Six CSO musicians describe the power of sharing music with audiences of all ages, while working with a commitment for unified impact. As they also anticipate the return of live concerts again, each also describes the timeless power of the orchestra to connect with listeners. InterMISSION @ the CSO is produced by CSO trumpet John Hagstrom and sound editor/mixer Rich Sigler.
TRANSCRIPT:
Intermission at the CSO, Episode 6: Community Effort
Patsy Dash: It's the collaboration, it's what's happening in the moment.
Stefan Hoskuldsson: Moving people, uplifting people, enriching people's lives.
Baird Dodge: And, oh my gosh, this is something very special.
John Hagstrom: Welcome to Intermission at the CSO, taking you behind the scenes at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and sharing stories about what it takes to make this one of the world's great orchestras. I'm John Hagstrom. I play in the trumpet section in the CSO, and in this episode we'll be talking about our commitment to bringing music to our community outside of Symphony Center. Our commitment to bringing music to students, and our anticipation for returning to live concerts soon. And we hope that wherever you live, you will also be looking forward to spending some time listening to the music we play and also coming back to concerts. Whether you've ever been to a live concert of an orchestra or not, hopefully the voices you're about to hear will move you toward making the experience of a live symphony concert a regular part of your life.
When you go to an orchestra concert, there is no right or wrong way to feel about any moment of the music that you hear. The whole idea of a symphony orchestra is to let the music take you on some kind of dramatic journey that belongs totally to you. And it's our job as musicians to create an experience that leaves you glad that you made the effort, because it does take some effort to go to a concert. But you get a big reward for that effort and here's why—the audience experiences a great variety of emotion and energy during a concert, and it's because you hear and see a group of very experienced and dedicated players sharing with you the best of their talent and preparation to perform music written in many different places and from many different time periods.
But there's something else that happens even greater than that. You're also seeing and hearing a group of very different, very diverse musicians, working together to find a unified energy and beauty of sound. Some CSO musicians are from Chicago and many others are from all around the world, and we're all working together towards something greater than any one of us. We do have various conductors that help to rehearse and keep things on track, but the biggest part of what makes it all work is the desire of each player to contribute to the common energy that will be transformational—for you. And almost every other orchestra is hoping to do that too, but the CSO has built its reputation on creating a really extraordinary experience during each concert.
The work of the CSO is truly a community effort--in our community, and when we're not playing concerts in Chicago at Symphony Center, we're playing them in other places within Chicago and the neighborhoods around Chicago, or on tour around the country and around the world. Sharing the emotions in music is the reason each of us have worked to become professional musicians, so let's start by sharing a story of how the CSO's principal flute player first experienced the power of sharing music. Stefan Hoskuldsson has been a member of the orchestra since 2015 and he shares how his musical journey began growing up in a very small town in Iceland.
Stefan Hoskuldsson: My father was a musician, I'd say he was an influential figure in my life and he had a furniture business, really that was his main form of profession. He had a shop. He sold books and furniture, but on the side the was a musician and he played the piano beautifully, and he was also an organist in the church in the town where we grew up. Music was his passion and he wanted to become a musician, but couldn’t. It was difficult in the time that he grew up in the 1940s in Iceland, a very tough time. When I started learning an instrument, I was six years old. I started on the recorder. I picked up the flute shortly after that. We played together as a father and son duo. We used to go to the local hospital, every Thursday and play for the people there.
I was about 7 or 8 when we started going there. It was powerful. It was amazing to see how the people received this gift. It was not for money. It was just for pure love, just to see the reaction of people, how they ... some of them were so moved, crying even, some of them were just so happy and smiling. As a child, I was really taken with this experience and to see that music could do this to people. Music was giving them so much, and it was just a very defining moment for me just to see that this is why we play music, and that always stuck to me as this is why I'm doing this.
So this is why this experience is translating into my life right now and in the form of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra going into our own community, doing the same thing for people, moving people, uplifting people, enriching people's lives whether they're students or whoever they are. It makes all the difference. It can make all the difference in people's lives to have something like this and to give freely, to make this happen more often.
John Hagstrom: Just two musicians performing together can be extremely meaningful for listeners, as Stephan described. The CSO also has a presence in our local communities in the form of small groups, visiting schools and sharing the energy of musicians working closely together to create beauty and impact. Baird Dodge is the CSO's principal second violinist. He's been an orchestra member since 1996, and he talks about the impact he observes performing for students in Chicago schools.
Baird Dodge: I think what we in particular can offer … first of all, some of these kids are lucky enough to have wonderful music teachers already, but I think we do offer something quite distinct from that when we play a concert in a school, which is what we're talking about here is the sort of spark and energy that we have playing together. I mean, it's really powerful and palpable when it's a hundred of us, but when we go with three of our friends and play at a school, play a quartet, there's some of that same excitement and fun.
And also you can sense that it's very important to us, so we're also very serious about it and somehow the kids can pick up on this. They can feel that, and it doesn't have to do with an instructive aspect of it, it's not that we stand up and say, “We're going to play very important music for you, and it's very important that you pay close attention and take note.” It's just that we play with our zeal and commitment and energy and passion and fun, and you can just see the kids, the light bulbs going off in their brains of, "Oh, my gosh, this is something very special," and it just has to do with our ethic together as a collective, how much importance we put on it, but how much joy we take in it. I think that really comes across to kids very strongly.
John Hagstrom: That ethic we have that Baird described at the heart of how the orchestra connects to audiences, which leads to the intensity of what audiences feel when we play in different neighborhoods around Chicago. Lots of different ideas and preferences must find common ground for us to eventually play with one unified sound, and the effort that we all make to do that is what moves listeners to connect with us during those concerts. Patsy Dash has played in the CSO's percussion section since 1986, and she talks about how different musical ideas are transformed into one unified energy for listeners.
Patsy Dash: I think there are a number of different artistic viewpoints in the orchestra, and of course the music director or the conductor of the week has the final say, but there are so many details that within a few rehearsals, no conductor is going to address every detail of every instrument. So there are many things that we talk about amongst ourselves. Sometimes we talk about it. Sometimes we can just simply hear and see what others are doing and match that, and sometimes there are artistic disagreements — and yet when it's time to perform, there's a level of professionalism that kicks in, and we listen to each other and we make compromises. And I'm proud of the collaboration that we do in the Chicago Symphony, even when we don't always agree on things.
John Hagstrom: The Chicago Symphony Orchestra, in addition to making a difference within our own communities, is also committed to representing Chicago around the world as a performing ensemble. For over 100 years, the Orchestra has traveled within Illinois and around the United States playing concerts for a few weeks each season, but it wasn't until 1971 that the music director then, Sir Georg Solti, insisted that the orchestra perform outside of the United States to share the energy and impact of the CSO on behalf of Chicago. In almost every year, since then, the CSO has traveled internationally to perform for audiences in Asia, South America, Europe and Mexico, building a positive image for our city. Gary Stucka has played in the CSO’s cello section since 1986 and describes the CSO’s role as an international ambassador for Chicago.
Gary Stucka: One of the things that we can be so thankful to Sir Georg for is the fact that he took the CSO to Europe for the very first time. I think the thing that tour accomplished was not only did it show what a great orchestra we had, but it also changed the reputation of the city. Before the Chicago Symphony went to Europe in the early 1970s, people only knew of Chicago as being the home of Al Capone, and then whenever they would say, “Oh, you're from Chicago [makes machine-gun sound]”, that’s all that they wouldn't think of.
John Hagstrom: No matter where you hear the sound of the CSO, you're hearing a community of players committed to working together for something special. Oto Carrillo has played in the CSO horn section since the year 2000, and he shares a few of his thoughts about what the orchestra offers to listeners and why he feels our work together will endure. He was born in Guatemala, so he's fluent in Spanish, and he's spoken at CSO concerts to audiences within Chicago's Spanish-speaking communities.
Oto Carrillo: I was born in Guatemala and I grew up speaking Spanish with my parents speaking to me, and still speak Spanish with my parents, and I feel a sense of pride, of course, that I am Hispanic and that we live in a community in Chicago that is very, very heavily Hispanic. We've played in many of these places, and I've been honored and privileged to be able to speak Spanish with people and connect with them. Our orchestra, it's endured because the music is so great, the richness is so great. The combination of songs that you get is something you can't really re-create anywhere. Just the sense of a machine that breathes, a machine that makes beauty all the time. I think our orchestra, our institution, will live on because of that. It's such a draw for so many people.
John Hagstrom: The sound of a great symphony orchestra has a universal power to connect with anyone who will make the investment to listen intently for just a few minutes. The musicians of the CSO come from all over the United States and the world to be part of this work we do together, and it's been that way for all of the orchestra's history. Steve Lester has been in the CSO’s double bass section since 1978, and he recalls the international diversity of the orchestra as it was then and for many years before that. He also shares his thoughts about how the orchestra's members will change in the years to come.
Steve Lester: Musicians themselves are people from different ethnic backgrounds and different cultures. We experienced that in the orchestra ourself. I remember thinking when I joined the orchestra in 1978, how many different accents I heard among people who had been in the orchestra already for 20 or 30 years. They had come from different countries and different areas. It's very true that we don't represent the racial makeup of our city and that should change. That has to change, but like everything else that has to change as part of a much bigger change in society, where everyone has access, everyone has equal treatment under the law, equal access to schools, to a quality education. This is something that is fundamental to our country and has to really now become the truth for everyone.
John Hagstrom: There's no better way to change the future than to invest in young people. In 1995, Patsy Dash and her husband, Doug Waddell, started a program to make a musical investment into what has now added up to about 1,000 students. Funded by the CSO, their Percussion Scholarship Group offers intensive individual weekly percussion instruction on a full scholarship basis. The participating students are all Chicago residents in grades 3 through 12. They perform several concerts a year at Symphony Center, as well as having performed around the city and on radio and television. Patsy described to me the experience that they give to students and the skills that musical study helps them to achieve, even outside of the group.
Patsy Dash: Of course, John, you and I are both huge proponents of music education, and I think that there are a lot of positives about playing an instrument, and even though we don't pressure the kids to go on in music, we do tell them, “We are preparing you in a way that you could go on in music.” So there's that level of intensity, even though lots of them pursue other avenues. But without that level of intensity, then they don't have that to draw on, on a new path. So we're pretty tough on them and they get a lot of opportunities because we start them so early. And by starting and being really serious at an early age, by the time they are in high school, a lot of them have some options to do things outside of our group. So there are so many things about music, about the arts that are so important to young people.
We've had tons of just amazing kids. Some of them liked percussion a lot, and some of them just love percussion, even though they'd never even tried it before, or never even heard of it before coming into our group. And some of them are just natural performers. There are some kids that I think of specifically who would have performed on any instrument on any stage anywhere, doing anything. They just love performing. So I do enjoy all the kids in their different incarnations, being so different.
And some of them it seems like, “Oh, this kid doesn't like it.” I have one student who I thought, I don't think he likes it. I said to his mom, “He doesn't really talk to me very much in his…" I mean, I had them for at least five years at this point. “He doesn't really talk to me. I don't think he likes it,” and his mom goes, “No, you don't understand he loves it. It's just he's quiet. He doesn't really talk to me that much, either. He's just so quiet.” She was right, he loves it. He’s going to Juilliard this fall!
John Hagstrom: Our orchestra is committed to providing young students from all parts of Chicago with an opportunity to hear concerts, and the first CSO concerts designed especially for children began in 1919, created originally by the orchestra's music director, who at that time was Frederick Stock, and concerts for students and families have continued from that time onward. Baird Dodge and Oto Carrillo describe some of these programs.
Baird Dodge: The audiences have heard our educational concerts from when they were in school. We play those concerts all the time, and it's amazing how many people they've reached. Now we have, in addition to the school concerts, we have a lot of concerts the parents can bring their kids to, which is very special experience for both the parents and the kids as a wonderful magical place.
Oto Carrillo: Parents are taking their children. They’re going to remember that it was a special time, just like they would remember perhaps going to see their relatives somewhere. It's a special time whenever we're with family, of course. It's great to hear the reaction from the audience. Usually there's a narrative that goes along with the concerts, and there's always a narrative behind it that makes it more tied together and it's great to see the energy, the audience reaction. You can just feel that they're sensing something that's really cool that's happening on stage.
John Hagstrom: The investment we can all make in young people to perform for them and hopefully also teach them to play music brings a great reward that Stefan Hoskuldsson describes, as he also recalls as a child in Iceland, how a concert in his town by the Iceland Symphony Orchestra changed his life.
Stefan Hoskuldsson: The benefit from learning music and studying and doing all of this hard work is you learn about discipline,. You learn about what it means to be disciplined and the freedom that comes with discipline and understanding, and you bring that into or whatever else that you might end up doing. The discipline of even listening to music and to bring that awareness to students. Even if you don't become a musician, you can make people understand. You can make people aware of the power of music or what it means to go to a live concert — what it gives you to be there with human beings that are disciplining themselves, and be with them, listen to them, that is an extraordinary experience.
I remember as a kid, I grew up in a very small town that had nothing. We didn't have a theater. We didn't have a restaurant. We had a furniture shop, which was my father's, we had a supermarket and a gas station, that was my town — there was nothing else. I remember the Iceland Symphony Orchestra came there to play. I was like 8 years old then. Everybody came to listen, and it was amazing. It was an incredible event. I still remember they played Beethoven 7, I was 8 years old, and it made a huge impression on me. This was one of the things that sparked my interest, and there's no reason why it can't spark the interest of other people anywhere. I mean, I came from the middle of nowhere. There's a talent everywhere. There's talent in every place, corner of the world, and those talents should have opportunities and ways to access great art.
John Hagstrom: The power of a live concert is truly transformational. Life everywhere has changed so much now in the wake of the pandemic, but despite those changes, the human connection and energy given at a CSO performance remains as powerful as ever. The very same moment within a great concert may generate very different feelings within two people who are sitting right next to each other, and that's exactly how it should be. The music is meant to be a personal experience for each one of us. The CSO was founded to give the city a personal place to come together to watch and listen to a community of dedicated musicians, doing their best work. It indeed does take work and discipline for us to perform well, but it's worth it to share the beauty and power that is in the music. Here are some thoughts from Steve Lester and Baird Dodge about live concerts and their hopes for what lies ahead as we make progress toward concerts with audiences again.
Steve Lester: Live concerts are the real thing, let's put it that way. Music is meant to be heard live. Recordings are fantastic, they're essential, but the live concert is where you will get the most experience. You will receive the highest amount of pleasure and satisfaction will be in a live concert. And I'm of the opinion that people will be starved for live concerts when this pandemic is finally over, and I think that will be a tremendous opportunity. This music and the orchestra has survived for a very long time. It will continue to survive.
Baird Dodge: It's been such a long deprivation. I miss it so greatly, and I hear from many of our supporters and listeners that they do, too. I'm so grateful that there's been a commitment to help us get through this. It's a tremendous commitment to supporting the Orchestra for which I'm very grateful. And I'll tell you in the first few weeks, when things were canceled in March, April, of course there's a tremendous amount of anxiety I felt personally. Some of it was like, well, if this goes on too long, are people going to forget that they liked going to the orchestra, or will it be this new normal of not going to live concerts? Actually, strangely enough, the longer this goes on, the more certain I feel that people will come back to it, very hungry and eager to share what we do as a community in our concerts.
Steve Lester: What we really need is each other. We need to rely on each other, we need to understand each other, we need to have a lot of communication, we need to build on our experiences together. Because at the end of the day, it's worth it. What's at stake is real and means a lot. All of us in the Orchestra feel it, our music director feels it, our board and our management feel it — so let's make sure it happens.
John Hagstrom: And all of this work to perform around the world, in our Chicago community, in schools for students and at Symphony Center, is to share the power that the Orchestra's music can have for all of us and for our city. Here are some final thoughts from our guests.
Steve Lester: I have enormous faith in the music. I think all of us do that given the chance, anyone, under almost any circumstance will appreciate or enjoy classical music. You have to just give it a try.
Gary Stucka: If you really listen and really give it a try, great music can move your soul, but you have to give it time. Maybe the first time you hear something it won't affect you, but I know that for as many people as will say that — that they're unaffected by classical music, I know a number of people who … one fellow who later became a classical music announcer at old WNIB in Chicago, Fred Heft. He just happened to walk into Orchestra Hall one Friday afternoon, and it changed his life.
Stefan Hoskuldsson: Music is composed out of selflessness. When Mozart sat down, he was not thinking of this is just for a certain kind of group of people. No, his music was for the higher purpose. So if you're poor or rich or whatever country you're from, you're going to understand that energy, and you're going to say, “I like this, this is beautiful, I'm moved by it. So why can't I not just enjoy it?” So that's where the CSO has to come in and say, yes, our doors are open. We will make this available.
Oto Carrillo: It's definitely a place where you want to go and forget the outside world, maybe forget a lot of things and really just sit and be in that moment.
Patsy Dash: The energy that we have, I think when we play, to some not insignificant degree, comes from the energy and the excitement that our patrons have when they come to hear us.
Baird Dodge: The music is so powerful, and it does just speak of universal human experience, including very difficult experience. I think it has a tremendous amount to offer everyone without regard to whether you grew up being taken to the symphony by your parents or by your school, whether or not you were lucky enough to have those early experiences. I think it can speak to anybody, even to a first time listener. It's such a vivid sound, there's so much ear candy, it's just so exciting and interesting.
Stefan Hoskuldsson: People are looking for the essence of the music. People are not stupid. They really listen. They really understand the honesty of the hard work that everyone's doing together to make it happen. Then they in return, they get that feeling inside when you hear it, and I really feel that with the Chicago Symphony.
John Hagstrom: Thanks so much to the CSO musicians who shared their time with us, Steve Lester, Gary Stucka, Baird Dodge, Oto Carrillo, Patsy Dash, and Stefan Hoskuldsson. And thanks so much to you for listening to this podcast. We hope you'll be joining us when our concerts resume at Symphony Center and in our Chicago communities. Until then, please take the time to explore and enjoy some of the great recordings made by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, some excerpts of which you've just heard.
For more information about this podcast, our guests and links to the music in this episode, please visit cso.org, where you'll also find complete playlists for each episode and up-to-date information about the exciting programming we're planning on CSO TV, which is part of our commitment to provide musical excellence both before and after our regular concerts resume at Symphony Center. While you're visiting cso.org, if you've enjoyed this podcast and would like to support the mission of the CSO, please consider a donation or a sponsorship, and thanks to longtime listener, Phyllis Bleck for her generous support of this program. Intermission at the CSO is produced by John Hagstrom and Richard Sigler for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association, and thank you for listening.
Next time on Intermission at the CSO, we'll be talking about how the orchestra was founded, and how the challenges overcome during those early years taught early CSO musicians lessons that we have not forgotten. If you don't already know this dramatic history, you won't want to miss it. That's next time on Intermission at the CSO.