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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/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/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/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 https://caspercollege.cvlcollections.org/files/original/cac5d1c5eeb18ced7f3ace8f335adb1c.m4a 750a2d13a3c610fabe2ccd986bdf0d6b https://caspercollege.cvlcollections.org/files/original/f4e550621c56595848f223ac55172367.pdf 46f8a746927fd8f19420dfd71ba33a9b 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/. Description An account of the resource Audio file and transcript for oral interview with Wyoming Symphony Orchestra player Jenna Baumgart. This is interview was conducted by Rebecca Hein for Wyohistory.org on September 15, 2022. Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound; Text Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rebecca Hein; Jenna Baumgart 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_JennaBaumgart Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource M4A; PDF Title A name given to the resource Jenna Baumgart Wyoming Symphony Orchestra Oral History https://caspercollege.cvlcollections.org/files/original/da2601db5b6203eae402c8c47b14cc6c.m4a b519fa9397aaa672b0590e1da168c427 https://caspercollege.cvlcollections.org/files/original/557e7dff08b2401cf74dce682a86e7b5.pdf 1946a4e1e4d015ef219971983019a965 PDF Text Text Wyoming Symphony Oral History Project Rebecca Hein interviewing John Kirk, May 14, 2022 Date transcribed: June 28, 2022 Rebecca: Let’s start with your name and your instrument, how you came to play the instrument, your training, and so on. John: Okay. John Kirk, cello, started in fourth grade, went through public school, played in junior high orchestra, high school orchestra, then I went to MSU [Montana State University in Bozeman, Mont.]. ... Played in the orchestra there, but I was in mechanical engineering for three and a half years, then I decided to be a cellist and I went to Missoula [University of Montana, Missoula, Mont.]. I got a degree in a year. Then I went to Boston University. Well actually when I went to Boston I took private cello for a year, from George Neikrug [Prominent American cello teacher]. Then I entered [graduate] school the next year and I was there for seven years because I wanted to stay with my teacher, and I did a year of studying in Paris with Nadia Boulanger the composition teacher. Then I did a year in ah, Munich [Germany] . Then I came back to the U.S. Is that good for that? I got the Master’s Degree at Boston University. The B.A. in Missoula. Rebecca: That was University of Montana? John: Yeah. It was with Dr. Florence Reynolds. Rebecca: Yeah. John: She was amazing. She had a Bachelor’s, Master’s, and Ph.D. in Theory, Pedagogy, Performance and [Music] History from Eastman. [Eastman School of Music, Rochester, New York] Rebecca: Wow. John: And she could play. �Rebecca: Okay. So let’s move on to how you became affiliated with the Wyoming Symphony Orchestra. Well, I guess it was the Casper Symphony at the time, but, go ahead with that. John: Sure. I was living in Bozeman at the time and my sister, Barbara Kirk, was going to Casper to play, as an import to play, and Curtis Peacock mentioned ...[they were] looking for a cellist, for a new position called artists in residence. [Peacock was then the conductor of the Casper Symphony] So, my sister mentioned it to me and I, sent a a tape to Curtis, of the Debussy Sonata for cello and piano [A sonata is a composition usually for a solo instrument plus piano but can also be a composition for a small group] and then I, went to Casper for the next concert, and played in the section and met everybody there. [Claude Debussy, 19th and 20th century French composer] And then after that, I guess the board decided that they wanted me, and I came down that fall and started in with the program being artist in residence. The job was for me to play in the orchestra, teach at the Casper Community College, cello playing the Casper Community College Student Orchestra and also teach students there, as well as, teach privately in the area, and to do what they called “grow your own” because Casper was using, Casper Symphony Orchestra then was, as it was called, was hiring a lot of cello imports every concert. And so ... my job was to regain the cellists that were capable of playing in the symphony, and get them to play in the orchestra again, that was it, so I did. Rebecca: Yeah, it seems like, you told me when I interviewed you for the article I did on the Wyoming Symphony Orchestra that you offered private lessons to anybody in the section that wanted them, is that right? John: That’s right. Right. Rebecca: Yeah, sounds likeJohn: I required it. If they were going to play in the orchestra I required it. They were free. �Rebecca: Ah. Sounds like you worked pretty hard for your money. John: That’s alright. (chuckles) I needed to, fulfill the goal, which was, reduce the amount of money that they had to spend on imports, which then, for me, was a method of negotiation because if I saved them that much money, at least I’d be worth half again that in a raise. Rebecca: Yeah, I hope you got the raise. John: Yeah I did, They really raised me every year. Rebecca: Well good. John: I mean, it was a negotiation-of course in general, you know, nobody wants to spend more, but they wanted, they wanted more, and each year I did more. I started a piano trio with Curtis and Betsy Taggart, [The instrumentation for a piano trio is violin, cello and piano] and we performed in the Casper schools, [and] in and around the state, and I also started a string program down in Rock Springs [Wyoming] and traveled there weekly during the academic year. Rebecca: I didn’t know that. That’s cool. John: It was. It didn’t last much longer than I was there. When I left the orchestra after three years they hired a couple of guys from Salt Lake and they were there for a year I think, and then they threw in the towel. Rebecca: Hmm. I remember you telling me when I was interviewing you for the article I did, how you found Betsy. I thought that was really cool, the very tactful way you went about finding the best pianist that you could. Will you tell us about that? John: Sure. Knowing full well that the orchestra and the community needed to learn about me and my position, the best thing to do was to give a recital, if not, or more recitals, so we did. I found somebody who was interested in helping with money and she ended up getting financial support from businesses and ... Hill Music back then was in Casper. I don’t know if it still is, �and, so, I did brown bag, noon recitals of about, 30, 35 minutes, and I went to all of the pianists in the city that I knew that could play decently, and I asked if they would play, and paid them, and they accompanied me. And so, after we had the rehearsals and everything, the whole week was ready, set, go. They came and played and it was successful. People had- there were recurring, free clients (chuckles) Rebecca: (chuckles) John: And then, in that period I had a chance to meet with all of them and find who actually had the capability of playing, well, as an accompanist. I was looking for somebody who could read through and play a Brahms Sonata, [Brahms was a 19th century German composer] that’s if somebody can read through that then, and they can follow you and you can give and take. Pianists are good if they can just play their own part, but many of them don’t have the chamber music sense, and I found that with all of these people. Some had more or less of it, but Betsy Taggart had the most, and she was the most willing and the most available and had the highest level of skill. So it was easy, it was an easy choice. But at least by then, I asked everybody and nobody begrudged the fact that I had chosen her because among the pianists just like cellists, I mean, you can kind of mention a group of cellists and if they’re all standing together we all know who plays the best whether we like to admit it or not, and the pianists know that too so, they didn’t begrudge her getting the- being asked to play recitals with me, later, or even the piano trio recitals. Rebecca: That’s great. John: And of course it had a lot of publicity and that was all good. I always gave credit to the orchestra and tried to make it about the community effort and that’s always good- that’s part of your job as a musician in an orchestra. All roads lead to Rome. �Rebecca: (chuckles) If I’m not interrupting you I have another question. John: Mhmm. No, go ahead. Rebecca: What sort of material did you have to work with, local cellists, that were qualified to actually play in the orchestra? John: Well, there were a group of people who had played in high school and had done fairly well in terms of cello technique and orchestral capability. And some of them could play up into fourth position a little bit, and some not, and some higher. [Positions, on a stringed instrument, are numbered according to which note the index finger is placed on. The higher the position a player can play at, the more advanced he or she is, in general] And, so, what I did was, well, what really happened at first was the, I finally talked them all into coming to the first rehearsal, and they did and I think they had, I got six of them, so, all of a sudden there was and there was one person left from the previous group so, all of a sudden there were eight cellos, and that was good- that was good show for me in terms of completing the first [part] of my job, but then, after the first rehearsal, it was obvious that I had to do more and so, the bowing was, I had bowed [marked which way the bow should be drawn (to the right or to the left) on which notes] my own part and everything, but, as standard through most community orchestras nobody ever does the bowing soRebecca: (chuckles) John: So, I embarked on a lesson, and I marked every piece of music and every part for everybody, and everybody had not only a performance part but also a practice part, and for the peopleRebecca: Hold it- �John: And for the people who, when they had lessons with me, if they couldn’t play a fingering [a marking in the music indicating which finger should play which note] that I was looking at I wrote in some, don’t mean to be disrespectful, Rebecca: (chuckles) John: But I wrote in some fingering that I know they could play no matter what. Rebecca: Right. John: And that was successful and the second rehearsal everybody was playing on the same bow. And I can tell you, that makes a big difference. Rebecca: (chuckles) mhmm. John: (chuckles) And we all look like we’re all starting at the same part of the bow and we’re bowing and it helps, it helps ensemble [group] immediately, it was an immediate effect, it was so immediate that I thought “Wow! Maybe that’s why they do it!” Rebecca: (chuckles) John: The big orchestras, you know. There have been some orchestras where, like, Stokowski [Leopold Stokowski, best known for his affiliation with the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra, and the Walt Disney Film, Fantasia] where they preferred free bowing but he was dealing with a different level of player. Rebecca: Was there no music librarian whose job it was to copy in the bowings? John: No. Rebecca: Ah. John: The music librarian’s job was to keep track of the music and issue it. Rebecca: Uh-huh. Okay. So you built up the section with local people? John: Mhmm. �Rebecca: Okay, Does that mean there were not any imports, or did you- did the orchestra still have to import some cellists? John: Well, sometimes the local people had a life, other than the orchestra (chuckles) and so they wouldRebecca: Right. John: And so for a certain concert be out of town and then it’d be required to hire somebody, but by the end of the year there were no imports. Rebecca: That’s really impressive. Okay, can you think of other things you’d like to tell us about your experience with the symphony? John: Sure. There was a cohesive, [unclear], in the camaraderie in the orchestra, especially after the runouts or tours, that I hadn’t experienced with any other orchestra. People were happy to be with each other and we all knew each other as people, rather than principal trumpet or the French Horn guy that always burbles the note, or the oboist that never plays the correct A at the first blow, and we had to wait for the third one [it’s the job of the principal oboe to give the tuning note for the orchestra], and we were a group, we were more of a family, of course you know when you talk about orchestra families it’s usually a dysfunctional family and it’s spelled with two Ys. Rebecca: (laughs) John: But, yeah, it was fun. I enjoyed that. Casper wasn’t my favorite place to be. I arrived there on a day where it said “mild to gusty winds, 35 to 55 miles an hour” and I always joke with people saying that the Highway Patrol stopped me at the border and said he needed to remove all hair combing implements because the residents had never seen them before, it would frighten them. �Rebecca: (laughs heartily) John: (chuckles) But, even so, I got used to the wind. You know, you just stay inside. You don’t go outside. (chuckles) And uh, but the place wasn’t really attractive but I really liked the people. All of them. Rebecca: Yeah, you said that on the interview I did with you for the article I did. I’m wondering about the scenery and things like that with Casper Mountain right there. did that not influence your feeling about living in Casper? John: We had a summer home in the Beartooth Mountains so it wasn’t all that impressive to me. Rebecca: Uh-huh. I can understand that. John: And in between the concerts I got in my car and I went to Red Lodge and spent my offtime there. Rebecca: Yeah, I‘ve been to Red Lodge, it’s a wonderful place. Well, that’s rather interesting. Okay, do you have anything else to add about your time with the symphony? John: well, I mean you’re talking about specific hours [rehearsals] leading up to a concert. You know it was, back then it was a Tuesday and a Monday and a Thursday, I think, something like that, and then the following week it was like, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. So, it was intense as it usually is, as [performance] time gets closer and then when all the rest of the brass and woodwinds would come in for imports and back then violinists were still coming in as imports and finally we would have everybody that would play the concert, they would be there and so progressively more enjoyable situation because the sound was more full, obviously. But also the, all the parts were being covered. In an orchestra, even in a community orchestra, you’ve gotta have at least one person in the string section who can play the part, and then the rest of it they fill in on the backside and that works for almost any group. But, professional groups, of �course, pretty much play all of the notes, but in a community orchestra it’s a-a collaboration. (laughs) Rebecca: Yeah. John: I enjoyed the chamber music that we did. I gave I gave at least one or two recitals a year, either at Casper Community College or, back then we tried to, engender more support from the public and the business community. I gave a couple recitals at, then, was the American Bank. It was pretty prominent then. It was on the corner of Wolcott and Center? I can’t remember the streets. At any rateRebecca: It would’ve been a numbered street, yeah. John: Yeah, and, so people came, paid their money, and it was partially supported by the bank who got their name on the concert and there were programs, and whatever. That worked out pretty well. I enjoyed that, and local, [music store] Hill Music brought a piano over, which was great. Rebecca: So I was just about to ask how the bank lobby would happen to have a piano in it. (chuckles) John: It didn’t. Part of my job was getting there early and pushing all of the desks and chairs to the side to make room for the (chuckles) for the concert, so I was stage hand as well. Rebecca: Yeah, well that doesn’t surprise me. John: We, during the three years I was there we performed all-either, piano or cello, or, piano trio, all over Wyoming, and and in smaller towns, and, once we played down in Rock Springs we the C major, Schubert quintet. That was fun. [Schubert was an Austrian composer of the late 18th early 19th centuries] �Rebecca: Yeah, I think the musicians in our audience would like to know what sonatas and things you performed. John: Okay. Rebecca: And your various recitals? John: Okay, sure, well during the brown bag thing I did mostly early Italian, sonatas, you know, nothing really difficult, but, would’ve been [a] Marcello [sonata], [Benedetto Marcello, 17th and 18th century Italian composer] I don’t think I played [the] Eccles. [Sonata by Henry Eccles, 17th and 18th century English composer] It’s been a while since I’ve thought about these pieces. I played [the] Locatelli [sonata] with Betsy. [Pietro Locatelli, 18th century composer and violinist] Let’s see, and then in recital I played the Brahms E minor [sonata], one time, and then I played the Brahms F minor-F major, [sonata] another time, as well as, we-we did, well, with the piano trio we had fairly extensive, literature. We played, the [Beethoven] B flat and the clarinet trio, and another one I can’t remember. Oh, the [Beethoven] Kakadu variations. And then, we [did] the [Brahms] B major piano trio and the C major. We didn’t really like the C minor, or there’s an A major too I think. We didn’t really care for that. And then we filled in with the, Baroque stuff on the early part. [The Baroque period of music was from about 1600 to 1750, and included Marcello, Eccles and Locatelli] There was a Handel sonata [George Friedrich Handel, GermanBritish composer of the late 17th and early 18th centuries] for two flutes it’s been transcribed [adapted for an instrument other than the one it was originally composed for] And then, it was a Handel sonata, it was originally written for transverse flute [side-blown; the player holds the flute parallel to the ground and blows across the hole nearest to his/her mouth.] It’s been transcribed for two cellos, two violins, violin and cello, and that has, it’s a sonata in G minor. Played that, let’s see, I guess, you know, there was some Telemann and Vivaldi, [Georg Philipp �Telemann, 17th and 18th century German composer; Antonio Vivaldi, 17th and 18th century Italian composer and virtuoso violinist] actually trio sonatas that we played so that we would have a smattering of Baroque moving on to more serious stuff where we would enjoy [a trio sonata is written in three parts: two top parts played by violins or other high melody instruments, and a bass part played by a cello] - you know we played a number of Mozart piano trios. Of course there was not an awful lot to do for the cello except for a couple of them, and then all of a sudden, I mean, you’re only playing in first position and then all of a sudden you have an extensive lick or a solo line that’s written purposely by Mozart, right across more uncomfortable areas of the instrument’s- [“Positions,” on a stringed instrument, are numbered according to what pitch the left index finger is placed on, on the fingerboard. First position is considered the easiest] Rebecca: (chuckles) John: -capability and so you have to- Oh- we played the uh, Beethoven Archduke trio. That was good. That was fun. Oh, and Mendelssohn piano trio. [Felix Mendelssohn, 19th century German composer] Rebecca: Oh yeah. There’s like, that starts with the cello, with the openingJohn: Yeah. Rebecca: -theme, yeah. John: Yep. So, that’s- that’s what we played in the chamber music side of it. Rebecca: So, you were in Casper for? John: Three Years. Rebecca: Three years? Yeah? John: Yeah. Right. �Rebecca: Okay, and, of course, I can’t resist asking you about performances of the Verdi Requiem. I can’t remember the movement, I guess it was the Offertorio? [Giuseppe Verdi, 19th century Italian composer. A Requiem is the Latin text of the Catholic Mass for the Dead ] John: Yeah, with the solo? Cello? Yeah. Rebecca: With the very exposed part. Could the section handle it or did you have to play it, alone, when the orchestra performed it-or-How did that go? John: It was a section solo. Rebecca: Right. John: I did play, the last year of the last concert, I played, the played the William Tell Overture. I played the solo on that. [Overture to the opera, William Tell, by Gioachino Rossini, 19th century Italian composer] Rebecca: Ahh. Yeah, that’s fun. All those, principal cello solos. John: Mhmm. Rebecca: Did you have a chance to play the Brahms- oh I forget which piano concerto, but it’s got a couple ofJohn: It’s a C minor. Oh- excuse me, the B. The Brahms concerto and- Is it B?- I think so. Rebecca: I can’t remember the key, I just remember it’s got a couple of extended cello solos. One of them has got reasonable territory and the other one is up a little higher. John: Yeah. No. We never played that one. Rebecca: Ah. John: Dee-Da-Da-Da-Dee-Da-Dee-DaRebecca: Yeah. That One. �John: Yeah. The big question right there is, you can start it down bow or up bow. [Terms borrowed from violin playing, where the bow actually goes down or up. On cello, the bow more often goes side to side] Rebecca: (chuckles) John: And I- even before YouTube, I was asking people, but, I saw it eventually- played at ... [the] Teton Music Festival [A summer music festival in Jackson, Wyoming]. The guys started it up bow. It really made sense so, I kinda just reversed my mind to that. Rebecca: Hm. ‘Kay, well, Can you think of anything else you’d like to tell us about your time with the symphony? John: Maybe if you can tell me a little bit more about what you would like to make the article about? The focus. I can help you fill in? Rebecca: Well, this isn’t really an article, it’s just an oral history that’s going to be transcribed and go on file, at the American Heritage Center in Laramie as an Archive. John: Oh, alright. Rebecca: Maybe the transcript will be published on WyoHistory.org. Probably at some point it will be. John: The transcript. Okay. (laughs) Rebecca: I think I can- I think I can edit the transcripts. I think I have to go over it anyway because it’s a specialized subject, so. John: yeah. So, the orchestra itself was going through some growing pains. None of them horrible, it’s just that, the orchestra had always had a manager that was the volunteer person. And then, the first year I was there we had a - maybe it wasn’t the first year, it was the second year- we had a paid volunteer, and then, and he was there the second and the third year. And then �so, that was a good thing for the orchestra, as long as- The first guy was Ken Steiger and he was good. He knew how to do his job and to get lots of public support and I never had any complaints about anything. He got all of the logistics he handled. He was the operations manager at the same time. Arranged for all of these buses and tour- when we did tours and “run-outs” as they called them. And, and that was a big change, from the previous person who wasn’t doing a bad job at all, it’s just that, now, this guy was really on the spot doing, all, everything within a timely manner. So that was good. The second year I was there, the, concertmaster came in, Randy Tracy, and, he was a big, big contributing factor to making the violin section sound much better. He’d been playing first violin in the, Denver Symphony and then left to do a Master’s degree at Fort Collins [Colorado State University], but then moved up to Casper and his wife played bassoon really well. In fact she had- I-I played her- in her, recital at Boston Universityshe was studying with Sherman Walt of the Boston Symphony and then later she- after that she played in South America and then she played in the National Symphony [National Symphony Orchestra, Washington, D.C.]. And then, was back living in Fort Collins and she and Randy came up to, Casper and, so, it was nice having them. That was a- that was a great, collaboration. Curtis was really good. back then I had a girlfriend who played the cello really quite well. Actually played better than I did. And, so, he was all about getting what he called “twofers.” (laughs) Rebecca: Right. John: One being paid and the other just getting local pay. but, it was, it was a chance to play, and, anyway. That-that was good. I don’t think they ever got a- got another- I don’t know if they ever got another principal player or- in the, violin, or I mean, in the brass or woodwind area. Rebecca: With the core musician idea? �John: Yeah. Right. Rebecca: I don’t-I don’t think so. I don’t think it ever went further than concertmaster, cello, and briefly bassoon. John: Yeah. Well, that worked for the community orchestra and, you know, for all of the reasons that there might’ve been for- with Curtis eventually leaving, he was really quite good at, keeping the orchestra together and, performing at a fairly decent level. I never- I never had any complaints about his conducting. I knew what he wanted. I didn’t always agree with what he wanted, but I-I knew what he wanted, and it was communicated easily. Of course you know, who- what musician agrees with any conductor? But it’s your job to follow him, so that was my job and I did it, and it was- he was really good at communicating that. Rebecca: Yeah, I agree. I remember, I always knew where I was. John: Mhmm. Rebecca: -and I didn’t realize how important that very clear beat was until we had a guest conductor. I don’t know how he came to be there but, he couldn’t give a clear down beat, and I was absolutely at sea. So, um,John: Yeah. It’s the old rule when- when the– when the baton reaches the third button on the front of the shirt that’s when it starts. Rebecca: (laughs) John: (laughs) Rebecca: Yep. I have always appreciated that about Curtis’ conducting. John: And he never got riled on the, on the podium. He never took tempos to-to-to an extreme just because he was excited. He knew the limits of the orchestra. He pushed you up to the point �where- the orchestra up to a point where- he knew he could still be in control. The orchestra could still be in control. Rebecca: That’s true. John: So. So as far as, you know, conductors doing the whole community orchestra gig, he-he was kind of tailor-made for- cast in that way. At least during the orchestra rehearsals, and the concerts. Rebecca: Yeah I agree. I’ve had conductors that, they had all sorts of bad habits, like stomping their feet. Um,John: (laughs) Rebecca: -during, while conducting, and one- one conductor, he- he couldn’t refrain from bellowing the entire time he was conducting. John: Oh. Rebecca: Trying to sing our parts to us so that, the result was, the very first time we heard each other was at the concert because he managed to restrain himself then, but, oooh, that was- that was dicey. So, yeah. Curtis didn’t have any of those faults. He was, quite reliable. John: I was, had a student who was performing a solo with the Anaconda Montana orchestra, and I was just there to hear that, and, they were doing some excerpts from showtunes. Among them was Fiddler on the Roof and the trumpet player didn’t come in on- and “If I Were a Rich Man”and the conductor started singing the part, in the- (chuckles)- in the concert. Rebecca: Ahaa. (laughs) John: Which is, probably the most definitive example of what you’re talking about. Rebecca: (laughs) �John: Well I don’t know. I think- I think you bled me dry here. I’m not sure I know anything else. Rebecca: Yeah well that’s fine. I really appreciate your giving us all this time. John: Sure. I mean, in the- in the back room and the- and the, and during the reception, one could say lots more about all the undercurrents. (laughs) But, what I’ve told you is the most positive, and- and really that’s what helps make orchestras continue. Rebecca: I agree. Okay, well, if you have told us everything that you have to say that’s great. John: Well if you have any other questions along the way you can, you can ask me and I’ll put it in an email form and it’ll still be under the jurisdiction of this, of the, nondisclosure, agreement that I had to sign. I don’t care. Rebecca: Oh. Right. Yeah. John: Then you can insert it in as part of the transcript and that’s fine. I won’t write anything I don’t want you to know. (chuckles) Rebecca: Sure. Sounds good. Okay, well thanks a lot for giving us your time. John: Sure. No problem. And I hope everything’s going well there. Rebecca: Yeah. And with you guys? John: Yeah. So who’s conducting the orchestra now? Rebecca: Oohhhh, let me think. Christopher Dragon. John: Oh. Rebecca: He is, I think, assistant conductor in Denver? John: Oh. Rebecca: Maybe he’s, the conductor of the Denver Symphony. I don’t- not clear on that. ButJohn: Oh. �Rebecca: -he’s imported for every concert. The orchestra now is pretty much all imports. It’s very few community people. Things have changed a lot. They changed when Curtis left and they started importing their conductor. They had to have- have a very compressed rehearsal schedule because the conductor wasn’t local anymore. John: Mhmm. Rebecca: This started in the early 2000s. So, they, people had to be ready for that and they had to practice for it and prepare for it, and I think, probably, some people got weeded out. John: Yeah, it takes moreRebecca: SoJohn: It takes more time to have your part ready rather than just going in and fitting which, you know, you couldn’t play already. I think it’s a big mistake to not have a resident conductor, and that’s the demise of the community orchestra people. We have, an import conductor in Billings and the only reason that has worked, frankly, is because the manager, the executive director has been so instrumental and he’s been the face of the orchestra and not the conductor. It doesn’t make people feel like they really have a- have somebody who’s there, vying for the musical soul of the city. Rebecca: Yeah. Yeah. And my- I don’t know if this is happening in Billings, or has happened but, in Casper, because the conductor is from Colorado, a lot of- he’s attracting a lot of grad students and other people that want to- want him to notice them so they come up here and audition, and end up excluding local qualified people. John: Sure. Rebecca: -Because they- they’re playing a little better ‘cause they’re practicing more andJohn: Right. �Rebecca: -And you know, and in the old days, the- the qualified locals would’ve been able to do a perfectly adequate job. John: Uh-huh. Rebecca: So. That’s been happening ever sinceJohn: Yeah. Rebecca: -ever since they had started importing the conductor. John: Right. Well, it also could- it also is, has to do with money, and or, a board that wants to say “okay, the conductor’s shift is there. Hey, here you are, you’re the conductor there, you fix it all.” And so they become a conceptual board rather than a working board. It’s not a new concept. Rebecca: Yeah, I recall, when my father was on the board years and years and years ago, one of the things he said was, “If somebody doesn’t- if somebody on the board doesn’t do their job and get out there and raise money, we get rid of them.” John: Yeah. Rebecca: So. John: Well people are having a hard time hurting people’s feelings these days. Also- also back then the board members were required to, support the symphony in a certain financial manner. Rebecca: Right. They were expected to. Yep. John: (indistinguishable) Rebecca: I don’t know if that’s really true. I haven’t kept in touch with that. John: It’s probably all over the map. Rebecca: Could be. John: Alright. Rebecca: Okay John. Well thank you very much. �John: Okay. Email me if you need different questions answered. Rebecca: I’ll do that. � 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 John Kirk 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. 2022-05-14 Description An account of the resource Audio file and transcript for oral interview with Wyoming Symphony Orchestra player John Kirk. This is interview was conducted by Rebecca Hein for Wyohistory.org on May 14, 2022. Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound; Text Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rebecca Hein; John Kirk 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_JohnKirk Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource M4A; PDF https://caspercollege.cvlcollections.org/files/original/29d3848b9a3bff00548c577d21d4ebad.m4a 2f101f330ecf01a81f3c66d9919d6fe9 https://caspercollege.cvlcollections.org/files/original/38af7ad4cc63ae9009e25d171f9ee5d6.pdf 90bbdc6c19781fdcc3344817b83f2f81 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 Richard (Rick) Rognstad 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. 2022-06-10 Description An account of the resource Audio file and transcript for oral interview with Wyoming Symphony Orchestra player Richard (Rick) Rognstad. This is interview was conducted by Rebecca Hein for Wyohistory.org on June 10, 2022. Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound; Text Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rebecca Hein; Richard Rognstad 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_RichardRognstad Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource M4A; PDF 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/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