Kenneth Woods- a view from the podium

I’ve had a couple of friendly nags for a report on my last trip to Pendleton to conduct Mahler 1 with the OES.

What do you say about a 10 day trip with 16 rehearsals and 6 concerts with two different orchestras rehearsing or performing in 8 different venues? What do you say about a week when your orchestra decides to buy and build a new hall? What do you say about a week when you order a new mobile recording set up for your final concert that never shows up? What do you say about a week when you find out one of your new flautists parents own a recording studio and will bring their gear and record the concert for free? What do you say when you’ve seen your oldest possessions rotted, burned and coated with mould? What do you say when you’ve had two reporters watching your orchestra’s every move for the last five days? How do you paint a picture of some of the kindest and most dedicated people in the world? How do you describe how irritating it is dealing with flakes and weasels? How can I explain just how exciting it is to meet new friends while working on such fantastic music? How do I tell you how sad it is to watch an old friend crumble under the stress of repeated personal tragedies?

One day you’re taking a cello in for an expensive refit that makes it sound like crap. A few weeks later, you find out the new guy in the violins is a wonderful violin maker who fixes everything that’s been torturning you for just $20.  

I found a lost guitar and lost an iPod. I had my picture taken about 2,000 times. I did four long interviews for two newspapers. I discovered a new coffee house, and walked through the wreckage of my now-burned favourite coffee roaster.

I heard what happens when a great brass player conks. Not pretty- thankfully, it was just in a rehearsal. He too had been the victim of an instrument repair gone wrong and ended up swapping instruments with a colleague.

I went through the whole weekend terrified that one guest player in a prominent seat was going to completely collapse- they’d obviously been struggling with issues for ages. They held up, barely, but that is the most stressful thing of all for a conductor- when you really don’t know what’s going to happen when it is someone’s turn to play.

I helped set up mics and schlepp platforms. I drove a giant pickup truck.

I recorded a cool podcast with the youth orchestra that will come out soon.

We had someone sight-read the 6^th horn part to Mahler 1 in the concert. Don’t ask why. He nailed it. The guy next to him told him he was the loudest horn player he’d ever heard. Cool. He’s the one in the middle of the top row (Erik). On his left (your right) is Ed, who is also our rehearsal conductor. Center of lower row (RED hair) is Michelle, our Exec Dir, next to her are Peter, our principal, and Rebekah, who rocks. They all rock.

The orchestra took over the town. There were musicians in every bar, restaurant and shop. I told one friend it was starting to feel like a festival and he corrected me- “dude, it is a festival.” A great deal of beer was consumed. A great deal of food was eaten. Tom spent 6 days cooking for the reception after the concert.

We postponed a brass sectional for 10 minutes because it took 70 minutes for a local joint to make 5 sandwiches.

I asked the trumpets to “make it greasier,” and told the strings they had to be acidic when the music is Hassidic. We worked on the “voice of god” sound in the low brass.

I got called a bastard by one of my best friends. She got a “damn right he is” from another one of my best friends, and I’m not mad at either of them (this is because I still don’t think they really mean it).

I was told I was a miserable slave driver and way too nice within 6 minutes.

Number of times the local paper published the date and time of the concert- 3. Number of dates and times published- 3.

Number of correct combinations of date and time- 0.

5 violin players told me they either filled up or cried outright when the horns stood up in the concert. I did, too. Does this picture make you emotional? Maybe you need the sound track….

At 7:52 on Saturday night, just in the midst of a rehearsal of the 3^rd mvt. (figure 10), the orchestra made the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard them make. It’s a funny feeling when you know you’ll never top something that almost nobody heard.

I was both sad yet encouraged to hear two new musicians express how they feel like most of their musical life lacks meaning and passion, which they found in Pendleton. We talk too much about economics and not enough about why we do this- our first constituency ought to be our fellow musicians. When we have a chance to do what we love, audiences can hear and feel the difference, and that’s what they want more than anything in concert- that physical, tangible tingle. Maybe it’s good to remember that much as we prize our relationship with the community, it is their privilege to listen. Our first duty is to each other.

There was a great three-hour bluegrass jam session at the party after the concert, complete with bass banjo, accordion and the world’s champion fiddler. 

A big thank you to Saul Cline at the Tacoma Symphony for helping us find some last-minute extras.

Thanks Michelle, Christina and Phyllis for weathering the storm.

Cheryl- sorry I missed city council! Just remember, wise words sometimes fall on deaf ears.

Clint- thanks for donating the music.

John- thanks for the schlepping, the setting up, the tearing down, and for coaching your colleagues in the percussion section.

I’m really glad everyone practiced.

To our last minute newbies- thanks for taking a chance on a gig that involved eight hours in a car to work with an orchestra and conductor you had never heard of for about half what you’d make at home. Hope it was worth it.

To our long-term veterans, regulars and friends- what a wild, bizarre, cool, depressing, exhilarating, crazy, stressful, relaxing, inspiring, exhausting, dramatic, pedestrian and fun trip we’ve found ourselves on.

I think it was  a pretty hot concert. By Sunday, the whole fire thing seemed like a bad dream that was quickly fading from everyone’s memory.

We’ll try to post some audio highlights next week, if possible.

UPDATE-

Suzanne tells me I’ve gone noticeably more gray this month. Ain’t that life.

 Also, a nice comment on Rebecca’s blog here 

c. 2007 Kenneth Woods

Photos by Will Perkinson.

As of last Thursday, the cat is officially out of the bag. 

For those of you who don’t read the East Oregonian, I can report that big changes are on the way for the Oregon East Symphony and downtown Pendleton, Oregon.  Last week, the OES reached an agreement with local businessman Greg Galloway to buy the long-derelict Rivoli Theatre on Main Street. The purchase price and terms of the agreement are not being released at this time, and the purchase is contingent on the satisfactory completion of a number of architectural, structural and acoustic surveys and studies which will be made over the next 3 months. We anticipate that in the near term, our mortage payments on the building will be less than what we were paying in rent on our old offices. The Rivoli is on the National Register of Historic Buildings. It was built as a movie palace and vaudeville theater in 1921, and was for many years the showcase venue in Pendleton. It has been closed for over 25 years and the interior is in complete disarray.  You can read more about the history of the theatre here and here.  The OES has long sought a more suitable performing space. Our current home, the Vert Auditorium, is owned and operated by the city, and has long been a source of considerable frustration. Although the orchestra has always been the main tenant of the building, the city has been unwilling to engage with the orchestra in discussions about urgently needed acoustic improvements, safety issues and problems with our patrons finding the building uncomfortable and inaccessible. Although there are millions of dollars of repairs and restoration that could and should be done on the building, we could make it a much better place for music and music lovers for a tiny fraction of that, but after years of discussions, the orchestra is becoming convinced that it is unlikely the building will ever be made more user friendly. 

In March, our longstanding frustrations with our performing space became even more relevant when our offices burned down. This left the orchestra without a presence in downtown, which is something we all feel is indispensable to us. In our old location, the orchestra was part of the everyday fabric of downtown life. People could drop in any time, and did. We don’t want the orchestra to be something that people only come into contact with when a concert is on.  In looking for a new performing and administrative home, a number of us thought the Rivoli deserved a fresh look. In fact, our first goal after purchase is not to make the building into a concert hall, but to make it our new offices. We’re then going to put together a task force from within and without the orchestra to start raising money with the goal of a complete reconfiguration and restoration of the building. 

Right now, the theatre is little more than a shell. There are few features to preserve, which gives us tremendous flexibility in restoring the space. Our goal is not to restore the Rivoli to its former glory, but to convert the Rivoli into a modern, versatile, welcoming and glamorous place for music, film and dinner theatre. While many projects have built theatres that can also serve as concert halls, we’re looking to build a concert hall that can also serve as a theatre. Acoustics will be priority one throughout the project. We’ll maintain period features where possible, but also make sure that the building is exciting, fresh and dynamic. We want it to be a space for the next 100 years, not the last. The OES will own and operate the building, renting it out to other presenters and clients, but also presenting events of all kinds. When finished, we hope to have a 550 seat auditorium with the main floor and two shallow gallery balconies, which will include a number of special boxes. The stage will be big enough to hold a 70 piece orchestra, but probably not a larger orchestra and chorus. For those programs, we’ll have to return to the Vert. There will also be a second floor concession area and bar with a balcony seating area opening up over Main Street

.

 For us, this represents a unique opportunity to bring a number of new partners into our circle of supporters. There are many in Pendleton who have longed for years for a restored Rivoli on Main, many of whom might not otherwise be passionate symphony supporters. After the shocks and traumas of this spring, it’s been inspiring to see the board and staff work on finding a long-term solution to our primary challenges as an organization. They’ve worked hard and acted decisively. We’ve got a lot of hard work ahead, but I’m encouraged that we’ve decided on a plan that takes us forward and sees us becoming a more vibrant organization and a bigger player in the development of downtown.

Six weeks ago, we had serious doubts about whether the orchestra could finish the season. Thanks to the many friends who stepped in and helped, we’re now able take a big step forward.

I never worked so hard to own another physical thing.

Eleven years old, and suddenly in love with rock music, I started mowing lawns with a vengeance. A week or two after my twelfth birthday, it was mine.

Even two months ago, it was a guitar that nobody else would choose. Dented and scratched, and completely lacking in pedigree, no collector would pick it. However, in all my years playing guitar, it was always the axe I always came back to. Over the years I tweaked it and customized and nearly destroyed it a number of times. Once I pulled all of the electronics out when I landed on the chord after a leap from the stage. The more that happened to it, the more I did to it, the more of a mutt it became, the more it sounded like me. Other, ostensibly better, guitars came into my hands over the years, and I enjoyed them all, but  this was my  guitar.

When I heard Aurora had pulled my cello and one of my guitars out of our office in the fire, I hoped and prayed this was the one, even though it’s the least valuable of the lot. It wasn’t. For a while it was completely missing, then I saw the case in one picture from inside the wreckage, but nobody knew where it ended up after that.

Today, I found it. The case is burned through in several places, and full of ash. It looks like it was lit on fire (which it was) then dropped in a river (did you know they poured EIGHT MILLION GALLONS of water on our office while it was on fire?). Inside, there it was, looking mean and mad. Completely caked in ask and soot, decorated with two new long cracks in the finish.

And still in tune.

The frets are a little rusty from the water damage, but the neck is straight, the electronics are fine, the body is sound.

When we lose things, we tell ourselves that things are only things, and that things don’t matter, people matter, but some things do have value. I feel like I just regrew a limb, even though I’ve hardly played guitar in ten years.

I’m off to buy some new strings and a case. Mahler can wait.

PS- You can hear the guitar in the solos on this song (recorded when I was 19, damn…. I think I was in a Carlos Santana (pre-90’s comeback) phase, can’t remember. Hang in there to the end, the last guitar solo makes the song, I think…. Very mid-Western sound…). Sean Flora, who sang lead and played bass, is now a top recording engineer in Portland, who’s most recent major credit is engineering the latest Shin’s album. He’s featured prominently in the current Mix magazine. Check it out. Well done, man.

Oh yeah- we still need your money. Save the orchestra! Donate via paypal

I sit in Portland Airport and I’m feeling a little anxious.

In less than two hours, I’ll be back in Pendleton for the first time since the OES offices burned down. I tried hard to get over a few weeks ago, but we had an illness in the family (what is it about bad things coming in threes?), so I have yet to see the damage, or the larger impact it’s had on the orchestra, in person.

I’m hoping this week will be good for everyone there. We’re in constant email and phone contact, and I’m all too aware that the board and everyone in the office has been in 24/7 crisis management mode for weeks. Now, we finally get a chance to get back to music, to get some semblance of normalcy. Are we ready for normal? Do we now have the time and energy to put on a major concert? A Mahler symphony, no less? Oh yes, and a youth orchestra tour, retreat and concert, and a choir performance……

As befits “the best goddamn redneck orchestra in the world,” we’ve moved from temporary office no 1, the bank, into temporary office no. 2, ‘the trailer.” Yes, we’ve traded our elegant offices for…. a double-wide! Could it get any funnier?

Actually, we’re closing in on some long term plans for the orchestra which are really bold and visionary. Watch this space.

The imposing facade

The warm welcome

I don’t know if it just got harder or easier to maintain our sense of irony.

Give us your money and get us out of here! 

Photos by Christina van der Kamp

Please, please give what you can to the OES Fire Renewal Fund.

 (Flames break through the office roof)

Well, it’s been two weeks since the fire hit. I don’t think anyone in the organization can believe it, as none of us has been able to catch a breath during that whole time. We’ve raised a chunk of money, found a new office, started a lawsuit, sent out a lot of press releases and so on, but it frankly feels like we’ve barely put a dent in everything there is to do. I had a long chat with Michelle today, and it really hit me that my prediction that we’d now have twice as much work to do and that each task would take twice as long might have been optimistic.  There is an interesting look inside things in Pendleton here. I think Reid and Michelle have had nearly as difficult as few weeks on top of the fire as I have. It’s been really tough here- enough to prevent me going to Pendleton when I’m needed. I’ve written before about how gigs always fall at the same time- so do shitstorms.

We’ve had donations from via the PayPal account from Paris, New York, Chicago, Dayton, L.A., Vancouver and Boise, among other spots, as well as donors from Oregon. Still, that’s only about a third of what we need to cover the immediate extra costs we’re facing for the rest of the year (which in music business terms is not much). If just half of the thousand or so readers who come through here every day would take the five minutes to visit PayPal and give just $10 or $20 bucks, we would be there. Although the actual losses for the orchestra are in the hundreds of thousands, much of that can be replaced and rebuilt piecemeal over the next 20 years.

We’ve also had a piano donated, a laptop, a few desktops, parts to Mahler 1, phones and desks. In a couple of weeks, I’ll do a special post acknowledging all the materianl donations I can. 

The good news is that Michelle and I finished the season schedule for next year on the phone today, and it will be a great series of concerts if they happen. We’re nearly there- please help us weather the storm, and I can stop writing like one of those annoying NPR fund drive folks. 

One of the recent news items on the OES fire said that “the orchestra takes pride in describing itself as “the most remotely situated full symphony orchestra on the planet.”"
Actually, that nickname is just the legacy of a long-forgotten newspaper writer.

The actual members of the orchestra and I refer to the orchestra, with pride, as the “best goddamn redneck orchestra in the world.”

No offense to other redneck orchestras.

KW

We’ve tried to gather all the blog posts we could find so far on the symphony fire. The list is sure to be incomplete, and we’ll edit and update as we learn of other postings. Getting the word out about the situation is job no. 1 right now- if we can make a good, quick push and raise some substantial funds, we’ll be on our way to survival. 

Click here to make a donation to the OES Fire Renewal Fund using PayPal.

Thanks to everyone who’s written about us.

NEW!- Classical Convert- A beginner’s guide to classical music

NEW!- The Fauxharmonic Orchestra

Planned Purlhood (a must read for her background on the owners of the building and their general approach to maintenance and safety)

Adventures of an Idaho violist

Rebecca’s Blog  (who wisely writes about the importance of supporting small arts organizations as well as the behemoths)

Violinist.com

aworks

more aworks

Soho the dog

David Stabler (music critic of the Oregonian)

Les Nouvelles

AMK’s Diary

nosnikreplliw (flickr photo blog)

Hiway 200

I Still Live in America

We’re making good progress raising funds, but it is a race against the clock. Small donations are just as appreciated as large ones- it _is_ worth taking the time to donate $10, just as it is with any number of digits in the number.

Lots of good news. More and more people have stepped up to the plate to help, and things are looking up. Thanks to everyone that has helped.

We have come up with a good and simple plan, which is basically to create an institutional framework that will make sure business as usual is getting taken care of while we deal with fallout from the fire. The biggest danger right now is not the fire, but being so fixated on that that we don’t take care of things like getting the brochure for next season in the mail in the next few weeks, getting the details for our Mahler 1 concert sorted, getting our everyday business sorted. Everyone is taking a moment to outline their own time management setup, and the staff and the board are just walking through everyone’s duties as now adjusted. In the short term, we only have about half of the man-hours to do our regular work as we normally would, so there will be a lot of overtime (unpaid!) and a lot of volunteer time from the board and community.

I’d had a draining and exhausting week all-round, not limitted to the fire, up to the moment when we started rehearsing Elgar 1 with the Wrexham Symphony on Wednesday night. Within seconds, I felt every bit my old self, and the rehearsal was a joy, for which I thank them. The OES is going to feel quite rushed to be ready for Mahler 1, with rehearsals starting in about 5 weeks, but I wish it was sooner for everyone in Pendleton’s sake. What that organization needs now is music.
KW

Click here to make a donation to the OES Fire Renewal Fund using PayPal.

It has been a very interesting study to see the range of reactions we’ve had from around the country to the recent fire at the OES offices.

It’s been depressing, but not surprising, to see how an event like this plays out in the regional news media. By the time the fire department had put out the last hot spots, the story was already old news, and for many residents of the Northwest, this event will go down in history as “Fire in Popcorn Popper Destroys Lodge,” which has been the headline for many of the wire stories that came out. Some of the earliest coverage didn’t even mention the symphony or any of the other businesses. Really, who writes these headlines? It’s no wonder there’s so much stupidity in the world when those who make the day-to-day decisions about what news reaches us have no sense of relevance or context. Who cares about the goddamn popcorn machine?!?!?!? If the American media can forget New Orleans, what hope does a tiny orchestra have?

By the time the fire was out and the enormity of the damage was known, the “news cycle” had moved on. We expect our local paper will cover the aftermath, but any broader coverage will only happen if we agitate for it.

In the early hours of this, we realized we needed to raise awareness of our plight within the classical field. I had hoped that this blog, which is pretty widely read and linked, would be a fairly powerful tool. It has been and it hasn’t. I’m delighted to thank a few other bloggers who have picked up the story and helped to raise awareness, like Robert Gable at Aworks and Mathew Guerrieri at Soho the Dog. Those links have helped, and have actually led to donations.

Email and email listserves have proved a very powerful tool, and many people contacted that way have helped or offered to help (THANK YOU!), but there have been just a few reactions that have raised my hackles. . One commetator said that orchestra only performs at full force 6 times a year, but that it is “fairly active” in education and outreach.

If by “fairly active” one means that the orchestra’s staff and board work year-round in collaboration with almost all of the music educators and private teachers in the area, then yes, we’re “fairly active.” The youth ensembles rehearse and perform 9 months of the year, and the summer music camp is a major organizational undertaking. I find the “fairly” rather distasteful because I see week-in and week-out how hard people in Pendleton work to keep those programs going. All of those programs have to not only be run, they have to be funded- we have grant writers and fundraisers working year round to do that. I have been lucky to work with and in some very large orchestras, and I can safely say that many of the Pendleton folks work as hard as anyone in the business.

Yes, the orchestra only does six concerts a year, but for non-“A” orchestras, that’s a pretty common number, and they are serious, thoughtful and challenging programs. Doing more many concerts would cost more than the community can afford, and would dilute audience interest; also, the orchestra does have a mission beyond concert presentation, which it takes very seriously.

All of our concerts since my arrival are listed in the Concert Archive page of my own website. Have a look. We’ve done all-20^th Century programs, we’ve done numerous premieres and hosted a composer-in-residence, we’ve had nationally known soloists, we’ve done Mahler, we’re completing a Beethoven cycle next year. Here is a typical OES program-

McKinnon- Three Songs of the Magic Strings for Violin and Orchestra (World Premiere)
Hindemith- Der Schwanendreher (Concerto on Old German Folk Songs for Viola and Small
Orchestra)
Hong-Mei Xiao, viola
Copland- Appalachian Spring (Version for Full Orchestra)

Here’s another-
Chris Thomas- Blue Northern (World Premiere Commission)
Barber- Cello Concerto
Kevin Hekmatpanah, cello
Borodin- Symphony No. 2
 

Some are more mainstream-
Wagner- Overture to Rienzi
Rachmaninoff- Piano Concerto No. 3
William Wolfram, piano
Dvorak- Symphony No. 6

But in Pendleton, every single one of those pieces was a FIRST PERFORMANCE!

I think the OES and other groups like it perform many vital services to the industry as a whole. It is musical missionary work, in the best sense of that phrase.

Music education in public schools used to be a major tool for spreading awareness of classical music in rural areas. All of the small towns along the I-84 corridor used to have string programs, now Pendleton is the ONLY TOWN in the Eastern 2/3rds of Oregon with a string program in the school district. Small-town orchestras are fighting a pitched battle to keep orchestral music a living part of the fabric of rural America.

Without powerful and effective advocacy in small communities and remote areas, the symphony orchestra could and would quickly become something that only exists in major blue-state cities. Soon, the industry would be dead, as classical music becomes such a tiny minority interest as to be totally irrelevant, or at least financially unsustainable.

We give young soloists an opportunity to build careers and gain experience, young conductors a chance to hone their craft (that’s why I went) and established soloists a chance to learn new repertoire. We offer composers opportunities to get their music heard and recorded. Young professional musicians who are busy taking auditions at major orchestras can gain invaluable onstage experience and do, and local student and part-time musicians can have the opportunity to play alongside talented and serious musicians. I’ll say right up front that the average technical standard of the OES is not as high as many other groups, but isn’t building orchestras and making them better supposed to be part of what this business is about? You can’t build what is already finished. This is a group that has made a commitment to get better, and I can enjoy working with them just as I do the BBC.

Smaller orchestras can still have a huge impact on their local economies- in Pendleton, symphony concert nights are the busiest of the year (other than during Round Up, the huge rodeo which annually swells Pendleton’s poulation to about 80,000) at all the area restaurants, and we’re always a part of civic drives to attract new businesses to the town. So, I guess it rubs me the wrong way when I read anything that comes across as “we normally wouldn’t talk about such a puny organization, but I guess they’ve had a fire so….”

There is an opportunity here, which is to use this crisis to expand awareness of what the orchestra does within the community. Even in a town as small as Pendleton, there are many who are only peripherally aware of the orchestra, and who don’t know understand all the ways in which the organization is a part of the fabric of the community. I hope that we’ll come out of this with a stronger sense of purpose and a broader community consensus on the value of the organization, not only to those who come to concerts.  Perhaps at the national level, we might have a more probing conversation about the role of regional and community orchestras within the field. Is there enough communication and collaboration between big and small orchestras? Do national service organizations offer smaller organizations enough guidance in sharing good operational practices? Do the efforts of small orchestras receive the recognition they deserve? We’re lucky to have executive and board leadership that, in my opinion, is of a quality that is unusual for such a small orchestra, but not all small orchestras are so lucky. The OES is an aspirational organization- just as much as any orchestra. We know all-too-well the limitations of the organization musically and institutionally, and were making a long-term, concerted effort to improve what we do. We don’t need to be reminded of our smallness.

I do want to say that many, many people and organizations have stepped up and offered to help, both locally and internationally. That is deeply, deeply, deeply appreciated. We were finally able to get into the building and assess our losses, and are now in the process of identifying immediate and long-term needs and developing our strategy. We’ve made it our primary goal to come out of this stronger than before- we’re not cancelling or cutting anything at this point, just working harder. If you’ve been in touch, we’ll be in touch, and thank you.

KW

We’ve set up a stopgap page where people can make donations to the Oregon East Symphony Fire Renewal Fund. The page is currently being hosted on my website’s server, as the OES is locked out of our site until at least Wednesday, but if you click the donation button, it takes you through to PayPal where the transaction takes place. OES is a 501c3 non-profit, all donations are tax deductable.

If everyone who reads this blog just today gave just $10, we’d be able to get our day-to-day business up and running again. You don’t need a PayPal account, just a credit card or debit card.

Thanks for helping

 KW

UPDATE- This is actually working! Thank you to those of you who have donated so far. We’ve got a long way to go, but we’re starting to move forward.

This is the main work area of the office and the meeting space for the board, as it appears without walls or a roof

 All that remains of my office. It has been doing double service as a nap room for Michelle’s 4-month-old daughter while I’m away- that is Miranda’s cradle swing in the foreground. On many days, she would have been asleep in there when the fire started. I think that’s all the perspective on this I need.

KW

The Arts and Community editor at the East Oregonian asked me if we could do a story on the recovery of my cello from the fire at the Oregon East Symphony offices. This is what I sent her. 

My first thought was that the situation was too serious for anything resembling a “feel-good” story, but actually, I now think that the specifics of the story point to some important truths about what the organization called the “Oregon East Symphony” really is, what it stands for and why we need to make sure we come out of this stronger than ever.    

The fact that my cello and one of my guitars were the only things that survived this fire intact has to be one of the best examples of karma, or reaping what you sow, that I’ve ever seen happen in real life.   My cello and guitar were the only things that made it out of the office to the best of my knowledge. I bought the cello nearly four years ago because it had become too expensive and risky to travel with my main instrument. I needed an instrument that could live in Oregon which I could play on during my frequent visits. It’s not a rare or unique instrument, but one that has served me well. I had a luthier in Wisconsin who I’ve known since I started playing customize it for me, and it’s the instrument I’ve played all my recent Oregon performances on, including the Elgar Cello Concerto I did at the last concert.    

Perhaps less expensive, but more valuable to me was the guitar, which I’ve had since I was 13. Many of your readers might know that I used to be a rock and jazz guitar player- it was a big part of my life for many years. When I moved to Cardiff to be with my wife a few years ago, I had to make tough choices about what to bring, and it all boiled down what was most urgently needed in building my life and career today. I couldn’t afford to be sentimental. Everything else has been stored in the OES office, and is now lost. Huge chunks of my life, things I’d written, things I’d composed, furniture that came down through the family, musical instruments, records, tons of books and virtually all the letters I’d gotten up the age of about 30, including things from friends and teachers and relatives who are no longer living, are now gone. Having the one guitar left will mean a lot- more, frankly, than the cello, as it is a link with that earlier epoch in my life.    

My cello and guitar were rescued by Aurora Torres, our principal violist, and Lisa Robertson, our concertmaster. They were the only ones in the office when the fire reached it.  Aurora studies violin and viola with Lisa and they were having a lesson in the OES teaching studio when the fire started.    

I first met Aurora when we started the A-Sharp Players preparatory orchestra about 5 years ago. This was back when Cheryl Marier was our executive director, and she had come to me asking if I would be interested in starting a youth orchestra and conducting it. It was something that had been discussed when I first came to the orchestra and at that point I had said that I didn’t have the time to take it on, but this time I said yes. Aurora was one of the founding members of the orchestra, and I knew her as the rather quiet young girl in the back of the first violins. She was pretty-much self-taught at that point, and I was concerned about whether she would be able to cope with some of the music we were playing.    

As that first year went on, she thrived where others faltered, and when I heard her second audition, I was blown away with the progress she had made without the help of a teacher. I did something I rarely do, which is that I went directly to Lisa and asked her to consider taking Aurora into her studio based on what I’d seen in her audition, and I went to Aurora’s parents and asked them to pursue lessons with Lisa. I also told them that the orchestra would pay for her lessons, as they don’t have a lot of money.    

It’s now several years later, and Aurora has matured from being the little kid in the back of the section of the youth orchestra to being a principal player in the OES itself. When Jason Thornton was in town to conduct our Elgar concert last month he was so impressed with her passion for music and her playing that he offered to arrange a scholarship for her to study in England this summer. Along the way, the orchestra has continued to provide lesson assistance, instruments, tuition waves, whatever it took. We’ve done that for a lot of kids, and it has always been worthwhile- she’s by no means the only talented and bright young person to come through our organization. She was just the one who was having a lesson when the building caught fire, and it was her and her teacher who grabbed my instruments.    

Just think- if Cheryl hadn’t asked me a second time to start a youth orchestra, if I’d said no (when the A-sharps were started, I was only being paid exactly ¼ what I got for youth orchestra rehearsals in my old job in Ohio), it the orchestra hadn’t had the grant funding to pay for it, if we hadn’t had the funds to waive tuition fees for students who need the help, if we hadn’t had the teaching space at the office, if Lisa hadn’t been able to teach her because the orchestra couldn’t subsidize lessons, if Aurora didn’t have a violin to play on…. if any one of these things, all of which are central, everyday parts of what the orchestra does and what it stands for, if any of them hadn’t happened, then nothing would have come out of that building. I’m glad to have my instruments, but I’m even happier to be able to point to everything that has happened over the last six years that led to their rescue.  

There are graduates of our youth programs who are playing in professional orchestras, there are graduates who are leading their university orchestras, there are graduates writing film scores in Hollywood. Pendleton is a place where a kid who is a first-generation American without family money to support her training can learn to play Mahler symphonies and go on to travel the world, to study abroad. When I left town, we were trying to arrange to support Aurora’s travel costs to study in England, which is something we would do if we could for any serious young musician who has put the work in, earned the opportunity and needs the help. Those kinds of opportunities have been there for anyone who had the heart to earn them. Not every community can say that. 

That has been what the OES stands for, and now every bit of that legacy is at risk. We need the community to step up to the plate, and we know that they will, but it’s important that people remember that the symphony isn’t just six Saturday nights a year. It’s a day-in-day-out, year-round effort by staffers, board members, volunteers and musicians to not just put on concerts but to transform lives. I think we were already about the hardest working orchestra in the world, and now we have to all work harder. If we’re so busy rebuilding our office that we can’t fulfil our mission, then we might as well not have an office. 

We had just announced the details of our summer camp when the fire hit. That camp is often the first chance that kids in our area get to participate in an intense immersion in music. Who knows where this year’s first-timers will end up, or where music might take them in life. How many lives might they touch? How many cellos will get pulled out of how many fires by the kids who are starting this year? That camp has to happen. The teaching space has to re-open. The scholarship programs have to stay strong. We need every concert we do to continue to be the best concert we’ve ever done. Our staff need to have time and energy to make sure that happens. We need help to do that. 

A very quick update from Pendleton… 

The implications for the orchestra are far worse than we initially feared, due to problems with the orchestra’s insurance and liability issues with the buildings owners. Our insurance company and that of the building’s owners may be sparring for some time over who is responsible for the costs. It may be many months, possibly over a year, before the orchestra sees any help from insurance.  Smith’s Boot and Shoe Repair and the Pendleton Coffee Bean were also both destroyed. I know both Claude, owner of the boot shop, and Paula, owner of the Coffee Bean, and they are among the kindest and hardest working business people you could ever meet. Both have poured their every energy into those businesses. I feel awful for them, and I don’t know how I will survive our next concert without Paula’s coffee.  Since the office opened in 1999, it has also often served as a popular show space for the work of local artists. There were, as always, a number of original works on display in the office on Thursday, and collectively the artists have seen tens of thousands of dollars worth of their work destroyed. The orchestra is going to set up a temporary office at the Art Center. Portland Internetworks have generously donated us a new computer to get started. In the short term, the orchestra will desperately need help to survive. Donations can still be sent to our old address, and will be forwarded on.

The OES is a 501c3 non-profit, and all donations are tax-deductable. 

Oregon East Symphony 

Fire Recovery Fund

424 S Main

Pendleton, Oregon 97801

It will take at least a year for the orchestra to recover its prospects, but first we must survive for the next few months.

More information will be posted as it becomes available.

KW

Eagles lodge catches fire

Video on YouTube