The common wisdom is to always look forward, live in the present, never in the past, whats done is done and so on. However at the Springfield Symphony’s season opening concert last Saturday, we brought the past to life in celebration of the our 75th anniversary season. We didn’t bring out archives to display in the lobby, we didn’t project pictures of the orchestra in embarrassing 70’s clothing above the stage. None of that. Instead we brought the past two Music Directors back for a joint concert, including a piece we conducted all at the same time! It was quite a week!….
I wanted the celebration to be as visceral and authentic as possible. The previous two Music Directors Charles Bontrager (1978 – 1994) and Apo Hsu (1994 – 2003) plus myself could not be more different, and yet over a span of 30 years, we shared the same spot and the same desire to grow an orchestra and for it to make a difference in people’s lives. I thought the audience and the orchestra would get a real kick out of seeing the three of us together. This was validated very quickly with the hugs, smiles and cheers generated just by their appearance at our pre-concert event a couple of days prior to the concert. I have a snippet of audio below from the chat we had at the event. Firstly though, here is how the evening was constructed:
- I opened things up with the National Anthem and then after welcoming the audience I promptly invited my two predecessors to join me onstage and followed that with a welcome of Barbara C Hall wife of the late Charles Hall who was the conductor before Charles Bontrager
- The first work on the program was the world premiere of “An American Postcard” by Carlyle Sharpe. This fanfare was written for the occasion and is for 3 Conductors and orchestra (it can be done with 1). Very spirited, festive and Copland inspired, Charles conducted the Strings on the podium, Apo the Winds standing between 2nds and Violas, and me the Brass/Percussion a few feet from Apo. With three styles, lot’s of watching each other, it came off without a hitch!
- Charles then says a few words before launching into Shostakovich Festive Overture.
- Apo next with greetings and Berlioz Roman Carnival Overture (so in the spirit of celebration, a Festival followed by a Carnival!).
- Then my contribution to the first half was to accompany a lovely and talented young Cellist Madeleine Kabat who was the winner of our annual Hellam Young Artists Competition in Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations – this really was shaping up to be a Past, Present, Future concert!
- After intermission the three of us appeared together again to recognize the two longest still active members of the orchestra Tommy Zongker (Bass, 57 years) and Patricia Lockhart (Violin, 59 years). We then stood those in the audience who were former members of the audience. There was a healthy number and a couple who used to play, traveled from Florida to be at the concert.
- To close out we split Beethoven’s 5th. After a (fake) coin toss Apo directed the 1st movement, Charles the 2nd and I finished it off with 3 and 4.
- Following the performance we had acres of cake in the lobby for 2000 people with as many memories as there were slices!
It was truly a special evening, one I wont forget, I felt lucky to be a part of it. The three of us greeted each others as colleagues, and parted as friends, and it is an honor to continue their work.
This is a short clip from our pre concert program the Thursday before the concert. Apo and Charles share some very personal and poignant memories from their time in Springfield:
Audience Connection Podcasts 6 and 7 are online! More pictures from our 75th here!