daylight hours, Scholz is required to wear a day uniform, and after 6 p.m. it's a suit and tie, which he had tailor-made in Shanghai for $150. Measured for it one day, he picked it up, with three shirts and two ties, 10 days later when the ship docked again during a three-month stint in Asia.
Playing
There are no backups for the six-piece band in case of illness.
“Everyone has a sick track,” Scholz said, referring to a recorded performance which can be played in their absence.
The set lists stretch.
“I started off knowing about 60 minutes of music off the top of my head,” said Scholz. “I add more all of the time, sight-reading at first to learn it. I like to people watch.”
On embarkation days, he plays a baby grand in the ship's atrium as the casino crew checks in new passengers.
He skews his light piano versions to the Australian and American casino workers, playing a version of Guns N' Roses “Sweet Child O' Mine” and Journey's “Faithfully,” among his list of numbers.
On Sundays, Scholz plays an upright piano in the theater for church, led by a Catholic priest, who does a mass and a non-denominational service.
“It's in the evening or morning, depending on sea schedule,” said Scholz.
He can practice in the lounge in off hours, learning a request or two for the cocktail hour sets in which he plays whatever he'd like.
In his year at sea, Sholz has remained on one ship, the Crystal Symphony.
“We're the best band on the seas, supposedly,” he said. “The company that hires us puts the good ones on Crystal.”
PORTS OF CALL
The ship is mid-size, with guests paying $6,000-$8,000 for a seven-day cruise, for which Scholz has performed for 39.
“On formal night, everyone dresses up, women in thousands of dollars of jewelry,” he said.
Scholz' port of call list extends from the Far East on his first stint to the Baltic Sea when he returned for his summer contract. Last October, he returned to the ship in Miami, for two months in the Caribbean, followed by three months around South America, stopping in 12 ports in Brazil alone. He crossed the Equator on Christmas Day, marked New Year's Eve in Rio De Janeiro, then continued on to Antarctica.
He got off in Miami March 5.
“Miami to Miami in 120 days,” he said.
Now back on the Palouse for four weeks, Scholz returned to a single-wide trailer he rents outside Moscow – a roommate occupies it while Scholz is gone – he helps teach Mike Morgan's zero-hour jazz band at Colfax High School a few days per week and golfs at Colfax Golf Club, using the cart he owns – which is stored at Scholz's grandmother's in the winter.
What's his favorite place he has been?
“I'd say I have a favorite from every continent,” Scholz said.
He has golfed in a few spots along the way too, including the last time in Ushuaia, Argentina.
“Some of the casino guys are avid golfers,” he said.
FARM TO SEA
Scholz has had five roommates so far, assigned to all band members, as the group's lineup changes.
On a break now in March, his shore leave came together in February when plans were finalized for a charter of the Crystal Symphony ship by Jaguar Land Rover. For the next three weeks, the British automaker is running five, three-day cruises to the Caribbean for dealers and agents. Vehicles now adorn the ship's top decks, and on the second day of each cruise, guests test-drive the new models in Freeport, the Bahamas.
The Crystal Symphony crew is now streamlined for the charter. The Galaxy Lounge is used for presentations and as is maritime law, no selling of anything is allowed when the ship is docked.
Scholz will board again in April, planning to continue with cruise work for at least two more years.
“To take care of a fair amount of school debt,” he said. “I'll burn out first or pay off my debt, one of them will come.”
For the past 10 summers, Scholz has worked at the Colfax City Pool as a lifeguard. In high school, they called him Kenny, for his saxophone playing like Kenny G, before he committed to the piano at the University of Idaho.
Scholz was four when the family moved to farmland outside Colfax, where his father Todd grew up.
Todd also plays piano and was influential in how Scholz stayed with the instrument as a kid.
“I wasn't allowed to just quit in eighth grade,” Matt said. “I wanted to. My social life was getting in the way, like other kids at that age.”
He wanted to just play saxophone in band at school.
Todd – who had been taught in the '60s by his son's same teachers in Pullman, Harry and Sharon Wells, saw Matt was better than Todd was at that age and urged him to continue.
On the farm, Scholz had allergies that drove him away from grain trucks and other field work.
“I was kind of the side man on the farm,” he said.
And now on the sea.
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
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