1 10 18 https://caspercollege.cvlcollections.org/files/original/637b5826acc0e86cc726e795016c7dce.m4a d64460ca08e50d8fc463f91d1c2406bf https://caspercollege.cvlcollections.org/files/original/5f74ffe0e2c83b534a4fee4124674d86.pdf 8591ffbf1c052887b8fbecbb9203d468 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource WyoHistory.org Wyoming Symphony Orchestra Oral History Project Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-NC/1.0/">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-NC/1.0/</a> Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 2022-2023 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource WyoHistory.org; Rebecca Hein Language A language of the resource ENG Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context NCA 01.i.2022.02 Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound; Text Description An account of the resource Audio files and transcripts created and edited by Rebecca Hein and students at Casper College during an oral history project with players of the Wyoming Symphony Orchestra. The oral histories were conducted by Hein between 2022 and 2023 and are a part of Wyohistory.org publishing project. Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Amy Cowell Wyoming Symphony Orchestra Oral History Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-NC/1.0/">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-NC/1.0/</a> Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 2022-08-04 Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound; text Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rebecca Hein; Amy Cowell Language A language of the resource ENG Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. WyoHistory.org Wyoming Symphony Orchestra Oral History Project, NCA 01.i.2022.02 WyCaC US. Casper College Archives and Special Collections. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context NCA 01.i.2022.02_AmyCowell Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource M4A; PDF Description An account of the resource Audio file and transcript for oral history interview with Wyoming Symphony Orchestra player Amy Cowell. This interview was conducted by Rebecca Hein for Wyohistory.org on August 4, 2022. https://caspercollege.cvlcollections.org/files/original/d2b33df57f7f493360b0612e543da567.mp3 c4445d50f208f26c57ebf4055d146683 https://caspercollege.cvlcollections.org/files/original/cb01a79af608f7c6350eb09aeeb31205.pdf c9407e7011daf1742cacfbaeece7712d PDF Text Text Wyoming Symphony Oral History Project Rebecca Hein interviewing Andrea DiGregorio, June 22, 2022 Date Transcribed: October 9, 2022 Rebecca: Alright. Andrea: How come I know your name, actually. Becky Lange. are you a cellist? Rebecca: Yeah, I remember you. Andrea: I remember you too. Rebecca: Well you are, I don’t know, probably five years younger than I am and your mom, Lola Reynolds, I swear she took you to every classical concert in Casper. You were always there, always near the stage and you were always really engaged. You were probably in elementary school when I was in junior high. I just noticed how incredibly interested you were then and it is not terribly common for a grade school child to be so interested in music and I noticed. Andrea: Uh cool, because I do remember. Now your father, our parents knew each other right? I think it was hard to keep track of my mom’s friends and stuff as a kid. But I remember you, and I remember you played in the symphony and of course everyone who played in the symphony to me were gods. So it was like, oh you can look on stage; look at what they are doing. I remember the first autograph I got was when Gene Fodor played with you guys and I think it was before he won the Tchaikovsky [The Tchaikovsky Competition; international solo competition. Any first prize winner can launch a world-class solo career. The competition is named after Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, 19th century Russian composer] He was probably, you know, cheap then. Rebecca: I remember that concert. Andrea: I thought he was so cute. I don’t remember how old I was but he was right up there with Michael Landon in my book. �Rebecca: Yeah he is a pretty good looking guy and he can play the violin. Let’s just start by making sure I have the recording on. Tell us your name, your instrument and how you came to play that instrument. Andrea: Okay, my name is Andrea DiGregorio. I play the cello. My maiden name is Reynolds and that is who I was when I lived in Casper Wyoming. I came to play the instrument because some people came to my fourth grade class and they had string instruments. I tried out the violin and thought, oh that is squeaky. Then I tried out the cello and I think I ended up hitting the C string first [the lowest string on the cello] and I thought, oh that is nice. Then I went home and my mom said, “Well right now you are too small but your grandfather has an old cello we can probably talk him out of.” If you choose that instrument then we will have a free instrument, she is thinking. So they let me rent from the music store, the one that was downtown. Do you remember that one? Rebecca: Les Parson’s. Andrea: Les Parson’s, that’s right. We rented an instrument from there and then Curtis Peacock came to my elementary school at Cresthill Elementary twice a week. I missed spelling, it was a pull out just like they are now actually, but it was okay because I was okay at spelling but if I would have missed math I probably wouldn’t have been a musician because I wasn’t as good at that and my grade would have been an F. They would have been like, “Well maybe the cello isn’t for you,” you know. So we met in the library and that is how I started playing. Rebecca: So did he basically function as a public school music teacher for those two days a week? Andrea: Yeah, he was there just fresh out of school. I had a major crush on him and I told my parents that I was going to marry him when I got old enough. �Rebecca: (laughter) They probably told you he already had a wife. Andrea: He didn’t yet. This was before he met Ellen. Rebecca: I couldn’t remember that he was single when he came to Casper. Andrea: He was fresh out of school. He was a public school teacher and later became part of the symphony and conductor of the Casper Symphony. I just thought he was the most charming thing ever. Rebecca: Okay, so that is the connection. He had you back here in the 90’s to play the Brahms Double Concerto. [A concerto is a composition for one or more solo instruments with orchestral accompaniment. Johannes Brahms, 19th century German composer] I am jumping the gun a little bit. I remember that performance because I was the principal cellist at the time. It was a great performance. Andrea: Thanks, that is reminiscent of the string quartet. And John came back with me. We had played it here in Charleston, West Virginia first I think and Curtis said you can come and play. And he went on and on about how wonderful I was and everything, and I had just had a baby and John had given us a little toy dog; kind of plush dog for the baby. What I had been doing at the time was, I can remember the thank you notes, I would name the people like “John the Dog” and “Chris the Pig” and you know, so I could write the thank you notes properly. I told John this and he thought it was really funny so he goes on and Curtis is introducing you know this is John Harrison and John looks at me and says, “the dog” (laughter) It was pretty funny. Hometown girl comes and dog. Rebecca: Well yeah I remember that very clearly that Curtis made a big fuss over you because you were a local girl. Andrea: That is right. (laughter) �Rebecca: And he brushed off the other guy. I think you gave John a better introduction. Okay well, let’s see. How you came to play the instrument and your education from there. Andrea: Well you know what it was like growing up, there wasn’t a cello teacher and so it was basically just you were self-taught. Which is fine because I played piano more seriously at the time than I did the cello. And I went to a bunch of different rehearsals for the Casper Youth Symphony and when I was fourteen I got into the Casper Symphony and I was kind of over my head but it was okay because I was sitting last chair back there and listening to all of the cool instruments, you know. As I got older it didn’t bother me that much that I didn’t know how to play that well, but at some point I thought, I should be able to play this better, and I ended up going to something called The Congress of Strings. I don’t think they have it anymore. They had one for the east coast and they had one for the west coast. It was in Seattle, my parents let me leave and it was all free; the Casper [Musicians] Union paid for it. I got to go and it was wonderful because I had never gotten to be away from home that long. You know the longest I had been away from home was a week at the [University of] Wyoming Music Camp in Laramie. So, this was just like a big deal, and the guy there was like, “I can’t believe you haven’t taken lessons. It would take you forever to ever catch up to everyone else.” There were people from California. So I went home kind of crushed a little bit and thought, okay I need to actually study this instrument. So Curtis I think told my parents about De Lemos [principal cello] of the Denver Symphony and maybe put in a word for me. So my parents would drive me maybe once a month, if it didn’t snow, my senior year in high school. Because they wouldn’t let me drive that distance yet. We would go and I would have a lesson for an hour and a half and we would stay with my mom’s cousin and then we would come back and I would practice everything Mr. De Lemos told me to do. That is how we did it and I ended up going to the University of Colorado because Mr. �De Lemos was there. We already had this relationship and then he left after my first year. I was so mad. He had a sabbatical, he went back to Germany to play in the Hamburg Radio Orchestra. This woman named Barbara Theim came in and she was nice and all but she wasn’t Mr. De Lemos but she actually ended up changing my life as well, just the way Mr. De Lemos did. When I was I think 20, she took me to Austria with her for a summer and I got to meet people like [world-famous solo] bassist Garry Karr and other famous people that she knew, and stay in her villa. It was three stories, quite an extensive house but it's not made particularly well but it is still pretty and all that. I had never been in the Alps and all that. I came back and studied with her for the rest of the time and then I graduated early after three and a half years because I had been taking some courses at Casper College in my senior year and they fortunately transferred. So I got out early because I thought it would save money, which I am sure it did, and I didn’t know what to do with myself. I taught here and there I had a job at the Boulder dinner theater trying to sell Annie. Barbara was like, you need to figure out what you are going to do with your life. She offered me an assistantship at the University of Colorado so I could figure out what I was going to do. So I took the assistantship, had a great year and fell in love for the first time, practiced a lot. Then I decided, I will either get into these schools or I won’t and I will do my Plan B. So my Plan A worked out though, and I ended up going to Yale University for my master’s degree. I studied with Aldo Parisot. [Parisot was a Brazilian-American cellist and teacher] So from out of there a quartet in Colorado that I knew called me up and said, “Do you want to be our cellist?” and I said “Sure, why not? I have nothing better to do and I don’t know what else I am going to do to make money.” So we won a couple competitions and we ended up going to the University of Wisconsin because there was something there called The Music Institute run by the Fine Arts Quartet. It was kind of like an assistantship so we didn’t have to �worry about money and we studied there for two years and then we got a job at the University of Northern Iowa for a year. Then we got a job in West Virginia with the symphony which was nice because all four of us were kind of the pearls of the symphony. That lasted for about 25 years and then the symphony started falling on hard times and now my symphony is with West Virginia State University. COVID has kind of killed the quartet for at least a year and a half. We had our first violinist leave, he went to Hong Kong to visit his mom and dad, then Trump closed the border to China and he couldn’t come back. So he had to resign and we had to get another woman who ended up getting a job with the Utah Symphony and here we are with[out] a violinist. But during that time the university fell on hard times and were like, we aren’t sure we have enough money to pay for completing your quartet. So we are stuck in a bit of a limbo place right now. And that is it in a nutshell. (laughter)... [whirring in the background] Well I hate to think about what it is that they are doing to my house. Rebecca: Oh, that sounds like a saw. Andrea: It definitely is a saw. I am going to move. Rebecca: That’s alright. The Congress of Strings; I was going to ask you about that. See, I went to Congress of Strings as well probably a few years before you. Tell me do you remember anything about it? Either musically or anything else? Because for me it was a very special experience. Andrea: Yeah it was wonderful. It was about a month or so and I had never been around so many string players. Good string players and good conductors. Playing things like [Arnold Schoenberg’s] Transfigured Night and [inaudible] and it was just like, “wow this is what you guys play?” You know and it was wonderful to be on my own for so long. It was beautiful there. They had a wonderful summer and it hardly rained. It rained for maybe fifteen minutes in the �afternoon, and that was it. I had never stayed in a dorm and some of the people were older than me but only by a year, going [to] places like USC and I think I just found, this is what’s possible. It was really neat and it was a special summer and you can put the green sticker on your cello case and go out there and feel kind of special in the airport because you have an instrument. [Congress of Strings administrators issued round green “Congress of Strings” stickers to participants to put on their instrument cases, to be able to recognize them at the airport, where they were met.] It was fun and it was transfiguring for me because the teacher there was like, “jeez you need to get a teacher,” or actually what he encouraged me to do was to become a doctor. He says, “You know, there is money in being a medical doctor,” and now I am lucky. But at the time I was terribly insulted that he would think that, but now I’m like, yeah he is probably right. As I look at the hole in my house I am thinking maybe I should have gone that direction. Rebecca: Well when you are young and you love music like I did, and it sounds like you did, it is almost impossible to think about anything other than how beautiful the music is and how much fun it is. Andrea: And I am the sort of person where if you tell me I can’t do something, I am going to do everything to prove that I can. Rebecca: Me too, yep. Andrea: So it is sort of like, go ahead. What he ended up doing, unfortunately, for what his aim was to discourage me and get me to do something that was a little more lucrative. He actually pushed me into it because after that I said to my parents, “I am going to quit piano and concentrate on the cello.” And they were like, Oh no! No, No! They didn’t say that but, I was 17 I could make up my own mind, but they were like, all those piano lessons all this time. But I �knew I couldn’t do both anymore half-assedly especially since I was far behind everybody. So that’s what I did. But yeah it was cool. Rebecca: Yeah, let me see. I am looking at my notes here. Did you have chamber music opportunities at the Congress of Strings? Andrea: Um I don’t remember of them, no. I just remember orchestra. Rebecca: Okay and just for the non-musicians in the audience and for the historical record. Transfigured Night can you say who its by and the GermanAndrea: Schoenberg the [inaudible] and Metamorphosis by Richard Strauss; those are the two ones that I remember specifically. [Richard Strauss, 19th and 20th century German composer and conductor (son of Johann Strauss of “Blue Danube” fame.) Arnold Schoenberg, 20th century Austrian-American composer] Shoot, we also played a Vaughn Williams, I forget which one, but I had never played all string pieces. [Ralph Vaughan Williams, 20th century English composer] It was extraordinary to me. Especially because the orchestra was huge with lots of cellos. Did you go to All Northwest? Rebecca: I never did make All Northwest. Andrea: That was kind of like- I went to All Northwest before I went to- Did I? Yeah Congress of Strings. All Northwest [orchestra] was just like 25 cellos [in the cello section] or something like that and we played the Firebird [Firebird Suite from the ballet, The Firebird by Igor Stravinsky, 19th and 20th century Russian composer] and we played Brahms Academic Festival Overture [Johannes Brahms, 19th century German composer]. Things that we had never played in the Casper Symphony, you know? But there were so many people there, it was kind of neat. In fact they had it in this huge coliseum; it was in Billings Montana just to fit all the kids in there. It was neat to hear that kind of sound around you because that is why we like music. �Rebecca: Yeah, so let’s jump back a little bit just for the sake of clarification. Can you explain what All State Honors Orchestra is and what All Northwest Orchestra is? Andrea: Well sure, All State was just the state of Wyoming in which people from all around the state got to play [admitted by taped audition]. I forget where it was. I can't remember if it was in Cheyenne or not actually. All Northwest then included: Montana, Wyoming, Oregon and Washington I believe. Or yes the Northwest of the United States. [also admitted by taped audition] Rebecca: Okay, let’s see. Andrea: Hey, was Mr. Fox your orchestra teacher? Did you go to NC? Rebecca: I went to NCHS [Natrona County High School] but I had Robert Bovie all three years. Andrea: Oh sure, I remember him. Did you have Rex Eggleston at any point? Rebecca: No, I am not sure where he taught. I know he was the head of the public school string program for years and years and I played under him in the symphony. Andrea: I think he taught in the junior high schools- I think he taught at Dean Morgan, that is the school I went to. What I liked about him and what I thought was interesting and you could never do now; if someone’s fingernails were too long, he had clippers and he would clip them [the string player’s left hand fingernails have to be short to facilitate pushing down the strings]. He also had a pocket knife. It might have been on the same keychain (laughter) and if your endpin was slipping he would dig a hole between the tiles for your endpin, like deface school property, for the cellos. Now I am like, that was so cool! You could never do that now but that was so cool. Rebecca: Yeah well, the cellos had to have endpins that didn’t slip for sure. �Andrea: Well my first concert with the Youth Symphony- the Casper Youth Symphony with Curtis I was twelve and I was the youngest person in the Youth Symphony. I had no clue what I was doing, I sat last chair with Gaylen Corrigan. I think his brother later became Mayor, right? Rebecca: YeahAndrea: Yeah I am not sure what happened to Gaylen because I am pretty sure he was high most of the time. I did not know that myself as a twelve-year-old but he just seemed a little out of it. Although, he did explain what tenor clef was to me because I had no idea and um- let’s see what was my point to this. Mr. Peacock that is right- My mom- We had to wear white on top and black skirts. My mom sewed a black skirt for me. Here I was, this was my first concert and first time on the stage with the Casper Youth Symphony and the first thing that happened was the endpin slipped and my cello fell flat onto the floor. Just as we were about to start, and he knew I was appalled. Everything came to a complete halt, Curtis Peacock came over picked my cello up, retuned it for me and gave it back to me. He didn’t say anything, he didn’t seem mad but I just felt like I was going to sink into the bottom of the earth. That was my first performance experience with the cello. Rebecca: Okay let’s jump back just for the people who don’t know, define the word “endpin” Andrea: The endpin is- Well the cello is a large instrument; not as large as a string bass and you sit down to play it so that your knees, it would probably be good for your knees, think of the [inaudible] you would have if you had to hold the thing up all the time, but they developed an endpin at the end of the instrument that sticks into the floor so that you don’t have to hold the instrument with your knees you just kind of hold it against your chest and your knees are on either side and it [the endpin] holds the instrument up. �Rebecca: Right, okay thanks. So do you recall any of the concerts you did, or any of the Youth Symphony concerts you did? Andrea: Um- I do know the concert where Gaylen Corrigan taught me to read tenor clef was [inaudible]. Now mind you, I am coming from elementary school I had never played anything this complicated in my life. But it was good for me. I think Mr. Peacock was like, “throw her in the deep end and see if she swims or not.” You know? I looked at it [tenor clef] and I said “what is that?” and he basically said, “That is one fifth up from what you are looking at.” [This is relatively easy for cellists because the strings are tuned in fifths, so it’s only necessary—with a few minor adjustments—to play the tenor clef passage on the next highest string.] I knew enough piano, I didn’t know any [music] theory but I had been playing piano since I was six, so I thought I could understand, and then I had to write in all of the notes in my practice part becauseto practice. I didn’t do that to Gaylen’s part because he was the one who taught me what tenor clef was, so after a while I was able to read it. So Finlandia was big and I just thought it was the coolest piece ever and then Live and Let Die Lennon McCartney we did a lot of that. I think we played it in Billings, Montana when we went on tour there. Those were two pieces because we actually got to play somewhat contemporary pieces. Rebecca: Okay let’s back up here, for the people who don’t know what a clef is c-l-e-f can you give us a definition of what a clef is and then go to tenor clef in particular? Andrea: Okay first you have to start at the musical staff, and at some point in the western history in the notation of voice and music they came up with five lines of and on those lines or in between the lines are certain notes. Since there were sopranos- very high and then the next was alto. Soprano became known as the treble clef and alto is what viola...is played on. Then you have two sorts of bass clef and it is sort of interesting because the cello and the bass plays it but �the bass plays it an octave lower. The tenor clef is between the alto and the bass clef. It was put in there because the clef got too high, too many lines above the staff for people to read. So they decided to add another clef and it was also for the tenors to sing in a chorus so that’s about the best I can do right now. Rebecca: Okay; I will just add that it is a sign, a kind of hieroglyphic that musicians have to learn. It defines that particular line and it defines the note and from there that is the reference point for all the other notes on the staff. Without a clef denoting what note it is, those five lines have no meaning at all. Great, okay- cellos typically play in bass clef which is what you learned in and had played in forever so then you bumped to tenor clef which is more advanced and you were rescued by your stand partner, right? Andrea: Yeah, because I didn’t know what it was, and if you have a cello teacher they will tell you what that is, but if you have never seen it before, you don’t know. Rebecca: Right, right. Andrea: Because of piano, treble and bass clef were things I had heard of before but tenor clef was something I had never heard of before. Rebecca: Well you wouldn’t have, would you. Do you recall, this is sort of between cellists but I can’t help but mention it because it could have been a complicating factor for me. In Dvorak’s music—the Czechoslovakian composer from the late 1800s—sometimes those passages are in treble clef no- should be in tenor clef and are noted in treble clef and you have to take them down an octave. Andrea: That is right- that is standard what you have to do and it is annoying too. Rebecca: I don’t think I had ever [would have] run into that if I hadn't learned [it] in high school music camps in Montana. I think I would have been sunk at a later audition. Okay let’s back up, �you mentioned Finlandia, please mention the composer and a bit about the piece if you could recall. Andrea: Uh [Jean] Sibelius um- a Finnish composer, it is basically an ode of love for Finland. I can’t remember when it was written but it was definitely a late 19th century piece. I think it was an ode of love for his home land. Was it after World War I? I am not sure, I think it was before that. [Jean Sibelius, 19th and 20th century Finnish composer] Rebecca: Didn’t he incorporate the Finnish national anthem or something like that? Andrea: Yes, yes that is right. Rebecca: It is a very accessible and beautiful piece. Andrea: (Singing the melody of Finlandia) Rebecca: Okay, okay so how did you come to be in Youth Symphony so young? Andrea: Uh- Curtis Peacock. He just threw me in there. Rebecca: That is great that he was so encouraging to you. Andrea: Yes- Yeah, I was learning cello I was learning it fast and I had been playing it for a couple of years and he just threw me there. I had a friend, I made some friends there and they thought I was just the biggest nerd on the planet but you know I didn’t mind because I was amongst the big kids so I felt pretty intimidated. Rebecca: Okay um- I don’t want to interrupt you if you were going to add something else. Andrea: Nope. It was great, it was great and unlike piano and this is maybe why I chose the cello. I am an only child and the piano is a solo instrument. With the cello I could be with other kind of nerdy people like myself and actually have friends. You know? And we could go to rehearsals together and learn music together. Whereas, when you are given a piano piece you are just practicing alone at home. �Rebecca: Right. Andrea: So it was also a social outing for me. Rebecca: You are telling me the story of my life when I was in high school. Youth Symphony was pretty much my social life. Andrea: Yeah, yeah my entire social life had to do with Youth Symphony, [Casper] Symphony, and Casper [College] Baroque Ensemble that Curtis also conducted. You know? My senior year I got to play Beethoven Ghost Trio [Piano Trio in D major, Op. 70 No. 1] with Curtis and whoever the on staff pianist was because there was just no one else around. Cellists, we are just like gazelles in Wyoming or something which just doesn't belong there. Rebecca: Well, that was a great opportunity for you. Andrea: It was. It was wonderful. I don’t think I have played it since I was 17. I can’t remember. Rebecca: Let’s go to your senior year of high school when you won the Young Artist Competition. Andrea: Oh yeah that was fun and I also got to ride on the float in the parade wearing my dress with my cello (laughter). Rebecca: Were you shaded somehow? Andrea: No, no didn’t matter. I got to be riding on a float, you know? It is like one of those things that one thinks they will never get to do. But no it was great, they did it right. I wish they would do it like this in West Virginia actually. It [the concert] was at the Thunderbird Gym at Casper College and they trucked in all these grade schools and I think there were three performances. I was part of it and there was a pianist who also won who was part of it who played the Grieg Piano [Concerto] first movement [Edvard Grieg, 19th and 20th century Norwegian composer and pianist] I played the first movement of the Haydn [Cello] Concerto [in �C major]. [Franz Joseph Haydn, 18th century Austrian composer] At that time I had been with De Lemos taking lessons and stuff and he had forbidden me from playing any real music because my technique was so bad. I was only allowed to play [etudes] and I was not very happy [An étude or study is an instrumental musical composition, usually short, designed to provide practice material for perfecting a particular musical skill (definition provided by Wikipedia)], and then this opportunity came to audition for the Young Artist Competition and I was like, I want to do this but Mr. De Lemos won’t let me do this, I know it. So I ordered from the music store the Haydn C Major Cello Concerto which I liked, and I had heard other kids practicing it at Congress of Strings. And I was like, I am going to learn that first movement, so I did. And against Mr. De Lemos—he never heard me play it because I was afraid he would be really mad, and [at] the end [of] my freshman year of college he wouldn’t let me play any music either (laughter). I went back to only playing etudes. Until the very, very, very end of the year but I mean it was cool because I got a pretty green dress and these kids would come in and you got to play it three times. And I forget, I think the kid was from Cheyenne who played, wait, was it [singing] anyway he played the first movement of his piano concerto and then the second part of the concert was Pete Williams who was a newscaster at the time. Do you remember him? He is at CNN now, he really went up in the world. And he narrated Peter and the Wolf [a symphonic fairy tale for children by Sergei Prokofiev, 20th century Russian composer] and that is what the symphony played. It was just a fantastic experience, first of all, you are playing for other kids so they are not going to be too critical you know and you get to play it three times. So it was a great experience to get to do that. And then Mr. De Lemos found out about it and he didn’t say much, he just looked at me, because it’s hard to say, “I forbade you to do any of this but you did win.” We never had that conversation. He just said, “I understand that you did this.” And that was it. �Rebecca: Wow, so you taught yourself the first movement of the Haydn C Major Cello Concerto. Andrea: Yeah. Rebecca: Without any coaching or any teacher’s input. Andrea: Yeah. Rebecca: That is quite a feather in your cap I would say. Andrea: I don’t - I have kind of been teaching myself cello all along so to me it wasn’t- I taught myself the Boccherini first movement of the B flat [cello concerto] to win Congress of Strings too. [Luigi Boccherini, 18th century Italian composer and cellist] Rebecca: You had to audition? Andrea: Yeah you had to audition. Rebecca: I didn’t have to audition, I just got recommended by the local musicians union. That’sI wonder if they changed. Andrea: Yeah I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to get it because there were people [competing for it] who were in college. Curtis had gone to and fetched them from Colorado; they were violinists; they had come from Colorado to attend Casper College. Rebecca: You were cutting out for about ten seconds [so] you should probably repeat what you said a few sentences ago. Andrea: Do you remember how old you had to be to get into that? Rebecca: Congress of Strings? Andrea: Yes. Rebecca: I don’t know if they were letting high school students in when I attended. I went after my freshman year of college I believe. �Andrea: Oh, okay. Because I didn’t know whether there was an age cut off. I don’t remember. Yeah my phone is doing something weird. Rebecca: It is alright, I’ve got you now. Andrea: I have moved to a different part of my house. Rebecca: Well maybe that’s it. Andrea: Yeah, I was trying to get away from the sawing sounds. Rebecca: Okay, you mentioned Peter and the Wolf can you fill that in a little bit? The composer, what kind of work it is and that sort of thing. Andrea: Um- it is a popular classical music children’s work by Prokofiev. It is about a young boy named Peter who is warned by his grandfather not to go out and look for the wolf but he does. And let me think- isn’t there a duck? And a little bird? And they are each represented in the orchestra by different instruments. So it is not only an engaging fairytale with each character represented by a different instrument. The little bird is the piccolo and the crotchety grandfather is the bassoon. It is a well loved work by Sergei Prokofiev, the Russian composer. Rebecca: It is basically a stage work that the orchestraAndrea: No, it's just a narrator. Rebecca: Okay I couldn’t recall. Andrea: Whenever I’ve played it. I mean I had the Disney cartoon of it too, but it’s a narrator and an orchestra. Rebecca: Okay, that’s right, yeah. Okay, let’s back up. You rattled off some names of etude composers under De Lemos. They are familiar to cellists but not to everybody else. Can you say a bit about each of them: Cossmann, Duport, Grützmacher, and Dotzauer. [Bernhard Cossmann, 19th and 20th century German cellist; Jean-Louis Duport, 18th and 19th century French cellist; �Friedrich Grützmacher 19th century German cellist; Friedrich Dotzauer, 18th and 19th century German cellist] Andrea: Uh okay, I think they were, except for Duport- um- these ... De Lemos was German despite his Spanish sounding name and he liked the German composers of really difficult etudes. The only reason they exist in the world is to torture cellists or violinists or violists or what have you. These particular composers wrote for the cello, and they wrote very impossible, very difficult things. That you could break your knuckles over and still wouldn’t sound that good. But the really good people sound great on some of these, but I never sounded great on any of these. The idea is to work through them, and as you work through them, you get better. And even if they aren’t perfect and you never play them in a concert hall, the point is that you learn a lot from motor memory and from finger patterns and bow patterns. But I used to just sometimes - I couldn’t even figure out what it was supposed to sound like and I used to practice in my living room with the grand piano and my cello. If I couldn’t figure out what it was supposed to sound like, I was unfamiliar with thumb position; I had never heard of any of this stuff, I just played, but Mr. De Lemos had to teach me a lot of things. I would be like, what is this supposed to sound like? So I would turn around and play it on the piano so I could hear it and then I would try and match it on the cello and that is actually how I taught myself a lot of stuff. Because I already knew how to play piano so I would turn around play it on the piano and then I would be like, okay now I understand what this is supposed to sound like. Rebecca: Yeah for me as a former teacher, it doesn’t seem to me to be as important how you learn to read music and hear what you see on the staff as long as you do learn it. Andrea: Mhmm- �Rebecca: Etudes, I do agree a lot of them are so unrewarding that it is really difficult for students to stay motivated to work on them. Andrea: Well some of them were [inaudible] so I was like, I am not going to do this anymore. I just refuse to do this anymore. Rebecca: You told your teacher that? Andrea: NoRebecca: Oh. Andrea: (laughter) Rebecca: That was smart not to tell your German [inaudible] I guess I am stereotyping. I don’t know. Andrea: No, I just broke down. I couldn’t do it anymore, and by that time I was playing actual music that was hard, so you know, playing back-breaking etudes wasn’t something I needed to do anymore. I mean, I would probably be better but I knew people who were getting tendinitis from playing this stuff so I was like, this isn’t worth it. Rebecca: Well Cossmann in particular, no doubt you know the story; was it Robert Schumann who devised a method to strengthen his fingers and it ended up ruining his hands for piano. Do you remember that story? Andrea: Yeah. Rebecca: It is a good story, maybe it didn’t happen; you never know with history but, I never had a teacher that made me play Cossmann but can you describe those explicitly and if you can’t I can because I really remember how bad those were for the hand and how hard I fought. �Andrea: Ugh Cossmann what it does is, it is all about repetition and there is no music involved. It is all about finger repetition. Like if you were to sit at a typewriter and type the same things over and over and over again. To me that is what Cossmann is like. Rebecca: Well, and doesn’t it require that you keep a finger down and you exercise another finger on an adjacent string while leaving the other finger down. I was never convinced that it was actually good for the left hand or taught it very much except contortions. Andrea: Yeah the only thing I think that does- hold on I am going plug [to] this in, maybe that is part of the problem I am low on battery. I think the only thing that does is basically teach you finger positions within one position, and the angles in order to be in tune that you have to kind of contort your fingers. Rebecca: RightAndrea: Yeah. You know during COVID or during the beginning anyway I started to go ... I know Alwin Schroeder, [Alwin Schroeder, 19th and 20th century German-American cellist and composer of etudes for the cello] but I’ve never gone through much of the second book, so then I started the third book, but the third book is mostly Piatti [Carlo Alfredo Piatti, 19th century Italian cellist, teacher and composer] unfortunately, the Caprices. But in the second book I was introduced to this guy named Merk, a German composer of etudes. [Joseph Merk, 19th century Austrian cellist, and composer of cello pieces] He was part of the compilation that Schroeder did of etudes. And you know? He was musical. I was like, I really like these; one could actually play these for real in front of an audience and it would be musically gratifying. Rebecca: Yeah I seem to remember that the Schroeder second book was pretty good. Well you are lucky that- Do you know about Rudolf Matz, M-A-T-Z. [Rudolf Matz , 20th century Croatian composer] �Andrea: Mhmm. Rebecca: Talk about boring, repetitive, systematic. I bought those, I think, when I was teaching and I repent of making my students work on those. Very systematic, nothing is neglected except the interest of the student of course. Andrea: RightBoth: (laughter) Rebecca: Okay, well this is really great. Oh I have a standard question I ask everyone at some point. Does anything from your musical experience in Casper whether: Youth Symphony, Casper Symphony or your performances with the Young Artist Competition stand out to you as the highest point of your musical career then? Andrea: Ooh- Hmm- Gosh, because with me growing up in Casper, well, you know the western type of thought is like, figure it out and do it yourself. I mean, people who grow up in Wyoming and maybe the Old West; there weren’t a lot of people, so you have to figure it out. Whatever it is you want to do, you have to figure it out: If my mom wanted to carpet the front step. It was cement and she wanted carpet on it, whatever, so instead of hiring someone to do it she just figured it out and did it, that kind of thing. You want to know how to work on your car? Take it apart and see how it fits. For me, the greatest part of living in Casper was having the freedom to figure things out and no one was going to say anything. “Oh no, that’s wrong,” or anything; there was just discovery. So I don’t know if there was a high point necessarily. There was just a constant discovery of things you could do and music you could listen to. So I don’t know if there was a high point; there was just a continuation of education. So there were many high points but it was really a progression into the next fun thing to do, and it was always fun. �Rebecca: It’s really true, when you are in a, should we say, culturally relatively isolated place that if you are going to be doing the sort of stuff you are describing, you are pretty much on your own unless you luck into a really really good teacher who is within a reasonable distance geographically. Yeah, that’s great. OkayAndrea: So, yeah I enjoyed it. I enjoyed growing up there. I mean, I don’t know what would have happened to me if I’d grown up somewhere else where there was more cultural access and a teacher I could, you know, but in a way there are other things that go along with that too, so. No, just being able to learn music at my own pace and having fun doing it, I think for a young person is- and- and no negative feedback, only encouragement is really important. Rebecca: Well if it’s fun then you’re gonna be motivated . Andrea: Yeah. To learn the next thing. Rebecca: Yep, I wanna back up. You refer to thumb position. We know what that is but a lot of people don’t, so can you describe it? Andrea: Well okay, so you have your fingers in a kind of spider- like way going up the cello and then you get to a point where the neck is not gonna let you go up any longer in the spider-like position, so you’re gonna run out of fingers, and your fourth finger [pinky] is the weakest finger, so instead of letting them run out so you don’t get into higher pitch positions you can put your thumb up there and it acts as a finger and then you can keep going [into higher pitch positions]. Rebecca: Right, and you lay it across the strings so you’re pushing it down with the side of the thumb. Andrea: The side of the thumb and that- first learning how to do that really hurts. Rebecca: I know. Andrea: (laughter) Until you get callouses there it really hurts. (laughter) �Rebecca: Yeah, I remember when I really finally got to a teacher that made me learn thumb position and told me that I really couldn’t do without it, I was asking him, “Listen, when does this stop hurting?” He said, “Oh, it takes about a year to build up a callus.” And that was very discouraging. (laughter) When you’re 20, a year seems like a really long time. Andrea: Yeah, well I remember asking, for some reason we were taking like some sort of field trip in Seattle at Congress of Strings with our teacher at a lake. And I was kinda like, “Aren’t you gonna go jump in the lake?” And he was like, “Oh, no no no no. I have to play tonight and I don’t wanna lose my thumb callus.” And I’m like, “Oh, okay.” (laughter) So professionals apparently think about that sort of thing, like oh we don’t wanna soften that cause then it’ll hurt. Rebecca: Right. Andrea: How did you learn vibrato? May I ask? Rebecca: Okay let’s define vibrato first. You get to do it since you’re the interviewee. Andrea: Well it’s, people hear a singer, just have a steady pitch and vibrato is on either side of the pitch while still holding that pitch and it is thought to beautify it. And string players do that by- it looks like they are shaking their hand on the string, but actually it’s a fairly steadied and intentional shaking of the hand, in which you are basically playing the same pitch but you are making it more beautiful. Rebecca: That’s the hope anyway. (laughter) Andrea: Yeah, well, yeah. Rebecca: Did you ask me how I learned vibrato? Andrea: Mhmm. Rebecca: Oh, well, you know, I don’t remember, I think- I don’t know how I bypassed the really nervous nanny goat sort of wiggle but I never did have to unlearn that. I think I just kind of �started doing it. I went to a lot of concerts and I probably absorbed. I mean my parents took me as your mother did, I’m sure, to every classical concert in town whether it was a chamber concert or the symphony or whatever until I was old enough to play in groups and I must have just absorbed from watching how it was supposed to behave because I never had to really reform my vibrato I just had to refine it. Because if it’s too wide it sounds wobbly ... and if it’s too narrow it sounds nervous and, this is the motion of the hand I’m referring to, so I was lucky. I guess I just sort of started and went on from there. As a teacher I had to unteach quite a lot of badly started vibratos but that’s sort of in the game. And I don’t know if you’ve discovered this either as a performer or a teacher but vibrato is as much a psychological technique as anything else. I’m thinking of a student I had in Wisconsin who, her- she had two older sisters and she was- they were really good on violin and piano and she-, well they picked on her a lot. It was not a very happy family situation and she ended up as a cellist because they weren’t cellists; they were pianists and violinists and she had a chance of doing something on her own that they couldn’t criticize so much and she was so determined to do well that she kind of defeated herself and it came out in the vibrato, it was just overworked and nervous and I could tell how much her state of mind was affecting. Andrea: Yeah. Rebecca: How did you? Andrea: Huh? Rebecca: How did you learn it? Andrea: Well probably the same way you did. I mean, I watched people do it and tried to do it and I had a hard time getting rid of that really shaky shaky shaky, you know, too fast kind of vibrato and oh god, I mean how old was I? Oh, even- Okay so, somewhere in the later years of �my bachelor’s degree I went to a music camp and I roomed with a Juilliard [prestigious conservatory of music in New York City] student who had actually—she had figured out how to do vibrato and what she did is, she would, she said, just do some position in first position and do it very slowly and just bend your finger to loosen them up back and forth. And then what you do is you’ll do with the metronome one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, four, one, two- and finally with your thumb up cause you can’t cheat, right? When your thumb is up, you can’t bend your finger like in some kind of bizarre way, and that was the first time that I was able to loosen my fingers up enough to do vibrato, but even when I was in graduate school and I went to lunch with my teacher and another student and I don’t know how we were talking about vibrato but he said, “Oh well, you don’t necessarily move your body you just kind of shake.” and I’m like “Oh did you have to say that in front of Marian?” (laughter) Did you really have to say that? But it was true, I struggled with vibrato and I still kinda do a little bit here and there, if I get nervous I start reverting back and just shaking. So, I mean I know that there’s ways to control it and I know what exercises to do now because of this roommate that I had. But yeah, I- You know who you should talk to is John Stovall. Rebecca: He went quite a distance, didn’t he? Andrea: I would say. Talk about someone who ... taught themselves what to do. Rebecca: We should mention he ended up in the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Andrea: Yeah. Rebecca: Casper bass player. Andrea: Mhmm, and I remember him cause, well I was a little kid and he was older but in high school I remember him playing Lieutenant Kijé from the bass solo and it was amazing. I don’t know, I mean bass players, a lot of them are self taught anyway because there is no actual �methodology for bass players. I started playing bass about ten years ago and I was like, “Well okay.” just cause it seemed like a fun thing and you know I was looking at all the different books by Vance and Roth and so forth, and they’re just, how do these people learn? [George Vance edited and produced collections of music for bass] And you know Vance starts in treble clef and it’s like, no, why would you do that? (laughter) Suzuki, [Shinichi Suzuki, a Japanese violin teacher, spawned the Suzuki philosophy of music teaching, in which children begin their music lessons at age 2, and parents are heavily involved in lessons and home practice] they can’t even decide on what position is fourth position, so if you’re like teaching yourself the bass, boy you’re on your own, and unless you have a really good teacher, which John didn’t. Right? I mean that’s even weirder than cello in Casper. He like, taught himself how to play. He ended up at the Aspen Music Festival I know, and ended up in the Boston Symphony. But he was in the Youth Symphony. [The Aspen Music Festival is a classical music festival held each summer in Aspen, Colorado. Professionals perform and teach, and students qualifying for fellowships attend, take lessons and play in the student orchestras] Rebecca: Yeah, I- My hat is off to anybody that plays the string bass because they’re so big and you can only play two notes and then you’ll have to shift, move your hand I should say for people who don’t know what that is. It’s crazy. Andrea: Oh yeah. To play in tune and then to vibrato, your vibrato has to be a lot wider. But just to play in tune and get a good sound. And then there are bow holds right? You’ve got French bow, you’ve got German bow. If someone came to me and said play- you know someone gives me a German bow, I’ll be like, “Okay, I kind of know how to hold it.” (laughter) Rebecca: Describe the difference. Describe each bow and you could maybe give us the reason why there are options for bass players that aren’t [available for other string players]. �Andrea: I have no idea. No idea why they’re like that. The French bow looks just like a huge bow that everybody else has in the string section. The German bow has a- it’s huge at the palm so that most of your fingers except for the first finger [index finger] and the pinky finger can fit inside of it, and you have to lean over and it uses a different part of your shoulder in order to play it. And both of them are highly effective depending on which one you use but I have no idea why. (laughter) Rebecca: Well I think it’s cause the bass is really not part of the violin family, cause you know those sloping shoulders I think it’s part of the viol family, V-I-O-L, that mightAndrea: Oh yes. Rebecca: Don’t know. That’s justAndrea: That’s possible. Rebecca: Let’s back up to John Stovall, Lieutenant Kijé. Could you say who that’s by and say a little more about that? Andrea: Oh gee, now we’re talking about bass things. Are you sure? Rebecca: (laughter) [inaudible] Andrea: I mean John Stovall is the star player from Casper, Wyoming to contact him. I mean, I remember he was in high school and he played a beautiful bass solo from Prokofiev's Lieutenant Kijé. It’s like one of the standards in bass literature and something that you would audition with if you were trying to get into a fine orchestra like the Boston Symphony. And you know, back in my last chair (laughter) Youth Symphony, I just remember looking back at this kind of- he had hair, it was the 70s so it was like, down to his shoulders. Rebecca: (laughter) �Andrea: And he played beautifully, you know. I mean, that’s as much as I can- I’m not gonna go into who Lieutenant Kijé was and (laughter) this thing so. The fictional character of Lieutenant Kijé, but it’s a great solo for the bass. Rebecca: I want to jump back to vibrato. You said something about having the thumb up. Do you mean fully engaged with the back of the fingerboard or do you mean actually resting on the string? Andrea: Resting on the string. In like second position. And then you just, each finger, you kind of get- you bend it more than you necessarily would, because it will, when the thumb is in that position and you can do the exercises that way, and then once you’ve loosened your upper parts of the finger up you put the thumb back where it’s supposed to be [behind the neck of the cello], and you do the exercises that way. And that’s how I slowed my vibrato down because my vibrato was way too fast. Rebecca: Were you ever told to lightly place your finger on any string, it’s easiest on the high strings the A or the D, and bow- I mean it makes a very- you’re not doing it for the sound, you’re doing it for the physical motion, rub your hand up and down quite a distance and then gradually narrow that until you’re pretty much fastened on one pitch but your hand is still remembering that motion of rubbing up and down on the string very lightly. Did you ever do that? Andrea: I was never told that. Once I started trying to teach vibrato I started like, investigating ways to do this, other than what the student had taught me in music camp, and that was one of the things I think, William Starr. I went to the Institute of Chamber Music, he was also at the University of Milwaukee, or sorry Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and he was on staff there and that’s one of the Suzuki ways of doing things and I kind of learned that while I was there as a way of figuring out the whole vibrato situation. But no, no one ever told me that. I mean. I was an adult �by the time I started looking at that and was- I actually learned a lot by starting to teach. I didn’t know what positions were, I mean I didn’t- I just played. In fact, all the way through graduate school I didn’t know what positions were and then I discovered Rick Mooney books and “Oh, these are the positions?” [“Positions,” on a stringed instrument, are numbered according to what pitch the left index finger is placed on, on the fingerboard.] He also wrote a double-stop book which is pretty good and I was like, “Oh, yeah this would have been really helpful.” (laughter) [Double-stops are two notes played on a stringed instrument simultaneously] I didn’t know what second or third position was. I was just like, “What are positions? You just, you find the note.” But yeah. Rebecca: It doesn’t help that it’s according to the logic of violin strings. [Because the violin fingerboard is approximately half the length of the cello fingerboard, the violinist’s left hand can reach one more pitch than the cellist’s left hand can. Since the system of position numbering for all stringed instruments is based on how many pitches the violinist can play before having to move the hand, this numbering system doesn’t transfer logically to the larger instruments such as cello and bass.] Andrea: Right, yeah and that’s the problem with bass playing too, I think. Rebecca: (laughter) Andrea: They need to have somebody out there with a bright mind who understands bass and goes, “Okay, here are the method books that are good to actually help you people.” Rebecca: Yeah. Andrea: And they still don’t have that. �Rebecca: Well, it would take just the right person, and if somebody’s a good performer it does not follow that they’re a good teacher and, you know, have enough ability to render into a system what they do. I noticed that. Andrea: Yeah. Rebecca: Okay, let’s see. I have some notes, I want to be sure that we’ve covered everything. Are there other things you want to tell us? Andrea: I think that growing up in the 70s, having a strings program in a kind of isolated, small community like that, was just amazing. Just an amazing opportunity, and you know, if I had grown up in a bigger city probably I wouldn’t have gotten the same opportunities that I got in Casper. You know, I was young. Curtis Peacock threw me into the Youth Symphony probably before I was ready. He threw me into the symphony before I was ready (laughter) but I learned. I mean he respected the capacity of my being able to learn quickly because he had known me since I was nine years old, ten years old, I guess it was. And so, having teachers that consistently, they may not be able to teach you the instrument, but they believe in you and can throw you into situations that they know that you’re gonna swim. I think that’s incredibly valuable, and so that kind of independence of thought and independence, of just being able to create and figure things out for yourself is really important. I teach kids now who are just- they seem like they’re helpless. And you know it’s kinda- and I teach in the public schools right, who seem like, “I don’t know how to do this.” and I’m like, “Well, figure it out.” As I get older, I’m getting a little bit more persnickety. It’s just like, “You people have the kind of resources I didn’t have growing up. You have YouTube for one thing. (laughter) And you know, why don’t you just figure this out? It’s- you could figure it out if you want to.” So, you know, it gave me the opportunity to be free to learn how to play. �Rebecca: Well, Andrea I can’t resist. Well, I don’t want to interrupt you if you have more to say. Andrea: Nah, that was about it. (laughter) Rebecca: You’ve smoked a story out of me here. When I was, I don’t know, I’d been teaching about twenty years and I was starting to feel kind of stifled by what I was doing and I read, I forget now just what book it was by Abraham Maslow, if it wasn’t a book, it was a story of some Native Americans who were sitting around watching a two-year-old, a very young child, try to open a really heavy door and Maslow watched this. I’m not sure how he had the opportunity to watch it but he did, and the really cool thing from his point of view was that the adults did not help this kid at all, and so this very young, it sounded like maybe he was two or three, struggled and struggled and struggled and struggled to get this door open with no help from the observing adults and finally got it, and you can imagine the sense of accomplishment, the unbelievable sticktoitiveness and hard work. So I read that, and it just changed my teaching forever and I began saying to my students, “I’m here for you to bring your problems, your cello playing problems to me about, but I’m not gonna tell you how to do things anymore. Go home and struggle with it and tell me what you ran into next week. Bye.” I mean, I didn’t cheat them of their lesson time, but it just changed everything. And so these students, they got really really really attached to their own learning process and figuring it out. They were just so excited about it, and it basically ruined them for their college teachers who were, logically enough, the teacher knows more than the student, so of course the teacher is the authority and should tell the student how to play. That’s the mindset they ran into and it was really hard for them. (laughter) Andrea: Oh, yep. Well it’s interesting because yeah, when you teach yourself you’re kind of likeit depends on how the ego goes I guess, whenever- when I got to people who I knew knew more than I did, they would ask me to jump and my question was always, “How high do you want me �to jump?” It wasn’t like, well, I can think for myself, I already knew that (laughter) but now you have something to add to it so I mean maybe, maybe this is a different generation of, I think somewhat self-entitled children who’ve been raised differently than my parents who grew up during the Depression raised me. So I think it might be just a different culture actually and it’s interesting that you talk about Native American because I’m adopted and I’m Native American. (laughter) Rebecca: Yeah I knew you were adopted. That’s about all I knew. Andrea: Oh yeah, I’m from the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation up in North Dakota. But I never saw any of it because I was adopted. Rebecca: [How] young? Andrea: Very young, yeah. Baby. Rebecca: Ah. Okay so, so it’s very interesting that you should talk about how, really, the best thing about being from Casper was that what other people would perceive as a lack of opportunity you experienced as opportunities. Andrea: With the right kind of mindset probably, yeah. Rebecca: Mhmm. Andrea: Yeah, I mean I enjoyed the independence of, of always being able to think for myself. I would, you know, and I would learn from watching the Denver Symphony on PBS every once in a while and when they focused in on the cellos, I would really look at them. And also, just I guess the fact that a small place like Casper, Wyoming would have a youth symphony and a symphony, and occasionally have chamber music come in, and then someone who knew what they were doing who was like, fun, like Mr. Peacock was. �Rebecca: Yeah, and the Casper College Baroque Ensemble could not have functioned without high school cellists cause there often were not many or any cello students at Casper College. Andrea: Right. Both: Yeah. Andrea: Yeah. So I got to do that. Then there was a harpsichord. I never heard of harpsichord before. That was like, “Wow, look at that! That’s a harpsichord.” (laughter) And I grew to not really like the sound of it but that’s okay. (laughter) Rebecca: Okay describe it. You mentioned it, now you get to describe it. (laughter) Andrea: Oh no no no. It sounds like, oh who was it that said it sounds like skeletons- oh I shouldn’t say this; I’m on tape. Rebecca: (laugher) That’s alright. If you don’t know who said it, it doesn't matter. Andrea: Skeletons copulating on a tin roof. I don’t like the harpsichord. I think I admire the people who are willing to play it. (laughter) Rebecca: Well, so it’s a keyboard instrument, I forget if it has one or two keyboards. Andrea: (laughter) It can have one or two, yeah. Rebecca: And they’reAndrea: And it’s very difficult to tune and it has a very tinny sound and it’s a precursor of the piano, piano forte. Rebecca: Right. And it’s plucked instead of pounded. Andrea: Yeah, the strings are plucked by the keys rather than pounded like the piano. Rebecca: Yeah, well I think a really high quality harpsichord very well tuned is a real addition to Bach and Corelli and those things. �Andrea: Oh I agree. I’ve played continuo with lots of them but as far as- they blend really well but if you had asked me to go to a harpsichord recital Rebecca: Oh no. Andrea: I wouldn’t be able to do it. Rebecca: I wouldn’t either. Okay, now you’ve mentioned continuo now you get to describeAndrea: Okay, don’t no no no. [inaudible]. You keep asking me- I gotta go (laughter) at some point. [“Continuo” is a bass line, often played by the principal cello and a keyboard instrument (usually harpsichord). As the term suggests, this bass line continues throughout a piece, when the other instruments are silent. The best example is The Messiah, by George Friedrich Handel, late 17th and early 18th century German-British composer, The Messiah has choral and orchestral movements interspersed with interludes where a vocal soloist sings a short “recitative,” resembling an improvisation, and accompanied by cello and harpsichord.] Rebecca: Okay. Yeah, okay. Andrea: It’s been really fun talking to ya. Rebecca: Well thank you for giving us your time. Andrea: (laughter) Oh sure. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource WyoHistory.org Wyoming Symphony Orchestra Oral History Project Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-NC/1.0/">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-NC/1.0/</a> Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 2022-2023 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource WyoHistory.org; Rebecca Hein Language A language of the resource ENG Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context NCA 01.i.2022.02 Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound; Text Description An account of the resource Audio files and transcripts created and edited by Rebecca Hein and students at Casper College during an oral history project with players of the Wyoming Symphony Orchestra. The oral histories were conducted by Hein between 2022 and 2023 and are a part of Wyohistory.org publishing project. Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data MP3 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Andrea DiGregorio Wyoming Symphony Orchestra Oral History Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-NC/1.0/">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-NC/1.0/</a> Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 2022-06-22 Description An account of the resource Audio file and transcript for oral history interview with Wyoming Symphony Orchestra player Andrea DiGregorio. This interview was conducted by Rebecca Hein for Wyohistory.org on June 22, 2022. Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rebecca Hein; Andrea DiGregorio Language A language of the resource ENG Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. WyoHistory.org Wyoming Symphony Orchestra Oral History Project, NCA 01.i.2022.02 WyCaC US. Casper College Archives and Special Collections. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context NCA 01.i.2022.01_Andrea_DiGregorio_6-22-22_Compressed Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource MP3 https://caspercollege.cvlcollections.org/files/original/866f77e869ee2e1629c0a437786e8a55.mp3 ce8859695e6b07fa27edee50f092457b https://caspercollege.cvlcollections.org/files/original/771cc76ede80181bfff4dc4fc7472d21.pdf 049a0569ad0b635719c184f3675ef815 PDF Text Text Speaker 1; were doing this just . Speaker 2[rebecca]; okay. okay. Speaker 1; okay Speaker 1;Good… hm so this is for .. hm lets see its february.. Hmm ahh… hmm 8th 2023. Speaker 2 [rebecca]; right. Speaker 1; and were speaking with… oh right its thursday. February 9th 2023 and we are speaking with Rebecca Hein about her families business langes book shop. In casper in the 60s 70s and 80s i think right and how it goot to be there and what her role in it was. .. am i right .. what happened… is that fair . Speaker 2[rebecca]; yeah Speaker 1; and ermm a is this .. are we doing this for the casper college western history center. Speaker 2[rebecca]; yeah we discussed that and also putting it up on wyo history.org that would be your call i guess Speaker 1; yeah right ermmm… okay so becky so how did your family come to be in the book business. Speaker 2 [rebecca]; erm well hm my farther was well my parent were interlectuals and ermm my farther worked as an office manager till i was 5 years old hughes tool company first in billings well probably first in casper before i was born then in billings then in farmington new mexico.and he always said he hated it.what he really wanted to do was run his own independent book shop. Ahh i think that if he could of lived his dream he would of been a shakespearean actor. By the way he behaved what he did was look for the right side of the city or region he or my mother wanted to live in i think he looked at casper and billings and rapid city and made an assessment based on what sort of book sellers were already in those places im not sure why he choose casper over those over places but we moved to casper when i was going into first grade .in the fall of 1962. Speaker 1 okay Speaker 2[rebecca]; yeah i dont think he opened his doors until about 6 month later cause obviously there was alot of preparations .and one of the ones was i distinctly remember this one he took the whole family drafted us all into drawing lines on 3x5 cards he made us a little templet out of 3x5 card which he cut little lines round the template. And that was for his inventory system which he had undoubtedly learned during his time as office manager . so kept our inventory obviously this was way way before computers and stuff on theese 3x5 cards .in a �little file doors cabinet , especially the right size 3x5 cards for every book in the shop that we stocked we had one of these 3x5 cards they were all placed in alphabetical order with quantity of that book. Errm the number of copies we had of that book title so at the end of each day after we had closed for the day . somebody either my farther or mother or their manager or whoever their employes would ermm… update all the inventory cards based on the sales tickets that we had wrote out for books being sold.so it worked very well i dont think we had very many inaccuracies if we did they were occasional . My earliest memories were sitting there and drawing lne on these cards. I was young so i dont have any very many clear memories of the book shop from when i was was in grade school. Well thats not quite true i remember sitting in the children section we had emmm we had the store front in the … building 163 south walcott on im not sure whats there now but erm there were Speaker 1 ; erm excuse me its part of the whats now the front one of the 2 store fronts whats now called the walcott galleria in the odd fellows building on the west side of walcott town casper between first and second street down town casper Speaker 2; right so okay ermm i do remember my farther had the shop partitioned off into two parts and the book selves into various sections and the childrens section was in the north west corner of that shop area building and there was a chair in there that was only for customers that we had. And i remember sitting in that chair curled up in that char in the afternoon reading nancy june and hardy bois hard backs we had shelves of them i had read every nancy jue and hardy bois book at that we had at that point. Ihad probably read othe books but i especially remember reading those nancy jue and hardy bois i was probably about 9 at the time and from a very early age so my sisters cathy was 6 years older than i was and barbara Was 16 months older than i was ermm and we were allowed to bring any book home and read it as long as we kept it in perfect conditions Speaker 1; laughter Speaker 2; and we always did keep them in perfect condition so that rule was always held we had a private library Speaker 1; agreed uh yeah Speaker 2; SO those were my earliest memories then i started to work at the book shop when i was 14 Speaker 1; agreed ah yeah Speaker 2; i have all sorts of recollections of course from that time and then in that time i was trained at that time how to answer the phone take messages to take orders for books if somebody came into the shop i was trained how to wait on. If we didnt have a book lets say they asked for this unless they were browsing and such i would excuse my self and go out back and look it up if we didnt have it then the next thing you would do �Speaker 1; i miss that part why would you go out back to the bathroom. Speaker 2; back room sorry Speaker 1 ;laughs Speaker 2 ; it was the place where work it was partianed off by some floor to ceiling shelves it was a ver small space there was 2 desks and some filing cabinets. err soo i would go back there where we had our inventory records and i would look and see eif we had the book if they ask for a particular title and if they didnt the next words to come out my mouth were always supposed to be very happy to special order it for you. If it wasnt the case of a book that was coming in any way . and that in which case we would say we are expecting a bunch of these we will hold a copy of these and call you when it comes.but if they wanted the special order the n we would look it up in books and prrint and books and print was a 3 volume very large set those books were huge they were like and encylapedia really and there was titles authors and subjects if we couldnt find the book under titles then we would we would be able to determined because they were issued annually so if the book wasnt in print and available then it would be in a current edition of books so if we were able to look it up then if we found it we would go ahead and call the person and order it and i never had alot to do with ordering procedure but i know we had these pieces of paper that were basically well i should back up here my parents never wasted any thing nothing so when we sold a book we would write a sales report On these huge metal tickets they were .. last time i was at lou tarberts in casper they were stil using those things they had smaller ones but they would create a copy for the customer and copy for us and ermm so our copies become obselete as sson as we had posted the sale and updated the inventory record maybe there were some other things that had to be done with it so the my parents would cut these inn half and the back side was blank and that was what we would write down special orders on so we had a a cigar box with a blank pieces of these basically 3 x by 5 pieces of paper that we would pull out a piece of paper and put on title of the book the author name of the persoon that wanted it phone number probably the price that publishers weekly said it would cost and probably weather it was a hard back or paper bound and the date that we had written out the slip so that went through some process that i was never really part of where ermmwhere the book would have ordered then it would arrive and there was a system i aslo dont remember probably because ididnt handle that . where the slip would be matched with the book and then we be taken out and handed to the person that is manning the front counter or that person during slack times to get on the phone and call the customer let them know there book had arrived and then we shelved it until they picked it up back room area we must of shelved them alphabetically other wise i dont know how else we would of been able to find them.but ther was always a fair number of Speaker 1; interrupt we shelved. When i worked there mid 70s ermm i was taught which i thought was quite clever you alphabetised the book by the name of the customer because people would forget the name of the book but would never forget their own names. Speaker 2; oh yeahhh �Speaker 1; so they would come in and yeah i thought that was really cool Speaker 2;i didnt recall that detail so our special order business we made less off of a profit on special orders for the standard books that we got on was called automatic distribution from the publishers they would send out there best books every fall i think we got a 40 % discount on but we typically only got a 20% discount for a special order but it was the back bone of our business people knew they could get any book they wanted from us including out of print books i have that on my list for a little later how that happened so yeah ermm Speaker 1;about special orders and profit also by the time i was working there was S C O P scop single copy order plan which was a form you could ermmm. It was a way to save keep book keeping on the publishers end.so that she would fill out a form that had an address back to you on it and all they had to do was once they got it was stick the book in an envelope and stick your label on it and send it back to you and for that you could maintain a 40% margin.so that might have come in later after you worked there so it was a nice thing for the book seller Speaker 2; yeah definitely thats good soo ermm one of the first things i remember being taught how to answer the phone and wait on people and all that and the procedure on what we had to do and how to find it if we didnt how to find it on the shelf i have avery clear recollection of it would seem like in the fall we would get a rather large boxes of hard back books which my parents explained to me that they had not ordered but publishers set out on automatic distribution which apparently the books where the publishers were willing to take risks on and send out too book sellers assuming they would sell better than others these were always new and those day books came out in hard back books first then a year later in paper back soo tehre was the hard bound book switch i dont remember from when i was 14 how much they sold for but probably never less than 20 dollars so there was quite alot of books that passed through my hands and i kind of got a feel for current authors and where they were and for writing and things like that and that of course books book which were run away best sellers or book that were authors ermm were basically fans of . for example your uncle bart he would would always want the latest jame mitchner book as you know wrote were works of fiction or historical fiction he would go back to the the very beginning of known history for an area like san antonio or hawaii I dont remember the other books but he had quite alot of series and ermm people would come in ask for the latest michener book which hadnet been released yet we would take there name and we would get 20 or so copies and which were nearly all spoken for and we would get them out to the front desk and there was a little desk you would probably remember this behind the counter where we waited on people there was a little desk where we would answer the phone and could sit down where we piled books that we hadnt ermm called people about so we would. So we would call people about there michener books then they would come swarming in on the new hour and by the end of that day there would be no more than one left it was just astonishing and i noticed that and and course i noticed when there was best sellers ermm they were all going to be out of order im sure lets see james herriet herriott he was a large animal well no he wasnt a large animal veterinarian he was a country vet basically in england somewhere and hes started writing about his customers or clients or what ever animals and human personalities that he dealt with regularly he ahd a knack for telling these stories probably that he had good �material all creatures great and small the first one couldnt keep it in te shop we could just not keep it it was a run away best seller and i read it course part of the job was keeping your self ffamilar with the merchandise so i did alot of reading i would of any way i mean my parents raised me and my sisters to be book worms any way all creatures great and small was a deserved run away best seller and the 3 sequels also were lets see all things bright and beautiful, all things wise and wonder full , the lord god made em all i think thats a work from himthey were all equally good which is kind of rare from a series of books my experience is that if somebody writes a really good book has anoth try aat writing another they never really quite make the grade those harriot book every single one of them was a success and then there was the year , it seems like it always happen in the summer im not sure it ddid maybe the wave of sales continued into the summer when i was working full time when it seemed like every second or 3rd person asked for book by cooline coullghr coullgh i dont remember how her name was spelt now but the title of the book thorn bird like thorn on a rose bird i read it it was a very good novel people just we couldnt keep that book in the shop, so very popular okay then ermm we had a book titled jonathan livingstone segal which was a saapy book about life you might say that was another one people i knew before they opened there mouths they would ask for it because it seemed like just about everybody in the shop that summer asked and it spawned a spoof for the authour titied jonathan seageaul chicken but that one never really went any where any way i only have 2 books i remember that were sensation well one was it was a local one called the sand bar walter jones local history that was very popular i dont know how many people brought it the author even came in and signed books for that, i just remember that being tremendously popular and then there was book and then there was an artist a western artistby the name of conrad sch , schweiring he had abig coffe table sort of book with his paintings in it then called schiiring and these book sigings were called autographing parties in those days my parents had an autographing party for conrad schweiring and that book at one of the banks i could not remember if it was first national or wyoming national but i clearly remember being there and seeing this set up wit all these conrad schwiering books him sitting at the table signing autographs and my parents ringing up the sales and so on so that probably was not exactly a run away best seller. But it was pretty popular so from all that i got the idea that people could write a run away best seller because people did so i got the idea that i could so i have there fore then saddled witha life long dream to write a run away best seller . sooo i think i just went with the atmosphere Speaker 1 ; so yeah thats interesting and ermm so did you work there after school every day or during the weeks or saturdays or christmas or all of those Speaker 2; you know i really dont remember from when i was in junior high but i do remember from when i was in highschool ermm after school i would walk down town and work until closing and the i would wiat until close i would sit in the back room reading i dont think i had any particular jobs while my parents posted the books that had been sold posted them to the inventory cards and my farther counted up the money to be sure the balance to see what the difference was to what had been in the cash draw at the beginning. How much we had taken in and what was in it at the end of the day. That all took maybe 45 minutes andthen we would all go home and so seems like it was like my senior year of high school maybe it was my junior �year to i got out a little earlier than the 3;30 or what ever it was and would walk downtown and would work every day except for if i had ochello lessons or something like that i would would still go to the book shop but after my lessons and weekends my parents were ever open on ermm on sundays and saturdays in the summer they started closing at noon so i would work full time every summer and after school durinbg the year and during christmas vacation and typically school would be out a number of days before the holiday so of course im sure you remember in the christmas season erm it was just a mad house soo i worked full time until christmas day and was very necessary as it was needed . so maybe i should say abit about the christmas season my parents always hired extra people they did not scimp and we had routine there were only two ticket writers . only two people could be at the front desk writing tickets but of course people were buying gifts and we always offer gift wrapping and my parents brought a lareg roll un designed gift wrapping paper and they had it on a huge roller that had ermm that had a centerated Edge and then you could measure it out and tear it off neatly so two people would be writing tickets and asking if the customer wanted it gift wrapped and if the answer was yes if it was often a hard back you would take it back to the back room the first thing you would do is get a pair of scissors and snip of the price off of the dust jackets just taking off the corner off the inside front which is where the price was then my parents taught me how to gift wrap quickly neatly very well with out any gaps or anything with the minimum amount of paper and scotch tape and we always had bows or what ever we had to put on we had to do that fast so that the person was out of tehre we tried to make it so that they didnt wait very long Speaker 1; i remember from working there that the gift wrap was plain brown paper and the ribbon was actually a piece of string about and inch wide with with a print design on it and a little erm cerated edges as it had been cut with … scissors that was the ermm so sombody must of cut those out of cloth or fabric or maybe your mum or dad could by it that way Speaker 2; i dont know oh and speaking of christmas on of the things my parents did for years until postage was to expensive they would send out a christmas letter to a list of there customers apparently they had saved evrybodys address oh yeah thats it to the people that ha da charge account tahts how we got the addresses and we had alot of people who ahd charge accounts they would send out a christmas letter recapping the last year and that continued for quite a while but thenn that stopped because postage gootn too expensive. Speaker 1; and then so when did you graduate form NCHS Speaker 2; 1974 Speaker 1 okay, did you continue to work afte that when you was home from school or anything I Speaker 2 i did when i ever i was home, even in the summer some time evenif i was visiting ermm let me think i always worked at christmas that was alot of customers would bring in paper plates with cookies on it fudge or whatever you know how it is so that was nice because there was something to snack on all day and it was just really fun �SPEAKER1; erm yeah yeahermm and do You remember any thing about the different ways your mum an dad ran the shop beacause they were such different people Speaker 2 ; well erm i remember when i was being trained when i was 14 dad took me too the back her is how you i think pack up a book to send out and we had customers customers in state but noyt in casper so wwe would send books out to them i dont remember if it was heres how you pack them or unpack or how you pack a book up he had his way he wanted me to do it and mother had her way and they were different i just had to remember to which m=way each parent wanted it and whenever that parent was in the back room do it that way and ill be okay.i remember mostly that my mum she was as much of a reader as my farther howvere he was the life and sole of the place he had alot of the knowlegdge, � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource WyoHistory.org Wyoming Symphony Orchestra Oral History Project Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-NC/1.0/">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-NC/1.0/</a> Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 2022-2023 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource WyoHistory.org; Rebecca Hein Language A language of the resource ENG Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context NCA 01.i.2022.02 Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound; Text Description An account of the resource Audio files and transcripts created and edited by Rebecca Hein and students at Casper College during an oral history project with players of the Wyoming Symphony Orchestra. The oral histories were conducted by Hein between 2022 and 2023 and are a part of Wyohistory.org publishing project. Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data m4a Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Becky Hein Oral History on Lange's Bookshop Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-NC/1.0/">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-NC/1.0/</a> Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 2023-02-09 Description An account of the resource Oral History interview with Rebecca (bECKY) Hein and Tom Rae on Hein's business, Lange's Bookshop during the 1960s through the 1980s. This oral history was recorded on February 9, 2023 Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound; Text Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tom Rae; Becky Hein Language A language of the resource ENG Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. WyoHistory.org Wyoming Symphony Orchestra Oral History Project, NCA 01.i.2022.02 WyCaC US. Casper College Archives and Special Collections. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context NCA 01.i.2022.02_LangesBookShop Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource MP3; PDF https://caspercollege.cvlcollections.org/files/original/f62068f3d3e7d85590b7a54b0438c444.mp3 8665569d0607e672d4600e9b4b2d21ad https://caspercollege.cvlcollections.org/files/original/660ee38e5128d2e1f2e3d0e5c6e0b24f.m4a 1db8c3ca2f56acd6e6c3ddada1a9b937 https://caspercollege.cvlcollections.org/files/original/77e219d941798cb0a86c4e426b4c4c0a.pdf 2bf4166c9c492255be38a5a9bdc40957 PDF Text Text Wyoming Symphony Oral History Project Tom Rea interviewing Rebecca Hein, September 21, 2022 Date transcribed: February 17, 2023 Tom: So, Becky, could you tell us about your, when-when did you first start playing with the with the, was it the Casper Civic Symphony still when you started? Rebecca: Yeah, I had been playing the cello since fourth grade 'cause that was when we had the chance to join orchestra or band and choose our instrument. And, during at least some of that time, I'd been taking private lessons. Tom: Mmhmm. Rebecca: And I guess the the string teachers in town kind of knew who might be ready to play in the Civic Symphony. I'd been playing in the Youth Symphony. Well, I don't know, maybe I joined the same year, my sophomore year? Anyway, I was invited to play in the Civic Symphony, and my interest in the cello and music was at kind of a low point. And what I was really on fire about at the beginning of that year was a possible trip to Spain that my second year Spanish teacher was talking about. So my mother, who of course didn't want to see me quit music, sort of—and I wasn't going to be able to earn enough money for this trip just working at the family business. I was going to have to find some other source of money, so she very casually pointed out, since I had declined to play in the symphony, that they paid. So of course I joined. Tom: (chuckles) Rebecca: And played the first concert, I think it was probably in September. And Rex Eggleston was conducting at that time. He was the conductor, I think Curtis Peacock came to town that year. That would have been the fall of ... 1971? Tom: Uh-huh. Rebecca: And he [Peacock] was, I think the the assistant conductor or something like that. Rex Eggleston, E-G-G-L-E-S-T-O-N, was, at that time, the head of the public school strings in Casper. A really excellent violist, principal viola in the symphony when he wasn't conducting, and a really wonderful guyTom: Yeah. Yeah. �Rebecca: So, I had a really great start, playing under Rex that year. Tom: Oh, okay. And who did you, before we get into the symphony, so who who did you have for a teacher? Before, you know, before then? Who did you take lessons from? Rebecca: Well, I remember studying with Dorotha Becker, who was also concertmaster [first chair, first violin, and also leader of the entire string section] of the Civic Symphony at that time, and kind of the mainstay of string teaching in town. Tom: Mmhmm. Rebecca: I remember she taught orchestra at Grant School when I was in fourth grade, and when it was time for me to take private lessons, that was, I think she was the only person in town who could really do that, until a cello teacher came to town whose name was Rebecca Rennecker. I'm not sure how her last name was spelled. And she became principal cello of the symphony. There was a little bit of trouble over that because the existing principal cellist, who had served long and well and was quite competent, his name was Sidney Wallingford. Was kind of pushed aside, I felt, and he felt, and I think he continued to play for a few years before he quit. Anyway, Rebecca Rennecker was my teacher through the rest of high school until I switched, I must have switched at the beginning of my senior year to driving down to Laramie to study with the cello professor there, David Tomatz T-O-M-A-T-Z. So all through the winter, Sid Wallingford and I drove down to Laramie together, we would take turns driving, to take our lessons. Tom: Did you spend the night down there? Rebecca: No, I think we drove home the same day. Tom: Uh-huh. Rebecca: I'm sure we did. Tom: I remember listening to you play the cello in Barbara Dobos' living room when you were about 18. Rebecca: I remember doing that, yeah. Tom: You were a wonderful cello player for a long time. We'll get to that later, so. Where was, there, when you were in, at Grant School, when you were in the schools in Casper, was there, was there music instruction in the schools? Just orchestra, not private lessons through the �schools, right? But the kids could be in bands and was that part of the instructional day? Or was that like a after school activity like sports? Rebecca: No, that was a class during the day, as I recall. Tom: Right, so you could be in a orchestra class or a band? Yeah, that's sort of the, I guess, when our kids were there, too. And so, you started with Rex and then Curtis comes in when you're still in high school, were there are very many other high school kids? And you were in the cello section. You were not yet principal cellist. Is that right? Rebecca: Correct. Tom: And were there any other high school kids in the symphony then? Rebecca: Yeah, I recall Debbie Johnson, who's now Debbie Bovie. Tom: Oh. Rebecca: She's about my age, and she went to Kelly Walsh [high school in Casper]. Tom: Yeah, I know her, uh-huh. Rebecca: And John Niethamer, N-I-E-T-H-A-M-E-R, he was a year older than I was, but he was in the symphony. Tom: Uh-huh. Rebecca: And I’m trying to think what other cellists, there was a principal bass for a while, a very nice man named Joe Corrigan, and Joe had a younger brother named Gaylen. I think G-AY-L-E-N, who was around my age, and I'm sure Gaylen must have played [cello] in the symphony at some time 'cause I remember playing with him and it wouldn't have been in high school orchestra, I know that. So it had to have been either Youth or Civic Symphony, or, more likely, both. Tom: So these were all cello players or these were a variety of instruments? Rebecca: Cellists. I had plenty of violinist friends as well, whose names I recall, if you want me to mention them. Tom: Sure. �Rebecca: OK, well, there was a student at Casper College whose name was Carol Tumbleson. She was really good. There was a, I don't know if she was a student at Casper College or older, but she wasn't that old. Her name was Lynette Ketcham, K-E-T-C-H-A-M. I'm seeing the photo of the symphony from this time, I think it was from when I was a senior in high school and I'm just seeing their faces. There was Jane Gerberding. Her husband or excuse me, her father was a Lutheran pastor in town, and he used to review symphony performances in the ‘80s [for the Casper Star-Tribune]. That was later on. But Jane was a good friend of mine. She was a year older than me. Susan Cheney, I looked at the math and I figured she must be either a younger sister of Dick Cheney or maybe a cousin. I don't know. Tom: Hm. Rebecca: She went to Kelly Walsh. There was a girl who was really talented; her name was Sharon Street. She was a violist. A really excellent violist, just one of these people, it's like, it seems like they never practice and they're always better than you are. And maybe she did practice and I just didn't know it, but she was extremely talented. And then also in that photo, I saw somebody in the trombone section by the name of Brian Brown, who was my age. And I can't think of who else. Tom: That's a lot. I wonder what they're all doing. That's interesting. And your mom was in the orchestra, right? Rebecca: Correct. She played viola. She took up viola in mid-life because, expressly because, orchestras never have enough violas, and she knew she was not going to be able to get really good if she took up the instrument, you know, not as a child. And so of course, she indeed had the opportunity to play in the symphony, because it's quite true that there's kind of a chronic shortage of good viola players. Tom: And so, had she-she never played strings before taking this instrument up when she was in her mid-life? Rebecca: I don't know. In her late 40s probably. Let me think, she played piano forever. She had played piano since she was a little girl, so she was a musician already. But it's a pretty big jump from piano to a stringed instrument. Tom: Yeah, I'll say wow. When I knew your mom, she was playing in the symphony. So what was it like being in the symphony with your mom? Rebecca: Oh, it was fine. It was great. I was so happy that she had a way to enjoy herself by playing in the orchestra, 'cause she, she and my father were very supportive of the orchestra and �would house import players and sell season tickets at their family business, Lange's Bookshop, and contribute. At least, well, their names in the program are pretty high-up in terms of the list of donors, so they were contributing in that way. At a higher proportion of their income than a lot of people. But you have to remember that a lot of those people that showed up at sort of modest levels of contribution, some of them showed up at the symphony balls and the other fundraisers and spent a lot of money at the auctions and things, and that didn't really show up in the list of contributors in the program, and those lists were sorted according to how much money the people gave. Tom: Yeah, different levels of, yeah, right. That's interesting. And was ... [there] already a symphony ball every year by then? Rebecca: I think probably, yeah. Tom: And were there any other adults in the symphony who you knew through your parents, or who were friends or parents of your friends or anything like that, you know? I'm trying to see if, you know, if it felt like these were people you knew anyway, some of them. You know what I mean? Rebecca: Well, of course I knew Sid Wallingford. Rick Rongstad would come up from Colorado. He wasn't that many years older than me, but I suppose he qualified as an adult. I guess, at that point, there was a woman named Mildred Brehm. B-R-E-H-M, I believe. She, I think, was principal second violin for quite a while. And of course, Rex. When he wasn't conducting, he was right there at the head of the viola section. And I just cannot overemphasize what a wonderful man he was. He was such a good teacher and so encouraging and so goodnatured. He was a real asset to the musical scene in Casper, I think. Tom: That's nice. Yeah. I knew him years later when I was the school's reporter for the [Casper] Star-Tribune and Rex was the head of I think not just music, but all arts stuff for the district, for the school district. Rebecca: Oh. Tom: Yeah, Mildred Brehm. B-R-E-H-M? Rebecca: That's correct. Tom: I wonder if she might have been the husband of the guy that my father-in-law, Derb Scott, worked for in the oil business? The wife? Did I say husband? Okay, that's interesting. Rebecca: Oh, and Rex’s wife, Connie, played principal bassoon for a while. �Tom: Okay. So, you started your sophomore year, junior year, senior year. And then you went to and so, did the orchestra change at all or you did? Were you feeling you were getting better During that time? Rebecca: Well, let me tell you what happened to me at the end of my sophomore year. First of all, throughout the year I became so in love with playing in an orchestra that I pretty much forgot about the trip to Spain. And all year long, every Sunday afternoon, I would play string quartets [two violins, viola and cello] with friends of mine from the Youth Symphony in my parents’ basement. Every Sunday afternoon as I recall, and we would play for hours and hours and hours and we had our fun pieces, our favorite pieces that we played every week, so you can imagine we got pretty good at them. Especially with Susan Cheney on first violin, she was quite good. So there was a particular Mozart quartet, I do not remember which one, but we were playing it one day. We’d been playing it for weeks, and there was a moment at which it was perfect. We-we were all together. There was no effort involved. We were all feeling the beat together and the sound we were putting out was perfectly blended. I swear it just was just one of those moments where everything comes together and and I was, I was struck. I don't know how else to put it. It felt like the sky had opened up, and a beam of light had come down and focused itself on the top of my head. And I was, I was like the Ancient Mariner or something, you know? [Referring to the poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," in which the Ancient Mariner had one story to tell, and had to tell it to everyone he met.] I couldn't think about anything else. Suddenly I had this moment of wanting moments of beauty like that, as many as I could have for the rest of my life. Tom: Yeah. Rebecca: And-and I, and my-my brain put it into a sort of a mathematical statement, like, "Okay, you want more of these beautiful moments? This particular beautiful moment happened because our collective skill had reached a certain point." So the way to predispose or, you know, raise the odds, for more of those beautiful moments is to increase my skill, and the way to increase my skill is to practice as much as I can, and and literally overnight I became a practicing dynamo and I kind of pushed aside my, um, studies. For the next few years of high school, I didn't flunk out, but my grades probably could have been better than they were. And every spare minute I had, I practiced. And that, in practical terms, that meant for my last two years of high school, I would go to school and then I would walk downtown and work at the family business until closing time, come home, eat supper, help with chores, practice the cello till bedtime, not do my homework. Yeah. Because I-I wanted a career in music, in performance, and I knew I was really far behind to have that ambition. You're supposed to start when you're 5 or whatever. Here I was, 17 years old, or 16, I guess, and I knew I had to catch up and so I was both inspired, and I was also, I guess you could say, worried or knew how hard I was going to have to work. So in that �moment of perfection in the string quartets, I think basically I got my vision for my life, even though I hadn't been conscious of being on a vision quest or anything like that. Tom: Uh-huh. Rebecca: So I ... just had to major in cello performance. Tom: Uh-huh. Rebecca: And a lot of people. Not a lot, a few, including my teacher at UW [University of Wyoming], they sort of tried to talk me, not exactly out of majoring in cello performance, but into adding teacher certification. Tom: Mmhmm. Rebecca: So that as my teacher said, "Suppose you get married and your husband moves to a little town and there aren't any playing opportunities, what are you going to do? If you have your teacher certification at least then you'd be able to teach in the schools." Well, I knew I would be miserable teaching in the public schools, so I said no, I want to perform. I held to that for a very long time. Well, and I never did teach in the public schools. And there are very few performers who don't teach, both because they, I think, to some degree get pulled into it 'cause it's interesting and they want to share what they know, and to some degree because it's additional income. Tom: Sure. Ah, that's- thank you for telling me that story. That's how wonderful and so um. You went to UW? Rebecca: That's correct, for three years. And during those three years, I came back to the Civic Symphony as an import for many concerts, maybe all of them. Tom: Mmhmm. Rebecca: That was fun. Tom: And were you majoring in cello performance at UW? Rebecca: I was. Tom: And who was your teacher there? Rebecca: David Tomatz T-O-M-A-T-Z. He was also head of the department. �Tom: Oh yeah, you mean? Yeah, I think you mentioned him in your Casper article, [article published on WyoHistory.org about the history of the symphony]. Was he a conductor in Casper? For a while also? No? Rebecca: No, he was conductor of the University Symphony. Tom: Okay. Rebecca: The main things he did was teach the cello lessons, play in the Western Arts Trio, which was the faculty piano trio at UW, and teach a few students. [a piano trio is piano, violin and cello] Tom: So you were aRebecca: And fair amount-go ahead. Tom: You were a private student of his as well, or you were, or you were, or that was part of your ... regular UW education? Rebecca: Yeah, that was part of my, you could take it as a class, basically. Private lessons, well, they’re one-on-one. I forget what they-applied, that was it, [they called them] applied lessons, for a certain number of credits. Tom: Uh-huh. And was he a good teacher? Rebecca: He was all right. I think his mind was elsewhere than teaching and performing. He was okay, but at the end of three years, I was frustrated by two things. I felt like I wasn't learning enough in my lessons and I was, I think, the only cellist of any ability in the department, so I didn't really have colleagues. Tom: Uh-huh. Rebecca: And I wanted to be in a situation where I was surrounded by student cellists who were better than I was. Tom: Mmhmm. Rebecca: So [that] I had room to learn and a teacher who was a better teacher and a better performer than David Tomatz was. He was really made for schmoozing money out of little, old- �rich, little old ladies. That's really what he was made for. And that's really what he did best. Probably, you know, raised quite a lot of money for the department and the university orchestra. He was a very good looking man and he was charming and you know, I'm sure he knew how to schmooze money out of people. So he was divided. So at at the end of three years I transferred to the University of Oregon. Tom: Uh-huh. Rebecca: Because in the region, I'd been to music camps in Montana, and I'd heard about the cello teacher at Oregon and been impressed with what I'd heard. And actually, I think it was during my sophomore year at UW, that I flew out there, spent my own money to do it. I had a friend that I'd gone to high school with who I’d been corresponding with, who was going to the University of Oregon, who met me at the airport, put me up in her apartment, gave me a ride to the university so I could do my audition to be admitted to the School of Music and so on. Tom: So the man that taught cello out there? Rebecca: Robert Hladky. H-L-A-D-K-Y. (pronounced Lad-kee) Wanted me to be with him for two years. So he admitted me as a junior rather than a senior and I could see his point. He really couldn't do much with me for just one year. So I it took me five years to do my undergraduate degree and I had to finance the last year myself 'cause my parents had told me and my sisters that they would put us through four years of undergrad school and support us during that time. Tom: Mmhmm. Rebecca: So they did that and then I had to finance that last year. But it was a really good move because, um, Dr. Hladky had studied with some really good teachers and had a really organized approach to playing and technique, and that's what I felt like I needed was, how do I play better, not, how do I be a better musician. That didn't worry me so much, it was, how do I get the notes to come out sounding in tune and on time and so on? Tom: Why isn't that a better musician? Why is? I don't understand the difference. Rebecca: Well, the difference is, you can have, you can know your way around the fingerboard and you can play in tune, and you can play on time, and you can play well with other people, 'cause your sense of rhythm is good and your sound is good and you know how to blend, and so on. But there's this added ingredient of, what would you call it, heart. Tom: Mmhmm. �Rebecca: Soul, swing. Tom: Mmhmm. Rebecca: I know Swing is a Jazz term, but it's been co-opted by classical musicians to mean that little extra special something that makes you want to listen to somebody and they-how they handle the music, like let's say the [Johann Sebastian] Bach unaccompanied suites for cello. There are six of them. Each suite has, let me think, a Prelude and then stylized dances, Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, and then a pair of Minuets, or in some cases a pair of Boureés and then basically uh, a Gigue, G-I-G-G-U-E. Tom: Right. Rebecca: So all six of the Bach Suites have those and Bach, he could do so much with so little. He was all about chords, basically. And he would break up the chords for the cello, which you can't play all four notes at onceTom: Mmhmm. Rebecaa: -like you can on a keyboard or a guitar. Rebecca: And he would write these wonderful, wonderful pieces based on really nothing but-but chord progressions. Tom: Mmhmm. Rebecca: And so, you know, if if you're a good musician, you can play those, conveying to the audience by how you play them, where the important parts are, where the sections begin and end, where the chords change. Well, what's the melodic line and what's the bass line and things like that. And all I can do is share a story about, this was a cello festival I went to in Evanston, Illinois, where I lived for three years, when I went to Northwestern University for one of those years to get my master's in performance. So this cello festival was put on and there was a hotshot guy from Champaign Urbana. I guess that would have been the University of Illinois. And of course, because he was so good, he'd gotten this job, and he played, he performed for us, the attendees, at this little festival. And I had, I was in Evanston, not 'cause I-no, I didn't live there then, I had traveled down, that's right, 'cause I traveled to take a lesson with the new cello instructor at Northwestern. I was up in Wisconsin at that time, teaching at the university and in their Suzuki program. Anyway, I was down there for this-the weekend. So this guy played and he played one of the harder Bach Suites, one of the later ones. And just kind of, you know, knocked out the notes really good and really fast and really clear, but without an iota of �understanding of where the melodic line was, where the bass line was, what the chord progressions were, what-what the music was. He he had technique. He could play all the notes, but-but I just. ... I was kind of offended. I don't know. He was so good and so looked up to and selected to play this solo and I knew I was not his equal as a cellist in terms of getting around the instrument. So when I went to have my lesson with this new teacher at Northwestern, I said, "Was that as bad as I thought it was, musically?" And he shook his head, and he said "There's somebody who had no idea at all what he was doing." Tom: Hm. Rebecca: So, I think non-musicians pick these things up. They know it, whether they can articulate it or not, I don't know. But we all have music in our soul and I think, on some level, we know the difference between somebody who's basically a very good gymnast and somebody who's really taking the music up to the level of music. Music making. I don't know if that clarifies the question at all. Tom: You know, let's say that, that's really, I think I know what you mean. Yeah. Rebecca: It it makes you want to come back and listen to them again and again and again, yeah. Tom: Right. Right. Yeah. Rebecca: No, I had. Even if they miss a few notes, they're still going to call you back by how they play. Tom: Okay. So you went to UW for three years, you went to University of Oregon, Eugene, I guess, right forRebecca: Correct. Yeah. Tom: Two more years, you had a bachelors in music performance and then you went to Northwestern to go to graduate school? Rebecca: Well, something happened in the meantime. Let me look at my notes here. Oh, there was a summer internship orchestra. It wasn't quite the great gig that getting a fellowship to the Aspen Festival, Aspen Music Festival was. [high-powered summer music festival in Aspen, Colorado] If you got a fellowship to the Aspen Music Festival, you got full room and board and a pretty good stipend and you were at the Aspen Music Festival. Which, you know, the luminary musicians that were there and the things that went on, it was just incredible. So I auditioned for the Aspen Music Festival and did not make it. But this other summer internship orchestra, based �in Evergreen, Colorado, was called at that time the Colorado Philharmonic. I think before that, for a while had been called the National Repertory Orchestra. Tom: Mmhmm. Rebecca: Most of the time musicians, when they play auditions, they have to pay the expense of traveling to where the audition is held. So anytime you can drive, you know, 100 miles, or down the street or around the corner or whatever to take an audition, you do it whether you're ready to or not. Tom: Uh-huh. Rebecca: So I knew about the Colorado Philharmonic and I auditioned for it. And I got in. Kind of an interesting, I have always thought it was an interesting story. I was at the audition. There were two people traveling around the country holding auditions. And this-this is kind of a story of getting in over my head musically, which I have a couple of things about that to say, but I-I was sitting there and I played some of the required excerpts that we knew we would have to play, they sent out the list. And I played about two notes of one of them. I'd been working really, really hard on tone production and in this slow excerpt, I think it was the slow movement of Brahms Second Symphony, which is standard, was a standard at that time for a lot of audition lists. [Johannes Brahms, 19th century German composer] And both of them, both of these auditioners did a double take. I started playing, they looked up from their notes and stared at me. So that was interesting. And then when it came to doing the sight reading [playing a piece of music you've never seen before], I was really mentally engaged. I looked very carefully, the way my teachers had told me, to [indistinguishable] the music before I started to play it. I mentally played the first few measures to know what I was about to do. And I noticed that in this particular excerpt there was a a subtle difference in the notation between one phrase and another. And I wanted to make sure to make that difference very, very clear when I played it, so that they would know that I had seen that difference in the printed music. So I did that and got another double take. Tom: Mmhmm. Rebecca: So what happened was, and they based, they seated the sections, the string sections according to the auditions, was that I got fourth chair in this really good orchestra. Which, there was probably a ten-cello section, a very good string section, really excellent, and found myself rehearsing a piece by Claude Debussy, the [19th and 20th century French] Impressionist composer. The piece [was] La Mer, The Sea. It's a beautiful piece and it's got a cello quartet in it, where the rest of the section does not play, and the first four chairs of the cello section do. I had never seen the piece before. I had never heard it before. There I was, having to play the part. Uh, �it was, it was scary. It was stressful. I did okay, but that's sort of a borderline case of having landed myself in hot water. Anyway, that-that was what I did. The summer after my two years at University of Oregon no, wait Tom: Hm. Rebecca: Yeah, I was supposedly going to come back and do a masters. And then I made it [in]to the Colorado Philharmonic. And then we had guest conductors at Colorado Philharmonic. We're going to probably run more than an hour. Is that alright with you? I've got a whole page of notes. Tom: I have somewhere [I] have to be at, I have to leave at about, well, I was thinking maybe we should do a second session. Rebecca: We could. Tom: Let's see where we are by 3:00 and then make sure. Rebecca: Yeah, well, let's see. Colorado Philharmonic, let me think. Tom: So what happened next? Rebecca: Oh, right. We had guest conductors all summer long and and many of them were from professional orchestras. It was just wonderful, and one person got a job offer. Because of how well he played principal viola in the Colorado Philharmonic. Tom: Uh-huh. Rebecca: And they [the guest conductors] would hold audition seminars in the afternoon. See, we had a really compressed schedule. We performed every other night. In Evergreen, Colorado. We had, I think, Sundays off. I can't remember, but the rehearsal schedule was rehearse in the morning, rehearse in the afternoon. And then the day, the concert, rehearsal in the afternoon, perform in the evening. Or it might have been sometimes we did a matinee, in which case we would rehearse in the morning and perform in the afternoon. So, you know, very few rehearsals, very, very hard music, very high powered. So conductors would come through and guest-conduct concerts and hold these audition seminars. On the, in the chunk of time during the concert weekend when we weren't rehearsing and the better players in the orchestra would play their prepared auditions for, they were preparing for professional orchestras, and the conductor would critique. Well, I was never good enough or prepared enough to play these excerpts. So I would listen and, you know, take it all in. But then one conductor, he did not conduct the orchestra, but he was on a tour of the United States, well the upper 48, he had just been hired to conduct the �national symphony of Puerto Rico 'cause they wanted a, basically a European-standard national orchestra, even though they didn't have enough Puerto Ricans, so he was having to come up here and audition people, so I auditioned for him and they offered me a contract. Tom: Okay. Rebecca: As this was my life ambition to play the cello for a living, Tom: Right. Rebecca: I didn't hesitate at all. So that was at the end of the first Colorado Philharmonic season. At the end of that summer, I went down and played for nine months for a season basically in the Colorado or excuse me, the Puerto Rico Symphony in the section. Tom: I remember. I learned that a couple years ago that you had played in the Puerto Rico Symphony, and what was-what was it like there? Rebecca: Well, uhm. Tom: You were there for nine months and then you came back? Rebecca: Yeah, uhm. It was okay. It was well within my ability. It was a lot like playing in the Civic Symphony, although it was a better orchestra, I think, than the Civic Symphony was, somewhat better, good enough to do Beethoven's Ninth. And other Beethoven symphonies. It was fine. I always felt like I was living in a foreign culture. Just because Puerto Rico is part of the United States, politically, they're a commonwealth, I learned, when I lived there, but it's, culturally, of course it's part of Latin America. Tom: Sure, yeah. Rebecca: And I would have experiences, like I would address people on the street for directions or whatever. Or my colleagues in the orchestra. There were some really sweet older men. And I would-I would try my Spanish on them and ... I made such terrible mistakes. And they would, they were so patient. And-and, whimsical with me about it. It was really cool. Uhm, but I had a good stand partner, which is very important in an orchestra. Tom: Ah, and was it a new orchestra? Rebecca: No, I think they'd been going for a while. �Tom: Okay. And did you get a chance to, did you, did you not want to stay a second year, or did they not offer you a job for the second year or? Rebecca: Well, what happened was, I thought for sure I was going to stay more than one year. The money wasn't. It was enough to live on playing in the orchestra, but I also had many opportunities to play in the recording studios in San Juan, and that's where the real money is. I mean, recordings paid pretty well. And then there was the occasional one where it takes you ten minutes to record a jingle for a commercial, and you get paid $200. So that was fine. But then near the end of the year there was a the usual, I found, every year the orchestra as a whole negotiated with management for a better contract. I had learned and observed throughout the year that there were, as a whole in the in the population ... of Puerto Rico, people who wanted to continue as a commonwealth, people who wanted Puerto Rico to become a state, and people who wanted Puerto Rico to be an independent country. Tom: Uh-huh. Rebecca: And I guess there's a lot of history about the commonwealth situation that was quite distasteful to the Independentistas. I never really knew the details or if I did, I've forgotten them. But we had some Independentistas in the orchestra, one man in particular I'm thinking of, who really resented the presence of the ‘gringos.’ Resented us, I mean absolutely could not stand that we were in the orchestra. So when the time came to negotiate, he told us right out - it was a meeting, an orchestra meeting - told all of us 'gringos’ that we had no right to have any voice in this because it was not our orchestra. So, that was the first time in my life had I ever been or felt dismissed and hated and stereotyped because, really, of the color of my skin and where I was from. Tom: Mmhmm. Rebecca: And it was, I didn't think I could work with him. He wasn't the only one. He was just the most outspoken one. And I started feeling like there might be better places for me to be. So I originally spent the whole year thinking I would spend another year there at least, and at the very end of the year I decided, no, I'm gonna go back somewhere, move to a big city where there are many teachers and many orchestras and a good professional orchestra for me to listen to and learn from and so on. So that's what I did. I moved to Evanston, Illinois, to be near the Chicago area. Tom: Okay. And so did you have a job in Evanston or did you go back to school? Rebecca: Uhm, Okay, you've asked me some questions about Evanston. I wanna jump back to high school, �Tom: Okay. Rebecca: 'cause I was in early college 'cause there were some things I wanted to say. Tom: Okay. All right. Rebecca: The first thing I want to say is that as a senior, I competed in a young artist competition in Casper and Cheyenne. And I was beaten by the same person, a pianist, who was pretty good. I was okay too, for my age and my level. And what to me is the interesting thing, and what was the beneficial thing to me about this was that all the string teachers who were concerned, that being the violin professor at University of Wyoming, who was one of the judges in Cheyenne, my teacher at University of Wyoming, uh, Curtis Peacock in Casper, who was not only the conductor of the Civic Symphony, but also the string instructor at Casper College. And maybe some other string teachers that I don't remember, said, they all said the same [thing]: "A pianist at the same level will always sound better than a string player because the string player at that level is still learning to play in tune. Still learning tone production." And while pianists do have to work on tone production, they don't have anything to say about whether they're in tune or not. They don't have to learn that. For obvious reasons. Tom: Right. Rebecca: So they all kind of felt that at least I should have been, should have won, or I don't know how it would have been worked. Anyway, I lost to this person. Curtis said to me, "Uhm, you worked really hard on your concerto. How would you like to play it, perform it with the Casper College Baroque ensemble?", which was really, you know, their chamber orchestra. "Furthermore, how would you like to perform it here in Casper and on tour?" So of course I said yes, I'd love to. And so I got a better deal than the winner. I didn't have the prestige of playing with the symphony, but in terms of practical experience, it's a wonderful opportunity to be able to, if you're being a soloist, to have more than one crack at it. [A concerto is a composition for one or more solo instruments with orchestral accompaniment] Tom: Uh-huh. Rebecca: So, you know, we played on tour and we played in Casper and I still remember playing in some little tiny town up in the northwest part of the state like Frannie or Deaver, or one of those. I just have this very clear memory of sitting on some stage with a tiny handful of people in the audience and-and performing my concerto. So it worked out really well for me. Tom: So the concerto was you and not the whole, and the Casper College orchestra. �Rebecca: Correct. Yeah. Tom: Huh. Great. Rebecca: Yeah, and there was another opportunity I had that I'll just add, many string students [in Casper] also have had. Let me think, Rick Rongstad; cello and bass, Dale Bohren; bass, Andrea Reynolds DiGregorio; cello. And a few violinists, probably, whose names I can't recall now, we all went to this music camp called Congress of Strings. It was a national effort. I think it was probably one string player from each of the 50 states. A huge string orchestra, a really big deal, really very high level of music making. Tom: Where was this? Rebecca: Well, it was held at UCLA for quite a while, and then the year that I went, it was held at the University of Washington in Seattle. Tom: Mmhmm. Rebecca: And it was a full scholarship. And they may also even have paid our transportation. I don't remember. I just know that I got to go and it didn't cost my parents anything. And it was eight weeks long. And it was um, a tremendous opportunity 'cause you're there with some really amazing performers. I remember one of the cellists that was there, he ended up in the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Saint Paul, Minnesota. That's one of the premiere orchestras in the world. And he ended up in that cello section. So I was of course very low on the totem pole, but I didn't really notice 'cause the music we played was so wonderful. We played, I mean you're restricted as a string orchestra to just a few pieces. And one of them is the [19th century Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich] Tchaikovsky Serenade for Strings, which is just one of the most lush, showy, beautiful pieces in the world. And then Mahler, Gustav Mahler, a German composer of the late 1900s. His Fifth Symphony, the slow movement is for strings and harp. And they dredged up a good harp player from somewhere. At Congress of Strings. And we played that, and there's nothing like Mahler. He's he was just drunk with the beauty of music, and you could tell by the way he composed. Tom: Mmhmm. Rebecca: So I will never forget playing those two pieces. It was really something and the local, there's a Musicians' Union Chapter [in Casper, the American Federation of Musicians] provided the scholarship. So because, as a direct result of my involvement with the symphony as a high school student, although I was at the end of my sophomore year in college, or was a freshmanfreshman year of college when I went, I still got the benefit of that scholarship. �Tom: Uh-huh. Rebecca: So that was-that was something. Tom: When you mentioned, I just wanted to ask, did you ever know John Stovall? Rebecca: Yes, he ended up with the Boston Symphony. Tom: Yeah, right was. He's younger than you probably, right? Rebecca: About a year or two, yeah. Well, let’s see, you wanted to know what I did after Puerto Rico, right? Tom: Yeah. Rebecca: Well, I moved to Evanston, Illinois, so that I could go to the Chicago Symphony [concerts]. And I found out once I moved there that they had what they called was a training orchestra for the Chicago Symphony. It was actually a very excellent youth orchestra. I auditioned and got into that. I got an office job in Evanston part time so that I could work till about 2:00 in the afternoon, take the elevated train that turns into a subway partway there downtown, get to orchestra hall, rehearse, come home, eat supper, practice. Uhm, do it all over again. I did that for a semester till Christmas I think, and then I was just too tired. So I went full time at the office that I was working, and quit the Civic Orchestra and just took lessons and practiced. And then that year I applied for some graduate programs and got into the masters program at Northwestern, right there in Evanston. Tom: Yeah, Okay. Rebecca: Well, that's what I did. The second year I was in Evanston, that would have been, let me think, ’79- ‘80 was Puerto Rico, ‘80- ‘81 was being in Evanston [the] first year, ‘81- ‘82 was the year I did my masters. Tom: Mmhmm. Rebecca: That was great. Tom: So you got a masters in cello performance at Northwestern? Rebecca: Correct. �Tom: That’s a one year program? Rebecca: Right. They had, they were so expensive they had to do something. So that's what they did. They reduced their requirements to the scope of a year. Tom: And then you spent another year in Chicago? Rebecca: I did. Um, I have to tell a story about my masters degree recital. I had a really fun teacher at Northwestern and he and I both knew that some of the music I was going to perform at my recital was a little beyond me, so I was lamenting to him, you know, everybody’s gonna hear that it was, uh, by Tchaikovsky, the Rococo Variations, this very showy, highly difficult piece. I said, "They're going to hear that my technique is not up to this piece. It's not going to be a perfect, note perfect recital." And he agreed. No, not quite. But yeah, you're here to learn. He tried. And I said, "Okay, as long as it's not boring, you know, it can be anything. I can miss some notes. Not many, but as many as I'm going to. It can't be boring." So then, I don't remember if he told me this before or after my recital, but he told me he had a terrible tussle with himself how he was going to break it to me that my playing was boring. (laughs) Tom: Really? Rebecca: I have always been glad that he was honest with me. Because one does not want to be a boring performer. So now I have to jump ahead. Now let's see the third one. I'm not going to jump ahead. There's just a continuation of this "boring" story. So then I completed my master's degree and the office that I'd been working at, I ended up working there during spring break and summer and things like that. So they were-they found room for me when I graduated and I went part-time. The year after my masters. Thinking I'd wasted time and money, 'cause I all I had was two little tiny teaching jobs at community schools of music in the area. And I was sure neither of them would ever go anywhere. One of them was a Suzuki teaching job. And one of them was a regular, just regular non-Suzuki, and the Dean of the School of Music at Northwestern had said to me, when I had started there, that my chances of getting a college teaching job were greatly increased if I had some Suzuki experience, because at that time the Suzuki movement was really taking off. Tom: Uh-huh. Rebecca: So, you know, I took this little dinky job that had like three students for which I had to drive an hour one way. Figuring it would never go anywhere, and also feeling like I didn't know enough, so I took a Suzuki pedagogy class on my own initiative, paying out of my own pocket, down at DePaul University, which I had to take the El, [elevated train] I don't know, 45 minutes �south to Loyola University. It wasn't that far, I guess, but a fair way to take part in a Suzuki pedagogy class. Which, to make a long story short, I ended up with a job at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh teaching University students and Suzuki students combined to make a full time position for me because I took that said ... pedagogy course. And the other community school of music, for which I traveled an hour one way and taught a few more students. It turns out that that was a very respected community school. It was called the Jack Benny Center for the Arts and about more than 50 percent of the music faculty at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh Music Department - when I went up there to audition and interview for the job - more than 50 percent of them had first of all, gone to Northwestern. Had nostalgic feelings about that. Second of all, had taught at the Jack Benny Center, and also had nostalgic feelings about that, which certainly didn't hurt me. Tom: Yeah. Rebecca: At this interview. So it was great. I spent that whole year feeling like a failure and like I'd wasted my time and was I ever going to be any sort of professional. I dropped the idea of trying to play in an orchestra because, there were kind of two reasons. Playing in an orchestra as a string player, it's kind of bad for your playing as a as a rule, if you do too much of it, 'cause you can't hear yourself the way you can if you're playing chamber music, for example, or playing as a soloist. And I discovered that, playing in the Colorado Philharmonic after University of Oregon, then in the Puerto Rico Symphony. And then again in the Colorado Philharmonic before I moved to Evanston. So more than a year of playing just in an orchestra or mostly in an orchestra. I could tell it was starting to hurt my playing, but the real reason was, to audition for orchestras you have to practice certain orchestral excerpts, just like you would practice a concerto until you have every single note perfect. Well, that's not so bad for excerpts from Beethoven's Ninth, excerpts from Brahms symphonies and things like that. [Johannes Brahms, 19th century German composer] But when it comes to tone poems by Richard Strauss, those things, it's not just that they're hard, they're just not very rewarding musically. [Richard Strauss, 19th and 20th century German composer and conductor (son of Johann Strauss of “Blue Danube” fame.)]The cello parts that you have to learn, at least I found them not rewarding, and I discovered that I just didn't have the motivation to spend the hours and hours and hours and hours preparing those kinds of excerpts and, I don't know, I noticed that it was a really competitive thing. I mean, I always knew it was, but I had a friend in the Puerto Rico Symphony. She was a gringo. She had been in the orchestra for quite a while and she had been trying to get back to the upper 48 for quite a while and she was really good and she was one of these people that could make herself practice these excerpts and she flew, of course, at her own expense, to Texas. I forget, to audition for which major professional orchestra there, and she told me she played a note perfect audition. I mean, she didn't miss a single note, and did not get the job, and that was when she learned that something more was needed. So that, I think that gave me pause, along with the fact that what I really wanted to play was Beethoven quartets and, I don't know. Chamber music was very �attractive to me, and the only way you can really play chamber music is if you're part of a university faculty. Tom: Uh-huh. Rebecca: Unless you get really lucky and you're really, really, really good and you get a place in a professional string quartet. But they often also have teaching positions somewhere. So I applied for this, well, the person that was in this Suzuki pedagogy course that I got to know, was commuting up to Oshkosh to teach in their brand new [Suzuki] cello program. They were paying for her to rent a car and drive up on Saturday morning, teach all day Saturday, and then drive home. Well, I just wasn't going to do that. I just, was not going to do that. And she was thinking of stopping. And I contacted them and I said, you know, I know this woman who's been coming up to teach your students. If you can offer me a full-time job where I can become a resident of the community and live on what you pay me, I'm interested. Well, lo and behold, there was a fireball up there. Who was in charge of the Suzuki program, who went to the university people, who [the Suzuki program] ... was housed in the university music department at that point, and said let's get together. You guys need a cello professor, and you don't have enough students. And we need a cello teacher and we don't have enough students. But together, can we put together a position? And they did. They came up with the money, they came up with, it was a University of Wisconsin system faculty job I had. They had to advertise it. And I had to audition and interview. And there was one other person who was also selected to audition and interview, and I got the job. Tom: And that's in Oshkosh, not Madison, right? Rebecca: That was. There are so many campuses of the University of Wisconsin. It was just incredible [to me at the time], how many. There are little centers all throughout the state in little areas and four-year branches. Many in many places. I told that to my mother, she said, Yeah, Wisconsin is a very progressive state. Tom: Yeah, that's true. That's been. I hope it gets back to that. Okay. So you were in. So how long did you have? Maybe we should. Let's see. How much notes do you have left there, Becky? I got somewhere I need to be about 3:30. Rebecca: Oh, we might be able to wrap up by 3:15 maybe? Tom: Okay, alright. Rebecca: Should we try? �Tom: Yeah, let's. Okay, so where did you go after that? Rebecca: Well, let's, I want to tell one story about being at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. Tom: Okay. Rebecca: Well, it was, I began playing regular faculty recitals. I'd been doing this for a few years and people always come backstage afterwards, and congratulate you and so on, and tell you how much they enjoyed it. Well, one person said, "There are two kinds of recitals, one where you're sitting there looking at your watch, wishing it would be over, and another one where you don't want it to end. And your performance was the second kind." Tom: That's nice. Rebecca: So I knew that the practicing I had been doing in the interim had been working. Tom: So not boring? Rebecca: Evidently not. I mean, that person had no reason to schmooze me. No reason at all. Tom: Good. Rebecca: Okay. Tom: I'm sorry to interrupt you. Go ahead. Rebecca: No. So we're done with University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. Uhm, I want to say yeah, go ahead. Tom: How long were you there? Rebecca: Seven years. Tom: Oh, I didn't know that, okay. Rebecca: So yeah. Tom: And did you work that? Was it a tenure track position? �Rebecca: No, no. It was a one year renewable contract. It was adjunct. Well, I don't know. I guess I was an adjunct faculty. I don't know what they called it because I was a hybrid. I was, the Suzuki program was not part of the university, administratively. They just used their offices. So I don't [know]. All I know is my contract ran a year and then was renewed. Tom: Been talking a lot there. Do you need to get a drink of water or something? Rebecca: I don't know. I'll try to manage, I can. I want to say something about, something I faced as principal cellist of the Wyoming Symphony Orchestra. I became principal cellist in the fall of 1992. And what I faced, of course, was having to share the stage with Mark O'Connor, playing a piece that I'd never seen before and it was really hard. Tom: Right. Rebecca: -but I want to go back to something that I did, I'm not sure what year it would have been. I got married and my husband got teacher certification in natural science. And we ended up in Tecumseh, Nebraska. He was teaching science at their combined middle school and high school. ... So it's not that far from Lincoln and Omaha. I decided I would try to get into some of those orchestras that were up there. So I got some audition music and I looked at the deadline and started learning it, and we decided that I if I did any work outside the home, it would be playing the cello. So, I got this audition music and I ran into a piece that I'd never seen before on an audition list. And it was unbelievably hard. And there are two ways of tackling something like that. One is, you learn the notes and then you sort of beat it up to tempo. You set the metronome at the tempo you can play it at and you play it, then you up the metronome one click which is, I don't know ... but it's a few more beats per second [indistinguishable]. Yeah, and you play it again, and then you up the metronome again. You play [it] again. You work it up to speed as best you can that way or you change your technique so that you can play better and more easily. And that changing of technique is a long process, long and intensive. And I looked at the deadline for that audition and I decided I would rather change my technique than play that audition. So I did. I engaged in some very focused, very intensive practicing. One of the things I worked on was my sitting posture where, you know, you sit, you pick up the cello. Your back might be really good, your back muscles might be great, you know, and you start to play and everything starts twisting up and tightening up in bad ways. You have to have some muscle support when you play, so you can't talk about being completely relaxed 'cause then you wouldn't even be able to push the strings down or hold the bow, but managing your muscles so you don't distort what they're best for. That's what I tackled in that practice session with no knowledge of the future, you understand? No, no crystal ball that told me I was going to be onstage with Mark O'Connor about, I don't know, eight years later or something. Facing a piece that was nearly too hard for me. So that was very satisfying practicing and it really put my playing- headed me in a different direction. So that I was a much better player. And playing was much more easy, and my sound �was better, and a whole bunch of other things were better. Playing fast was easier. So that when I landed in Casper as the principal cellist of the symphony, I was ready for it. The principal cello ... solos that you have to play, things like the William Tell Overture by Rossini. [19th century Italian composer Gioachino Rossini's Overture to his opera, William Tell] That's best known, of course, as The Lone Ranger theme. But the opening is slow and it's a cello quartet, and the principal cello has the most wonderful and hardest part of the four cellos. I enjoyed that so much. I enjoyed playing that solo and I did it really well and I know I did. So I wasn't in over my head at all. It was comfortable, it was a comfortable job and we did a Brahms Piano Concerto. I ... [think] the second one? John Browning, who is a world class pianist, was our soloist. We played that in Oshkosh too. I was principal of the Oshkosh Symphony. And there's a very, very beautiful principal cello solo in the slow movement of that piece, I'd played it before. There is an easy part of it and then there's a harder part of it and it's just gorgeous and I played it. And then you sort of hand over to the piano after you play the second part of the solo. So I looked at John Browning when I was done, and he nodded at me and smiled, when he started playing, so I knew I had done a really good job. That, moments like that, were just wonderful and I never felt like I was over my head. Okay, so. Are we going till 3:15 'cause I think, probably, we can finish up in that time. Tom: What? Okay. Ah, alright, I have someRebecca: Will that work for you? Tom: Some, I'll have some questions, but maybe we could have a second session for those. I don't know that they'll take much time. So how did you end up? Are you going to tell me how it is you came to leave Nebraska and come back to Casper? Rebecca: Oh yeah, well, so my husband, Ellis, was teaching science and there were some unbelievable behavior problems in his classroom. You wouldn't think of it in a little town, but it was the case. And he had a very unsupportive principal who just didn't back him up in discipline. So he quit. He-he burned out faster than I've ever seen anybody burn out on teaching. He quit in March of that year, just broke his contract, and we moved. I'd been in touch with my father. My mother had died in ‘84, and this was ‘92, spring of 1992, and he told me they didn't have a principal cellist in the symphony, and that they were paying more or less a professional rate they'd had to cut down on what they were paying, but it was sort of our only safety net because Ellis was not going to teach school again. That was a very bad experience. He lost thirty pounds. He had insomnia for the only time he's ever in his life had insomnia. It was just terrible so we couldn't wait to get away. So we moved to Casper and I auditioned for the principal cello position and got it. And Ellis started remodeling houses and all that. Being a former farmer, he had a lot of carpenter skills and things like that. Maybe your questions are more important than what I have in my notes, except about O'Connor. �Tom: Do that. Yeah, no. Okay, tell me about Mark O'Connor. Rebecca: May of 1997, I had never heard of Mark O'Connor. I just knew he was our guest artist, and the music librarian whose job it was to get our music into our folders and let us know when we could come to the symphony office to pick them up, said, “Guess what? You're playing a duo with this guy, just you and him. And he supplied a tape recording.” Okay well, shrug. I was conscientious so I always picked up my folder as soon as it was ready and got busy on the music. So I got my music and I looked at this part and I played through it and it didn't look so bad. And I played the tape, and the tempo was so fast on the tape that I didn't recognize it, didn't realize it was the piece until I did, suddenly realize how fast I was going to have to play this piece. And the problem of course, which I couldn't help but notice [was] the length of the fiddle fingerboard, or the violin, is about half the length of the cello fingerboard. And I pretty much had to match Mark O'Connor note-for-note in this piece, "Limerock" was the name of the piece. So it's like he had to run the 50 yard dash and I had to run the 100 yard dash, and I had to come to the finish line at the same time that he got to the finish line. Tom: Right. Rebecca: -and he was by far the better player, in addition. ... and I had, the style was alien. So we get to the dress rehearsal. Tom: Had he, had he never performed this before with a cello, did he? Rebecca: Oh, many times. He had performed it with Yo-Yo Ma. They often programmed it. Tom: Okay. Rebecca: So we played it at the dress rehearsal and I was sweating. Of course, I was just sweating it because it was so hard. I was pushing to the very outer limits of what I could do. So I played it note-for-note at the dress rehearsal. He stopped and he looked at me, looked kind of puzzled and said, "you know, Yo-Yo had trouble with this piece." And my reaction was, well, as if I didn't. Just 'cause you can't see it. So Holly Turner was the manager, the executive director of the orchestra at that time, and it was her job to make sure that the guest artist got where he or she needed to go at the right time, so she was driving him around and taking him out for meals and things like that. And he told her a bunch of stories about past performances of this piece, or past attempted performances, including somebody, some principal cellist somewhere, who had been unable to play the piece and had - they had to take it off the program. And I think it must have been a case of not practicing it hard enough. �Tom: Uh-huh. Rebecca: As this person was way above me in the profession, and you don't get to the point that she was at without being really good and auditioning successfully, and a bunch of other things. So sort of a case of the tortoise and the hare. Tom: Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Rebecca: So that was, that was not comfortable. It was too scary, too stressful, [to be comfortable] but it was worth doing. Tom: Yeah, yeah. ... That's great. [indistinguishable] Rebecca: Now I have a couple of associated stories, but I don't know if I try to tell them now, should I? They're short. Tom: Yeah, sure. Okay. Rebecca: After I was done, that is, had played "Limerock," there was more of the concert, including Mark O'Connor's Fiddle Concerto for Fiddle and Orchestra. And in that, the last movement of the concerto, there was a cadenza. And for the non musicians, I'll just say that the cadenza is the part where in a concerto where everything stops and the soloist has a chance to show off, and in the 19th century, cadenzas were improvised. Classical soloists improvised cadenzas. But then that got out of fashion and cadenzas started being written out, and the soloists just played the cadenza that was written into the music. Well, Mark O'Connor, of course he improvised his cadenza. And of course I could enjoy it completely because I was done with the hot-water part of it and it was one of the most memorable musical experiences of my life to sit, what, ten feet away from him, and watch him, and listen to him improvise this amazing cadenza. So one more O'Connor story, if you have time. And then a couple of post-concert, post-Mark O'Connor's concert stories could have stayed with me. First of all, Mark O'Connor was in Laramie, oh four, five, six, years after he was in Casper, and of course I went down to hear him, took my children. And he takes care of his fans. He sits out in the lobby after the concert and signs CDS, signs programs, and so on. For as long a line as there is. So I got in line. I didn't want a signature, but I wanted to ask him what he was thinking, programming "Limerock" in a community orchestra. What was he thinking that he did that to me? That was sort of the purport, and he looked kind of blank. He said, "Well, community musicians play well." I said, "yeah, but do we play that well?" That was his firm belief that in spite of having, not having every cellist that he played with be able to play it. I mean, Yo-Yo Ma could play it. He just had a little trouble with one section. When I saw the YouTube uhm, video of them, I saw what he did to to solve that problem. And it made sense. So I was invited to the reception after the concert. �Tom: Okay. Rebecca: Yeah, and somebody at that reception said something. Maybe it was a board member that said it, I don't know. I didn't know the members of the board, and they didn't hold receptions for the whole orchestra at that point. I was invited at the last minute 'cause I was a kind of soloist at that concert. Anyway, uhm, this person said "You know, I noticed that you didn't smile until it was all over." And I didn't say it, but I thought, "it's not my job to smile." (laughs) "It's my job to play the cello. Don't expect me to smile" 'Cause it was scary and stressful. Tom: Yeah. Rebecca: I was thrilled that I had done it, but I can't say that it was fun like playing [the] William Tell solo or something like that. Tom: Mmhmm. Mmhmm. Rebecca: So the other thing, I'll be quick 'cause I know you have to go. Somebody at that reception congratulated me and said I had really, distinguished the whole symphony and the whole city and so on. And I said, "Well, great, how about, how about a raise? How about hazardous duty pay for work dangerous to my ego and reputation?" Yeah, I thought it was a harmless quip. Well, you never experienced such a chilly tide of disapproval as swept that room. Tom: So this was, this was after you played the "Limerock" or this was six years later in Laramie? Rebecca: No, it was after, was at the reception Tom: Uh-huh. Rebecca: -for that concert. It-it was a joke, I thought a harmless little quip. Tom: Mmhmm. Rebecca: But apparently to some people money is so important that you do not joke about it. Tom: Yeah. Rebecca: I don't know. It was a major social gaffe, that I just did not see coming and didn't understand after it had happened. �Tom: Well, that's really interesting. I'd like to, maybe if we could have another conversation, ask you some more about your departure from the symphony, and about your feeling of the symphony as an organ, as a institution over all that time. I mean, you were connected with it off and on for a long time. And that's really, that's rare. Rebecca: Sure. Tom: So if we could maybe talk more about some of those things. Rebecca: That’d be fine. Tom: Other time I don't 'cause I don't want to squish them up now and I know you have a lot more stories you could tell me too. So this stuff is really interesting. Thank you so much, and I'm learning so much that I didn't know, which is always fun. So thanks. Maybe off the tape we can talk about another time when we can both do this again. Rebecca: Yeah, I don't know how to end the meeting and keep us talking. I suppose you could call me. Tom: Yeah, why don't we? Or maybe just? Rebecca: To end the recording. I'm not sure how to stop the recording and continue the meeting. You want me to try? Alright, let me see. Recording… � https://caspercollege.cvlcollections.org/files/original/0499323f738a300f1bd6afb34e5cb214.pdf 2a0a1e7efe0914bfd045dc0f3e83283f PDF Text Text Wyoming Symphony Oral History Project Tom Rea interviewing Rebecca Hein, September 21, 2022 Date transcribed: February 17, 2023 Tom: So, Becky, could you tell us about your, when-when did you first start playing with the with the, was it the Casper Civic Symphony still when you started? Rebecca: Yeah, I had been playing the cello since fourth grade 'cause that was when we had the chance to join orchestra or band and choose our instrument. And, during at least some of that time, I'd been taking private lessons. Tom: Mmhmm. Rebecca: And I guess the the string teachers in town kind of knew who might be ready to play in the Civic Symphony. I'd been playing in the Youth Symphony. Well, I don't know, maybe I joined the same year, my sophomore year? Anyway, I was invited to play in the Civic Symphony, and my interest in the cello and music was at kind of a low point. And what I was really on fire about at the beginning of that year was a possible trip to Spain that my second year Spanish teacher was talking about. So my mother, who of course didn't want to see me quit music, sort of—and I wasn't going to be able to earn enough money for this trip just working at the family business. I was going to have to find some other source of money, so she very casually pointed out, since I had declined to play in the symphony, that they paid. So of course I joined. Tom: (chuckles) Rebecca: And played the first concert, I think it was probably in September. And Rex Eggleston was conducting at that time. He was the conductor, I think Curtis Peacock came to town that year. That would have been the fall of ... 1971? Tom: Uh-huh. Rebecca: And he [Peacock] was, I think the the assistant conductor or something like that. Rex Eggleston, E-G-G-L-E-S-T-O-N, was, at that time, the head of the public school strings in Casper. A really excellent violist, principal viola in the symphony when he wasn't conducting, and a really wonderful guyTom: Yeah. Yeah. �Rebecca: So, I had a really great start, playing under Rex that year. Tom: Oh, okay. And who did you, before we get into the symphony, so who who did you have for a teacher? Before, you know, before then? Who did you take lessons from? Rebecca: Well, I remember studying with Dorotha Becker, who was also concertmaster [first chair, first violin, and also leader of the entire string section] of the Civic Symphony at that time, and kind of the mainstay of string teaching in town. Tom: Mmhmm. Rebecca: I remember she taught orchestra at Grant School when I was in fourth grade, and when it was time for me to take private lessons, that was, I think she was the only person in town who could really do that, until a cello teacher came to town whose name was Rebecca Rennecker. I'm not sure how her last name was spelled. And she became principal cello of the symphony. There was a little bit of trouble over that because the existing principal cellist, who had served long and well and was quite competent, his name was Sidney Wallingford. Was kind of pushed aside, I felt, and he felt, and I think he continued to play for a few years before he quit. Anyway, Rebecca Rennecker was my teacher through the rest of high school until I switched, I must have switched at the beginning of my senior year to driving down to Laramie to study with the cello professor there, David Tomatz T-O-M-A-T-Z. So all through the winter, Sid Wallingford and I drove down to Laramie together, we would take turns driving, to take our lessons. Tom: Did you spend the night down there? Rebecca: No, I think we drove home the same day. Tom: Uh-huh. Rebecca: I'm sure we did. Tom: I remember listening to you play the cello in Barbara Dobos' living room when you were about 18. Rebecca: I remember doing that, yeah. Tom: You were a wonderful cello player for a long time. We'll get to that later, so. Where was, there, when you were in, at Grant School, when you were in the schools in Casper, was there, was there music instruction in the schools? Just orchestra, not private lessons through the �schools, right? But the kids could be in bands and was that part of the instructional day? Or was that like a after school activity like sports? Rebecca: No, that was a class during the day, as I recall. Tom: Right, so you could be in a orchestra class or a band? Yeah, that's sort of the, I guess, when our kids were there, too. And so, you started with Rex and then Curtis comes in when you're still in high school, were there are very many other high school kids? And you were in the cello section. You were not yet principal cellist. Is that right? Rebecca: Correct. Tom: And were there any other high school kids in the symphony then? Rebecca: Yeah, I recall Debbie Johnson, who's now Debbie Bovie. Tom: Oh. Rebecca: She's about my age, and she went to Kelly Walsh [high school in Casper]. Tom: Yeah, I know her, uh-huh. Rebecca: And John Niethamer, N-I-E-T-H-A-M-E-R, he was a year older than I was, but he was in the symphony. Tom: Uh-huh. Rebecca: And I’m trying to think what other cellists, there was a principal bass for a while, a very nice man named Joe Corrigan, and Joe had a younger brother named Gaylen. I think G-AY-L-E-N, who was around my age, and I'm sure Gaylen must have played [cello] in the symphony at some time 'cause I remember playing with him and it wouldn't have been in high school orchestra, I know that. So it had to have been either Youth or Civic Symphony, or, more likely, both. Tom: So these were all cello players or these were a variety of instruments? Rebecca: Cellists. I had plenty of violinist friends as well, whose names I recall, if you want me to mention them. Tom: Sure. �Rebecca: OK, well, there was a student at Casper College whose name was Carol Tumbleson. She was really good. There was a, I don't know if she was a student at Casper College or older, but she wasn't that old. Her name was Lynette Ketcham, K-E-T-C-H-A-M. I'm seeing the photo of the symphony from this time, I think it was from when I was a senior in high school and I'm just seeing their faces. There was Jane Gerberding. Her husband or excuse me, her father was a Lutheran pastor in town, and he used to review symphony performances in the ‘80s [for the Casper Star-Tribune]. That was later on. But Jane was a good friend of mine. She was a year older than me. Susan Cheney, I looked at the math and I figured she must be either a younger sister of Dick Cheney or maybe a cousin. I don't know. Tom: Hm. Rebecca: She went to Kelly Walsh. There was a girl who was really talented; her name was Sharon Street. She was a violist. A really excellent violist, just one of these people, it's like, it seems like they never practice and they're always better than you are. And maybe she did practice and I just didn't know it, but she was extremely talented. And then also in that photo, I saw somebody in the trombone section by the name of Brian Brown, who was my age. And I can't think of who else. Tom: That's a lot. I wonder what they're all doing. That's interesting. And your mom was in the orchestra, right? Rebecca: Correct. She played viola. She took up viola in mid-life because, expressly because, orchestras never have enough violas, and she knew she was not going to be able to get really good if she took up the instrument, you know, not as a child. And so of course, she indeed had the opportunity to play in the symphony, because it's quite true that there's kind of a chronic shortage of good viola players. Tom: And so, had she-she never played strings before taking this instrument up when she was in her mid-life? Rebecca: I don't know. In her late 40s probably. Let me think, she played piano forever. She had played piano since she was a little girl, so she was a musician already. But it's a pretty big jump from piano to a stringed instrument. Tom: Yeah, I'll say wow. When I knew your mom, she was playing in the symphony. So what was it like being in the symphony with your mom? Rebecca: Oh, it was fine. It was great. I was so happy that she had a way to enjoy herself by playing in the orchestra, 'cause she, she and my father were very supportive of the orchestra and �would house import players and sell season tickets at their family business, Lange's Bookshop, and contribute. At least, well, their names in the program are pretty high-up in terms of the list of donors, so they were contributing in that way. At a higher proportion of their income than a lot of people. But you have to remember that a lot of those people that showed up at sort of modest levels of contribution, some of them showed up at the symphony balls and the other fundraisers and spent a lot of money at the auctions and things, and that didn't really show up in the list of contributors in the program, and those lists were sorted according to how much money the people gave. Tom: Yeah, different levels of, yeah, right. That's interesting. And was ... [there] already a symphony ball every year by then? Rebecca: I think probably, yeah. Tom: And were there any other adults in the symphony who you knew through your parents, or who were friends or parents of your friends or anything like that, you know? I'm trying to see if, you know, if it felt like these were people you knew anyway, some of them. You know what I mean? Rebecca: Well, of course I knew Sid Wallingford. Rick Rongstad would come up from Colorado. He wasn't that many years older than me, but I suppose he qualified as an adult. I guess, at that point, there was a woman named Mildred Brehm. B-R-E-H-M, I believe. She, I think, was principal second violin for quite a while. And of course, Rex. When he wasn't conducting, he was right there at the head of the viola section. And I just cannot overemphasize what a wonderful man he was. He was such a good teacher and so encouraging and so goodnatured. He was a real asset to the musical scene in Casper, I think. Tom: That's nice. Yeah. I knew him years later when I was the school's reporter for the [Casper] Star-Tribune and Rex was the head of I think not just music, but all arts stuff for the district, for the school district. Rebecca: Oh. Tom: Yeah, Mildred Brehm. B-R-E-H-M? Rebecca: That's correct. Tom: I wonder if she might have been the husband of the guy that my father-in-law, Derb Scott, worked for in the oil business? The wife? Did I say husband? Okay, that's interesting. Rebecca: Oh, and Rex’s wife, Connie, played principal bassoon for a while. �Tom: Okay. So, you started your sophomore year, junior year, senior year. And then you went to and so, did the orchestra change at all or you did? Were you feeling you were getting better During that time? Rebecca: Well, let me tell you what happened to me at the end of my sophomore year. First of all, throughout the year I became so in love with playing in an orchestra that I pretty much forgot about the trip to Spain. And all year long, every Sunday afternoon, I would play string quartets [two violins, viola and cello] with friends of mine from the Youth Symphony in my parents’ basement. Every Sunday afternoon as I recall, and we would play for hours and hours and hours and we had our fun pieces, our favorite pieces that we played every week, so you can imagine we got pretty good at them. Especially with Susan Cheney on first violin, she was quite good. So there was a particular Mozart quartet, I do not remember which one, but we were playing it one day. We’d been playing it for weeks, and there was a moment at which it was perfect. We-we were all together. There was no effort involved. We were all feeling the beat together and the sound we were putting out was perfectly blended. I swear it just was just one of those moments where everything comes together and and I was, I was struck. I don't know how else to put it. It felt like the sky had opened up, and a beam of light had come down and focused itself on the top of my head. And I was, I was like the Ancient Mariner or something, you know? [Referring to the poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," in which the Ancient Mariner had one story to tell, and had to tell it to everyone he met.] I couldn't think about anything else. Suddenly I had this moment of wanting moments of beauty like that, as many as I could have for the rest of my life. Tom: Yeah. Rebecca: And-and I, and my-my brain put it into a sort of a mathematical statement, like, "Okay, you want more of these beautiful moments? This particular beautiful moment happened because our collective skill had reached a certain point." So the way to predispose or, you know, raise the odds, for more of those beautiful moments is to increase my skill, and the way to increase my skill is to practice as much as I can, and and literally overnight I became a practicing dynamo and I kind of pushed aside my, um, studies. For the next few years of high school, I didn't flunk out, but my grades probably could have been better than they were. And every spare minute I had, I practiced. And that, in practical terms, that meant for my last two years of high school, I would go to school and then I would walk downtown and work at the family business until closing time, come home, eat supper, help with chores, practice the cello till bedtime, not do my homework. Yeah. Because I-I wanted a career in music, in performance, and I knew I was really far behind to have that ambition. You're supposed to start when you're 5 or whatever. Here I was, 17 years old, or 16, I guess, and I knew I had to catch up and so I was both inspired, and I was also, I guess you could say, worried or knew how hard I was going to have to work. So in that �moment of perfection in the string quartets, I think basically I got my vision for my life, even though I hadn't been conscious of being on a vision quest or anything like that. Tom: Uh-huh. Rebecca: So I ... just had to major in cello performance. Tom: Uh-huh. Rebecca: And a lot of people. Not a lot, a few, including my teacher at UW [University of Wyoming], they sort of tried to talk me, not exactly out of majoring in cello performance, but into adding teacher certification. Tom: Mmhmm. Rebecca: So that as my teacher said, "Suppose you get married and your husband moves to a little town and there aren't any playing opportunities, what are you going to do? If you have your teacher certification at least then you'd be able to teach in the schools." Well, I knew I would be miserable teaching in the public schools, so I said no, I want to perform. I held to that for a very long time. Well, and I never did teach in the public schools. And there are very few performers who don't teach, both because they, I think, to some degree get pulled into it 'cause it's interesting and they want to share what they know, and to some degree because it's additional income. Tom: Sure. Ah, that's- thank you for telling me that story. That's how wonderful and so um. You went to UW? Rebecca: That's correct, for three years. And during those three years, I came back to the Civic Symphony as an import for many concerts, maybe all of them. Tom: Mmhmm. Rebecca: That was fun. Tom: And were you majoring in cello performance at UW? Rebecca: I was. Tom: And who was your teacher there? Rebecca: David Tomatz T-O-M-A-T-Z. He was also head of the department. �Tom: Oh yeah, you mean? Yeah, I think you mentioned him in your Casper article, [article published on WyoHistory.org about the history of the symphony]. Was he a conductor in Casper? For a while also? No? Rebecca: No, he was conductor of the University Symphony. Tom: Okay. Rebecca: The main things he did was teach the cello lessons, play in the Western Arts Trio, which was the faculty piano trio at UW, and teach a few students. [a piano trio is piano, violin and cello] Tom: So you were aRebecca: And fair amount-go ahead. Tom: You were a private student of his as well, or you were, or you were, or that was part of your ... regular UW education? Rebecca: Yeah, that was part of my, you could take it as a class, basically. Private lessons, well, they’re one-on-one. I forget what they-applied, that was it, [they called them] applied lessons, for a certain number of credits. Tom: Uh-huh. And was he a good teacher? Rebecca: He was all right. I think his mind was elsewhere than teaching and performing. He was okay, but at the end of three years, I was frustrated by two things. I felt like I wasn't learning enough in my lessons and I was, I think, the only cellist of any ability in the department, so I didn't really have colleagues. Tom: Uh-huh. Rebecca: And I wanted to be in a situation where I was surrounded by student cellists who were better than I was. Tom: Mmhmm. Rebecca: So [that] I had room to learn and a teacher who was a better teacher and a better performer than David Tomatz was. He was really made for schmoozing money out of little, old- �rich, little old ladies. That's really what he was made for. And that's really what he did best. Probably, you know, raised quite a lot of money for the department and the university orchestra. He was a very good looking man and he was charming and you know, I'm sure he knew how to schmooze money out of people. So he was divided. So at at the end of three years I transferred to the University of Oregon. Tom: Uh-huh. Rebecca: Because in the region, I'd been to music camps in Montana, and I'd heard about the cello teacher at Oregon and been impressed with what I'd heard. And actually, I think it was during my sophomore year at UW, that I flew out there, spent my own money to do it. I had a friend that I'd gone to high school with who I’d been corresponding with, who was going to the University of Oregon, who met me at the airport, put me up in her apartment, gave me a ride to the university so I could do my audition to be admitted to the School of Music and so on. Tom: So the man that taught cello out there? Rebecca: Robert Hladky. H-L-A-D-K-Y. (pronounced Lad-kee) Wanted me to be with him for two years. So he admitted me as a junior rather than a senior and I could see his point. He really couldn't do much with me for just one year. So I it took me five years to do my undergraduate degree and I had to finance the last year myself 'cause my parents had told me and my sisters that they would put us through four years of undergrad school and support us during that time. Tom: Mmhmm. Rebecca: So they did that and then I had to finance that last year. But it was a really good move because, um, Dr. Hladky had studied with some really good teachers and had a really organized approach to playing and technique, and that's what I felt like I needed was, how do I play better, not, how do I be a better musician. That didn't worry me so much, it was, how do I get the notes to come out sounding in tune and on time and so on? Tom: Why isn't that a better musician? Why is? I don't understand the difference. Rebecca: Well, the difference is, you can have, you can know your way around the fingerboard and you can play in tune, and you can play on time, and you can play well with other people, 'cause your sense of rhythm is good and your sound is good and you know how to blend, and so on. But there's this added ingredient of, what would you call it, heart. Tom: Mmhmm. �Rebecca: Soul, swing. Tom: Mmhmm. Rebecca: I know Swing is a Jazz term, but it's been co-opted by classical musicians to mean that little extra special something that makes you want to listen to somebody and they-how they handle the music, like let's say the [Johann Sebastian] Bach unaccompanied suites for cello. There are six of them. Each suite has, let me think, a Prelude and then stylized dances, Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, and then a pair of Minuets, or in some cases a pair of Boureés and then basically uh, a Gigue, G-I-G-G-U-E. Tom: Right. Rebecca: So all six of the Bach Suites have those and Bach, he could do so much with so little. He was all about chords, basically. And he would break up the chords for the cello, which you can't play all four notes at onceTom: Mmhmm. Rebecaa: -like you can on a keyboard or a guitar. Rebecca: And he would write these wonderful, wonderful pieces based on really nothing but-but chord progressions. Tom: Mmhmm. Rebecca: And so, you know, if if you're a good musician, you can play those, conveying to the audience by how you play them, where the important parts are, where the sections begin and end, where the chords change. Well, what's the melodic line and what's the bass line and things like that. And all I can do is share a story about, this was a cello festival I went to in Evanston, Illinois, where I lived for three years, when I went to Northwestern University for one of those years to get my master's in performance. So this cello festival was put on and there was a hotshot guy from Champaign Urbana. I guess that would have been the University of Illinois. And of course, because he was so good, he'd gotten this job, and he played, he performed for us, the attendees, at this little festival. And I had, I was in Evanston, not 'cause I-no, I didn't live there then, I had traveled down, that's right, 'cause I traveled to take a lesson with the new cello instructor at Northwestern. I was up in Wisconsin at that time, teaching at the university and in their Suzuki program. Anyway, I was down there for this-the weekend. So this guy played and he played one of the harder Bach Suites, one of the later ones. And just kind of, you know, knocked out the notes really good and really fast and really clear, but without an iota of �understanding of where the melodic line was, where the bass line was, what the chord progressions were, what-what the music was. He he had technique. He could play all the notes, but-but I just. ... I was kind of offended. I don't know. He was so good and so looked up to and selected to play this solo and I knew I was not his equal as a cellist in terms of getting around the instrument. So when I went to have my lesson with this new teacher at Northwestern, I said, "Was that as bad as I thought it was, musically?" And he shook his head, and he said "There's somebody who had no idea at all what he was doing." Tom: Hm. Rebecca: So, I think non-musicians pick these things up. They know it, whether they can articulate it or not, I don't know. But we all have music in our soul and I think, on some level, we know the difference between somebody who's basically a very good gymnast and somebody who's really taking the music up to the level of music. Music making. I don't know if that clarifies the question at all. Tom: You know, let's say that, that's really, I think I know what you mean. Yeah. Rebecca: It it makes you want to come back and listen to them again and again and again, yeah. Tom: Right. Right. Yeah. Rebecca: No, I had. Even if they miss a few notes, they're still going to call you back by how they play. Tom: Okay. So you went to UW for three years, you went to University of Oregon, Eugene, I guess, right forRebecca: Correct. Yeah. Tom: Two more years, you had a bachelors in music performance and then you went to Northwestern to go to graduate school? Rebecca: Well, something happened in the meantime. Let me look at my notes here. Oh, there was a summer internship orchestra. It wasn't quite the great gig that getting a fellowship to the Aspen Festival, Aspen Music Festival was. [high-powered summer music festival in Aspen, Colorado] If you got a fellowship to the Aspen Music Festival, you got full room and board and a pretty good stipend and you were at the Aspen Music Festival. Which, you know, the luminary musicians that were there and the things that went on, it was just incredible. So I auditioned for the Aspen Music Festival and did not make it. But this other summer internship orchestra, based �in Evergreen, Colorado, was called at that time the Colorado Philharmonic. I think before that, for a while had been called the National Repertory Orchestra. Tom: Mmhmm. Rebecca: Most of the time musicians, when they play auditions, they have to pay the expense of traveling to where the audition is held. So anytime you can drive, you know, 100 miles, or down the street or around the corner or whatever to take an audition, you do it whether you're ready to or not. Tom: Uh-huh. Rebecca: So I knew about the Colorado Philharmonic and I auditioned for it. And I got in. Kind of an interesting, I have always thought it was an interesting story. I was at the audition. There were two people traveling around the country holding auditions. And this-this is kind of a story of getting in over my head musically, which I have a couple of things about that to say, but I-I was sitting there and I played some of the required excerpts that we knew we would have to play, they sent out the list. And I played about two notes of one of them. I'd been working really, really hard on tone production and in this slow excerpt, I think it was the slow movement of Brahms Second Symphony, which is standard, was a standard at that time for a lot of audition lists. [Johannes Brahms, 19th century German composer] And both of them, both of these auditioners did a double take. I started playing, they looked up from their notes and stared at me. So that was interesting. And then when it came to doing the sight reading [playing a piece of music you've never seen before], I was really mentally engaged. I looked very carefully, the way my teachers had told me, to [indistinguishable] the music before I started to play it. I mentally played the first few measures to know what I was about to do. And I noticed that in this particular excerpt there was a a subtle difference in the notation between one phrase and another. And I wanted to make sure to make that difference very, very clear when I played it, so that they would know that I had seen that difference in the printed music. So I did that and got another double take. Tom: Mmhmm. Rebecca: So what happened was, and they based, they seated the sections, the string sections according to the auditions, was that I got fourth chair in this really good orchestra. Which, there was probably a ten-cello section, a very good string section, really excellent, and found myself rehearsing a piece by Claude Debussy, the [19th and 20th century French] Impressionist composer. The piece [was] La Mer, The Sea. It's a beautiful piece and it's got a cello quartet in it, where the rest of the section does not play, and the first four chairs of the cello section do. I had never seen the piece before. I had never heard it before. There I was, having to play the part. Uh, �it was, it was scary. It was stressful. I did okay, but that's sort of a borderline case of having landed myself in hot water. Anyway, that-that was what I did. The summer after my two years at University of Oregon no, wait Tom: Hm. Rebecca: Yeah, I was supposedly going to come back and do a masters. And then I made it [in]to the Colorado Philharmonic. And then we had guest conductors at Colorado Philharmonic. We're going to probably run more than an hour. Is that alright with you? I've got a whole page of notes. Tom: I have somewhere [I] have to be at, I have to leave at about, well, I was thinking maybe we should do a second session. Rebecca: We could. Tom: Let's see where we are by 3:00 and then make sure. Rebecca: Yeah, well, let's see. Colorado Philharmonic, let me think. Tom: So what happened next? Rebecca: Oh, right. We had guest conductors all summer long and and many of them were from professional orchestras. It was just wonderful, and one person got a job offer. Because of how well he played principal viola in the Colorado Philharmonic. Tom: Uh-huh. Rebecca: And they [the guest conductors] would hold audition seminars in the afternoon. See, we had a really compressed schedule. We performed every other night. In Evergreen, Colorado. We had, I think, Sundays off. I can't remember, but the rehearsal schedule was rehearse in the morning, rehearse in the afternoon. And then the day, the concert, rehearsal in the afternoon, perform in the evening. Or it might have been sometimes we did a matinee, in which case we would rehearse in the morning and perform in the afternoon. So, you know, very few rehearsals, very, very hard music, very high powered. So conductors would come through and guest-conduct concerts and hold these audition seminars. On the, in the chunk of time during the concert weekend when we weren't rehearsing and the better players in the orchestra would play their prepared auditions for, they were preparing for professional orchestras, and the conductor would critique. Well, I was never good enough or prepared enough to play these excerpts. So I would listen and, you know, take it all in. But then one conductor, he did not conduct the orchestra, but he was on a tour of the United States, well the upper 48, he had just been hired to conduct the �national symphony of Puerto Rico 'cause they wanted a, basically a European-standard national orchestra, even though they didn't have enough Puerto Ricans, so he was having to come up here and audition people, so I auditioned for him and they offered me a contract. Tom: Okay. Rebecca: As this was my life ambition to play the cello for a living, Tom: Right. Rebecca: I didn't hesitate at all. So that was at the end of the first Colorado Philharmonic season. At the end of that summer, I went down and played for nine months for a season basically in the Colorado or excuse me, the Puerto Rico Symphony in the section. Tom: I remember. I learned that a couple years ago that you had played in the Puerto Rico Symphony, and what was-what was it like there? Rebecca: Well, uhm. Tom: You were there for nine months and then you came back? Rebecca: Yeah, uhm. It was okay. It was well within my ability. It was a lot like playing in the Civic Symphony, although it was a better orchestra, I think, than the Civic Symphony was, somewhat better, good enough to do Beethoven's Ninth. And other Beethoven symphonies. It was fine. I always felt like I was living in a foreign culture. Just because Puerto Rico is part of the United States, politically, they're a commonwealth, I learned, when I lived there, but it's, culturally, of course it's part of Latin America. Tom: Sure, yeah. Rebecca: And I would have experiences, like I would address people on the street for directions or whatever. Or my colleagues in the orchestra. There were some really sweet older men. And I would-I would try my Spanish on them and ... I made such terrible mistakes. And they would, they were so patient. And-and, whimsical with me about it. It was really cool. Uhm, but I had a good stand partner, which is very important in an orchestra. Tom: Ah, and was it a new orchestra? Rebecca: No, I think they'd been going for a while. �Tom: Okay. And did you get a chance to, did you, did you not want to stay a second year, or did they not offer you a job for the second year or? Rebecca: Well, what happened was, I thought for sure I was going to stay more than one year. The money wasn't. It was enough to live on playing in the orchestra, but I also had many opportunities to play in the recording studios in San Juan, and that's where the real money is. I mean, recordings paid pretty well. And then there was the occasional one where it takes you ten minutes to record a jingle for a commercial, and you get paid $200. So that was fine. But then near the end of the year there was a the usual, I found, every year the orchestra as a whole negotiated with management for a better contract. I had learned and observed throughout the year that there were, as a whole in the in the population ... of Puerto Rico, people who wanted to continue as a commonwealth, people who wanted Puerto Rico to become a state, and people who wanted Puerto Rico to be an independent country. Tom: Uh-huh. Rebecca: And I guess there's a lot of history about the commonwealth situation that was quite distasteful to the Independentistas. I never really knew the details or if I did, I've forgotten them. But we had some Independentistas in the orchestra, one man in particular I'm thinking of, who really resented the presence of the ‘gringos.’ Resented us, I mean absolutely could not stand that we were in the orchestra. So when the time came to negotiate, he told us right out - it was a meeting, an orchestra meeting - told all of us 'gringos’ that we had no right to have any voice in this because it was not our orchestra. So, that was the first time in my life had I ever been or felt dismissed and hated and stereotyped because, really, of the color of my skin and where I was from. Tom: Mmhmm. Rebecca: And it was, I didn't think I could work with him. He wasn't the only one. He was just the most outspoken one. And I started feeling like there might be better places for me to be. So I originally spent the whole year thinking I would spend another year there at least, and at the very end of the year I decided, no, I'm gonna go back somewhere, move to a big city where there are many teachers and many orchestras and a good professional orchestra for me to listen to and learn from and so on. So that's what I did. I moved to Evanston, Illinois, to be near the Chicago area. Tom: Okay. And so did you have a job in Evanston or did you go back to school? Rebecca: Uhm, Okay, you've asked me some questions about Evanston. I wanna jump back to high school, �Tom: Okay. Rebecca: 'cause I was in early college 'cause there were some things I wanted to say. Tom: Okay. All right. Rebecca: The first thing I want to say is that as a senior, I competed in a young artist competition in Casper and Cheyenne. And I was beaten by the same person, a pianist, who was pretty good. I was okay too, for my age and my level. And what to me is the interesting thing, and what was the beneficial thing to me about this was that all the string teachers who were concerned, that being the violin professor at University of Wyoming, who was one of the judges in Cheyenne, my teacher at University of Wyoming, uh, Curtis Peacock in Casper, who was not only the conductor of the Civic Symphony, but also the string instructor at Casper College. And maybe some other string teachers that I don't remember, said, they all said the same [thing]: "A pianist at the same level will always sound better than a string player because the string player at that level is still learning to play in tune. Still learning tone production." And while pianists do have to work on tone production, they don't have anything to say about whether they're in tune or not. They don't have to learn that. For obvious reasons. Tom: Right. Rebecca: So they all kind of felt that at least I should have been, should have won, or I don't know how it would have been worked. Anyway, I lost to this person. Curtis said to me, "Uhm, you worked really hard on your concerto. How would you like to play it, perform it with the Casper College Baroque ensemble?", which was really, you know, their chamber orchestra. "Furthermore, how would you like to perform it here in Casper and on tour?" So of course I said yes, I'd love to. And so I got a better deal than the winner. I didn't have the prestige of playing with the symphony, but in terms of practical experience, it's a wonderful opportunity to be able to, if you're being a soloist, to have more than one crack at it. [A concerto is a composition for one or more solo instruments with orchestral accompaniment] Tom: Uh-huh. Rebecca: So, you know, we played on tour and we played in Casper and I still remember playing in some little tiny town up in the northwest part of the state like Frannie or Deaver, or one of those. I just have this very clear memory of sitting on some stage with a tiny handful of people in the audience and-and performing my concerto. So it worked out really well for me. Tom: So the concerto was you and not the whole, and the Casper College orchestra. �Rebecca: Correct. Yeah. Tom: Huh. Great. Rebecca: Yeah, and there was another opportunity I had that I'll just add, many string students [in Casper] also have had. Let me think, Rick Rongstad; cello and bass, Dale Bohren; bass, Andrea Reynolds DiGregorio; cello. And a few violinists, probably, whose names I can't recall now, we all went to this music camp called Congress of Strings. It was a national effort. I think it was probably one string player from each of the 50 states. A huge string orchestra, a really big deal, really very high level of music making. Tom: Where was this? Rebecca: Well, it was held at UCLA for quite a while, and then the year that I went, it was held at the University of Washington in Seattle. Tom: Mmhmm. Rebecca: And it was a full scholarship. And they may also even have paid our transportation. I don't remember. I just know that I got to go and it didn't cost my parents anything. And it was eight weeks long. And it was um, a tremendous opportunity 'cause you're there with some really amazing performers. I remember one of the cellists that was there, he ended up in the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Saint Paul, Minnesota. That's one of the premiere orchestras in the world. And he ended up in that cello section. So I was of course very low on the totem pole, but I didn't really notice 'cause the music we played was so wonderful. We played, I mean you're restricted as a string orchestra to just a few pieces. And one of them is the [19th century Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich] Tchaikovsky Serenade for Strings, which is just one of the most lush, showy, beautiful pieces in the world. And then Mahler, Gustav Mahler, a German composer of the late 1900s. His Fifth Symphony, the slow movement is for strings and harp. And they dredged up a good harp player from somewhere. At Congress of Strings. And we played that, and there's nothing like Mahler. He's he was just drunk with the beauty of music, and you could tell by the way he composed. Tom: Mmhmm. Rebecca: So I will never forget playing those two pieces. It was really something and the local, there's a Musicians' Union Chapter [in Casper, the American Federation of Musicians] provided the scholarship. So because, as a direct result of my involvement with the symphony as a high school student, although I was at the end of my sophomore year in college, or was a freshmanfreshman year of college when I went, I still got the benefit of that scholarship. �Tom: Uh-huh. Rebecca: So that was-that was something. Tom: When you mentioned, I just wanted to ask, did you ever know John Stovall? Rebecca: Yes, he ended up with the Boston Symphony. Tom: Yeah, right was. He's younger than you probably, right? Rebecca: About a year or two, yeah. Well, let’s see, you wanted to know what I did after Puerto Rico, right? Tom: Yeah. Rebecca: Well, I moved to Evanston, Illinois, so that I could go to the Chicago Symphony [concerts]. And I found out once I moved there that they had what they called was a training orchestra for the Chicago Symphony. It was actually a very excellent youth orchestra. I auditioned and got into that. I got an office job in Evanston part time so that I could work till about 2:00 in the afternoon, take the elevated train that turns into a subway partway there downtown, get to orchestra hall, rehearse, come home, eat supper, practice. Uhm, do it all over again. I did that for a semester till Christmas I think, and then I was just too tired. So I went full time at the office that I was working, and quit the Civic Orchestra and just took lessons and practiced. And then that year I applied for some graduate programs and got into the masters program at Northwestern, right there in Evanston. Tom: Yeah, Okay. Rebecca: Well, that's what I did. The second year I was in Evanston, that would have been, let me think, ’79- ‘80 was Puerto Rico, ‘80- ‘81 was being in Evanston [the] first year, ‘81- ‘82 was the year I did my masters. Tom: Mmhmm. Rebecca: That was great. Tom: So you got a masters in cello performance at Northwestern? Rebecca: Correct. �Tom: That’s a one year program? Rebecca: Right. They had, they were so expensive they had to do something. So that's what they did. They reduced their requirements to the scope of a year. Tom: And then you spent another year in Chicago? Rebecca: I did. Um, I have to tell a story about my masters degree recital. I had a really fun teacher at Northwestern and he and I both knew that some of the music I was going to perform at my recital was a little beyond me, so I was lamenting to him, you know, everybody’s gonna hear that it was, uh, by Tchaikovsky, the Rococo Variations, this very showy, highly difficult piece. I said, "They're going to hear that my technique is not up to this piece. It's not going to be a perfect, note perfect recital." And he agreed. No, not quite. But yeah, you're here to learn. He tried. And I said, "Okay, as long as it's not boring, you know, it can be anything. I can miss some notes. Not many, but as many as I'm going to. It can't be boring." So then, I don't remember if he told me this before or after my recital, but he told me he had a terrible tussle with himself how he was going to break it to me that my playing was boring. (laughs) Tom: Really? Rebecca: I have always been glad that he was honest with me. Because one does not want to be a boring performer. So now I have to jump ahead. Now let's see the third one. I'm not going to jump ahead. There's just a continuation of this "boring" story. So then I completed my master's degree and the office that I'd been working at, I ended up working there during spring break and summer and things like that. So they were-they found room for me when I graduated and I went part-time. The year after my masters. Thinking I'd wasted time and money, 'cause I all I had was two little tiny teaching jobs at community schools of music in the area. And I was sure neither of them would ever go anywhere. One of them was a Suzuki teaching job. And one of them was a regular, just regular non-Suzuki, and the Dean of the School of Music at Northwestern had said to me, when I had started there, that my chances of getting a college teaching job were greatly increased if I had some Suzuki experience, because at that time the Suzuki movement was really taking off. Tom: Uh-huh. Rebecca: So, you know, I took this little dinky job that had like three students for which I had to drive an hour one way. Figuring it would never go anywhere, and also feeling like I didn't know enough, so I took a Suzuki pedagogy class on my own initiative, paying out of my own pocket, down at DePaul University, which I had to take the El, [elevated train] I don't know, 45 minutes �south to Loyola University. It wasn't that far, I guess, but a fair way to take part in a Suzuki pedagogy class. Which, to make a long story short, I ended up with a job at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh teaching University students and Suzuki students combined to make a full time position for me because I took that said ... pedagogy course. And the other community school of music, for which I traveled an hour one way and taught a few more students. It turns out that that was a very respected community school. It was called the Jack Benny Center for the Arts and about more than 50 percent of the music faculty at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh Music Department - when I went up there to audition and interview for the job - more than 50 percent of them had first of all, gone to Northwestern. Had nostalgic feelings about that. Second of all, had taught at the Jack Benny Center, and also had nostalgic feelings about that, which certainly didn't hurt me. Tom: Yeah. Rebecca: At this interview. So it was great. I spent that whole year feeling like a failure and like I'd wasted my time and was I ever going to be any sort of professional. I dropped the idea of trying to play in an orchestra because, there were kind of two reasons. Playing in an orchestra as a string player, it's kind of bad for your playing as a as a rule, if you do too much of it, 'cause you can't hear yourself the way you can if you're playing chamber music, for example, or playing as a soloist. And I discovered that, playing in the Colorado Philharmonic after University of Oregon, then in the Puerto Rico Symphony. And then again in the Colorado Philharmonic before I moved to Evanston. So more than a year of playing just in an orchestra or mostly in an orchestra. I could tell it was starting to hurt my playing, but the real reason was, to audition for orchestras you have to practice certain orchestral excerpts, just like you would practice a concerto until you have every single note perfect. Well, that's not so bad for excerpts from Beethoven's Ninth, excerpts from Brahms symphonies and things like that. [Johannes Brahms, 19th century German composer] But when it comes to tone poems by Richard Strauss, those things, it's not just that they're hard, they're just not very rewarding musically. [Richard Strauss, 19th and 20th century German composer and conductor (son of Johann Strauss of “Blue Danube” fame.)]The cello parts that you have to learn, at least I found them not rewarding, and I discovered that I just didn't have the motivation to spend the hours and hours and hours and hours preparing those kinds of excerpts and, I don't know, I noticed that it was a really competitive thing. I mean, I always knew it was, but I had a friend in the Puerto Rico Symphony. She was a gringo. She had been in the orchestra for quite a while and she had been trying to get back to the upper 48 for quite a while and she was really good and she was one of these people that could make herself practice these excerpts and she flew, of course, at her own expense, to Texas. I forget, to audition for which major professional orchestra there, and she told me she played a note perfect audition. I mean, she didn't miss a single note, and did not get the job, and that was when she learned that something more was needed. So that, I think that gave me pause, along with the fact that what I really wanted to play was Beethoven quartets and, I don't know. Chamber music was very �attractive to me, and the only way you can really play chamber music is if you're part of a university faculty. Tom: Uh-huh. Rebecca: Unless you get really lucky and you're really, really, really good and you get a place in a professional string quartet. But they often also have teaching positions somewhere. So I applied for this, well, the person that was in this Suzuki pedagogy course that I got to know, was commuting up to Oshkosh to teach in their brand new [Suzuki] cello program. They were paying for her to rent a car and drive up on Saturday morning, teach all day Saturday, and then drive home. Well, I just wasn't going to do that. I just, was not going to do that. And she was thinking of stopping. And I contacted them and I said, you know, I know this woman who's been coming up to teach your students. If you can offer me a full-time job where I can become a resident of the community and live on what you pay me, I'm interested. Well, lo and behold, there was a fireball up there. Who was in charge of the Suzuki program, who went to the university people, who [the Suzuki program] ... was housed in the university music department at that point, and said let's get together. You guys need a cello professor, and you don't have enough students. And we need a cello teacher and we don't have enough students. But together, can we put together a position? And they did. They came up with the money, they came up with, it was a University of Wisconsin system faculty job I had. They had to advertise it. And I had to audition and interview. And there was one other person who was also selected to audition and interview, and I got the job. Tom: And that's in Oshkosh, not Madison, right? Rebecca: That was. There are so many campuses of the University of Wisconsin. It was just incredible [to me at the time], how many. There are little centers all throughout the state in little areas and four-year branches. Many in many places. I told that to my mother, she said, Yeah, Wisconsin is a very progressive state. Tom: Yeah, that's true. That's been. I hope it gets back to that. Okay. So you were in. So how long did you have? Maybe we should. Let's see. How much notes do you have left there, Becky? I got somewhere I need to be about 3:30. Rebecca: Oh, we might be able to wrap up by 3:15 maybe? Tom: Okay, alright. Rebecca: Should we try? �Tom: Yeah, let's. Okay, so where did you go after that? Rebecca: Well, let's, I want to tell one story about being at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. Tom: Okay. Rebecca: Well, it was, I began playing regular faculty recitals. I'd been doing this for a few years and people always come backstage afterwards, and congratulate you and so on, and tell you how much they enjoyed it. Well, one person said, "There are two kinds of recitals, one where you're sitting there looking at your watch, wishing it would be over, and another one where you don't want it to end. And your performance was the second kind." Tom: That's nice. Rebecca: So I knew that the practicing I had been doing in the interim had been working. Tom: So not boring? Rebecca: Evidently not. I mean, that person had no reason to schmooze me. No reason at all. Tom: Good. Rebecca: Okay. Tom: I'm sorry to interrupt you. Go ahead. Rebecca: No. So we're done with University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. Uhm, I want to say yeah, go ahead. Tom: How long were you there? Rebecca: Seven years. Tom: Oh, I didn't know that, okay. Rebecca: So yeah. Tom: And did you work that? Was it a tenure track position? �Rebecca: No, no. It was a one year renewable contract. It was adjunct. Well, I don't know. I guess I was an adjunct faculty. I don't know what they called it because I was a hybrid. I was, the Suzuki program was not part of the university, administratively. They just used their offices. So I don't [know]. All I know is my contract ran a year and then was renewed. Tom: Been talking a lot there. Do you need to get a drink of water or something? Rebecca: I don't know. I'll try to manage, I can. I want to say something about, something I faced as principal cellist of the Wyoming Symphony Orchestra. I became principal cellist in the fall of 1992. And what I faced, of course, was having to share the stage with Mark O'Connor, playing a piece that I'd never seen before and it was really hard. Tom: Right. Rebecca: -but I want to go back to something that I did, I'm not sure what year it would have been. I got married and my husband got teacher certification in natural science. And we ended up in Tecumseh, Nebraska. He was teaching science at their combined middle school and high school. ... So it's not that far from Lincoln and Omaha. I decided I would try to get into some of those orchestras that were up there. So I got some audition music and I looked at the deadline and started learning it, and we decided that I if I did any work outside the home, it would be playing the cello. So, I got this audition music and I ran into a piece that I'd never seen before on an audition list. And it was unbelievably hard. And there are two ways of tackling something like that. One is, you learn the notes and then you sort of beat it up to tempo. You set the metronome at the tempo you can play it at and you play it, then you up the metronome one click which is, I don't know ... but it's a few more beats per second [indistinguishable]. Yeah, and you play it again, and then you up the metronome again. You play [it] again. You work it up to speed as best you can that way or you change your technique so that you can play better and more easily. And that changing of technique is a long process, long and intensive. And I looked at the deadline for that audition and I decided I would rather change my technique than play that audition. So I did. I engaged in some very focused, very intensive practicing. One of the things I worked on was my sitting posture where, you know, you sit, you pick up the cello. Your back might be really good, your back muscles might be great, you know, and you start to play and everything starts twisting up and tightening up in bad ways. You have to have some muscle support when you play, so you can't talk about being completely relaxed 'cause then you wouldn't even be able to push the strings down or hold the bow, but managing your muscles so you don't distort what they're best for. That's what I tackled in that practice session with no knowledge of the future, you understand? No, no crystal ball that told me I was going to be onstage with Mark O'Connor about, I don't know, eight years later or something. Facing a piece that was nearly too hard for me. So that was very satisfying practicing and it really put my playing- headed me in a different direction. So that I was a much better player. And playing was much more easy, and my sound �was better, and a whole bunch of other things were better. Playing fast was easier. So that when I landed in Casper as the principal cellist of the symphony, I was ready for it. The principal cello ... solos that you have to play, things like the William Tell Overture by Rossini. [19th century Italian composer Gioachino Rossini's Overture to his opera, William Tell] That's best known, of course, as The Lone Ranger theme. But the opening is slow and it's a cello quartet, and the principal cello has the most wonderful and hardest part of the four cellos. I enjoyed that so much. I enjoyed playing that solo and I did it really well and I know I did. So I wasn't in over my head at all. It was comfortable, it was a comfortable job and we did a Brahms Piano Concerto. I ... [think] the second one? John Browning, who is a world class pianist, was our soloist. We played that in Oshkosh too. I was principal of the Oshkosh Symphony. And there's a very, very beautiful principal cello solo in the slow movement of that piece, I'd played it before. There is an easy part of it and then there's a harder part of it and it's just gorgeous and I played it. And then you sort of hand over to the piano after you play the second part of the solo. So I looked at John Browning when I was done, and he nodded at me and smiled, when he started playing, so I knew I had done a really good job. That, moments like that, were just wonderful and I never felt like I was over my head. Okay, so. Are we going till 3:15 'cause I think, probably, we can finish up in that time. Tom: What? Okay. Ah, alright, I have someRebecca: Will that work for you? Tom: Some, I'll have some questions, but maybe we could have a second session for those. I don't know that they'll take much time. So how did you end up? Are you going to tell me how it is you came to leave Nebraska and come back to Casper? Rebecca: Oh yeah, well, so my husband, Ellis, was teaching science and there were some unbelievable behavior problems in his classroom. You wouldn't think of it in a little town, but it was the case. And he had a very unsupportive principal who just didn't back him up in discipline. So he quit. He-he burned out faster than I've ever seen anybody burn out on teaching. He quit in March of that year, just broke his contract, and we moved. I'd been in touch with my father. My mother had died in ‘84, and this was ‘92, spring of 1992, and he told me they didn't have a principal cellist in the symphony, and that they were paying more or less a professional rate they'd had to cut down on what they were paying, but it was sort of our only safety net because Ellis was not going to teach school again. That was a very bad experience. He lost thirty pounds. He had insomnia for the only time he's ever in his life had insomnia. It was just terrible so we couldn't wait to get away. So we moved to Casper and I auditioned for the principal cello position and got it. And Ellis started remodeling houses and all that. Being a former farmer, he had a lot of carpenter skills and things like that. Maybe your questions are more important than what I have in my notes, except about O'Connor. �Tom: Do that. Yeah, no. Okay, tell me about Mark O'Connor. Rebecca: May of 1997, I had never heard of Mark O'Connor. I just knew he was our guest artist, and the music librarian whose job it was to get our music into our folders and let us know when we could come to the symphony office to pick them up, said, “Guess what? You're playing a duo with this guy, just you and him. And he supplied a tape recording.” Okay well, shrug. I was conscientious so I always picked up my folder as soon as it was ready and got busy on the music. So I got my music and I looked at this part and I played through it and it didn't look so bad. And I played the tape, and the tempo was so fast on the tape that I didn't recognize it, didn't realize it was the piece until I did, suddenly realize how fast I was going to have to play this piece. And the problem of course, which I couldn't help but notice [was] the length of the fiddle fingerboard, or the violin, is about half the length of the cello fingerboard. And I pretty much had to match Mark O'Connor note-for-note in this piece, "Limerock" was the name of the piece. So it's like he had to run the 50 yard dash and I had to run the 100 yard dash, and I had to come to the finish line at the same time that he got to the finish line. Tom: Right. Rebecca: -and he was by far the better player, in addition. ... and I had, the style was alien. So we get to the dress rehearsal. Tom: Had he, had he never performed this before with a cello, did he? Rebecca: Oh, many times. He had performed it with Yo-Yo Ma. They often programmed it. Tom: Okay. Rebecca: So we played it at the dress rehearsal and I was sweating. Of course, I was just sweating it because it was so hard. I was pushing to the very outer limits of what I could do. So I played it note-for-note at the dress rehearsal. He stopped and he looked at me, looked kind of puzzled and said, "you know, Yo-Yo had trouble with this piece." And my reaction was, well, as if I didn't. Just 'cause you can't see it. So Holly Turner was the manager, the executive director of the orchestra at that time, and it was her job to make sure that the guest artist got where he or she needed to go at the right time, so she was driving him around and taking him out for meals and things like that. And he told her a bunch of stories about past performances of this piece, or past attempted performances, including somebody, some principal cellist somewhere, who had been unable to play the piece and had - they had to take it off the program. And I think it must have been a case of not practicing it hard enough. �Tom: Uh-huh. Rebecca: As this person was way above me in the profession, and you don't get to the point that she was at without being really good and auditioning successfully, and a bunch of other things. So sort of a case of the tortoise and the hare. Tom: Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Rebecca: So that was, that was not comfortable. It was too scary, too stressful, [to be comfortable] but it was worth doing. Tom: Yeah, yeah. ... That's great. [indistinguishable] Rebecca: Now I have a couple of associated stories, but I don't know if I try to tell them now, should I? They're short. Tom: Yeah, sure. Okay. Rebecca: After I was done, that is, had played "Limerock," there was more of the concert, including Mark O'Connor's Fiddle Concerto for Fiddle and Orchestra. And in that, the last movement of the concerto, there was a cadenza. And for the non musicians, I'll just say that the cadenza is the part where in a concerto where everything stops and the soloist has a chance to show off, and in the 19th century, cadenzas were improvised. Classical soloists improvised cadenzas. But then that got out of fashion and cadenzas started being written out, and the soloists just played the cadenza that was written into the music. Well, Mark O'Connor, of course he improvised his cadenza. And of course I could enjoy it completely because I was done with the hot-water part of it and it was one of the most memorable musical experiences of my life to sit, what, ten feet away from him, and watch him, and listen to him improvise this amazing cadenza. So one more O'Connor story, if you have time. And then a couple of post-concert, post-Mark O'Connor's concert stories could have stayed with me. First of all, Mark O'Connor was in Laramie, oh four, five, six, years after he was in Casper, and of course I went down to hear him, took my children. And he takes care of his fans. He sits out in the lobby after the concert and signs CDS, signs programs, and so on. For as long a line as there is. So I got in line. I didn't want a signature, but I wanted to ask him what he was thinking, programming "Limerock" in a community orchestra. What was he thinking that he did that to me? That was sort of the purport, and he looked kind of blank. He said, "Well, community musicians play well." I said, "yeah, but do we play that well?" That was his firm belief that in spite of having, not having every cellist that he played with be able to play it. I mean, Yo-Yo Ma could play it. He just had a little trouble with one section. When I saw the YouTube uhm, video of them, I saw what he did to to solve that problem. And it made sense. So I was invited to the reception after the concert. �Tom: Okay. Rebecca: Yeah, and somebody at that reception said something. Maybe it was a board member that said it, I don't know. I didn't know the members of the board, and they didn't hold receptions for the whole orchestra at that point. I was invited at the last minute 'cause I was a kind of soloist at that concert. Anyway, uhm, this person said "You know, I noticed that you didn't smile until it was all over." And I didn't say it, but I thought, "it's not my job to smile." (laughs) "It's my job to play the cello. Don't expect me to smile" 'Cause it was scary and stressful. Tom: Yeah. Rebecca: I was thrilled that I had done it, but I can't say that it was fun like playing [the] William Tell solo or something like that. Tom: Mmhmm. Mmhmm. Rebecca: So the other thing, I'll be quick 'cause I know you have to go. Somebody at that reception congratulated me and said I had really, distinguished the whole symphony and the whole city and so on. And I said, "Well, great, how about, how about a raise? How about hazardous duty pay for work dangerous to my ego and reputation?" Yeah, I thought it was a harmless quip. Well, you never experienced such a chilly tide of disapproval as swept that room. Tom: So this was, this was after you played the "Limerock" or this was six years later in Laramie? Rebecca: No, it was after, was at the reception Tom: Uh-huh. Rebecca: -for that concert. It-it was a joke, I thought a harmless little quip. Tom: Mmhmm. Rebecca: But apparently to some people money is so important that you do not joke about it. Tom: Yeah. Rebecca: I don't know. It was a major social gaffe, that I just did not see coming and didn't understand after it had happened. �Tom: Well, that's really interesting. I'd like to, maybe if we could have another conversation, ask you some more about your departure from the symphony, and about your feeling of the symphony as an organ, as a institution over all that time. I mean, you were connected with it off and on for a long time. And that's really, that's rare. Rebecca: Sure. Tom: So if we could maybe talk more about some of those things. Rebecca: That’d be fine. Tom: Other time I don't 'cause I don't want to squish them up now and I know you have a lot more stories you could tell me too. So this stuff is really interesting. Thank you so much, and I'm learning so much that I didn't know, which is always fun. So thanks. Maybe off the tape we can talk about another time when we can both do this again. Rebecca: Yeah, I don't know how to end the meeting and keep us talking. I suppose you could call me. Tom: Yeah, why don't we? Or maybe just? Rebecca: To end the recording. I'm not sure how to stop the recording and continue the meeting. You want me to try? Alright, let me see. Recording… � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource WyoHistory.org Wyoming Symphony Orchestra Oral History Project Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-NC/1.0/">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-NC/1.0/</a> Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 2022-2023 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource WyoHistory.org; Rebecca Hein Language A language of the resource ENG Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context NCA 01.i.2022.02 Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound; Text Description An account of the resource Audio files and transcripts created and edited by Rebecca Hein and students at Casper College during an oral history project with players of the Wyoming Symphony Orchestra. The oral histories were conducted by Hein between 2022 and 2023 and are a part of Wyohistory.org publishing project. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Becky Hein Wyoming Symphony Orchestra Oral History Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-NC/1.0/">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-NC/1.0/</a> Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 2022-09-21 and 2022-09-26 Description An account of the resource Audio files and transcripts for oral history interview with Wyoming Symphony Orchestra player Becky Hein. These interviews were conducted on September 21 and September 26 or 2022. Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound; Text Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Becky Hein Language A language of the resource ENG Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. WyoHistory.org Wyoming Symphony Orchestra Oral History Project, NCA 01.i.2022.02 WyCaC US. Casper College Archives and Special Collections. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context NCA 01.i.2022.02_RebeccaHein Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource M4A; MP3; PDF https://caspercollege.cvlcollections.org/files/original/2000cd53caba56bd0b79e110b5ce19e7.m4a 783a2026026ea40f2ab214b8966cba82 https://caspercollege.cvlcollections.org/files/original/2d3504b05d9dcb116964680bb1056c4b.pdf 9f15302bd6b33c147797bc211cfc0ab2 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource WyoHistory.org Wyoming Symphony Orchestra Oral History Project Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-NC/1.0/">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-NC/1.0/</a> Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 2022-2023 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource WyoHistory.org; Rebecca Hein Language A language of the resource ENG Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context NCA 01.i.2022.02 Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound; Text Description An account of the resource Audio files and transcripts created and edited by Rebecca Hein and students at Casper College during an oral history project with players of the Wyoming Symphony Orchestra. The oral histories were conducted by Hein between 2022 and 2023 and are a part of Wyohistory.org publishing project. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Belinda Waldron Wyoming Symphony Orchestra Oral History Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 2023-03-21 Description An account of the resource Audio file and transcript for oral interview with Wyoming Symphony Orchestra player Belinda Waldron. This is interview was conducted by Rebecca Hein for Wyohistory.org on March 21, 2023. Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rebecca Hein; Belinda Waldron Language A language of the resource ENG Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. WyoHistory.org Wyoming Symphony Orchestra Oral History Project Files, NCA 01.i.2022.02 WyCaC US. Casper College Archives and Special Collections. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context NCA 01.i.2022.02_BelindaWaldron Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource M4A; PDF Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-NC/1.0/">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-NC/1.0/</a> https://caspercollege.cvlcollections.org/files/original/a13a25ca8ffc42cff3d322d9a7398d66.mp3 b0f0872f7c3ed9d48c1048f76b414d0c https://caspercollege.cvlcollections.org/files/original/8517d5d650ba4e2de4693d1c0e44e79f.pdf 2ca3a96783a2c0a2277a1ab6f24607c1 PDF Text Text Wyoming Symphony Oral History Project Rebecca Hein interviewing Carolyn Deuel, June 4, 2022 Date transcribed: July 11, 2022 Rebecca: Great, so can you still hear me? Carolyn: Yes, I can. Rebecca: Okay, thank you very much for giving your time today. Let’s start with your name and your instrument and a little bit about your musical background, how you came to play that instrument or those instruments. Then we’ll go from there. Carolyn: Okay, Carolyn Deuel and I play percussion in the symphony mostly mallets. I have a degree in piano from the University of Northern Colorado. A degree in organ from the University of Iowa and while I was at Iowa I took percussion from Tom Davis who was the head of percussion and actually a Casper native. And so, when I got done with my master’s I came back to Casper in the summer of 1976 and they were doing the musical 1776. Tom Kinser [Head of the Casper College music department, saxophone instructor, and conductor of the stage band, in the mid-1970s] was one of the ones knowing I took percussion at Iowa so he invited me to play in the city band, and when Curtis Peacock was looking for another percussionist for 1776 Tom sent him my way. Rebecca: Okay, can we backtrack a bit and can you explain exactly what mallet percussion is? Carolyn: Yes, it is a percussion that is playing keyboard type instruments, but you are playing them with mallets. Instead of your fingers like on piano or organ. That’s like the glockenspiel or bells, xylophone, the stand up chimes, the vibraphone and the marimba. But then I also play, when it’s needed naturally, things like triangle, claves and you know those kinds of things as well as bass drum. �Rebecca: Right. So the vibraphone and marimba it’s my understanding that those are larger versions of the xylophone? One with wood and one with metal? Carolyn: The marimba is wood and it has bigger keys or pieces of wood for the different pitches just like a piano has. Also bigger vibrating pieces of metal tube underneath, and it’s a more mellow sound. So, often the xylophone is a brittle sound and it will cut through things and marimba is more of a solo instrument. The vibraphone is totally metal keys and the thing that is different about it is it has a pedal like a piano so it’s the only one of the mallet instruments that has that feature and therefore, you can make the sound ring and mold different sounds together so it is a frequently used instrument to make ringing melodic sounds. Rebecca: Yeah, can you explain a little bit more in detail what the pedal does on the piano? So that we have a point of reference. Carolyn: The pedal, there are dampers on each of the strings the strings make the sound on a piano. There are dampers on the strings, so if you just play a piano note then the damper goes right back on the string and it stops the sound. But if you have the pedal on, then the dampers are raised and all the sounds you play will mush together until you release the damper pedal and stop the sound by having the dampers go back on the strings. Rebecca: Okay, thanks! Carolyn: Mhmm. Rebecca: Okay, okay I’ve got a question I don’t know if I asked it or not. What is mallet percussion exactly? Did I ask you that? Carolyn: Yeah, and I told you that they’re instruments that have keys like a piano like C, C#, D all of the different keys. But, you play them with mallets so you have a stick that you’re holding in your hand that has a ball on the other end of it and you strike the different notes with the �mallets. So, for most of those we’ve talked about you’ve got either a plastic or yarn head on the mallet that strikes so that naturally your not going to hit the vibraphone or the marimba with a hard mallet that’s going to damage the marimba or be too much of a brittle sound with the vibraphone. But, with the bells and with the xylophone you want a bright sound so those mallets are plastic or even when you are doing marching band or something where you really want the mallets then it’s a metal ball on the end that strikes the bell. Then with the chimes, the stand up chimes, you have a wooden thing that looks more like a hammer and so you strike the lip of the chimes with that. Rebecca: Okay, and I’m for some reason thinking about the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy and the Nutcracker— Carolyn: That is—that instrument is written for celeste [pronounced chell-essta] and in the old days with the symphony we had an actual [celeste] that looked like a teeny tiny grand piano. So that it had a lid that you lifted, it had two rows of metal tubes that stood up and then on the end a piece of metal that was hooked to the key it had a square block that would hit those and so they have a very special sound as you know, anyone who hears the Nutcracker, knows that sound of the Sugar Plum Fairy. But, it was a small instrument so there wasn’t the full range that I needed so I would have to play, you know bring the music down a octave to play within scope of that and now what they use is just a, go ahead and use a synthesizer a celeste sound on it. So you are playing it like a keyboard, like a piano. Rebecca: Ah, and in your opinion does the synthesizer really sound like an acoustic. Carolyn: I like the celeste better. And I’ll tell you what this past...Christmas when we were doing the Nutcracker just a suite from it. They really had trouble coming up with a sound they all liked and so it was a problem but they finally came up with one they accepted. �Rebecca: That’s rather interesting, personally I’ve always felt that synthesizers were never going to replace actual instruments and people— Carolyn: I’m with you. But unfortunately they’re cheaper and they stay in tune so a lot, a lot, a lot of people are using them, you know. Rebecca: Yeah, okay well I have to tell you this, maybe it will interest historical records but um. I was a freshman at the University of Wyoming and I was killing myself trying to learn to play the cello and it was so hard because I was still at the stage where I was struggling to play in tune and things like that. So one day I went into the sound lab. There was a guy there whose whole life was composing music on the synthesizer. I think I said something like, “Can you really compare what you’re doing to what I’m doing?” He knew I was a cello performance major and he said “Yeah” and I said, ‘How can you figure?” I was trying not to be adversarial but it was such a struggle to—a Carolyn: Oh boy— Rebecca: Learn to play the cello. He said, “Well I think it’s the same because I control everything this synthesizer does.” So he was saying he played it like anyone else plays an instrument. I went away from that conversation feeling really stunned because if there’s one thing I couldn’t do at that stage of my skills is control what the cello did. Carolyn: (laughing) Rebecca: It was a great conversation. Carolyn: That’s neat, very cool. Well you know the Shepherd of the Hills [Presbyterian church in Casper, Wyo.] just got a new organ and they are very proud of it because they, they had an instrument that wasn’t very good and what they did. [Inaudible] is the organist there and they got one that has samples from the different organs of the world. So, they invited the folks of us who �play the Bach’s Lunch concerts on the pipe organ at Saint Mark’s [Episcopal church in Casper, Wyo.] to play a recital there and it was fun! I played a Franck piece [Cesar Franck, 19th century French composer and pianist] with the French Cavaille Coll organ sound [Cavaille Coll was a 19th century French organ builder]. Those were special organs that had all kinds of different mechanisms to them. I used the samplings from that for the Franck. Then, I used an American organ for an American piece and it was fun to hear the difference, but still it's like you're hearing a recording, you know. And I don’t ever want to hurt their feelings but it isn’t the same as the pipe organ. Rebecca: Well, organs are a very difficult instrument in my opinion because where you have your hands it seems to me there is more than one keyboard. Is that right? Carolyn: Yes, and then you have the full pedal board too so you have your feet doing the third part you know. Rebecca: That’s why I think it’s difficult, almost as difficult as the double bass. Carolyn: Aha (laughter) Rebecca: Okay great. Okay, is there anything else you want to add about your background before we go onto your affiliation with symphony? Carolyn: No, I don’t think so. But I’m glad to get to tell the story about 1776 because that gave me an easy entrance into the symphony. It was the symphony that was doing the 1776 musical so by Kinser telling Curtis that I played percussion, and by my playing for him and doing an okay job in the musical. I’ve been in the symphony since 1976. Rebecca: Okay, and what instruments did you play in the 1776, in that musical? Carolyn: Well, that is the only time in my life that I ever played timpani. So he had a need for a person in the pit [orchestra pit, where musicians are grouped in an area lower than the stage] and �he could only have two performers so I mostly played bells. But, I did do a little bit of timpani because that was needed. So, I am trying to think, am I right? Was I playing or was Roger Cliff playing? I know that I was doing stuff that I hadn’t done before, and never did again. And I can’t play snare [snare drum] because I never learned it. So, it was mostly: bells, chimes, triangle, I don’t think there was tambourine in 1776. That's another instrument that’s a common one. Of course, it’s been a long time since I did that. Rebecca: Okay, for, for the historical record describe what a tambourine is. Carolyn: It's like a drum head with jingles on it, they're actually called jingles, and they’re pieces of metal that are on the sides. So the drum head is on a wooden frame and it has these metal pieces that clink together and make a jingly sound. Rebecca: So you hold the frame and you pat it? Carolyn: Shake it, you either shake it or you pat it. Yeah, you either hit it like a drum or you shake it. All the pop stars, pop bands, had people who would shake it or hit it on their knee and then come up and hit it on their hand. Rebecca: Okay, thank you Carolyn: huh Rebecca: Okay, is there anything you want to add about the various percussion instruments you have played before we go into your time with the symphony? Carolyn: No. Rebecca: Okay, so you joined the symphony in 1976. Carolyn: Right. Rebecca: And have you played in the symphony ever since? Carolyn: Yes. �Rebecca: Okay, and it’s my understanding, you referred to the timpani, that is a separate percussion instrument and you have a timpanist playing the timpani usually? Carolyn: In the Wyoming Symphony? Yes. There is one person who plays the timpani. And the rest of us cover the other things. Rebecca: Okay, but you have performed on the timpani before, and presumably could? Carolyn: Just a fraction. No, in fact let’s erase that and pretend I never played the timpani. Rebecca: Okay. Carolyn: Okay, (laughter) Rebecca: They have to be tuned, there’s three of them and they all have to be tuned, right? Carolyn: They’re up to five and they do have to be tuned. They have a pedal on them that has several pitches so you have to tune. Each one has a range of about a fifth, about five notes. So then, you have bigger to smaller with different pitches and then by what is needed in a given piece that says how many and by the technique of it. For instance, a lot of pieces that use—let’s say you are playing in the key of C, you would use the pedal in a G [A musical “key” means the note on which the scale is built, that in turn, the piece is based on]. And if there is a lot of time to move, if you needed an A or a D or an F or something else you could change the tuning on it. But if it’s fast notes where you have to go quickly then you would add a third one to be able to play more pitches or a fourth one or a fifth one. So, it depends on the range of the notes and how fast everything is. Rebecca: Now, that makes sense. Okay soCarolyn: Because each one can just play one note at a time. You knowRebecca: Yeah right, yeah because I am trying to make sure this is clear to the listener. Because each individual drum as it were, that is probably the wrong word for timpani- �Carolyn: No, their other name is kettle drum. So it is fine to call it timpani and drum. Rebecca: Yeah, it can only have one pitch so it's the equivalent of having a keyboard instrument with only four keys or five depending on how many drums you have. Carolyn: Right, then with your foot of course you can change them quickly. You know, but again you have to be sure it's in tune and it just depends on how many fast notes you have and things. Rebecca: Yeah that makes sense. Okay, so I was sitting here doing the math you’ve been playing in the symphony for more than 45 years, 46 to be exact, is that right? Carolyn: Right. Rebecca: Have you played every concert? Carolyn: No, and the reason for that is that the composers don’t always write us in. Rebecca: That is very true come to think of it. Carolyn: So we rarely play January concerts for the symphony because they usually do a smaller group of musicians and they often do classical music. And if there is any percussion it is usually just timpani. Now, Mozart once in a while would use triangle or something but generally the bigger use of percussion didn’t come in until the Romantic composers in the 1800s. Rebecca: Yeah, let’s back up and just clarify the term classical, because you and I know what it means but it’s not generally known that there's basically two meanings of the word or two connotationsCarolyn- Right, so when I’m talking about the classical literature of a symphony. I’m talking about the classical era of literature that went from 1750 to about 1810, and the main composers were Mozart and Haydn and the start of Beethoven. Rebecca: Yeah, Okay great. Okay so- of all the concerts you have played with the symphony can you describe a few that were more memorable than others? �Carolyn: I’m trying to think. In the early days we did more with the [Casper] Civic Chorale. So the performances of the Verdi Requiem and the Brahms Requiem [Latin text of the Catholic Mass for the Dead set to music] were very special times and the fun part for me was that I had also done those pieces in Mexico with the Civic Chorale with the Wyoming State Choir actually. Um, we had done the Verdi Requiem and I had done the Brahms Requiem at the University of Iowa. So they were pieces I knew and had sung and enjoyed. [Giuseppe Verdi, 19th century Italian composer] Rebecca: That always makes it easier. Carolyn: Yeah, and fun you know. Um, let’s see another one. ArtCore [Arts organization in Casper, Wyo.] did “Visas for Life” and it was in collaboration with Mariko Miller who was an Honorary Consul General of Japan. And her father was in the Japanese consulate at Washington D.C. when World War II was about to happen. He tried to avert that but there was nothing that could stop it. But her name, she was five at the time, her name was a code name. One day she was sitting at the table eating lunch and feeling perfectly fine and she heard her dad say ‘Mariko is under the weather today’. And of course it had nothing to do with her sitting there, it had to do with whatever message he was trying to pass on. So, in Casper then she was able to get another great story that happened in World War II. There were people in Lithuania, there was a Japanese ambassador to Lithuania. He woke up one day and there was sound outside and it turned out that there were many many hundreds of Jews that were trying to get to safety. To be able to get out of Lithuania they needed passports from the Japanese consulate, and they needed to be able to get on trains and get out of the country to safety. He had many wires with the Japanese government and they would not allow him to do it. So he was sitting there with all these people needing his help and not getting help from his government, and he finally decided he was going to sign them �anyway. He signed well over 2,000 [passports] and in that time span the passport was made to the woman of the family. So they don’t really know how many that covered, but he was still signing them. He was recalled to Japan and he was still signing them out the window of the train as he was having to leave. But she [Mariko] was able to bring the son of that ambassador and his wife to Casper and the symphony and the Civic Chorale and the school system all worked together and did this concert. And they had a talk and a film from that family. Symphony played Fanfare for the Common Man [by American composer Aaron Copland] and then I don’t remember what else but we started with that and you know the only percussion in that is bass drum and timpani and then it’s brass players. So I got to play the bass drum and it was a very powerful thing. The school system had essay contests and the winners of those contests were honored on stage that night at that concert. The Civic Chorale sang, the symphony played and it was wonderful. Rebecca: So Fanfare for the Common man is a piece by Aaron CoplandCarolyn: Yes, yesRebecca: Okay well that’s really interesting. Um, I want to jump over to various pieces you may have sung and or played in. I wanted to ask you about Beethoven’s Ninth. Have you sung in a choir for that? Carolyn: I have, it was fun. Various times there would be concerts that would be different literature you would have. So with Beethoven’s Ninth I actually just sang, but there were other concerts where we would sing, like Messiah [An oratorio (composition for small orchestra, soloists and choir) by George Friedrich Handel, German-British composer of the late 17th and early 18th centuries] but they would have more literature for the concert and I would get to, like, to play in the first half and sing in the second half. That was a lot of fun. But, with Beethoven’s �Ninth it’s very [inaudible] that we are talking about this right now because they [the Wyoming Symphony Orchestra] are getting ready to do it on October 8th. I will not be singing, but in the old days we had risers that had chairs so we could sit. Beethoven’s Ninth is written so it is 70 minutes of music and the choir sings only the last fifteen. So, you have the problem of what are you going to do? Are you going to make the choir stand there for 70 minutes? Or for 55 minutes? So in the old days with the seated risers it was no problem at all we could sit and totally enjoy the symphony and then stand and do our part when it was time. Then, somebody trashed those risers and another time we sang we were backstage and we were allowed to just come on for the fourth movement. It was very crowded because it was the Civic Chorale and College choirs so it’s not a comfortable thing to sing just because of the physical problem of it. We were squeezed onto risers. You could barely hold your music out and so it is not a favorite of chorale people, of a lot of us. We like it better when we are included in more of it and really are half of the show, but what’s going to happen in the fall is the chorale is- any of the chorale that wants to join the college choir will do that and will be rehearsing it separately. But there are a lot of us, about ten of us, that sit for performances. I actually sit when I play for symphony, most of the time I have a stool that I use. So, I am 70 years old and the only thing I cannot do is stand for a long time. So the word has come down that we won’t be able to have any chairs like we do at chorale concerts, so people will be standing for the fifteen minutes and I am not going to be there. But a lot of the people will enjoy doing it. They are going to allow them to come on just for the fourth movement and I haven’t really clocked how long but it will be a little longer than the fifteen minutes generally. At least they don’t have to stand for the 70. Rebecca: Yeah, another question I have. This comes from having had some voice performance major friends in college. They always explained to me that the human voice is a very delicate �instrument, it needs to be handled with care so that you’re warming up and not exceeding your range and not singing too loud and so on is all very important. I have always wondered how the choir and the soloists could manage sitting there through the first three movements and part of the fourth movement before they have to start singing. It must be very hard on the voice, is that true? Carolyn: Well you know there is a difference between someone with the voices you are talking about- possibly a little more delicate. It's like we are generally run of the mill singers for the most part so- it's not that bad. You will have warmed up a little bit beforehand but it’s not like when you have the whole group around you you're not really having to strain. I mean yes you are full voice when you get to the fortissimo [loudest] sections and everything but it's not really that bad. The vocalists you are speaking with probably have maybe more delicate voices in terms of what they need to be doing in a solo capacity. But you know if you are at a party or something like that and then you decide- oh let’s do some sing-a-longs people can sing and for the generals one’s of us it is not that hard on our voices. Rebecca: I see, so the four soloists don't really have any protective cover; their warmup that they did before the piece will last them. Carolyn: They probably have--you can warm your vocal cords up by doing kind of a humming or an ‘n’ sound so they probably know what will work for them to be able to keep their throats warm and their vocal cords a little bit stimulated. So I guess it’s probably the people that can sing after sitting there for that long that are going to succeed as soloists because they don’t have the benefit of being able to baby themselves. Rebecca: And it makes sense that there are probably lots of places where the orchestra is playing loud enough where they could do a bit of humming and never be heard. �Carolyn: Exactly. Rebecca: Well that is very interesting, to an instrumentalist all I know is suddenly they are having to sing and they didn’t get to warm up. That must be- the only thing that would be harder would be singing in a seven hour Wagner opera. Carolyn: (laughter) For sure. Rebecca: Okay, well great let’s see I am trying to cross out the questions as you answer them so I don’t ask them twice. Oh- You referred to the Messiah let’s go back to that and say a little more about it. Who it’s by, what it is, and why it’s significant. Carolyn: Okay well its actual title although I’ve seen printed other copies is accepted I think among the musicologists it is just called ‘Messiah’ rather than ‘The Messiah’ but Messiah. But Handel is the composer he was born the same year as Bach 1685 and he was in Germany but then he went to England and Bach stayed in Germany and there were various times when they could have met and I think they chose not to. (laughter) Because there isn’t any reason they couldn’t have crossed paths. [Audio cuts out 32:52-32:55] Carolyn: Hi, my screen went funny for a minute and then came back. Can you still hear me? Rebecca: Yeah, I can hear you. Great. And- the recording is still going. Carolyn: Very good, okay so. One story is the King was sort of snoozing and the piece finished and his wife jabbed him. And he was so startled that he stood up, and when the King stood up everyone stood up. So it has become a tradition that everyone stands for the Hallelujah chorus which is the end of Messiah. Rebbecca: It is the end of the Christmas part of the Messiah. �Carolyn: Exactly, and when people are only doing the Easter part they still do the Hallelujah chorus because of course that is the most popular piece from this work. Rebecca: Right. Carolyn: But the people from this- whether you are doing the Easter section or the Christmas section or the whole thing you end with the Hallelujah chorus and people generally stand up. But, it was kind of an accident in the first place. Rebecca: That’s a great story. Okay and the thing that I think is kind of interesting about the Messiah is it is one of the few choral pieces where the libretto [the words that go with the music] was originally in English. Carolyn: Right. Rebecca: I mean you look at the Brahms Requiem and that libretto is presumably in German? Carolyn: Right. Rebecca: And Verdi Requiem is in Italian, I assume and Carolyn: Right, but see Handel was in England. Rebecca: He is basically considered a British composer, I think. Carolyn: Yeah and so- so that’s why it was in English. Rebecca: Yeah, well cool. Carolyn: But of course he started over in Germany. Rebecca: Yeah, okay let’s see. We’ve gone over what instruments you play as a percussionist and you have described them. You have defined mallet percussion. We have clarified what you meant by classical music. Oh, you referred to ArtCore. Can you say a little more about ArtCore? What it is and what it does? �Carolyn: Sure- sure- we made up the name ArtCore from Art Coordinating Representatives. And so it was very strange when we went to get a web address. We tried to get just plain ‘Art Core’ and someone in England had gotten that name 17 years before that. So what we had to do was use ‘Artcorewy.com’ for our website because by adding the Wyoming part- and of course it’s worked out well because it lets people know where we are. But anyway, we made it up and someone else had it. So what we do is to present concerts for student and community audiences. For instance, when we had the ‘Fire Ants’ which is a group from Buffalo, Wyoming this spring they actually worked with the students at Kelly Walsh [high school in Casper, Wyo.] and worked with band, orchestra and choral students they all came together. Then the day of the concert we had a 12:45 session that students could bus in and homeschool families could come to. So, by having a general place they can come we can provide for all the schools. And then, they do a 45 minute program that incorporates part of their performance but also they talk about what inspired them to take up music and working hard enough to become professionals. Frequently the message that they give the children is, find something you are really good at and pursue it. It doesn’t matter if it’s music whatever it is but really make your best efforts to excel. Then they do standard evening concerts that are open to the public, and we have- not every artist does that but a majority of them do. For instance, for 22-23 our first concert is going to be Riders in the Sky which is very popular in this western town. And they do the western music like Roy Rogers and they’ll only do a concert so they don’t have outreach with theirs. Another one that we have is Urabe Mexicano. Casper has a Fiesta WYO on Labor Day Weekend on that Saturday and this is a group from the San Diego area, that’s a Mexican group, and it is a free concert to draw people in from the community. And so- because it is Labor Day Weekend we do not have school outreach with that because school is not in session. The other thing that would be of interest �maybe besides doing the concerts. We do a rotation of competitions. We have a new music competition that is for composers in Wyoming and they can write for up to eight performers up to twenty minutes and we help mount the concert the next year for the winner. That alternates with the one act play competition and official arts competition. And within our presenting series which is about forty to thirty-five shows a year we do championing of our local performers and state performers as well as bringing in Riders in the Sky, Tenors Unlimited from England so a wide variety. Every summer we do a music and poetry session so we include the written word by having a musician and a band and a writer for each of four week and the fifth week it is a musician and open mic for writers. And, I am the executive director of that group. Rebecca: Well, I have noticed that ArtCore does a very wide variety of things. They present a wide variety of types of music and artists which kind of characterizes ArtCore in my mind. Carolyn: And that is why it is interesting when we do surveys because we find that we have a lot of different audiences. We have people who will only come to the locals. You know they come to the Tremors and to the different ones with the local performers. And then we have the people who are really tied into dance, and we present dance every year. This next year we will have Soul Street Dance which are street dancers from Houston who are fabulous. We will have Rory Woodbury which is a modern company from Salt Lake and we will have Chicago tap Theater which includes live instrumentalists and tap dancers on stage for the concert. All of those will be doing a lot of outreach with master classes, school shows, and Soul Street even goes to the juvenile detention unit. Rebecca: Okay, that is all very enlightening. I didn't know that you guys did all that. Okay I want to jump back just quickly. You said Kelly Walsh, let’s just clarify, that is the high school on the east side of Casper. �Carolyn: Correct. Rebecca: Okay, well let’s see do you have anything to add and or- maybe I asked you this already I don’t have the question written down or crossed out. The high point of your time with the symphony. You have been playing with the symphony for- I did the math here, for more than 45 years, 46 years. Does any concert jump out at you as being the absolute most transcendent, fun, inspiring experience of your musical life? Carolyn: (laughter) Oh my, well it has been a joy to do all of them. I think the two that I told you about are probably the. You know the Visas for Life was very very special that we were able to do that and then it was a lot of fun to play in the musical- you know. I played violin in orchestra when I was in high school before my wrist wrecked up and so I had played in Camelot and Carnival and I am trying to think of what the other one was. But, 1776 is the only one I got to play percussion in and that was a lot of fun. Rebecca: Okay, is there anything else you would like us to know about your involvement with the Casper Symphony or the Wyoming Symphony? Or whatever various names it has had over the years. Carolyn: no just that it is tremendously exciting to get to be on stage and to be part of symphonic music. You know it is just- to be on the stage and be embroiled with the sweep of the sound you wish that the audience could be there with you. And it is much better now that NCHS, Natrona County High School, its stage has been redone because it has a lot better sound with the orchestra pulled out to the front. It used to be that the sound would go up into the catwalk and not go out into the people like you wish it would. So the sound is much better, but it is never the same as being in the middle of it. �Rebecca: It is interesting to hear you say that, describing what it is like to be in the middle of the sound. I know it is something I have always treasured about playing in an orchestra. So you are on the very periphery of the orchestra playing in the percussion section but you still have that experience of being immersed apparently. Carolyn: Yes, see I am lucky because they usually put me in front so I am very close to the harp and the piano and I often have similar parts. So I am very much in with that part of the orchestra. Jane Hammond and I are often side by side a lot of times and Kathy Williams on piano and then other-. You know, it is possible that the drum set might be beside me but a lot of times the snare players and gong and others like that are either beside me or in back of me. So I really do get to be part of the main part. Rebecca: Have you ever been called upon to play piano? As a percussionist in the symphony? Carolyn: Yes, there was a time when Betsy Taggart was actually the symphony pianist but she was doing a solo piece with us and so I got to cover the other parts she would have played if she were just playing the symphony. So that was fun. Rebecca: Well you have to have so many skills and know so many things to play percussion in an orchestra it seems to meCarolyn: (laughter) Rebecca: It’s not like me with the cello where all I have to do is hold the bow and move my fingers. You know that is a big job but it is only one instrument. And only one line of music, so. Carolyn: Sure, but but- what you are doing for the most part- I mean you may have a four part chord or something but generally what you are doing is reading the melody of a piano piece. Or say the left hand part if you are playing in some things if you are accompanying a woodwind instrument or something. The fact is, compared to what I read on piano or organ, the reading part �of it is very easy for me. Now, for everybody- just like I didn’t learn snare theoretically percussion people when they are coming up through school they learn all the different percussion instruments. They play cymbals, they play snare, they play bells and stuff. But I found a lot of times when the scores come to us that we use for a given concert. A bell part will have every note written in. So that says to me that it is someone that does not easily read and you know, sothe skill level of a mallet percussionist coming from piano and organ world is far greater than coming from the percussion world. And there was another fun concert in Laramie that was a celebration of- I think a concert of the opening of the Civic Center. Excuse me, I meant to say Cheyenne. It was in Cheyenne and they invited people from the different symphonies to come. So there were five of us in percussion that were going and the principal percussionist divided up parts. It was very scary for me because I was supposed to play a snare part, which I couldn’t do. But, instead of telling him I waited until I got there and then the group of percussionists were meeting and I said, ‘I don’t play this, I can’t do this.’ and somebody else said, ‘man I was really worried about a mallet part.’ So we switched and we were in great shape. Rebecca: (laughter) That is a great story. Carolyn: (laughter) And we got to play not only some separate literature but we got to play some pieces with Ballet Wyoming and that stage was big enough that they could have our symphonic group and then a screen that was projecting some images and then the dancers in front of that. So that was very cool. Rebecca: Okay, let’s back up you used the word snare. Can you define that a little better? Carolyn: Snare instrument is a drum that has some pieces of metal attached to the bottom and they can either be on or off. If they are on then it is the rattling sound you hear when people are doing any of the marches for military things or to accompany the Star Spangled Banner. Or it is �the general sound you hear with drums that are played with two sticks that just play evenly on the drum head. If you don’t have them then it just kind of thuds more like a standard drum but with the snares on it is the more rattly, higher pitched sound that everybody would know from marches and the anthem. Rebecca: Okay, let’s go back to the piano for a minute and clarify. The right hand is the hand that usually plays the tune and the left hand is- usually but not always- is that right? Carolyn: That’s right, there are pieces written to highlight your left hand or something you know but generally the right hand is more like the sopranos in a choir. It's doing the melody. Rebecca: Okay, and left hand is playing chords whether all together orCarolyn: Individual notes. Right. Rebecca: Now I want to go back to something you said about every note being written out. The implication being that if a person had a higher skill level they would just need chords indicated? Carolyn: No, it’s just a matter of- it’s just a matter of when I read piano or organ music like organ music I am reading two hands and feet. And on piano I might have all ten of my fingers busy. But generally with the mallet instruments you are playing a melody note that would be on the- it is just one note that you are reading at [a] time. So I am not reading full compositions where the piano is trying to be the full orchestra. Instead you are just reading one line. In a lot of the European scores they would write just one instrument’s notes. So just like what you have for cello. You have a single line right? Rebecca: Right. Carolyn: And that is what the mallet instruments would have for the most part. But if you look at piano music we may have four or five notes that we are playing at once. Rebecca: Right. �Carolyn: So it’s just that you have a single line that you are reading. Rebecca: Okay, I want to ask you about attitudes. You are a percussionist and I am wondering if either from your fellow musicians or from non-musicians if you have encountered a stereotype that percussionists are a little bit dim witted and that they don’t really need the same level of skill that a string player or something like that would need. Do you run into that attitude? Carolyn: I have not, the thing I have noticed about percussionists and I think we all realize is that there are a lot of people, especially people who are drummers, who are always their fingers are moving, they are always doing rhythms. You always figure they were doing that from the time they were little kids on their mom’s pots and pans in the kitchen. But when they are just sitting waiting between pieces, or something like that, they will have music going through their head and they will be doing rhythms. So I think of the drummers as kind of being engaged in and thinking about music all the time, and if I see someone doing that- out in public. I tend to think that they may be a drummer but I don’t- the only thing I have noticed is that people will kid us about being paid by the note. Rebecca: (laughter) Carolyn: Because of course we don’t have as many as the string people and so- I don’t know if you knew Leah Sprague but she played flute and then went to piccolo and she had rheumatoid arthritis and in the later years she couldn’t hold the flute. But anyway, when she was playing piccolo we did a piece and I had a triangle ding and then I had 82 measures [rest] and then I had another triangle ding and then I had a hundred and some measures and then I had another and that is what I had for the piece. I found out later, after the concert, that she was waiting for my second triangle ding to be her cue for an entrance and I said, ‘My gosh! What if I missed it?’ and she said, ‘Well you didn’t’ (laughter) you know but I could have! �Rebecca: [Inaudible] Carolyn: For sure, but so- then an example of what happened you know we just premiered a piece in March that was a suffragette piece for I am trying to remember the woman’s first name but her last name was Boyles. She did some traveling around Wyoming and she studied some history and then she did this work that we presented. I was told when we got the assignments that I didn’t have an assignment for that piece. Then it turned out that she had written the bass drum part that Ron Colter was playing so that it went immediately to a snare part and he didn’t have time to put down the bass drum mallet and pick up the snare sticks. So he let me know that they needed me for that section. The stage was crowded so if you see the recording of it you can just see my head in the back behind the bass drum because I was sitting beside the risers and right behind the bass drum. I was squishing in my shoulder as he was playing the bass drum and I was needed for exactly seven measures. But, it was loud bass drum playing fast notes and it couldn’t be covered any other way than to pull one person while the other did that… isn’t that insane. Rebecca: Mhmm, and the snare is played with wooden drum sticks. Is that right? Carolyn: That’s right, sometimes they have plastic tips but they are basically wood. Rebecca: Well, I have to tell you something that happened to me when I was at music camp at UW when I was in high school. We had a percussionist that was doing a demonstration or a performance for us or something and he asked us how many of us thought percussion didn’t take very much skill or that percussionists were second class musicians and so on. And a lot of us raised our hands. He is sitting up there with a trap set and I’m thinking maybe you should describe to the listener what is involved in a trap set. Carolyn: Okay, it has a bass drum that is controlled with your foot so you are hitting the beater on that by depressing a pedal with your foot. Then it has a snare drum like we have been talking �about that has the rattly sound and it often has a tom drum which has a non-rattle sound. That is just a general drum sound but it is higher than the bass drum that you hit with your foot and then it has cymbals. In this case the cymbals are a plate of metal that is on a stand and they are moveable; they are just hooked to the stand at one point. Then when you hit them with a drum stick they sizzle and they make a neat sound, but as opposed to the crash cymbals you would be hearing with the National Anthem and you hear snare and bass drum and cymbals all together. These are free standing so the person who is drumming the snare can lift his stick and hit the cymbal at any given beat. Frequently they will have two cymbals so you will have different sounds. So you are a one man band with being able to play the snare sound, the regular drum sounds and the cymbals. Rebecca: And the cymbals the way you are describing them, they ring until theyCarolyn: Until you stop them, that’s right. So what did this guy do with the trap set? Rebecca: Oh well he said; ‘Okay, do this with your foot’ and he showed us what he did with his foot. ‘Do this with your other foot’ and he showed us what he did with the other footCarolyn: Because you can do cymbals with your feet too. Rebecca: Yep, ‘Do this with your right hand and do this with your left hand’ and we very quickly discovered that was a lot harder than we thought it was. So kind of put us in our places. Carolyn: Excellent! And I was in a brass and percussion class at Greeley where we were learning a little bit about all the different instruments. So, we were trying out trap set and I was doing okay and the teacher was impressed until they told him I was an organ major. Rebecca: (laughter) Carolyn: At which point he said; ‘Well you should be able to have all your appendages work.’ Both: (laughter) �Rebecca: Well at least when you play organ you don’t have to play with your toes, just your two feet. Carolyn: You actually play toe and heel to play the black notes and the white notes Rebecca: Ah, so it’s basically the ball of the foot and the heel of the foot. Carolyn: Right so, we frequently wear tap shoes because they have got about an inch heel on them and that lets our ankle leverage to let us go toe-heel-toe-heel along the keys. So even our toes happen on the white keys, not just the black ones but you are basically walking along or dancing along the pedal board. Rebecca: Boy, playing an entire organ recital must require quite a lot of stamina in the legs. Carolyn: It does, it really does. You know it is funny I had a roommate at Iowa that was a theater major and we were not friends the first semester. Then she decided we should be friends, she was a very strange person but she could never understand why I would be tired after I had practiced organ for a couple hours. Until she finally went to an organ recital and then she got it. Rebecca: Yeah, I would imagine so. Carolyn: (laughter) Rebecca: Okay, is there anything else you want to tell us about involvement with the symphony. Carolyn: Um, no I just think that it’s a wonderful part of Casper that we have had such a history of music. Because they count- the City Band has played every year except the Covid year since 1888. The [Wyoming] Symphony when they count the years that we are playing, we are 70 years old from World War II. But there was a symphony that came before us but they quit for the war and they don’t count those years. So you know the people that we bring in from ArtCore are just totally amazed that we have the symphony and if they happen to be in town and they go to a symphony [concert] they are astounded by the quality of it. And they are amazed that we have �had amazing music teachers in the schools. And student ensembles [groups]. Another neat concert was when they included the string players with the symphony and we had 50 string players from the secondary schools that played in with the symphony for a couple pieces. But you know people don’t know what Casper is and then they come in and they find out what all is going on here and they are astounded. Rebecca: Yeah, that is not surprising. Okay well I really appreciate you giving your time today toCarolyn: Well I thank you forRebecca: Share your experience in the symphony. Carolyn: Well it is nice to be asked and it is very nice to visit with you and hear your stories. Rebecca: Okay, well thanks again and good luck with everything you are doing with ArtCore. Carolyn: Thank you very much good luck with this project and everything you are doing. Rebecca: Thank you Carolyn. Bye. Carolyn: Bye, Bye. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource WyoHistory.org Wyoming Symphony Orchestra Oral History Project Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-NC/1.0/">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-NC/1.0/</a> Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 2022-2023 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource WyoHistory.org; Rebecca Hein Language A language of the resource ENG Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context NCA 01.i.2022.02 Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound; Text Description An account of the resource Audio files and transcripts created and edited by Rebecca Hein and students at Casper College during an oral history project with players of the Wyoming Symphony Orchestra. The oral histories were conducted by Hein between 2022 and 2023 and are a part of Wyohistory.org publishing project. Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data MP3 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Carolyn Deuel Wyoming Symphony Orchestra Oral History Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-NC/1.0/">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-NC/1.0/</a> Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 2022-06-04 Description An account of the resource Audio file and transcript for oral history interview with Wyoming Symphony Orchestra player Carolyn Deuel. This interview was conducted by Rebecca Hein for Wyohistory.org on June 4, 2022. Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Becky Hein; Carolyn Deuel Language A language of the resource ENG Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. WyoHistory.org Wyoming Symphony Orchestra Oral History Project, NCA 01.i.2022.02 WyCaC US. Casper College Archives and Special Collections. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context NCA 01.i.2022.02_Carolyn_Deuel_6-4-22_Compressed Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource MP3 https://caspercollege.cvlcollections.org/files/original/e39349ce7277d03f485db19a1d87e60a.mp3 5314eebd91fff324db76c8a78aba57dc https://caspercollege.cvlcollections.org/files/original/c2e54f6d26f2580d05a657769719b115.pdf 3705444970af5c3d2fa30b4208cadcf5 PDF Text Text Wyoming Symphony Oral History Project Rebecca Hein interviewing Dale Bohren, May 18, 2022 Date transcribed: September 13, 2022 Rebecca: Hello. Dale: Good morning. Rebecca: Okay thanks a lot for your patience here, we’re only half an hour late. Dale: Well, it’s a tech world you know. Rebecca: Yup. Okay so, let me collect my thoughts here. Let’s start with your name and your instrument, and how you came to play that instrument, and other sundry items of information about your musical background. Dale: Okay. My name is Dale Dale, B-O-H-R-E-N, of course D-A-L-E. I am a string bass player and I began to play the string bass when I was in fifth grade at Park School [in Casper, Wyoming]. [Blaine] Coolbaugh was the school teacher there and he had a meeting with all the kids and he wanted everybody to play the violin. I said I don’t really want to play the violin, I want to play the bass. He said I don’t have a bass. And I said okay, well, I really don’t wanna play the violin. Anyway, later that day when we were at recess he was driving a Cadillac. And a big Cadillac. And he came in- the teachers used to drive across the playground to get to where they’d park. And so we were at recess, the place is crawling with kids like ants. And through the ant pile comes Blaine Coolbaugh in his Cadillac with a string bass neck [the neck of a stringed instrument is the narrow part that extends above the upper part of the body] out of the window and he gave me this string bass and said your mom’s gonna have to come pick you up. Anyway, [he] gave me this string bass, and my mother said uh-uh, so I had to carry that bass home that night. I was really thrilled to do it, just thought it was such a cool thing. And it was. �Rebecca: I’ll tell you, speaking as a cellist, I’ve never understood why anybody would want to play an instrument so difficult, and unwieldy physically, as the bass. You gotta be shifting ... [approximately] every two notes, don’t you? [Shifting is the string instrumentalist’s term for moving the hand up or down the fingerboard to reach pitches that are out of the reach of the hand wherever it happens to be.] Dale: Yeah, sure do. Rebecca: And you think that's cool, don’t you? Dale: Well, I liked the sound. I liked the feel of it. And they were telling me I had to play the violin and I was just contrary enough to say nuh-uh. Rebecca: Well just between you and me, I think it’s really hard to make a violin sound good because the upper registers tend to be screechy and that’s just really hard. It’s like [being] a soprano [vocalist]. Dale: Yeah. Well, it was a good decision for me. I’ve had a good life playing string bass. Rebecca: Do you think you've had more opportunities because you’re a bass player as opposed to some other, with the exception of viola maybe, other string instruments Dale: I don’t know, you know. I sure have had a lot of opportunity, I played you know, in country bands, and I played for the Royal Lipizzan Stallions because I could read [read music]. Other instruments played that, but I also got to play blues, I’ve been able to play jazz. Of course, classical orchestras, pit orchestras, theater’s my favorite. But I gotten to play in a lot of those styles and I don't it’s cause I’m a bass player but certainly they all have bass. And in Wyoming the pool is kind of limited and so I’ve gotten a lot of opportunity just by being here. Rebecca: And you’re talking now about just acoustic string bass, right, not electric bass? Dale: Right. �Rebecca: Yeah. Well, that’s really cool. Okay, so that’s some of your background, now let’s go to probably, Youth Symphony would have been your path into Civic Symphony? Dale: No, because I ... got introduced into the Casper Civic Symphony really early. I think Blaine Coolbaugh who was my grade school teacher was also at one time the orchestra conductor. Anyway, we lived near NCHS [Natrona County High School] and rode our bikes, my brother David and I, we were, I don’t know, like a couple of mealy worms in that neighborhood, we were just everywhere and always moving. And we had gotten two Sting-ray bicycles, Schwinn Sting-rays- we worked, we worked, we worked, and we bought these bicycles and were at NCHS and I’ll never forget it because we were driving our bikes around the front of NCHS, there was a lot of concrete, a lot of open space, we’d made a ramp, we could jump our bikes and all. And there were people going into the auditorium through the stage door carrying instruments and I saw a guy carrying a string bass in. And of course like I said, I was kind of attracted to that instrument and saw some other people that kinda looked familiar. Anyway, we snuck in through that door and watched the orchestra play years before I was ever invited to play, and then so I was watching the orchestra and just thought it was pretty cool. And then I did get into the Youth Symphony through the school district when we were playing and I did get to play. But Bob Bovie was my high school music teacher and he and Rex Eggleston [head of the public school music programs at the time] got me into the symphony, I think. And I played next to, the principal [principal bass] was Joe… let me think of his name here… Rebecca: Corrigan. Dale: Yeah, Joe Corrigan. What a wonderful guy. Just a happy, happy spirited guy. And he was like oh it doesn’t matter if you can’t play, but you know what he said, I don’t play every [note] �now and again. Anyway, so I got to play in the orchestra because they needed a bass player. And I was probably in high school at that point. Rebecca: Yeah. So that was Youth Symphony- no, that was Civic Symphony. Dale: It was Civic Orchestra. But I’d already been playing in the Youth Symphony some I thinkRebecca: Right. Dale: I mean we’d been on some tours. There was the orchestra at school, of course, it wasn’t a— they weren’t great. Rebecca: No. We were in the same school orchestra at NCHS cause you went to Casper College a year early, is that right? Dale: Mhm. Rebecca: Well, I’ve concluded that playing the bass is a matter of temperament. Some people are attracted to it and some people aren't. Dale: Yeah. Rebecca: Okay so, that’s your background. Now let’s go into your experiences with the symphony. The Civic Symphony or the Wyoming Symphony or what- Casper or whatever it became. And if you want to intersperse your experiences as manager, that’s fine. The cool stories you have from your years as manager are really worth telling, so just go ahead. Dale: Well I got the opportunity to play in the Casper Civic Symphony and you know it was initially way over my head but I just really thought it was…what a cool sound and getting to stand there and look at all those different sounds being made and put together into a piece and crafted. I played in the orchestra a little bit when Ed Marty [Edmund Marty, brass instructor at Casper College] was the conductor. Not so much played in it, as got to go hang out around. And I don't know if you remember Ed Marty, his daughter Zoe was a bass player too. �Rebecca: Right. Dale: And Ed was just really… I mean he was really a fine French hornist and a good musician and I think he looked at the students as potential, I guess. Anyway, he allowed me to come and hang around there and when the orchestra was playing. Like I said, we were in the neighborhood. So I got to do that. When I started playing in the orchestra really seriously was when I was in high school, Curtis Peacock moved to town. I got to take some lessons from Curtis Peacock and it just kinda opened up the world for me of string bass playing cause he talked about concepts and it wasn’t just okay put the bow here and draw the string here. He talked about how those things worked and how you made sounds and about shapes of notes and how, making music as opposed to playing notes and all those things I just thought were really intriguing and really caught fire in me. So when he came to town I started playing much better and started paying attention, I guess, you know. Before, we were just part of a pack of people that were being taught and so maybe we played in tune and maybe we didn’t. Maybe they knew who was, who wasn’t. I don’t know but became very in tuned to how to play more musically and better and join the symphony and then became very serious about trying to play those pieces and then eventually under Curtis’s—Curtis was the- also the symphony conductor as well as the [string instrument] instructor at Casper College—and I played better and better and I did win a scholarship to go to the Congress of Strings in Los Angeles and Congress of Strings was produced by the musician’s union- nationally. The National Federation of Musicians. And they used to have meetings; it was down in the basement below the drugstore on 2nd St- the Tripeny Drugstore. They had a little office there, and a man by the name of Kelly Walsh was the leader of the union, the musician’s union, which I’ve always thought was kind of funny because of course there’s a high school here named after Kelly Walsh, and later on I came to know that he was a very strict principal, but he �was also a really fun musician. I don’t know what he played, maybe clarinet or something. But anyway, he was the president of the union and I won a scholarship to go to the Congress of Strings, and you might have gotten to do that too back thenRebecca: I did, I was lucky enough to do it in Seattle, you guys had to get used to L.A. right? Dale: Yeah, we went to Los Angeles. Rebecca: Yeah. Dale: And my dad allowed me to drive the car out there, I don’t know how old I was, pretty young. And so I took a car with a string bass out there. I was very popular because I was the only one with a car. Rebecca: Ugh, yes. Dale: I was pretty shy at that time in my life. But anyway, I got to study with Ring Warner from the Chicago Symphony for that period of time. Met just some incredibly good musicians. I did okay. But it was a real eye-opener to see the quality of music that people were playing, people our age. So I got to do that, and eventually I did become the principal of the string bass section in Casper with Curtis. I had a couple of life experiences in the symphony. I left for a while and when I came back I was playing in the orchestra and Curtis wanted me to be the principal again and I just had to say I can’t. My wife had contracted an illness and she was having surgery every year it seemed like. I just had to make a living and I couldn't just do everything Curtis wanted so they threw me out of the orchestra. Rebecca: Aw. Dale: And I felt bad about that but there wasn’t really anything I could do about it. Anyway, I rejoined again later, and have played off and on in the orchestra, you know, for, I don’t know, 40 years? Or more actually. Probably 45, 50 years. And so let’s see, who was it… The principal �[bass] player then was Richard Cohen and Richard was uh…He was a good player, but he was challenged in his life by probably, I don’t know, autism or I don’t what it was he had but he could be at times very difficult because he would have outbursts and play things and say things that were certainly heard across the orchestra. But it was an interesting experience and I’ve played off and on like I say, through many, many years. And I also played in some of the periods of time when I wasn’t able to play in Casper. I became a member of the Billings Symphony and played in Billings for seven years as a regular member and then a number of other years just as an import. Again, because of the experience I got starting in the fifth grade playing music and kind of being cultivated and fostered by a number of really good string instructors—Rex Eggleston, Bob Bovie were both really instrumental, if you’ll pardon the pun. At one point, I was in the orchestra, Curtis was the conductor, Donna Efimoff—[a longtime symphony board member] who was a huge supporter of the orchestra—came to me and said they had a number of different symphony managers, and she came to me and said we need you to be the symphony manager and Dale, you would be just great and we just really need it, and we’re kind of uhwe’re not doing so well we need somebody with some enthusiasm and somebody that really loves the music and loves the orchestra and wants it to succeed and work hard. And my thing was well, that’s a full time job. I have a job, I was trying to make money to feed my family, and I was. Anyway she said well, you know you could do this part-time, and she talked me into doing this. And as you know there’s no part-time work. There's part time pay but no part-time work. Rebecca: Right. Dale: So I started with the symphony. They had no money. I had been on the symphony board when I had been ... in highs chool, I think. I got on the symphony board and met a lot of the principal people that made the orchestra work, and gained a pretty good understanding of the �pieces of the orchestra, that there was an orchestra where people came and practiced and played music. And there was the part of the orchestra that was the board that raised money and made decisions and you know, decided what was gonna be played, and who was gonna be the conductor and dealt with all the problems and the marketing and the business things that went with that. And then there was the guild that was mostly women, I think it was exclusively women, but they did things to raise money. They had a a thrift store. They did fund raisers like dinners, they did parties, they did…they were the social arm also of the orchestra. So anyway, I did become the symphony manager and that day I realized they didn’t have enough money to make a photocopy. And we needed an office and we needed… we didn’t have a symphony, we didn’t have a season, and Donna had told me, well you know, we’re really… we’re talking, you know, about one of the options is that we fold. So I said I would do it and I did. We got busy. People wanted the orchestra to succeed. We sent out a fundraising letter and checks started showing up in the mail. We had people come by. Des Bennion [of the Bon Insurance Agency] had an open office space that he allowed us to use and I think we paid rent but I don’t think we paid much rent. And he allowed us to use his photocopier if we needed it and one thing and another. Eventually we got to where we had a photocopier, we had office furniture and we got that office together. It was on 2nd St across from Veteran’s Park. And people were very generous with the orchestra. We went from not being able to afford a photocopy to being able to produce some concerts. But each concert cost about, I think it was… I wanna say $7,500 it was costing us to put on a concert. Anyway, we did that whole season and we ended the year with a little bit of money in the bank and began on the next season and I was the symphony manager for three years and every year we made headway. The last two years of those three we began to work on– there was a lot of discussion in the orchestra world and in Casper about repertoire and what the �orchestra could or should be doing. And it centered on should we [be] playing– could we possibly be playing too much Mahler [Gustav Mahler, late 19th-early 20th century AustroBohemian composer] to attract a crowd and would the audience like to hear something more than just the classic pieces or the heavy classic pieces, and were we playing the right kinds of thing for our level of orchestra. And we went through, well there were some big bands–the Moody Blues was one of them–that were using orchestras as background. And of course the Beatles had used orchestral instruments in their more popular records, and then the Moody Blues. I had called the manager for the Moody Blues and said, you know—of course, they’re in London– and said, you know, what would it cost to have the Moody Blues come to Casper? And they said $95,000. Which just kinda blew me away, because, I mean, like I say, our concerts were costing some $7500 to produce and there were sixty or seventy of us [musicians]. So, I knew we couldn’t pay $95,000, we were lucky if we had the money for the next concert. But I talked to let me see what was his name… At the Casper Events Center they’d been trying to bring different big bands to town and I had had a discussion with–I’ll think of his name here before this is over– about how they could afford to get these bands and he was telling me well sometimes we get them on an odd night because they’re coming through, they’re going, they have a weekend here and a weekend there and they try to fill in inb etween and so we get a better deal and sometimes we can find a promoter that will take the risk, so explained that’s how they were doing it. I got his- he had a great big book and it was not unlike the [unintelligable] catalog, and it was probably, I don’t know, 14 inches wide by 20 inches tall. And as you page through this book, it just had all the different acts and all the different people who promoted different kinds of music and different styles of music and different kinds of theater and dance and all this different stuff. And it was like a catalog of people that promoted various artistic endeavors. And so I looked �through that and I found a- I called a couple of them, and just you know, explained who I was and what I was wanting to do; that I was wanting to find a group that was like the Moody Blues to bring to Casper to play with our orchestra. And I contacted a guy down in Jupiter, Florida and told him what I wanted to do and he said “Yeah, I’ve done the Moody Blues.” He said, “Are there other orchestras in the region that could play with the Moody Blues?” and I said “oh, I think that there are.” And he said “Well, would you be willing to help me find them?” and I said “I sure would.” Anyway, we began to try to put together a tour for the Moody Blues, and so we ended up with them in Rapid City, in Denver, Casper, I think Billings, and Salt Lake. So all of them, they just came on kind of a whirlwind tour through the Rocky Mountains and played. So we got the Moody Blues to come to Casper and play with our orchestra. It was a really good concert. It was at the Casper Events Center. It was- I mean, my recollection is every seat was filled. And we had a blending- the audience was really interesting because it was a blending of the rock & roll crowd and the orchestra crowd. It was very happy; maybe it was just me but I just, it was a very joyful experience to have the Moody Blues come. And of course, the orchestra itself had never played in something like that, we had microphones on violins and big mixing boards and roadies. I don’t think the orchestra had ever had roadies before. Well, we had roadies. Rebecca: [unintelligible] Dale: And it was aRebecca: [unintelligible] Oh, go ahead. Dale: Go ahead. Rebecca: I recall playing that concert; having to listen to myself through headphones, instead of having- being able to hear myself directly. And if I hadn’t had prior experience with that in Puerto Rico with recording studios, it would have been a real ordeal. But yeah, go ahead. �Dale: Yeah. Well it was just a really great experience for the orchestra and I think that it—and this was in the last year I was there before I moved on to being the executive director at the Casper Area Chamber of Commerce—but the orchestra had other bands come in subsequent years. I think Kansas [American rock band formed in 1973 in Topeka, Kansas] came, and they had some 50s bands that came and played with the orchestra. And It became, I think the perception was less stodgy than just playing Mahler and Beethoven. And I would like to say, nothing wrong with playing Mahler and Beethoven, but it really kinda broke the mold for the symphony to go try some new things. At that time the orchestra had a deal with Casper College, where Casper College would have their string instructor on the payroll, and then the orchestra would pay part of the salary that was to direct the orchestra, and I think the orchestra also had a person, maybe personnel, and a library manager. And that’s how they managed to get a good person who could conduct and also teach. And then relationship with the Casper school district, the Natrona County school district was that a lot of those string instructors in school would play in the orchestra. And they would- so they would teach their students in the schools where they taught and then they would play in the orchestra, and they had a way for their students to see how they played music and how one could do that. Back in those, I don’t know, I suppose in the 60s, 70,and 80s there was a youth orchestra in Casper, which if you played in the youth orchestra you got the experience you needed to audition for the symphony. And a lot of people did, and we called it string farming at the time as far as the strings, because you needed ten violins, one oboe but ten violins for each section. And so we– the orchestra cultivated and fostered that education in the local school district of students who wanted to learn to play music. And it certainly was a big factor in me playing the string bass for my entire life. �Rebecca: You recall a rule that anybody who played in the Youth Symphony was required to continue in their public school orchestra? Dale: I don’t recall a rule, but I mean, I wasn’t gonna quit. So if there was a rule, it didn’t… it didn’t come to my attention, because I wanted to take the lessons. Rebecca: Yeah. Okay so, you were manager for… was it ‘92 through ‘90— 90… you better tell me. Dale: Well it must have been…’90…maybe late ‘92, ‘93, anyway through late ‘95. Rebecca: Yeah, so Chris Boor[?] was the manager when I was hired to be the principal cello. Dale: Mhm. Rebecca: Completely oblivious to the fact that the symphony nearly couldn’t pay me. It worked out. Dale: Well, and then I was followed by um… Rebecca: Holly Turner. Dale: Holly Turner, yeah. Rebecca: You know, that is– it’s not a part time job period, it just isn’t. Dale: No, and it’s fundraising, grant writing. I mean, I think now there’s a bit of a broader base of employees to work on, but at the time if you were through cleaning the bathroom, you could answer the phone. And that was in between writing grants and writing fundraising letters and planning things and you know, trying to make sure the musicians were well served. The problem for me is that when I was the manager, I couldn’t really play in the orchestra, which is a terrible irony because the reason I was managing was because I wanted the orchestra to succeed but I couldn’t play in it because… you just couldn't do that, and produce the show. Rebecca: You mean there wasn’t time? There wasn’t time to keep yourself– �Dale: Well, things had to be done at the same time, during the rehearsal you might have soloist who needed to be taken care of, or cookies to pick up, or donuts or coffee, or just lots of different things that had to happen. And sometimes they…I mean you just couldn’t really stop and play in the orchestra and then pick it up, things had to be done when they had to be done, and you’d say well, you could have organized volunteers to do that, and we did, a lot of volunteer organization. But the part of that is you kind of have to be there on the ground when the questions are asked or things don’t get done. It just wouldn’t— it just wasn’t possible. Rebecca: Right, and I don’t remember if you have said this already on this interview but I remember when I interviewed you for my article that I did on the symphony you said, this sentence always impressed me, the three groups that took to make the symphony run, the musicians, the guild, and the board, none of those organizations really had any idea of what the others did or really therefore could appreciate what they did. I know when I when I was playing I only had the vaguest idea of you know, where the money came from to pay me and the other musicians, and things like that. Dale: Right. I think I had said that they each thought they were the orchestra and they– they really were I mean, they were all such necessary parts of it but it was kinda interesting to learn how they weren’t as interconnected as you thought. And the guild did things, but the orchestra didn’t really know the people in the guild, I mean, some of course, but it wasn’t like we were all in the same room doing the same things, it was various arms doing their own thing. Anyway, it was good, the guild— one funny story, we were planning to have to have a black tie ball, the symphony ball, this is what it was, called the symphony ball. And it required a fancy, fancy dinner. And so Donna Efimoff and about four others had arranged to have a tasting; I had never done a tasting, I mean, we sat down, we ate. I had never done a tasting for dinner. So we did a �tasting at the Casper Petroleum Club and we went up there and we tried a couple of different meals. And the manager’s name was Sandy, and Sandy would bring out something you know, and these ladies and myself, we would taste it and we were proposing this, well what would be a fabulous dinner? What would be something you could really sell? And they brought out…by the time we got to the dessert, they brought out some desserts and Sandy had this meringue that was supposed to be just fabulous. And it was a, of course, an egg meringue on a plate and it had some other fruit on top of it and I think some cream of some sort. Anyway, I was trying to— I had never had a meringue and I was trying to figure out how to, you know, it was kinda crisp and the base of it was about as big as what, you know, a hamburger size, and it’s there. So I was trying to— I took my fork and I just kept pushing on it hoping it would break into a piece so I could try it. And this meringue was like a tiddlywink, it came up, and off into the middle of the table. Needless to say the meringue didn’t make onto the menu. But it was just hilariously funny and those ladies, they must have just thought I was so backwards, and just to be clear I really was that backwards but I’d never had a meringue and it was so embarrassing and yet so funny. It was so funny. I laughed with Donna Efimoff about that for years. And, by the way, I did learn how to make a meringue and that one was just probably a minute too long in the oven. Rebecca: Okay so, do you have anything more to tell me about your years as manager? Dale: You know it was a really rewarding experience, and part of the reason was because of the people who really cared about the orchestra. They really cared about the music, they cared about the training, the youth part of it, they cared about the community part of it. One of those people was Betsy Knapp, and I don’t know how many years old Betsy was, but she had a long history with the orchestra, she had a depth of knowledge about music, and she really loved what was— she really loved that there was an orchestra in Casper. And she would write the — she wrote the �history of the Casper Symphony. And she would write the program notes for each of the programs, and so I got to know Betsy pretty well as we put together the programs and what not. And she would come in and hang out, and just for a little bit, just a few minutes, and drop off the work she had done, and she’d say well I’ll leave you to it and she’d go. But there were just numbers of people that would come into that office and they’d— they really uh— it was a community organization, they loved what was going on, I’m sure that’s the same thing that goes on today. It’s just was— it was kind of a hub. Really appreciated that about the orchestra. Rebecca: Yeah, so, after you ceased to be manager you could play in the orchestra again from a standpoint of time? Dale: I did, I played in the orchestra. Rebecca: From…that would be 1995 on? Dale: Ohhh, you know I was kind of off and on there, but I’ve played in the orchestra every chance I could, yeah. Rebecca: Do you have any high points that you remember from playing with the orchestra, either long ago or somewhat more recently? Dale: Oh definitely. one of them was when I first started playing, the orchestra was playing the New World Symphony, [by Antonin Dvorak, late 19th century Czech composer] and in the New World Symphony, one of the movements starts with the string bass section playing a solo. And it’s pizzicato [plucked rather than bowed] and it’s…it goes [to a melody] bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum…kind of on like that, just through this passage. And I went to orchestra that night, and I’d been practicing that part, and I was in high school, and Joe Corrigan wasn’t there. And it came time to practice that and I was the only string bass player. And I was terrified, literally terrified. And Rex Eggleston was, I think, conducting, but I don’t �know if he was the conductor, was he the conductor for the orchestra? He was definitely…maybe it was an interim thing he was doing. Rebecca: I think he was the conductor till Curtis arrived— Dale: Okay. Rebecca: —whatever year that was. Dale: That would make sense. He was the conductor, so he— he came, we took a break, we were gonna start next with this movement of the New World Symphony and he came back and he must have just seen that I was terrified, I don’t know. But he came back and he said, you know, Dale, how are you doing? And I had gone to a summer camp up in Bozeman, Montana, and Rex had been the one that had taken us all up there, been our Casper leader. Rex is a wonderful person. Anyway, so he said you’ll do fine, just do your best. So we played that and I actually kinda played it. And you know it’s just one of those things that when it’s all said and done I just realized oh my god I was just so uptight this whole thing and you kinda relax and everything else seems easy. But the next day Rex Eggelston came by to the high school. Of course he was in charge of the music in all the schools in Casper at that time. Came to high school and found me, and he put his hand on my shoulder and he said “Good job, Dale.” And how could that not be a real high point. Rebecca; Yeah. Dale: But the leader of all the teachers; it was really something and I remained friends with Rex for a long time. But probably the real high point is Gary Karr [world-class string bass virtuoso soloist] came to Casper as a soloist with the orchestra. And Gary Karr probably revolutionized what bass players conceived what they could do and probably revolutionized what bass players were expected to do, because he was just so virtuosic and the way that he played, he played �things— he could play Paganini on the string bass and the Flight of the Bumblebee on the string bass. [Niccolò Paganini, 18th and 19th century Italian violin virtuoso and composer. His compositions are among the hardest ever written for violin; on the string bass—because the bass is so much bigger—they would be just that much more difficult. Flight of the Bumblebee, by 18th century Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, would also be very difficult on string bass] And the things that he played and the tempos that he took, it was just…it was groundbreaking, it was ground shaking, I just couldn’t believe someone could do that on a string bass. And of course, admittedly we were in Casper, Wyoming and not New York City or something but Gary Karr really did change the world of string bass playing. Well, he came to Casper and I was the student and the principal string bass player so I got to play a duet with Gary Karr. And it was kind of funny, cause it was one of those things where I’d go boom and then he’d go blelelel, you know boom and blelelel. But I got to meet him and got to play a duet and got to talk to him, have dinner with him and realize that he was human, just like all of us, he just had this enormous talent, and was multiple generations of bass players before him in his family. And so that was…well I’m still talking about it. It’s Gary Karr. Rebecca: His last name was spelled K-A-R-R, is that right? Dale: That’s correct, mhm. Rebecca: Okay, Gary, just a normal spelling for Gary? Dale: Mhm. Rebecca: Well that’s cool Dale: Yeah. Rebecca: Well I’ve lost when that was. Dale: I don’t, I don’t know either, probably the seventies. �Rebecca: So you still would have been in high school probably. Dale: High school or college, yeah. Rebecca: Not necessarily, I forgot we graduated. Dale: Yeah, ‘74 maybe. Rebecca: Yeah. Yeah that would have been in high school. Dale: Yeah. Rebecca: Okay, so moving on from your high school years to later, you have played in the symphony off and on…let me think, I know…well you were accepted as a sub most recently, is that right? Not let into the section? Dale: Right, well, the level of playing in the orchestra has really improved, and I think orchestra went from, you know, trying to focus on local players to more of the audience experience. And so the, auditions have changed. If you want— you need to be able to play a concerto [showy solo piece for soloist, with orchestra accompaniment] if you want to audition for the orchestra at least in the string bass section last time. I just, I just don’t— I mean, it’s been a long time since I took any lessons, I mean I have played professionally and semi-professionally around the world but I haven’t played a concerto, and there are a number of string bass programs that have grown up through the years at various universities. One of them is in Greeley [Colorado], and there are students who go and pay for college education where the focus is string bass performance. And so those players, when they get out of the university program, they need gigs. And so it’s— since Casper is a regional orchestra now, they will audition for those jobs and it’s— it’s just more difficult for a local player, it’s more difficult for a player that doesn’t have the same credentials to get those jobs. So I haven’t played in the orchestra for years. But I think I’m on the…I mean COVID really changed things, I don’t know if they’ve had any substitutes in the past couple �years but I think I’m on the— I mean I was told I’m on the substitute list. But I’m very blessed, I have a lot of gigs. And I get to play a lot of different kinds of music, and including in a couple orchestras in Wyoming. It’s not a problem but it— the, the level of the musicianship in the orchestra has been improved, and I would say, at the expense of local players who get no— there’s no margin; you either play the part best or you don’t. Rebecca: Dale I don’t recall if it was you or somebody else who told me that since Christopher Dragon is the conductor and he’s also the main conductor of the Denver Symphony, do I have that right? Dale: I don’t, I don’t know, um… Rebecca: He’s affiliated with the Denver Symphony somehow. Dale: He is, mhm. Rebecca: Yeah, so his presence in Casper is attracting people, musicians, who want to come to his notice, and one of the ways they can do that is audition here in Casper. Dale: I don’t know if it was me that said that, I think it’s probably true though. Rebecca: Yeah, which kind of pushes out local talent like you. I have to say, I noticed that at the time and wasn’t too happy about…I mean, you’re confident, you could play in the orchestra, no problem. But that's just my private opinion. Dale: Well, and I—it’s just different, it isn’t the same as what it used to be and I think that that happens. I mean, I— I I don’t know that it’s a tragedy for local musicians. It’s certainly different and it ... doesn’t foster local musicians, and it affects the community in this way. And then if there’s not local people playing those parts, then there’s not local teachers teaching parts. And there are exceptions, there are students who might go the whole distance, but as a general rule that won’t be what…I mean the community— if you need a cello player you might not have a �cello player that you can find to do a gig because now they come from other places. But, that said, that is what has happened, and the orchestra sounds great, and if you’re in the audience it might be a better experience, that’s just the way it is. Rebecca: Yeah I’m sure it is, I remember they tackled Mahler’s Fifth [Symphony], not that many years ago. That’s not an easy piece of music and it’s a real treat for the audience. Dale: So it’s just different, you know, it’s just different. and that probably changes, with each board and as boards evolve and as management evolves. I know each manager has their own…you just never know what’s—till a person is in a job, in any profession, what’s really gonna be their forte, until they’re in their— maybe their second year and begin to form here their organization heads. And I think that that’s true with the symphony and through the various management that has been, and you mentioned Chris Boor and me and Holly, each of us had our own thing that we do, and there was a guy by the name of Kent Steiger, who I think was the very first symphony manager and he was a professional. Great smile, good person. And trying to herd the symphony into having a management, you know, having real management as opposed to a shoebox under somebody's bed, you know. there’s just a lot of changes you know, and it’s evolving. But I think the bottom line it is based on, people loving music and you know, their experience with that, totally positive thing. Rebecca: Can we jump back in time? I remember you telling me this when I interviewed you for the article I wrote on the subject, to when, I think you were high school you served in— you were on the board and learned a whole lot about fundraising? Dale: I did. I was very shy, you might remember, in high school. I actually knew you, I didn’t talk to many girls for sure. and I got elected to the symphony board as a symphony representative, and I was very young. And I went to a meeting, it was at ... [Marta Stroock’s] �house, and there were, I don’t know, 20 people there. And they had Ralph Black from the American Symphony Orchestra League in New York City come to the [unintelligible]. And Ralph was there, he wore dark suit, dark tie, white shirt, slicked back hair, looked very much like he was from New York. You know I was probably— I might have had a shirt with a collar on. Rebecca: And you had a beard, and your hair was a little long. Dale: It might have been. But we— so we were there in that setting, you know, and they were talking. It was a…I guess nowadays what you’d call a retreat. And we were talking about how to fund the orchestra and what could be done to improve the funding. And at the time I think the symphony had two and a half seasons in the bank so they could run for two and a half seasons without any fundraising. They’d been doing it. And it was because there was the guild, and there was the board, and the board would get together and in somebody’s office and the phones were such— you know, you had those phones that you’d look at and you’d have a…you’d have different buttons you could push for different outside lines. We’d have five lines, and they’d blink when it was busy. And so we’d get together in an office and they would have pizza or they would have— or somebody would make food and you would have list of people who’d supported the orchestra in the past and lists of people who hadn’t supported the orchestra but had been seen at a concert, and their phone number. And the thing you did was pick up the phone, push the button, and dial the number and say “Mrs. Rebecca, this is Dale Dale from the symphony, and we’re in the middle of our fundraising, and we— you know, we want you to participate with us, could you give us a thousand dollars?” And a lot of people were like, “Well I don’t know if I— I don’t really know if I can do that,” you know, I don’t ask people for money. And so Ralph Black was saying um–this is something I just— it’s just stuck with me a lot of years–he gave us all a piece of paper and he gave us a little golf pencil, a little pencil. and it— �and he said okay, now make a list of people who give money to orchestras. And so in this group, you know, they were saying well, people that own boats, people that own businesses, people that are professionals, people that love music, people that, you know, buy nice clothing, I mean all these different, different ways of explaining who it was that gave money to orchestras. But at the bottom line, and he probably had a kind of a roundabout way of doing this, but the bottom line, he said, the only people that give money to orchestras, symphony orchestras, are the people you ask, and not many others. And boy, that was sure my experience, in the symphony world. But, so I was in high school and so he said, you know, if you call someone on the phone and you say, would you give me a dollar? He said they probably will. He said if you ask for a hundred dollars, they— they might. He said, if you ask them for a thousand dollars, you’ll never offend, because they’ll think “This guy thinks I can give him a thousand dollars,” you know, when in fact, if you only could— you might give five hundred, you might give a hundred, but the fact that they thought that you could give a thousand made you feel better. And so he said you just don’t have to worry about— just don’t ask for too little, don’t ask for five hundred if they could give you a thousand, or five thousand, or ten thousand. And so he’s also the one that you know, ask them to join you in supporting the orchestra because nobody wants to be the one that pays when you're not. So you’re calling them to ask them for money but you’re not doing anything. So you know, join me in supporting the orchestra, and I thought that was really good advice. Who gives money to orchestras? Only the people you ask. Rebecca: That’s so logical. Dale: It is. �Rebecca: So, something has occurred to me while you were talking. So looking at that symphony program, there’s always a list of supporters according to— categorized according to how much money they gave. Dale: Right. Rebecca: Right, so, it dawned on me, I saw my parents’ business way up at the top, that they gave a lot more in proportion to their income than a lot of other people but that was leaving out of the picture all the fundraising things like the balls, and the dinners, and the things like that that a lot of these other people that appeared to be giving less were actually spending lavishly at these auctions, at the balls and dinners. Do I have that right? Dale: You do. Rebecca: Yeah. Dale: Yep, yep, Rebecca: Well, what it really takes— oh, go ahead. Dale: Those— those fundraising things were really interesting. One time the uh— Susan and I, my wife Susan, and I used to donate a dinner at our cabin. And I— I would— I thought of it as okay, I have the expense of the steaks and the expense of the wine. And so I would say this dinner is for eight, eight people and it includes, you know, all these different things. And it would— it would cost us hundreds of dollars to do this party for the symphony. And one time a local real estate person decided he wanted that party. And we had music by the Tremors [a Casper band] so my friend Cory and I would play music, and I thought, you know, we’d cook steaks on the open fire, we’d play some music, we’d have some wine, and it’d be great. and we did that one year and it was really, really fun, and the next year we did it again, and one of the people that’d done it the prior year stood up and said, we did this, and it was really fun, he said, �it was just so so easy, and just really a lot of fun. And so a bidding war started, and it was a real estate person, and a doctor, and they started bidding on this party. And the real estate person finally said, I am not gonna be outbid by a doctor. And I think that it was at ten thousand dollars for this dinner, I mean I was laying down by the fire cooking steaks and we were serving, you know, probably a 20 dollar bottle of wine which is not cheap but it wasn’t like, a ten thousand dollar dinner. But it was, and it sold for $12,000 that year, and for a couple years after that. And and the same person bought it, we had a great time. And anyway, [unintelligible] was the support of the symphony supporter. And then at one point it was decided that that dinner was a little too rustic because there was an outhouse at our cabin, and instead of a bathroom. So they moved it to another location where there was, you know, indoor plumbing and the dining got to be like magazine quality table settings and I'm sure they must have served a meringue, what do you think? Anyway, it was really, really fun. Those parties were so much fun. And those things didn’t— you’re right, they didn’t— they weren’t what was put into the, to the program in support of the orchestra, those were just things you did to make sure it all worked, and the people whose name was put in the orches— in the program as supporters for cash donations. Rebecca: Right. Well, those are great stories. Dale: All in all, you know, it’s just amazing that there’s an orchestra on the high plains of the Rocky Mountains and that there has been all these years, and people who’ve— who’ve…I mean it’s changed people’s lives. It changed my life, for certain. Gave me a different appreciation for things and it, you know, music and math, I think are— established that they’re pretty close to the same part of the brain that you use, and I used to be able to just, do a lot of math in my head and people would say my god, how do you do that? And I— I think it’s the music. I think it’s listening to all those different parts and how that all works and the value of that in a person’s life �is…is immeasurable. So I’m just eternally grateful for having had the Wyoming Symphony in Casper all these years, and for everything that I personally got. You know, it’s— there’s a lot of rough and tumble to an organization that has 60 or 80 or 100 or 120 people involved, but it was really beneficial. Rebecca: Well, you look back at the early days and it’s really kind of amazing that Casper, Wyoming could give rise to a civic orchestra. Dale: Yeah. Rebecca: And from there I guess the growth isn’t too surprising, but it sure took a lot from a lot of different parties and organizations. Dale: Yup, sure did. And a lot of people after me, you know, that the symphony managers, there’s probably five or six since then, and another one coming. Rebecca: There’s gonna be a change in managership? Dale: Yeah, Rachel Bailey gave notice, I think May 13th was her last day. Rebecca: My goodness, I didn’t know that. Dale: Uhuh, and she’s— I don’t know what she’s gonna be doing, she didn’t really say, but she said she’ll be in the ... audience, so we’ll see. Rebecca: Well, well, she was there quite a while. Dale: Yeah, she was, she was. Rebecca: Okay, is there anything else you would like to tell us about your experience with the symphony or being manager or anything like that? Dale: I think I’ve said it. You know, it’s just such an amazing thing and what a great opportunity and I certainly have benefited and appreciate it. Rebecca: Okay, well, I really appreciate your giving us your time today. �Dale: Of course. Well, thanks for doing the interview and thanks for your interest in the orchestra. I think it’d be easy to lose that history, and we won’t because of your work. Rebecca: Yeah, we have to keep it alive, definitely, trace it from the beginning to the end, if possible. Dale: Yeah. Well, best to all of you, all of you Rebeccas at the [unintelligible] Goose Egg. Rebecca: Thanks Dale, same to you. Dale: Okay. Rebecca: Okay, bye. Dale: See you, Becky. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource WyoHistory.org Wyoming Symphony Orchestra Oral History Project Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-NC/1.0/">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-NC/1.0/</a> Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 2022-2023 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource WyoHistory.org; Rebecca Hein Language A language of the resource ENG Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context NCA 01.i.2022.02 Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound; Text Description An account of the resource Audio files and transcripts created and edited by Rebecca Hein and students at Casper College during an oral history project with players of the Wyoming Symphony Orchestra. The oral histories were conducted by Hein between 2022 and 2023 and are a part of Wyohistory.org publishing project. Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data M4A Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Dale Bohren Wyoming Symphony Orchestra Oral History Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-NC/1.0/">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-NC/1.0/</a> Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 2022-05-18 Description An account of the resource Audio file and transcript for oral history interview with Wyoming Symphony Orchestra player Dale Bohren. This interview was conducted by Rebecca Hein for Wyohistory.org on May 18, 2022. Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Language A language of the resource ENG Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. WyoHistory.org Wyoming Symphony Orchestra Oral History Project, NCA 01.i.2022.02 WyCaC US. Casper College Archives and Special Collections. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context NCA 01.i.2022.02_Dale_Bohren_5-18-22_Compressed Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource MP3 https://caspercollege.cvlcollections.org/files/original/fac0e8fd3aab1cb97823d24a7c6f5256.m4a b0aa54e13b1a0f211d780797728ebb2f https://caspercollege.cvlcollections.org/files/original/8d23d6dd927e9dbc5b477e242503230d.pdf d8d03d5ce4789a4e16e4b3f7d2aaf56b Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource WyoHistory.org Wyoming Symphony Orchestra Oral History Project Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-NC/1.0/">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-NC/1.0/</a> Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 2022-2023 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource WyoHistory.org; Rebecca Hein Language A language of the resource ENG Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context NCA 01.i.2022.02 Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound; Text Description An account of the resource Audio files and transcripts created and edited by Rebecca Hein and students at Casper College during an oral history project with players of the Wyoming Symphony Orchestra. The oral histories were conducted by Hein between 2022 and 2023 and are a part of Wyohistory.org publishing project. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Deborah J. Bovie Wyoming Symphony Orchestra Oral History Description An account of the resource Audio file and transcript for oral interview with Wyoming Symphony Orchestra player Deborah J. Bovie. This is interview was conducted by Rebecca Hein for Wyohistory.org on October 20, 2022. Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound; Text Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rebecca Hein; Deborah J. Bovie Language A language of the resource ENG Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. WyoHistory.org Wyoming Symphony Orchestra Oral History Project, NCA 01.i.2022.02 WyCaC US. Casper College Archives and Special Collections. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context NCA 01.i.2022.02_DeborahJBovie Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource M4A; PDF Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-NC/1.0/">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-NC/1.0/</a> Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 2022-10-20 https://caspercollege.cvlcollections.org/files/original/b22ac0c4ccfeae03bde91d5da2e869a7.m4a 4fe8348adda89a2a91e57d6485e5d16d https://caspercollege.cvlcollections.org/files/original/9d1aff97434ba26058ca6f51532f2068.pdf 81af94f7af308070f6f504530b9c8a6b PDF Text Text Wyoming Symphony Oral History Project Rebecca Hein interviewing Delores Thornton, June 14, 2022 Date transcribed: July 20, 2022 Rebecca: Okay, let’s start with your name, your instrument and how you came to play that instrument. Delores: Ha, okay. Delores Thornton I play the flute, and, I guess I came to play the flute because my brother and sister both played clarinet so I didn’t want to do that and my parents thought, maybe a doctor told them, it would help my asthma. I guess because it takes so much air. Rebecca: And did it? Delores: Well you know we moved from Texas to Arizona and that probably did as much to help my asthma as anything. But, I was playing the flute by then. Rebecca: Right. Delores: So I don’t know if it helped or not. I still sometimes when ... it is cold and damp I still have asthma but you know I don’t have to use an inhaler or anything like that. It was never that bad I guess. Rebecca: I see. Okay let’s see.. Your education in general and your musical education? Delores: Okay, I have a bachelor in flute performance from the University of Arizona but I didn’t want all my friends to think music degree fluff, fluff, fluff. So, I also have a major in math and I went on one more year to get a teaching certification in math. And I did just a little bit of master’s in music but after I got my teaching certificate in math that is what I planned on doing. Because you can’t make a living in music unless you teach a band or something and I didn’t want to do that. �Rebecca: No, it is very hard especially for wind and brass I think, because at least in an orchestra you have many string players but not the same at all for woodwinds. Delores: Yeah, yeah andRebecca: Okay so you have a degree inDelores: I have a degree in flute performance with a second major in math and then I have secondary teaching certification in math. Rebecca: Okay so, my impression when we were both in the symphony was that you had a day job. And then you did your flute teaching at Casper College in the evenings is that about right? Delores: Yes, I used my math degree probably to get a civil service job, I worked for the Bureau of Reclamation as a computer technician Specialist for 32 years. Then, I taught at Casper College in the evenings and I did all my private teaching there too. Well, about three or four years ago they decided we could not do private teaching at Casper College anymore. So now I only have three or four private students and one or two college students and they don’t have ensembles anymore. So I don’t do much teaching anymore and what I do is at Hill Music, they let me use a little room there. Rebecca: Okay that would be Hill Music in Casper right? Delores: Correct, yes. Rebecca: Okay and for the non-musicians in our audience or whoever will be listening to this recording. Let’s just define the word ensemble. Delores: Oh, when I first started teaching at Casper College which was oh I don’t know probably between 35 and 40 years ago. They had lots of ensembles [groups]; they had a clarinet ensemble, guitar ensemble, flute ensemble, brass ensemble. Well about three years ago, I think about three, they got rid of all the ensembles because my ensemble always had six to eight people, one year I �had ten, but all but three or four of them were community members. They decided they wanted to, well I don’t know if they decided if they wanted to get rid of community players, for whatever reason they decided to have one ensemble that all the music majors would participate in because they all have to have two ensembles. Band being one and this would be the other. They only have 10 or 12 people in it but they wanted it all to be students. They didn’t want any community members in this particular ensemble and that is what they have gone with. So, no more ensembles. Rebecca: YeahDelores: Which is a group of players. [laughter] Yeah I don’t know. I think it is kind of too bad but, it is what it is. Rebecca: Okay so, when did you join the Wyoming Symphony Orchestra? Delores: I moved to town, to Casper, in 1976? And they just happened to have an opening. So I took my little flute to the college and played for Curtis Peacock and he said ‘Okay, you are second flute.’ And then when Priscilla left about three or four or five years later whatever it was, I don’t know if I should even say this because of the recording. I won’t go into the Casper College part. Um, I just moved up to first. There wasn’t an audition or anything. Rebecca: Yeah, well that would make sense if you were the second flute and the first flute chair was vacated. That would be Priscilla Nicolaysen? Delores: Yes, but they don’t do that anymore. When the first is vacated you have to audition you don’t just automatically move up. Rebecca: I am aware of how the symphony is being handled now so that jives with what I know. Delores: Right- [laughter] �Rebecca: Okay, great so you joined the symphony and became second flute. What are your recollections about those early years? Delores: Um, they were really really good. We had the same people and we rehearsed on a Monday night and then we had the string rehearsal on a Wednesday night and then the following week we went Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday night. Well you know because you were in there at that point too. Rebecca: RightDelores: But we had a few imports. I am sure less than 10. That would come in to play the rehearsals Friday and Saturday and then the concert Saturday night. But, it was very nice because you played with the same people all the time; you knew them. We did tours, run out concerts and tours. You know it was fun, a little different now. Rebecca: Yeah, you recently retired from the symphony, right? Delores: Yes, a year ago in May. Rebecca: Okay, so you have seen this transition between how things were done before they went to non resident conductorsDelores: Yes. Rebecca: Through the 2000’s and the 20-teens. Okay, so I would like very much to hear your opinion if you care to state it about this transition that took place. When Curtis Peacock left and they started having non resident conductors. Delores: Well, the first non resident conductor they had did not really like Casper very much. And, he would come in as I recollect, and I don’t know this for a fact, he would come in. This is when they changed the rehearsal schedule so everything was crammed into three days. Strings on Wednesday, everybody on Thursday, two rehearsals on Friday and then Saturday. So, I didn’t �care for it because you find out what you really need to work on Friday or Thursday and you don’t really have time to rehearse or prepare. Whereas, if we did the runthrough the week earlier you knew what you needed to work on. So my understanding is that he flew into town Wednesday afternoon right before that first rehearsal and I am pretty sure that I was told, it could or could not be true, that he drove back to Denver that Saturday after the concert or after the reception if they had to do a reception that day. He also had in his mind that the Casper players were lacking, you might say. And by the time he left, he told us when he was hired that he was only going to stay three years and that is what he stayed. By the time he left Richard Turner and I were the only ones in the woodwinds section from Casper. Rebecca: And that would be Richard Tuner, principal bassoon? Delores: Correct. Rebecca: Yeah. Delores: And everybody else was an import and it just kind of trickled down so that those people were in those positions. So then when we got the next conductor, who did like Casper and did like local musicians. Those other players were already situated and it just has not changed. Rebecca: Okay, let me just back up a minute the first non resident conductor was I believe Jonathan Shames is that right? Delores: Yes, that is right. Rebeca: I don’t recall who the next one was. Delores: Matthew Savery. Rebecca: Oh, Savery already in the mid 2000’s. Delores: Yes, because I think he was here for about 10 years. Rebecca: That seems about right to me. �Delores: And I don’t think there was one in between. I can't remember another one. Rebecca: YeahDelores: I am getting old and senile but I- I think those are the only two. And of course now they have Christopher. Rebecca: Christopher Dragon. Delores: Yeah, and he is a very good conductor. He knows his stuff but he too is a stepping stone, he is using the symphony as a stepping stone. I don’t know because he is the resident conductor for the Denver symphony now. Every time there is an opening I am sure it used to be, well I shouldn’t say I am sure because I don’t know, but I think they advertised in the Casper paper. Now when there is an opening they advertise throughout the Rocky Mountains you might say. So, of course, a local player doesn’t have much opportunity against a doctoral candidate or a Doctor [Doctor of Musical Arts] from Colorado. I think the last time I counted there were 14 Casper people in the symphony. You add the Wyoming people and you will probably come up with another five or six and of course many of those people teach in Laramie but don’t live in Wyoming. That is a guess, I might be talking out of school. I might be incorrect. Rebecca: Well, I wrote an article on the symphony a few years ago and my research indicated that this was the trend. That is, people were from Wyoming they had a Wyoming connection or Wyoming roots but were very possibly living somewhere else like Colorado or Nebraska or Idaho. Delores: Yeah Rebecca: Yeah, okay let’s see. Let’s go to your musical experience with the symphony. Do you recall high points or favorite pieces? Or just in general, how it was to play in the symphony from a standpoint of music making? �Delores: I- I thought it was really good. Even back in the day when we had Curtis and it was a local group I thought we put on good performances and I think we sounded good. Then when Johnathan Shames came, and again this is just my opinion, he really liked modern music. Especially modern music that was written by his friends. Many times we couldn’t even find a YouTube recording of these pieces. And one time I even had a friend of mine from the Bureau say ‘We left at intermission because it was just ugly.’ Rebecca: (Laughs) and I was going to say how are they going to keep an audience. Delores: Well, and we didn't. I think our audience went way down. And then when Matthew came in I think he played to the audience. He was picking music that they would want to hear and our audience built up. Of course, now we still have a good audience because we have extremely fine players. But I really thought when we lost the local players that we would lose some of the audience because a lot of people come to hear their teachers, neighbors, and friends. But that doesn’t seem to be the case. I have gone to the symphony all last season and they have good audiences. So I guess I was wrong about that. And I know their quality has risen. How could it not rise when you have mostly doctoral musicians in there? Rebecca: A former long time member of the symphony ... told me. With Christopher Dragon in that it is really hard for locals, well you just told me this, to beat somebody who is practicing six hours a day. These people are auditioning up here because they want Dragon to notice them because of what he is doing in Colorado. Delores: (laughter) That could be very true. Last time they had a string bass rehearsal, I mean audition. We have a local string bass who is very good and did play in the symphony for a lot of years. But he was up against two doctoral candidates or full doctorals and he was not chosen. It would have been so much cheaper, but whatever. �Rebecca: Yeah I know when a local person is excluded and they are perfectly competent that is hard to watch. Delores: It is, it is. Rebecca: But there is not questionDelores: And that is why I retired because it wasn’t fun anymore. In fact, that last season I played was the pandemic season and I didn’t play with the regular oboes one time. And I didn’t play with the same oboes, I don’t think, more than once. You know because they were excluding everybody so maybe the regular oboes chose not to play because they didn’t want to be exposed or whatever. But it’s not fun to play when you are playing with different people every time. You don’t learn how to mesh and play together. It just wasn’t fun anymore. Rebecca: So you are saying you would probably be playing in the symphony still if things were different? Delores: Um, probably, probably. What I would have liked to have done which of course is never going to happen. I would have liked to move down to second chair and let someone else have the stress of [playing] principal. Then I would still be playing, but of course they aren’t ever going to do that. And the second chair is quite capable of playing principal but she isn’t going to audition against the doctoral people; it's humiliating anyway. And certainly if she would have gotten it I wouldn’t have auditioned for the second chair against the doctorates because that would have been humiliating. (laughter) Anyway, that’s my sad story. Rebecca: Casper has a really really really good orchestra to listen to but to me it sounds like the direction that Teton Music Festival has gone. Well I guess they didn’t really go that direction because they started that way which isn’t really part of Wyoming it just happens to be geographically located in this state. �Delores: I think that is a true statement. And I don’t even think the Cheyenne Symphony is a whole lot of Cheyenne players either. I think they mainly come up from Colorado as well, but I don’t know that for a fact. Rebecca: Well I have had that impression for a while and I think it is true. In fact, let me think when I was researching for the article I did on the symphony I ran across a very irate letter to the editor. I sure hope this is right. The conditions in the Cheyenne Symphony that it was really the Northern Colorado Symphony with only a few people from Wyoming in it. Delores: Well you know we joke a little bit that it would probably be cheaper for the symphony to move our rehearsals to northern Colorado. Instead of bringing all the imports up here. Rebecca: Yeah, I guess its a measure of the monetary support that the symphony has that they can afford to import so many people, and at such a high standard. I must say when I was a kid, the imports were housed in private homes and it was a very informal, low-cost arrangement. No one complained about [it]. I mean the imports didn’t complain being housed in private homesDelores: Yeah I remember that. Rebecca: My parents often hosted people so I remember that from high school when I was playing in the symphony. And college, coming back from UW. Okay, great soDelores: And now they probably import 30 or 40 people every time. It’s a lot, but now they have people that- I can’t even think of the right word. They choose a player and donate toward that player, sponsor and maybe that’s where they are getting some of that money but yeah. Rebecca: Well yeah that fills in the picture. So let’s go back to your musical experience, do you have any pieces that were your favorite to play or that were really wonderful. And do you remember what those pieces were? �Delores: Um…. Well, I played the L’eseini Suite that is a lot of flute stuff so that was challenging. Rebecca: What suite? Delores: It’s like L-’-e-s-e-i-n-i or something like that L’eseini Suite. I can't even remember who it’s by now. Because that’s where my names are, my names are what I am losing. But, Carmen was always a lot of fun to play. Rebecca: Alright, the Carmen suite [a selection of pieces from Carmen, an opera by Georges Bizet, 19th century French composer] Delores: Yeah- they actually did that last season and Christopher did, there are two suites, and he did both of them. So it was like ten movements and I thought it was way too much. [a movement is a self-contained part of a musical composition] But I enjoy playing the symphonies, you know Mozart and the Haydn. I enjoy all of it. Certainly much more than the modern stuff. [Franz Joseph Haydn, 18th century Austrian composer] Rebecca: Which has pretty much stopped? Delores: I’m sorry what? Rebecca: Does Dragon include classic pieces or does he stick with audience pleasers, if I am being quite frank? Delores: No I think, I am trying to think if I played any modern pieces with him. I am sure he plays a few more contemporary pieces but he sticks with a lot of the regular stuff I think. It’s an enjoyable experience to go to the symphony. I haven't heard anything that was really ghastly, well in my opinion. Sometimes the modern music you can’t even find a melody in it. You know, it’s just not pretty and I don’t recall hearing anything like that so far. �Rebecca: Now I have been involved in this discussion of contemporary music for many years now and I always lose to the people who say, “Oh, you just aren’t being open minded enough,” “You’re closed minded,” “You are mired in the ways of the late 19th century.” And I guess that is exactly where I want to be, Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms and I just can’t apologize for it. Delores: See and that’s me too, and I played with the Casper College Band last semester because they didn’t have a flute player. So, I got to do it and he really likes modern music. Contemporary music maybe one would say and some of it is really, really nice. Some of it is really, really hard and some of it is just uck- I don’t like it. A lot of modern music is really repetitive. You have the same measure that you play ten times and then you have another measure that you play ten times. I don’t know, I am stuck with the old classics as well. Rebecca: Yeah, I am trying to formulate a thought here about this…but it has escaped me. I guess I won’t. It will come back to me right when you are in the middle of something. But, I do want to back up I am going to define ‘suite.’ Carmen was an opera by Georges BizetDelores: Oh yeah. Rebecca: And a suite is a selection from a larger work, I am thinking about The Nutcracker Ballet. There is a whole lot in The Nutcracker Ballet and the Nutcracker suite is taken from that but it is certainly not the whole ballet. Delores: Right, and it is usually 3, 4, or 5 pieces. Rebecca: Yeah short. I did not know there were two suites from Carmen. Delores: You know, I did not know that either and he put them together and apparently they aren’t consecutive because they were interspersed between each other. Because I would hear a movement, “oh yeah I know that one” then I would hear one I had never heard before. So obviously I never played the second suite, but anyway. It was just a whole lot of the same, 10 �movements is just too much. In my opinion, I guess I don’t have the attention span for 10 movements. Rebecca: (laughter) Okay so, does one performance stand out to you or jump out as the most exciting, the most wonderful, maybe the most challenging but rewarding? Delores: Now that is a difficult question. I don't think I have an answer for that one. Rebecca: Too many such moments? Is that why you don’t have an answer or is there another reason? Delores: Oh no, I like them all I just don’t have one thing I remember where I was “Oh wow! That was certainly the best one ever!” I think they were all good. I enjoy playing. Rebecca: Yeah, I know what you mean; I do too. Okay I am looking at my notes. Does anything come to mind that you would like to say about your time with the symphony? Delores: Um, I think- I think I loved it even through the Jonathan Shames days, I have always enjoyed playing. And I think like I said if I could have gone down to second that I would still be playing, but you know I am old and my fingers don’t work as fast and my eye-sight isn’t as good and like I said it wasn’t fun and it was time for me to get out so I did. Rebecca: Yeah, I rememberDelores: I would say it is certainly more fun to play than to listen, but I still go and listen. But I still keep thinking, “boy I wish I were up there playing.” Rebecca: Yeah I know what you mean. Playing, there is nothing like it. Unless it is a struggle. I have been in positions, not recently or for quite a while, this was early in my career, where I was over my head. That was not fun. Oh well. �Delores: Yeah, I don’t recall ever feeling like, “boy I really screwed up that performance big time.” Which is good I guess. That is another reason you should get out when you can so they don’t have to tell you, “Delores it is time for you to step down.” Rebecca: Well wind players are in a little different of a position than string players because frankly in a string section it is a little bit easier to hide. To fake it if you have to or if you are slipping last longer because you have the entire sound of the section to camouflage your shortcomings. Delores: Yes, true that. Rebecca: And for woodwinds and brass you guys are basically in a solo position where whatever you play is heard. You are the only one playing the part. Delores: Yes. That was the case with the band this last semester because I was the only flute. So, although the group is so small now he is always playing these pieces that only have five parts so there is always someone who has the same part. It wasn’t a flute, but yes it is stressful. To be out there hanging out there alone. Rebecca: It keeps you- I am sure it keeps you on your toes. I remember when I spent, at one point in my career I think it was a full year and three months playing in only orchestras and it wasn’t very good for my playing because you can’t hear yourself as well as if you are playing chamber music for example. I should mention for the non-musicians that chamber music is when there is one person on a part, you can’t possibly hide or fake your way through. Delores: Right, Right- Playing a quintet or a chamber group is fun and I still do that. I am a- I don’t know what you would call me but we have a little group that is two flutes, bassoon, and a piano and they still allow me to do that because no one is going to come up from Colorado to play at a nursing home for an hour or a half an hour. So I guess I am still an honorary member �and I really enjoy doing that. Playing in the small groups for different groups like nursing homes and assisted living and stuff. Rebecca: That is really cool, if it is a group of two flutes, a bassoon and a piano do you guys do transcriptions of other pieces then? Delores: Do we do what? Rebecca: Transcriptions of other pieces, not written for that combination. [To transcribe is to arrange a musical composition for some instrument or voice other than the original] Delores: Oh, um. Yes because we do a lot of chamber music and a lot of it was written for you know two violins and bassoon or cello and piano that kind of stuff. Rebecca: Yeah. Delores: And of course we do that through the symphony. The symphony does the job for us and sends us out. Rebecca: Oh, I didn’t know that. Delores: Yeah, it is called Music on the Move. We used to play, we used to do a lot of schools. But of course since the pandemic we haven’t done any of that. But I think that we did like three nursing homes, assisted living homes, in May and June. Nope this is May so it must have been March and April. (laughter) So anyway we are getting out there still which is fun. Rebecca: That is great. Okay, well it is kind of fun for you to tell me that you didn’t have a high point because it was all so much fun. That is not a common answer but it sure makes sense to me. Delores: (laughter) Well that’s good, I mean none stick out. I always felt good after I left a performance. �Rebecca: Okay, I am scanning my notes. Is there anything else you want to add before we wrap up? Delores: Um- No I don’t think so. Rebecca: Okay, well thank you very much for making yourself available. Delores: And thank you for including me. Rebecca: Well sure, I will talk to you later. Delores: Okay, Bye-Bye. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource WyoHistory.org Wyoming Symphony Orchestra Oral History Project Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-NC/1.0/">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-NC/1.0/</a> Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 2022-2023 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource WyoHistory.org; Rebecca Hein Language A language of the resource ENG Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context NCA 01.i.2022.02 Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound; Text Description An account of the resource Audio files and transcripts created and edited by Rebecca Hein and students at Casper College during an oral history project with players of the Wyoming Symphony Orchestra. The oral histories were conducted by Hein between 2022 and 2023 and are a part of Wyohistory.org publishing project. Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data M4A Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Delores Thornton Wyoming Symphony Orchestra Oral History Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-NC/1.0/">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-NC/1.0/</a> Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 2022-06-14 Description An account of the resource Audio file and transcript for oral history interview with Wyoming Symphony Orchestra player Delores Thornton. This interview was conducted by Rebecca Hein for Wyohistory.org on June 14, 2022. Type The nature or genre of the resource M4A Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Becky Hein; Delores Thornton Language A language of the resource ENG Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. WyoHistory.org Wyoming Symphony Orchestra Oral History Project, NCA 01.i.2022.02 WyCaC US. Casper College Archives and Special Collections. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context NCA 01.i.2022.02_Delores_Thornton_6-14-22_Condensed Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource M4A https://caspercollege.cvlcollections.org/files/original/6cfffda88939ec8215437e416c7e4ea4.m4a b73eade097111614c92d706ca1b33b02 https://caspercollege.cvlcollections.org/files/original/2ae4c1f143028cab3502546554fe9250.pdf 2fddfdd8b10dad1b10606689a481c605 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource WyoHistory.org Wyoming Symphony Orchestra Oral History Project Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-NC/1.0/">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-NC/1.0/</a> Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 2022-2023 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource WyoHistory.org; Rebecca Hein Language A language of the resource ENG Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context NCA 01.i.2022.02 Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound; Text Description An account of the resource Audio files and transcripts created and edited by Rebecca Hein and students at Casper College during an oral history project with players of the Wyoming Symphony Orchestra. The oral histories were conducted by Hein between 2022 and 2023 and are a part of Wyohistory.org publishing project. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Dino Madsen Wyoming Symphony Orchestra Oral History Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-NC/1.0/">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-NC/1.0/</a> Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 2022-08-08 Description An account of the resource Audio file and transcript for oral interview with Wyoming Symphony Orchestra player Deborah J. Bovie. This is interview was conducted by Rebecca Hein for Wyohistory.org on August 8, 2022. Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound; Text Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rebecca Hein; Dino Madsen Language A language of the resource ENG Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. WyoHistory.org Wyoming Symphony Orchestra Oral History Project, NCA 01.i.2022.02 WyCaC US. Casper College Archives and Special Collections. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context NCA 01.i.2022.02_DinoMadsen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource M4A; PDF