Music Director of the YSO from 1983-1986
My three years conducting the Yale Symphony were filled with ‘firsts’ both for me and for the orchestra. Having been recommended for the position by my teacher and mentor, Professor Gustav Meier (also former conductor of the Yale Philharmonia,) I moved to New Haven from my native Michigan in August of 1983. I was amazed by the beauty of the Yale campus, particularly the quaint colleges and majestic (and enormous) Woolsey Hall. During that first New England Autumn on campus, I think I learned more than my entire time at The University of Michigan! With the YSO, I was regularly conducting a really good orchestra for the first time. All I can say about that first semester is I began to understand the towering pile of things that I did not know. This was never clearer to me than when I attended Yale Philharmonia rehearsals conducted by the legendary Otto Werner Mueller. Somehow, that first year I managed to survive. I was doing everything for the first time: my first Brahms 2nd Symphony and Dvorak New World Symphony, my first Hindemith Mathis der Mahler and Stravinsky Rite of Spring. Yikes! After finishing each YSO concert, I heard a voice in my head: the voice was of my college roommate, Bob Spring, who would conclude each of our U of M Band concerts with the pronouncement “Well, we fooled ‘em again!”
At the end of my second year conducting the YSO, we set out on a concert tour of Hungary and Austria, the orchestra’s first trip to Europe. We had two different programs – an (almost) all American program for the big cities and a (mostly) European program for the smaller, more musically conservative venues. We had two soloists, principal oboist Sarah Hundley and principal ‘cellist Owen Young.
Our first stop was Budapest. Arriving at the concert hall, we were greeted by a large placard advertising our program, which included one of my all-time favorite typos: Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Springs. The concert was a huge success and during a tour of the city we were shown buildings that were still pockmarked by bullets from the 1956 uprising. We were received with such warmth - I think more in Hungary more than anywhere else on the tour.
Our concert in Vienna was about half way through the tour. We performed at the European holy of holies, the Musikvereinssaal (home to the Vienna Philharmonic and site of numerous premieres of works of Brahms, Strauss and Mahler). Looking back, the program may have been somewhat edgy for the then conservative Viennese, since it featured by works by Igor Stravinsky and Charles Ives. But there was some ear candy in the form of Bernstein’s Candide Overture and Gershwin’s American in Paris. Sousa provided the encore: Stars and Stripes Forever! with the Viennese in the audience enthusiastically clapping along.
My partner, Emil, was sitting out in audience, during our performance of American musical icon (and Yale graduate) Charles Ives’ masterpiece, Three Places in New England. Seated in front of him was a young boy (an Austrian version of Little Lord Fauntleroy) who was with his mother. When the second movement, Putnam’s Camp, ended in a burst of raucous, triumphant cacophony, the boy turned to his mother and shrugged, as if to say “what can you expect, they’re Americans.”
After the concert, we were able to spend some free time in Vienna. Those two days are still magical and unforgettable. From there we traveled across the Austria in our buses through foothills of the Alps to Salzburg. On the morning following our concert there, we were all awoken by the peal of what sounded like hundreds of bells, marking the beginning of the Feast of Corpus Christi.
During breaks on our bus trip through the Austrian countryside, the musicians enjoyed some well-earned free time and would go on short hikes in the mountain passes, break out into frisbee games and just enjoy the comradery that you can only experience as a musician on a concert tour far from home.
In March of 1986, the YSO had another first: the orchestra’s first performance at Carnegie. Taking the buses with all of the musicians from outside of Hendrie Hall to Carnegie Hall was the most amazing ‘field trip.’ It was also irrefutable proof that all halls a not created equal.
The whole idea for the concert began the previous fall during a trip into Manhattan for a concert. Arriving fairly early and with a few hours to kill, I decided to go to Carnegie’s booking office on the 7th Avenue side, fourth floor, to ask if it would be possible to reserve a date in early March for an orchestra concert. After looking through a large old-fashioned looking ledger, the clerk confirmed that March 3, 1986 was free and it would cost something around $3500 for the day (which included ushers and concert programs). Booked!
Works one the Carnegie program included Paul Hindemith’s Symphonic Metamorphosis on Themes of Carl Maria von Weber (Hindemith served on the Yale’s music faculty in the 1940-50s) and Von ewigen Leben, two songs for soprano and large orchestra with texts by Walt Whitman, composed by the early 20th century German composer, Franz Schreker. We were able to engage the up and coming soprano, Dawn Upshaw to sing the Schreker. She had to get special permission to do the concert from the Metropolitan Opera, where she was covering one of the three ladies in Mozart’s Magic Flute.
We had intensive rehearsals during the winter term, and the orchestra that climbed on to those buses in early March was ready to perform! Rehearsing on that historic stage was a thrill and the concert that evening was a big success.
Conducting the Yale Symphony Orchestra was one of my all-time favorite gigs. The musicians were all incredibly talented and bright, and a number went on to have big musical careers. YSO principal ‘cellist Owen Young is in the Boston Symphony and YSO concertmaster Sharon Yamada is a member of the New York Philharmonic’s first violin section.
I still work with Nina Crothers, who was in the YSO’s first violin section. To these and all other YSO alumni, I wish you great concerts, great memories and a bright future.